On 22nd January, Piper’s portfolio brands’ Managing Directors gathered at Piper’s offices to discuss new and upcoming trends within social media and the everyday role that it plays within their businesses.
The session was hosted by Matt Rhodes, a thought leader in digital, Matt is a regular blogger and conference speaker. He’s also appeared on BBC News and Sky as an expert on social data and changing consumer behaviour.
A number of key themes emerged from the session:
- Plan social media campaigns the same way as any marketing investment – think about how to build social media into current marketing activity
- Ensure that the ROI parameters (e.g. sales based vs. customer engagement levels) are set in place before starting to ensure that expectations are managed
- Investing in social media can be like investing in PR, it can have an intangible impact on your brand and drive sales indirectly
- Test what works for your brand – different marketing and channel mixes work for different businesses and so an iterative approach is usually needed
- When creating a social media campaign, be as intimate and relevant as possible with your customers/fans
- Create bespoke content for different people – social media campaigns benefit from a clear understanding of the target audience, e. a high density of customers in a certain region of the UK (good for events) or a base of people who share similar interests/community
- Understand the context (e.g. time, location) in which people are making their comments/are receiving your feeds
- Social media is usually not the best environment to sell on