Long gone are the days of waking up every morning and waiting for the local newspaper to arrive at your doorstep. Today, you wake up, grab your cell phone, open Twitter and read your first piece of news before you even leave the comfort of your bedroom. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram, all the latest breaking news is now aggregated at our fingertips in real-time all day, every day. So how can tech companies not only capitalize on this sizable flow of information from social media platforms but also break through the noise?
By developing a public relations strategy that leverages social media platforms, technology companies can shape conversations in their industries, build brand loyalty and attract new customers and partners. While social media shouldn’t replace other inbound promotional methods like e-mail, events or digital advertising, it should augment them, offering another set of marketing channels for you to explore.
Below are five tips about the do’s and don’ts of social media when it comes to a tech PR strategy.
Do: Post Dynamic Content
Social media thrives on interesting, dynamic content that can make all the difference between an ignored post and one that drives the reach and engagement of your brand. So, how do you know what’s relevant and interesting to your social media followers? Start with your buyer persona. Understanding what your potential customers, clients and investors care about should inform your content calendar and guide your selection of relevant industry news, thought leadership articles and new research and statistics.
Maintaining a dynamic social media presence also involves a lot of tagging, hashtags for topics that are trending and timing and testing of your content. Who should you be tagging in posts? Does your audience enjoy text posts on Twitter or visual posts on Instagram? What time of day are they most active online? To determine the answers to these questions, you’ll need to test these aspects of content curation over time. This can be done by using either online digital analytics tools, or logging into the native social platforms individually to measure engagement rates to see what’s working and what isn’t.
Don’t: Ignore Current Events
In these uncertain times, it’s critical to pay attention to what’s happening in the world when posting to social media. Especially now that social media posts can be scheduled days or weeks in advance, it’s very easy to “set and forget” your posts. But when tragic events take place and emotions run high, it’s best to think about how your social media posts play within the current climate. Double checking what’s in your pipeline for social media and adjusting posts accordingly is the best way to avoid potential PR gaffes. It’s important to be flexible and think before you post, measuring and moderating the tone of your message according to what’s going on in the world at the moment.
Do: Complement Paid Content with Organic Posts
Whether you’re doing it on your own or working with a technology marketing agency, incorporating both organic and paid social content is a must for driving business in 2020. Research shows that 81% of people research a business on the internet – including looking at their social media profiles – before buying. To run a successful social media campaign for your tech company, it pays to have both an organic and paid approach.
With organic social media efforts, you can post as many updates as you want across your social channels for free. Organic social also allows you to provide customer service and support online, boosts search engine optimization and creates and maintains an authentic brand voice, humanizing your company in a way that customers value and appreciate.
Paid social content, on the other hand, ensures that your content will be seen by your target audience, leading to a boost in website traffic and potential sales. Through paid social, you can identify a set audience based on specified variables, like location, age and interests/preferences. You can then personalize your content to fit your chosen audience. Additionally, one of the great benefits of social ads is instant feedback, enabling you to gauge the effectiveness of a sponsored post within minutes and adjust accordingly.
Don’t: Focus on the Hard Sell
According to HubSpot, the golden rule for a good balance of informational posts versus promotional posts is 80% to 20%, respectively. Although ads play an important role in your overall social media strategy, you don’t want to come across as trying to push your content into people’s news feed with no rhyme or reason.
Instead, social media should be the place where you build trust with the members of your audience, where you add value to your followers through advice, helpful tips and even entertainment. Trust and value are the currency and the formula for success on social media.
Do: Measure ROI
Measuring ROI is the most accurate way of proving that you’re contributing to the company’s business goals and spending both time and resources efficiently in areas where you know will see the maximum return. A high number of converting users, increased web traffic and an increase in qualified leads is evidence that your messaging is relevant and compelling.
How can you track this ROI? There’s many different way to crunch the numbers. You can do it the good old-fashioned way and use a simple mathematical formula such as: Profit / Investment x 100 = social media ROI %. Or, if you use a publishing platform such as HubSpot, social media performance is tracked and analytics can be downloaded with just the click of a button. You can also login to the native social media platform and download an excel spreadsheet of the data and compare it across channels. Analyzing the numbers is not as daunting as you’d think!
In 2020 and beyond, it’s imperative for businesses to fully embrace all that social media channels offer not just to survive but thrive in an increasingly digital world.
If you’d be interested in learning how your high-growth tech company can develop a social media plan, contact us today!