As I’ve learned throughout the semester in ADPR4300, social strategy and social media are very different concepts. Anyone can utilize social media, but in order for social media to be used at its full potential, there must be a social strategy involved. There are a few aspects to developing a social strategy that are crucial in order to use social media efficiently.
Know Who You Are Talking To
When writing any kind of content for the internet or the media, it is important to know who your audience is. Social media is no different. Unless you know who your target audience is and how to best get their attention, social media is useless. It is important to remember that in order to have a successful social media campaign, people need to be engaged in the social conversation and that’s impossible unless you know exactly what audience you want to engage.
Have A Unified Voice
It is important for social media and all other aspects of the marketing communications efforts to have a unified voice. To use social media to it’s full potential, many companies tie it into their marketing and advertising campaigns, which is a good way to bring together social media and marketing efforts. For instance, Budweiser’s superbowl commercial campaign included a hashtag to help engage their followers in their campaign.
Be Relevant
It’s no surprise that relevant made my list of aspects of social media strategy. In order for social media to produce the intended results, it must be relevant to the audience and to the real world. First of all, it is important for social media to be relevant and interesting to the intended audience in order to keep the content engaging. In addition, the content should also be relevant to the issues going on in the real world. For instance, if there is some sort of tragedy going on, it is important that social media does not make the company look out-of-touch or unsympathetic.
Update
Building off of the need for relevance to the real world and to the social audience, it is important that social media is monitored and kept up to date, which also includes making sure to respond to current events. If social media is just constantly pushed out by a preprogrammed system, it will not seem as personal or relevant to the audience and engagement will decrease.
colleenkehoe 