Social media is what people check the first thing in the morning and the last thing before they sleep, and many times in-between. With 44.6 million internet users in Pakistan, it is becoming a fast growing medium that brands are not taking full advantage of – yet. Marketers need to realise that the digital space deserves great attention and a marketing budget of its own. The problem is they don’t know how to go about devising a campaign for this fast growing, yet unexplored territory for a higher ROI.
In this post we explore at a few tips that will lead you on the right path in the realm of digital marketing.
1- Plan, plan, plan
Sound obvious, but it is not a common practice among starters. Just starting on social media marketing is not good enough. Because of not pouring in on this step many social media marketers shut down quicker than they started because they don’t know the steps to make it work. You need to know where you want to go to choose the right path to reach there. Once you have a map of that, if there are any roadblocks you will know the alternative route to achieve the same.
2- Define your brand personality and stick to It:
It is very easy as marketers to let the creative ideas take over the brand personality. Tempting as it may be, as a brand you should always be mindful of your brand personality and what it stands for. When you are starting your business, it is important to take time out to get this step right because this will make or break your brand.
3- Tell local stories that your audience can connect with
Tell stories that speaks to the audience, not at them. This is not just about translating them in urdu and thinking your job is done; this is all about cultural relevance and the tonality. A brand should not just promote a me-first attitude. When you are on social media it is imperative that you create content that connects with you audience and at the same time is the right space for your brand. It is worth noting here that just adding a hashtag to your campaign will not guarantee success, that hashtag needs to part of a bigger story.
4- Video content trumps the rest
A picture is worth a thousand words, but a one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words (Forrester Research). By 2020, online videos will make up more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic according to Cisco. That’s a lot of eyeballs on your brand. This point deserves a blog post of its own, but just to summarize it in one line ‘video content does not equal TVCs’. Social media requires its own creative content that engage consumers in new ways. And every social media platform requires its own edit of it. Posting the same update on all social networks and having the same plan for all will not help your goals.
5- Know your medium to extract the maximum out of it
This is a no brainer for Pakistan. There are 4.75 million internet users in Pakistan. 32 million users are on Facebook, 3.5 million people are active on Twitter, and 5.20 million monthly active Instagram users. All these platforms have a different speak, so a one-size-fits-all approach is not the best one to talk about your brand. For example, you would not have a print ad up on a billboard as is. Why? Because it’s a different medium which follows a different set of rules.
In a campaign, the words need to be limited (Twitter), the visual needs to be captivating for fleeting set of eyes (Instagram), and the message needs to be worth talking about (Facebook).
6- Go the extra mile
In today’s world where everyone is a critic and everything experience talk about in forums it is important that you have a quick response rate. Most of the queries and complaints will come you through the mediums you are active on, if you respond to them in a smart why you can turn complaints into compliments. Show your audience that you care about their experience and are working towards improving it.
7- Monitor your competitors
Don’t try to copy them your audience will smell that out and call it. The idea is to know how they are doing things. Look at:
- What they post
- Who they follow
- Who follow them
- When they post
- How frequent they post
- What’s their headline and call-to-action
- Their hit posts
Learn what works for them to know what your audience is looking for. Use the data and learnings to devise a strategy to get better results.
Every brand has their own unique story. It is critical to remember that there is a lot of content out there and you are fighting for attention from an audience that has a decreasing attention span. If your content is not planned, defined, moulded to your audience and speaking their language, then you are losing out on a fantastic opportunity.
