Feel like you’re failing at your social media strategy? I know, you’ve probably thought it through and double checked your how-to-succeed-at-social-media-to-do-list! Your branding is on point, your content is great and your social media team is probably amazing as well but you feel like you’re still missing something, THAT something that makes you the Master of Social Media, the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. You probably can’t help but wonder « Why my fan base isn’t growing? » « Why I don’t get more engagement on my fun cat videos? » « Why I don’t have more customers? »

Well.. maybe you should start asking the right questions. I’ve been working in digital marketing for a few years now and I can tell there is still a huge misunderstanding when it comes to social media. People are talking about « social media marketing », « social media communication » and even about « Facebook marketing ». Let me tell you something: there is no such thing as social media marketing. There is only marketing where social media embodies a channel, an opportunity and a way to achieve specific goals and when we think about goals, it’s actually all about sales funnel!

While one may say content is king I would definitely say “ok but sales funnel is queen”! This is why asking the right questions is so important! What’s my brand goal? Do we want create more awareness and working on our branding, do we want to get consideration, is lead generation our top priority or do we want to create a specific bound with our customers and gain their loyalty?

This is where you should start and this is what you should always stick to when in doubt! Right now, you’re probably thinking « ok, I don’t need a « sales funnel for dummies » guide. So please, keep on reading! What I’m trying to say is that many people often focus on producing great content for social media to « break the internet » but do you realize that content is actually just an instrument, a weapon that will help you achieve your marketing goals? Let’s say I’m trying to promote a new brand no one have ever heard about. Before thinking about having happy customers, I could probably use some notoriety first (which means I’m here looking for awareness). First, I will define the channels most likely to give me my 15 minutes of fame. Let’s not talk about traditional and super expensive media such as television and let’s get back on our topic instead: social media.

Ok, so I decided to focus on Facebook because well… far be it from me to want to advertise Facebook here but let’s be honest, it’s a real bad-ass media (we’ll get back to it in an another article). How do I get more awareness through Facebook? The KPI I should particularly care about is « reach » and what better way to get more reach on Facebook than by using video? There is not! Breaking news: in case you’ve missed it, video is everywhere (and Donald Trump is the president of United-States).

Now, imagine you’re working in the automotive industry and you thrive for generating test-drives. When looking at the sales funnel, the stage you are aiming for is definitely the conversion one. Facebook offers more and more conversion-oriented product such as website traffic generation and lead ads so this is what you should focus on.

See where I’m going with this? This is actually really simple. Thinking that your social media strategy is not working when you try to generate massive traffic on your website and don’t see your fan-base growing is as ludicrous as trying to get bigger butt by running 15 miles a day. That just doesn’t make any sense.

Define a goal, find the most appropriate channel (Twitter for instance is great for customer service), define your KPI, use the right medium (videos, pictures, links, etc.), define your audience, analyse, optimize and repeat!