Multi-Platform Success with Social Media

The birth of social media flipped the world of marketing upside down, and it’s still only halfway up-right as many marketers struggle to find the right mix of traditional marketing and social media marketing that meets their company’s needs and keeps consumers connected to their brand.  According to Brian Solis, author of multiple social media books, “while businesses now have access to these rich channels, the true promise of social media lies in the direct connections between people who represent companies and the people who define markets of interest”.

According to a study conducted by the Altimeter Group:

·      Only half (52%) of companies say that their executives are informed, engaged, and aligned with the enterprise social strategy

·      A mere 26% of organizations self-describe as being “holistic” in their social media approach, where business functions operate against an enterprise-level vision and strategy

·      Just 17% of organizations self-described as being truly “strategic” in the execution of their social strategies

This demonstrates that many companies today are still confused when it comes to the right social media strategy for the business. Many times marketers are faced with tight budgets and strict guidelines from the C-suite to prove a positive ROI.  With C-suite concerns being elevated, marketers are under pressure to show results. Building social media campaigns take time, and fans, followers and the like must be nurtured. 

One of the key factors is first determining which social media platforms work best for your company.  In order to determine while platforms are best suited for your business you need to determine your target audience, and what social media sites they are active in the most.  Just because a site is popular doesn’t mean it is a good fit for you business!

Below is an infographic that shows some of the positive and negative aspects of different social media sites and what types of companies have success with each platform.

  

Source:http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/09/05/what-social-media-platforms-are-best-suited-for-your-business/?display=wide

One of my favorite examples of social media success is Whole Foods.  If you are not familiar with Whole Foods Market, they were founded in Austin, Texas, when four local businesspeople decided the natural foods industry was ready for a supermarket format. Their founders were John Mackey and Renee Lawson Hardy, owners of Safer Way Natural Foods, and Craig Weller and Mark Skiles, owners of Clarksville Natural Grocery. The original Whole Foods Market opened in 1980 with a staff of only 19 people. It was an immediate success. All Whole Foods Market retail stores are "certified organic." And in addition to our more than 140 stores, Whole Foods Market has facilities and product lines that have also been "certified organic" through their own organic handling plans.  So how does an Organic Grocer use social media successfully?  Part of their success is that they found what worked best and continued to grow those smaller  “local” social media campaigns into national ones on the social media sites that worked best for them and their intended audience.

The Whole Foods Strategy:

According to one source, Whole Foods’ social media strategy is built around their company web site and 6 additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, their blog, and then the more recent additions of Foursquare and Pinterest.  One of the most unique aspects of Whole Foods’ social media campaign (Twitter in particular) is that they put a priority on the local component of their strategy. There is a community manager assigned at every store, who manages their customer engagement through multiple platform accounts. They focus on being where the customers are.  By making their content relevant, Whole Foods was able to reach their target audience in specific locations with content that was completely relevant to them at a specific point in time. According to a 2009 article on Mashable, Whole Foods encouraged all their stores to start their own Twitter accounts and tweet about events at their store and news related to that local area. They also created separate accounts for specific issues, such as one for wine and one for cheese, where the head of those departments post and interact with customers. In fact, with over 150 company Twitter accounts (in 2009) and new ones added regularly, they likely have one of the largest corporate presences on Twitter. 

Another great social media strategy take-away from Whole Foods is loosening control from the top in order to make interactions more personal and engaging. Many times companies are so worried about posting “the wrong thing” online and ending up in a PR nightmare.  Whole Foods seems to really understand that such a top-down approach does not work in the age of social media. While they encourage some basic guidelines, Whole Foods has learned that for social media to work well, whoever is managing an account needs to be authentic, allow his or her personality to come through, and have fun in the process. If management tries to exercise too much control, the account will be less likely to succeed at engaging people. This is one place where Whole Foods has activated both a content and conversation strategy in one.  They provide useful information to shoppers while keeping an open conversational dialogue.  I saw this first hand when my local Whole Foods Market (Plymouth Meeting, PA) had a bomb threat and the store closed suddenly. Throughout the situation the store manager was posting updates on social media making sure that all local Twitter followers knew exactly what was happening and also knew when the store had been cleared by the local authorities and re-opened. 

Finally, as stated earlier, Whole Foods employs the “go where your customers are” concept to their social media strategy. The goal is not just to pick one place and force customers to come to them, but to meet customers "on their home court," wherever that may be.

It is important for marketers to remember that on social media content is key. Developing the content necessary to drive social and other content marketing initiatives is just an extension of that marketing calendar.  When you have authentic content that drives conversation and sales, you can garner a winning social media strategy. Using multiple social media platforms can be a major benefit for many companies if implemented correctly.  Measuring social media engagement is one of the best ways to determine if the platforms you chose are working.  Using any of the available social media monitoring tools can be instrumental in keeping marketers ahead of the curve when it comes to explaining to C-suite executives why you are implementing a social media strategy.  Without the support from those above, it can be challenging to run a successful campaign. 

“Everything starts with recognizing that we must cater to an audience whose parts are, in fact, greater than its sum. We must partition our social strategy to engage the diversity of the social consumer and address the unique requirements and attention of each.” –Brian Solis, Engage!