Recently, someone asked us what it means when we say that we are a Social-First Digital Agency.

So, we thought it might make sense to explain what that means, but also, more importantly, the value of taking a social-first approach to solving a variety of business challenges.

Our thesis: In nearly every case, you should implement social media strategies as a critical component, and starting point, at every level of business problem solving.

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

– Abraham Maslow (1962), Toward a Psychology of Being

  • WordPress developers will try to sell you a new WordPress site.
  • PR companies will tell you that visibility in the press is the right answer.
  • If you are talking to Salesforce, their solution to your problem is Salesforce.

We don’t have a product to sell you. All we sell are ideas and implementation. So, to be clear, this post is not to sell you. You can take this framework and run with it yourself.

The purpose of this post is to frame for you how and why to utilize social media as a tool in your business planning and execution, and often as the FIRST step, rather than an afterthought.

Let’s start with misconceptions

Social Media? That’s just for kids!

I’ve been working in Social Media professionally since 2008 and I honestly thought we’d be further along in business by now…but we’re not.

  • I still routinely have conversations with people who insist: “Our audience isn’t on social media.”
  • I still have people trying to convince me that social media is exclusively the domain of “millennials.”
  • I still have people who’s primary goal from social media is to have more followers than their competitors. Strangely, once they get there, they are quick to dismiss social media as a failure since it has not driven sales.
  • 99.9% of my conversations about doing work with a prospect are about marketing, when often times there are even bigger problems we can solve with our social-first approach.

Now, let’s course-correct

  1. Virtually EVERY audience is on social media in some way. The only question becomes how you can effectively reach them.
  2. All ages are represented on social media. Period.
  3. Your strategy must match your goals. Growing your following is a strategy, but generally not a good one (on its own) if the goal is to grow sales.
  4. Social Media has applications across the entire business.

Now let’s take a left turn and get to the meat

There are three primary reasons that I suggest companies begin with social-first thinking in any initiative.

  1. Social is generally less expensive than other channels
  2. Social generally offers an abundance of insights that cannot be obtained elsewhere, or are substantially more expensive to collect.
  3. Social gives you a tremendous amount of control over the creation of media and the initial distribution of that media.

So, for the record that means taking a social-first approach means having more business intelligence to rely on, and more control over the outbound messages, all at a lower cost.

Here are some examples:

Marketing

Let’s say you are working on your brand…

Whether you are an established brand, or a new brand, the social web is chock full of conversation to wade through. Twitter searches, Yelp reviews, and other public conversations are great places to see where your competition falters, how people perceive your company, your employees, or what really interests your target prospects.

Social Media ads are a low cost method of testing different ideas, and getting a sense of which messages resonate with your ideal audience.

Both of these approaches help you to hone in on the elements of your brand that are most important to focus on before investing heavily in a particular direction.

Sales

Let’s say you work in sales…

We know for a fact that people are generally more likely do business with people that they know, like, and trust.

How will they know you? By making sure that you get visibility in front of them, either by connecting with them on the social media sites they use, sharing relevant content with them either directly, or through an intermediary, or targeting ads to them before making a sales call.

How will they like you? What is it that all of those old sales books used to say about rapport building? Even if you don’t believe in rapport building as a tactic, every good salesperson knows that the more you know about the person you’re looking to do business with, the better chance you have of relating to them. Listening is more important than talking and with social media tools you can easily follow prospects on the web, and review their social feeds to learn more about them before sending the first contact.

How will they trust you? People are more likely to trust people who come recommended by others and social media can validate that you are a professional that others approve of…this is known as social proof. We also tend to be more receptive to meeting people who come introduced, and sites like LinkedIn make our connections visible, which can help facilitate introductions more easily.

HR

Let’s say you work in sales…

Looking to recruit someone new to the company? How do you plan to find them and let them know that this position exists? How do you plan to vet them? How do you plan to let them know about the company culture and work environment?

If your answer to any of those questions is “the same way we always have” then you are missing some extraordinary opportunities.

  • Why not create a video about the company, the culture,  the position, and the people they’d be working with, and then get that video in front of ideal targets using social media ads on Facebook and Linkedin?
  • Why not review potential candidates on Linkedin (reactively) and go find and connect with ideal candidates proactively?
  • Why not post a slide deck about your company culture on Slideshare like Netflix did?

All of these are ways to cut through the noise of just posting on a job board and sifting through a pile of resumes.

Will you start with Social?

The examples above are just a high level sampling of what you can do.  I’ve given talks, and explained these ideas in great detail before, and I will continue to.

It should be obvious that these low cost tools, when used right, can open up new opportunities.

The question is…will YOU start with social?

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