Social Media Marketing and Promotions Strategy 2012
If your business sells anything to anyone, there are some stats of interest within this week’s early returns on Cyber Monday 2011. IBM and eBay reported $1.25B in total Cyber Monday sales (29% more than on Black Friday), and found that more than 6% of consumers shopped online via mobile. Over half a percent of cyber buyers came from social channels- mostly Facebook. All bigger numbers than years past.
What does this all mean for brand marketers? Consumers are as responsive to great deals as ever. They are spending. And they are using their digital tools- especially the social and mobile combo- to find and buy great deals.
So with these seasonal trends in mind, how are you planning your 2012 social media marketing and promotions?
To do this annual planning exercise justice in an explosive growth channel like social media, you’d want to know what the trends are heading into the year, what consumers are responding to, and what may be resonating best by December 2012- the next Black Friday. Even amid this year’s holiday season, agencies and planners are deep into planning the next cycle.
A few things to consider:
1) What is your planning cycle based upon? Is it seasons? Or calendar milestones (like Black Friday?) Or is it geared toward new product launches?
2) What is the internal turnaround time for launching a marketing campaign for your brand? From setting a campaign strategy to budgeting to getting everyone internally on board to designing key ad units and graphics, how long does it take to pull off a big idea?
3) Follow the huge trends: mobile, including mobile access but also check-ins, instant offers and coupons, QR codes and everything else mobile can do. And, cross-platform in general. Facebook continues to be a tremendous anchor for your social strategy, but don’t neglect the other platforms that are great for different reasons.
4) Allow time to get great outside guidance on best practices for your promotion or campaign. From coming up with the big ideas to filling in all the fundamentals- prizes, fulfillment, legal, complying with all social channels’ promotional guidelines- to executing under a short or extended timeframe, it pays to have a third party partner.
What are your goals for the year in terms of social media marketing and promotions, and what cross-channel campaigns and big ideas are going to get you there?
