Written by Fernando Maciá
José Llinares
Summary of the talk by José Llinares, from Effective Talk at the Digital Marketing Congress for Industrial Companies.
The strategy is the long-term vision. It is an action plan to achieve our medium and long term objectives.
Mistakes in digital strategy
I don’t know what my objective is
If you don’t have a social media strategy, you often don’t know what you’re doing. I generate content, but does it really help you build yourself as a brand? There are things that can be shocking, interesting, eye-catching, but that don’t really help you to generate branding, spread your values, etc. I am in social networks without knowing what I am building. The problem is often blamed on social networks and not. The problem is the lack of strategy.
What are you on social networks for?
Many clients, when they say they want to be on social networks, what they really mean is that they want a Facebook page. Thus, the “engagement bubble” is generated. It may grab the user’s attention but it doesn’t build anything for your brand. Determine your objectives. Define the objects of interest and whether they build on the objectives. And from there, choose the channels and define a content plan aligned with your marketing plan.
A possible objective could be to generate your brand awareness, your professional positioning, etc.
Key: the campaign has to be aligned with the brand and communicate values related to the brand positioning aspiration. Example: #theplacetobe, campaign for Coronita beer.
Social Bakers tells us which posts work best for a given brand, what interactions they provoke and what level of engagement they generate.
2. We have a very vague objective
For example, I want to be on social networks because “I want to sell more”. Okay, but how much, in what period and are social networks the right place to sell that?
We generate awareness and branding with display advertising and SEO. We generate preference with Social Media and social recommendation. We generate action and conversion through usability.
Google Analytics multichannel attribution demonstrates that social media is not a conducive medium for generating sales within a website. It is also true that not all products and businesses work the same. In social networks, there are certain motivations that work better (Lady Gaga has 53M followers and Santander Bank has 60K).
We must also understand that we blame social networks and many times it is the model’s fault. Groupon sells a lot through social networks. But it does not work the same on all models.
Key: what sells well on social networks?
- Aspirational product that responds to the motivations of users in social networks.
- Model where being the first to get the information is key, or where the “group” factor works.
3. Short-term objectives
Short-term objectives are usually related to advertising campaigns. SEO traffic is cumulative: it costs to achieve, has the lowest CPC of a marketing plan, etc. If your goal is visits, pure traffic, SEO is your strategy.
Channels and objectives must be adjusted: your objectives must be those that a channel allows you to achieve, so the channel for communication must be chosen appropriately.
- Leisure: TyouTube, Facebook, mobile…
- Information: search engines, Web sites, RSS, forums, Twitter…
- Services: Web, mobile…
Do not confuse branding with influence, do not confuse many “likes” with “engagement”. International Facebook pages have more fans, but local Facebook pages generate much more engagement, according to Social Bakers.
Let’s not chase the like as a metric, but let’s look for engagement.
Key: create a brand that builds your users’ personality: would you put your brand logo on their school folder?
4. I don’t know how to measure my objectives
We must try to adjust traditional Web metrics to the buying process. Correlation of KPIs and the purchase funnel, from Reach, Preference to Action. There are a number of indicators that we can correlate to better understand how my action in Social Media affects my business objectives.
Conclusion
Thinking integrated strategies (search engines, Social Media, offline advertising…)
Define your objectives clearly.
