Expanding Your Reach and Engagement with a Holistic and Cohesive Approach to Marketing
Many companies are looking for ways to get their audience more engaged with the brand. Social media is a great way to get audiences interacting more with your brand, but social media integration goes beyond jumping on trends or using industry buzzwords. It’s about creating a social-led brand that incorporates social media into every part of your brand and campaigns.
What is Social Media Integration and Its Benefits?
Social media integration focuses on engaging and having conversations with their target audience. It’s a synergistic way of finding more ways to build brand loyalty and attract new customers. Instead of social media being just another spoke of your marketing strategy, it becomes the foundation of that strategy. This means going beyond just posting social media content and integrating your socials into all of your other channels, for example: your brand’s website, email marketing campaigns, CRM software, ecommerce software, and customer service software.
By integrating your socials into your other platforms, you are providing more touch points for customers to interact with your brand. It can also help spread your brand to a larger audience. For example, if you include social share buttons on your website or blog, your customers or clients can easily share content on their chosen platform to their own audiences. And when you are responding to comments on your posts or shares of your content, you further the conversation around your brand. This creates loyal and engaged customers, helping you reach your goals and grow your brand!
When you integrate your other channels into your social media channels, you can take that a step further. For example, having an ecommerce platform that automatically shares your products to your social accounts.
Winning Social Media Integration Strategies
Let’s take a more in-depth look at some ways you can integrate your socials in other channels and how you can improve your social channels to help engage your audiences.
One-Click Sharing
We just mentioned this, but one of the best ways to share your content with a wider audience is with a single click. These social share buttons are a staple on most websites, so if you don’t already have them, what are you waiting for?
Incorporate Powerful Testimony
User generated content (UGC) is a powerful form of testimonial. Integrating this content into your website or product pages shows potential customers that it’s not just paid actors promoting your brand, but people just like them, which is even more powerful.
Share Those Products!
Most ecommerce platforms offer social media integrations, which means you can easily share your products to your social accounts. If your ecommerce platform doesn’t automatically do this, then share your products manually. Remember, don’t spam your followers; just share enough to showcase new products or promote sales!
Spark Conversation
Social media isn’t just about broadcasting sales and products. Sure, self-promotion is a part of business, but building community is what turns a fair weather customer into a loyal one. So encourage your followers to jump in the comments and interact with each other. The goal of your non-salesy posts should be to spark conversation! Consider taking it a step further by creating a dedicated private social community with a Facebook VIP group.
Take a Cohesive, Holistic Approach
This should be standard advice, but it’s a good reminder: social media should be integrated into every part of your marketing campaigns, i.e. your sales launch shouldn’t be limited to a banner on your website. Share a new sale, blog post, or in-store event in a social post! Newsletter just went out? Try encouraging sign-ups on your socials. When you talk about everything your brand is doing on your socials, those channels become the common point between all of your campaign touchpoints. It’s a holistic and cohesive approach to marketing that ensures you never miss an opportunity.
Social Customer Service
Many customers expect brands to reply to customer service inquiries on social media within one hour, so not paying attention to these messages can damage your brand. Some larger brands, like Nike, set up a separate social media account for customer service while others use auto-responders on their main account to acknowledge inquiries or to get people to the right customer service representative.
Final Thoughts
Integrating your digital marketing into all other aspects of your brand means having a louder soap box for everything your brand is doing. It also offers more touchpoints for your target audience to interact with your brand and encourages engagement while building community and brand loyalty. Social media integration is a holistic and cohesive approach that grows your brand with winning strategies!