Content
SMM for Brands: How to Win at Social Media
May 25, 2022
12 min
Alexander Zubarev, Head of Creative Group in the Brand&Content Department at Promodo, tells how to win the race for a second and a half of user attention on social media and why brands should participate.
First, let’s turn to new data from Plusone, which was updated in January 2022. The company researched Facebook and Instagram usage among users.
The total audience on Facebook and Instagram is 27.8 million people. We pay attention to: 96.4% of people use social networks from the phone, and only 3.6% of users browse FB feed only from a computer. There’s no sense in making particular adaptations for the desktop — no one opens the laptop to sit on Facebook. Content should be adapted primarily for mobile devices.
The second important point is the statistics on the number of actions in social networks. For a month, an average person gives 16 likes to various publications on Facebook. With an overpopulation of groups, getting even a single like becomes very difficult.
More than half of Europeans use Telegram as their primary messenger, and 48% of them read up to 15 channels. It means that there is no information noise here yet. And if you thought that people turn off notifications in all channels, you are wrong, sorry. More than 40% of users always have them on for at least a few channels.
An important point to note is the research on how much users earn and where they work. Almost 44% have an average income of over $1,000. So it is a paying audience, and it is essential to go to Telegram not just because there’s no noise yet, but because it’s profitable.
The geography of users shows that the primary audience of the app is concentrated in large cities. Therefore, using Telegram will be most effective if your brand is known throughout major cities.
And we can take the idea for the channel from the list of the most-read resources in the messenger. Does everybody like the news? Great, write industry news. Other options are to create educational content or humor. You don’t even have to think of anything else.
If engagement on Facebook will gradually fall, it will only grow on Telegram. So we need to hop on that train.
There is a stereotype that only very young people sit in this social network. But in fact, the audience of TikTok is now actively growing, and not only young users come there, but also 35+. All because of the simple interface and low entry threshold. On other social networks, the interface is more complicated.
If a TikTok content creator is told they are doing something wrong, there’s no point in listening to it. The trick of the app is that the unique artificial intelligence learns people’s tastes and matches them with the content. The feed immediately shows videos to users who will like it. Because “for every commodity, there is a merchant,” and the app’s task is to connect them.
Let’s ask ourselves the question: when we subscribe to a brand, what motivates us? We can highlight the following:
From our experience, we notice that some companies are trying to use SMM as a magic wand that will fix the situation with sales. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. If the product is terrible/expensive/not attractive, then subscribers will leave.
And if everything is great, then why do we need this SMM?
It works to increase reach and recognition, as well as to accumulate and spread brand advocates.
A little longer and no one will call support to solve the issue: everyone will write to bots, direct and comments. Even the chat on the site is no longer the same. Many come to social networks not for beauty but for help and expect more human and informal communication than in mail or chat on the site.
It is OK if your Instagram doesn’t get likes and reach just like that, without promotion. Especially if we’re talking about commercial accounts. Social media tools work the same for everyone, and paid promotion is available to everyone. Use it.
And to stand out, there’s only one proven way — content. Back in 1996, Bill Gates said that content is a king, and that’s still true today. Because no matter how much money you invest in promotion, a competitor can always invest more.
Today, almost one in five users is an administrator of an Instagram account, Facebook account, or Telegram channel. Instagram penetration among 18-27-year-old users is about 112% — this means that there are more accounts than people, and we need to compete with them.
Users are flipping through their feeds at an incredible rate. And when competitors do similar things — you have to do the opposite and stand out so that people will hold their finger on your post for about another 1.5 seconds.
In this unfair world, we fight for only 1.5 seconds of attention.
What is “good content”?
Good content is content that the client, the agency, and the users of social networks like. To measure user engagement, there is a special parameter — Engagement Rate. Worldwide averages:
But each sphere has its benchmarks, and it’s better to be guided by them. And it would help if you also strived to ensure that this indicator always grows or at least does not fall.
You need to respect your subscribers and play by their rules. They go to Facebook every day and see a billion different promotions, especially during sales. On Black Friday, it’s impossible to scroll social networks because everything is covered in banners. Users need to be respected and remember that they probably don’t want to be inundated with one-size-fits-all promotional offers.
If you adapt the banner ad and do not just write “DISCOUNT” in giant letters, but unpack the product, show it, and say something useful about it, then a person can relax a little. Also, it will be more interesting for them than looking at another faceless picture.
A competitor will always have time to make it easier. That’s why it makes sense to challenge yourself.
It is always a good idea to challenge yourself.
You don’t need to use advertising elements everywhere. Or do, but natively. When it’s organic and valuable, that’s the kind of content you want to share. Some users start reposting, while others see it, enjoy it, and continue to love the brand.
An example of our work for ROZETKA: from old boxes, we made a bird feeder. Yes, the box has a logo, but still, we make an excellent thing. A subscriber reposts the instructions for making the bird feeder to their page, and we show the brand mention, all fair and square.
Another successful example of helpful content from ROZETKA is an infographic that has gathered a lot of reposts. There is no brand here, but the content catches on, people share it, and new subscribers come to the page.
You’ll agree that the banner on the left looks much nicer than the example on the right below. It doesn’t even look like a banner; it’s just a pretty picture, for which we specially painted the boxes with our own hands.
This is an example of what can be achieved with a little more effort than usual. All banners can be adapted so that they are pleasant to look at. Then banner blindness won’t prevent people from paying attention to such photos, and you’ll be able to reach them.
We got even more excited for the company’s birthday: we found nine monitors, hooked them up, and pasted our vintage wallpaper. We gave it a unique nostalgic atmosphere.
Every social network should have its superpower. You shouldn’t post the same thing everywhere because different social networks have other people who behave differently. How we distributed the superpowers of social media ROZETKA:
Twitter also has its superpower — people complain there. And so the brand can be aware of their dissatisfaction. And also, this social network accumulates jokes and memes, but not every brand can make jokes on the stream; it’s not that easy to create a meme every day.
The American website buzzfeed created a virality map. It shows the types of content that people will want to share most willingly. We’ve translated this chart. It lists everything that can become viral, so take it and use it. Try to gather as many circles (statements) into one piece of content as possible. That way, the chance of the content becoming viral is significantly increased.
Helping with questions is one of the most important reasons people go to a brand’s social media channels. Therefore, a business shouldn’t go into SMM if it can’t provide fast, quality moderation. The ideal is when the owner themself takes over the handling of user requests for a while, and through this, they can get a feel for the brand’s audience.
Great content can be created without direct costs, but this is an exception to the rule. In addition, if there are no direct monetary costs, then there are indirect — costs of time and labor.
Since SMM is a mirror of the brand, the team should not be in isolation from it. It should be inside.
And most importantly, remember: SMM is not the solution to problems but their detector.
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