Social Media…what works?

By Alexis Anderson, Senior Communications Director | Social Media Strategist
and CWCC Member

In a Social Media World, the Audience is in Charge

It used to be that marketers often led double lives as statisticians. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Marketing percentage of CAC, Time to Payback CAC, Ratio of Customer Lifetime Value to CAC… all things that used to be figured by an A+B=C model. But with so many new avenues for information (studies show that we all see more than 45,000 marketing messages per day) – combined with the fact that more than 80 percent of individuals go to friends and colleagues for referrals before purchasing a product or service – long gone are the days of assuming your audience(s) will take action as a result of buying more ad space or air time.

Effective social media strategy is less about what you want your audience to do, and more about what your audience wants. You can have the most creative, groundbreaking campaign in the works, but if your audience doesn’t care, you’re going to fail. Successful social media strategy starts with four questions:

1)     Who is your audience?
2)     On which social platforms do they interact?
3)     What are they saying?
4)     How can my brand/organization enter that conversation in a useful/helpful way?

There are certainly plenty of tactical statistics that can help you craft a successful social media strategy. (i.e., Facebook usage is more prevalent during mid-afternoons, and posts with photos and links receive up to 60% more engagement than posts), but if your audience isn’t on Facebook, and your links or photos aren’t being seen by your audience, your social media strategy is bound to fail.

It’s more important than ever to understand your audience well, engage with them on the platforms where they’re active, and most importantly, provide them with content they genuinely find useful and interesting.

Questions or comments?  Contact Alexis at aanderson@groundfloormedia.com.