Day 1 - Preflight Inspection (social media marketing series)

5 Reasons Social Media Trumps Traditional Marketing

Social media has a definite edge over traditional marketing strategies such as direct mail, web sites, trade shows, and broadcast and print media:

1. Quick, real-time interaction with customers
2. Easy, widespread reach—integrates online and offline campaigns
3. Cuts marketing costs
4. Social media campaigns are more efficient, producing greater results when it comes to conversion rates, leads, traffic, brand awareness/perception, and time it takes for the impact to peak
5. More effectively increases brand exposure and creates a buzz within and outside of the company

Overall, social media campaigns actually costs about 1/10 of traditional marketing tactics, leaving more resources to invest other utilities―such as a social media coordinator, who generates or gathers content for these campaigns so they have as much impact and breadth as possible.

Set the Destination and Seat the Passengers

Ask yourself the following questions, and use these to formulate your goals, objectives and tactics for launching your social media efforts or campaign.

1. Who are your key stakeholders? To whom is success of the social media of greatest importance, and who will most greatly benefit or be affected by the “return on investment?”
2. Who is your key audience? What individuals or groups are most important for your stakeholders to reach? Whose attention do you want your posted content to attract?
3. What message(s) do you want to disperse? More than just providing useful content, what overall impression do you want your audience to take away from each post?
4. What key action(s) to you want to ignite? What do you want the audience to do as a result of what you’ve shared in your posts?
5. Where do you want to send the audience? Do you want to send them to your agents, website, office for an appointment, or to place a call? Based on the answer to this question, make sure your post includes a call to this action, as well as information that makes the action possible and simple.
6. What qualitative and quantitative results to you want to promote? Pick a span of time during which you’ll benchmark progress for your effort/campaign. Determine which factors you will use to analyze success, and choose an exact deadline for when you will analyze this data to see how you’re doing.
7. What social media platforms are best for your purposes? If you’re trying to give your organization more of a personality and help it establish relationships, start with Facebook. Facebook, Twitter and regular blogs can all be used as excellent landing places for information, and it’s easy to link each of them to one another. However, if you’re trying to show (for example) that your agents are active all over the communities of those who follow you, you can use a program like Foursquare (i.e. “Bob Jones has checked into a residence in Panora, IA, to promptly handle the claim of his insured following a tornado”…or “Janet Johnson has checked into the Marriott in West Des Moines to present a seminar on providing the best service to clients”).

Now, outline these items in more detail to create a plan that encompasses your social media goals and approaches for the next year. Decide the exact date you want to get started, and make that your deadline for having your “Safety Presentation” (compliance and policies) and “Buckle Up” (content database and schedule) completed.

Onward!