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27% OF SOCIAL MEDIA USERS CITE LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION FOR THINGS TO DO AND BUY AS THEIR MAIN MOTIVATION Source: Hootsuite, Oct ‘2 1 28% OF UK INTERNET USERS USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO RESEARCH BRANDS, WITH FEMALES AGED 16 TO 24 MOST LIKELY TO DO THIS Source: Hootsuite, Oct ‘21 1 THINK STRATEGICALLY Covid caused a huge spike in online engagement as people scrambled to alternatives to the empty shelves in supermarkets. But the issue for some businesses that relied on Covid trends alone is that without marketing you very quickly start to see those figures come down. Once restrictions eased, indies that didn’t have a loyalty scheme have seen all their custom go back to Tesco. Our client Parson’s Nose (see page 26)had that initial burst, but comparing this month’s sales with the same time last year they’re still growing and developing. They’ve sorted the internal logistics too but their customer-facing strategy has enabled that growth. 2 KISS A FEW FROGS You have to be tireless in finding what gets you in front of the people you want to speak to. We’ve done this with the social media marketing through paid advertising: we keep a close eye on what’s working, and cut the stuff that doesn’t. Where does the data take you? Across my clients we’re seeing a massive increase in people buying turkeys and festive meats. People searching for food boxes has increased significantly too. You have to follow that: test it and follow it. What attracts your audience? 7 41.8% OF UK INTERNET USERS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT HOW COMPANIES USE THEIR PERSONAL DATA ONLINE Source: Hootsuite, Oct ‘21 95.8% OF GLOBAL INTERNET USERS ACCESSED A SOCIAL NETWORK IN SEPT ‘21, MAKING IT THE BIGGEST MOTIVATION FOR GOING ONLINE Source: Hootsuite, Oct ‘21 6+ SOCIAL NETWORKING PLATFORMS ARE USED BY THE AVERAGE GLOBAL INTERNET USER Source: Hootsuite, Oct ‘21 3 KEEP AT IT Consistency, commitment and a lack of it is what you see with a lot of companies. We all know businesses that posted once a year ago to say ‘have you seen our deals?’ And that’s it. Consumers want to buy into the brand, so becoming a micro influencer as a brand and building a community around what you do is important. That consistency is something we’ve really stuck at. 4 THE SOCIAL MEDIA GAME IS CHANGING Privacy online is increasing, and rightly so, but it means cookies – the things that track customers around the internet – are being taken away by big tech firms. It’s already happened on Facebook to an extent. A couple of years ago I could target ‘newly-married couples in Kent on a middle-class income’ using the data that was captured; now that information is being taken away. Captured data used to be available for years, now it’s a matter of weeks. You need to make sure you’re getting people engaged and then get them into a loyalty scheme so you can own that data. 5 YOUR FOLLOWING IS A MEANS, NOT AN END If you’ve decided you’ll only do social media – organic engagement or paid-for – it’ll get much harder. Firstly because the algorithm is favouring users’ personal contacts over company pages they like. I call it the ‘boring algorithm’: because the platform owners want to make sure their users don’t get bored it’s only content that users engage with that reaches a wider audience. That’s why posting interesting stuff is massively important, but even if you have a huge following what happens when the next Cambridge Analytica-type scandal happens and they all melt away? Use that engagement as a route to signing them up to newsletters or loyalty schemes. Harry Dance is digital marketing director at Kayo Digital TAKEAWAY: A BIG FOLLOWING ON SOCIAL MEDIA IS JUST HALF THE JOB; EMAIL SIGN UPS AND OTHER DATA IS THE REAL GOAL PUTTING THE ‘E’ IN ENGAGEMENT Generating remote sales takes persistence and speedy reactions, says digital marketeer Harry Dance IN PARTNERSHIP WITH