There are different social media channels and platforms that can be used to reach customers. The different social media strategies that were previously selected were Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. These social media platforms are to be used to enhance the social media presence of a company. While the social media presence can create new opportunities for the expression of a company, it also creates a new opportunity for responsibilities. This necessitates the establishment of a social media policy. The policy marks the first step to establishing how social media will be used to enhance the brand and awareness of a company. The purpose of this social media policy is to establish the platforms that will be used, the type of content that will be posted, the personnel tasked with posting the content, and other general responsibilities that should guide building a social media presence.
Definition of Social Media Platforms
The social media platforms that were identified for the creation of a social media strategy were Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. The basis of choosing these social media platforms was on their audience reach and the various features that would be used to interact with others. Facebook is the leading social media platform in terms of the number of users. It provides specific features that the company can make use of which include website retargeting and ads that reach a specific target market and audience. Facebook is a robust platform that can be used to convert sales (Buhalis & Mamalakis, 2015). Additionally, Facebook offers an interactive feature that can be used to interact with customers.
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The next social media platform that will be used is Instagram. Instagram is a platform that favors users of the younger age group. It provides a company a chance to be creative by posting interesting and creative visual content. Instagram also makes use of hashtags that can be used to enhance the brand and reach of a company.
Twitter is a social media platform that works through mini-blogging by allowing users to only post content that have limited characters. The platform has become increasingly popular through the use of trends. The company expects to use Twitter to follow up and stay with the latest trends. The use of hashtags will also enable the company to reach a wider audience. Twitter will also provide a platform for the company to interact with customers by answering customer questions.
YouTube is a social media platform where users can post video content. There are approximately 300 hours of video that are uploaded via the platform every minute. The company can make use of YouTube by creating an AdWords account and posting advertisement of various video content. YouTube will also be used by the company to provide explanatory videos regarding the company’s products and services.
Purpose of Social Media
The company has several reasons for creating a social media presence. One of the first initiatives is to use social media to market the company’s products and services. Having a social media presence will mean that the company has access to a wider audience and this will ensure that its marketing initiatives are a success. Promotions and social media campaigns will be used as a marketing strategy. Marketing promotions will be used in order to create a social media presence. A social media presence will provide a strong marketing foundation and this should generate leads and drive sales up.
Having a social media presence will be used to interact with both customers and stakeholders of the company. The social media audience will be engaged through the sharing of company news, events, employee highlights, press releases, and other company information. The company will strive to create engaging social content to ensure that the company can grow its audience and reach a huge number of potential customers. This should be used to increase brand awareness and to generate a community around the company’s brand.
Intended Results
The intended results for the social media campaign will vary and will be based on the different social media platforms. The intended results for Facebook is to have likes and to build referrals through network. In order to do this, the company will strive to establish an online social network, increase customer engagement, increase brand recognition, and improve the search rankings of the brand.
The intended results for having an Instagram account is to have a strong brand image. The company also expects to have an increased following on the platform. This will be achieved through posting creative content, interacting with users, and posting frequently.
The outcome for using Twitter is to have a high number of followers and have the company trends. The company should be able to trend on various topics and issues relating to its products and services. The company will do this by establishing a social media presence, engaging with customers, and formulating creative trends through hashtags that should be used to improve the company’s visibility.
The outcome for using YouTube is that the company should have increased video views, video engagement, and several videos used to associate it with its brand. In order to achieve this, the company will have a team that should create and post YouTube videos and engage with customers through the video posts.
Development and Maintenance When Posting
The development and maintenance of the different social media platforms will vary depending on the platforms. Facebook will involve the creation of a company page by providing company details and ensuring consistency with other platforms. The next step will involve producing and posting interactive content, using ads, and having sponsored stories. One should post questions and like and comment on other relevant posts. The entire work will take approximately 2-3 hours daily.
Twitter will involve the creation of an account by adding company details. One should then make use of hashtags, retweeting other user’s contents, commenting on tweets, and answering company questions. The strategy will be to increase the number of followers. The entire work should take approximately 2 hours daily.
Instagram will involve creation of an Instagram account and adding company details. One should then create interactive images and post at least one image daily. One should then spend time to interact with other users on the platform. The entirety of this activities should take about 2 hours daily.
For YouTube one will create a YouTube channel and place company details. The next step will involve creation of video content and adding them to the channel. The video content could involve adding video testimonials and reviews. This work should also take a minimum of 2 hours every day.
Types of Content (Messaging and Content)
The different types of content that will be used by the company will be interactive content, visual content, user-generated content, and positive content. Interactive content is a content that provides viewers and readers of a social media post to do more than simply viewing, commenting, and liking but to have them take further action such as clicking through the content. Such an interactive content should enable the audience to get more involved and spend more time when interacting with the post (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). Some of the types of interactive content that will be used include contests, polls, quizzes, and questions and answers.
Visual content will involve the use of images to engage the audience in an engaging and visual format. It will include the use of images that have educational and inspiring text, infographics, and branded images that promote audio and video content. The use of visual content should be used to deliver vital company information in an engaging and visual way. Visual content has a higher impact on the human mind and should be used to get more views for the company’s page on social media (Jaakonmäki, Müller, & Vom Brocke, 2017.).
User-generated content will involve having various customers and other social media users generate content through impressions and engagement. The company will create this content by making use of story contests, caption contests, review contests, and hashtag contests. These contests will be based on having viewers share content about the company and the content that becomes the most creative or has the highest number of likes gets rewarded. This will be a way to encourage users to generate content related to the company so as to encourage an improvement in the company’s social media presence.
The nature of content that the company will also promote is positive and emotional. The company will strive to have its content evoke emotions in people. Positive emotions include emotions such as laughter, amusement, and awe that make people want to share the company’s content. The use of humor and captivating quotes should be used to captivate the audience in order to make them desire to share the company’s content (D’heer, 2018).
Personnel
The individuals that will be responsible for posting the social media content will be social media specialists and a social media manager. The function of the social media manager will be to administer the social media marketing and advertising of the company. They will be responsible for the deliberate planning, setting of strategies, and setting of goals for the social media campaign. They should analyze the company’s social media strategy to determine whether it is working and make changes to the strategy. They will also be responsible for supervising social media analysts to ensure that they are working towards the goals and objective of the social media goals that were established.
Social media specialists will be responsible for the actual posting and execution of the social media strategy. The specialists will first have a solid understanding of the working of different social media channels and understand how to create content that is engaging. They will be responsible for joining relevant conversations on various social media platforms and post on behalf of the company. They should generate, publish, edit, and share content daily on various social media platforms so as to build meaningful connections and encourage community members to take action (Felix, Rauschnabel, & Hinsch, 2017). They should be responsible for the analysis and capturing of social media analytics and data metrics then take action based on the information. They should also collaborate with other departments such as the sales and customer relations department in order to create a more effective strategy for the company.
Conduct of Social Media Specialists
The social media specialists should abide by a code of conduct that has been established by the company as follows. The social media should be a place where one should have conversations and build meaningful connections. One should ensure that engagement in social is a way to have conversations instead of pushing their agenda. The company has always strived to connect with customers and social media is a tool to better engage with customers.
When engaging in social media, the company’s information that is private and confidential should not be shared to customers. While the company encourages the sharing of information and connecting with people on social media, it expects that one should protect the company information. One should thus be careful with the sensitivity and the nature of information that is shared across social media platforms as it will be impossible to remove that information completely.
One should ensure that the nature of the content follows all the code of conduct of the company and does not break any laws. Social media lets one to communicate fast and messages can go viral in a few seconds. This can make it difficult to make corrections on messages that have been shared. One should thus double check all the content that they share to ensure that it is accurate and that it fits into the Code of Conduct and the social media strategies of the company. The social media specialists should hold themselves with high ethical standards as the nature of the content that they post will be the face of the company on social media.
One should show responsibility with the use of social media. In case a customer asks questions regarding a subject that you are unfamiliar with, the question should be transferred to the right personnel. One should also understand that they should not speak on behalf of the company when they are not providing an official company response. One should let the users know that you are simply an agent for the company.
Conclusion
The social media policy was created to act as a guidance on the use of social media. The different social media platforms that were selected were Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Social media specialists will be responsible for handling of the different social media accounts. The specialists should abide by the company’s code of conduct in relation to positive, they should post the nature of content required by the company, and ensure that the specific social media channels grow in engagement and reach.
References
Ashley, C., & Tuten, T. (2015). Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing , 32 (1), 15-27.
Buhalis, D., & Mamalakis, E. (2015). Social media return on investment and performance evaluation in the hotel industry context. In Information and communication technologies in tourism 2015 (pp. 241-253). Springer, Cham.
D’heer, E. (2018). Media Logic Revisited. The Concept of Social Media Logic as Alternative Framework to Study Politicians’ Usage of Social Media During Election Times. In Media Logic (s) Revisited (pp. 173-194). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P. A., & Hinsch, C. (2017). Elements of strategic social media marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research , 70 , 118-126.
Jaakonmäki, R., Müller, O., & Vom Brocke, J. (2017, January). The impact of content, context, and creator on user engagement in social media marketing. In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii international conference on system sciences .
