“Marketing is no longer just about pushing a product, rather it is a compelling brand story that makes an organization stand out.” @SocialMktgSltns <Click to Tweet>
Social media is an extremely effective tool to distribute your company’s brand story to vast audiences. However, with all the “chatter” out there on social networks, it is easy to get lost in the crowd. Thus, despite your efforts to develop a strong brand image and accompanying stories, the message never reaches the right audience. There are certain strategies that must be implemented within an organization in order to optimize social campaigns so that an ROI is achieved, and the company’s goals are being met. Here are a few tips to keep in mind that I have developed from working with clients on their social marketing.
Your brand story should showcase the value your organization offers to clients and the communities you serve. When developing the stories that will turn into the content for your campaigns that you will broadcasting via social media and elsewhere, consider these questions:
- How does your company benefit its clients?
- What problems can you help people solve?
- What types of ways does your company benefit society?
- Who are your employees? How does their expertise contribute to the value your business provides?
- What is your mission? What is your organization passionate about?
No story is better than a bad story. When I evaluate a company’s social media strategy, I see the same mistakes come up over and over. One of the most common is that a business creates a bunch of pages and then realizes how much work it is to maintain them. Several of the pages are left half put together and then finally become abandoned. This gives the impression that your company does not care about its online reputation. A poorly done social media page may put doubt into a potential customers opinion about the quality of your organization’s work. Don’t open more social media pages than your company can actually manage! Think about it this way. Would your company begin putting up a billboard in a prominent area of the highway and then abandon it, leaving it unfinished for everyone to see as they drive by?
Two well done and fully optimized social media pages are more effective than ten poorly done or incomplete pages.
Once your pages are optimized and you have identified the platforms that your company’s audience frequents, use Hootsuite to manage conversations and share content. Hootsuite saves you the time from having to log into each platform separately to manage your conversations and inquiries from customers. The live streams within the HootSuite Dashboard enable you to efficiently manage conversations and engage with followers. Use Hootsuite to share your company’s content and schedule posts across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, WordPress, and more. Hootsuite enables you to manage your brand reputation and share your company”s stories to relevant audiences.
Do you agree with me that marketing has become less about product and more about telling a compelling brand story? Please do engage in conversation below regarding social marketing, branding, or anything else that came to mind while reading my post.
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About the Author: John White is the Chief Marketing Officer at Social Marketing Solutions, the LinkedIn group owner of Publishers and Bloggers, MBA candidate, and contributor to Dice Tech News, CareerToolbox, Linked Into Business, and more.
Need a blogger for your business or support for your company’s social media marketing? Send me an email john@socialmarketingsolutionsllc.net or call me direct at 970.692.3270.
Click here to view my other published articles on LinkedIn Pulse.
5 Comments on “Use Social Marketing To Tell Your Company’s Story”
BeSpoke (@BeSpokebp_AU)
March 17, 2017 at 5:52 amThank you for this great read. I totally agree. We are in an era of excessive information which includes a whole bunch of competition in all markets. Since so many have the same thing to offer, we now choose based on common interests behind the brand. We know what we stand for so everything that we consume should support the same or else there will be a conflict of interest even if it’s as simple as buying a product from a place. Where we spend our money is equivalent to what that business invests in. There is always a deeper meaning in everything and social media is the best way to show more people what we is important to us by connecting so many from different backgrounds, interests, experiences. Quite interesting how deep it all really goes.
Social Marketing Solutions
April 6, 2017 at 7:06 pmIndeed, great comment! Thank you for stopping by and engaging with us!
Gerry Richter
April 18, 2017 at 8:35 pmI would change it a little bit: It´s a story about people – with the brand. Let people tell the story. Listen to them and tell the story of your fans and not of your brand. This is called Corporate Grassroots – this will be even more effective.
Sandra Smith
April 20, 2017 at 8:26 amGreat point, Gerry.
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