Skill session: #Nobody_Cares_About_Hashtags Anymore

Our Social Media Manager had her 15 minutes of fame, plus Q&A, during this week’s skill session where she walked us through Social Media in a nutshell: why it matters in a company full of developers and engineers, and how, combined with coding and AI it can create and grow great, beautiful products.

The fact is that the massive amount of info, data & the ongoing tech innovations make our attention span shallow & people become easily distracted and lose interest if one does not stay fresh and dope.

So, why is social media still a thing and how do you stay relevant?

It is still a thing because social media gives people an online voice and puts them on the same scale of the balance with brands and companies (the big fishes of the pond).

You stay relevant, fresh and dope, by becoming your target audience ‘best friend’: By researching and studying their 5-Ws’:

• Who: Who do I want to be found by and who do I want to reach? Who else is tackling the same or similar goals and people?
• What does my target audience like to see? What are the competitors doing?: Quality over quantity, better to share nicely curated content than post after post.
• How: What type of captions do they like? How much do you need to say to keep them engaged?
• When: What are the timeframes when they are most active? What global, key events do I need to keep up with?
• Where: Which social media platform serves my purpose best? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn…

What are other fields influenced by social media?

1. User Testing: First and foremost, people. Of course, social media would not be social without people, and any personal account or business profile depends on how well they understand and interact with people or users. Every person who is active on SM creates their online identity & hence, their own brand by the type of content they select to post & the content they select to like & share.
2. Marketing: Business, marketing, and advertisement help consumers to know the different products in the market so that they can make their choices according to their needs.
3. User Experience: Comments, reviews, and messages are that key points where potential new followers/ consumers/ users decide on whether to trust you or not. What they have to say about their own experience as well as seeing how you engage and communicate with other people.
4. Innovation: With social media, you cannot forever follow the same pattern. You can keep using the basic things that are working from the beginning, but you also need to add and try out new elements, as well as getting rid of techniques that may not be serving you for the best.

What are the main elements of SM?

• Identity: You create your username, you set your motto, and then you show what you are giving to the public: Describe your business. Plus, you let people know where to find you by providing address, website, contact info.
• Audience: You define who is your target audience, and then you research what are the hashtags, the type of mentions and the key locations that they check-in too frequently so that you can become their own target.
• Analytics: You pick 3 key metrics and measure them consistently. You don’t want to get lost in the non-stop incoming data and analytics that are coming as you post content, so you need to keep a minimalistic consistency.
• Humanization: Social Media brings the voice to users and consumers, but brands need social media to show the users how they are going to feel identified through them.

So, what do coding and SM have in common?

In both fields, you will eventually bump into bugs: in this case, fake followers, dead-end hashtags and time-wasting content. You will also need to push updates on your workflow: adapt to new algorithms and new in-app features.

Stay up to date with us through our Instagram & Facebook! We have weekly skill sessions and attend or take part of network and career events often :)
You can also have a look at our current vacancies at our website or on our LinkedIn.