Yeah, it's that simple.
Kathy was the Digital Marketing Specialist in the company I was working for, some years ago. (Her name wasn’t really Kathy, but let’s just call her that). She was focused, hard-working, and frustrated. I can’t recall it perfectly but I believe she didn’t last long in that job. The reason was too much pressure from the upper levels.
I remember her being called and asked every two hours by our superior, or even the CEO of the company, to grow the company’s followers on social media. This was the main objective of the company - NEW FOLLOWERS. Everybody was freaking out because our main competitor had more followers than us and the board managers were at their wit’s end, trying to find a way to exceed that number. She was feeling frustrated and ready to burst into tears at any moment.
“Find ways to attract new followers, create, create, create! We need them asap!!!” – I remember her telling me what the superiors were asking her all day. Like she had a magic wand or something. I didn’t get why were they so obsessed with growing followers when instead they had the stores that needed immediate intervention. The lights didn’t work properly, the racks were getting rusty, the products were displayed badly and the hygiene of the shop was questionable.
Instead of looking at the castle, falling apart, piece by piece, they were busy planting trees and cutting bunny-shaped bushes around it.
This was the view… leaders playing children’s games with the competitor and not paying attention to the most important issues of the entire enterprise. But this is not just a local thing, this is global. Companies are stuck in the social media game, forgetting to set basic standards for their services and products. All, drifting around useless social media posts, while crucifying their digital marketing specialists on why’s and how’s to get more, to be more, to do more.
Having the perception that “Digital Marketing is the thing and other mediums don’t work as well”- is wrong, very, very wrong. So, please for the love of God, stop posting ugly, useless content on your social media and learn how marketing really works.
Dear leaders, First, understand that Digital Marketing does not equal social media. Digital Marketing is a whole bunch of things combined together, - one of them being social media.
Second, understand that marketing uses many mediums to deliver and share its messages, all of which are still very much effective, but very different from one another. The pandemic made everybody believe that social media is IN and all the other platforms were OUT, but that’s not true.
Everyone has to understand that social media is not a strategy, but a medium. This means that as a medium it can be used only when it’s needed, but not without purpose. Those claiming that “social media is the future”, are wrong. Every medium is the future, social media included.
When thinking about the right strategy for advertisement, we should not think about “what is the medium that is trendier at the moment”, but instead we need to think of “which medium would be more effective based on the characteristics of our brand/product and what is our actual objective?"
The mistake that every impulsive marketer is making, in using every platform to the same extent, approach, and frequency, - is damageable to the company’s image, useless effort going nowhere, and higher expenditure spent for nothing. How many times have you ever heard companies complaining about spending too much on marketing and still getting no results? Too many times sir, too many freaking times. Why? Because of four reasons:
1. Lack of knowledge of their brand or company
2. Don’t know their Unique Selling Point (USP)
3. Don’t know their niche
4. Lack of pre-campaign communication analysis
First, a marketer and the leaders of the company should have a clear knowledge of their brand, services, and products.
Second, the USP of their business should be very well established. If not, work on it or move over. Without a USP, your company is destined to fail. Sorry, not sorry.
Third, know your customers. Come on man, what are you still doing on the market seriously? If you don’t know who your customers are, then you’re worst than Jon Snow. Get informed, for the love of God!
Fourth, base your communication plan or campaign in accordance with the three factors above and share the budget forecast only on those mediums, you believe are effective and adaptable for your business. Choosing the right mediums is 80% of the work, while 20% is sharing the right message.
In Kathy’s case, even if the company could meet all four pillars mentioned above; following an aggressive social media strategy without a clear objective, - just posting random things - the results would still be disappointing. You might get millions of followers and still have no sales. Social media does not work as a lone strategy and doesn’t give results for every type of industry.
Stop posting daily useless content, or you will have a boomerang effect and make your actual followers unfollow you. Focus more on the other important mediums that might be more adaptable for your niche and industry, and use social media only for brand awareness and education. People do not follow you because you’re being aggressive in posting 172725 times per day, useless crap, but because they want to learn something from you, they love your brand and they love your storytelling.
Social media is all about storytelling. Now get your sh*t together and start working on that content. No more useless ads, or painful promotions. Do you know how to attract more followers? By creating a great brand. After establishing that, all you have to do is share its story and give it a proper voice.
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