Social Media Use: Businesses Vs. Individual’s
When scrolling through your personal social media feed, you will likely see others sharing vacation photos, interacting with friends’ posts with comments and likes, and looking at funny memes. On the other hand, social media serves businesses for an entirely different purpose, which is strategic, measurable, and directly tied to revenue goals.
Unlike individuals who use social media mostly for personal connections and entertainment, brands post content on social media in hopes that their target market will see their content and grow their audience (the people who purchase their products or services). Social media is a form of content marketing that is distributed on social media platforms and functions as a critical component of an inbound marketing strategy. Businesses hope that people will see their social media posts and will be encouraged to follow the buyer’s journey, which ultimately leads to a conversion.
One of the biggest upsides for businesses using social media is that content is easily shareable on these platforms. But when users find interesting content they like, they can share that media with their followers and friends, which expands the brand’s reach. Also, businesses can use social listening, which involves using social media to gather market intelligence about customers’ preferences, competitors in your industry, and industry trends.
According to research by McKinsey and Co, businesses use the primary functions of social media to monitor, respond, amplify, in lead consumer behavior. These functions are what make professional social media strategies different from casual personal use. Social media efforts should contribute to the overall business’s goal. Businesses do NOT make money from likes and comments (most of the time).
To show how these four functions work, we will use Modl, a gear strap company, as an example of a business that strategically uses each social media function to support its business objectives.
Monitor
What is Social Media Monitoring?
Businesses can monitor consumer behavior through social media and gather market research cheaply and inexpensively. Businesses can see what people on social media are talking about, which can guide what content the business should make and identify potential product and service opportunities (or even threats) from competitors in your industry. Through sentiment analysis (tracking how people talk about your brand online), Businesses can get actionable market intelligence at low cost and quick speed through social media.
How Modl Uses Social Media Monitoring
Modl uses social media to monitor how its consumers use their products, which can lead to potential product placements and opportunities. They use sentiment analysis to see how their customers view their brand online. The comments on their Instagram posts show many customers are satisfied because they are sharing the different uses that they have discovered from using the gear strap product, such as using the tool during photography shoots and camping trips. Modl can use these segments to further market to that community.
Modl also uses social media to monitor what competitors are posting, such as Voile Strap. They can get inspiration for what kind of posts their competitors are focusing on and how they market their products. In one competitor’s post, Voile Straps focused on marketing to the bike community. Modl can see this and decide whether they want to be a competitor in the bike accessory industry, where they can decide to focus on other industries, such as photography or backpacking. This monitoring function provides valuable intelligence that helps Modl make strategic decisions about product development and market positioning.
Respond
What is Social Media Responding?
Social media provides create ways for businesses to contact and respond to their customers, and for people to contact the businesses. social care, which is using social media as a customer service tool, is a great way for customers to reach the business but can be difficult for businesses to implement. There are high stakes, and 79% of customers expect to hear back within 24 hours, an 81% of customers who do not hear back from a business on social media will not recommend the business to others. Bad social care from a business often goes viral, which can be detrimental to your business as well-being.
How Modl Uses Social Media Responding
Modl uses social media responses to connect with its consumers, answer questions consumers may have about the product, and respond to customers who have great experience with the product. Social media responding is basically a customer service tool for businesses. In this example, Modl makes the customer feel valued and heard by the brand, which encourages customers to keep buying their products and potentially share their good experiences with friends.
By maintaining responsive communication with their customers, Modl recognizes that consumers prefer to shop with a brand that they know will have good customer service and will respond promptly when the customer has issues. This responsive approach transforms social media into a very efficient way to build customer loyalty and trust.
Amplify
What is Social Media Amplifying?
Amplifying on social media means encouraging others to celebrate your brand. User-generated content, which is when customers create content that features your products or services, is the key to a good amplification strategy. This approach gives you 3 significant advantages. First, when brands repost customers’ content, those customers feel valued by their brand. Second, potential customers see user-generated content as more genuine than professional content made and distributed directly from the brand. 3rd, user-generated content is much less expensive than creating content in-house. All three of these factors increase their likelihood of a conversion and provide more visibility from the users/influencers’ specific audiences, who their followers already trust.
How Modl Uses Social Media to Amplify
Modl uses user-generated content to post on their own page as a collaboration post. In one video example, an influencer, “Katy Bentz” shows the many uses of Modl’s gear strap in her life. Coming from a “user” and not the brand makes the post seem more genuine, and many of the users’/influencers’ followers are more likely to convert because they trust the influencer they follow.
This amplification strategy allows Modl to reach new audiences through trusted voices while also validating their product’s versatility and value. By featuring real customers using their products in authentic situations, they can build credibility that traditional advertising cannot achieve.
Lead
What Are Social Media Leads?
If you play your cards correctly with the right strategy, you can lead consumers through the buyer’s journey via social media. If a person follows a brand, they are much more likely to convert and consider a future purchase from your brand. Posting announcements of new products can directly lead to conversions. The key is to create promotional content for your products that is intended specifically for your followers to see, with the overall business goal in mind.
To effectively lead consumers to the buyer’s journey, businesses should establish SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound objectives). For example, a company might set a goal to use social media to increase web traffic by 10% over the next six months. This goal is specific and refers to increasing traffic, measurable because it refers to using web analytics to track data, and actionable because the goal can be achieved through increased posting frequency, optimized content, or even changing social media platforms. SMART makes your goals easier to achieve and evaluate.
How Modl Uses Social Media Leads
Modl Posts social media content on their Instagram with the hope that it will lead followers through the buyer’s journey. In one example, Modl creates a fast-paced, promotional, and informational video/Instagram reel about how to use their new magnet product. The video has a goal of encouraging followers who already know and like the brand to buy this new product. This content falls under the consideration in the decision stage of the buyer’s journey because Modl is not trying to get viewers to discover their brand; they want viewers who are most likely followers to see their new product and purchase it.
By creating targeted content that moves followers from awareness to purchase, Modl efficiently uses the lead function of social media to be a key piece of their content marketing strategy.
Conclusion
The major differences between how businesses and individuals use social media are quite clear. Personal users seek connection and entertainment, while businesses strategically use social media to monitor market intelligence, respond to customer needs, amplify brand advocacy, and lead consumers towards conversions. These four functions are what make social media not just a communication channel, but a great place to distribute your content marketing strategy.
Modl’s Approach in social media shows how a company can effectively integrate monitoring, responding, amplifying, and leading into their organic social media strategy. By collecting marketing intelligence through monitoring, building customer loyalty through responsive social care, taking advantage of user-generated content for amplification, and creating strategic content that leads followers through the buyer’s journey, Modl demonstrates successful business social media use requires consistency with a clear prioritization of the overall business objectives. The key takeaway is that businesses need to understand and implement these four functions of social media, which will leave them better positioned to make their social media presence a valuable marketing asset that helps them grow and make a profit.