You wouldn’t start building a house without a solid foundation. You could have beautiful windows, gorgeous interiors, a nice fresh coat of paint… But all of that’s no use if the whole thing crumbles at the first sign of a strong breeze.
The same thing goes for social media marketing. Many of us jump online ready to post content and drum up leads, without investing in the important foundations you need to make sure your marketing works to create sustainable growth over the long-term.
It makes sense – social media is geared toward the now.
What’s more, many social marketers face pressure from inside their organisation to generate immediate ROI: often the higher-ups only recognise success in terms of clicks and conversions.
These are the metrics that many of us have been told to care about. We get it – it’s satisfying to see a spike in our metrics when we run a quick competition, launch a two-for-one deal or advertise a flash sale.
The mistake
The immediate results from direct response marketing can feel satisfying – but there’s a problem. While you’ll see returns in the short-term, this can only go so far.
If the only time a brand turns up is when they’re offering a special or CTA – rather than becoming more likeable – then we’ll start to see an erosion of the brand and what they stand for.
Evidence from brand marketing experts shows that a cycle of solely focusing direct response marketing will ultimately lead to diminishing returns over the long term. Leading expert on brand James Hurman describes brand building as “an investment into the future behaviour of customers.”
“If all we do is the short-term stuff, then we’re going to get to next year and find the performance marketing doesn’t work quite so well”, states James, “because we haven’t done the important job of priming the market”. “If we sacrifice the long term for the short term, what we’re doing is really short-changing our future selves.”
Brands that focus too heavily on direct response marketing and converting their existing audience on social will lose respectability, salience, and eventually run out of buyers. It’s a hole that’s hard to get out of.
The mindset shift
The most important thing to any marketer – and that’s including social marketers – should be a strong brand.
Your brand is what makes you familiar to your audience, and what will create a consistent funnel of buyers. This means you’ll be able to go beyond those that want to buy right now, to also capture those who may want to buy in the future. Keep in mind that brand is more than how your brand looks – it’s how it sounds, what it says and how it says it. This is where social can really shine.
In fact, Zavy co-founder, Connon Bray, sees brand building as another name for relationship building – “It’s about letting the consumer get to know you…Think carefully before you redesign your packaging, shake up your brand tone or launch a new product.”
On social media, any post to your page that builds likability, engages with your audience or shares your story is an important brand building piece. Invest in your brand building content: create shareable content that becomes earned media and amplifies your brand voice. To create a memorable top-of-mind brand, lean into the true power of social media by crafting a unique brand voice across all your channels.
Ultimately, by building strong brand, presence and meaning, you’ll enjoy better margins on your product over the longer term. We know this first-hand. Zavy analysed over 2,500 businesses over three years – and we proved there’s a direct link between social media and revenue growth, based on your social brand presence.
People love brands that provide true connection, value and quality content, and tactical marketing performs better when it has a strong loved brand behind it.
The solution
So, you’ve decided that you’d like to invest in your brand building, and you’re creating quality, shareable content that does just that. How do you justify this to the powers-that-be, in the ROI terms they understand?
Brand building is harder to measure on social than direct response – but it’s not impossible.
Most social media tools deliver a lot of metrics for a piece of content, but without a meaningful way to roll that up to a brand level or put that in the competitive context.
This is where Zavy can help.
Zavy provides marketers with the insights they need to understand how social media activity impacts their overall brand health.
This means marketers can measure and improve brand activity on social – increasing customer loyalty by doing more of the things people love.
Zavy insights enable our clients to increase social media engagement, gain a competitive advantage, understand the ROI of social media brand-building, optimise your content strategy, and more.
Because of all of this – and more – Zavy is the best way to connect the dots between your social media presence, your brand, and your bottom line.
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