Implementing Social Community Management (also known as C&C) works to further a businesses’ brand awareness and generate conversions. While it’s imperative to expand your advertising channels, it is equally important to dedicate time to organically growing your social media fan base. This is becoming increasingly important in a COVID-world. Raconteur’s Future of Retail Report speaks of a surge in social media use during the peak of the pandemic. The report further details how this influx has impacted consumer behaviour and online retail, stating: “nearly 11 million UK shoppers will [have discovered] a product on social media in 2020.” Australia and New Zealand have experienced similar changes, both this year and last. So, with social media use on the up, it’s more important than ever to create an online voice and an online audience.
By building a social media following — and by consistently communicating with that following — the more likely you are to sell to that following. You are essentially creating a more engaged, more informed and more loyal customer base, that has a higher propensity to buy from your business.
What is Social Community & Content Management?
Social Community & Content Management (C&C) combines social media content creation and social media management, with the overall goal of improving a brands’ mental availability, influence and popularity.
Management
Social media management is the strategy and execution that dictates what type of content is published, when that content is published and where it is published. This management ensures business goals drive any content intended for social media consumption. Effective management incorporates market research and trends research (including Google Analytics), performance analysis, stakeholder relations and publication scheduling.
Social media management should always focus on three key goals:
- Improving account visibility, accessibility and usability
- Generating community reach and engagement
- The distribution of content
Content creation
While social media management is the behind-the-scenes execution of content delivery, brand growth and strategy, content creation is the process of sourcing, creating and disseminating different types of visual media. There are different content types, as well as different types of intent behind every piece of content.
Organic content
“Organic” refers to the type of content that does not utilise advertising dollars, but instead relies on free social media tools to build and publish. This content can take many forms, including image-based posts, videos and blog posts. There is a cornucopia of organic media types to choose from.
Value-based intent & promotional intent
As alluded to previously, your organic content should have certain intentions, which ensures anything you publish is value-based. The sole purpose of value-based content is to inspire, educate and entertain your audience. Users are much more likely to engage with (and share) content they find value in. Examples of these intent types are everywhere:
Lacoste cleverly uses this post of actress Melanie Thierry, with the intention of inspiring followers to ‘get her look.’
Fiji Airways offers a great example of how a blog post can drive engagement. The primary intent of this post is education, with the added bonus of being an entertaining read in itself. Of course, this post drives traffic back to Fiji Airway’s website.
The more engagement your value-based content receives, the more likely the Facebook algorithm will work in your favour and serve a higher majority of your content to social media users. This is key: it means your followers are more likely to see your promotional content and convert as a result.
Content that inspires, educates and entertains should make up 70-80 per cent of your overall media, with 20-30 per cent being promotional. Promotional content is any content that, as the name suggests, presents users with a promotional offer.
Paid content
Once your organic content is generating healthy levels of engagement, it’s time to amplify its exposure. This is when businesses should push advertising dollars into original, organic content. By boosting and sponsoring popular posts, you are able to reach more followers. What is more, you can capture users who are similar to your current fan base.
Boosting and sponsoring posts is different to paid advertising, in that the former utilises pre-existing posts. By boosting and sponsoring original, organic posts, you are strengthening your marketing mix. Are you running dynamic remarketing and prospecting ads on Facebook and Instagram? If so, supplementing these with organic and boosted content is extremely effective.
What are the benefits of Social Community & Content Management?
In implementing an effective social media content strategy, businesses greatly improve their community exposure. With the right management and content creation, social media users can go from fans and followers to active buyers. By expanding your social media footprint, you are growing your community and you audience. The bigger community you have, the more people you can to sell to. The bottom line is this: social media is the vehicle for a huge paradigm shift in consumer behaviour and it’s a shift that retailers must capitalise on — or else risk being left behind.
If you want to learn more about C&C, please contact one of us.
