What’s Been Keeping Brands Busy

The growth of social channels like Facebook, Twitter etc., the proliferation of newbies like Pinterest, and the comeback of the almost-obsolete MySpace, indicates that marketers are spoiled for choice when it comes to social platforms. In fact, in 2011, US marketers spent $3.08 billion only for advertising on social networks, proving just how indispensible social media has become for marketing.

Curiosity piqued, Thismoment investigated what brands have been doing on social media. Here’s what we found:

• In 2011, approximately 47% businesses worldwide successfully used social media for customer acquisition (eMarketer)
• While customer acquisition and lead generation were among the top marketing goals for online marketers in 2012, 20% planned on using social media to increase brand awareness (Global Spec).
• According to recent research, 59% SMBs cited brand awareness as the top reason for using social media.

The above research indicates that today’s brands are looking to more than just sell their products/services on social networks. Having studied the modern consumer, marketers have understood that social media is all about people and relationships. To win in this space, they need to balance between those necessary promotions, and campaigns that increase brand visibility and awareness. Brands need to design social content that sounds less like a sales pitch; and this involves doing something different, such as creating awareness campaigns.

Benefits of Awareness Campaigns

• Generate Visibility: People cannot engage with your brand if they don’t know it exists. This is where awareness campaigns come into picture. They generate visibility by telling your brand’s story and expanding its reach. E.g.: The YouTube channel (powered by Thismoment’s DEC platform) for Brazilian multinational diversified metals and mining corporation, Vale, generates visibility for the company by featuring content that tells users what Vale is all about, their history, achievements etc. For those who don’t know much about Vale, this is a great place to start.
• Create Trust-Based Relationships: Awareness campaigns create trust-based relationships with prospective customers by enabling them to learn more about the brand before proceeding to connect with it and checking out the products.

Creating Awareness Campaigns

Considering its viral nature, social media is perfect for raising brand awareness online. However, before creating content for awareness campaigns, here are some things marketers should keep in mind:

• Set Your Goals: An important rule of marketing, and it applies here as well. Marketers need to first understand the level of awareness they wish to achieve. As a marketer, do you want to:

a) Increase the buzz surrounding your brand?
b) Change the current perception/sentiment about your brand into something better?
c) Attract/acquire new customers?
d) Strengthen existing customer relationships?


• Establish an Emotional Connection: When it comes to awareness campaigns, marketers can take a leaf out of P&G’s social media marketing book. Through their “Thank You Mom” YouTube campaign, P&G does a great job of emotionally connecting with their intended audience i.e. mothers. What can marketers learn from this?
• It’s not always about selling: Consumers are wary of brands that use social media to broadcast their products/services all the time. To establish trust-based relationships with consumers, brands need to connect with them first.
• Emotionally connecting with customers is great for brand loyalty: Consumers are looking for ways to emotionally associate with brands via social media. As seen in the case of P&G, emotionally connected customers have greater brand loyalty because they truly to believe in the brand.
• Emotionally connected consumers are more likely to spread the word about your brand: Emotions are a driving force behind people talking about your brand, sharing content, posting reviews on social networks etc. It’s no secret that moments and not pushy promotional messages firmly cement your brand in consumers’ minds.
• Go Subtle on the Sales Talk: While social media is a great platform for engaging with customers, the truth is, marketers also want to see measurable results. Social media can be used to sell…provided you’re subtle with the sales talk. The key is to package promotional content in the form of interesting, engaging, interactive content.

Conclusion

Businesses looking to win in today’s highly competitive social marketing space know how crucial it is to cement their brands in consumers’ minds. Today’s consumers have little patience with content that sounds like sales pitch and are more likely to recall marketing messages they can connect with. Considering this, it’s encouraging to see brands focus more on increasing awareness and visibility than simply promoting/selling something on social networks. Success with social media marketing involves looking beyond the sales talk and focusing on building brand awareness. Once this is done, the results/returns will invariably follow.

- Shama Ahmed
Thismoment

Andrew Sielen

Contributor Bio:

Follow: