Here’s a depressing reality for most marketers: 99% of brand-created content generates little to no engagement on social media. It turns out that most people have better things to do than like, share or comment on product-related posts, which means the vast majority of your social media and content marketing efforts are falling on deaf ears. So what’s a savvy marketer to do? Join the 1% of marketers doing well with social by following these six “newish” rules.
Don’t Try to Turn Social Into Direct Marketing
Content that you share on social channels or elsewhere becomes a lot more appealing to your target and a lot more effective to the marketer when the emphasis shifts from what you want to sell to what value you can provide. This means not trying to measure the effectiveness of (organic) social media on its ability to generate leads or close a sale, and instead focusing on metrics that primarily address current customer needs, and, secondarily, the interests of your prospects. As such, indirect metrics can chart meaningful progress. Shares, likes & positive comments can be bundled into a brand health metric such as “favorability.” Overall reach can be linked to awareness, while clicks on content are an initial indication of consideration.
