While many businesses are encouraged to use social media to interact with potential customers and to bolster their brand, some businesses are better suited to the medium than others. When devising a digital strategy, James Hammon & Co. often consider excluding social media from the online marketing mix where we consider it inappropriate or probably ineffective for the business to promote itself.
Businesses that can regularly post visually striking and, most importantly, post engaging content to their social media pages can reap the benefits of fans sharing the content across the web.
Entertainment
Those involved in the entertainment field regularly find themselves on film or television sets or in the company of successful performers. Using celebrity clout can help businesses in the entertainment field climb the social media ladder faster than a business only posting internal content. While entertainers may ask for credit in each post, it’s a small price to pay to increase exposure by relating the business’ brand to a celebrity.
Charities
In some instances, social media users want to help worthwhile causes but are unable to donate money or their time. Charities like Sevenly use social media to encourage Facebook users who cannot donate money to the cause to instead share the message on Facebook so that their friends may be able to help. They also leverage social media to sell custom t-shirts for a new charity every seven days, a social-media-accessible program that enables t-shirts to sell out in just a few hours.
Restaurants
Restaurants can use social media to post exclusive meals for the day, chef specialties or offer coupons to those who follow the page. By encouraging fans to interact with the restaurant through promotions or the exclusivity of meals, many restaurants have seen jumps in their page like numbers and community involvement. In many cases, the advertising reach on Facebook and Twitter for local restaurants is near free, and Facebook users who see menu items they like become customers.
What all of these businesses have in common is the ease of sharing high-quality visual and highly engaging content. Businesses in service industries that don’t depend on customer interaction with the brand to succeed are less likely to find uses for social media. Content worth sharing is the first step to any successful social media campaign. It’s for this reason any product or service that is highly specialised is unlikely to reap the rewards from a social media campaign.
