Communicating on social in 2021

Communication and advertising on social are not so different from offline channels. Objectives, strategies, the right tools: the fundamentals are always the same.

Social before social

What was the internet like before social networks as we know them today?

It is not easy to answer a question like this. First, because we could define social networks, perhaps ante litteram, as any tool that connects people who are physically distant.

Going back in time and stretching the vocabulary slightly, we might mention MySpace, MSN Messenger, the countless generalist chat rooms, or thematic forums that, between the 1990s and early 2000s, made or broke long-distance friendships.

Setting aside technological evolution, what changed between social before Facebook and everything born after?

• The scale of the phenomenon: today most people who use the internet, now far more indispensable than before, use social networks, perhaps preferring the one most common among their peers;
• the presence of companies, from the world's best-known brands to the shop down the street, looking for a relatively simple and affordable way to promote products and activities.

New generations bring new dominant tools, inspired by, borrowing from, or outright copying competitors' features (when they cannot buy them), but the fundamental mechanisms of communication remain the same. Social networks can repeat and amplify them, for better and for worse.

Social today

Without considering channels like Weibo and WeChat, platforms widespread because they are used by citizens of the world's most populous country (China), among the most widely used social networks are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter, and Reddit (the one whose look most recalls the early 2000s). Platforms used both as a means of communication and leisure among individuals and as an advertising channel by countless companies. This has given rise to several new professions, the best known being the social media manager, and the adaptation of creative professional roles long present in communication and advertising: copywriters and art directors, for example.

What a (good) social media manager does

Communicating on social is a profession that, like many others, requires study and preliminary knowledge, ongoing training to keep up with tool evolution (often exponentially fast). It is worth stressing: we often place excessive trust in the medium we use, forgetting that the difference is always made by who uses it.

What, then, must a good social media manager do, working for a well-known international brand or a small local business?

• Study the product or service the brand offers thoroughly and build a solid, recognizable identity: take a position;
• identify primary and secondary targets (often not easy to distinguish, but this read can help);
• choose the most suitable medium to reach your audience: it is not necessary, and sometimes not even desirable, to be present everywhere. It depends on your objectives;
• surround yourself with people who can develop a well-crafted story with you, that is, those who handle copy, images, video, campaign budget management, or learn to do it yourself. In smaller organizations, it is not uncommon for all these skills (perhaps at an acceptable but not top level) to be held by a single person.

Structuring a digital communication strategy, in substance, is something you learn from classic marketing studies: social is the destination, not the starting point. There is, however, one characteristic that clearly separates one-way communication tools like newspapers, television, or billboards from social communication: direct, ongoing contact with the community.

Moderating the community

Communicating on social means being in close contact with those who love us and those who hate us, and a good social media marketing strategy must include community management, more or less spontaneously formed around the brand.

It can be fun to dialogue with those who appreciate what we do, to get in sync with people who give us suggestions or speak well of us within their bubble. Managing criticism (justified or not) and crises can be more complex. In every case, what we cannot do without is studying the community: its language, habits, needs, and desires. Never forgetting that, for a brand, communication serves its commercial objectives.

Once the target is chosen, objectives are set, and the medium is selected, everything must be cared for, without becoming obsessed with anything (crucifying yourself over a typo). Let trends and fleeting extremes go (a year later, who remembers?). And, if it happens, let the audience define you as "offbeat".

Everything must then connect to the final objective: sell or deliver the product or service, and measure results. Advertising, when you boil it down, serves this purpose. And even if the path a person can take is not predictable or linear (though with the internet everything is more measurable), we must not fall into the trap of "trying to look cool" on one hand and relying on "magic tools" that "do everything on their own" on the other.

Success stories (or not?)

Marketing, advertising, selling products and services online and on social have a huge advantage over the same activities offline: everything is more trackable. Personal data of customers and prospects, their preferences, movements, clicks, and views. This huge advantage, however, can become an equally large methodological disadvantage: thinking the purchase path is linear, that decisions made by "users", by people, are premeditated, irrevocable, rational. Often that is not the case.

We are (also) irrational. We change our minds. We can ignore an ad once or twice, notice it the third time, click on it, and buy nothing. Or search directly on Google or Amazon for what we want. Or type the URL of the e-commerce site that interests us. For the same reason, supermarket express lanes exist.

The fact that everything is more trackable could allow us to define the effectiveness of a strategy more precisely, from the long-term editorial plan to the unusual campaign. Among the questions we should always ask:

• how much have sales of the product or service the brand offers increased (or decreased)?
• to what extent can we link positive or negative performance to the communication strategy?

Many brands have become famous or more famous thanks to social. Some use irreverent tones and take a predominantly tactical approach, riding news and trends using (and sometimes overusing) real-time marketing (does "timeless" marketing even exist?) like Durex, Taffo, or Ceres. Others, like Skipper, are more product-focused and handle current events discreetly, not letting the brand be swallowed by the easy joke or the fleeting trend.

Others still, like Unieuro, play on self-reference and the growing popularity of the social media manager role, using the basic levers of rhetoric and marketing: understatement, urgency, steep discounts. With forced isolation imposed by Coronavirus and a general increase in online purchases, this approach achieved its goal, contributing to higher sales attributable to social campaigns.

With one of our clients, Sebach, we chose an approach that treats with irony and lightness everything revolving around one of the primary physiological needs of humans and every animal species, without slipping into triviality.

It is true that our clientele is predominantly B2B, represented by construction companies, commercial businesses, or event organizers. It is also true that the main users of the product are ordinary people.

Ordinary people who are curious, to whom we tell stories and curious anecdotes linked to everything revolving around the concept of "bathroom": hygiene and safety, intimacy, for example.

Ordinary people who like to take a stand on topics they care about, from time to time at the center of media or political debate.

Beyond social communication, we also manage Sebach's blog: news, themed sections, original but not cloying wordplay, genuinely useful information that can enrich the reader's general culture and help them see the world from another point of view.

Which approach is best for your business only time will tell. Beyond brand awareness, visibility, and buzz, what counts is the long-term strategy that holds up where everything flows, ages, or is forgotten more quickly.