USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE · there are key items to be aware of to gain a competitive advantage. Those who manage, or will manage, your company’s social media

USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGEImprove Your Business in 6 Easy Steps

© 2018 Omnitracs, LLC. All rights reserved.

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SOCIAL MEDIA IS MORE THAN JUST A FAD — businesses utilize social platforms to enhance customer service, showcase their brand and values, share knowledge, and more.

Whether your company already has a social media presence or not, there are key items to be aware of to gain a competitive advantage. Those who manage, or will manage, your company’s social media should be maximizing the value that these platforms can bring to your business.

Using Social Media to Your Competitive Advantage | Improve Your Business in 6 Easy Steps© 2018 Omnitracs, LLC. All rights reserved.

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WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA? Having a social media presence has come to be expected of most companies. When looking at a brand, customers, prospects, and potential employees (including drivers) don’t stop at your website. They can gain valuable insights about your company from the way it presents itself on social media — through photos, posts, and how the brand communicates with its audience. This is important for business owners and executives, human resources, customer service, IT, sales and marketing, operations, and more.

One top reason why companies should care about social media is because the competition is there. Companies in all industries are growing their presence on social media; if your company is not also on social media, you do not have a seat at the table.

Companies can use social media to support a number of business functions, including troubleshooting and support, sharing industry knowledge and resources, providing customer service, and engaging with prospects. Decision makers are on social media, using the platforms to not only research purchases, but to make them.

Social media can provide value to your company. Here are six steps you can take to use it to your competitive advantage.


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STEP 1 – LISTEN How much of social media involves organizations pushing their agenda on you? The connected consumer is smarter today, and knows when companies are selling to them instead of listening. Listening to what conversations are going on in your company’s space can help improve customer service, sales, market research, and more.

People are on social media talking about your brand and issues that are important to them. You can make a small investment in a tool such as Hootsuite to monitor these conversations on social media, and set up various streams to listen to conversations on Twitter. Let’s look at some examples.

This stream monitors any conversation that mentions your company’s Twitter handle.

Or, monitor conversations about fleet management (or any other keywords

you choose).

Conversations where your company’s name is mentioned, whether the company Twitter handle was mentioned in the tweet or not,

can also be monitored.

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STEP 1 – LISTEN, CONTINUED Your company can listen to relevant conversations and jump in when appropriate. Responding to your customers and followers feels more like a two-way conversation than simply going on social media to blast a message about your products and services to the masses. People like to hear from brands and see when companies interact.

By listening, you are gaining insights, conducting market research, improving customer service, and engaging with your audience.

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STEP 2: DEFINE YOUR OBJECTIVESOnce you’ve started your social listening, you need to create a social strategy. That strategy should tie in directly to your long-term organizational strategy. Where do you want your company to be in one year? Five years? Ten years? And how will social media help you achieve that?

There is a belief that social media should be fun (and it should be!) but the effort that goes into social media should be strategic and align with your company’s business goals. Social media still needs to be treated the same way as any other activity that can generate revenue for your business. This means coordinating with other departments to align business goals, developing a strategy, defining key performance indicators (KPIs), and measuring progress against monthly, quarterly, and annual goals.

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STEP 3: SET S.M.A.R.T. GOALS What are your objectives? Do you want to sell more products? Increase direct traffic to your website? Increase referrals or generate leads? Recruit drivers? Increase thought leadership?

Whatever those goals are — and they should be S.M.A.R.T. goals, or Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-focused, and Time-bound — your social strategy should be designed to help you achieve them. If your strategy isn’t mapped to your larger organizational goals, then all the time you’re spending on social media won’t move your company forward.

What are some examples? You could have a S.M.A.R.T. goal of increasing web traffic by 20 percent from social media by the end of your third quarter. Or, perhaps you link to a job post from social media and your goal is to increase qualified applicants by five percent by the end of the month.

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STEP 4: CHOOSE PLATFORMS It is not realistic for every company to be on every social media platform. Managing social media is time-consuming and only effective when your target audience is also on the platforms you use.

LinkedIn is a place where people go for business development, reading industry articles, and looking for jobs or recruiting. Employees at your company link their profiles to the company page, and prospective employees come here to learn about company news and culture. Twitter, on the other hand, can be thought of like a cocktail party where you can eavesdrop on conversations but it’s socially acceptable to interrupt and jump into, say, a conversation about fleet management. For example, if you are using your social listening tools and see people are talking about your company, it’s perfectly acceptable to jump into the conversation and weigh in or provide additional insight to keep the conversation going. Twitter is also important for breaking news, timely events, and up-to-the-second information.

BONUS TIPLinkedIn can be used for business development. Companies that are trying to reel in big fish can look up people at the company and see who is a second- or third-degree connection, using that as an “in” to get a foot in the door or an introduction. You can also check a person’s profile for interests and groups to find common ground. Start engaging in those groups to begin a conversation so that you are no longer a cold contact but a friendly face.

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STEP 4: CHOOSE PLATFORMS, CONTINUED Facebook is often used for communicating and sharing photos with friends and family, but businesses use it more and more to connect with their customers. Have you ever read an article on Facebook? Have you ever bought anything there or responded to a Facebook ad? If the answer is yes for your industry, then you might want to consider being on Facebook if you are not there already.

YouTube is a good channel for showcasing videos that your company has produced, and when you upload videos, you can choose keywords to make your content appear in more searches. Pinterest and Instagram might only be good platforms for your company if you have great photos to share of your products or company. Companies are getting creative with Pinterest and using it as a repository to house all of their infographics in a sortable, organized fashion. Instagram is the fastest growing social network in the world, and one third of the most-viewed Instagram stories are from businesses. Those businesses can make their brand more visible to their audiences that way.

You know your company best, so you and your marketing team can decide which platforms make the most sense for your message. You need to know the difference between platforms and which works for your target audience — knowing that needs will evolve over time.

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STEP 5: DELIVER CONTENT STRATEGY Companies need to remember that the reasons people use these platforms do not include being sold to, even though they use social media to do research and even make purchases.

Instead, companies need to add value to their end users, just as they do with their products. Whatever content they share should have something educational, entertaining, or informative — something of value — to deliver.

Understanding when and how often to post should be part of your company’s social media strategy. Best practices may say to post on Wednesdays at one o’clock, but if all companies are doing that, why would they read your content over someone else’s? Companies should test out different days of the week and times to see what works the best for them.

Then, the frequency depends on the platform. A good number to test for business-to-business companies is to start with three times a week for Facebook and LinkedIn. Twitter requires a higher frequency than that, but ultimately, the data will tell you the best frequency for your company. Give it 90 days and make adjustments after that.

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STEP 5: DELIVER CONTENT STRATEGY, CONTINUED There are many different types of content that your company can share, including:

• Articles from your company’s blog• Links to company white papers and other materials• GIFs• Infographics and visuals• Industry news articles from publications

Content does not have to be created by your company. To be a thought leader and engage with others, it’s best to also share content from other sources. This could be industry news from a publication or even retweeting or sharing posts from trusted partners and news sources. If you don’t want to simply share news from others, add 180 characters to the post you’re sharing with your company’s comments or insights about the topic.

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STEP 5: DELIVER CONTENT STRATEGY, CONTINUED Another form of social media content is user-generated content. User-generated content can refer to photos, videos, testimonials, or any content created by your fans, rather than you. The users post it on your page; you don’t need to ask for permission.

Here is an example of user-generated content that resulted from a contest.

Sometimes you will be fortunate enough to receive this content unsolicited, but many times companies will hold contests or ask their fans to upload photos.

Quote cards are another way to engage with your audience. Here is an example.

When selecting a content mix, keep in mind the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of your content should add value, while 20 percent should be sales in nature. Make sure all of your social media content is relevant and that the majority of it adds value to your audience.

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STEP 6: ENGAGE AND FACILITATE Finally, companies need to engage their followers and facilitate conversations and interactions.

Social media is all about engaging. Your followers don’t want to be talked at; they want to be part of a conversation. Using social media well and wisely means giving your followers ways to participate in that conversation, whether by sharing their own pictures, posting their own comments, or sharing your post with their friends. It’s all about give and take.

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Taking these six steps will help your company gain a competitive advantage. Optimizing your company’s social media strategy is just one of many ways you can use technology to your competitive advantage.

YOUR TECHNOLOGY PARTNER Omnitracs helps fleets of all sizes reduce operational costs, save time, comply with government regulations, improve customer service, and keep drivers safe and productive.

For more information, visit www.omnitracs.com

or call 800.348.7227.


https://www.omnitracs.com

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USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE · there are key items to be aware of to gain a competitive advantage. Those who manage, or will manage, your company’s social media