Keeping up with trends, going viral and collaborating with influencers is all great and dandy, but when it comes to marketing, how necessary is it to hop on to all these trends or use every social media platform?

Saads Abrahams from media update spoke to Adam Dornbusch, the CEO and founder of EnTribe, to give us his insights on social media and digital marketing.

In your professional opinion, what are the most effective social media platforms for a brand to use and why?

All social media platforms have respective values. However, brands need to decide who their audience is and based on that, they can choose which social media platforms are best for them.

Social media platforms that can empower engagement with current and potential customers are the best. You can use the content they create to showcase your brand and repurpose the user-generated content, or UGC as part of your marketing strategy.

UGC is cost-effective, original and authentic, which are qualities that people are looking for in brands these days.

How can marketers stay up to date with the latest trends and changes in social media algorithms?

I would recommend brands do two things to stay up-to-date with the ever-changing algorithms and trends on social media platforms:

1. Pay attention to what your followers, and even competitors, are doing on the platforms. Doing so will provide timely insights to learn what content creators are doing themselves and which content consumers they are interacting the most with.
2. Follow the news releases from the platforms in your target regions across the world. For example, the United States can have different updates than the European Union. So it’s very important to stay up-to-date.

Explain the concept of engagement on social media and how it can benefit a brand.

I would explain the concept of engagement as how you nourish a relationship with a friend that you’ve known for a long time or a person you just met at a coffee shop.

Brands do the same on social media platforms. For example, brands can engage with new followers by sharing content that describes their product or service and shares their mission and values.

A brand can acknowledge the loyalty of existing customers and followers by sharing content they have created about their product or service. Brands can share that content through the brand’s social media pages, e-newsletter and website.

Most importantly, brands should also comment on those posts. This is not only with the person who made the post but with the people who leave a comment on those posts.

What advice can you give to marketers on how to handle negative feedback or criticism on social media?

When faced with a negative post on social media, brands need to react fast, be apologetic and drive the conversation to a private channel — such as email, DM or phone.

Brands should acknowledge the negative feedback in public and avoid being defensive.

You never know when an online argument could resurface in the future and damage your reputation. It’s also very important to listen to why they are upset and genuinely apologise. Use this situation as a learning opportunity to improve your business processes, products and services.

What steps can marketers take to protect and manage a company’s online reputation?

There are several steps brands and marketers can take to protect their reputations. The two I find most important are for brands to be truthful and transparent and to monitor their online presence. [Check out Newsclip]

It’s important to know what customers, followers and even competitors say about the brand you represent, so you can address those issues head-on — whether it’s false information, negative or positive posts.

Being active and engaging on platforms is crucial because it demonstrates that the brand actively listens to its followers, who value having their favourite brands seen, heard and interacting with them.

Brands that proactively manage their reputations enjoy greater long-term success as a result of increased credibility, customer trust and sales profit. Do not wait until a crisis occurs to begin managing your reputation.

In your opinion, what role should influencer marketing play in a brand’s social media strategy?

For the past two years at EnTribe, we have surveyed over two thousand consumers. We found that 90% of those surveyed prefer to see brands share content from actual customers compared to sponsored influencer content.

That’s a 25% increase from the previous year’s survey when we asked the same question. I don’t have a problem with marketers using influencers, but is it a cost-effective marketing strategy?

When marketers utilise UGC, they leverage organic content that can lend an air of authenticity to any marketing strategy while cultivating a sense of community among consumers.

Another benefit is that brands can repurpose content where followers do product and customer reviews, which is a great way to get free reviews and build relationships with real customers.

What are some common mistakes made in social media marketing, and how can one avoid them?

In my opinion, marketers make a few mistakes when using social media as a marketing strategy.
The biggest mistakes are when brands:

• ignore analytics
• use canned or generic responses, and
• don’t stay current with trending topics and trends.

To avoid these mistakes, marketers should regularly monitor platforms to gain valuable insights into which kind of content consumers respond better to. [They should] always personalise responses to posts, questions and even negative comments.

Doing so shows authenticity and that a bot is not answering them. There is also no way around it, but marketers must stay up-to-date with trending conversations relevant to their brand’s industry and major cultural news.

Finally, another big mistake I see is when brands oversell their products or services and are pushy with promotions. It turns consumers off.

This approach leads to disengagement and the loss of followers, who could potentially be paying customers. For this common mistake, I recommend that marketers balance promotional posts with valuable, engaging content that puts their customers’ needs first.

Threads is the latest social media app that everyone is excited about. How can brands utilise Threads’s unique features to create engaging content?

Brands can leverage Threads’s features to create engaging content by being early adopters and by capitalising on the platform’s initial wave of interest.

With Threads being a blank slate, brands can have authentic engagement with creators and build raw, unfiltered connections. Adopting a conversational tone and encouraging creators to share their opinions and content can foster meaningful interactions.

By being ad-free, it provides a safe haven for businesses seeking to forge genuine relationships with their target demographic. The platform’s quick turnaround allows brands to collect content and stay relevant in the fast-paced world of memes and trends.

While privacy concerns exist, content management platforms, like EnTribe, can provide thorough security features to ensure brands can repost the creator’s content safely.

The brands that will be successful will be the ones that strategise and build relationships with their creator community on Threads and other platforms.

What has been your experience using social media for marketing? Let us know in the comments section below.

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*Image courtesy of Canva and Adam Dornbusch