Our team attended Social Media Week in Austin this year and walked away with pages of notes and a renewed passion for what we do and why. As a full-service digital marketing agency, continued learning is a priority for our team. Trends, algorithms, and entire platforms shift and evolve at an incredible pace and this conference was an opportunity to reaffirm our approach and learn where we can grow.
What is Social Media Week?
Social Media Week (SMW) is “one of the world’s premier conferences and industry news platforms for professionals in media, marketing, and technology. The mission is to give professionals at the intersection of media, marketing and technology the insights, ideas and opportunities they need to advance themselves and their organizations in a globally connected world.”
In this 3-week blog series, we’ll dive into our top takeaways from SMW Austin—
Top Takeaway #1: Storytelling is Key.
While creating high-quality, powerful visuals to stop users in their scrolling tracks is a must, we cannot forget to develop the story behind the pretty photos and videos.
If your story truly speaks to the heart of your brand and is tailored to your audience, the internet becomes your mountaintop to shout from. We want to avoid sending mixed signals or worse, meaningless content, from said mountaintop. I’ll be the first to admit — it’s very easy to overcomplicate or convolute a story you’ve grown close to. As digital marketers, we’re naturally drawn to the shiny trends or hot take memes as they inundate our feeds.
When in reality, the community surrounding a local, family-owned business does not expect content production that rivals a brand powerhouse like Apple! In fact, this particular audience prefers to see “how the sausage is made” so to speak. They want smiling faces and the opportunity to support your endeavors. But if they don’t know what you do, who’s doing it or why — they’re bound to keep on scrolling.
As Digital Marketing Strategists, we get a behind-the-curtain look into a business owner’s nonstop schedule and all of the ridiculously hard work they put into their business. We’re internally rooting for their success, even if the product or service is not meant for our personal demographic. It becomes our job to extract the bits and pieces that we feel the public needs to see and hear.
As content creators, our role is to first develop an impassioned brand story and then stick to it! We should let the strategy we worked so hard to craft drive the type of content we create, as well as what trends we let pass us by.
If you’re curious as to whether your brand’s social media is doing your story justice — let us audit it! Sometimes, all you need is an outsider’s perspective to remind you what truly makes your brand stand apart from the rest.
For a free 30-minute Zoom call with our Director of Digital Marketing (that’s me!), submit a contact form with the subject line “I’d like my free audit – please and thank you!” I’m happy to dig in and help refine your story.