There is so much going on in the world of Social Media and everybody wants to be in on it! So I am jumping back in and looking for ways I can be a part of it. The first thing I did was go online to see what businesses are doing with social media, and they are doing a lot! Everything from Blogging to Facebook (FB), Instagram, and of course, their corporate Web page to name a few. I chose two random companies to look at their Website, FB and Instagram accounts. My goal is to see if I could identify their strategy. All their social media sites offer the same type of content. It’s almost like a template for business social media. I do not see much originality on either of their sites.
For example, you’ll see basically the same thing on their corporate homepage:
- About
- Brands
- Responsibility
- Careers
- Newsroom
- Company Stories (this tab is individualized by each corporation)
There are so many social media platforms it would be hard to decide which one will work best. Fortunately, I have a background in marketing and am familiar with strategic planning. I began to wonder how many businesses, large and small, just “jump into social media”. My recommendation would be to develop a strategic social media plan.
I would start with asking whether launching on every social media platform is right for your business, and if sharing the same information on each platform is effective. I see this as an opportunity for businesses to reexamine their current social media strategy to determine which sites are working better than others. Perhaps funneling more money into the sites that work better would improve your ROI. For example, 3M has videos posted on their FB page and on Instagram. The engagement with their videos on FB averages around 2,500 while the engagement on their videos posted on Instagram averages around 6,000. Even though these are the average numbers, there are some outliers, with one of 3m’s videos getting as high as 12,000 views.[1] There is also a huge difference in followers, FB has 4.5M while Instagram only has 72,000. I am looking at this from an outsider’s point of view and making observations as I don’t have access to actual statistical data.
I also looked at Hormel Foods FB & Instagram pages page to how consumers were engaging with their posts. Hormel has only a few videos on their Instagram page, and engagement with those videos were very low, in the low hundreds, but their FB videos did have good engagement. Also, just like 3M’s FB video engagement, Hormel Food’s engagement has outliers with one video getting 39,000 views. I also don’t see a lot of “likes” on either of their FB posts. Consumers will watch the video but not “like” the post.[2]
I would recommend to anyone who is looking to launch a successful social media campaign to develop your social media strategic plan. This will help determine what you want as your end goal, which platforms will best meet your needs and what content you should be post on the platforms you chose. Doing this can ensure you are posting content that your audience will want to engage with, depending on if engagement is your end goal. If your end goal is to inform, a successful launch could position your page to be the “go to” page for the information you are sharing!
There is so much that goes into launching a successful social media campaign. Putting together a complete strategic plan will play a big role in the successful launch, monitoring and on-going success of your campaign. If you feel your company struggles with your social media campaigns, many Social Media Strategists have found success getting certified through the National Institute for Social Media. Visit www.nismonline.org for more information!
References:
https://www.facebook.com/3M/
https://www.instagram.com/3m/
https://www.facebook.com/pg/HormelFoodsCorp/photos/?ref=page_internal
https://www.instagram.com/hormelfoods/
[1] These numbers reflect videos posted in 2018.
[2] This is the same behavior on 3M’s FB page.
Author: Ci Ci Cooper
Ci Ci Cooper is a Marketing Consultant helping small companies and non-profit organizations. With over 15 years of marketing experience, Ci Ci provides services such as developing marketing strategy, communications plans, branding and project management. As a certified digital marketing associate, she is looking to expand her services into the area of social media.
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