EXPANDING SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES AS AN ANSWER TO INDUSTRY CHALLENGES

As an answer to the growing popularity of social media and a constant request from our clients to help them understand this new form of marketing, we are delighted to announce the expansion of our social media service.

We have conducted research that shows that within the industry of digital marketing, social media is one of the least understood marketing channels. Its complexity, on-going nature and unpredictability, brings a mountain of challenges around strategy, analytics, as well as implementation.

We have compiled all of this research into an infographic, which you can find at the end of the post.

Our learnings and best practices gained from our other digital marketing offerings have become an advantage in understanding this new industry. Yet, a huge number of social media professionals worldwide come across many obstacles:

TOP 5 SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLENGES:

• 67%struggle with assessing the effectiveness of social media activities
• 62%find it hard to understand how to design a strategy
• 56%see educating staff on how to use social media as a challenge
• 44%struggle creating ‘buy in’ amongst executives about the importance of social media
• 42%find it difficult to know when to take action about data obtained through social media

Some of the other obstacles include:Do any of these problems sound familiar? If you’ve answered ‘yes’, you are not alone in the pursuit of understanding how to create a meaningful social presence. Other data suggests that a lack of in-house resources/skills and difficulty to obtain external experience, is viewed as an obstacle. Often individuals selected to manage social media are left without any support based on the assumption that they’ve grown up with social media or ‘manage’ their own Facebook profile, therefore they know everything. To prevent them from struggling and making mistakes,ongoing training and support is required to help them get all the aspects right.

Content is viewed as another problem. The rapid turnover of content means that brands struggle to plan, target, and produce new pieces.

There is also a huge problem with understanding the variety of social media audience. From our experience many brands simply jump into managing social media without any preparation and planning of how they’re actually going to target and engage their audience. The lack of strategy and analytics tools becomes another disadvantage in gaining data and evaluating the value and impact of their time and effort.

AMONGST OTHER CHALLENGES ARE:

• Managing out-of-hours engagement
• Getting real-time data
• Finding the skills and resources
• Creating content on the fly
• Personalising content

How customers will benefit from White’s new social media services

As social media marketing is rapidly growing and has become an essential part of any business, establishing and nurturing best practice has never been more important, as only those that are the best will stand out.

Our services can answer and solve all of the above challenges while making the social media environment a bit more welcoming and easier to understand:

• Measurement and tools:Managing social presence blindly without the support of data is a huge disadvantage. We can alleviate this problem for our clients with access to an enterprise-level analysis and reporting software. When necessary we can offer training within social data in order to create a consistent approach and understanding of what and how to measure.
• Strategy:Lack of control over social media activities and inability to meet business objectives seems to be one of the common problems. Our ‘Strategy’ service can help brands to understand where to start and how to employ a tactical step-by-step plan to develop loyalty and increase exposure.
• Audience:Knowing your audience’s expectations and finding out how your brand compares to others is critical for establishing relevant KPIs. Our 6 types of social media audits can become a useful resource in identifying potential influencers and gaining an understanding about customers’ personas and their habits. This in-depth research can also help companies to improve and get closer to their customers.
• Skills & Expertise:Figuring out “how, what, where and when” remains high on top of the list of managing a successful social presence. To help marketers avoid learning through trial and error, we’ve introduced a ‘Consultancy’ service aimed to help and be there for others when they need support. Our training and group workshops help demystify this ever-changing environment as well as establish the best approaches.
• Content:Our data-driven approach to content creation and production can resolve the issue of not having compelling content or not having enough of it. We can help companies become smarter by reusing data from social media and learning how to listen to their audience in order to produce content that gets traction and is shared.
• Management:Marketing on social media requires time. If your time is limited, we can take this pressure away by managing social channels for you. Instead of just scheduling posts, we’ll identify trends, understand your audience to maintain a meaningful presence which reflects you as a brand, and reflect your marketing purpose.
• Resources:Confusing communication and lack of understanding are the common issues. The learnings from the social media strategy we create can be used by the whole team to embrace social media within the company. The prepared by us policies and guidelines can also help struggling employees create a culture that supports social media while becoming a way of finding in-house brand ambassadors who can help streamline social efforts.

How the industry will benefit from White’s new social media services

Our aim is to become a source for the high-level best practices that are backed by experience, numbers, and case studies. In the next months we’re planning to share all of our insights gained from our own or our clients’ social experience, with the intention of inspiring and educating.

For now we hope this infographic gives businesses and industry professionals something to think about.If you find value in the data captured in our infographic, please share it with others or even better, let us know your experiences with social media and what challenges are on your list.