Social Media Marketing 2017
You’ve subscribed to Social Media Examiner, Social Media Today, HubSpot Blog, Sprout Social Blog and you’ve been listening and watching Gary Vaynerchuk on Instagram and Youtube, you’ve got this covered, the 2017 marketing plan is going to be a breeze.
You arrive at work head held high, walk to your desk and suddenly reality kicks in, the email you’ve been dreading has arrived: unsurprisingly your targets have gone up, yet your budget has been cut and you promised the earth before the Christmas break…
However, there has been a shift in marketing during 2016; if last year was all about identifying who your target customer profiles are and crafting advertising and marketing messages specifically targeted at them, you’ve worked out that you’re missing potential customers by being too focused.
The bubble that misidentified Brexit and Donald Trump aligned with your marketing approach – 2016 was too blinkered. You missed opportunities, the analysis of your data didn’t account for serendipity and it didn’t account for the impulse buyer, the customer who had a change of heart and the customer that did not fit with your profiles.
2017 deserves an entirely new approach.
In my opinion there are two distinct marketing strands that need to be delivered in order to stand out.
1st The BIG Idea – the one that requires top Creatives to develop and nurture it for you and your brand, I’m thinking Irn Bru (sarcastic fun), Channel 4’s We’re the Superhumans (Rio Paralympics) – a concept that challenges the customer, entertains and enriches their experience of the brand and yet can be used forever and a day, probably.
Extremely unlikely you’ll get that from a digital agency or graphic designers, this needs people that don’t stare at screens all day and are capable of free thought – with a history of working with brands that don’t tow the line.
The 2nd route is the documentary, the soap opera of the life and times of your business and the industry you’re in. Creating the opportunity for dialogue by introducing and documenting individuals (or an individual) by following their daily life (the edited version) revealing why you are in business, what it is you actually do, how it’s done, what’s involved.
How you deliver these routes is down to the social media platform, needless to say film content will grow exponentially. LinkedIn having recently been bought by Microsoft will inevitably go through a much-needed change; Facebook Groups are gaining popularity for business networking and Instagram direct messaging is slowly replacing Twitter for business conversations.
To find out how I would choose to create a strategy unique to your business, why not join the Chamber training sessions. This 5 part social media training series is designed to help to you master social media planning and activity across all platforms by using a high-growth approach:
https://www.edinburghchamber.co.uk/training/course?eid=DCA02615-FC08-4FD0-8E39-4A5A70F983EF
Picture Credit: Colin Gilchrist
