The social media landscape is one that moves at an unprecedented speed, with new trends emerging often by the minute. As marketers look to navigate this wild and often unpredictable space in what will be another defining year, leader in social media management, Hootsuite, is sharing the non-negotiable social strategies that all marketers need to keep.
Create realistic KPIs
While confidence in social media marketing as an industry has grown in recent years, with 96 per cent of marketers reporting having some level of confidence in the return on investment according to the Hootsuite 2023 Social Trends report, there remains a clear need for setting realistic expectations when building social strategies. This year, marketers should no longer accept “make a post go viral” as a KPI, and instead, establish and measure content against key metrics that are most likely to drive return-on-investment for the business. This will result in achievable success and strengthened confidence in social media marketing capabilities.
To help marketers get started in setting out KPIs and effectively measuring success, Hootsuite Academy has revamped its Social Media Marketing Course and Certification, with new content specific to analytics and reporting. When setting KPIs for the upcoming year, quarter, and/or month, there are a number of awareness and engagement metrics to be implemented — and marketers should ensure they utilise last year’s results as a baseline tool to project what success can be achieved this year.
Build intelligence into your strategy
While it’s important for marketers to keep a finger on the pulse of the latest social innovations and trends, it’s impossible to spend 24/7 on social media. This year, marketers need to lean on social listening tools that allow them to work smarter, not harder — by gleaning valuable insights on brand sentiment what customers’ pain points are, and what they’d like to see from the brand in the future, as well as intelligence on trending topics and competitor activity. By leveraging these insights, such as from social media management platforms like Hootsuite, marketers are able to make sense of millions of conversations happening in real time, to help inform future social strategies and build strong brand reputation.
Steer clear of cross-posting
Social continues to evolve at lightning speed — and the skills social marketers need to keep up are simultaneously shifting to meet new digital demands and growing responsibilities.
With each year comes a new social media platform to juggle and cross-posting becomes more and more appealing for social media marketers, in an effort to save time and keep their sanity. But, this urge to save time can come at the detriment of social success. According to Hootsuite’s 2023 Social Trends report, 52 per cent of respondents admit they cross-post content with as few changes as possible, while only 18 per cent of marketers create personalised posts specific to each platform. Although this tactic saves time, it’s important for marketers to remember that each platform provides different value to its audience — social marketing is not fit for a one-size-fits-all approach.
To be successful this year, marketers should ask themselves which platforms will be the most effective in driving ROI for the business, and which ones they should dial down the focus on, or even let go of. This will help in investing time and resources appropriately, and seeing those social metrics begin to skyrocket on the right platforms.
Stop asking ‘what’s cool?’ and instead ask ‘what works?’
While it’s tempting to jump on the bandwagon of trending challenges and working with popular influencers/creators, in the coming year, marketers should stop and ask themselves “does this work for our audience and brand?” and “what value will this add?”. Focusing efforts on strategic tactics that drive value for the business will ensure that the output connects with the impact and that those results are clearly translatable for all stakeholders.
To make sure they’re on the right path, marketing practitioners need to have a deeper conversation with leadership around clear social media objectives to make sure everyone’s on the same page. Remember the big picture; don’t chase short-term ROI to the point of losing sight of what makes a business’ brand valuable and unique.
