To wrap up this month’s discussion on using search and social to their maximum potential, today we will tackle what might be the most intimidating piece of the puzzle for any company: integrating search and social with your brand. It might sound simple enough, but as this year’s annual CMO study revealed, it is harder to reach the sweet spot than you might imagine. When companies dig deeper and begin to invest more in social media, it is important that planning is approached as an integral piece of the overall marketing strategy.
It is clear that the social media marketing spend is on the rise and is expected to drastically increase over the next five years, and as that happens, it is crucial that marketers discern how to best merge social media marketing with their brand goals. Because social is still relatively new, some companies are approaching it as if it exists separately from their standard marketing initiatives. Search and social, however, should not be kept isolated from a company’s marketing branch; instead, they should be ushered in as updated tactics to approach longstanding goals.
As greater investment in social media accumulates, companies should intentionally address search and social with the same goals, strategies and measurements that are being used to make decisions across the entire organization. If you lead a marketing department for a large company, be sure to include search and social staff members in the entire marketing planning process. Likewise, if you lead and execute as the entire marketing team at a small business, hold yourself to the same principles.
Making sure your social strategy is tied to your brand message and long-term goals from the beginning will result in more robust results, site visits and conversions. Even more importantly, the knowledge gained of your customer as it relates directly to your brand strategy will be invaluable to reaching goals and developing new ones for the future.
