Social media marketing shouldn't just be a box-ticking exercise for your business. Contrary to popular belief, content needs to have purpose and relevance to your audience, or it's just a waste of your time.
Social media marketing isn't one-size-fits-all
Your social media needs to tell your audience a story from all angles - think long-form, short-form and any other form that the consumer wants to engage with.
Most companies, maybe yours too, stick to a tried-and-tested formula of safe short-form content. Now we’re not accusing you all of creating clickbait, but we always hear rules of thumb like “keep the text short, the message simple, the video length under 30 seconds.” But these aren't cut-and-dry rules.
Content needs to be matched to the desires of the consumer. When any content (but especially social) gets reduced to small soundbites, the message can risk becoming lost. Your social needs to tell your audience a story, and if that story is rich and complex, then short and snappy content may not be the way to go.
Dark social isn't as scary as it sounds
Dark social sounds a bit suspicious and futuristic, right? But it’s not, it fact it's been around for ages. Dark social simply refers to social sharing that can’t be accurately tracked. This can apply to private messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Snapchat, due to their ‘closed’ format.
The presence of dark social has been growing recently, with data suggesting it accounts for 84% of overall social sharing. So what does this mean for your social media marketing strategy?
We predict that 2019 is the year businesses start taking advantage of dark social, and our advice is to focus on your mobile formats now more than ever. Clicking the ‘share’ button on Facebook is an increasingly dated form of engagement, and yet 90% of social advertising budgets go directly to the social networks themselves.
Bigger isn't always better when it comes to social media marketing
Social media marketing is becoming more competitive, and the most successful professionals realise that they need to focus on the best-performing channels for their business.
Gone are the days when you had to join Facebook simply because everybody else was there. Nowadays, it’s more important to go after niche audiences that are really relevant to your business. There’s no need to broadcast the same message to all platforms if you don’t see positive results.
The more distractions we face, the higher the chances of losing our focus. Start by analysing where your audience is and which channels work best for your business goals.
If you want to speak to an expert on social media, please get in touch, we love to chat.
