Social media lets an organisation connect with customers and the people who influence them. It can attract customers, build relationships and increase brand awareness, and it helps build trust, which matters because people prefer to buy from brands they trust. For most organisations, the aim is to be consistently present on the one or two platforms where customers spend time.
Getting started
The first step is to understand the organisation’s goals and target audience: who it is talking to and how best to communicate with them. Then work out which platforms will best support those goals.
Setting up an account without knowing what it should achieve, who it is for and how it will be run gains nothing. Social media is designed to be easy to use, and the best results come from understanding the steps required and the order to do them in.
How to choose a platform
Start with where customers already spend time.
- Facebook has the broadest audience in Australia and suits local organisations, community groups and anyone whose customers live nearby.
- Instagram suits organisations with visual products or services, such as food, design, fitness, events and travel.
- LinkedIn suits organisations whose customers are other businesses or professionals.
- YouTube, Pinterest and X suit particular audiences and content, such as how-to video, design inspiration or news and commentary.
A Google Business Profile should always be included, since Google is where local customers look for opening hours and reviews.
Spreading effort over too many platforms often leaves all of them out of date. Pick one, post to it regularly and add a second once the first runs smoothly. If the choice isn’t obvious, ask the last few customers where they would look.
What can social media do for an organisation?
The people most likely to engage with an organisation’s posts are those who already have a connection to it, such as past customers, people who have enquired before and members of the local community. Social media is less reliable for finding strangers, unless the organisation pays for advertising or a post is shared widely, and sharing is outside anyone’s control.
Where it works well is in building familiarity and trust. A regular post that shows the work, answers a common question or announces something new means that when someone is ready to buy, the organisation is the name they remember. Photos of real work and plain answers to questions customers ask do well, because nobody else could have posted them.
How social media fits with the rest
Each post can link back to the website, which holds the full information, while the newsletter reaches people who have chosen to hear from the organisation. A single blog post can become a few social posts, which is the approach in our FAQ on content marketing. Our FAQ on email marketing covers the newsletter side.
AI tools can draft posts, and the drafts need editing before publishing so they sound like the organisation. Our FAQ on AI-generated content that sounds like the organisation explains how.
How we help
When we help an organisation with social media, we usually start with:
- An analysis of the organisation, because it’s important to know why it is being done
- Choosing the platforms that will best help the organisation reach its goals
- Creating and configuring those social media accounts
- Creating and configuring any advertising accounts needed
- Setting up a first ad campaign, if required
- Providing training, so the team can carry it on
Where to go next
Our Communications & Marketing service includes social media strategy for organisations that want a plan about what to post, where and why. To see examples of our work, visit our portfolio.
