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With many of us finally starting to get a handle on social media and how to maximize its use, marketing has once again been turned on its head. The role of the social-media marketer is changing to focus less on day-to-day channel management and more on content strategy, creation, and promotion. What does this mean for brands, and more importantly, what does it look like?
The Changing Nature of Social Media — Touching All Phases of the Customer Journey
As social matures, we are starting to see organizations more readily accept and embrace it. Brands that originally pushed it under the umbrella of digital marketing are now realizing a social strategy done well can have a positive impact on their customer base. Originally, social media was at the top of the marketing funnel; it worked well as a means to get people interested. Today, social is not just driving awareness, but it is actually pulling people deeper into the brand. Sure, customers will continue to engage across their journeys with brands, but engagement is no longer limited to a single stage in the process. Instead, it is taking place at many different phases throughout the customer journey.
Building the Customer Experience vs. Managing Channels
What impact does the changing nature of social have on brands? For one thing, an increase in digital channels has made everything real-time. Advancements in technology are taking place at the same time consumers and their expectations are shifting dramatically. Today’s consumers, no longer satisfied with just learning about brands, want a personalized experience. They expect brands to know who they are, what they want, and in some cases, help them understand why they want it. The bottom line? The expectation for a seamless, personalized experience is starting to drive how organizations set themselves up to manage these new realities.
Brands are realizing the channel-up approach is no longer working. It is a better strategy to place campaigns and content with the right message first. This way, channels are identified based on customers — where they are in the journey and how they are engaging with the brand. A planned shift needs to take place where brands move toward building the customer experience versus simply managing channels.
Content Marketing or Social Media?
Is there a difference between content marketing and social media? Where siloed channels were once creating their own content, content is now being pulled to the center and pushed out as needed across channels for a more unified message. The result has been reduced redundancy, reduced cost, and more brand consistency across channels. Smart brands are realizing that none of this can be achieved if content marketing is sitting by itself, operating separately.
Looking to the Future — Driving Customized Content
We are likely to see social data and measurement used and considered across marketing more so than in the past. When we talk about measurement, we are talking about the ability to tie social activity to the rest of marketing while understanding its unique impact. This means pulling data from different sources and viewing it side by side to understand events and how to optimize strategy using those insights.
Tools in the social space will make the process easier, giving brands more actionable insight to help drive content out to their customer bases. Understanding the user, while identifying triggers for success for each piece of content and mapping those two together, will build a better experience for the customer. Viewing the customer holistically and matching data to strategy will help brands optimize customer experience more effectively.
Heidi Besik is a group product marketing manager for Adobe Social
This article originally appeared at Adobe’s Digital Marketing Blog.
