Social + Traditional = Best Regional Company Expansion Plans

Tying together social and traditional media will limit expenses and show positive growth.

Coordination between social media and marketing is crucial and these departments should never work in their own silos. Communication between these two departments is of the utmost importance for any business, but even more important for a mid-market company that is growing.

Growth and expansion is exciting for a business and there is a great deal of infrastructure changes that come with this growth. Determining the next market can be complicated and tedious. It involves studies, demographic information, competition analysis, hiring additional management and street feet and aligning those teams with the internal marketing direction.

While the increase to staff is crucial to any growing business, how it’s handled can be even more important for the future marketing plans of a regional business.

Many mid-market companies handle their social media campaigns in house. Typically, the social media is “taken care of” by one or two people. They are responsible for posting news and updates about the products and services on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. This team also handles any communication, both good and bad, that may arise from these social media outlets. While they are responsible for the social portion of the company’s media, they are still part of the overall marketing department and should report to and align with the marketing director.

As a company grows, this small team of social media experts tends to grow into a full fledge department of its own. A social media director may be brought in to manage this team and ensure that the growth of the company is socially communicated properly. Social media starts to take on its own marketing roll and no longer communicates with the traditional marketing department. They will start to work in a parallel universe.

This is the last thing a mid-market company should have happen because the average consumer is most impacted when confronted with a brand message on multiple fronts. There have been numerous studies that prove it’s not only important to hit your consumer multiple times for your message to resonate but to hit them with multiple touch points. Social Media and Marketing should work together and coordinate messaging. If not, it can confuse an audience and hinder growth by frustrating potential customers. It can also be ineffective and costly to the company.

I have seen several companies, jump the gun and introduce a new product on social media while the traditional media that’s set to promote it, is months away. The excitement of the new product or service get’s ahead of itself, and the idea of a consumer connection gets the social team so excited that they are quick to “post” about it. But an audience should never receive social communication without seeing or hearing advertisements that give them a traditional marketing direction before they can actually find or buy the product. Unless there isn’t going to be a traditional marketing plan or the social media post is part of a pre-launch.

Social media and traditional marketing work best when they are coordinated together. Its Communication 101. The alignment between the two departments will only create a better experience for a target audience and will ensure a smoother product launch or company expansion.