strategies of social media

Social networking networks are the most popular and convenient means of connecting people in various parts of the world. Today, Twitter and Facebook are the two main sites on which people communicate with each other. Based on previous trends in social media subscriptions around the globe, the rate suggests that, within the next decade, almost every user in the world will be involved on social media via one of the main websites. Businesses are taking advantage of the abundance of websites that connect users all over the globe to a single stage. The success of a company depends on how many customers are aware of the business and what it is dealing with. Utilization of the social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and other platforms is the easiest and the most expedient way a business can use to market itself and its goods and services. From a business point of view, social media marketing implies to having a clear understanding of potential customers via response on services and products (Schaefer, 2014). Social media marketing is not very dissimilar from other marketing strategies because they are aimed at achieving a common goal. However, marketing via the social media has proved to be the most preferred as compared to other strategies. Successful organizations use social media as their main marketing channels and other techniques like use of television, print, and search engines are only applied to supplement social media marketing. Prior to implementation of social media strategy, a manger must consider several factors to ensure that the strategy helps to meet its objectives.

Some organizations have been disappointed by their social media marketing strategies because of failure of their plans to work according to their expectations. In such cases, there is always something essential that the organization failed to observe. The effectiveness of the marketing technique is dependent on how good the aspects were considered. One of the companies that has a successful social media strategy is Facebook. Since its establishment, the organization has been fully dedicated to ensuring that it connects as many people as possible through the internet. It is also the commonly used platform for marketing by several businesses in the world. At the moment, Facebook is the largest website based on the number of subscribers as well as the frequency of use by persons across all age groups and social classifications. Basing on Facebook and its online strategy, the questions that a manager should ask him or herself when implementing social media marketing strategy becomes clear (Quesenberry, 2016).

The first question that should come in the minds of the manager is about the objective of the company. Using Facebook as an example makes it clear that creating a social media strategy is a complex exercise that considers different aspects and need to be well planned to guarantee success to the organization. The implementation should not be limited to concentrating on corporation’s interior aspects for example content parameters and usage policies. The strategy must also pay attention on the outside of the organization to come up with a proper degree of engagement. It is important for the top management of a company to ask itself why is it getting to the social media bandwagon and finding an appropriate answer for the question will explain what the business wants to accomplish. Knowing the objective of the strategy is essential because all activities related to the strategy will be handled depending on the main objective (Safko, 2013). One of the most important actions that will rely on the objective of the social media marketing technique is development of internal metrics tracking. The metrics are fundamental because the organization relies on them to ascertain whether the company is working towards achieving its marketing objective or not. When Facebook combined its social media strategy, they had particular objectives they wanted to realize. When Facebook was executing its plan for online connectivity, its steps were directed by specific goals that had been planned. One of the major objectives was to become more approachable to people through focusing on various categories of consumer audiences. Their goal suggests that they were more concerned with keeping in touch with their service consumers and it was the most appropriate way to ensure continuous communication with their customers. The social media service was also aimed at incorporating consumer feedback into the organization’s operations more effectively. Having such an objective will trigger a business corporation to come up with methods that will help to ensure a smooth and effective communication channel with service consumers. A specific goal in relation to implementing social media strategy in Facebook was also to increase awareness about the company’s services as well as offering sufficient information concerning what customers would wish to know about the organization. Proper definition of the objectives is also fundamental because it controls the timetable of implementation. Many companies fail to implement social media strategies because they have many undefined objectives and there is no proper timetable to implement whatever they plan to do. Well defined objectives helps the manager to know what need to be within a specific period. Clear objectives are important for prioritization and coming up with the best way to incorporate a social media strategy. Content management is also based on the objectives of social media strategy. The topics to be focused on in the strategy are dependent on what the organization wants to achieve. Sometimes social media strategies become stale because of lack of proper topics to be focused on an in such cases, an organization fails to achieve its goals.

All kinds of marketing strategies including social media are always concerned with making the organization be the best on the market. Prior to developing social media marketing within an organization, the first question that the manager need to face is about the social media sites used by its main competitor. It is also important for the manager to understand the number of followers their competitors have on social media, and more importantly, the content and response by their followers. The questions are aimed at helping to discover the weaknesses and strengths the competitors have. Since the primary goal of marketing is to emerge as the best over other companies dealing with a similar line of products or services information about strengths and weaknesses of competitors is very crucial. The information is utilized to determine how the manager is going to roll out his or her plans for the business corporation. The strengths of the rival company assists the manager to know what to do especially by emulating the best practice. In addition, the management should also study the weaknesses of their competitors and take advantage of the weaknesses to make improvements (Thomas & Barlow, 2013).

Managers need to know the person or department that is going to be responsible for the social media activities of their companies. Different departments are consulted when it comes to decision making within a company but for social media strategies, someone ought to be held responsible for the probable results. An organization like Facebook has a specific department that is fully concerned with its social media strategies. The size of the responsible department depends on the organization as well as the corporate culture. A manager can also decide to use external consultant companies if the corporation lacks capacity to implement and properly manage the social media plans (Safko, 2013).

Another question that a manager need to consider is the employee’s level of knowhow and their interests. Success of social media policies within a company are always dependent on the nature of employees working there. Specific to social media strategies, it is fundamental to understand the knowledge and interests of the workers in relation to social media plans. Understanding the knowledge level of employees is important to know whether there is need to train workers especially on the tactical and professional uses of social media sites. Understanding the interests and knowledge of employees enables management to decide on what to do in relation to making the plans for social media use a success to the corporation (Thomas & Barlow, 2013). Trainings are normally the most recommended option to promote awareness and promote knowledge about social media marketing among employees. An organization can as well decide to develop job aids for instance flow charts to assist employees on how and when to react to inquiries and blogs on diverse social networking platforms.

While majority of social media sites do not require a huge investment in technology, a manager ought to assess the technological capacity of the company and know whether it can support the strategy. There are specific things that need to be clearly understood before engaging any social media component. The entire organization need to understand the persons that will have access to the sites and if there will be any firewalls that would hinder contact. Also, there is need to inform all concerned individuals about the rules on the content that should be posted as well as the time spent on the sites. Since social media strategy is essential for all companies in the contemporary business world, companies are forced to source all necessary technological resources required to make its plans successful (Piskorski, 2016).

There is need to understand the challenges associated with use of social media plans in companies. Failure to focus on the challenges and limitations of using social media for marketing has led to frustrations and even collapse of some organizations. The manager responsible for implementation of the strategies must clearly understand the negative side of social media use. In most cases, companies lack over the postings on their social media walls and inappropriate content might hurt the reputation of a company. Understanding that not all social media followers are potential customers is essential to know ways of turning the huge following into prospective customers. A clear knowledge of the challenges is important to find out appropriate solutions for example investing in internal technology to assist in controlling the postings and contents on the organization’s social media sites (Thomas & Barlow, 2013).

The present day business sector is forcing organizations to see the sights and engage in social media activities. The fact that most organizations see the use of social networking sites as easy does not imply that coming up with a social media strategy is stress-free. Integrating social media into the operations of a company requires proper planning and the managers must find answers to various concerns that determine the success of the strategy.

References

Piskorski, M. J. (2016). A social strategy: How we profit from social media.

Quesenberry, K. A. (2016). Social media strategy: Marketing and advertising in the consumer revolution. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Safko, L. (2013). The fusion marketing bible: Fuse traditional media, social media, and digital media to maximize marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Schaefer, M. W. (2014). Social media explained: Untangling the world's most misunderstood business trend. sl.: Mark W. Schaefer.

Thomas, D. B., & Barlow, M. (2013). The executive's guide to enterprise social media strategy: How social networks are radically transforming your business. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.