Social media is a great way to drive traffic, encourage engagement, and build your brand. Picking your social media posts from a pre-written library can seem like an easy out, but will it do more damage than good?
If a marketing company comes to you and pitches a detailed social media program before they have sat down with you and discussed your business, goals, and needs, you need to think twice.
An effective social media strategy that’s successful and delivers the results you need and expect, takes an approach that is built around your business’s unique needs.
“In 2021, people scrolling through social media can spot a generic post a mile away.”
– Rick Lambert, Founder and CEO, IN2communications
Here are 5 reasons to avoid taking a cookie-cutter approach to your social media marketing:
1. Your Direct Competitors Might Be Posting the Exact Same Thing – Nothing is worse than checking out the competition, only to see the exact same post you just released on your social media accounts on your direct competitor’s feeds. It’s not really difficult to be original, and duplicating your efforts with your competitors is not only embarrassing, it’s never effective.
2. It’s Not Branded with Your Logo – Your logo should be on every social media post to showcase your brand and help people connect the value you offer, to your company. Today, people are sophisticated enough to recognize stock photos and canned text.
3. Missing Your Target – Remember, it’s social media. Showing your people and directing your unique message to your target audience drives the highest engagement and draws your audience into what you’re doing.
“Every business has a story to tell. Your social media strategy needs to reflect your company values, your company voice and needs to have your people be part of the story in your content.”
– Cheryl Weedmark, Director of Marketing and Customer Experience
4. Low-Engagement – Social media is about engagement. Canned content looks and performs about as well as the effort put into it! To be recognized as a “value add” provider, post less often, but make it higher-quality content. It’s more effective and more honest!
5. No Links to Your Website
Your website is the hub of all of your marketing efforts. The goal should always be to drive traffic back to your site. Without links in your content, your reader is left without a direct route to your information.
View our SMARKETING SHOW episode on WHY OUTSOURCE YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING!
Canned social media content has been around since the early days because it was cheap and you could tell those above that you were “posting content.” Fast forward to today and it’s easy to pick out canned content as soon as you see it.
Why miss out on the opportunities that social media offers to define and strengthen your brand? Unique social content will generate more activity and drive more traffic to your website, along with helping your readers by making it easier to find you. For nominally more, you can step up to professionally written custom content that is created to serve your unique business goals and up your ROI.
You’ll benefit from strategy, measurable goals, customized content, more traffic, increased engagement and achieve even more. As always, the choice is yours. Remember, like anything, you get what you pay for and the very public forum of social media is not where to save when your brand is on the line!
Is your social media strategy working for you?
Give us a call and let us show you how a customized social media strategy can give you the ROI you need, within your budget!
