Lazy, tick-box social media tactics to avoid #SettUpForSocial
Updated: Apr 22, 2020
Square pegs and round holes. That's what I think when I see brands posting identical content clearly developed for one platform (i.e. Facebook) across others (i.e Twitter). It's a habit born out of the early days of social media. It's dead easy to do and, at some level, it might feel like you're maximising the return on investment.
But the social media landscape has long since shifted. Behaving as if all of the social media platforms you use have the same audience with the same needs makes your brand or business appear out of touch. It means rather than reaching more you will have an impact on fewer people. It means you're stretching your resources and budgets to achieve little.
You might think your social media audience needs to be told the about the company's exciting news in the same way, but it rarely does. And even if it warrants sharing across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc., the chances are it's going to need a different approach on each platform to stand a chance of delivering against your objectives.
The use case and demographics of each social platform are very different. Not basing your approach to social on this understanding means your won't see a return. In fact, you could just as easily be throwing your money onto a bonfire.
I recently carried out a competitor audit for one of my clients. They're in a highly technical, B2B market and wanted to understand how they can kick start their social media marketing efforts in the face of established competitors operating with much bigger budgets.
While there was often plenty of gloss on show in the competitors' content, they were not optimising their efforts at all. The same content was being used everywhere. None of it made the most of the features that the platforms offer to drive up impact. Critically, the visible engagement was tiny. In short, by trying to cover all of the bases, presumably to maximise their reach and thereby ticking the social media box, they were being roundly ignored everywhere.
This practice is still commonplace today. And it's giving competitors in any field an opportunity to steal a march on their peers.
If you can re-calibrate your social media mindset to focus on understanding the behaviours and meeting the needs of the audiences your social channels serve, and optimising the content pacing, structure and format to achieve their objectives, it's there for the taking.
A little bit of forethought will go a long way to nipping this in the bud so here are some thought starters to put in the mix when you're planning your next activity:
1. First and foremost, be clear on what you need to achieve. Nailing your objective is paramount if you're to have any chance of realising value from the activity.
2. Identify your priority channel(s) BEFORE you brief or even consider creative ideas. Know where the people you want to reach are and what appeals to them.
3. Look at the formats available on that platform and how to optimise them to maximise performance against your objectives. The platforms are pretty upfront about their application so use that info to your advantage.
4. Understand how much money you have to invest in the production of your creative. This helps to set the guide-rails for how you execute.
5. As part of your execution, be prepared to A/B test your content. At the very least, bake time into review performance and optimise/course correct as you go.
6. If it's appropriate to use multiple platforms for your campaign and you've optimised the creative, make sure you adapt the copy to ensure it's fit for purpose before you publish.
If your social media marketing needs a re-think, let's have a chat. Hit the contact button up top.