“ What do you see as the most crucial components of a successful social media strategy?“
Daily checkups on your ads and whatever you’re selling. Be sure to check the progress of your ads every single day. Nothing can tell you more about your audience than your audience itself.
“Social media is about the people! Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide you.”
We all know how important word of mouth is, and social networking is like word of mouth on steroids. Of course 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 Social Media Coordinator – Meet Matthew McMaster
Matthew wanted to be in the music industry since he was in 5th grade. Originally, he wanted to perform and he was actually going to attend the Berklee College of Music, but he decided to go to Temple instead. When he realized that he wasn’t going to be a ‘rock star,’ he chose to pursue the industry from the business side of things.
At the time, social media marketing was in its early stages, so he changed his major to Mass Media Communications & Production. He started with a remote marketing internship with this little social media management company in L.A. that worked with a few different artists. From there, he began managing artists and providing them with insights on how to expand their social footprint. He started working with bigger artists, and from there he moved onto venues, festivals, & brands.
Sharing some of his Social Media Strategies, it’s truly an honor to host Matthew McMaster, Social Media Coordinator at Deathwaltz Media Group in our Agency expert interview series:
1.What elements can create an excellent social media experience that will help convert prospects?
Every industry has it’s own set of rules when it comes to social media guidelines, but development and discovery of good content should be the #1 priority of any social media manager.
Basically, good content leads to higher organic engagement. Organic engagement increases your reach. Whether it be a news article about an artist, a video promoting the tour, or even a good photo, it all leads to an expanded online presence. If you catch the attention of your audience with the media in your post, then you can deliver the facts in the written portion. If you stick to that, your posts won’t seem overly promotional.
2.Which social network has proven to be the most effective advertising channel for you?
Facebook is the cheapest way to advertise, but everyone advertises on Facebook, so it leads to steep competition on the news feed. The algorithms are always changing, but currently, I’ve found that boosting a post for engagement to run on Facebook + Instagram simultaneously is a very cheap and effective way to cover your bases.
For CPC ads, I stick to Facebook for the most part. People don’t seem as hesitant to click the link on Facebook. On Instagram and Twitter, I’ve found that engagements are dirt cheap, but link clicks can quickly drain your budget.
3.What are some of the common mistakes made in running a social media campaign?
There are a lot of mistakes that can be made in a social media campaign. Each post has multiple aspects that can be easily overlooked, and when you have thousands of people viewing your work, your audience is quick to call you out publicly.
- Targeting. If your ad targeting is off, your CPC or CPM will skyrocket. Any clicks you get will be strictly based on luck. Always research your audience, and have a target audience in mind. Also, make sure that you aren’t advertising nationally. What good is it to have someone in California clicking on your ads if you’re on the east coast? Even worldwide brands advertise on a local level to keep things relevant to the immediate audience.
- Grammar and Spelling. Always triple-check your copy before clicking ‘Publish.’ It happens to the best of us, but I recommend revisiting any post or ad 5-10 minutes after publishing to let your eyes reset, and to see if your fans are reacting to it.
- Links. Make sure you’re using the correct link. In the concert industry, you’re constantly using anywhere from 20-50 different base links, and when you’re using ‘came from codes’ you have 2-3 times the amount of links you started with.
- Post Length. All social media algorithms favor shorter posts. If you can get them message across in one word or just by using a single hashtag, you’ve got a great post on your hands. Keep your posts scannable so your audience can quickly get the info.
4.What is the most important piece of advice you would give to your clients?
Keep it short and sweet, and don’t post too often. You will kill your reach. I try to keep it to no more than 3-4 posts a day. Basically, when you post something new, you’re telling whatever platform you’re using that your last post is ‘old news.’
5.How do you recommend continuously crafting engaging content for Social Media?
Change it up. Post a nice mix of links, native videos, photos, & live streaming.
I’ve found that up to date news articles perform extremely well on Facebook. After all, Facebook pretty much wants to be considered a news source. They wouldn’t have pushed ‘Instant Articles’ so heavily this past year if they didn’t want to become a heavy-hitting news source.
Don’t be afraid to post edgy content. Controversy has always been a huge source of free promotion (i.e. Marilyn Manson, Eminem, etc.). Andrew Oldham (The Rolling Stones manager) put it best: ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity.’ While it’s not entirely true, when it works, it works very well.
6.What do you see as the most crucial components of a successful social media strategy?
Daily checkups on your ads and whatever you’re selling. Be sure to check the progress of your ads every single day. Think of your ad insights as a case study from Harvard. Nothing can tell you more about your audience than your audience itself. I make it a habit to do a daily news search of each upcoming show I’m working on to make sure that I’m not missing anything they’re doing.
Also, don’t boost your posts immediately. Let Facebook & Twitter do the work for you. Once you boost, say goodbye to your organic engagement.
7.What’s one thing you do to invest in your personal brand and business on a regular basis?
Update LinkedIn as often as possible and post about your work online. If I’m excited about a show I’m working on, I’m never afraid to announce it to my followers. Don’t be afraid to express gratitude, interest, & excitement about what you do for a living online. It looks good to clients and potential employers.
8.What’s the best thing about being a social media coordinator, and what are the most frustrating things?
The best thing is announcing new shows and informing people about who’s coming to town. I love the feeling of announcing a new show and seeing how many people are excited to find out. Selling the experience of live music is a blast. Most people love concerts. Another thing is that social media marketing is a really interesting mix of marketing and psychology. Both are very intriguing topics.
The most frustrating thing is trying to make sure that each show or product is getting an equal amount of promotion. When you’re promoting 50+ shows simultaneously, you have to prioritize the shows that aren’t selling well, but you can’t forget about the other 49. Even when a show is sold out, my job isn’t over. Making sure that people know your show is almost as important to your brand as it is to selling tickets to another show.
Today we got to know a few Social Media Strategies to boost up your client relationships from the expert – Matthew McMaster. Going forward there are many more specialists that we want to chat with. We will resume our discussion with another expert in our next post.
Until then, Happy Marketing!!
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