Marketing Trends: Social Media Messaging that Connects with Consumers
Modern organizations understand the importance of social media, but often flounder when it comes to their specific social media strategy. Organizations feel as though effective social media marketing is out of their grasp due to cost-prohibitive marketing automation technology or because they offer a utilitarian product when, in fact, successful social media messaging is contingent on effective strategy. This is supported by a study conducted by Martin, et al., (2020) that found that impactful social media strategy is not contingent on viral content, popular hashtags, or the latest technology (p. 8). Experienced marketers recommend social media messaging should center on the unique offerings and the individual brand story tailored to the target market of an organization while shared in relevant formats for respective social media platforms. When customers connect with an organization’s social media messaging, the organization will benefit from increased engagement, customer acquisition, and customer loyalty, all of which historically impact an organization’s bottom line.
Highlight Unique Offerings
Without a doubt, social media has been critical for organizations over the past few years and even more so during the global pandemic. Social media provides a way for organizations to connect with consumers directly, when consumers choose to engage, and how consumers wish to engage. Marketers note that organizations that have been successful in connecting with consumers on social media platforms keep their messaging close to their unique offerings while creating dialogue (Butow, et al., 2020, p. 49). In the August 2020 book, Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing (2020), social media experts recommend organizations should “balance business content with consumer-focused content (articles, fun facts, behind the scenes, etc.) that will appeal to your target audience organically yet remains in line with your business model and industry” (Butow, et al., p. 49). In practice, this could consist of hyperlinks to press releases or media coverage, usage content, word-of-mouth content such as reviews or testimonials, or media featuring content centered around employees, manufacturing plants, or brick and mortar locations. This creates engaging content surrounding the unique offerings of the organization while encouraging dialogue on social channels (Martin, et al., 2020, p. 9). Benefits of this type of engagement include educating the consumer on the organizations unique offerings while and building trust between the organization and consumers (Pan, et al., 2019, p. 10).
Tell the Brand Story
Along with unique offerings, organizations need to emphasize their brand story. Brand stories educate the consumer on the mission statement of the organization, generally without explicitly stating the mission statement. Great brand storytelling brings “your audience into the room with you, while you weave in details of your expertise” (Butow, et al., 2020, p. 50). A research study conducted in 2019 concluded that organizations must craft this messaging understanding their “brand, products, and campaigns” (Davis, et al., p. 8). The study goes on to state that playful brands benefit from light-hearted, novel messaging while utilitarian brands may want to prioritize readability and clear, straight-forward messaging (Davis, et al., 2019, p. 8). This study demonstrates how organizations who convey branded messaging on what differentiates them from their competitors in an interactive and compelling way have increased consumer engagement over organizations that do not (Davis, et al., 2019, p. 8).
Format Content for Respective Social Media Channels
Proper formatting is imperative to an effective and well-performing social media message. Social media users will not engage with posts that have poorly written copy (Davis, et al., 2019, p. 8), rife with misspellings, incorrect information, or out-of-date content. Likewise, users do not engage with low-quality, improperly formatted images or videos with poor audio, incorrect resolution, or excessive loading times. Lack of user engagement makes these posts low-performing; social media algorithms will not prioritize or promote low-performing content. In addition to media specifications, it is important to understand which type of content to post on which social media channel. Hootsuite, an industry leader for social media best practices, released in an August 2020 post the following recommendation: “In terms of format, it’s helpful to understand which kind of content is best for each platform: artful images for Instagram, longer text posts or videos for Facebook, and so on” (McLachlan).
Conclusion
Marketers recommend that organizations who desire to connect with consumers on social media channels create and share content that honestly and authentically represents the organization’s unique offerings and brand story. This type of content builds trust with consumers while educating consumers on the organization’s expertise and available offerings. In addition, organizations must make sure that the format of these posts are relevant for the platforms they are being shared on, such as video for YouTube and images for Instagram. Organizations must prioritize the specifications for each platform to boost to create high-performing posts that will promoted by the social media channel’s algorithm. Following these marketing industry trends will ensure that any organization, with or without extensive social media tools or the latest marketing automation technology, performs well on their social media channels and connects with consumers in a relevant and meaningful way.
References
Butow, E., Allton, M., Herman, J., Liu, S., & Robinson, A. (2020). Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing. Entrepreneur Press. Kindle Edition.
Davis, S. W., Horváth, C., Gretry, A., & Belei, N. (2019). Say what? How the interplay of tweet readability and brand hedonism affects consumer engagement. Journal of Business Research, 100, 150–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.01.071
Martin, N., Rice, J., & Arthur, D. (2020). Advancing social media derived information messaging and management: A multi-mode development perspective. International Journal of Information Management, 51, 102021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.10.006
McLachlan, S. (2020). How to increase social media engagement: A guide for marketers. Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard. https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-engagement/
Pan, Y., Torres, I. M., & Zúñiga, M. A. (2019). Social media communications and marketing strategy: A taxonomical review of potential explanatory approaches. Journal of Internet Commerce, 18(1), 73–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332861.2019.1567187