Are you equipped to engage the world? The five core tactics that all great social marketers use.
We recently presented Engaging the World: Actionable tactics for innovative social strategy at scale at eyeforpharma Barcelona. The global conference brought together leading pharma and life sciences executives to address the era of customer and patient empowerment.
At the conference, Greater Than One CEO Elizabeth Apelles and Community Manager Garrett Schlein led a packed room through the critical role of social media in engaging patient communities. Below are five of the most essential takeaways from our presentation.
(Interested in bringing our Engage the World workshop to your organization? Learn more here.)
Five core tactics for great social at scale:
1. Determine your target network type
All social networks are different in their own way. Having a clear understanding of your targets means you’ll have a better vision for the necessary scale and scope to engage. Niche networks are laser-focused on specific topics, while B2B networks are largely professional in nature. Massive networks have the largest audiences, but also the steepest barriers to entry.
Know your network type, and build a bespoke social strategy appropriate for it.
2. Realistically appraise your current social effectiveness
Are your social efforts merely an offshoot of your marketing, or are they working in lockstep with your brand to deepen overall engagement? Ultimately, great social campaigns come from a mindset of “marketing in the digital world,” which requires a more holistic view of user experience than a channel-based approach.
Analytics can help paint a picture of how integrated your social efforts are. For example, how much of your social audience is engaging with just one or two pieces of content, and how much is engaging extensively? Understanding this balance is key to influencing it.
3. Engage in social listening
Don’t underestimate how enlightening it can be just to see what’s out there. Spend time immersed in the world of your target audience. Observe the community’s preferences, rituals, and tastes. Look for unique terminology, trends, memes, and inside humor.
Understanding community psychographics and behaviors is essential for participating constructively and creating the stickiness that allows for truly global scale.
4. Hammer out your social planning and implementation processes
Without smooth execution, no social strategy can engage the world. Social media moves fast and attention spans are short; you’ll need to produce content efficiently in order to keep it up. Ensure that processes and procedures allow your team to move effectively from development to implementation to review. If you can’t translate the results from your social listening into execution, you’re missing a tremendous opportunity to tailor your campaigns to what your audience seeks.
5. Test, learn, evolve, and optimize.
Let the audience tell you what works — and act on it. Create an actionable, quantitatively driven feedback loop that allows you to transparently understand and evolve campaigns and content.
Incorporate social best practices and creative tactics to elevate your content from competitors while driving engagement
