Social media has been at the cornerstone of reaching new clients as well as maintaining relationships with current and lapsed customers. The art of social media marketing can be a difficult one but if mastered correctly, can come with great rewards.
As the new generations grow up with the use of the internet and digitisation, their source for news, information and opinions is increasingly becoming social media based. In such case, the effectiveness of social media marketing is only prone to increasing over time. Marketers have thus flocked to using social media to relay their brands in the best light from early, allowing them the foundations for brand exposure and awareness. If you’re not on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, you are already behind industry standards.
It’s become increasingly common to develop social media awareness to the point where utilising social media for advertising alone is insufficient. Brands must develop strategies to make sure they are reaching out to new clients efficiently and effectively, where just creating accounts and posting some content won’t do enough. Social media marketing requires an evolving strategy with measurable goals and smart timelines and includes:
- Effectively optimising profiles.
- Creating pictures, videos, stories relevant for your target audience to represent your brand.
- Engaging with followers, past clients, and prospects.
- Following prospects, building a community through engagement and collaboration.
- Paid advertising to reach large volumes of specifically targeted users.
The importance of effective social media marketing
Despite the hard work that is required to maintain an effective social media presence, the facts speak for themselves:
- The average social media user worldwide spends 2.4 hours per day on social media.
- 54% of B2B marketers say they generate leads from social media and have done so successfully in the past.
- 80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn
Evidently, the potential rewards for effective social media marketing speak for themselves. Yet only 26% of companies integrate social media into their business strategies.
This is because most companies have either failed in the past in their attempt to penetrate the social media market or they fail to understand the strategies required to effectively advertise their business through social media.
This is exactly where the 80/20 social media content rule comes into play.
What is the 80/20 rule?
The 80/20 rule indicates that 80% of social media posts should be useful to an audience. This includes content that would aid prospects in their day-to-day lives or attempt to solve a problem. This can include a form of education, entertainment or solution-based posts given an identified problem within the demographic. Moreover, only 20% of posts should explicitly aim to promote your services, products, and the like.
Why is the 80/20 rule so effective?
When planning a marketing strategy, one of the main goals is to view from the perspective of prospects. People don’t go on social media to see advertisements. They login when they’re bored or have free time and usually have a goal in mind. This goal varies but can include entertainment, distraction, education, inspiration, or simply information that can either improve their life or fulfil curiosities. According to a report by Global Web Index, finding “funny and entertaining” content is the number one reason for using social media, followed by the desire to “fill up spare time.”.
Source: Brand Muscle
So, if your customers login to social media with the aim of finding funny and entertaining content and all they can find is brand advertisement, they won’t engage. Rather, this can build animosity and a negative view on your brand if it’s associated with too much money-making tactics.
But giving your audience free entertainment, educating content, or simply giving your audience what they want can be good but what about your business? How can you reap the benefits? The 80/20 rule can help with that too.
Posting promotional content 20% of the time will mean users are not only more likely to act on your message but they are also more accepting of your advertisements. As relationship-building content is so much more prominent in a profile, the occasional advertisement here and there will maintain the attention of your audience in the long-term and build a sustainable relationship increasing brand loyalty.
Most importantly, posting about products, sales, discount offers, and “special” promotions too often takes out the speciality from them. Users begin to tune out and it becomes habitual to ignore / disregard your posts irrespective of their importance.
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