September 23, 2018
Unless you have 15 hands, there is no way you can manage the amount of traffic or consumer expectations that can fly at a business these days. Not without a little help. By the year 2019, there will be an estimated 2.77 billion people on social media…is your brand prepared? With necessity comes the mother of invention so never fear!
There are a variety of tools available to help you stay on track. Even the smallest of companies can compete with the giants if they are savvy with marketing automation. That’s the beauty of the modern age. You don’t need a big budget. You just have to be smart about where you spend your time and how you engage people.
The following are seven types of tools (with examples) for you to consider when setting up your business for digital marketing success. They are listed by the steps you should take from start to finish:
The first tool involves getting to know your audience. Social listening and monitoring is about “finding your people.” If your brand is new, then chances are no one is talking about it yet. In that case, social listening can be used to determine who the consumers are that might be interested in your product/service. This serves as a giant neon sign screaming “Enter! Enter!”
Use keywords related to your industry and business to find the platform that responds the highest to your concept. For example, restaurants fare rather well on Instagram because it is a highly visual place to display their latest food items. Tech companies tend to do better on sites like LinkedIn or Quora where technical discussions are often held. Social listening will give you a place to begin and an idea about the type of content you need to create.
Finding the right type of publishing platform is also important. Your needs should dictate the type of tool that will work best. If your company is more visual, you may not need a website like WordPress that’s a little more involved. Squarespace may be more your speed. It involves putting pictures in spots more than coding them on pages.
Your best bet is to not only consider who will be building the site, but who will be posting and maintaining it too. If you are having a developer build your site, it is best to have them on hand in case you run into any publishing kinks. That’s because you’ll most likely be dealing with code. If you use an easy theme or “drag and drop” site, then creation and maintenance get a tad more manageable. Consider your resources and go from there. Just remember, a developer’s time can get expensive.
If you want to keep up with the big dogs, you’ll need to get familiar with marketing automation. Effective social media management starts with the ability to appear “on” at all times. That means you are producing content when you may not even be awake. How does this happen? With scheduling tools that can do the posting for you.
Social media management found its beginning in automation with scheduling tools because this is really the first type of “hands-off” management that brands needed. It doesn’t require creativity, just labor. Considering that the world is made from more than one time zone, as social media grew, companies were finding it harder and harder to reach international clients.
Scheduling tools allow a brand to produce large amounts of content and load them all into a system. The pieces can then be assigned dates and times to post to various channels. These are the type of sites that make multi-channel marketing a true reality for a lot of organizations.
Examples:
Social engagement is where the monitoring comes in. It’s a step above social listening because it requires action to take place. Many of the tools used for social listening can also be used to monitor and respond to your audience. Other tools offer all-in-one dashboards that pull in every response from your channels, so you can make more informed marketing decisions.
Engagement in social media means a variety of things depending on the platform. Some examples of the data these tools can pull include:
These are the types of tools that will allow you to not only monitor the sentience of your audience but engage and start new conversations with potential leads.
The beginning of your analytics efforts should start at the same time as social listening. That’s because, after a few weeks, you will be able to understand not only the type of metrics you need to collect, but the benchmarks of your brand. Every business is different and the numbers that are important to one, may not matter at all to another. One thing should be strongly noted, however, brands that are sales driven almost always fail. Consumers are too smart for that.
Every article will tell you a list of metrics that are the “key to success.” It is always a matter of perspective. However, to give you a start, some common social metrics that companies look at include:
Measuring performance on social media can be tricky, and there is still much debate on the most effective method. Ultimately, the best way to determine how well your campaigns are doing is to look at your social return on investment (SROI). This includes not only the money in the bank, but how happy your customers are. If everything is A-OK, then your campaigns are spot-on. If things are looking down, you may need to do some A/B testing to determine if your approach is off.
Examples:
When it comes to providing support, not only is it critical for customer retention, it is needed now more than ever. In fact, consider some of these stats when it comes to consumer expectations:
People aren’t playing around and if you don’t have the right tool, you might start losing customers—loyal ones too. It’s not so much that people are impatient. They’re just busy. So, it’s up to you as a business to ensure they are receiving some type of response within the anticipated timeframe. This is where automation works beautifully. These types of tools are often referred to as customer relationship management tools (CRM).
Chatbots, ticketing systems, automated responses, and help centers can all serve as incredibly helpful resources for frustrated customers. For example, it’s midnight. You’re asleep but your customer is upset about their order and wants to vent. If you have a chatbot set up to greet them, along with a ticketing system where they can explain their pain point, it is much better than asking them to simply “leave a message at the tone.” In fact, something like that may even infuriate the modern consumer.
Examples:
Once you have a well-oiled machine and some happy customers, it’s time to start considering advocacy. This generally comes in two forms: influencers and brand advocates. Influencers tend to be paid professional marketers that have an organic following and can easily promote your business across multiple channels. Brand advocates are typically super happy customers that spread your brand by word-of-mouth. Both can be vital to a business.
It is said that the hardest part about influencer marketing is finding them; despite the fact that up to 75% of marketers claim to have allocated some money toward influencer marketing. Therefore, you need some robust tools to get the job done. The right platform should be able to assist you with influencer identification, trending content, and key analytics.
Examples:
Depending on the size of the company and your resources, there is a multitude of tools on the net that can be used for effective social media management. Since this is a relatively new trade, every organization handles these tasks differently. There are also tools available for things like search engine optimization, project management, email marketing, and much more. That’s why it is critical that prior to setting a budget or spending a lick of time on social media management, you do your homework.
Every step here is important and should be done in the order listed. You cannot market to an audience you don’t know, and you cannot measure analytics if you don’t publish original content. It is a fluid process. When done correctly, social media marketing and automation can not only be fruitful, but fun too. Focus on what you know, research the rest, and above all, inspire others to be excited about your brand.
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