Having access to so many features and options is both a blessing and a curse of social media marketing. Although this can help you craft powerful marketing messages, it's more likely to lead you down a busy path that ends in clutter.
In regard to social media marketing, less is often more.
We'll explain why you should embrace social media minimalism in this blog:
It's efficient
A minimalist social media approach brings out the best in marketers. Instead of trying to solve problems by adding new features and tactics, you're encouraged to evaluate your campaign, find inefficiencies, and fix them.
One example is choosing which sites you market on. If your social media engagement is low, then you should go back to the drawing board and consider where your target audience spends its time.
According to this recent Marketing Land article, it's possible that your business is simply marketing on the wrong sites:
"Social media minimalism is about defying the hype and focusing on what really works for your brand. It’s not the channel, but the content and audience that will make it worth it. If Facebook doesn’t show your stuff to people, and you don’t have the budget to do it, it may be time to think about Instagram or YouTube instead."
The key here is to shift your focus to the appropriate sites, rather than incorporating new ones in your campaign. There's no reason to spend time and money on sites if there's no sign of your target audience there.
It aligns better with your content strategy
Businesses need original content to establish thought leadership, maintain a good site ranking on Google, and keep their social media pages active. For this strategy to be effective, the content needs to be substantial.
That means focusing on quality as opposed to quantity. One compelling long-form article will have a greater impact than five superficial ones.
This fits nicely with social media minimalism. You don't have to post often, you just have to share meaningful content.
It prevents you from overreaching
Although overreaching is never a good sign for any aspect of a business, it's particularly troublesome in regard to social media marketing. Overextending your strategy means spending more and more money for disappointing results.
Social media minimalism encourages businesses to start with less and keep it that way. This Entrepreneur article, for example, advises businesses to start with a maximum of three social media platforms before they expand to new ones:
"It’s nearly impossible -- and almost always ineffective -- to be active on every single social media platform. I always suggest new brands should start with two or three social media platforms they are certain their target audience is active on. Master those, and then expand your social reach as the business grows and more effort can be allocated to additional social platforms."
Marketing on a new platform requires more time, money, content, advertisements, and employees. It's not as simple as logging in and sharing the same content.
This might be worth it if your target audience is on a particular site, but in most cases, businesses can do without it.
There are fewer opportunities to make a mistake
Everything is magnified on social media. If you share a good article, it might go viral and get two thousand likes. But if you share something insensitive, it could damage your brand beyond repair.
Social media minimalism requires you to have control over every aspect of your marketing campaign. From the pictures you share to the articles you like, you call all the shots.
In this respect, the chance of something going horribly wrong is insignificant. If you have an extremely active campaign or everyone in your company has your Facebook password, on the other hand, you're playing with fire.
It provides a good ROI -- even if you can't track it
One of the largest issues in relation to social media marketing is trying to track its ROI. Many businesses think the practice isn't worth the effort since they constantly evaluate a relatively low ROI.
What's really happening there is they can't track all the benefits of social media marketing. Some practices, like search engine optimization, are easy to evaluate because they have clear-cut metrics.
This Forbes article explains why social media marketing is so hard to measure. According to the article, some benefits, like greater consumer interest, don't show up on monthly reports, yet still, have an impact on sales nonetheless:
"The return on investment (ROI) of social media is hard to measure, and I’ll be the first to admit it. One of your biggest goals is attracting a large following of people who are enthusiastic about your brand, and improving both your brand’s reputation and brand awareness. These aren’t as objectively measurable as on-site conversions, but they can and do lead to greater consumer interest, which manifests as sales eventually."
In general, the benefits of social media marketing are underreported. As a result, the ROI is underestimated.
Embracing social media minimalism is another way of increasing your ROI even more. By reducing the costs of your marketing campaign and sending out a more effective message, you'll get more bang for your buck. Just be aware that it'll still be difficult to track your true ROI.
Running a minimalist social media campaign helps you get the most out of your resources.
But just because your campaign is less active, doesn't mean it's any easier to run. In reality, minimalist social media campaigns are hard to prepare and even harder to execute.
To talk more about social media marketing, or anything else, contact us today.
