It is
September 2016, the era of social network, where people are even more
interested in being active online. We are not just referring to digital natives
(like the two students writing right now), but also to generations like “baby
boomers” and “X” ones. Our parents got used in seeing us scrolling Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter and so on… Initially they were kind of irritated but now
they want it too! Isn't it?!
The
rising social media like Snapchat, Instagram, and Flickr is taking over the
digital marketing business. One of the most common characteristics of those
social media is that they are accessible within seconds and social networkers
can easily and freely interact with each other by commenting and surveying by
several clicks.
Compared to traditional blogs and webpages
that are edited and revised over and over again before publishing, the logic of
these social medias consists in presenting the audience an image/video with
simple captions. The post can be done within few minutes before reaching to
every corner of the world (potentially). The simplicity, that is both time and
cost efficient leads to "Big Wins" once it is used correctly.
The
simplicity related to the creation of a profile/page in any kind of social
network turns to be a double-edged sword, in fact, as Sujan Patel has predicted
for the current year in his article "6 Predictions About Digital Marketing
in 2016", users are posting even more, struggling to get their messages
viewed by their audience. We are dealing with a kind of “inflation”: too many
posts around, and as a consequence the value of them decreases. So what should
we do to increase their “value”? “The truth is, according to Web Strategies
Inc. marketers are forecasted to increase total digital marketing spend to 35%
of total budgets in 2016”. So one of the most effective ways to reach your
target is to sponsor your post, in other words to put money on it.
The author uses a meaningful sentence,
remembering to the digital marketing manager of a fashion store/brand or to the
average user that they are also competing with baby, cats and funny videos
online! So it is not just a matter of interactive content, but also a matter of
the willingness to pay to get noticed and especially a matter of collaboration.
There exists many easy ways to collaborate in order to be as effective as
possible. For instance a fashion brand could create a partnership with a
fashion blogger, a model, or a social influencer, in order to maximize the
potential viewers/customers. Another example consists in using user-generated
content or tip style post and let each contributor share it with his/her
audience, being sure that everybody mentioned/referenced knows it. The latter
could not be so easy when you are dealing with big works of collaborative
content, luckily instead of emailing or twitting each contributor, there exist
means (like "Narrow") that facilitate significantly your work.
Here
is an intriguing question for you: is it free using social networks?
Well, without thinking and very spontaneously
we, as average digital natives, would answer: yes of course. If we think just
few seconds at it, we start to make some questions to ourselves, which reveal
that social networks are not free at all. That is what the author points out
referring to the third prediction. Social networks have a cost for sure, not
only in terms of time and effort spent to generate contents, but also in the
literally term. "According to Forrester research, Facebook only shows each
brand's posts to 16% of its fans". That's impressive! "Pay to play is
now the standard of social networks" if you want avoid a limited audience.
As
argued previously collaborations with influencers may be positively related to
the overall success of posts. The author describes it as “reaching the communities
within communities”. So what are you waiting for? Lets find someone to partner
with! That is cheaper and could also be more effective than other kind of
advertisements. Moreover, the writer encourages companies to stop “relying on
Google as their top source of website traffic”, since its algorithm changes
frequently and can damage their posts. Companies should rather focus on
“traffic acquisition from sources you can control”.
As a conclusion firms are
recommended to leverage the availability of programs like “lifecycle.io,
autopilota and customer.io” to be active on all channels. That is the right
path to reach the widest audience possible, increasing at the same time their
brand awareness.
Giuliano Condorelli
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