Social media platforms fundamentally transform how organizations communicate with stakeholders, customers and the public. Social networks influence a significant majority of consumer buying decisions. Understanding how to leverage social media strategically is essential for modern business success. If you are considering a career in strategic communication, learning how to leverage social media will be key to your success. Advancing your education in the field is an excellent way to discover effective use-cases for social media in communications strategy.
Southeastern Oklahoma State University’s online Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a Concentration in Strategic Communication program will prepare you to harness the power of social media for business through comprehensive coursework in digital communication strategy and stakeholder engagement. In today’s digital landscape, effective social media communication requires strategic listening, authentic engagement and data-driven decision-making. Let us examine how social media is most effectively used by businesses.
Social Listening: Tracking Conversations and Identifying Opportunities
Estimates suggest social media drives purchasing decisions for nearly three quarters of users. Given that roughly 5.24 billion people use social media, it’s no surprise that marketers rely heavily on social media platforms to engage consumers. Customer service, product support, research and other departments also use social media to listen to not only consumers but also influencers, shareholders and the general public.
Social listening involves tracking and analyzing dialogues and conversations to uncover actionable insights and communication opportunities. As a communications professional, you can obtain profound knowledge every day, simply by listening to conversations around specific hashtags or keywords. All of this happens before the conversation between a company and its customers even begins. Here are a few ways you can leverage social listening:
Identifying Influencers
A hashtag search turns up a celebrity user who mentioned their purchase of your stylish new jacket. A widely read movie critic just panned your latest flick in a scathing review linked from Facebook. A gadget guru just posted a review of your new drone on their YouTube channel.
Tracking a Marketing Campaign
Your company used a new catch phrase in an ad, and users are posting and sharing posts about it. A nonprofit starts a viral video campaign to raise awareness for curing a disease and thousands post TikTok videos of themselves participating.
Finding Customer Service Opportunities
A search for “billing problems” along with your company’s name turns up hundreds of angry Facebook and Instagram posts about perceived dishonesty. A search on your product’s instructions turns up more than 1,000 people who can’t get past assembly step four.
Monitoring the Workplace
A former employee just posted a negative review on LinkedIn, which is met with wide agreement. A group praises your workplace culture on Facebook and those posts are getting likes.
Tracking Investor Sentiment
Market movers like Warren Buffet influence price action on a company’s stock with the most mildly worded positive or negative statement. An inexplicable stock price drop triggers waves of consumer speculation and misinformation.
Watching Public Reactions to a News Event
People wrongly blame an oil spill on perceived negligence in your company’s equipment maintenance protocol. Your airline’s pilot becomes a hero for diving a plane into the Hudson River after birds destroy both engines, saving hundreds of lives.
These are all examples of moments when active social listening is crucial. The practice will help you mitigate crises and grab hold of opportunities to repair, maintain or boost your organization’s image, reputation and bottom line.
Developing Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy: Responding and Engaging
Before you can effectively engage with consumers, you must identify key audiences to target and discover where they commonly interact and get information online. Beyond Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Facebook and YouTube, influential dialogues occur within lesser known environments such as podcasts, blogs, forums and even online gaming communities.
Once you identify channels to leverage, you must create strategic messaging that aligns with your organization’s objectives. This messaging must be authentic, focused and consistent across all social platforms, so that no matter who communicates, the brand gains equity, exposure and engagement.
Essential Social Media Management Practices for Strategic Success
Timeliness of response proves critical. When social media users interact with brands regarding a problem or question, they expect a quick response or solution. When messages go unanswered for days, companies fall short of expectations, causing harm to their brand reputation and customer loyalty. Advancements in generative AI and AI chatbots can greatly expedite customer service response time and engagement levels, though many consumers still prefer human interaction when addressing complex queries.
Consumers also expect honest, straightforward communication through all channels. Transparency is essential, yet many organizations overlook the need for truth. When you provide clear information in a timely fashion, you can establish consumer trust in your organization, even amidst crisis situations.
Continued access to help and expertise is another imperative. Social media users who interact with brands seek direct access to customer service representatives or product experts who can enhance their experience over a longer term. From customer service to tech support, organizations must put people in place who can serve as ongoing liaisons in this manner. As a strategic communications professional, you play a key role in this function.
Build Your Digital Communication Strategy Expertise With Southeastern’s MBA
Social media management skills prove indispensable for strategic communication professionals across industries. When you consider that most buying experiences ultimately depend on how customers feel they are treated, the conclusion becomes clear: Social media is a critical component of modern strategic communication that drives organizational success.
Southeastern’s online MBA in Strategic Communication equips you with the knowledge and skills needed to develop effective digital communication strategy, manage social media engagement and leverage social media platforms to achieve strategic business objectives. With comprehensive training in strategic messaging, stakeholder engagement and digital channels, this program prepares you to excel in today’s social media-driven business environment.
Learn more about the Southeastern Oklahoma State University online MBA with a Concentration in Strategic Communication program.