Social Media Optimization through Digital Marketing Training

High authority inbound links drive search ranking, likes and comments determine social media rankings, and retweets determine reach. So if no one links, likes, or retweets your share, no one hears it.

Those not new to digital marketing have realized that social media is a team sport. It’s not what you say but what the community says that matters. Because whatever most people like rises to the top of the newsfeed, and whatever people ignore goes unseen.

Once you realize this, you begin to appreciate that your objective is not to get information out but to start conversations. When people talk back, they bring their online social network with them.

We call this scaling engagement.

It’s about getting as many people as possible to move our message to their friends, fans, and followers.

This poses a problem to organizations that, in the past, could control their communications by using a public relations firm to manage external communications.  These folks are trained in the business of public disclosure. They have experience creating a public record.

What happens when you invite those employees, volunteers, and constituents to participate in discussions that automatically become part of the public record? How should employees outside your marketing and PR apparatus respond when their Facebook friend asks them about your products or services?

Hopefully, you have a social media policy to govern that usage. But remember, few take the time to read your employee handbook. And you can’t expect someone to comply with a policy they don’t understand.

Social Media Compliance
Social media complaince programs are a practical way to scale engagement because they ensure everyone on your team has the same understanding of key concepts, best practices, and the actual mechanics of the various social networks so they can work together to bring your message to a broader community.

Live social media training makes good sense for marketing and PR agencies, but it isn’t always possible to train everyone at face-to-face workshops.

Online Social Media Training
When teaching social media best practices, online social media training offers four distinct advantages.

• All the material is recorded. So participants don’t have to retain it all themselves.
• Content is broken down into bite-sized chunks, so they can laser in on what’s most valuable.
• Stop and rewind the demos as often as they like and learn at their own pace.
• Time-shift and place-shift their professional development where they want, when they want.

Unless you train the workforce, even the best social media marketing programs will unlikely reap significant rewards.

More than 85% of customers expect businesses to be active on social media but only 12% do so effectively. And this is simply because they lack basic knowledge and skills.  They suffer from digital illiteracy.

Be part of the 12%. Social media train your people. Train your clients. Train yourself.