Gubaidulina Maria
All a business needs the Internet for is sales.
For sales, a business adapts all the tools available to it on the Internet. At first it was contextual advertising and SEO, then media advertising and special projects on visited portals. Now SMM has appeared.
However, unlike previous tools, the SMM result cannot be calculated only in impressions or clicks. The value of work on reputation management and promotion in social media is usually complex. And although it improves sales indicators, and sometimes is their source, nevertheless, the dependence on sales is not direct, as in the context (clicks lead to calls), but with some intermediate result. This is the main difficulty in building competent and effective SMM.
Expectations
The expectations that clients who come to us for SMM have are very different. It can be:
Loyal clients.
Sales from new sources.
Upsells to current clients.
Increase in average check.
Repeat sales.
Good reputation (including for the recruitment department).
Retaining potential clients.
Reality
However, their treatment is often caused by some problem. Here are the most common ones:
1. The influence on public opinion results in a wave of indignation and revelations (black PR).
A striking example of such a situation is the “Platypus” campaign, when one day top bloggers wrote similar posts saying that they had used the store’s services and were very pleased. Naturally, such activity was immediately noticed, it caused a wave of indignation and ridicule, the name “Platypus” even became a household name in the advertising environment, as an example of unsuccessful RK.
We have also heard about clients who propose to massively flood online forums in a month with discussions and comments recommending their products. In such situations, you need to imagine what a product can do for people that will force them all to go online at once and write a positive review about it. Almost nothing. This is a very dangerous job for the client's reputation.
2. Budgets don't justify themselves.
For example, a client insists that he wants to be present on all social networks. He creates, maintains and promotes accounts in 4 networks, invests money, but does not see a return that can compensate for such costs. It is important to understand here that SMM is not a direct sales channel. These are tools that can improve sales, but do not directly create them. Therefore, the budget for them can be a certain proportion of advertising costs, and the client must have a good understanding of what he will get in the end.
3. It seems to work, but we don’t know what it does.
If the client has not formulated for himself why he needs SMM, and has not agreed with the contractor on the criteria for the effectiveness of his work, then he will definitely come to the question: “What does working in networks give me, why do I pay for it?” Work is effective when you get what you expect from it.
Step one
First, you need to understand whether SMM is needed for your company and your specific business. Yes, despite the fact that you can find almost any audience on the Internet, not all areas of business face the interests of the audience on an equal footing.
Here is a list of those to whom Registratura.ru primarily recommends SMM:
Famous brands.
Products related to sports, health, beauty (manufacturers or large dealers).
Products related to children (manufacturers or large dealers).
Expensive goods where the reputation of the seller is important (cars, travel).
Large online stores.
Online stores selling chips.
Step two
Once you have determined that SMM is useful to you, make sure that you have all the conditions in place to make the work effective.
- Conversion site. SMM will either create traffic or improve its quality. In both cases, your site must be ready to turn this traffic into sales. The site should have feedback forms, the opportunity to buy or make a calculation, view prices or order a call back. Check how many opportunities you have on your website to reach your customers directly. If there are only 1 or 2, then before spending money on SMM, spend it on conversion audit and redesign. You will get the effect immediately on sales.
- Analytics system. To be able to see the results of campaigns and analyze them, you need a statistics system (Google Analytics is the simplest). It is important not only to connect it, but also to set up Goals, as well as E-commerce if you are an online store. Goals show what percentage of the audience on the site has met the conditions you set. For example, I looked at more than 3 pages, spent more than 3 minutes on the site, clicked on feedback, ordered a call, put an item in the cart, paid for the order, made a calculation, etc. You define your goals yourself. Just don’t spread yourself too thin, it will confuse you during analysis. The optimal number of targets is 3.
- A clearly formulated Goal. Now it’s too early to talk about KPIs, you just have to decide what your company personally needs first of all from SMM: solving reputation problems, gathering a loyal audience, brand support, or something else. If you want to order SMM, because many people are doing it now, then first order an audit of the current situation (most companies do it for free) to understand whether you have problems with communication with your clients, and if so, how to solve them.
- Budget. Determine for yourself what budget you are willing to spend on SMM. Remember that if you appear on social media, then leaving there will be noticeable and ugly. We enter into a contract for six months at once with an extension, but in the first months the audience only sways and there is little benefit from it. How much budget should I spend on PR? Typically, we advise spending no more than 25% of advertising costs on selling tools (context, SEO, etc.). Of course, this is not a universal rule; for example, brands can spend a significantly higher percentage on PR. But it can be used as a guide for businesses looking for their customers online.
Step three
Now that we know in general what we want and how much we are willing to spend on it, we need to choose a site for work. Working everywhere means scattering your efforts and budget and significantly reducing the effect on each specific site. Here are some tips on how to choose the most promising place for promotion:
- Analyze your audience, its main characteristics, interests, indirect signs by which it can be found, habits, features.
- Compare it with general data known about social media networks. VKontakte, for example, has its own page where it publishes audience statistics: http://vk.com/about The same data can be found on other sites.
- Selection of the primary pool of sites based on the Goal. Remember what goal you set for yourself. If, for example, you want to level out the negative, then you need to choose sites with negativity; if you want to get feedback from the target audience, choose popular thematic portals and groups.
- Check by Statistics. Look at where people naturally come to your site from, look at the quality of traffic. If you are choosing between two networks, and people are already coming to your site from one, choose it, they already know about you and are interested in you.
- Competitor analysis. In which networks are your competitors most active? They have more active groups, more participants, and more people write about them. If they invest in a certain network, if there is activity there, then the network is suitable for you.
Step four
After we have chosen a site or sites, we need to decide on the tools for work. To begin with, it is not necessary to immediately invest your entire budget in promotion. Yes, we spent a lot of time choosing it. But we can save even more if we do a test and check that it meets our expectations.
To do this, we measure current indicators of attendance and traffic quality in statistics. Let's do a test. The test is a small-budget online placement. For example, you can place a survey or post in a popular group on a similar topic, run targeted advertising, or “sow” information about an interesting promotion on the website. The options depend on the expected results (likes, clicks, comments).
After the test, we analyze the results obtained and make a decision on whether we continue to work on this site (whether we are satisfied with this result) and what tools we will use.
Step five
It is at this moment that the logical finale of our decision will be the choice of specific performance indicators (KPIs), by which we will determine the success of our work towards moving towards the Goal.
What should the KPIs be:
1. They must be measured in numbers.
2. There must be specific independent tools or techniques that will give us these numbers. This could be: website statistics, site statistics, independent programs for collecting statistics, search engine results, search query statistics. Empirical knowledge does not count.
3. They must be consistent with our Purpose.
We must remember that SMM has a tactical and strategic effect. We measure tactical in KPI. Strategic is determined by purpose.
Here are a few examples of such KPIs and methods for recording and analyzing them.
Reputationalmanagement
KPI:
The percentage of positive reviews in the TOP 20 search results for key queries is more than 70%.
On 20 popular portals of similar topics, there is a constant discussion of the product and the client, recommendations and consultations are given, each site has at least 1 link to the site.
At least 15% of search results for key queries are third-party information with a client’s recommendation.
Accounting and analysis:
Site statistics (increase in people returning to the site, increase in natural traffic and its quality, link clicks),
Search results (percentage of third-party positive information about the client, percentage of positive and negative on forums)
Maintaining an account insocial media
Target:
Sales growth due to new audiences from networks.
Increase in the average cost of a receipt (upsale).
Growth of active participants.
Increased feedback.
Increase in transitions from the group.
Improving traffic quality.
Accounting and analysis:
Website statistics (increase in traffic from the network, the appearance of people returning from their account, slow improvement in the quality of traffic),
Platform statistics (increased audience activity, increased likes, views, participants in competitions and surveys, increased comments and natural reviews).
Promotion inotsmedia
Target:
Sales growth through new sources.
Reduced selling price.
KPI(depending on the tool and statistics capabilities):
Coverage of the target audience (social networks, blogs, portals).
Number of impressions, transitions, joiners.
Number of active people at the first visit to the group.
Number of conversions.
Cost of impression, click, entry.
Cost of sale or conversion to target.
Accounting and analysis:
Website statistics (number of transitions, quality of traffic, number of conversions by goal or e-commerce, cost of sale or conversion to goal).
Site statistics (reach, clicks, cost of impression, click, joiner).
Account statistics (number of members, audience activity on first visit).
For all these indicators, it is necessary to look and analyze the dynamics from month to month. You can set planned KPIs so that you have something to strive for and something to focus on. But in this case, it is necessary to take into account the starting situation and the capabilities of PR tools when working in “do no harm” conditions. For example, 70% of search results can be done in a week if desired. But such tactics will most likely have the opposite effect (indignation of forum members) and will require many times more money and effort from you to correct the consequences.
When you work in SMM, always remember your ultimate goal and KPIs, and constantly adjust your actions in accordance with them.
SMM will be profitable when our expectations correspond to real achievements within the budget.
In addition, plan your SMM activity taking into account the complex of your Internet promotion. Use SMM to support other online marketing methods.
- How to develop an SMM campaign that will sell a product/service?
- Which social networks to choose?
- What should the posts be like?
- How to analyze efficiency?
All this is in our case today - we will consider each point in theory and practice.
Theory
8 steps to create the right SMM campaign
- Goals
Typically, 10 out of 15 people who receive an invitation join the group.
- Barter groups
Groups with the same target audience and geography of work were selected - online stores selling women's clothing with approximately the same number of subscribers. On the agreed dates, posts were exchanged in groups.
- Placing paid posts
In the city groups of Kostroma and St. Petersburg (those cities that the Yarko company focuses on), reposts of the competition post from our group were made.
- Holding a competition
Thanks to the “Golden June” competition, the winner of which was chosen based on the largest number of reposts, the group doubled in size - the growth of subscribers amounted to about 1,200 people.
It should be noted that after the competition the exit of participants was minimal. Next, a promotion was launched to maintain user interest. The accumulated number of subscribers has been maintained to this day, which indicates interesting content for users.
- Targeted advertising on VKontakte
Payment method is per click.
Target audience: 18-42, cities of Kostroma and St. Petersburg.
During the advertising campaign, they also adjusted the display of ads to different age groups: 18-24, 25-33, 34-42. Moreover, each segment has its own title for the ad. Those appeals that work for an 18-year-old girl will not interest a 40-year-old woman.
The greatest response was from audiences aged 18-33. Ads with the highest CTR:
The ads were changed every 3 days - as soon as the CTR dropped, and increasing the cost per click did not work.
results
At the moment there are more than 2150 people in the group.
The greatest coverage was observed during the competition. At the end of August there was a slight decline - our SMM specialist went on vacation. Despite the planned publications, constant work with the audience and provoking communication is important. Now you probably understand the importance of the systematic work of an SMM manager.
We haven't spent a penny on Facebook promotion at the moment.
It should be noted that in this social network, compared to others, it is more difficult to “pump up” the audience. Activity in jewelry-related groups is observed only with 1000+ subscribers. But we managed to reach the target audience and establish contact.
Therefore, the only way to attract subscribers to a group is to manually send out invitations (similar to VKontakte) and send friend requests.
Requests are sent to a hot audience: active users who match the profile of the target audience in groups of partner manufacturers. And they work better than invitation messages.
Reposts are also made to the consultant’s page, where users actively interact with the content.
Results: Currently, 164 people have subscribed to the page.
The increase in the number of comments in July was due to a competition, one of the conditions of which was to leave your serial number under the post in the comments. Comparing the figures for June and August, the number of comments doubled.
General results for 3 months of work:
Subscribers: In contact with +1150 followers, Facebook +167 , Instagram +430 .
Do you want too? Place an order for our services
The Summit program includes the world's best examples of brand promotion in new media, integration of all communication channels, digital, social and mobile technologies in marketing and advertising. You can expect presentations from leading brands, debates with opinion leaders, master classes from leading experts, and an exhibition of digital technologies, entertainment and platforms.
In the meantime, we present to you the most striking cases from last year’s Digital Branding – Best Cases 2017 conference.
The amount of content on social networks increases over time, but the time that users spend on it does not. In the increasing flow of information, it is increasingly difficult for users to find what is really interesting to them, since most of their time is spent sifting out what is unnecessary.
Yakov Ionychev And Ivan Danyushkin from the Design agency told how they managed to help the official Subway Russia community not to lose users.
Problem
Solution
Yakov Ionychev, creative director of Deasign, said that immediately after the introduction of algorithmic feeds, the company’s clients were offered first of all reduce the number of posts. Many perceived the situation with skepticism.
However, working with the Subway brand showed that more is not always better.
It was decided to spend the rest of the promotion budget on other online activities. For example, the #BrightEvents competition was launched, interesting because it lasted almost a month and consisted of not one post, but several publications.
Bloggers from the regions were involved in promoting the competition. The number of their subscribers on average is about 15–30 thousand people. Each of them was asked to write several posts demonstrating how Subway fits into the summer holiday concept. Subscribers were quite loyal to advertising publications.
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