Social Media Marketing and the Diet Soda Dilemma
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Social Media Marketing, Social Media Services
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Are you content with the content you’re seeing and/or producing? When it comes to social media marketing, it’s an enduring question that, perhaps because of the pace of social, seldom gets pondered for more than a day. We don’t profess to having the answer to the question that abruptly jolts content producers awake at 3AM, though here’s a cursory introduction to what we do know about content marketing.
CONTENT
First off, it’s not king, so please don’t say that. People say it a lot. When we’re talking about “content marketing”, this is basically advertising messages, delivered in a way that an audience finds palatable (or unpalatable, if you do it wrong).
Who’s the king, then? Distribution. We exist in an era of platforms, so while production is important, it’s nowhere near as important as getting thumbs, eyes, and any other relevant body parts on the content.
Now, when we say Distribution is King, that applies not just to content but also in a general sense. Let’s say you make a new sugar-free soda that is better than Diet Coke (you won’t). Where will you be selling this diet soda? If it’s not at the same venues as Diet Coke – and then some – you’d best prepare yourself to become intimately acquainted with debt and unemployment, friend.
Same goes for content. It doesn’t matter if your latest diet soda GIF has viral potential if nobody sees it. As the old saying goes:
If a GIF loops on the wrong platform, does anybody share it?
There is another aspect to distribution within a social media marketing context. Organic reach [people seeing content without the use of advertising support] used to be around 20 per cent – it is currently closer to two per cent (per SMK). So, even if you are using the right channels – Facey, Insta, what have you – you need to also experiment with budget, and even more important still, get your audience/interest targeting correct.
Which leads us to…
AUDIENCE
Distribution is King. Well, the audience has the potential to overthrow the king. Logic thus dictates that they’re the most important piece in the content marketing jigsaw puzzle.
Let’s say your diet soda makes this thrilling GIF, places it on Facebook (15m Aussies are currently active on it), you put some money behind it, and you select interests like: ‘Luxury Cars’, ‘Finance’, and ‘Real Estate’ – because that’s who you want buying your product: wealthy corporates with (good) taste.
This is incorrect. This is not the audience that wants to see a can dancing about to an EDM soundtrack. What you’re actually looking for is soda fans who are 13 – 30 who enjoy pop culture and Internet-style comedy (it’s safe to assume there are plenty out there).
Content has to firstly relate to the brand and/or product. It then has to be placed correctly (trying to go hard on every platform is also not advised – find your strengths, master the most suitable platform/s, then diversify if you have the resources and reason to). Now it has to be disseminated to the correct audience.
You may be going after multiple audiences, which needs to be addressed. For instance, you can have the aristocrats and the 13 – 30s, but you need to make content to suit these respective audiences, then place it accordingly. A mass-scale beverage is going to have A LOT of different audiences, so you either try to make catch-all content (Coke = emotion) or you go multi-channel with a variety of content styles. By all means, do get in touch with us if you’d like assistance with that strategy.
To recap: The. Correct. Audience. Best get a grasp on that audience before you produce anything, otherwise you’re just making Stuff and Noise, which are the ugly step-siblings of Content.
We’d hate to end on a downer, so here’s a classic bit of evangelical industry content.
Find out about UMM’s social media services here.
Dan Steiner
Featured Image: TIME.
