By Dena Garvin-Smart, Director of New Opportunities
At Southland Data Processing, we love to create magic for our clients, partners, employees and community through our social media channels. Social media is a vital component to any marketing and advertising strategy. We leverage this platform to engage, captivate, and build meaningful connections with our audience.
Our social media strategy at Southland Data Processing is so successful for us, that I thought I would share some of our creative insight and strategies to help you infuse some magic into your own marketing efforts.
Develop a Strategy – Know what you want to accomplish with your social media strategy. Do you want more sales? Do need to recruit new employees? Is your business launching into a new market? Do you want to increase brand recognition or affinity for your brand? Maybe it’s all of these?
Whatever the goal is, define it first and foremost. The goal may change frequently. Nevertheless, organize your thoughts about the business purpose for your posts. Consider filling in these blanks as you formulate the process:
- “I am running this social campaign because I want to ____________________.”
- “My target audience is ___________________________.”
- “My social posts promote my brand image by _____________________________.”
Consistent Branding – Maintain a consistent brand identity across all social media platforms. From visuals to tone, consistency builds brand recognition and trust.
Create Compelling Visual Content – Invest in high-quality visual content including images, infographics and videos. Visuals have a powerful impact and can help your business stand out in social media feeds. Consider investing in photo equipment that takes still and video images rather than always using a smartphone. The quality and capacity is better for large projects too.
- My Pro Tip: Create a social media brand. Use a specific format, image, colorizations and theme that promotes your overall business brand. Use a “Sprinkle” strategy that combines multiple posts throughout the day comprised of a variety of messages that includes: product, culture, employees, clients, seasonal images, BLOG announcements, events, community happenings, news alerts, and light-hearted imagery.
User-Generated Content Campaigns – Encourage your audience to create and share content related to your products or services. This not only fosters community engagement but also provides authentic endorsements of your brand.
- My Pro Tip: Encourage employees to contribute content. Your team will have great ideas! These pictures and captions may include work-related events such as happenings around the office, promotions or an award. Great content also includes life events such as a graduation, wedding, sports, an anniversary…it’s endless!
Interactive Content – Create polls, quizzes, contests, and interactive posts to encourage active participation from your audience. Engagement boosts visibility and builds a sense of involvement with your brand.
Go Behind the Scenes – Share glimpses of your businesses, whether it’s the production process, team activities, or day-to-day operations. This humanizes your brand and fosters a connection with your audience. It’s interesting!
Storytelling – Craft compelling and authentic stories about your brand, products, or team members. Share success stories, customer testimonials, or narratives that resonate with your audience on an emotional level.
Influencer Collaborations – Partner with influencers, vendors, or industry experts relevant to your business. Their endorsement and reach can introduce your brand to a wider audience and bring a touch of magic through association.
Video Events – Host live events, recorded video announcements, or edited videos for products, holidays and more. Videos provide a greater level of entertainment and live events create a sense of immediacy that also encourages real-time interaction.
- My Pro Tip: Consider social channel video content’s relationship to the overall social brand campaign. Make sure it’s on brand, topic, theme and objective. Be sure to also create a YouTube channel to post the videos and link to your website. This gives your video content expanded life and value.
Themed Campaigns & Challenges – Develop themed campaigns or challenges that align with your brand. Encourage users to participate and share their experiences, creating a buzz around your products and services.
Embrace Trends & Viral Content – Stay attuned to social media trends and capitalize on viral content. Be agile and creative in integrating your brand into ongoing conversations and trends. Check out trending hashtags and add them to your posts.
- My Pro Tip: Use a Social Media Management Platform – Hootsuite, for example, is a very easy system to support social posting integrations and scheduling on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest, YouTube and TikTok. By using Hootsuite’s AI, you can easily access the latest trending hashtags for your topic, best times to post, get suggested captions and more. Plus, the reporting analytics will provide important insight into how well your posts and campaigns are performing.
Exclusive Social Media Offers – Provide exclusive discounts, promotions, or giveaways to your social media followers. This not only rewards your current audience but also encourages new users to follow and engage with your brand.
Engage with User Comments – Actively respond to comments, messages, and mentions on your social media profiles. Engaging with your audience humanizes your brand and fosters a sense of community.
- My Pro Tip: Communicating with your audience provides an experience so be sure to use correct grammar, spelling and keep the exchange positive and on brand. This written correspondence should be treated with great respect because it is a public forum. Refrain from sharing confidential information or engaging in any heightened exchange.
Create a Branded Hashtag – Develop a unique and memorable hashtag that aligns with your business. Encourage your audience to use it when sharing content related to your products and services.
Spotlights – Showcase your customers and community by featuring them in your content. This could include testimonials, success stories, life events and more. Doing so creates a positive brand image and fosters loyalty.
Educational Content – Share valuable and educational content related to your industry. Position your business as an expert, providing tips, tutorials, or insights that resonate with your audience.
Website – Your website is the first place an interested client (for example) will visit after seeing your fabulous social posts. Make sure your website is integrated into your social strategy. Both the website and social posts should “feel” the same. Dedicate some website space to social content and change it often…at least weekly, if not more.
- My Pro Tip: The SDP website is an important part of our social strategy. Visit our MOMENT page to experience how we integrate our social channels to give non social-followers a similar experience and how we’ve created our own social brand campaign that we affectionally refer to as, “MOMENT by SDP.”
Flattery! – Follow others, comment, like and share. Connect with clients, vendors, industry experts, community groups, non-profit organizations, etc. When you interact with others’ posts with positivity and encouragement, they are more likely to do the same for you.
By incorporating these ideas into your social media strategy, you can create a sense of magic around your business, fostering engagement, enchantment, loyalty, and positive perceptions amongst your audience. Adapt these suggestions based on your industry, target audience, and overall brand identity. Lastly…please know that the social space changes fast! Be sure to keep up with it by following others and staying informed.
As an experienced payroll partner, Southland Data Processing also offers support to help keep payroll processing organized, compliant and accurate. Clients can expect to have access to a variety of resources, training and educational webinars to stay current with the latest news and information.
Our payroll professionals assist our clients with payroll, workforce management, benefits administration, and human resources needs. To get started or learn more about these solutions, simply contact us today.
We also invite you to meet with us today for a complimentary HR consultation and to learn how we can support objectives, overcome challenges, and address issues quickly and accurately.
For more information about our payroll services, please contact our payroll professionals at 909.946.2032. Or, click here and Let’s Talk!
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*Southland Data Processing, Inc. (“SDP”) is not a law firm. This article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon in reaching a conclusion in a particular area of law. Applicability of the legal principles discussed may differ substantially in individual situations. Receipt of this or any other SDP materials does not create an attorney-client relationship. SDP is not responsible for any inadvertent errors that may occur in the publishing process.