In the first part of this series we defined where to place our shop window on social networks, segmented by the kind of audience we want to build.
We highlighted how important a coherent strategy is to growing that audience, and we stressed perseverance as a vital quality for reaching our objectives.
Now we will look at how to structure our digital strategy. It is advisable to base it on differentiation — that is, on emphasising how our company stands apart from the others and which of our competitive characteristics is the most developed.
To begin with we need to understand our audience (so we can offer them content they care about); the market (so we can give it what it expects of our products and services); and our competition (so we can differentiate ourselves from it).
If we use traditional channels — TV, print, radio — we have to get information about audience, market and competition either from marketing reports or from focus groups. On social networks it is enough to listen! The difficulty lies in what, where and how we listen.
On the how, there are various tools on the market that provide technology for listening to social networks; most of them are expensive and require specific professional profiles to exploit. For now we will focus on the what and the where, and leave the how for another occasion.
The preferred social network for listening is Twitter: its members constantly give their opinion on all kinds of subject. Facebook comes second, since its members are more focused on leisure.
Listening has to be built around questions that guide the strategy. If we are going to launch a product, for example, it would be interesting to ask about how it — or its characteristics — is received in a market segment or a location. Those questions are in turn structured through keywords that describe what is being asked.
Once we have our groups of questions around audience, market and competition, we launch them in the tool of our choice and, after a reasonable period (generally 15 to 30 days), receive answers through an analysis. That process is the first part of social media analytics — understanding analytics as the mathematical process that produces different diagnoses applied to making decisions.
The insights generated by our listening will shape the digital strategy through:
The messages we want to send to our market
Marketing pieces specific to each social network
Differentiated offers for the digital sphere
Identifying detractors and ambassadors of our company (influencers).
Influencers are no longer what they were, back when they had hundreds of thousands of followers. Today specialised influencers prevail — with few followers, but specific to the sector or industry. That is because customers are intelligent and prefer people who advise them with serious comparative arguments over simply having a famous brand attached.
