Digital Agency Advice: Seven Social Insights From Active Influencers

The evolution of social media is presenting marketing teams with new opportunities to be found, achieve conversions and enrich their brand presence. Are you up to date with the trends?

As an Adelaide digital agency, we get to work on some exciting social projects. From a global new product launch to advising a South Australian medical practice on local business marketing, we gain a great breadth of experience. We hope you find value in these seven social media insights.

1. People are no longer using use social media purely to socialise; they are also using it to search. That’s good news because your business is engaging in social media to be found. For example, people use YouTube to research their next purchase. They use Twitter to search for sharemarket tips. The difference with social media searches is that people are also looking to interact with others beyond their network as they conduct their online searches. Twitter's Nick Reade explains it like this: “Combining technology with old-fashioned relationship-building, social selling is the practice of identifying prospects, generating leads, and maintaining customer relations through social media.“
2. It’s important to experiment – but unless you have vast resources, don’t use every single social media platform.  As a digital agency, we work on some large, global accounts and even they don’t try to “cover all bases”. While it is easy to set up accounts across every platform that exists, it creates a bad user experience when you can’t keep up and they are inactive. Imagine a friend coming to see you but when they arrive they find a deserted house.
3. Don’t ignore discussions and trends.  Social media allows you to personally engage with customers and visitors.  If you are a business and you ignore their feedback (ie. what your customers are saying), you are ruining your brand in that moment. You would never say “I don’t care what you think” to a client in your office, so don’t do the equivalent online. When somebody takes the time give you feedback in the form of a comment or a personal message, you should explore that conversation with them.  Other people will see that you are being personal with these people and some of them will engage with you, which builds its own momentum.
4. Continuing that theme, if you become engaged in a negative conversation, be mindful of your time and how much information you are publicly responding to.  There will come a point in any negative conversation online where you need to say ‘Let’s communicate privately’ or ‘Here’s our contact, can we have your details?  We would love to reach out to you.’  Then you can continue the conversation offline.  Keep the good conversations going as far as you can in public.
5. It’s easy to become disheartened when you don’t rise to be the social influencer you dreamed of becoming. Some people are under the illusion that social management is easy and can be passed off to a 17-year-old just out of school - but it does take more than that. It takes a large investment of time and energy to build a social account. Persist – and don’t be afraid to reach out internally to other team members or even to a local digital agency (shameless plug for Boylen 😊) to seek advice.
6. If you are having trouble with coming up with ideas, you can look at competitors, research trends, or simply ask your customers what they want. Having a forward planner helps alleviate last-minute panic. It also means you are approaching your social campaigns in a strategic manner.
7. Finally, don’t mistake activity for productivity. Doing the wrong things is activity - but it’s not productive.

The SEO and Social Services page on the Boylen website gives a good overview of what we offer and how we work.

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