Building a strong brand through Social Media Marketing

In order for us to understand how to build a strong brand, we need to first define some terms. The website businessdictionary.com defines marketing as the process through which goods and services are relayed from concept to customer. This process involves different elements that will affect our marketing efforts, although some of these elements are not directly under the marketing department. For instance the production process, from source of raw materials, through the production line and methods used all the way up to distribution channels, will affect our price. As marketers engage with potential customers, they make certain promises which are affected by all these other elements. Pricing has a direct influence on market perceptions. Our endeavor to attract more customers propels us to advertise. Dictionary.com defines advertising as, "....the practice of calling public attention to one's product.....". This brings us to our third definition, branding; which is defined by Small Business Encyclopedia as, "The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products."

From the definitions above; branding and advertising are part of the marketing process. When we only push advertisements through Social Media, we would have dismally failed our Social Media Marketing strategy. Our efforts should inculcate our uniqueness making it rather difficult to ignore Inbound Marketing as part of our Social Media strategy. When we showcase how we do things internally and preach about our core values, that naturally strengthens our brand. Social Media Marketing should be more than an exercise to canvass for sales.

Any marketing strategy should address the 4 p's of marketing.
Product - discussing the product is literally addressing Content Marketing issues
Price - when we look at price determination we are directed to Inbound Marketing
Place - alludes to distribution channels and this will also be part of our Inbound Marketing
Promotion - this will cover our advertisements. Note that how we cover these four elements influences our brand.

These are the agreed marketing elements and an effective Social Media Marketing Strategy will incorporate all of them. Emphasis on some of the elements at the expense of others, will dilute our marketing efforts and weaken our brand. Paid advertisements will only be effective if we have a strong brand within Social Media Forums. It is not how much we spend on paid advertisements that might generate us more sales, we might actually need to spend more on Content and Inbound Marketing in order to build a stronger brand. Social Proof has a key role in building our brand. Therefore, all the content that we share, must have an engaging effect. When we have a lot of engagement through liking of our content, sharing of our content and direct queries and inquiries including suggestions our brand will have a positive effect on our potential market. This effect will also reduce our advertising spend.

How has your Social Media Marketing efforts affected your brand? Should you need any assistance with your Social Media Strategy do not hesitate to contact us or you can drop your numbers here and we will get back to you.

A Campaign on Social Media Gone Viral.........

Social Media Marketing is given value by Content Marketing. Your audience have to feel the need to be part of your product through understanding and identifying with it. Content marketing can therefore be referred to also as Target Marketing. It is not everyone who will be tickled by your content. That you will only appeal to a specific group goes without telling. Clearly it will not be possible for your content to tickle everyone.  An attempt to please everyone might dilute the results of your efforts to the extent of them being labelled as spam. Therefore, your strategic intent in a Social Media campaign is to appeal to a specific target audience. The main aim is appeal for engagement. If they only view your work; that is good. If they view and comment, that is excellent; it is actually your aim. If they view and share, that is a bonus, your potential reach might end up imeasurable. At the end of the day, brand loyalty is forged with those that rave about your products.

In Social Media Marketing, you have to put a personality to your campaigns so that your audience can identify with this particular personality. A personality has unique characteristics and not everyone will identify with a particular personality. There will always be different strokes that tickle different folks. Know your target audience. Plan and execute to appeal to your target. Conventional marketing campaigns in both print and electronic media, are like a shot in the dark aimed at everyone. With Content Marketing, the target is specific and the results are not only real but are measured on real time. Analytics in Social Media are an accurate reflection and will show you even where your audience was not happy with your efforts. We might know the viewership of a particular TV program but we may never know how many liked or actually viewed our advert slotted during prime time.

Most posts that have gone viral are associated with negativity. In blogging it is possible to ride on current events and align your campaigns on such activities. But again even with current affairs, it is the bad and the ugly that always have the viral effect. For instance the current Xenophobic attacks tacking place in South Africa. Shameful and inhuman as they are, one can choose to ride their marketing campaign on them. With a well thought out campaign, your work can go viral like the gory images and videos emanating from this incidence. But again you would not want your brand to be remembered through such kind of activities or associated with such.

I do not believe that a Social Media campaign ought to go viral. I believe that our campaigns must target specific audiences with a mission to compel engagement. If we are able to have such an effect on our audiences that they feel obliged to share our content, then we might as well have expanded our market potential as further sharing can go on for a while. This however is different from the viral effect of maybe an indecent image about maybe a prominent public figure caught in a compromising position. But again, like noted earlier, somebody whose campaign has no need for morals, can ride on such an event. The different strokes is also relevant in this scenario, as there maybe some that love gossip.