How do you integrate social into a broader marketing strategy?
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- USM, June 2012
Many companies are jumping onto social media as an additional way of marketing their products. But many are finding there's a world of difference between setting up a Facebook page and getting people to 'like' it and getting active engagement with the campaign. So what's the best way for someone to integrate social media into their marketing campaign and what have been some of the best examples?
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Clare Carney, social media specialist at Auto Trader, agrees that companies need to be "down to earth" when using social media. "Social media is the only real opportunity to humanise a company, and do that you have to be more honest." She adds that social media is now involved in "every single campaign we do". The online marketplace uses social media for marketing because of the nature of car purchases: it can be between three and five years before someone buys another car, and social media allows Auto Trader to stay in touch between those purchase points.
Nevertheless, it also uses social media for one-off campaigns as well. For the relaunch of its website two years ago, which it promoted in other media as well, the magazine added a 'treasure hunt' across the site to engage users and show them how to navigate it.
The hunt was able to generate 1.5 million searches on the site and get numerous uploads of new advertisements, generating revenues. Mixing one-off campaigns with a wider and more long-term and structured approach to social media marketing is clearly the future of this sector.
Carney says the reason Facebook in particular worked so well to generate hits during the hunt is that it enabled people to collaborate. "We tried to make the treasure hunt as 'Google-proof' as possible, so people had to work together to solve the clues. It created a real community." The treasure hunt proved a successful enough strategy that the company reused it for a 'Christmas cracker' hunt as well.
The key to benefitting from social media as a marketing tool, it seems - whether it's Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or a home-grown platform - is not to regard it as a marketing tool at all, but as a new way to interact with people and for them to interact with each other, not just in the short-term but in the long-term as well. You can learn from them and, as a result, they can learn about you.
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