{"id":10467,"date":"2015-01-09T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?p=10467"},"modified":"2015-10-29T11:01:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T11:01:59","slug":"social-media-marketing-radar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/social-media-marketing\/social-media-strategy\/social-media-marketing-radar\/","title":{"rendered":"The Social Media Marketing Radar"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Are you tapping into the potential of niche social media communities?<\/h2>\n<p>Social media marketing still represents a key opportunity for most of us, despite the hype that's only been intensifying since 2012.<\/p>\n<p>You might feel you've missed the boat, that you should be doing more. Depending on your progress, your market and your competitors, this will hold true to varying degrees.<\/p>\n<p>Like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/digital-marketing-strategy\/customer-acquisition-strategy\/prioritising-digital-marketing-radar\/\">Digital Marketing Radar<\/a>,\u00a0which we featured yesterday in our update reviewing all the Smart Insights 'mindtool' infographics to review the opportunity of digital marketing, the Social Media Marketing Radar infographic helps show you the types of social sites you can consider. You can also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/guides\/digital-marketing-strategy\/marketing-infographics\/\">download<\/a> our full set of 10 infographics.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The radar helps focuses attention and resources on the sites appearing towards its centre, as these sites are generally agreed on as the most important within a business.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In this post I'll also explain why it's important to look beyond the big 5 social networks to more targeted communities where you can engage audiences or \"tribes\" related to your brand. It's also useful to prioritise your time on the 'Big 5' since the impact will vary considerably.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/social-radar-low-res.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11578 aligncenter\" title=\"social-radar-low-res\" src=\"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/social-radar-low-res.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"849\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/social-radar-low-res.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/social-radar-low-res-106x150.jpg 106w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/social-radar-low-res-550x778.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/social-radar-low-res-250x353.jpg 250w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>The potential of targeting communities is vast, and growing<\/h3>\n<p>The radar will help you to figure out the right communities, so you can create the right content and share it\u2026<\/p>\n<p>We created our social media marketing radar to inform thinking and discussion with colleagues or agencies regarding which sites warrant or deserve most attention in different categories - to avoid instantly resorting to Facebook or LinkedIn as some form of magic social media panacea.<\/p>\n<p>Although this may seem a lot of effort to go beyond the main networks, you'll often find more passionate audiences who are more willing to engage and share.<\/p>\n<p>Remember...<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Social media hasn't stopped growing in importance<\/li>\n<li>Social media isn't a fad or a passing trend, so don\u2019t think you've missed out or it isn't relevant.<\/li>\n<li>Social media is\u00a0 an oft misunderstood label for something that's been central to modern marketing for decades - engaging and inspiring real people so your audience wants to directly or indirectly promote your brand story.<\/li>\n<li>To this end, social media marketing isn\u2019t really about big social networks, the latest social media marketing tools or techniques.<\/li>\n<li>It's certainly never too late to consider creating a social media marketing strategy.<\/li>\n<li>There are tools to help you assess the relevance of communities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Different <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/marketplace-analysis\/competitor-analysis\/tools-for-benchmarking-competitor-visitor-numbers\/\">competitor analysis tools<\/a>\u00a0are available to assess relevant communities.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<h3>Brands should try to gain traction in niche social media<\/h3>\n<p>We feel that niche or vertical communities are where the social media opportunity is headed for brands.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s naturally hardest to build a relevant presence and develop the necessary traction for your brand on the big networks. Maybe you've already encountered the difficulty involved in making your brand relevant on Facebook or LinkedIn? The degree of difficulty is evinced by the need to advertise or rely on the same old interruptive contests and techniques.<\/p>\n<p>It's not that Facebook doesn't matter - it does. But, it is necessary to commit to a volume of work (or spend) to create the brand cut-through necessary to gain relevant traction, as well as having the right content and knowing your audience well enough to figure out the right approach.<\/p>\n<p>And still, <strong>only when you gain an interested community's or group's attention can you inspire and earn influence and gain vital permission<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Our interest is in conducting a meaningful dialogue with relevant groups and communities.<\/p>\n<p>Audience insight enables you to simultaneously open opportunities in other niche communities; communities where you might find easier ways to connect and that your brand has a more natural relevance. And these communities don't need to be small; consider, for example, Pinterest, Quora, Slideshare, TripAdvisor and Yelp.<\/p>\n<p>Niche communities are very powerful by virtue of their potential to allow brand communications to be increasingly relevant and, in turn, increasingly influential. Also, vertical communities such as drinks and cocktails, student travel or chocolate, exist within tight niches.<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">1.\u00a0<strong>Social networks<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 the core social platforms in most countries where people interact through social networks are Facebook for consumer audiences, LinkedIn for business audiences, Google Plus and Twitter for both.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">2.\u00a0<strong>Social publishing and news<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 nearly all newspapers and magazines, whether broad or niche, have an online presence with the option to participate through comments on articles, blogs or communities.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">3.\u00a0<strong>Social commenting in blogs\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 a company blog can form the hub of your social media strategy and you can look at tapping into others\u2019 blogs, whether company or personal, or through blog outreach.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">4.\u00a0<strong>Social niche communities<\/strong>\u00a0- these are communities and forums independent of the main networks, although these do support sub-groups.\u00a0You can create your own community this way.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">5.\u00a0<strong>Social customer service<\/strong>\u00a0- sites like GetSatisfaction, as well as companies\u2019 own customer support forums, are increasingly important for responding to customer complaints.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">6.\u00a0<strong>Social knowledge\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 these are reference social networks, like Yahoo! Answers, Quora and similar plus Wikipedia. These sites show how any business can engage its audience by solving their problems and subtly showing how products have helped others.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">7.\u00a0<strong>Social bookmarking <\/strong>\u2013 bookmarking sites, like Delicious (www.delicious.com), are relatively unimportant in the UK unless you are engaging technical audiences.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">8.\u00a0<strong>Social streaming<\/strong>\u00a0- rich and streaming media sites including photos (Pinterest), video and podcasting.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">9.\u00a0<strong>Social search<\/strong>\u00a0- search engines are becoming more social with the ability to tag, comment on results and, most recently, vote for them through Google +1.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">10.\u00a0<strong>Social commerce<\/strong>\u00a0- we\u2019ve left this one until last, because it\u2019s mainly relevant for the retail sector. It involves reviews and ratings on products and sharing of coupons on deals.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h3>Putting mobile on the social media radar<\/h3>\n<p>We haven\u2019t identified mobile platforms or apps separately, since all social media options are available through Smartphones and this is where usage of the main social networks is highest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are you tapping into the potential of niche social media communities? Social media marketing still represents a key opportunity for most of us, despite the hype that&#8217;s only been intensifying since 2012. You might feel you&#8217;ve missed the boat, that &hellip;..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_glsr_average":0,"_glsr_ranking":0,"_glsr_reviews":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Social Media Marketing Radar | Smart Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Social Media Marketing Radar Are you tapping into the potential of niche social media communities? 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