Social media strategy

Brands often engage in social media activity without considering how it fits into their overall business objectives. Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts and business blogs take just a few minutes to set up. But businesses risk undermining all marketing efforts if conversations are quickly abandoned; content is unmonitored; or brand values are undermined.

Increasing the success of your marketing campaign

At immediate future, we know that social media initiatives are more effective when fully integrated into an overall marketing strategy rather than used as a standalone tactic.

So we amplify your offline marketing message by creating positive reviews, comments and conversations around your product or service. We use social media to tell brand stories, share information, and deep dive into product details. And we use it to build relationships with fans and influencers to raise awareness, increase brand engagement and encourage purchase.

And we have a proven model for determining key performance indicators which either demonstrate brand or business value or, where possible, clearly show ROI.

How does social media complement your marketing activity? Get in touch.

Ruth Speakman, Head of PR, Sony Europe: “I look for a PR agency that can actually teach me something new, after over a decade in the industry, and immediate future does just that.”

Online audience analysis: discovering your audience and ways to communicate with them

Right now, thousands of communities, using Facebook, Flickr, blogs and Twitter, are discussing your brand. Do you know what’s being said, where it’s being said and who’s saying it? Is it positive? Is it negative? And where are the opportunities to enter the conversation?

Understanding the conversations

The immediate future online audience analysis reveals the channels your customers are using and gives an insight into how consumers really see your brand.

The analysis highlights the opportunities to engage with your customers, stakeholders and critics.

And it also acts as a benchmark for social media activity, and shows how a programme, over time, can change perceptions, heighten awareness or manage a crisis.

Not only does it shape the communications, it informs the overall marketing strategy both off and online, as it offers a genuine insight sight into consumer opinions

What’s being said about your brand online? Find out with audience analysis. Get in touch.

Tanya Hall, Gaj-it: “immediate future don’t just push out content all over the place, they only give us the stuff they think will be relevant for us. To give an example, they came up with a great hook to give us a reason to write about the History of TV infographic they had developed for their client Sony. It was a little known anniversary that was really relevant to our readers. That was well received!”

Creating conversations: Getting people to talk about your brand

To get people talking about your business online - and to keep the conversation going – your social media content needs to be creative, relevant, topical and, most of all, interesting.

It’s vital that brands monitor online trends so they’re able to add to the conversation with timely, useful content that gets shared, forwarded and talked about. This helps to build trust and strengthen relationships and enables a business to become part of a community.

Establishing your online voice

At immediate future, we look for creative ways for you to enter the conversation. We do this by understanding the needs, interests and behaviours of your audience and by closely following online conversations and trends.

We also run training programmes and seminars which show you how to establish your own online voice; to successfully network with influencers; to respond to critics; and to create outstanding content.

Start having the right conversations. Get in touch.

Matt Davis, Tracy and Matt blog: “I deal with a lot of PR agencies nowadays, and immediate future really stands out as the staff are reliable, friendly and helpful when it comes to helping me out with relevant, newsworthy content for our site”.

SEO PR: Improving a brand’s visibility in the search engines

When customers search for your brand online, they’re not only looking for your company’s website. They’re also looking for positive recommendations, product reviews, video clips, and price comparisons. For them it’s part of the customer journey.

Businesses must think of Google’s page 1 as their company’s ‘shop window’ and a chance to display its best products and services.

SEO PR: Optimising off-website content

At immediate future, we don’t optimise your company’s website; we leave that to your SEO consultants or in-house team. But any social media activity has search at its core. Which means all off-website content is optimised: conversations on blogs and forums are keyword-rich; videos and images are tagged; and news releases are embedded with links and keyphrases.

As positive keyword-rich content filters through the social media sphere, negative comments and articles are displaced and positive conversations and reviews around your business begin to dominate page one.

For more information about increasing your brand’s visibility in the search engines, get in touch.

Matthew Tod, CEO Logan Tod: “We exist in over three thousand places in Google now, and that’s all thanks to immediate future.”

Harnessing the power of your brand influencers

Identifying your brand influencers and building strong relationships with them, is key to the success of any social media activity.

It’s not about obtaining as many fans and followers as possible. It’s about engaging with your key influencers - often as little as 1% of a business’s followers – who can help drive conversions, increase conversations, and raise brand awareness.

Managing the conversation with brand influencers

At immediate future, our focus is on creating, managing and developing authentic relationships with your brand influencers.

We learn what motivates them; what social media channel they use; how they share; and what they share. That way we can ensure they receive unique content such as back stories, and insider information, as well as special offers and invitations to events and launches.

By managing your brand influencers we ensure they continue to create positive, credible stories around your brand, product or service.

To find out more about working with your brand influencers, get in touch.

James Holland, Electric Pig website: “immediate future took me to IFA with Sony, and I have to say it was one of the best organized trade show trips I have been on.”

Joining your customer conversations

It’s easy to think that social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are inappropriate for B2B. But evidence suggests that more and more key decision makers are now using social networking sites, blogs and forums, to answer questions, share knowledge and enter into the debate.

In fact, social media sites are an ideal way to build relationships with industry professionals and build brand awareness.

Helping you find your voice in social media

At immediate future we help you participate in sites which are relevant to your product or service. We can advise you on the style of your online voice. And put a social media participation plan in place so you’re entering into dialogue with those in your industry on a regular basis.

Our aim is to help you become part of your industry’s community, and ultimately a key industry spokesperson, resulting in lead generation and new business.

For more information on using social media in B2B, get in touch

Why having a corporate social media policy is essential

Carefully placed articles; positive product reviews; and a well planned social media programme can all be undermined by an ill-informed employee who blogs or tweets without care.

Companies don’t want to smother creativity or freedom of expression. But to avoid brand damaging posts,employees need to be clear about what they can – and cannot - say online.

Putting a corporate social media policy in place

immediate future helps companies put social media policies in place. And we do this by involving employees from the outset in policy development, and training team members in communications best practice. This enables them to post, comment and tweet with confidence.

We can also advise you on what to do when a popular blogger or tweeter leaves the company. And how to manage those big personalities.

Need a corporate social media policy? Get in touch.

Social Media Crisis Management Services: protecting your online reputation

The speed with which information, speculation and rumour can spread across the internet continues to accelerate thanks to the growth of social media. Because every day, your brand, products or services are being talked about in social networks and on blogs, forums, wikis and news sites. And the legacy of those conversations lives forever on Google.

But which parts of this conversation should you worry about? Which parts might be warning signs to an impending crisis?

You probably have a robust crisis management plan - tailored and tested to deal with the likely reactions and demands of the traditional media.

But what happens if your worst-case crisis scenario breaks on your Facebook page?  Does your crisis manual tell you how and when to engage with detractors using social media?

These are just a few of the questions we can help you address to protect your online reputation from a social media crisis.  Immediate future will advise you on how to build a best-in-class social media online crisis management system to protect your brand.

As an experienced social media consultancy, we are able to advise and guide you:

Be Prepared - minimise your exposure to risk

Thorough preparation could help you avoid a crisis. We can undertake a vulnerability audit to identify the risks to your business, your marketing and communications plans - specifically in relation to social media. We will help you establish early-warning systems - putting the right tools in place to spot and monitor a crisis. We will help you establish the appropriate policy and work-flow - adapting existing social media crisis plans to deal with the online environment. We can then run social media crisis simulation exercises that provide life-like scenarios to test and coach your team to handle a real social media crisis.

Get back-up: extra resources to manage a crisis

Our team of experienced consultants have advised a wide range of global brands on traditional and social media crisis management. We can provide high-level strategic counsel during a crisis or simply be an extra pair of hand for the in-house team to manage real-time monitoring and social media outreach. We also work with lawyers who are social media specialists to provide counsel on the legal remedies that can be taken to limit damage.

Recover your online reputation after a crisis

Once the intensity of the crisis has died down - it is time to review the damage. Steps may be needed to recover your online brand reputation, for example the crisis might persist on page one of the Google search results for your brand or product. We will work with you to create a recovery strategy that rebuilds long-term brand equity with online influencers and produces quick wins that will help 'de-optimise' negative Google search results. This combines best practice ‘white-hat’ SEO tactics with online PR activity.

Please do get in touch for an informal review of how prepared you are for an online crisis.

Check out our online crisis management tips from our blog.