Social Media Marketing Is An Integrated Strategy, Not The Holy Grail!

There is a misconception out there that many so-called social media marketing GURUS try to publicize. It’s that social media marketing is the cure for all!

If your business has the Flu, then you should give it 2 social media pills, one in the morning and one before it goes to sleep. If it has an injury, then you should just apply some social media to the area in subject and magic will happen.

I got sick of some marketers saying that social media will fix any broken business, no matter where or how much broken it is! Didn’t YOU?

Social media marketing isn’t a standalone strategy that works by itself and produces magic. It should be an integrated part of your overall marketing strategy. You know why?

It’s simply because each marketing strategy has a role that must fill an important gap in every business’s strategy!

What do you know that social media is good for?

Direct sales?

Not really!

It’s great for building brand awareness and deepening your relationship with your prospects!

What blogs are good for you ask?

They’re good for positioning you as an expert in your industry as well as for driving eyeballs.

So where email marketing stands in all of this?

Email is how you convert those eyeballs into paying customers!
Let me give you a scenario here:

In order for you to build a highly profitable business, you need to go through this process:

1- You should build awareness for your products and services so your prospects can know that you exist. The best strategy to do that is via social media. In a previous post, I stated that social media is about discoverability and that’s exactly what your business needs if you’re just starting out.

2- After building that initial awareness for your product, you need to stay on top of your prospects’ minds. Having a prospect exposed to your products and services once isn’t going to get them taking action and buying it. It’s that repetitive, non-annoying exposure that entices them to check your stuff out!

3- What happens when prospects know about you?

Nothing!

That’s exactly where people get social media wrong. They think that having those comments on their Facebook page and retweets on their Twitter profile should get them all the sales they need.

People don’t buy from businesses they know, they buy from businesses they know, like and trust!

How do you build that likeability?

It’s through telling them stories that resonate with them through your blog. It’s through your responses via your blog, your social profiles and your replies from your newsletter (see how everything is integrated?).

And how do you build trust you may ask?

You build trust through the great content that you provide on your blog, other influencers’ blogs, through your email newsletter or your customers’ honest testimonials!

Even social platforms don’t have the same purpose for each business. Some are great for thought leadership (like Twitter and LinkedIn) while others are great for humanizing your brand and connecting with your prospects on a deeper and more personal level (Like Facebook and Instagram).

This is just a minor overview of how an integrated digital marketing strategy looks like. There are actually dozens of other pieces that should work along with the strategy, not to mention offline strategies as well. If one word or phrase in a landing page can change conversion drastically, how much do you think a missing piece in your strategy can cost your business?

How To Ensure That All Parts Work In Harmony?

In order for you to ensure that all the pieces work together in perfect synchrony, you need to:

I - Understand your audience

The most important thing that you should be focusing on the most is designing ways to understand your prospects. You know what comes with understanding?

You guessed that right. It’s POWER!

When you understand your prospects, you can then learn what platforms they prefer to use, what content they like on each platform, where do they follow people they now VS like VS Trust. You job then becomes:

2 - Optimize for each platform

People don’t communicate with businesses they just know, and businesses they really trust the same way. They also don’t expect the same treatment from both businesses!

If people invite you into their houses (email inbox), you better behave and provide them with highly valuable content that is expected from this medium. When you optimize each platform for its particular best use, the result will be a perfectly synchronized strategy.

3 - Cross-promote

By cross promoting, I mean mixing all the marketing strategies together so you get the maximum results.

For example, there are always people on social media who decide to join your newsletter from the first post you put out there. However, others might need some convincing first. When you cross promote, you’ll ensure that you’re not missing on those people who are willing to join your newsletter through social media or share your articles via their social profiles. To ensure that, you need to put social sharing buttons on your email newsletter as well as on your website, promote it on social media, promote it on your blog, promote your blog posts on your email newsletter…etc

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