How is social media affecting our ability to manage and deliver content?

Social media has entirely transformed the concept of consumer engagement, so how do brands keep up? Jason Bacon, head of digital, G2 Joshua, gives some practical advice…

The online environment is now the domain of the consumer; they control the content and the conversations that exist. As a result, the old model of building a website and marketing to get traffic to it is dead.

Successful brand engagement, customer acquisition and retention is gained from extending brand presence outside the safety of the company website. Websites risk being perceived as static and too corporate, whereas consumers expect a level of engagement that a website alone cannot provide.

It’s not that social media has reduced the usefulness of managing content online, it’s just the managing of online presence has become a far more complicated process. Social media has entirely transformed the concept of consumer engagement.

There now exists a fully formed dialogue between brands and consumers, which has led to consumers themselves creating the content that represents the brand.

Companies will always need to provide dynamic, relevant and up to date content on their websites as they need a space which they can largely control. However, the requirements of a content management system now extend to integrating external social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.

Content generation has become a collaborative process between the web content manager and the user. Therefore, more focus needs to be placed on the development of social media channels and the content on external sites in addition to their own.

Another consideration for brands looking to expand into social media channels is how to balance these media with other on and offline channels. It can be difficult to make sure that each channel is used effectively without resorting to the ‘one size fits all approach’, but brands need to avoid doing this if they want to have meaningful conversations with their audiences.

Time should be spent ensuring content, whether it’s text, photos, videos or apps, is distributed through the right channel, as matching content with the wrong audience can be damaging, especially in the social media environment, where public criticism can be rife .

It is also vital to ensure that this content is relevant to the varying channels and fit for purpose to guarantee the consumer experience is enhanced to its full potential. Websites are hardly redundant, but serve primarily as the last place where brands maintain complete control.

As long as companies manage all aspects of digital presence in its entirety and distribute content appropriately, it no longer matters where or how content is published. What is crucial is that brands engage with their audience and that content management is a fully collaborative process.