ORLANDO, FL — From a business marketing perspective, social media is a tradeoff. When done properly, it can be a relatively low-cost marketing tool. But it can also be a massive time-suck.
During the American Pie Council (APC)’s National Pie Championships, held April 29-30 in Orlando, FL, Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin, pie baker, social media expert and author of Pies are Awesome, shared key insights around social media best practices for small and large businesses in the baking industry.
“The goal of social media is to get the most traction with the least amount of time,” said Clark-Bojin, who has 85,000 followers on Instagram.
The first tip she offered was understanding why — or, more precisely, if — a business should be on social media. The key factor is thinking about a business’ social media presence qualitatively.
“You might have a million teenagers around the world talking about your pie or your ingredients,” she said. “But that doesn’t necessarily translate into squat for your bottom line. Maybe what you really needed was a handful of local anchor clients to think well of you.”
Making a real digital impact requires one essential ingredient: creating a legitimizing baseline. From a business-to-business standpoint, becoming the next big social influencer with a viral video isn’t the pathway to business success.
“Start out by knowing who to reach and what it is you need them to think about you,” Clark-Bojin suggested. “If you’re a manufacturer of equipment or if you’re a manufacturer of pies, you need to get into a certain number of stores, you probably need a specific number of companies to use your technology. You need to be thinking about what that baseline for having a legitimizing presence is and then you can dive down into the layers from there.”
Larger brands — especially those with broader distribution or connection with consumers — should be considering tactics for creating viral content. But for a producer of a niche product, quality engagement bears more weight than viral stickiness.
Once a baseline is established, companies should then decide how to identify themselves as brand differentiators to their audience.
At its core, social media is a marketing tool. So, the message has to be consistent with the brand overall.
“You might have a million teenagers around the world talking about your pie or your ingredients. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into squat for your bottom line.”
— Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin | author | Pies are Awesome
“Companies have a grip on this with their corporate brand,” Clark-Bojin said. “No one would have a business card or a website that looks different from their brand or logo. But when it comes to social media feeds, I see a lot of inconsistencies. And that will cause people to say, ‘Hmm, I’m not sure about these guys.’ So, once you find your style, stick with it.”
If that requires a refresh, Clark-Bojin reminded brands to go back and do it retroactively for old posts. While everything is permanent on the Internet, much is updatable for a corporate social media feed.
Lastly, when creating content, Clark-Bojin advised that consistency is vital.
“You have to make sure that you’re posting at the same time each day or each week, depending on what you establish,” she said. “People get very attached to their expectations online, and they can get very cranky … people get behind a computer, and they forget they’re humans and that you’re human. If someone’s used to seeing a post from you every Friday at 9 a.m., and then they don’t, you’ll hear about it.”
The good news is that staying consistent doesn’t require a big financial investment. In fact, the simpler, the better.
The latest mobile technology enables high-quality content creation without big equipment or elaborate production.
“Create content that’s easy to do every day or every week,” she suggested. “You don’t need to have an elaborate three-camera shoot with the entire workforce. That’s great for a holiday or milestone, but really, all you need is a great photo and something catchy to go along with it.”
As a bonus tip, Clark-Bojin suggested that companies pick up their social media “handles” on every platform, regardless of whether or not they use it. Owning that account will prevent hackers or other mischievous online users from creating fake accounts under that company’s or brand’s name.
“Any time a new social media platform pops up, create your handle,” she said. “And then just park it.”
More than anything, though, content must be consistently meaningful and always engaging for your audience. It’s the easiest way to get social media users in your business-to-business space to, as Clark-Bojin put it, “stop the scroll.”
