How can marketers combine social media and email to communicate with consumers effectively? Volker Wiewer, CEO at eCircle offers some top tips based of the company’s recent European Social Media Study
With Facebook, Twitter and YouTube representing an increasing element of the multi-channel marketing mix, marketers are beginning to recognise that the power of social media is showing no signs of slowing down. But for brands to truly make the most of all social media offers, they need clear objectives and a defined marketing strategy.
In order to gain a better understanding of how and why marketers use social media and email to communicate with consumers, we recently conducted the biggest ever European social media and email study.
It was interestingly to find that, despite its growing prevalence, only 44% of companies interviewed claim to use social media for marketing purposes, compared to 57% that use email marketing. Whilst concern around accountability and social media’s inability to prove its impact were noted in 53% of responses, the number one reason for companies not using social media was that it is not targeted enough. The research also revealed that whilst the vast majority (75%) of marketers are aware that they can integrate email and social media, only a third actually do so.
These results suggest that the integration of channels is still in its early stages and few marketers are managing to fully integrate their social media and email marketing. To resolve this, brands need one centralised tool to plan, monitor and manage, control and track all activity in a variety of social networks.
As consumers move seamlessly between channels and social networks, brands must be ready to take part in the conversations and react swiftly to comments, both positive and negative, to demonstrate they care about their customers. A quick response to a customer comment can create positive sentiment which can be easily amplified through social channels. But to do this brands need one manageable platform to connect the various channels and monitor communication flows across major networks and blogs. In order to react in a timely manner to feeds, posts and discussions, brand marketers need to be alerted immediately when somebody comments or tweets about your company or one of your products via social media networks.
With a growing need to demonstrate accountability and ROI in the social media space, it has never been more important for brands to plan, measure and evaluate their online market strategies. The fact that the lack of targeting was the primary argument leveled against social media shows there’s an obvious disconnect between planning and implementation, that needs to be urgently addressed. Only by using a single tool to track every interaction and observe every trend across a wide range of social networks, can marketers appease their concerns around measurement and effectiveness.
Marketers must look to access information from a range of online channels, evaluate what is being said, plan strategy as well as produce and distribute relevant content. With the rise of global marketing there seems to be a danger that local trends are being missed – only by looking carefully at consumers’ cross channel behaviour can marketers tailor their communication strategy accordingly. Using one easy-to-view platform such as eC-social guarantees that you communicate a consistent message through all of your social media networks.
By Volker Wiewer
CEO
eCircle
www.ecircle.com
