Five things we learnt from #SMWBristol

1) It’s better to have 500-1000 highly engaged followers, than having high numbers who aren’t

Once upon a time it was a race for numbers. Not so anymore. Quality beats quantity every time. To really leverage social you need engaged users not just those who are following you on the off chance they might receive a discount code. That means you need to make your content consistently engaging. You don’t need to post every day but when you do make sure what you’re posting has value, informs, entertains or is of genuine use.

2) Social isn’t just about having a regular presence – make the most of things that happen by chance

Create a content plan and stick to it, but be prepared to react to news, events, weather or comments by customers. It’s the unplanned, or off-the-cuff content that can often be the most successful. But be warned! Off-the-cuff doesn’t mean ‘dashed off’ – make sure you have a robust sign-off process so you can sense check content.

3) It’s all about thinking differently

Producing stand out content isn’t easy. It requires you to think differently; from your competitors, to what you’ve done before, from what other brands are doing. If you can do that you are more likely to have an impact. Take our Valentine’s Day posts for Toolstation.

Toolstation had never run any Valentine’s themed creative before, because the accepted view was that tradespeople just weren’t into all that. We felt it was a matter of making it relevant to the audience. A couple of cheeky headlines later…Toolstation’s Facebook audience were clearly loving it.

4) Organic reach isn’t dead

We know! We thought so too. The recent Facebook algorithm update hasn’t helped but if your content is good enough it will get picked up outside of social media as well. The growth of Dark Social (social channels that can’t be tracked), is another reason to persevere with organic. eConsultancy reckon as much as 75% of referrals come from these channels. Check out the full article.

5) Measuring social video is much more than just views

Views aren’t the be all and end all. Now don’t get us wrong, they’re important and it’s the first port of call for most clients, but there are other measures of social ‘success’ that are worth considering. Think about domain authority, natural search ranking through backlinks, PR generation and lead nurturing.

If you would like some help with your social campaign, or you’d just like a chat about your social activity we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with General Manager Ian Reeves. You can drop him an email at ian.reeves.flourishworld.com or hit him up on your favourite social channel