Making sure your brand has a visible community in 2023 is more critical than ever. If you've been wondering if you should commit to being transparent online, you should!
Brunswick group conducted a survey to determine what stakeholders expected when it comes to social media. A combination of surveys and in-depth interviews were conducted. The employees, leaders and companies questioned represent over 3.1 million employees across 11 different industries. In 2021 these companies represented 1.2T USD in revenue combined.
So what did they find out?
82% of employees said they research a CEO’s online presence when considering joining a company.
82% of employees said it is at least “somewhat important” for business leaders to use social media to communicate about the company’s mission, vision, and values.
All else being equal, 75% of employees would prefer to work for a CEO who uses social media compared to one who does not.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed, so here are 4 things you can do to create a solid foundation for your social media presence.
Choose a Platform and Commit
There are many mainstream social media platforms to choose from, each one is unique with its own way of communicating. Consider your brand and what you’re offering and determine the best way to showcase your product/service.
As always research your competitors. No one is aiming to reinvent the wheel. There’s a good chance larger companies in your industry have paid for the research to determine where your target audience spends most of their time. If you're in the process of choosing your social media platform, you have already determined your target audience, so do a little research on them, their interests, hobbies and how they prefer to communicate.
The most important part of being present on a platform is consistent and quality content. Make a list of your year of goals for what you are looking to communicate with your audience. Make sure you're switching up your content.
A good method to use is the 70/20/10 rule which is 70% of your content is meaningful, insightful or community-building. 20% of your content is shared from your online community and 10% is self-service product sales, event signups or sales/promotions. We use those metrics as an average over a quarter year.
Social media doesn't work if it’s just all about you, it takes a village!
Communicate with Purpose
Communicating with a purpose and with intent is one of the most important values in PR. When you have limited time to talk to your stakeholders you need to make sure you are being accurate and direct. Think about what you are looking to accomplish in the next year, and list some (key) messages (usually stick to 3) that you would like to communicate to your stakeholders. Planning out your communications will ensure you have clear messages with your audience that will translate into transparency and efficiency.
Creating a plan is the first step in succeeding at anything, and social media is no different. Plans are often created at the beginning of the year and then not revisited. This can lead to mismanaged expectations, wasted money and resources and most importantly wasted time. A must for communicating with a purpose is to revisit your plan, at a minimum quarterly, and also review your original goals (monthly reviews recommended). The organization's goals or objectives direct which tactics are used in the plan. If the goals have changed, it is most likely that the plan will have to change as well.
Link Your Website
The website is the main anchor of an organization's online presence. This is where you tell your story, outline your products and/or services, and showcase your brand. Time constraints are always growing more rigid throughout all audiences, this is why instant gratification is such a big deal for online users.
So how can we adhere to that need via our business model?
Create an easy-to-navigate pathway to the information the audience is looking for, and make it easy to find. You should always have a landing page that will lead your audience to what they're looking for within a few clicks. If you are unable to host a landing page within your own site Linktree is an amazingly easy-to-use app that allows you to provide access to multiple links through 1 link.
Most platforms only allow 1 public link, so this means your community has to click around your site to find what they’re looking for. With Linktree you can have all the main areas of your site reached with just 1-2 clicks. See the example below for link tree button ideas.
The main goal of social media is to draw as many people to your website as possible. Social media are the channels used to find the information, and your website holds the actual information your audience is looking for. The website is the anchor and where your ROI comes from, utilizing it and making it easy to navigate creates a strong user experience and assists in creating relationships with your audience.
Stay Ahead of the Trends
Like it or not social media platforms are run by their algorithms. Algorithms have many goals but there are 2 major ones.
To keep users on the platform, engaged for as long as possible, the longer the better!
To obtain behavioural, demographic and physiographic information about their users to help them provide better targeting for their ads (someone has to pay the bills after all).
Trust the process! If you work with your platform your platform will reward you with more exposure. Keeping track of the trends for the platforms you utilize is a great way to stay ahead of the game. A great tip is to take a few hours at the beginning of each quarter to note down new and upcoming trends. Also, take some time to review trends identified in previous quarters and determine if they gained any traction or if they were just a quickly passing fad.
Social media is one of the largest online investments you will make in regard to your online presence, second to your business website of course. INVEST in your online presence. Even if you are not yet in the position to have your social 1–% managed by a professional, it’s a good idea to get some guidance and direction via an introductory consult. Most agencies will sit down with you for a consultation to give you a better understanding of your options.
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