5 pillars for social media success.

Everyone says — and agrees — that “we're in the digital age and we have to make our presence felt! I've even hired a kid to handle my social media. He's got a knack for it… He puts up some funny posts on Facebook, sometimes we even pay for a few ads…”

It's a caricature, granted, but one you come across all the time in the commercial life of a digital agency. And no, it isn't exclusive to micro and small businesses. This example isn't even one of the worst, if you consider that this business owner recognised the importance of communicating in the digital space and invested in someone to take that on. The problem is that the “kid” is just one person and, however talented, he isn't multi-skilled or experienced enough to produce a strategic communication plan that is structured, broad and can be delivered with high performance and consistency. That would require a whole set of skills that come naturally to a digital agency, precisely because agencies have multi-disciplinary teams.

These are the five pillars for achieving success in digital communication:

1- Team

Complementary skills, strategy, planning and consistency

A marketing specialist's work shouldn't be a solitary act. You need a team. A team led by a (digital) marketing strategist and rounded out by creatives who set the tone for an entire communication campaign, copywriters for writing that's fitting and engaging, designers who create appealing visuals, and web designers and developers who design and build things like landing pages and apps to run campaigns, competitions and other activities aimed at driving audience engagement and capturing leads.

Managing social media therefore requires a team of people working in concert to deliver high-quality, effective communication that wins the interest and engagement of our client's audience.

2- Authenticity

Your audience can tell when you betray your own identity

Is the communication we produce true to the company's values, culture and mission? If the answer is yes, then the communication is genuine. It may not happen immediately, but your audience will recognise it and reward it.

I'm often struck by a certain fascination with statistics on the part of some managers, who invariably point to the number of likes and views a given post got as a measure of success. It can be, of course — provided no other measurable objective has been set, and provided the heart of the communication, the reason we're communicating in the first place, remains intact.

Banality is another feature of our day-to-day activity on social media. Brands copy one another, so everyone churns out calendar days (Emoji Day, Grandparents' Day, Chocolate Day and so on), shares third-party news linking out to external sites, produces “tips”, and other output that doesn't always reflect the brand's true identity. Let me explain what I mean using the series “Lie to Me”. Anyone who knows the show knows the main character spots fraud and lies through body language and micro-expressions. We humans all have that ability to a greater or lesser degree, even if in some cases we ignore it or simply don't know how to read it. What I mean is that, in a company's communication too (I'm talking about social media here), our audience can equally pick up the signals that show whether the communication is fraudulent or, on the contrary, genuinely cares about the content it's delivering.

Whether it is true to itself, in other words. Whether it is genuine.

3- Commitment

What's left when the enthusiasm runs out.

Nothing is achieved without commitment. When we decide to persist with what we do, results eventually come — and they usually come just as we're about to give up. A communication strategy should be no different. It's common to see companies start communicating on social media only for that communication to be interrupted for one reason or another, leaving long gaps. That's not good: quite apart from constantly having to start over (which costs money), it projects a negative sense of absence to your audience. In most of the cases I've seen, the common denominator behind the interruption is a lack of planning. Planning lets you set out the communications you've decided to produce over, say, a three-month period. Those communications might be: 1 product post per week + 2 inspirational messages per week + 1 campaign per month, 1 paid ad running continuously, and so on. Which means that if you look at a timeline of your communication, the brand will be in contact with its audience virtually every day of the week, with varied content. On top of that there are so-called “reactive communications”, covering things that happen in the life of the business — taking part in a trade fair or conference, a job ad, a new product launch, and so on. If you hire a digital agency, I'd recommend working to an annual horizon, with quarterly plans and performance reports at most once a month.

4- Expectations

Knowledge and experience help us know what to expect.

As with everything in life, expectations need to be in the right place. And to have them in the right place, we need experience or, failing that, someone with enough experience to point us in the right direction. With that in mind, let me state the following: social media isn't the highest-converting channel (that's a fact, but this article isn't the place to explore it). This is typically a source of frustration for companies and invariably leads to premature decisions: cancelling a communication plan because the conclusion is that the posts didn't achieve the desired success (they didn't win or convert leads, didn't sell the product, and so on).

It's worth remembering, though, how consistent communication on social media has an indirect, positive impact on sales of a product or service. How? By giving the user the confidence to buy the product whenever they decide to. That purchase isn't always made directly and immediately through social media ads, but through other channels such as Google Ads. How does that happen? It happens when we see, over a sustained period, an ad for a wine called “Uvas Portuguesas”. At first we may not even like the name (“Uvas Portuguesas”? Odd…), we may not like the product shot or we may be completely indifferent to it. We don't (consciously) remember either the name “Uvas Portuguesas” or the product image. But then the day comes when, wanting to surprise someone, I search Google for “good Portuguese wines” and the results include the following:

1. “Vinha da Serra”
2. “Uvas Portuguesas”
3. “Poço da Vinha”

Assuming I know none of these wines, guess which one will ring a bell — and, more to the point here, which one I'll click on? Exactly. “Uvas Portuguesas”. Make no mistake: although I don't consciously remember it, the name “Uvas Portuguesas” is already in my head and, at that moment, I simply recognised it. Enough to pick it over the other names. So this is an effect, not a defect, and one we should keep in mind as part of a digital strategy.

5- Adaptation

Watching the change and being ready for the big moment

People evolve, and so does social media. Social media evolves, and so do people. The effect runs both ways, make no mistake. People who have been using social media for at least 10 years have now reached a level of maturity that translates into a significant change in behaviour. On Facebook, for example, we now see far more voyeur-like activity — people who look but don't interact with the post. People share far less of their personal lives on Facebook today than they did in the early years of social activity. These are behavioural changes that need to be factored into communication strategies. It's one component of the bigger picture, and one that often tells us something is about to change. And what will change very soon, in my view, is the format through which we experience the social world digitally.

Augmented reality and artificial intelligence (AR+AI) are technologies that have been attracting investment running into billions from giants such as Google and Facebook, to name just a couple. In the US alone, in 2017 there were dozens of companies with funding rounds of around 20 million dollars each, reaching a total of 2.5 billion dollars in funding rounds over the period. AI and AR are today disruptive technologies with usage potential that will revolutionise the way we use software and hardware, as well as being extremely engaging for the user.

Adaptation is the vital ingredient here: observing, interpreting the change and adapting to the new paradigms so that, when the moment comes, we're ready to use them to our brand's advantage.

Conclusion

Since it was founded, the claim Jellycode has used to promote its social media strategy and management service is “your business, where the people are”. Because that is precisely why brands direct their advertising investment where they do: people. Everything produced in the world is sold to people. There's nothing to invent. So, for as long as social media is where people gather, we'll make intelligent use of the networks where they socialise and, at the same time, are prompted to buy your product.

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