One of the most important insights I have learned through my classes and beyond the classroom experiences is that the best way to market on social media is to provide value and promote interaction in a way that accentuates the organization’s unique brand voice.
Before I came to USC, I was convinced that social media was not useful. I had not developed a substantial personal presence on social media because I had the misconception that online connections are not as meaningful as in-person ones. Discovering this key insight was a turning point where I learned that when used the right way, social media can be used professionally to form mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their audiences that can translate to offline gains for both parties. Gaining experience with organizational social media has been a big part of my Professional and Civic Engagement pathway.
One of the USC classes that has had a big impact on how I think about brand communications is Social Media Marketing. In class, one of the most important concepts we learned was the marketing funnel. The goal of the marketing funnel is to move prospects toward making a purchase by posting content that requires varying levels of commitment. Instead of asking a prospect to buy a product, the marketing funnel holds that the marketer should provide content that will add value for the individual in a way that is not costly to the them. This lets the organization start forming a positive relationship with the customer before it calls them to give up their time or money to benefit the organization.
Beyond the classroom, this concept has been very useful in planning the Carolina Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) social media content. Though the BCM doesn’t sell products first and foremost, we are competing for students’ limited time. With that in mind, most of the content we put on social media emphasizes who we are and what we value as a student organization rather than simply informing audiences about our events. We have developed the BCM brand voice to be encouraging and compassionate from a student perspective to a student audience. We portray this through bitesize content that requires a less than one minute commitment from interested students.
Before I came to USC, I was convinced that social media was not useful. I had not developed a substantial personal presence on social media because I had the misconception that online connections are not as meaningful as in-person ones. Discovering this key insight was a turning point where I learned that when used the right way, social media can be used professionally to form mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their audiences that can translate to offline gains for both parties. Gaining experience with organizational social media has been a big part of my Professional and Civic Engagement pathway.
One of the USC classes that has had a big impact on how I think about brand communications is Social Media Marketing. In class, one of the most important concepts we learned was the marketing funnel. The goal of the marketing funnel is to move prospects toward making a purchase by posting content that requires varying levels of commitment. Instead of asking a prospect to buy a product, the marketing funnel holds that the marketer should provide content that will add value for the individual in a way that is not costly to the them. This lets the organization start forming a positive relationship with the customer before it calls them to give up their time or money to benefit the organization.
Beyond the classroom, this concept has been very useful in planning the Carolina Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) social media content. Though the BCM doesn’t sell products first and foremost, we are competing for students’ limited time. With that in mind, most of the content we put on social media emphasizes who we are and what we value as a student organization rather than simply informing audiences about our events. We have developed the BCM brand voice to be encouraging and compassionate from a student perspective to a student audience. We portray this through bitesize content that requires a less than one minute commitment from interested students.
One example of a long-running campaign we created to encourage students and promote interaction via our social channels is our #motivationalmonday posts, where we gathered student contributions to highlight on our social channels. This drew current members to interact with us on social platforms because they recognized the people being highlighted and encouraged new activity with our brand because we were adding value in a way that emphasized our brand’s encouraging voice. Because we started the relationship with a low commitment transaction, new students were able to see what the BCM organization was like before they committed to coming to an in-person event.
Likewise, when I worked with the South Carolina Baptist Convention (SCBC) Communications team, we produced a series of videos for pastors and church leaders called Pastors Roundtables. By highlighting moments of the larger series through video clips and photos featured on our Facebook and Instagram channels, we were able to draw people to view the full resources on YouTube. Interest in the featured highlights promoted interest in the longer resources, as the marketing funnel describes, which helped us build a deeper connection with our audience. Providing resources like the Pastors Roundtables helps the SCBC build trust among member church leadership so they will be more likely to participate in SCBC organized events and initiatives in the future.
Likewise, when I worked with the South Carolina Baptist Convention (SCBC) Communications team, we produced a series of videos for pastors and church leaders called Pastors Roundtables. By highlighting moments of the larger series through video clips and photos featured on our Facebook and Instagram channels, we were able to draw people to view the full resources on YouTube. Interest in the featured highlights promoted interest in the longer resources, as the marketing funnel describes, which helped us build a deeper connection with our audience. Providing resources like the Pastors Roundtables helps the SCBC build trust among member church leadership so they will be more likely to participate in SCBC organized events and initiatives in the future.
These professional experiences informed my in-class assignments, including my final project for the Social Media Marketing class. My group and I created a social media marketing plan for a hypothetical new product, Spotify Books. Instead of pushing people to pay for Spotify Books on first contact, the majority of our content focused on providing value by offering followers Spotify Books for free for the first three months. We paired this with promoting interaction using Twitter’s native poll functionality while introducing new audiences to the brand's semi-casual brand voice. Social media channels give brands unique opportunities to get their audiences excited about new products when more traditional advertisements would be ignored.
Learning how successful social media marketing strategies prioritize forming a relationship with the consumer has given me a new appreciation for the connections that can be made over social media channels and a passion for using social media to bring people and organizations together for mutual good. Having professional and leadership experience in creating content to foster these audience relationships will help me further hone these skills in my career.
Copyright © 2022 Meredith M. Edwards