” What do you see as the most crucial components of a successful social media strategy ?”
A successful social media strategy has to account for paid, owned and earned media. It should work like a machine.
“In Social Media the “squeaky wheel” gets the oil. You have to put yourself out there, to find people who will relate or even debate with you, depending on what you are looking for.”
We all know how important word of mouth is, and social networking is like word of mouth on steroids. Ofcourse being a specialist in constantly – changing fields like Social Media and working with multiple brands in the social media marketing space is challenging.
Most businesses see social media as a way to directly drive traffic to their website and force people to buy their products. Social media managers know that this is wrong. They understand that real people use social media. Hence, they run marketing strategies that are focused at building relationships with these people. They turn the spotlight on the ‘social’ in social media by creating & sharing content and asking & answering questions. This helps build a royal fan base.
Our interview today is with a such an experienced Social Media Specialist – Meet Bianca Cadloni
Bianca Cadloni is a 2010 graduate of the University of Northern Colorado. She has a strong digital marketing background, but is niche in social media expertise. She has been with Fruition Marketing for 3 years, where she handles many of the agency’s key accounts. She currently calls Denver home, and has a rescue-mutt named Murphy.
Sharing her tips on building great Social Media strategies , it’s truly an honor to host Bianca Cadloni in our Agency expert interview series:
1. In constantly – changing fields such as social media, how do you regularly learn, update & improve your skill-set?
In digital marketing, it is important to always stay on top of important updates. I usually know about something the second it happens, and reflect that change to my clients immediately. I stay on top of the latest trends, and through reporting have found ways to optimize their strategies for maximum impact.
2. What do you see as the most crucial components of a successful social media strategy?
A successful social media strategy has to account for paid, owned and earned media. It should work like a machine. Paid is the media you pay for — which accounts for paid advertising such as Facebook/Twitter or LinkedIn ads. Owned content is your website, email database, branding and web properties. Earned is created through paid and owned media working together to get desired results. A successful paid, owned and earned works the best in the digital environment.
Before earning earned content, your content on social media should always follow an 60/40% rule for editorial (third party content) vs. owned content (content that goes to the website).
For my clients, I always harp on the importance of paid media. You must pay to play with the potential audience. I think that paid media can help your brand find the right target audience, and get your message into the hands of the right people.
3. What’s the best thing about being a social media manager, and what are the most frustrating things?
The best part about being a social media manager is that I get to be creative every single day. No day is the same, and I get to enjoy all aspects of digital marketing through the lens of social media. I am able to use every asset of my skillset. I am a copywriter, graphic designer, novice-coder, social analyst for reporting, PPC manager (social media advertising), community moderator, social strategist, brand evangelist, and customer service technician. I wear many hats as the social media manager. Every client has a different strategy, and I get to change up what I am doing multiple times a day.
I think the most frustrating part of being a social media manager is proving Return On Investment (ROI). A lot of times the brands/clients I work with do not see value in what we do. It can be hard to get a client to be sold on the idea of paying for advertising on top of their additional budget. I think that over time as social media marketers are able to prove their ROI — when I started out in social media marketing, it was a lot harder to prove the impact of what we do. We are finding it easier and easier to show our clients just how important social media is for their digital marketing.
4. How do you use social media to a direct impact on conversion rates and sales?
There’s an incredible opportunity optimize and tweak your social media for conversion rates and sales. The best thing to do is install a Facebook pixel, and to create lookalike and custom audiences on Facebook from existing databases you might have. A good example is cloning your email database, and creating a mirrored audience – it can help maximize your reach and efforts. Remarketing advertising is also very effective. I am also a huge fan of carousel advertisements, because you can get really creative with them.
5. What do you believe has been your greatest career accomplishment? Why?
I think my greatest career accomplishment is my tenacity and willingness to grow and change with the evolving world of digital marketing over time. I have had many exceptional wins for my clients over the last 5 years, but my time with Fruition has been the most rewarding. I have helped take clients and their digital presence to the next level, and had a firm hand in executing client digital marketing from start to finish. The word ‘no’ is not in my vocabulary. I take on projects outside my scope often, and find and hone new skills regularly.
My best advice to anyone just starting out in digital marketing is to figure out what they are good at, and groom those niche skills. Try everything once!
Well, now we know how Social Media gives the necessary boost every businesses need.
This is just the start of our Expert interview series , and there are many more that we want to chat with. We will resume our discussion with another expert next week.
Until then, Happy Marketing!!
