I talked with an organization recently, and they said the scariest thing I’ve ever heard: They don’t know what to ask for on social media. What that ultimately tells me is that the organization doesn’t now what their why is. And if they don’t know that, then they don’t know their ultimate purpose. They’re probably just floating along hoping things will come together.
This is obviously a recipe for disaster, both for the organization as well as their marketing. But today, I’m just going to take on the social media marketing aspect of this. Do you really need to know your why? And what kind of difference does it really make it in your social media marketing?
Purpose
If you don’t start off with a why, the chances are good that your social media marketing will drift away from doing any real good for your business.
Giving your social media a purpose that supports your organization gives clarity about what you should be posting and what you should not be posting. That clarity is beyond helpful.
From my experience, almost everyone in an organization thinks they know how to do social media marketing. In most cases, this confidence comes from knowing how to post personally and not from real experience posting as a brand. So when they share their thoughts and feelings, I usually listen but I compare what they say with what our purpose is on social media. I can then take what they say and point to how it compares to that purpose. Having it be more black and white is super helpful when you have someone pushing content at you that may or may not work.
It also clarifies what trends you should participate in. Not every trend fits in with what you’re trying to do on social media. So knowing which ones do and the direction you should take them in keeps your brain on more of the creative work the post will demand.
Measuring
I see so many blog posts on what you should be measuring. Here’s what they all should come down to: Are you achieving your why? What will tell you whether you are? Measure the movement on those analytics, and anything else is just for vanity purposes.
Your why makes measuring so much easier. It gets through the noise and to the root of what’s going on. Because you could have a social media program that looks great on the vanity metrics that many like to measure. But if it’s not supporting your organization and making a real difference on what is important for you, then it is a complete failure. Yes, you could be the most popular account on social media and still be failing. I’ve seen it happen more than once.
So discover your why and then connect it to the key factors that move that along. Your social media program will be so much better because of it.
Content creation
Content creation is MUCH easier when you have a why. I’ve talked in the past about using a persona and search engine optimization tactics in your content creation. Those all do wonders, but if you don’t have a why first, those tactics won’t save you.
The fact is that you will get a ton of information about your audience when you employ content creation tactics. That’s great, right? You know exactly what they want, right? But that is just one part of the equation. The other is knowing what your organization wants and needs. Adding those two items together will give you what will ultimately succeed for both you and the audience.
If you’re constantly just creating with just your audience in mind, you will get further and further away from accomplishing goals for your business. And once again, you could find yourself with a great social media program that absolutely fails for your organization. Your audience is important, but they are not everything. Keeping focused on how your social media program supports your organization creates a more long-lasting strategy that can accomplish business goals while also giving your audience what they want. Finding that middle ground is usually why I am brought into an organization, and I love helping organizations get there.
Your why can change over time
What can hurt you the most is being inflexible with your why. Your organization can change over the course of the years and so can how your social media program supports the organization. And sometimes, as your doing your testing, you will find that your why really isn’t a good fit for either the organization or the audience. Tweaking it and constantly making it better can only help the above points, as well as your organization and audience. So start off by identifying it and analyze it as you go along. Soon you should have a very finely tuned why and an even better social media strategy to go along with it.
Why is they why of your social media program?