Here’s the thing about social media; just about everyone and their dog has an account these days, from individuals like you and I, right up to media personalities, tech start-ups, SMEs and huge international brands.
There are even pets out there with successful social media accounts that have amassed millions of followers!
So, with all those customers, brands and businesses engaging with online platforms, social media surely offers up the perfect marketing opportunity, right?
The trouble is social media isn’t quite the marketing panacea you might assume or hope it is. The constant compulsion to ‘do some social media’ doesn’t equate to getting great marketing results –which is usually sales.
Just because the pool of potential customers online is so huge, it doesn’t mean your product or service will reach any of them. Very often the promise of big audiences doesn’t correlate with the results you get back.
Why? Well, nine times out of ten it comes down to not having the right approach in place from the start – and that means going back to basics.
Understanding your market
When it comes to marketing, trying to sell to anyone and everyone doesn’t work; you need to know your market, understand the people who are most likely to buy from you and create your content so it is targeted towards them.
Reach doesn’t mean anything without effective targeting and there’s no point in honing your targeting if your messaging is off by a mile; you need both to be successful.
If you really want your marketing effort to make an impact, to be able to grow your business year on year, it’s crucial you get to know your market inside out. Because at the end of the day, the better you know your customers and what makes them tick, the much more likely you are to persuade them that your proposition is something they want or need. And here’s the rub; the vast majority of B2B businesses for example, just don’t get it right!
Getting to know your target market isn’t just an exercise to be ticked off at the beginning of your marketing journey – it’s something you should constantly revisit, measure, analyse and consider at every stage of the process. You also need to be aware of your competition too. If you don’t, your results will be disappointing at best…and frankly, you won’t deserve more!
When big brands get it right
If you’re going to be successful on social media (or indeed any other kind of marketing channel) your content needs to be just right too.
Gaining the attention of your customers is only the first part of the battle; you then need to be interesting, demonstrate your expertise, create some desire and intrigue your audience enough to make them want to see more. Your recent holiday in the Caribbean might be all you want to shout about but it isn’t what your customers want to hear. They really don’t give a stuff!
In the B2C arena, aspirational marketing can be really effective in doing this – look around and you’ll see a lot of big brands getting this right. Whether it’s M&S making you want to buy a “not just any cake but an M&S cake” or L’Oreal selling you shampoo “because you’re worth it” aspirational marketing can be really effective in helping to build brand recognition and reassurance.
Virtually any product or service can be conveyed as aspirational – it just comes down to how effective the marketing behind it is – and how good the product or service is. If you want to see some brilliant aspirational marketing at play, take a look at this clip – I’d love to know what you make of it:
As for answering my initial question, “is social media just a costly business distraction?” – well, it can be…
And before you say, “we’re not M&S or Porsche”, well you’re right you’re not. It just means you’ll need to work a little harder and smarter!
If you could do with a steer to get your marketing on track, feel free to get in touch – I’m always happy to have a chat and offer up a few thoughts and words of advice.
