Social Media Strategy for Technology Companies
Social media strategy differs for every type of business. Technology companies require a different approach from, say, your typical shoe store. Here are some recommendations for social media strategy for technology companies to help you optimize your social media strategy for best results.
First, Why You Need a Strategy
Strategy, you say, why bother with that? It’s just easier to start Tweeting.
If you do that, my friend, you will be annoyed when you don’t get the results you want. That’s why strategy is important: you have to first determine what goals you have, then decide the best way to reach them.
Your technology customers are among the most tech-savvy people out there. They’re using social media, and they expect you to be using it as well. They’re using social media to make informed IT purchasing decisions: in fact, 58% of IT buyers rely heavily on it as a channel in the buying process.
And there are likely a lot of players in your space. All the more reason to stand out by establishing your brand as a thought leader in your space and promoting it through social media.
But simply being on social won’t help. If you share content and updates willy-nilly with no direction, you risk confusing your audience and turning them away from your brand. That’s where social media strategy comes in handy: it guides everything you do on social media, and ensures that your messaging is appropriately targeted.
Defining Your Social Media Goals
As I said, it’s important that you first establish what you want to achieve through social media. Make these goals as concrete and measurable as possible. If you want to increase visits to your website from your Twitter profile, specify how much of an increase you want over a six-month period. If you want to grow sales, segment each social channel and set a target dollar amount for each.
Play to Your Strengths
As I said, technology companies use social media different from other types of companies. There are areas where they definitely thrive, such as:
- Customer support via social
- Driving growth through the customer lifecycle through social
Because customer retention can be such a large issue for SaaS companies, solid social media customer support can reduce churn and keep customers happy. And tech companies have a huge opportunity to drive growth in innovative ways through social media by upselling, cross-selling, crowdsourcing, and nurturing their community.
Understanding the areas that are particularly easy for you as a technology firm to leverage can help you in developing that strategy.
Know Your Audience
Before you dive into the “how” of your goals, spend some time getting to know your audience. You can make some assumptions about who they are and what they want to hear from you on social media, but you know what making assumptions makes out of “you and me.”
Search for keywords that relate to your technology firm or product. See who’s talking about it, and what they’re saying. Check out the types of people who are following your competitors to better understand their audience. Then look at what you’ve shared in the past. Which links are people clicking? Which are they ignoring?
The better you understand who you’re trying to connect with, the better you can build your strategy around doing so.
Now Execute That Strategy
You know who you’re trying to reach and what you want to accomplish, so it’s time to dive into the strategy. Don’t be afraid of failure; it likely will take a few attempts to figure out what your audience really identifies with. Test out a campaign for three months, then measure results.
You might find that, more than taking you up on that 30 day free trial, your social followers really liked that free report that you shared. This is valuable information that can drive future campaigns. Always pay attention to results, and use what works down the road.
Having a solid social media strategy in place can ensure that your technology firm stays in contact with the people who help you succeed: your customers.
Would you like help with your inbound or social media strategy or execution? Get in touch with us today and let’s see if we can help!
