FeedMagnet™ is a platform that helps brands use social content to engage.

Cross-Channel Social MarketingStrategies For Brand Engagement Audience Growth&

Executive SummaryUse the strengths of each social network to increase social persuasion and conversion. Extend this approach to brand websites and offline campaigns in a way that both maximizes engagement and funnels people from social into brand websites.

Each social platform has different strengths and weaknessesFor example, Twitter excels at real-time content while Facebook is better for sharing and commenting.

A branded social hub makes the sum greater than the partsCross-pollination of content across audiences helps to maximize the strengths of each social platform.

Social can be leveraged beyond the walls of social platformsBy putting social content on your website and even offline, you can benefit from social trust with a wider audience.

Social sharing multiplies your audience and drives trafficBrands can curate user-generated social content to maximize user sharing – increasing brand visibility and driving traffic.

In this white paper, we'll take a closer look at each of the steps outlined above to show how brands can benefit from an integrated social content marketing program.

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Social Platform StrengthsEach social platform has it's own personality. The people who use each social network are often different, and the way they use each network can vary widely. While you can slice these platforms many different ways, there are two dimensions that have particular value for brand marketers:

Real-time vs. Long-Term RelevanceSome social marketing campaigns rely on real-time interaction – particularly those based around live events. For these real-time campaigns, Twitter and Instagram almost always generate more engagement and content than similar platforms like Facebook and Flickr.

The flip side of real-time engagement, is time-relevance decay. Tweets that are more than a few hours old are ancient history. Instagram photos from a couple days ago are much less likely to be seen. Facebook and Flickr photo galleries, on the other hand, hold on to relevance and generate engagement on a significantly longer time scale. Pinterest is the queen of long-term relevance, since pins stay on pin boards until the user finds something they like better – often for months or even indefinitely.

Original Content vs. Sharing and Re-PostingSome social platforms are all about original creative expression. The Vimeo community, for example, is made up of mostly professional and prosumer videographers sharing their latest work. Many of these social

platforms don't even have a concept of “re-posting” content. You can like or comment on an Instagram photo, but you can't re-publish it to your own Instagram feed.

On the other end of the spectrum, platforms like Pinterest are almost entirely about sharing and re-posting. Very few pins are original content from the pin board owner. It’s more about sharing and commenting on things you've found than publishing your own creative work. The curation aspect of the sharing is a creative expression in and of itself.

Real-Time

Long-term Relevance

Sharing & Re-posting

Original Content

Now that we've established the framework of real-time expression vs. long-term relevance and original content vs. sharing and re-posting, the differences between Twitter and Facebook are easier to understand.

Comparing the Two Giants

Facebook on the other hand is more of a generalist platform. While it is not nearly as real-time, it is much stronger at sharing and re-posting, often enabling content to reach a much wider audience.

Twitter is the ultimate real-time community, leaning a little more toward original thoughts than re-posting or re-tweeting content.

Integration: The Social HubMany brands approach each social platform separately, with a Twitter strategy, a Facebook strategy, a Pinterest strategy, etc. – but by combining content and sharing from across social networks, brands can pair the strengths of each platform together to maximize engagement.

Here’s How it Works:

Content from multiple social platforms is aggregated and curated by the brand

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The content is then displayed in a central location – often the centerpiece of a social marketing campaign

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Sharing engagement buttons from multiple social platforms are attached to each piece of content – enabling content from one social network to be shared to another

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Broader and more diverse content setSince the content is pulled from more than one social network, branded social hubs have more diversity of content and a greater volume of content to pull from. And since it's curated, it's relevant and engaging.

Cross-pollination of contentBecause content from one social network can be shared to another, the social hub enables you to expose disparate audiences with the best content from their respective social networks – content which they might not otherwise see.

The best of real-time and sharingBy leveraging social platforms across the real-time and sharing spectrums, you can maximize the strengths of both. Real-time content from platforms like Twitter and Pinterest often make up more of the social feed during time-based engagements, but the majority of sharing and re-posting can still take place on platforms like Facebook and Pinterest, where they will get a broader reach and extend the life cycle of what would otherwise be a short-lived content spike.

The integrated approach of a branded social hub working across all the social channels – makes the sum greater than the parts.

brandedsocial HUB

Propagation: Social for AllOnce you've broken free of silo campaigns for each social platform, the impact of a branded social hub can be extended beyond the social platforms themselves.

Pull social content in instead of pushing visitors awayMany brand websites provide links off to their social properties, with a goal of connecting socially with customers – but this approach ultimately drives visitors away from the brand site. It makes much more sense to keep visitors on your site and bring social to them.

Use social content for conversion and persuasionSocial content can be incredibly persuasive. Similar to ratings and reviews, it can provide a window into user-generated social feedback. But unlike review feedback, content from social media is unsolicited and often more emotive in nature. We call these posts "social proof" – and they are a great addition to product and lead conversion pages.

Maximize the reach of your branded social hubGiven the fragmented nature of social marketing, a social hub can provide a valuable window into a variety of content that would not otherwise be found all in one place. By syndicating this content back out to web properties, microsites, mobile sites and apps, Facebook tabs, and trade show and office display screens, you can leverage your most persuasive social content with a much wider audience.

Amplification Via SharingSocial sharing provides the opportunity to go a step beyond simply displaying social content on branded properties. What brands really want is engagement – and a well executed social hub provides countless connection points through the social posts themselves. By adding sharing buttons to each individual post, brands can accomplish a few key objectives:

Amplify the spread of positive social contentIf the social hub represents the best social content related to a brand or product, shares and re-posts from the social hub extends the reach of each positive piece of content to a wider audience.

Drive new visitors into the social hubMost marketing campaign sites already feature Tweet and Facebook Like buttons, helping to drive new visitors into the site. With a social hub there are exponentially more opportunities for this since each social post can be liked or shared. The real value in driving traffic comes from ensuring the share links send people back into the brand website, displaying the shared piece of content in context with the branded social hub where it was discovered and shared in the first place.

All Together NowIt starts with a branded social hub made up of the best content from across multiple social platforms. This, combined with sharing and re-posting buttons to multiple social sites captures the strengths of each social platform.

To maximize visibility and connection points, this social hub should be syndicated to the brand website, Facebook tabs, campaign and mobile sites, and event screens.

Engagement in the form of likes, shares, and re-posts of individual social content both amplify the message across social channels and direct new visitors into the brand website via the branded social hub, presenting the opportunity to extend the cycle even further.

Harness Social ContentAn integrated, cross-channel approach to social marketing can fully maximizes the benefits of social content for brand engagement while providing a strategic connection point between marketing on branded properties and marketing within social media platforms.

Discover why so many brands use FeedMagnet to harness social content, visit www.feedmagnet.com.

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