Kickstart your Social Media Campaign: Developing your Social Media "Voice"

 

"Look Who's Talking 13: Starring John Travolta as Social Media"

Okay. You have made your Facebook Page, your Twitter account, your Blog and all your other Social Media Profiles and it's now time to make your first post.

BUT HOLD ON A MINUTE!!

What is your post going to be like? Are you going to be formal? Informal? Fun? Friendly? Informative? Who am I speaking to?

There are a lot of considerations to make! So we have decided here at The Arts Marketeer to give you our Guide on Developing Your Social Media Voice.

Identify your Audience

Who is it exactly that your organisation or group is aimed at? Is it like The Arts Marketeeer and is it for the Arts Community? Are you in Tourism and you are targeting Tourists from Overseas? 

It should be clear before you begin your Social Media Campaign who your target audience is. This will help you decide a number of things:

• What tone you need to take
• What content you need to give them
• What they can gain from your group/organisations

You will see "Get to Know your Audience" here quite a bit at The Arts Marketeer.
Think about the following to help you:

• Their Geographical Location
• Their Information Needs
• Their Age Group
• Their Social Class
• Their Common/Stereotypical Behaviours

 Define your Organisation's/Group's Values

When starting something fresh and new, we can often forget to sit down sometimes and define what our values are. So there is no time like the present to start Brainstorming. Here would be some examples The Arts Marketeer's values:

• Creativity
• Education
• Fun
• Savvy
• Innovation

Already from our values here a voice begins to develop. We want to be educational but fun at the same time. This is why we have decided to deliver our content in a more relaxed informal way while at the same time trying to be innovative  and informative.

Try it for your self with this Values List:

Voice Guidelines

When you have a fair idea of what your Social Media Voice is going to be, start writing up a list of guidelines or policies for yourself to follow.
Sometimes there can be more than one person working on your Social Media:

• The Managers
• The Posters
• The Content Makers 

But everyone needs to follow the same guidelines and follow the same voice and structure and there is where your guidelines will come in handy!

On this note, remember to reflect your organisations voice and personality in the Content you are making.  If your a very Formal well established Literary Society, then don't go posting pictures of cute puppies or OMG cats.

Stay tuned Marketeers,

The Arts Marketeer

Kickstarting your Social Media Campaign: Part 1

Believe us! It can be frustrating!

Unfortunately, as we learned from the SpiderMan films, "with great power, comes great responsibility!". If you are really wanting to harness the full potential of Social Media for your Digital Marketing effort, then there are a number of considerations you will need to make before getting stuck in! Fine if you want it just to be a casual thing, but if you really want to make a big splash, have a think about some of the following items. You can also use these to perhaps address some problems with your already existing Social Media strategies!

What is our Goal?

What is it that your trying to achieve with your Social Media Platforms?
Are you:

• Are you trying to sell a product? 
• Are you simply trying to make people aware of your brand or organisation?
• Are you trying to develop a certain type of audience?
• Are you trying to sell tickets to shows?
• Do you just simply want to have fun?

Various people use Social media as a platform for various reasons. However in all instances, without Goals or Objectives, then you may lose track of what you are trying to achieve. And if your not fully clued in, then neither will your audience.

So define Goals and Objectives, and track your progress!

Who is Responsible?

As with any effort, you need a good team behind you to get the best results.
Most organisations will have one person in charge of Social Media/Digital Marketing, however content, posts and other communications may be being created by others. If there are too many cooks in the kitchen, or too many voices, then you might end up confusing your audience.

Define some clear roles and responsibilities for your team.

Can/Do we produce enough Content?

You may well have heard the phrase "Content is King". The content that you create for your Digital Marketing effort is what will really draw in more people. Content can come in many different forms and over time this blog will take a look at some individually, but to name a few:

• Video
• Pictures
• Sound Bits
• Recordings
• Blog Posts

What you yourself or your organisation is best at; home in on this and be creative! These don't have to be expensive and many can be done for free! We all know that you can't have amazing videos all the time to promote yourself! And that sometimes we only have the local stray cat to take pictures of! But as a great man once said: "All you can do is your best".

Build Creative Content creation and publication into your overall Digital Marketing strategy.

More Kickstarter Tips coming soon,

The Arts Marketeer