Thrive Marketing has been busy checking out the ‘must dos’ and ‘best practices’ for North East companies’ social media strategies.
The Aycliffe Business Park-based organisation has highlighted a number of new trends coming to the fore in 2018 as they run their new-look social media packages for a variety of organisations.
With a focus on hospitality and leisure businesses, the marketing agency is targeting the B2C industry well through its use of organic and paid social campaigns for businesses, including hotels, pubs and activity centres.
Inbound marketing assistant Rachael Farley – pictured (above, left) with Thrive director Rachel Townsend Green (centre) and inbound marketing manager Sarah Burns – has been working to implement innovative practices for the agency’s clients, ensuring some impressive results:
• A 256% increase in engagements for one hotel, allowing reach to exceed 46,000 people – for just a £10 paid Facebook campaign
• An organic campaign for another hotel resulted in engagement levels increasing by 1336% – reaching in excess of 340,000 people – in one month. The efforts for this hotel also saw page likes increase by more than 2,650 people.
Rachel Townsend Green said: “We’ve had some fantastic results in 2017 for our clients and with our new packages in place, we’re only anticipating a bigger year for our social media clients.”
After analysing the top trends of 2018, the team has narrowed it down to four best practices:
1. Start investing in paid social campaigns
This is crucial if you want to see real ROI on your social efforts – as long as your campaign is set up and targeted correctly, you will see a solid boost in reach and engagement as a reward for your efforts.
2. Be more selective about platforms
In 2018 there is a shift in people’s general approach to social media. With ‘digital detoxes’ and self-imposed ‘social media bans’ big as we begin the year, be less vocal. If it’s worthwhile share it, but consider if you still need a company Pinterest page and review your metrics… Getting no tweets? Delete!
3. Social listening is key for customer service
Are customers unhappy or happy about what they bought or experienced with your organisation? People don’t always tag your company name, so if you aren’t actively ‘social listening’ you’re missing out. Negative feedback can be turned into repeat custom with the right approach and brilliant feedback should be acknowledged.
4. Create a messaging strategy
In-platform messaging, along with the boost in popularity of chatbots, is going to be key particularly for B2C industries, where excellent, speedy customer service is becoming a requirement, rather than a ‘nice to have’. By building a strategy around your social messaging, you will be able to succeed with #3 more easily!
Rachael Farley added: “We’re at an exciting point for social media, where the previous, rigid approach is becoming fluid and allowing for flexibility and creativity like never before for brands.”
• Thrive Marketing is currently offering a special offer on its new social media retainers – find out more about what they’re offering by visiting www.thriveability.co.uk.