Social Media is the Channel, Not the Strategy

I previously learned a huge mistake that marketing agencies tend to make. It has to do with the usage of Social Media for a clients' marketing strategy. In the digital age we all live in, it seems that a company that does not have social media accounts, does not exist. Can a brand actually be successful if it does not have a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram? Well, it certainly helps. However, it is one thing to possess a social media account and it is another thing to use it effectively to differentiate yourself from competitors. So, the main takeaway from this blog post is: Social media is the channel, not the strategy.

Over the summer, I had the amazing opportunity to be a Social Media/PR intern for an integrated marketing communications agency, Schneider Associates, in Boston, MA. For three months, I learned the ins and outs on how to effectively communicate the client's message through social media to the consumer. I dealt with diverse clients from a mosquito trap, Dynatrap, all the way to the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants (MSCPA).

In order to understand how social media should work I am going to use Dynatrap. On my first day, I was told to create a social media publishing calendar. This is a monthly plan of tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn posts, etc. I first thought to myself, how do I create social media content for a client I know nothing about? I have to understand their voice. I must understand how the client wants to be portrayed to the public and put that message into the content. So, what marketers may do wrong is just creating social channels, but the content is dry and boring. The content of the social media channels is the outer layer, but it communicates the clients' inner layer.

They way in which marketers fail with their social media channels is the way in which they implement them. Going back to Dynatrap, let's say that they come into Schneider Associates and they sit down in our conference room with our CEO and executives. If Schneider were to say that their strategy is social media, that is a mistake. You do not just name social media as your strategy because it is much more than that. You have to develop effective content for it to work. So, what is the strategy, then? The strategy is the content. That was my job over the summer. The reason I understand that social media is just the channel because I was in charge of developing and editing the content for many different types of products. For example, the content for Dynatrap was upbeat and fun while the content for the MSCPA was more informational, concrete content. If Schneider would only focus on creating social media channels for Dynatrap and MSCPA, then there would be nothing to differentiate them even though they are two completely different products! So, that is why the content is the strategy.

I am lucky to have had the opportunity to deeply understand how social media is deemed effective. I hope that marketers realize that the digital marketing age is only going to grow larger and larger, so understanding that the content is the strategy will only produce more effective integrated marketing communications campaigns.