The Best Guiding Principle Of Digital Marketing Strategy That Has Not Changed
Social Media and Digital Marketing as a whole has evolved A LOT in the past 15 years has it not?
Yes. It has.
As I’m writing this today it’s “Social Media Day” which is every day for me since it’s what I do. But it got me thinking… October 3rd of this year will mark my FIFTEENTH birthday on Facebook. Wow - 15 years! There are people driving automobiles around town with permits today who weren’t born yet on the day I signed up. Ten years ago I wrote this article on Frameable Faces about my 5 year birthday with some great screenshots of my early posts. I went through some of my other articles about social media and found that in many respects the more things change the more they stay the same. Let me explain:
Change: There is no more……Vine, Meerkat, Periscope, Google Plus, IGTV - all gone. All looked like possible game changers for a minute. All extinct. MySpace is technically not dead but has been on life support for a decade (not sure why it’s still online). This Wiki page actually lists 152 dead social networks and it doesn’t even list Busker, Happs.TV, that one Panoramic photos app I thought was cool and the social blogging one that I liked both of which names I can’t remember. Tweets are 280 characters now instead of 140. Facebook is (kinda) changing its name to Meta. Instagram tried to become Snapchat (stories) before it tried to become YouTube (IGTV) before it tried to become TikTok (Reels). And, oh yeah - TikTok - the latest massive disruptor - there’s that. Social media changes fast. Always has.
Same: Most of the big dogs are still the big dogs. Facebook is still king. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat are all still going pretty strong for the most part. Much of what works best in social media is still the same. Provide value, engage engage engage, entertain, help, share, don’t just sell at your community - they are not captive on social media like they were as TV viewers 20 years ago. These things are all still really important. The best content still gets reach and you can still build on social media with the same targeted word of mouth approaches you would have used over a decade ago.
But when it comes to Digital Marketing as a whole the one single best guiding principle for how to execute a strategy regardless of which social media platforms you use is this:
FOCUS ON YOUR OWNED ONLINE ASSETS at the core of your strategy.
So simple and yet it bears repeating. I’m still surprised at how I can see the lightbulb turn on for so many folks when I tell them this. Remember you own your website. You never owned your Vine or Google Plus profiles which are now gone. This is important for the following reasons:
Security. It’s YOUR home online. You own your website. As long as you pay your bills for your domain renewal and your hosting your website is not going to “go out of business” unless YOU shut it down.
Credibility. Personally I don’t take a business seriously as a real business if there’s no website. You can set up an Instagram profile and say it’s your business but I’m not fooled and many others won’t be either.
Freedom. You don’t have to play by the community rules or restrictions on YOUR website that Facebook and the others use to control the user experience. Facebook in particular can be impossible to navigate as a page admin sometimes and as I mentioned earlier the platforms are all changing all the time. You are free to be YOU and YOUR brand the way you want to be on your website.
Discoverability. People still search for a service or a product with Google. Google likes to provide websites in its search results partly because of reason #2 above.
Your email list (which you also own) is also important if you are email marketing - and you should be.
The Best Guiding Principle of Digital Marketing Strategy
Focusing on your owned online assets is the guiding principle I’m referring to in the title of this article. But what does that mean exactly? Just make sure you have a great website? Well that’s only part of it.
A great website has to be a living breathing website. You need to add content to it so people have a reason to visit and to return. Let’s go back to the discoverability piece from above. Google’s job is to find the best result for a search so people have a great experience using Google again and again. Google is the search engine and giving Google the best reasons to recommend your website in a search result is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Google doesn’t just like great websites. Google likes great websites with TRAFFIC. Traffic as in people visiting the site and staying there for a bit - browsing around it or reading a blog post on it. The built in assumption Google makes is that if people are visiting and spending time there there must be a good reason which makes for a better search result. You follow me?
So here’s the “focusing” on your website that I’m referring to and the three steps involved in this guiding principle:
Update your website regularly with your best content - I feel a blog is key here.
Show up where the people are - on social media. Do all those things that you need to do there as I said before - engage, share, be awesome, be social, build community.
DRIVE the people from social with links back to your website where they can get your best content. Get traffic flowing to your site. This should be where your conversions happen - turning social media likes and follows into consumers of your content, your services, your products - at your site. Google will love it and reward you for it.
There it is. The sustainable way to use social media for your business in your digital marketing strategy. Tried and true. Happy Social Media Day!
Comments? Thoughts? Share below!
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can also connect with Doug on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, and/or M10 Social on Twitter or Facebook.
******************************************************************************************
Tune in to the 📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show T-F between 10AM & 11AM EST UTC-4 by following them on Heckle or Twitter at @frameablefaces!
Don’t forget to check out the Doug & Ally Morning Show PODCAST available on most platforms where you get podcasts including Anchor.fm, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts & I Heart Radio!