This powerful article highlights the methodology and rigor behind some of the best infographics. According to Jay Lauf, publisher and president of the business site Quartz, “A big piece of the storytelling is finding new ways to tell stories that aren’t just necessarily the flat, written word.”
Infographics are a great way to visually articulate an idea or message that will resonates stronger with an audience in a way that the “flat, written word” never could.
In a recent Forrester report, How Social Media is Changing Brand Building, they report that 93% of marketers polled agree that they need to “reinvent their brand building strategies as a result of digital innovations like social and mobile.”
If you look at your social strategy as something that has to be measured you may be missing the bigger picture. Social is about what it forces you to do on a daily basis—evolve the conversation that surrounds your brand.
To position your brand in traditional channels requires a well thought out message and some creative combined with good placement of the message. If you approach social marketing that way, you’ll be missing the biggest part of the process. The context of the conversation has to have a comfortable flow and “content, in the right context is ultimately king,” says Deanna Brown, CEO of Federated Media Publishing.
You have to put more time into building the content that will fuel your conversation because a social effort requires you to continuously engage your customers or audience. The conversation needs to be anchored down with substance then expanded with conversation.
To give you an idea how important content is, in a WSJ article about GM, it’s noted that GM spends $3 producing content for every $1 they spend promoting that content on Facebook.
Once you get into a rhythm of producing content that your audience consumes and you understand how they engage with your brand based on that content, those insights can conveniently be incorporated into other marketing channels such as e-mail, website, SEO or banner ads.
What we’re now learning is that social media isn’t a channel that is going to drive transactional sales, as noted by an IBM report discussing referral business on Black Friday.
When evaluating social media, stick to the idea that it’s primarily a channel that will help you reinvent your brand and not a channel that will help you drive transactional sales. If you focus on the brand, the sales will come.
Insight Unsolicited 