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Social media strategies companies should embrace
Social media strategies companies should embrace
What you need to know:
To remain relevant in a digitised environment and fend off competitive threats, companies should be clear about their digital strategy as Jonathan Adengo writes.
“We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost,” those were the words the Nokia CEO ended his speech with during a press conference to announce Nokia’s smartphone division being acquired by Microsoft in 2013.
The company that once sold more than half of the world’s mobile phones barely sold any. In fact, by 2010, the mobile phone giant started its downhill path, and within only a span of a few years, they sold their business to Microsoft.
Nokia did not do anything wrong; the world just changed too fast for them and they failed to catch the tide of change.
The digital revolution is fast changing the rules of competition today, with incumbent companies most at risk of being left behind. The new startups mainly driven by Internet and technological revolution have had to redesign the landscape of doing business today. The older and more traditional companies have either had to embrace digitisation or be left outside.
Michael Niyitegeka, an IT consultant and lecturer at Makerere University, says it is important for you to understand the audience or clientele your targeting as a business and devise strategies that you can use to address their needs as a business.
“It is important, for instance, to understand the communication platforms that you can use as a business,” he says.
In the Budget speech last week, Finance minister designate Matia Kassaija revealed that internet users grew from 8.5 million to 13 million in 2015. He also said: “Telephone subscribers increased from 19.5 million in 2013 to 23 million in 2015.”
With internet and mobile penetration growing, businesses cannot deny the power of digital marketing. Various social media platforms are being used to reach out to customers to convey messages. With mobile phones becoming an integral part of our lives, mobile marketing too, has become a major segment in digital marketing.
Niyitegeka says in Uganda, there are majorly two social media that businesses use to communicate and engage their online audience.
Businesses need to embrace digital technology in some form, whether by using e-commerce and digital marketing, or utilising new technology for product development or manufacturing. However, many businesses do not know how to go about this. That is why developing a digital strategy becomes important.
Digital strategy
A digital strategy is a high level plan for how digital technology can be used to achieve the goals of an organisation or business. Its role is to establish which digital technologies or platforms can do this and how. There are compelling statistics as to why you should have one.
Create a website
Stone Atwiine, the CEO Remit.ug, an online money remittance service provider, says companies must go mobile.
“Mobile is dominating traffic as opposed to computers,” Atwine says.
When you create a company website, you have to make sure you adjust it to integrate the mobile platform as well because everybody these days is on the go and most people access the Internet using their mobile phones.
Be social with your market
Crystal Twebaze, a marketer with a bias to digital marketing, says the other reason digital is such a big hit these days is the interactivity option. Gone are the days when there was only one-way communication between companies and their consumers through suggestion boxes with no option for a response.
“Instead of using traditional means, inquiries/complaints can be made on digital. You know Facebook actually keeps track of response time for pages especially business pages. The ideal situation is to have low response time. So maybe 10-15 minutes. You know that couldn’t happen in the past,” notes Twebaze.
Atwiine says you need to consider social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Facebook, for instance, has a strong algorithm and understands their users very well. You also need to start your conversation well with a clear strategy. Define who you want to talk to and what you want to talk about.
Content generation
Atwiine says leaders must get involved in content marketing. CEOs and high level executives should talk about what they think about their industry.
“Contact the blog authors and discuss the options for content submissions and spotlights or offer one of your company representatives for expert opinion,” he says.
Twebaze says the content should be relevant. “When people go online, what they want to see is interesting/relevant content. So, even if you are posting on your products, it has to be done in a way that your audience relates to,” she says.
She says there has been the trend towards content marketing now which is a skill that companies need to pick up.
“It’s basically identifying your target consumer then focusing on creating and distributing valuable content to attract and retain,” she says.
So, digital is increasingly becoming preferred because it has got clearly defined measurement capabilities.
“You can measure sales conversions off your Facebook page or your website. I may fail to measure how many people saw the full page print advert in the newspaper but you can measure off a Facebook advert. On that Facebook advert, you can even in build a call to action,” Twebaze explains.
The Internet has become a key vehicle in a digital marketing and communications “toolbox.” It can be used for a wide range of functions, from a general information source, much like an electronic brochure, to a product-delivery service (e.g., software downloads). Unlike print ads placed in different publications, the Internet’s electronic foundation allows for easy measurement across many different criteria. Overall, Twebaze says businesses want to measure whether their website is being used and, if it is, how frequent?
