Managing Social Media Expectations
Vox Communications, LLC has been building and managing digital assets including websites, social media networks, paid advertising and digital public relations campaigns since 2008. Every once in a while we lose a client and almost every time it happens because we have not effectively managed expectations. No established marketing company will guarantee an increase in business through social media alone. However, the better your story, the more em0tional the connection with your message, and the more established your business, the better chance you have of growing revenue. Let’s look at billboards. If you bought space on a billboard you would pay a rate relative to how many vehicles pass that billboard each day, (according to the outdoor company) . Social media works much the same way only with more accurate data. We can tell you how many people were exposed to your message, how many clicked on it, and how many signed up ordered the product. Social media posting in many ways is like that billboard. You keep seeing it and eventually maybe you pick up the phone, walk in, or order online. Social media posting is really about branding through educating your target audience rather than exclusively driving sales. To drive sales or increase brand awareness you have to also invest in ads through Google/YouTube, Facebook, Linked IN, and Twitter etc. So what should you expect through social media posting? You should expect that:
- It takes time
- That over time you’ll learn about your audience
- And that without engagement we won’t effectively grow your audience
In other words, people and businesses that relate to and embrace your messaging will Like, Share, and Comment on your posts. But that doesn’t mean they will buy your product or service. However, the more you post about your industry, your products and services and your target audience, the more you’ll validate inquiries driven by ad campaigns. So when we post to your social media networks that’s just a third of our overall social media service. We must also respond to inquiries, Like, Share, and Comment on your behalf, and ‘watch the needle’. When the needle moves, and it always moves, we know that your target responded to that content either favorably or unfavorably. If they liked it then we need to post more content similar to the stuff your target already likes. So when managing social media expectations we need to reinforce the fact that while a critical piece of the puzzle, social media posting by itself will not increase your business in a significant way over a short amount of time unless the messaging is so powerful and topical that an emotional response drives orders. We all want to drive the “ice bucket challenge” approach to social media marketing. But when you really do your homework you’ll see that even that campaign was not based on social media alone. Social media posting reinforces your brand as a leader in the space. No posts? No engagement, no growth, no brand awareness. So you have to do it. But in and of itself a Facebook post will not generally be enough to substantially grow brand awareness and increase revenue.
