2023 Index Discussion & Giveaway!

As a social media manager in the legal industry, these questions and the latest Sprout Social Index is really making me think. Plus, Rachel Goulet’s comment about how B2B and B2C don’t have to be that different has me wondering if I need to scrap the current strategy and start over.

And yet, as a team of one, it’s easier to stay with what I/we know and have already gotten approval on, rather than making the move to do something new and that will likely be complicated when it comes to getting signoff from key stakeholders.  

With regards to question 1 about evolving content strategy to fit the marketing funnel, I’ve been strategizing about this myself for a 2024 plan. I’m thinking to split evergreen socials based on top level, mid level and bottom level, and trying to have a 3:2:1 ratio that is published throughout the week/month. The top level, for my company, is focused on education about technologies (ie how does Tech work?) while a bottom level would be “read our book to find out”. It’s definitely a work in progress, but the Sprout Index sparked this new approach.

For question 1 on evolving strategy, I think it’s important to create varied content that speaks to people on different engagement levels: new customers/clients, people somewhat familiar with you, and you die-hard fans. I work with a a nonprofit organization that provides music therapy, so some of my content is very general to attract new people (who is our organization, what is our mission, what does music therapy do, etc.) and some is for the more seasoned followers (suggestions of music therapy interventions, ways to incorporate therapeutic music into daily life, etc.)

I try to remind myself that not everyone knows our organization and what we do, so regular education is necessary.

Oh my goodness, I love this question! 😍 Really, I love all three! However, I am going to chat about Community Discussion Topic 1.

Right now, I believe many brands are still in the mindset of “talking at” our audiences. The move from traditional marketing to two-way communication between customer and brand has been a culture shift, that some brands have handled with more grace than others. 

Each year, we see social platforms evolve, customer expectations change, and brands adapt. I believe that the key for evolving our content strategy with customer support in mind is to value insights, both quantitative and qualitative. I believe brands often get lost in the numbers game of social insights asking, “what is social doing for us”. Where, focusing on nonnumerical data such as engagement topics, sentiment, and user demographics answers “what are WE doing for THEM”. 

At this point, marketing professionals know social has long term returns for a brand. The question is no longer IF our brand should be on social, it is WHERE should we be as brand on social. As professionals, we should demonstrate this by creating value with the full picture of our social insights. From basic social metrics to mapping the customer journey, we can address asked questions from our customers and solve barriers across channels based on our insight trends. 

By creating that full picture of social insights, we can tailor our content strategy to support the customer journey. 

I would love to hear how this data changes for nonprofits who are not necessarily “selling” anything besides donations.

Question 1

I am in the travel/hospitality business. We are often reactive when it comes to vacancies. We are in the midst of changing our social strategy to be proactive. For example, when are our guests booking their spring break travel? We shouldn’t be talking about spring break in March or April BUT Nov/Dec/Jan. 

All of our content cannot just be to gain new guests, we need to look at current guests or try to win back guests who haven’t traveled in the last 4 years. 

At any given time you are hitting a small fraction of your audience. Creating content to address common questions is great but it doesn’t replace have saved responses for customer care. We also know people don’t read or don’t want to have multiple clicks to get their answer. They want us to be Google :) 

🏆 Congratulations @Carla.J @samantha.hart @laura.ingrim @melissa.macgregor @mitch.tobol! You’ve won of one our five giveaway boxes!

Please provide the best mailing address by Wednesday, October 11th so we can ship you your prize: https://forms.gle/qUjU9sEjGp3e8rLp8