How 5 Fold approaches social media management

Unlike pay-per-click advertising or search engine optimization, most are familiar with what social media is and does. After all, platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are ubiquitous in the daily lives of most, and even have become part of the cultural lexicon. Twitter is regularly used as a source in breaking news, and even LinkedIn has enough resonance to be worth an awful lot of money to the right people.

Businesses need social media. After all, their customers are using it, while traditional advertising mediums—such as newspapers and local television—aren’t seeing the same readership or viewership they once did. The problem is that many businesses who start their own social accounts do so to keep up with what everyone else is doing—not because they have a specific strategy in mind. The truth is that social media management is what is actually required.

Social media requires a deliberate strategy. While it’s not a bad idea for businesses to have a listing on a platform like Facebook—it’s better than nothing, after all—there are potential opportunities being squandered. With professional social media management, your social media presence will actually help keep your customers satisfied and your business growing. Here’s how we do it at 5 Fold.

What Katharine does for client campaigns

Our agency believes that people are our greatest resource, and that’s why our work on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp begins and ends with social media manager Katharine Longo, who we previously profiled in a 5 From 5 Fold feature. Katharine lives and breathes social media, and it’s her sole focus here at 5 Fold.

When a client first starts with 5 Fold, Katharine meets with them to talk through their upcoming social media management. The first question she asks is about goals. Social media platforms can be a powerful tool that drives customers to interact with companies in various ways. Some businesses are simply interested in getting their name out there in a crowded market. Others want to foster close, name-recognition relationships with customers. There are specific outcomes that social media can drive, such as linking posts to a selected landing page, or asking users to interact with the page in some way, such as sharing the name of their favorite employee.

Once Katharine has received the usernames and passwords for the company’s social media accounts, she’ll build calendars. It’s important to post on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter regularly, and the calendars schedule out a wide variety of posts. Of course, accompanying this “planned” posting are spur-of-the-moment responses to positive reviews and customer questions.

Why is our approach to social media management different?

One of the primary strengths of the 5 Fold product is that all parts of the client’s all-in-one marketing campaign work together in unison, in contrast to an à la carte approach to marketing where you pay for just social media, or just pay-per-click advertising. For example, having a positive and effective presence on social media can benefit your organic search returns. Similarly, social media can direct customers to your website. Thanks to 5 Fold’s approach, the website they’re being sent to has strong content, design, and clear places where people can begin working with your business.

Another awesome thing about Katharine (and the rest of the 5 Fold team, for that matter!) is that she’s never content with where the campaigns are today. In other words, she’s always looking for angles to improve the social media presence of our clients.

This adaptability is useful for another reason, of course. As we’ve detailed before, social media is a place of near-constant change. Not only are there multiple platforms, but each one is in a constant state of revision. Some of these changes—especially those made by the big guys like Facebook and Twitter—can really force us to make changes to the way we do things. Luckily, Katharine is on it. We actually built 5 Fold around this philosophy of making needed adaptations on the fly. Inflexibility for an online marketing company is not a good thing!

The success of our social media campaigns can really translate into actual, real-world business growth for our clients. Take the example we had earlier about how social media boosts search. This effectively means that more prospective customers are finding your business, which improves the odds that they’ll actually end up using your business. Alternatively, Katharine’s response to a question on your behalf may really win over a current customer, leading to them leaving a positive review online or—even better, even if it’s harder to track—recommending your business to their friends and family in-person.

Ready to get started?

If you’re interested in learning more about our social media management work—or the other parts of our campaigns—give us a call. We’d love to talk to you about what makes our approach different.