Can you believe that it’s March? Neither can we. But it’s never too late to finetune your social media strategy for 2023!

Social media means more to the brand-consumer relationship than ever before – and there’s always opportunity to strengthen those customer connections.

Social media users are switching between seven social networking platforms, and they’re spending 95 minutes per day on average searching their socials.

Bar graph showing social media time spend by age group, women ahead in all age ranges.

Can you imagine the possibilities for reaching your ideal audience? We can.

Let’s get started with three ways you can sharpen up the rest of your 2023 on social media.

#1 Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

We get it. Change can be hard. Especially when that change means doing things like getting in front of a camera.

But keep this in mind: Your customers want to see you. And if getting in front of a camera makes you break into a sweat, remember you’ll be talking about what you know best: Your business. Unless you’re doing a live stream, you can hit “Record” as many times as you need before publishing.

#2. Know where your people are

Does your business need to be on every single social media platform? There might have been a time when the answer was yes, but that time has passed. Whether you have an established business or are in the middle of building one, you should have an idea of who your ideal consumer is. Once you know that, figure out where they spend their time and go there. Now.
Chart showing social media platform usage by age demographic

#3 Listen to Your Audience

You’ve heard of social media analytics, right? All you really need to know is how much they help you listen to your audience. Most platforms offer their own analytic tools and insights, but you can also use third-party resources depending on your needs. Obviously, you want to see your follower count grow quickly. But it doesn’t always happen that way, even if you go viral – but that’s a topic for another day. The best way to understand what resonates with your audience is to see what makes them engage. For example, examine a post that has a lot of comments. What kind of post is it? A conversation starter? Does it show personality? Take the attributes of successful posts and recreate them. You don’t want to duplicate the exact same post, but consider how you can adapt the voice, message and imagery into your next social gem.

Let’s Get Social

Whether you’re a social media whiz looking for some inspiration or are just now starting to dabble, Stealth Creative’s team can help. Remember, it’s never too late to get your social strategy on target.

Source: Sprout Social & Hootsuite

Picture of Kirsten Hackett

Kirsten Hackett

Kirsten Hackett specializes in social media marketing and loves to focus on building social communities for our clients. She has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and an MBA with a marketing specialty. When she’s not working, she’s likely hanging out with her family, baking or crocheting.

Social media is quite different than traditional marketing. It’s intent isn’t to drive sales – at least not directly – but instead to build awareness, drive engagement, develop loyal brand ambassadors and serve as a key facet to your integrated marketing plan.

You’re probably thinking: What’s the point then? If it’s not going to have a direct impact on my sales numbers, why bother?

The answer to that is simple: It’s your foundation. It’s expected. NOT having an active social media presence for your business – whether B2C or, perhaps even more important, B2B – is like conducting a conference call with a bag phone. It’s risky at best.

Social media is here to stay. It’s not a fad. It’s not a gimmick. It can drive true marketing and business results. It’s time to understand how your company can take advantage of this amazing marketing tool.

Social media is about brand awareness and engagement.

Before we tackle how to develop your social media marketing, we need to first talk about its purpose. It’s not like traditional marketing. Instead, the intent of social media is to drive brand awareness, improve engagement with your brand and support your other traditional marketing efforts.

The idea is to build connections and relationships with your audience in a way traditional marketing doesn’t – and can’t – allow. This is a much more personal marketing avenue. So, take advantage of that.

Use it to showcase your company’s personality – to humanize your brand.

It all starts with strategy.

Now that we’ve talked about the purpose of social media, we can turn to strategy. This is one of the primary things we talk about with our clients: The importance of having a well-thought-out social media strategy that:

1) Supports and complements your marketing strategy.
2) Supports and complements your business strategy.

Without a strategy that aligns with both your marketing and business strategies, social media simply becomes a marketing tactic. And that’s a waste of time, effort and resources for everyone – and will not deliver the intended results.

So, what should your strategy include? Here’s a few ideas to get you started:

  • Define your company – simply and succinctly.
  • Include your company’s mission and vision.
  • Who’s your target audience?
  • If you had to define your key message in one sentence, what would it be?
  • Define your strengths and weaknesses.
  • List your key competitors.
  • What are their strengths and weaknesses?
  • What are you trying to accomplish with your overarching marketing strategy?
  • What is your brand’s personality?
  • What are your company’s brand attributes?

We have our clients walk through both a brand personality and brand attribute exercise to define who they are and who they aren’t, and which attributes best describe their company’s personality, which is key to ensure style and tone are on point for the brand.

This is always a fun – and typically eye-opening – exercise, where the leadership team often finds themselves thinking the exact opposite on certain attributes and personality traits. If your leadership team isn’t in agreement, there’s no point in proceeding with any marketing efforts because there’d be no way to define expectations or meet those expectations given everyone’s starting on different pages.

Narrow your focus.

Once you have your strategy defined – and everyone on your leadership team is in agreement – it’s time to narrow your focus.

Determining your social media marketing campaigns for the year – at a high level – will help define your topics, messaging and goals for that time period. We work with clients whose industry changes quarterly to focus on different topics – and we develop different campaign topics for each. Conversely, we work with some clients whose message stays the same for the entire year.

You’ll need to decide what makes the most sense for your business and industry – based on what you’re wanting to communicate to your potential and current clients and customers, taking into account:

  • What the campaign is working to achieve (e.g., educate about x, y and z.)?
  • What your audience is asked to do (e.g., visit the blog, call a phone number, etc.)?
  • Who’s your primary audience?
  • What are the key points/messages and supporting messages you want to convey?
  • What are the dates of the campaign, and are their peak times to take into account? (This becomes paramount when planning an event, for example.)
  • What will your primary, secondary and tertiary social platforms be (e.g., Instagram = Primary; Facebook = Secondary, Twitter = Tertiary)?
  • What assets will be used during the campaign?

Craft your editorial calendar.

Now that you’ve defined your campaign(s), it’s time to crack open the laptop, pull out that tablet or charge up your phone to start crafting that calendar! The content should reflect the specific campaign for the timeframe, following the key and supporting messages you defined, as well as the calls to action.

We recommend creating content one month at a time; so you can see the full view of how your channels look for the entire month. A few things to keep in mind:

  • Make sure your posts are different by channel. One of the worst things you can do as a business is post the exact same caption and image on multiple platforms. Each platform has its own culture and expectations:
    • LinkedIn – Good for B2B; more formal/business-like; no emojis; a few hashtags are encouraged
    • Facebook – Works for B2B and B2C; casual; occasional emojis ok; hashtags few and far between
    • Instagram – Great for B2B and B2C; super casual; fun; emojis and hashtags expected
    • Pinterest – Great for companies with a visual product (e.g., retail, furniture, artists, realty, food, etc.); fun; interesting; visual

It is okay to post the same topic on multiple platforms – just make sure you change up the caption and the image.

  • The image is more important than the content. Yes, you heard that right (said the former writer by trade). The image is what’s going to capture your audience’s attention first. If it’s not engaging…<scroll>…and they’ll never even get to the content.
  • Create nine non-product/sales-related posts to one product-sales-related post. This may seem counterintuitive at first – given it’s so different than traditional marketing, but this is a best practice. Share tangentially related posts. For example, if you’re in the furniture business, don’t just show a picture of a couch; show a picture of living room that’s designed in a way that inspires and gets the viewer thinking: I want my living room to look like that! Why? Because while social media isn’t about selling, it can be a natural by-product. In this instance, the viewer may choose to click on your shop button to see how much that couch sells for as they start researching how to recreate that awesome room.

Execute your posts, and monitor your community.

With your content calendar in hand, you can easily use a third-party scheduling app to schedule your posts in advance, and then supplement them as things arrive either posting natively (within the social app itself) or within the third-party app.

Take time each day to review your feed on each platform, and engage with or respond to your audience. This helps drive that connection and engagement, and shows them you care enough to like, share or comment on their posts.

How much engagement is enough? There’s no magic number, but interacting with at least 50 posts a day is a good rule of thumb.

Should you have customers or clients reaching out with questions or concerns, make sure you have a process in place for addressing those. Best practices are to respond publicly to the comment, and ask them to contact you directly (non-publicly). Then, make sure you have an escalation process in place for customer service to be able to address the concern and alleviate it.

Once the question has been answered or the concern addressed and alleviated, often times the person will post a follow-up positive comment to their original comment, demonstrating your responsiveness and willingness to help them – turning a potential negative into a positive.

But we’re not finished yet.

So you have your social media strategy, campaign(s) and content calendar, and you’re engaging with your community, but all of that is for naught if you’re not keeping an eye on which content is working well and if your key performance indicators (KPIs) are trending in the right direction.

Now it’s time for analytics. Using your specific social media channel apps, you can capture tons of analytics that will help you understand how well you’re doing on engagement rate (the most important KPI), impressions/views and followers.

Speaking of followers, it’s better to have 100 super-engaged followers than 10,000 unengaged and uninterested followers. You need the right followers. It doesn’t do any good to have followers who aren’t engaged or loyal to your brand. The intent is to attract followers who are interested in and value the content you’re sharing, and who will engage with that content (like, share or comment).

One other thing to note regarding followers: Often times, a company’s geographic limitations and/or niche market may mean they have a finite number of people who even would follow them. For example, a company that markets in only two states or one that sells high-end luxury homes will not be marketing – on social media or any other marketing avenue – nationwide. This limits your pool of followers from the get-go – and that’s okay.

So, rather than focusing on how many followers you have, focus on how engaged they are instead.

What about timing of the reporting?

We recommend developing a quarterly reporting schedule. Social media is fickle. And squishy. And not concrete like traditional marketing tools. This means it’s important to look at trends, not get hung up on the monthly numbers.

By pulling your KPIs quarterly, you’re able to focus on those trends to see if you’re heading in the right direction. A standard fluctuation of 5% up or down is essentially ‘static’ and normal. If you start to see drastic drops (e.g., 20% or more), it’s time to start questioning why.

Look into your specific posts to see which ones are performing well, and reassess your content calendar to develop more of those posts. Research the specific channel to see if there were any algorithm modifications or other changes that may be impacting your results.

Social media is often trial and error to see what your audience responds to, what they like, what posts are going to resonate more with them to increase engagement. Don’t be afraid to experiment. See what works for your company – and your audience.

But always remember to have fun – and to be social! After all, that’s the whole point of this medium: To demonstrate your expertise and thought leadership, educate people about your products and services in a fun, engaging way, and above all, showcase your brand’s personality!

Want to learn more?

Stealth conducts onsite training sessions and hands-on workshops to help companies and groups better understand social media. Reach out to us today to get more info.

And, if you’d like a team of experts to help you develop your social media strategy and develop/execute your content, help with community management and provide quarterly reporting/analysis, we’re always ready and willing to help! Contact us today to learn more.

StealthInfoGraphic_Social_ThumbnailWith nearly 4 billion active users on social media, not having a presence is like conducting a conference call with a bag phone. 

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Keeping a constant eye on the world of marketing technologies, or MarTech for short, can be a never-ending task. Every business is looking for ways to set themselves apart from the competition, and using technology is a great way to do it. 

New technologies are coming faster than ever before. And as technology changes, so do the things your business needs to do for success. But in a world saturated by MarTech, where do you turn?

Well, we’ve got good news. The supersonic pace of digital marketing trends may seem overwhelming, but it’s really about what works best for you.

So let’s put your fears to rest with these tips on how to keep up with digital marketing.

Pare it Back

Augmented reality, virtual reality, ads on streaming music services, ads on virtual assistants, traditional email marketing, social media marketing, and more. Where does it end? How can you possibly do it all?

Psst. Here’s a secret. You ready? You’ll want to write this down:

You don’t need all of it.

The most successful businesses are the ones that realize which marketing strategies work best for them. 

Like people, businesses each have their own style. And when you find yours, it just works.

For example, if you’re a local ice sculptor (a popular career choice, we know), it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to focus on VR technology. Sure, a 3D swan made of ice is pretty cool (no pun intended), but do you really need all that expensive hardware when a photo catalog will do? Chances are you aren’t looking for customers outside of your immediate area, and you probably have the market cornered (let’s be honest, here). In this case, a simple bit of software that helps organize customer orders will suffice.

Now if you’re a regional or national chain store, you need to go that extra mile to separate yourself from the competition. Building your own burger with an Augmented Reality Wendy’s app? That sounds like a hot idea (ok, this time it was intentional).

So don’t feel like you’re missing out if you aren’t keeping up with all the latest advances in MarTech. Remember, you know what your business needs better than anybody else.

Veni, Vidi, Vici

While blindly following every new MarTech trend isn’t recommended, successful businesses ought to keep an open mind towards new trends in their particular field.

Knowledge is power, and knowing what the options look like in your industry puts you that much closer to dominating it.

Subscribing to a trade magazine or following the social media posts of thought leaders in your industry are great ways to stay informed about the latest trends and happenings in your sector.

You might even discover some new trick or technique you’ve never thought of before. (For example, a “Build Your Own Ice Swan” feature on your website (if we’re continuing with the ice sculptor theme). Sometimes something simple is all it takes, and you’ll find that old-school MarTech can be combined with new applications for a truly great strategy.

Trade shows are another great way to stay up on the latest trends. (Are there ice sculptor trade shows?) This allows you to keep up to date on the direction your industry is heading, and network at the same time. If you have something particularly noteworthy to share, you might wind up being the business other businesses come to for advice.

But remember, if you’re paying attention to your business landscape, you can be sure your competition is as well. There really is no reason you shouldn’t be keeping an ear to the ground. It’s sure to give you the edge needed to stand out and conquer your field.

Crossing the Rubicon

You might be subscribed to all the popular trade magazines. You might be better at ignoring MarTech hysteria than LeBron is at ignoring Cleveland. But there are still only so many hours in the day.

The biggest challenge businesses face in choosing how to use MarTech, is recognizing when you have too much to handle alone.

There will come a point where you’ll have to choose between keeping your icy creations from melting too soon, or devoting increasing amounts of time and resources towards finding, creating and implementing a custom digital marketing strategy.

This is a good problem to have. It’s the sign of a healthy, growing business.

We know: Handing your MarTech over to someone else is a big decision. But if your business refuses to seize the day by asking for help, further growth is just going to get harder and harder.

You don’t want to pick just anybody to run your MarTech strategy. You’ll want someone who knows your industry and your needs – and who’s willing to work with you to meet your goals.

Stealth keeps tabs on a variety of industries; so we’re always in the know on the latest trends. Whether your business is big or small, we know just how to find which MarTech works best for you, and how to help you get the most out of it.

So when you finally decide to cross your Rubicon and claim your business empire, drop us a line, and let us be your legion.

As always, stay tuned for more great tips next time we go Off the Radar.

Whether you’re marketing a super-exciting new product, or providing an essential, everyday service, a strong social media plan should be one of the fixtures of your marketing strategy.

But for all the convenience and connectivity social media offers, it might seem tricky — even daunting — to wrap your head around forging a plan to use it effectively for your business.

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Like it or not, an effective marketing plan is only complete with a well-thought-out social media plan.

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Welcome to Part II of our Client/Agency Relationship series. We’ve already covered how to decide if you need an agency. Now let’s talk about how to choose the right agency for you.

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A few years ago, my marketing director and I had the opportunity to pitch the idea of social media to my then boss, who was the head of sales. I’ll never forget his response: Twitter? That’s that thing where people say they just had a tuna sandwich for lunch? No thanks.

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