EVERYONE KNOWS WE as businesses should be on social … right? The logic seems obvious:
At a minimum, active and vibrant social media channels can give prospective customers a way to check you out before they buy. They provide instant social validation and customer trust.
At a maximum, social done well can become a major sales channel, rivaled only by things like word-of-mouth and Google.
So creating an active and vibrant branded community on every social media channel you can find is a great marketing strategy, right?
Wrong. And I’d argue that the majority of pet brands I see probably won’t ever make back their investment in building those channels.
For the last 12-plus years, I’ve been teaching pet businesses how to achieve their business and marketing goals through social media. And for just as long I’ve seen the mix of shock, followed by relief when I frequently tell businesses to stop their efforts on the majority of the social platforms they’re using.
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The reason is simple: Many small businesses aren’t really sure why they’re on social media to begin with. Worse, many are hoping to achieve goals that are super-duper hard to do on their chosen channels. Combine this with the fact that most social “best practices” involve a member of your team spending significant time on the platform, and suddenly you have a marketing money pit.
So how do you make sure your social is paying off? Easy. The first step is making sure you’re on the right one.
Ask yourself and your team the following questions:
Who am I trying to reach?
This is your core client or influencer. Write everything you know about them, leaving nothing out. Make sure to include both demographic information (age and gender) and psychographic information (your customers’ wants and fears).
Which social media channel does that person frequent?
Different social media channels attract different people. It may seem obvious that trying to reach teens on LinkedIn or business decision-makers on Instagram may be making your job harder, but don’t forget the nuances of the audiences these platforms attract, and that they change over time.
Is that social media channel compatible with my goals?
This is a big one many petpreneurs forget to ask, but the key is understanding the technical side of the platform and what it’s meant to do. For example, we find most brands struggling to drive direct sales from Instagram unless they pay for advertising. The reason? Instagram’s unpaid content usually doesn’t include any kind of links on the post. Alternatively, even though many brands abandoned Pinterest years ago, the platform is showing the second-strongest sales for consumer brands in the brands we’re able to sample.
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What will have to occur to turn this into a sale?
Not all pet owners live on Pinterest, so pet brands leveraging other channels to build audiences will need to think about how that audience will then need to be directed in other ways to create sales. (Like subscribing them to a mailing list first.)
I teach a social media bootcamp for petpreneurs. Access the workbook for it for free as a friend of PETS+. It’ll provide you with facts and stats to help you fill in the questions above, to pick your channel and to get going. Visit causedigitalmarketing.com/petsplusmag.
