As business storytellers, we have spent the last three years watching, learning, and immersing ourselves in new media. The digital evolution yields immense value in audience reach, messaging power for B2B and B2C companies, and in accessibility to customers and information. The number of participants engaged on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube demand a company’s attention.
How to harness the power of these channels is the key marketing question. In much the same way we begin every marketing initiative, we start with the end zone—what’s the goal and how will we reach it? For our clients, Return on Investment is answered in the larger context of strategic marketing and public relations; social media is not a stand-alone marketing channel with a disparate ROI.
Practically speaking, how can social media fit into a company’s marketing and communications plan?
Understanding the goals, we leverage each marketing piece with a social channel where appropriate. For example, tweeting an opinion editorial, repurposing it into a case study, posting it on a blog, adding a YouTube video, sharing the news on LinkedIn, inviting comments on Facebook, and sharing the website link with the news media, trade publications, and associations.
It’s social media’s ability to add heft to traditional media—a global ripple effect—that makes it such a powerful advantage for companies. When combined with a cause marketing initiative, it completes the marketing cycle with a new dimension of event experience and real-time messaging.
LB Smith Ford Lincoln Inc. in Lemoyne, Pennsylvania, has invested in community causes since 1940. CEO Richard E. Jordan II understands the value of “Commitment to Community” and introduced social media into the marketing mix for the LB Smith Ford Lincoln Mercury Second Mile Celebration of Leadership 2010. These social media efforts dramatically extended the life and expanded the reach of The Second Mile’s story.
Click image to read on to find out how cause, creativity, and content helped The Second Mile and LB Smith Ford Lincoln Inc. earn the right to win.
Anne D. Gallaher