There’s no arguing that digital platforms have proven their worth in helping us execute (and temporarily replace) nearly all aspects of our lives. It has helped us stay in touch, helped us forge new connections in ways we never thought possible, and made life easier in so many ways.
In the same way, we have learned how to turn the digital tools at our fingertips to our benefit in our personal/professional lives, the same learnings we have gained apply equally in marketing for businesses.
The enormous potential that digital marketing has in a business’ marketing plan has shown to not only be here for the long haul but offers significant benefits in streamlining and integrating your marketing strategy. This plays an even greater role for national brands with enterprise-level digital marketing needs. The key is knowing how to use the elements, and how they connect. Read on to where to start and what elements should be part of your digital marketing scaffolding.
Set it and (almost) forget: Organic social will always have a place in a brand’s digital presence. Be it our favorite trio (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) or the myriad of others available, all platforms offer a way to authentically connect with your engaged users via organic posting and should be part of any B2B or B2C digital marketing plan. But anyone that has been tasked with content creation for a large (or small) digital plan knows the slog that can be getting the content and graphics created, the hashtag research, and the back and forth with the (sometimes numerous) parties that need to lay eyes on it to make sure it is correct. Enter the content scheduler. There are so many out there (Gain is the one we keep in our back pocket) that allows you to hash through details and then set it and (almost) forget it.
Show me the money: Coupled with organic strategy, paid strategy is clearly where social is headed for businesses. The targeting options, while pared down from years past, offer stunning capabilities to serve your ad exactly to the audience in the way they will consume it best. While there are no shortcuts in learning Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn advertising, with a little dedication you can amplify the hard work you put into your organic strategy and push it to page/profile’s audience that missed it. Or create thumb-stopping ads to reach a new audience together. Not sure you want to spend the hours in front of Facebook Blueprint, YouTube videos, LinkedIn webinars, and blogs to learn the programs? We play in this sandbox daily and would love to help.
Just the Facts: Numbers are just numbers, performance is pretty, but unless you can make sense of the facts, it is hard to integrate your performance into recommendations for future growth. LinkedIn is by far our favorite reporting platform (holy…detail!), but Facebook and IG are a little more…time consuming to get details from. If you are like us and prefer a few clicks to hours jotting down tedious reporting, an analysis tool (like Buffer) can save you some headache. Get a quick preview of FB/IG performance with a click of a button, see where your audience stats are trending, get the details on IG story performance, and even recommendations on best days and times to post with an analysis tool. There are a couple million (seemingly) options out there, and nearly all offer the chance for a free trial. Give them a whirl, and see which ones suit your needs the best.
He said, she said: UGC (user generated content) or curated content is the secret sauce to both amplifying your engaged users’ content AND driving engagement. It has a place in nearly every digital strategy and for every digital platform. But how do you get it? In lieu of searching hashtags and account mentions, we recommend investing in a UGC aggregator. We find Curalate sublime to work with, but there is one for nearly every budget. The capabilities greatly from simply gathering all mentions of your brand to being able to create shoppable links of your products to competitive listening. They are a must for enterprise level digital programs and a solid investment that pays dividends for smaller businesses.
Etc., Etc.: We could go on about the third-party integrations necessary to execute a solid and integrated digital marketing plan well. For example, are you running a giveaway? You’ll need a giveaway aggregator, so you aren’t going through thousands of entries by hand. Are you running a review contest? Save yourself the hassle and sign up for a review plug in to make the process seamless. Then, of course, there are email programs, CRM solutions and the list goes on and on. Also, no discussion of digital marketing is complete without discussion of Google Ad strategy, etc.
If you want to continue the discussion, we’d love to chat. Let us put our expertise to work to ignite your efforts.
