Social media integration into your online marketing campaigns
Chris Street gives CompanyX his take on how to make Social Media work for you
Tough challenges
One of the toughest challenges facing marketers, based on the conversations we have with our clients, is not only of how to utilise social media tool and techniques to benefit their businesses, but also how to integrate social media into traditional marketing campaigns.
Integration appears to be an issue. We think the subject should be tackled slightly differently.
Consider making social media a key platform for all marketing messages, rather than sitting it on top of traditional marketing hierarchies
Maybe a more productive way to tackle the issue of incorporating social media tools into the marketing mix is to consider making social media a key platform for all marketing messages, rather than sitting it on top of traditional marketing hierarchies.
Content is still King
One of the ways social media wins for clients is by placing their content at the very heart of their marketing. We all know that audiences, including Google, value content and regularly uploaded fresh content above all else. The content dominates the relevance and positioning.
Effective, quality, timely content integrated across a range of social media platforms represents one of the most powerful ways our clients can gain attention online, win engagement from a number of different sources and sites, as well as providing a cost-effective, multi-channel distribution method for their marketing content.
But how to manage effective integration? And without considerable time and money investment?
This is the issue which many marketers seem to think blocks them from integrating social media into their marketing today. And we have some simple suggestions to assist here.
Work the networks
One of the most confusing and intimidating elements of social media to uninitiated marketers can be the sheer number of networks – faced with integrating marketing campaigns, it may appear to be a time-consuming job without any tangible return on investment. Not so, on both counts.
For example, taking content distribution: how powerful would it be for your company’s marketing efforts if you could post one set of content, but instantaneously, across a number of social media networks, with the click of a mouse? This is easily achieved with the right social media software.
Get clever with content
Think of the effort, time and resource which goes into producing and distributing a specific DM mailer, an e-shot, a newsletter, a promotional product advertising campaign – all have different messages, different tones, and reach different audiences at different times. Very expensive.
Think global – but act regional
With social media techniques, it is possible to reach a global audience on different networks, easily, quickly and cost-effectively. And this is just one example of how social media can be integrated into your overall marketing campaigns. We have numerous other examples to highlight this effectively.
How powerful would it be for your company if you could post one set of content,instantaneously, across a number of social media networks?
Not to mention our bespoke, unique social media software currently in development, which is set to transform how corporates can integrate marketing messages into social media networks.
By Chris Street
Chris Street is an experienced editor and social media consultant, having spent more than 12 years working on daily newspapers, business magazines and online portals.
Having launched the UK’s first fully-managed corporate blogging service in 2005, Chris has focused on social media and digital content, providing social media and SEO copywriting consultancy services to a range of UK companies and agencies.
cj_street@hotmail.com
