As communication tactics evolve and media changes on a daily basis a company can quickly get lost when it comes to integrating their marketing efforts to include online platforms. There are many ways you can improve your marketing approach but having an integrated plan is essential, whether you are working with a communications company or managing it yourself. Your IMC should incorporate various communications platforms; public relations, social media, online and offline advertising and content marketing.

Social media should improve your communication with your target market by providing them the information they want through the platform they prefer and engage them by tailoring the message to their interests.

We have listed below some ways to easily integrate social media into your communications plan:

Using Social Media To Increase Public Relations

With PR speed and relevance are keys to success and using social media can get your message and comments out within minutes of the news breaking and allow you to a little more control to “push” your message out. Gone are the days of issuing a press release through a fax, making a phone call or sending the news through email to alert the media of potential story. So with things moving so quickly, its crucial that you are connected to those sources and that your audience is on social media.

Using Social Media For Research

With any great plan comes research… for those of you doing your own communications plan you may just want to jump right in and start posting but you really do need to do some research first or you will end up having a very uneventful and frustrating experience. Your social media analytics coupled with your website’s analytics are a warehouse of information on your target market, knowing what to look for is key. In addition to mining the data already there, you can also use your social media channels to engage your target market to gather data through surveys, contests etc. Focus on small elements of your analytics reports at first, learn the basics.

Using Social Media For Promotion

Content, content, content… if your content is not geared towards the audience you are targeting then it will be lost. Social media has made marketers lives a little more complicated but has also provided a great reward; the ability to track responses in real time across many platforms and the ability to quickly change content to increase engagement.

Using Social Media For Advertising

In our office, the staff involved in social media management and media planning/purchasing have communicated a certain rush that is involved when you can manipulate your advertising and instantly see increased results based on the analytics and engagement of an ad. It may seem odd to someone who hasn’t experienced it yet, but success in social media advertising relies heavily on your ability to know your target market and filter your options accordingly as well as measuring your results and adapting your ads quickly. Social media advertising can provide exceptional results if done properly and can be fit into any budget and easily tested without large investment.