April 19, 2018

Taking Time To Make Stories

In the wake of JD Wetherspoon announcing they are going to quit social media we reflect on the past five years we have spent helping clients to create stories to drive their social campaigns and audience engagement.

It’s In The Name!

The thing about social media is it’s social. It’s a fix all marketing tool for broadcasting deals to people who have chosen to be your friend or follow you.

Imagine being at a dinner party and as the conversation moves around the table Jon, the host,  yells in your face “25 per cent off today” or “Buy one get one free!” It’s a bit of a surprise to you as everybody is talking about the most exciting holiday they’ve been on or how they are trying to make more time for cycling. Eventually you’ll stop going to his events and certainly won’t invite him to yours because he is boring, monotonous, and quite frankly strange.

Social media channels without a social strategy are similar. Either your poor social executive is couped up in a gray office siloed away from whats going on or your agency is so detached from your business they don’t get the information needed.

And the hardest part of it all is finding the content – content that your users want to read or see, content they will engage with and will make them feel something.

How To Make It Count

So if it’s hard to make content and keep channels up to date, is there another way? Yes there is. Put your audience first and empower them to tell your stories for you.

In a 2015 survey, Brandwatch found that 96 per cent of people do not follow the brands they talk about online. They may love your product but they are not interested in your content, rather, they’re interested in other people’s content about you. In fact, according to Tintup, 86 per cent of millennials will use other users content as a measure of a brands quality.

If you find it hard to create content or to maintain a social presence, try curating content from your audience by giving them the tools and incentive to share with you.

Wetherspoons have over 100,000 images on Instagram for #wetherspoons  and it’s all great content created by their audience. Stopping their channels today is not going to stop everyday folks, like you and I, from posting a picture of our traditional breakfast or Thursday curry club to share with our friends and peers.

I don’t blame them for making the decision to stop posting themselves. Now they can focus their attention on delivering great customer service and help their customers make amazing, shareable stories.

Using a couple of social listening tools, keeping an ear to the ground, and encouraging activity is still going to be important, but why shout about how good you are when you can get others to do it for you.

Christopher will be speaking about putting your audience first at the Figaro Digital Marketing Summit on 26 April 2018. Click here to see the full agenda and to register.

 


Written by

Christopher Gee