The Role of Social Media in Business and Marketing Strategy
It is too easy to overemphasize the role of social media to the neglect of other facets of business and marketing strategy. After all, social media is a hot topic and is inherently interesting. But if not placed into its proper context, three negative results are possible:
1. To view social media as marketing strategy (vs. part of marketing strategy).
2. To view it as a business cure-all.
3. To believe that social media effort is the same as social media effectiveness.
Here are 2 practical tips to keep social media in perspective:
TIP 1. Position social media as just one piece of marketing strategy (and more specifically, as one piece of an inbound marketing strategy.)
In a recent presentation, VP of Marketing Mike Volpe at Hubspot, a leading provide of inbound marketing software, made these points about social media:
- Social media is not magic.
- If you are boring in real life, you will be boring in social media.
- It is just one of many tools.
- It works best as part of a balanced marketing strategy.
TIP 2. Put content strategy ahead of social media
Joe Pulizzi, content marketing author and founder of content matching site Junta42, has been preaching this for some time.
His blog post Five Reasons why Content Strategy comes before Social Media contains sage advice. Reason number 1 is:
"Social media does not work unless you have something valuable to say! Developing a content marketing strategy is about understanding your customers' pain points, and then delivering multi-channel content that solves those customer challenges. Without having something to add to the customer conversation, how is it possible to leverage social media tools where you can help guide the conversation and position your brand/company as a trusted advisor?"
Joe shares this comment from Shama Kabani's book The Zen of Social Media Marketing, and it argues why social media marketing comes last:"... your content... needs to exist separately from social media, and be based on solid planning and execution, so that social media can amplify it."
Social media is a powerful tool that needs to be placed into the context of an overarching business strategy and a multi-faceted marketing strategy.
(Photo credit: Matt Hamm)
Mission: To help small and mid-size businesses capture the power of big-picture marketing.