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.
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!
