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Social Media: Is It A Strategy or a Tactic?

July 25, 2017 by Richard Abels

People always ask me “What should we be doing on social media?” Essentially, execs are afraid their organization is missing the boat if they aren’t posting and tweeting OR not sure if what they are doing is effective.

While many businesses believe social media is a strategy, it is actually a tactic to achieve an organization’s goals and desired outcomes.

Depending on your sector– consumer, B2B, government, non-profit – social media is not necessarily the first marketing tool to implement or possibly even use at all.

The question is not “what should we do on social media” but instead “which marketing tactics best achieve our goals and reach the most important target audiences?”

Here are some factors to evaluate whether social media is right for you.

Q:  What are our goals?

  • What are our most important outcomes?
  • What do we need to achieve?
    • Sales? Visit website? Stores? Awareness?

Q:  Is our target audience available and active on social media?

  • You need to prioritize your key audiences to answer this.
  • Will you really reach the CEO of your most important new business prospect on Facebook?

Q:  Do we dedicate resources (staff and $$$) to create, maintain and monitor our social media program?

  • Yes, it is “free” to post / tweet but there is a tangible investment required.

Q:  What makes us stand out from our competitors?

  • What do we provide which they don’t?
  • How do we communicate it?

Q:  Why should people follow us?

  • What’s in it for them?
  • Why should they care?

So the next time you ask “What should we do on Facebook”, take a step back and think about these issues. As you review your marketing goals, you will see that social media is a tool/tactic – not a strategy – and therefore, use and evaluate it as part of your marketing mix.

Richard Abels

 

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