We love our smartphones, laptops and tablets but while new technology is thrilling for consumers, it presents new challenges for brands. In the early days of online marketing, you could simply set up a website and frame your content in any way you wanted.
Now that Internet users are going mobile and have their own customization options, chances are that they won’t stumble across your site on their own. This is why it’s so important for brands to invest their content on a variety of social platforms. You need to be able to push your content around without having it tied down to your domain.
Consider how Internet users spend their time:
- 22 percent on social media
- 21 percent on searches
- 20 percent browsing content
- 19 percent reading emails
- 13 percent multimedia sites
- 5 percent online shopping
With user attention diversified through so many platforms, doesn’t it make sense to diversify your content as well? Unfortunately, posting content to a variety of platforms takes time and strategic planning. To alleviate this problem, many brands rely on auto-content posting to automate their social media.
But did you know that using auto-content could decrease your social media likes by up to 70 percent? Also, consider the fact that the ratio of social media views to shares is 9 to 1. When all statistics are considered, social media marketing isn’t going to become any easier as users continue splintering into different niches.
This is why brands must focus their efforts on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest. While Internet users are continuously browsing the Web wherever they want, social media platforms unite users onto a single stage.
And yes, social media marketing is extremely effective:
- 77 percent of business-to-consumer companies have earned new customers through their Facebook presence.
- 43 percent of business-to-business companies have earned business through Facebook.
- 34 percent of businesses testify that they’ve generated leads through Twitter.
What Does This Mean?
With audiences splintering into specific niches online, we know that social media marketing is the best way to reach a mass of consumers. However, with so many social media platforms, it’s tempting to automate social media marketing to save time and post on more sites. But this is the worst strategy possible.
Instead of auto-content posting, brands should use custom social media campaigns. By targeting users specific to Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, you are maximizing the effectiveness of your content. Not only do you see a greater ROI (return on investment), you also create a stronger presence for your business online.
Yes, customized content requires more time or even a financial investment, but it works. Research has shown that posts that are more interesting and that are clearly customized increase exposure to both the post and the page. Remember that using creative, custom content for social media marketing results in:
- Customer engagement
- Increased reach
- Trust
- Higher traffic
- Sales
We are actually finding quite the reverse! Fellow companies are listing their websites/products with tons of business listing sites (many I’ve never even heard of!), engaging and interacting all over the internet, etc., and are getting amazing google search results. I’m not sure I can agree fully with these stats. And, I WISH we were seeing any ROI at all from our FB page.
With respect, Sarah DeFilippo.
Alleli Aspili
First off, having a different social media marketing plan can boost your advantage among your competitors. Secondly, customizing social media marketing according to your brand is the best thing to do. You couldn’t just generalize yourself – be unique and stand out among others. Lastly, it wouldn’t be so hard to do this since there are already outsourcing companies that offer customizable social media services.