15 ACTION ITEMS

for Social Marketers in 2017

Introduction

In our 2017 State of Social Marketing report, we uncover some interesting insight from the
shared experiences of marketers from all over the world. By leveraging these key findings, we
developed 15 helpful tips for social marketers to make the most of what is left in 2017.

This guide will connect the results of our survey with actionable steps you can use to enhance
your social marketing strategies. From using social data to determine which paid ads are
most effective, to using listening tools to identify your brand’s influencers, this guide will be a
resource to enhance your social efforts.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 2

Key Findings from Our 2017 State of Social Marketing Report

• Agencies are pushing for results from social more than brands: 73% of agencies set
goals for either web traffic or conversion goals, while only 57% of brand marketers do. This
indicates that social marketers at agencies have stronger goal-setting (and goal-achieving)
baselines than social marketers within the brand environment.

• Social ad spending is increasing, and 59% of social marketers consider ads "very
important" to their strategy: However, a mere 31.6% of marketers set web traffic and
conversion goals to justify social's business value.

Almost half of respondents reported analytics software as their most-needed resource:
However, less than a quarter claim they have the budget necessary for analytics software.

• More than half of brands say that influencers are vital to the success of their social
programs, specifically for extending brand reach: However, over 76% of brands say they
have no dedicated budget for influencer marketing. Brands are saying one thing and doing
the opposite in this category, whether due to unsubstantial resources, lack of expertise,
or both. A potentially business-harming disconnect is happening here, as influencer
relationships—when identified and grown properly—can provide great ROI for brands.

• Social is definitively a marketing function, and ROI is definitively our #1 challenge:
The percentage of social media teams that live within the marketing organization has
grown from 49% in 2015, to 63.2% in 2016, to remaining relatively stable at 64.7% in
2017. Meanwhile, 61% of social marketers grapple with determining ROI in 2017—the
same percentage as 2016. The lack of major flux in either of these categories tells us that
marketing departments own social media by and large, but are failing to understand how it
contributes to the bottom line.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 3

Breaking Down the Process: Identify, Build, and Analyze

The journey toward a successful 2017 can be broken down into three essential phases:
identify, build, and analyze.

Identify
First, begin by performing a complete internal analysis of your business. In the
identification phase, you will need to identify:

• Your biggest challenges

• Any internal resources you can use to overcome these challenges
• Additional resources you need to be successful
• Metrics you can currently track
• Information you wish you had
• Influencers using social listening tools
• Measurable conversion and web traffic goals
• The right analytics software for you

Build
Next, start building out your social marketing plan. In the build phase you will focus
on creating:

• Your social strategy in light of resources owned and resources needed

• A plan to advocate for the funds you need
• An ideal influencer persona
• Connections with other departments within your business
• A budget with social in mind

Analyze
Finally, after you implement the plans you’ve built, you will need to analyze:

• The impact of your influencer program using analytics solutions

• The dollars spent compared to what you’ve achieved

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 4

IDENTIFY

The first phase is critical in the journey toward social marketing success. The identification
phase enables you to take a thorough look into your current practices and strategies and
reflect on what works, what doesn’t, and what has yet to be done. This phase includes eight
action steps marketers can take to inform their future marketing strategies.

1. What are your biggest challenges?

As marketers, we are often faced with hurdles that can hinder our success. Whether you are
finding it difficult to build the top of the sales funnel to increase brand awareness or measure
ROI on your social activities, or are certain that your content is not reaching the right audience
at the right time (or through the right outlet), identifying and acknowledging the challenges
you face is the first step to overcoming them.

Measuring ROI continues to be a struggle year after year, and this year a large number of
marketers also report that tying social to overall business goals is difficult. Here is a more
robust list of what marketers say are the biggest challenges they face in 2017.

58.7% Combined
Measuring ROI 61.4%
57.3% Agencies
15%
Publishing Content 12.7% Brands
16.2%
24.3%
Developing Social Media Strategy 15.7%
29%
33.6%
Tying Social to Business Goals 35.5%
32.5%
23.9%
Tracking Results in a Centralized Dashboard 23%
24.4%
17.6%
Understanding Performance Across Social Channels 17.6%
17.6%
25.9%
Securing Budget and Resources for Social 30%
23.7%
14.6%
Monitoring Competition 16.7%
13.5%
8.6%
Integrating Social Tools 9.8%
7.9%
12.2%
Collecting Social Data 12.2%
12.2%
24.4%
Using Social Data to Inform Strategy 20.8%
26.3%
17.3%
Aligning Strategy Across All Social Channels 18.5%
16.6%

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 5

IDENTIFY

2. Which internal resources can you use to overcome these challenges?

Before exploring external resources - which can be costly and may not always provide the
solutions you need - look within your business to identify any resources you already own that
can help you accomplish more through social.

If you identify one of your biggest challenges as generating traffic and leads, start
brainstorming how you can utilize the resources you have to increase traffic and generate
more qualified leads. For instance, if you have one person within your team who is creating
most or all of the content for social, a simple solution could be to expand to other members of
your team for guest blog posts or a Twitter take-over. This will provide fresh perspective and
give the audience a change of scenery. You may also discover some hidden talents of your
colleagues who can provide unique social content.

3. What external resources do you need to be successful?

Before exploring external resources - which can be costly and may not always provide the
solutions you need - look within your business to identify any resources you already own that
can help you accomplish more through social.

If you identify one of your biggest challenges as generating traffic and leads, start
brainstorming how you can utilize the resources you have to increase traffic and generate
more qualified leads. For instance, if you have one person within your team who is creating
most or all of the content for social, a simple solution could be to expand to other members of
your team for guest blog posts or a Twitter take-over. This will provide fresh perspective and
give the audience a change of scenery. You may also discover some hidden talents of your
colleagues who can provide unique social content.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 6

IDENTIFY

4. Are there success metrics you can currently track on social?

Social networks have been enhancing marketers’ capabilities to use native analytics to
measure the success of their social efforts. Facebook, for instance, provides demographic
information and audience insights to help marketers understand their audience, and segment
to analyze behavior. Facebook’s analytics capabilities are free for users, so marketers on a
budget can still gain access to valuable insight.

Through native analytics, marketers are able to gain a surface-level understanding of what’s
working on social from using native analytics, but often turn to more advanced analytics
solutions to gain deeper insight.

5. What information do you wish you had?

The type of information collected through native network analytics is valuable, but may not
fit all of the requirements needed to accurately measure the success of our social efforts.
Tracking the growth of the number of followers or the level of engagement from a target
market can help determine the quality of the content shared on social, but we may decide
that it would be more effective for us to measure the impact of a specific asset on our bottom
line. In short, are the assets we are producing leading to increased revenue or higher sales?

6. Who are your influencers?

New marketing tactics come around often, and influencer marketing is this year’s “it” topic –
and for good reason. As both a paid and organic method to spread your marketing messages,
influencers have the potential to make a huge impact on your social strategy.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 7

BUILD

Using social listening solutions, you can easily identify influencers who are already talking
about your brand and sharing your content organically. These influencers can be utilized to
extend your reach or may be willing to produce unique content on behalf of your brand.

7. Identify measurable conversion and web traffic goals

In our 2017 State of Social Marketing Report, marketers revealed that there is a large
disconnect between dollars spent and how those dollars are supporting strategic traffic and
conversion goals. Currently, social ad spending is on the rise, but marketers are spending
without first establishing goals to determine whether the spend had any impact on the
bottom line.

The Objectives and Key Results (OKR) method is one we often use to create measurable
goals. Objectives state what you hope to achieve and key results list specific numbers that
you define as success. Here is what a possible web traffic and conversion goal could look like:

Objective Key Results

Increase traffic to our website Acquire 10,000 unique visitors to our website by end of Q2

30% of unique visitors will request a free demo

10% of those who use our demo will make a purchase

8. Identify the right analytics software for your business

There are a number of social analytics solutions available to marketers, but each has its own
unique characteristics and capabilities. What one solution offers may not fit your needs as
well as the next solution. To determine which analytics solution will best fit your needs, it is
important to test or trial these solutions. Keep in mind your user experience, the reporting
capabilities, and the metrics measured to determine which solution is the right one for you.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 8

BUILD

You’ve completed your internal analysis as a kind of audit of the resources you have
available, those you still need, and the challenges you must overcome. You’ve identified your
influencers, set measurable goals, and identified a social analytics solution that is perfect for
your business. The second phase in your journey toward social marketing success is to start
building your plan out. This phase includes five action steps you can take to start construction
on your social marketing plan.

1. Begin building your plan in light of resources owned and resourced needed
When starting the process of building your social marketing plan, marketers should first
look at the resources you already have and can utilize. During the identification phase, you
identified the resources within your business or organization that have already been used to
implement your social plan. You also identified additional, external resources needed to fill in
some of the gaps within your social strategies. In light of these resources, start building a plan
that makes the most of the resources you’ve collected.

2. Advocate for the funds you need

As marketers, we are huge advocates for our brands, products, and services. We want to
create the most influential messages and share them through the most innovative platforms
- yet oftentimes we find ourselves looking at a budget that may not support our grandeur
visions. This is where marketers need to start advocating for the funds needed to make their
social strategies as effective as possible.

If your strategy requires more advanced analytics solutions, be prepared to share the reasons
why deeper analytics is such a necessary requirement. At this point in the journey toward
social marketing success, you have already explored various analytics solutions and identified
the solution that fits your business objectives and aligns with the goals you established in the
identification phase.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 9

BUILD

3. Create an ideal influencer persona

Similar to how we create our target market personas, it is essential to create an influencer
persona that embodies everything you’re looking for in an influencer. In the 2017 State of
Social Marketing Report, marketers identified the qualities they look for when they start
building their influencer programs:

Which Factors Impact Who You Consider to Be an Ideal Influencer?

47.9%
Reach 49.5%
48.4%

29.2%
Content Type 27%
28.4%

18.4%
Voice 21.6%
19.4%

46.7%
Expertise in That 48.2%
Field/Industry
47.1%

23%
Number of
21.2%
Followers
22.4%

Building Off 11.7%

Combined
of Existing 7.8% Agencies
Relationship 10.4%
Brands
16%
Strong Presence on
Multiple Channels 17.7%
16.5%

As you build your influencer persona, you might determine that your ideal influencer has a
strong presence on multiple social channels because your business has historically struggled
to connect the dots between platforms. Or, you may need an influencer that can extend your
reach and get messages out to niche communities that you’ve been unable to reach in the past.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 10

BUILD

4. Connect with other departments within your business

Social media is increasingly being integrated into other business functions, as marketers begin
to understand that social influences decisions through every stage of the marketing funnel, from
awareness to decision-making to advocacy. We see that social teams are now collaborating with
public relations teams, creative departments, sales teams, and demand generation. Social’s
ability to touch all phases of the sales funnel means that social is no longer a siloed marketing
function, but is dependent on the combined effort of all organizational teams and departments.

Which Teams Do You Directly Work With to Support Social?

74.1%

63.1%

47.3% 45.7%

35%

19.8%

9.1%

Marketing Creative Communications PR Sales Demand/Lead Other

Generation

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 11

BUILD

5. Build a budget with social in mind

Budgeting is a very complicated process, as marketing teams need to allocate funds across
all marketing functions. Forrester and CMO reported earlier this year that social budgets
are continuing to grow and could reach up to 18.5% of the overall digital marketing budget
by 2020.

This Could Be Your Marketing Budget in 2020

Company Budget
Digital Budget

Marketing Budget Search Marketing: 43%

12%

Display Ads: 36%

Digital Budget
35%
Social: 18.5%
Source: Forrester and CMO
Email: 2.5%

As you build your marketing budget, keep in mind the resources you’ve identified as crucial to
your social strategy. Also recognize the capabilities of social networks to diversify your social
marketing strategy with photos, videos, gifs, and influencers - all of which have proven to
increase engagement and click-through rates on content.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 12

ANALYZE

Now you’ve completed the first two phases of your journey toward social marketing
success. You’ve identified your challenges, needs, and goals. You’ve also built out a robust
social strategy that enables collaboration between departments, utilizes influencers, and is
budgeted according to your goals and objectives.

The final phase is analyzing your efforts and reevaluating your social strategy. In this phase, there
are two action steps you can take to gauge the effectiveness of your social marketing efforts.

1. Use analytics solutions to gauge the impact of your influencer program

Influencer marketing is making a huge impact on overall social marketing strategies.
Marketers are turning to those loud voices in the social sphere that are engaging audiences
and providing relevant content that moves followers to action. Analytics solutions can guide
you through specific influencers and provide insight on their engagement, reach, impressions,
and can even track the number of clicks they were able to gather from their followers.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 13

ANALYZE

2. Compare dollars spent to what you’ve achieved

It’s time to start connecting the dots between dollars and outcome. Luckily, there are
resources out there to help you track conversions from social, including the impact from your
influencers and the level of audience engagement through dark social channels.

With Simply Measured’s Conversion Tracking solution, you can follow the path of a lead as
they move through the sales funnel into conversion. Conversion Tracking also places business
value on these data points so that you know the exact value of your social efforts. You can
also track the number of visits by each social channel so that you know exactly which social
network is providing you with the most traffic.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 14

 Identify Analyze Build

Conclusion

Throughout this guide, we’ve provided 15 action steps that marketers can take to optimize their
social marketing strategies. These action steps were developed from our 2017 State of Social
Marketing Report, which revealed that improvements still need to be made - including finding the
necessary funds to acquire the best social analytics solutions, setting appropriate goals to justify
the increased spend on social, and increasing the resources allocated to our influencer programs.

In order to make the most of your social marketing efforts, it is necessary that you repeat the
process of identifying, building, and analyzing on a regular basis. Social media is a dynamic
industry, and marketers need to keep up with the trends and best practices, making it ever
more valuable to regularly reevaluate your strategies.

15 Action Items for Social Marketers in 2017 15

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