Do You Have a Social Media Strategy?

Does your company have a Facebook page, but you’re struggling with how to get more “likes”? With every company out there starting to emerge with their own page, many companies are coming to us, saying they are having a hard time getting people outside of their employees and family to become fans of their page.

As businesses began jumping on the social media bandwagon in the last few years, it has forced its way into becoming a bona fide necessity of most marketing plans. It’s no longer a marketing function that can be performed by an intern every once and awhile. It’s an important aspect of company branding, and an additional opportunity to show your potential customers who you really are as a company, but in a more casual way. There are two very important guidelines to consider when determining whether or not to even have a company Facebook page. First, you have to make a concerted effort to make your social media efforts a well thought-out priority. Second, you must post often. Otherwise, it’s best to not even start the process. The risk you take in making a “half-baked” social media effort, is that outdated posts suggest your company is not on top of things, and to an avid “fan” that’s like an invitation to hit the “unlike” button. Facebook users want to see new content on a regular basis.

Any business, even a marketing company like Synapse, needs to develop an actual social media strategy for it to be effective. Since our world revolves around providing “outside-the-box” ideas for our clients, the team at Synapse felt strongly that we needed to come up with an ultra-creative idea to grow the number of “likes” on our own page. We wanted to be able to showcase our creativity to our clients by coming up with our own unique initiative to encourage people to become a fan of Synapse Marketing Solutions on Facebook.

As it turns out, our team has learned that sometimes the best ideas come into play when we’re meeting about another issue altogether. As our Marketing Team met to discuss our intended initiative for this year’s Lancaster Chamber picnic, we talked about how we could create an innovative concept that would also help us increase the number of fans we have on our Facebook page. Through that discussion, the idea to combine our initiative of expanding our Facebook fan base with an initiative that would make a real difference in our community was born. We all tossed around ideas of various charities we could feature in this initiative. As we narrowed them down, everyone on the team agreed we wanted to choose a charity that did something to feed children in need in our area. The Power Packs Project in Lancaster was the unanimous choice.

The Power Packs Project is an organization in Lancaster that provides weekend food and nutritional information to local families who are food insecure when the school’s lunch program is not available to them. In addition, this is the first year PPP is featuring a summer program, helping families supplement their food supply available to them when school is not in session. Visit their website at powerpacksproject.org to learn more about all of the wonderful things they are doing to provide long-term solutions to end childhood hunger in our community.

So, now that we determined the charity we were going to feature with our initiative, what are we going to do as a team at the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce Picnic to get the word out about the Power Packs Project? Since Synapse Marketing Solutions has a reputation for being very technological, we wanted to be sure to include some techie feature in the initiative. The team decided to use a QR (Quick Response) code on the back of matching t-shirts that we would all wear to the picnic, that we would have the other picnic attendees scan with their smartphones, using a QR reader app (a great app for that is i-nigma). The scan would take the user directly to our Facebook Page. For every new “like” we received on our page, we agreed to donate $1.00.

Do you have a Social Media strategy in place? Make sure to consider these guidelines when you are evaluating how effective your current strategy is:

1. 1. What is your strategy? What do you want your Facebook page or “Tweets” on Twitter to tell your fans?

1. 1. Post consistently (at least once a week) for Facebook. Once daily for Twitter. New, relevent content is critical. Educate your fans with articles about new trends in your industry, or articles about your company.

1. 1. Post photos and text (people like photos). This is the opportunity to showcase the more human side of your company. Post photos of your employees volunteering in the community, or post photos from company functions. Fans want to learn more about you!

1. 1. Mention your Facebook page on all of your other marketing pieces.

1. 1. Designate one person to monitor your social media initiatives. Having one person handling those efforts, gives a consistent voice and provides an expectation for your fans and ensures that the updates happen on a regular basis.

Our “Feed a Local Child” initiative created quite a buzz about Synapse at the Lancaster Chamber Picnic. People were curious about what our team (in matching white shirts) was up to. That led to natural conversations about our effort to raise awareness and some funds for the Power Packs Project. When people heard what we were doing, and they learned about PPP, they wanted to help! In just a few short hours, we managed to raise $400 for PPP, which helped 100 families in Lancaster AND we increased the number of likes on our page by 73%. Our campaign was a huge success, and unified our entire team as we all got to have a hand in making a difference in our community.