Social club
When it comes to devising and implementing a successful comms strategy, tech PR alone isn’t enough. It’s important, but it’s just one part of a multi-channel approach including SEO, social media, content marketing, email marketing, and more.
This time, we’re going to focus on social media for tech companies.
Many tech companies have the potential to create a dazzlingly brilliant social media presence. Their teams are often young, creative, with access to some of the hottest tech, and cutting edge software and programmes.
And yet, what’s actually delivered is often dry and jargon-heavy content, posted sporadically, and barely optimised for best performance. Like most things, social media is only worth doing when done well. Yet with 62% of consumers saying they turn to social media to help them make purchasing decisions, tech brands that neglect their social channels will soon be left behind.
You don’t need to be a genius to create a brilliant social media for your tech company – you just need to be strategic. There are far too many social networks out there for you to be on all of them. Focus your attention on the ones that are most popular with your target audience.
Keep reading to find out which social networks are right for your brand, plus tips to help make the most out of your time on social media.
With over 300 million users, Twitter is considered the ‘go to’ social network by many tech firms looking to connect more socially with their stakeholders. From a comms perspective, Twitter is doubly valuable as it’s often used by journalists to research and obtain quotes for stories.
With its 140 character limit, the trick is to post little and often (aim for around five times a day). It doesn’t take long for a tweet to disappear down the feed, so regular tweeting is vital for gaining ROI. However, that doesn’t mean you have to pay an intern to sit there all day and watch Twitter. Free online platforms such as Hootsuite, Buffer, and TweetDeck allow you to schedule content in advance. They also provide helpful analytics, so you can monitor your tech firm’s social performance.
Treat each tweet like a news story: your content should be punchy, direct, and captivating. Including strong visual content will help your brand stand out, and sharing informative blog content and whitepapers will position you as a thought-leader in your field.
Facebook is currently the world’s most popular social networking site: it has over 1800 million users.
Generally, Facebook is most useful and appropriate for B2C brands, especially if you have strong visual content of products to share. Most people use Facebook for keeping up with their personal connections and not in a professional context, so you might not get the same traction when using it to target B2B consumers.
However, it can also be a valuable tool for agencies looking to recruit new team members. Applicants will often research a business on Facebook, so use it to showcase what it’s like to work at your agency. If you’re a startup, display some of that exciting ‘startup culture’, and if you’re a corporate, demonstrate what the perks of the job are.
Creating a successful Instagram account relies on having exciting visual content worth sharing. Again, if you’re a B2C offering with a consumer product, it’s a simple but effective way to connect with your customers and prospects. Use it to show different product variations, or even encourage users to submit their own images of how they’ve used your product or service.
Like Facebook, Instagram is also used to great effect by agencies to demonstrate their company culture and help with recruitment. Since it’s mostly visual and there’s no expectation to write long captions, it’s useful for sharing content ‘in the moment’ when teams are out and about or at events.
Any content shared on Instagram should be considered a visual representation of your brand. While it’s fine to show personality and be creative, content should be professional at all times. That means if you’re going to be sharing pictures from the office Christmas party, pick tame ones!
YouTube
Video is an incredibly valuable source of marketing content for any business. According to Hubspot, including video on a landing page can increase conversion by up to 80%. It’s especially useful if you’re marketing a product, or you do something particularly visual.
It can also help companies who deal with a tricky subject matter: try creating short but informative ‘explainer’ videos to help your customers get their heads around what you do. However, if your business is particularly dry or corporate, you’ll have to work hard to create engaging content that won’t send your clients to sleep. Consider whether video is the best means for your business to communicate information to your audience – don’t just do it for the sake of it.
If you do decide to move forward with video, keep it short and to the point. Videos should be hosted on your own YouTube channel, and then embedded in your site or used on social media. Be sure to optimise your videos on YouTube to ensure best performance. Your channel description should include three or four of your main keywords, as well as including your company name and relevant keywords in all video titles. Check out this article for more tips on optimising your YouTube channel for video marketing.
Some would argue that this is not so much a ‘social network’ as a place to curate your likes and interests, and to seek inspiration. However, if Pinterest is widely used among your target audience, it could be worth gaining a presence here to promote your tech brand.
If you market products, you can use Pinterest as a place to showcase your offerings. For example, Samsung has created a page for their Home Appliances range. As well as examples of their high-tech home devices, each board also contains advice pieces and blog posts created by Samsung and hosted on their site.
Using Pinterest for content marketing is one of the most beneficial ways it can be employed by your tech business. Any blog post, article, or whitepaper should be hosted on a relevant board with an eye-catching graphic image. If your content is good enough, you may find that users pin it to their own boards for inspiration or to read later, helping to spread your brand name more widely. Advice pieces perform well in this respect. We love how PR coach, Janet Murray, uses Pinterest to promote her own content.
All businesses, tech or otherwise should be on LinkedIn. It’s a great place for online networking, showing off your skills and expertise, and attracting new business leads.
This one’s at the end as it’s not so much a social network as a professional network: the sharing of more ‘Facebook-appropriate’ content on LinkedIn is heavily criticised by its purists. Content should be strictly professional, with no hashtags, slang, or emojis.
At the very least, LinkedIn activity should consist of creating a company page for your tech firm, and encouraging employees to link to the company page in their job description or employment history. Whenever you post a new post to the blog or receive a piece of PR coverage, you should be posting it to the LinkedIn company page and asking employees to share updates on their own personal pages to promote this content. People are more interested in what their contacts are sharing than what company pages are sharing, so this will help raise the exposure of your tech brand.
Get tweeting
…Or just posting on whichever social network you decide is right for your business. Remember, it’s about choosing the one that’s most popular among your customers or prospects.
Most businesses tend to focus on a couple of social sites, maybe even three. Don’t overstretch your reach, though, and pick one site to prioritise on – at least to start with. Employing a scattergun approach to social media can cost you a lot of time, and deliver poor results.
Still not sure where to start? We’re happy to help. Email hello@luminouspr.com for more info!
