Social media must be created from quality building blocks

Social media is often fast and reactive. But Simon Coleman argues that, to give you the best chance of success, you should never forget about the basics of messaging and quality writing.

My youngest daughter has just turned three and she’s a great fan of the three little pigs – hence the nursery-rhyme-inspired title for this. There is a serious point to it, though, so bear with me.

Many marketing professionals, including yours truly, have been on a steep learning curve since social media exploded into our lives. We now have to think about how to re-purpose, tag and optimise content for different media, and how to exploit the best channels to reach our customers’ target markets.

But is social media marketing really all that different? For me, while delivery mechanisms have changed, the underlying messages that surround your products and services must be as powerful and compelling as ever. To use a very 20th Century example, you can send a letter by post, email or fax – but getting people to read it is the really tricky bit.

To give yourself the best chance of success, you’ll need to dedicate sufficient resources to creating compelling messages, as well as spending on good writing and production.

And here lies the rub. Many organisations see social media marketing as a cheap or even free way to get their products noticed. They build their house out of straw, or even sticks, but with no proper messaging or strategy in place, and shabby poorly-written content, the whole exercise can even be counter-productive (OK, most likely no-one will actually be eaten by wolves, but hey).

Optimise your chances of social media success

To give yourself the best chance of success, you’ll need to dedicate sufficient resources to creating compelling messages, as well as spending on good writing and production. Only when you have the right foundations in place can you start re-purposing content and feeding into the new delivery channels that will bring you even greater coverage and competitive advantage.

When companies do it right, successful TV ads become Youtube phenomena and interactive online experiences. There are countless examples of social media driving massive increases in web visits, delivering huge amounts of publicity for new products and services, and, ultimately, increasing sales. Likewise, straw or stick campaigns (possibly taking the theme too far now?), just won’t deliver the goods.

Last but not least, we need to be mindful of the difference between the so called “vanity” metrics and “actionable” metrics. A cool campaign that drives millions of visitors to your website is only worth its salt if it drives up your sale conversion rates. Just one more reason for choosing a comms partner with the right skills and experience to put your social media strategy on a sound footing.

Simon Coleman is a Consultant Writer at Writing Machine.

Read more about using messaging in marketing:

Brand perception should be more than skin-deep

Objective setting: why it’s so important when creating marketing collateral