Social media marketing can be used as a universal tool for scaling advertising, marketing and communicating with new audiences – but are companies utilising this marketing strategy to its full potential?

Fonbet believes that by using social media, brands can effectively set the tone of voice and build an online image. But in order to do this, betting operators must fully understand the nuances associated with social media by carrying out due diligence.

Helping companies looking to make social media work for their business, Fonbet has created a checklist which it believes is essential for an effective social media marketing strategy.

The first point, the bookmaker noted, is to define your overall strategy. “A clear social media marketing strategy will help you prioritise, determine your goal and the best way to achieve it, as well as create a portrait of your target audience and the frequency, style and format of content.

“When creating your strategy, you will understand what kind of advertising budget you need and what your tone of communication with existing and potential customers in messengers and social media should be.

“Once you have a strategy, it is clear the kind of content you need. For example, an interactive blog on Instagram or a fun YouTube show. Your goal is also crucial. How it is set will determine the tools and channels you use for promotion, as well as the metrics you will need for analytics.

“Keep in mind that social media is constantly evolving and changing, so you will need to do the same with your strategy so your content actually works.”

The operator added that another consideration companies must make when venturing into the world of social media marketing is to set realistic KPIs. This, it believes, will help define your overall goals.

An example of this could include increasing the number of followers on your brand’s Instagram page to 3,000 people in one month, or talk about a new product using a specific blogger on YouTube.

“KPIs show your performance in concrete numbers,” Fonbet added. “They do not make generalities like ‘the number of subscribers has grown’. Instead, they look more like this: ‘the audience has increased by 10,000 people in six months’.

“To set a goal and use it to determine KPIs, you can use the popular SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based) system. This system makes your goal clear and measurable in numbers, as well as its achievability, taking into account objective realities, the relevance of the goal, how it is pursued on social media and time restrictions.

“The major KPI indicators include conversion, increase in audience and its engagement, traffic growth, number of brand mentions and brand awareness, as well as the quantity of UGC (User-Generated Content). If there is a lot of it, audience engagement is clearly high.”

Something to consider when using social media to market your product or service is that your target audience varies on the social media platform, Fonbet told SBC. By understanding the different audiences on each platform, companies can fine-tune targeted ads and show messages to the demographics who are most likely to convert quickly.

However, working across multiple platforms is futile if a company rarely offers promotions to its bettors. By rolling out a media plan, which includes the site and specific promotion format, betting operators can develop a well-tuned targeted ad that helps spend a budget as efficiently as possible because it is most likely to convert views and meet your KPIs.

Fonbet said: “When promoting a brand you do not want to dwell on just one site, but you should not try to hit them all at once either. Choose the social media where your target audience is most represented. Let’s say you decide to create accounts on three social networks and two messengers. This has both pros and cons.

“Working with different sites will not be effective if you do not fill them with content, and instead just run promotions every once in a while. You need to keep your accounts active at all times, draw up a content plan based on your strategy and execute it on time.

“The more platforms for ad integrations, the higher their total cost. However, not every penny you spend pays off because the target audience is not always represented as well as possible.

“The nature of Fonbet’s business makes it hard to promote a number of resources. People who are interested in us are most likely found on VK, Facebook, YouTube, Telegram and Instagram. For example, we only use Telegram for user support.

“We launched this service at the direct request of users who did not have a convenient way to contact us. As for social media, we chose platforms where the largest portion of our affinity audience could be found and working with customers was the most promising: VK and Instagram.”

A means of communication which Fonbet has found to be particularly effective is the use of bloggers and influencers that help tap into your target audience. For the Russian operator, this method was tailored towards men with disposable income aged 18-35.

But in order to use bloggers successfully, creativity is key. Operators and affiliates alike must think “outside the box” but not so much that it disenfranchises your audience.

“Old formats of advertising just do not get people excited anymore, so we need to think outside the box, but not so unique as to potentially lose audience loyalty. Both influencers and brands should realise this. It is much more likely that if your brand thinks about their interests/needs and follows trends, it will attract and retain customers.

“Fonbet’s cooperation with bloggers has shown that when choosing an opinion leader, you need to start by looking at their subscribers. It is also crucial to detail the indicators, which we understood through trial and error.

“User reaction is of course important for instant messengers, social media and ad integrations, but if you forget that you need to react fast too, it’s just as pointless as no social media marketing at all. We are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of brands every day, but only a select few are imprinted in our memory. The secret to success is giving the user what they want, and what they cannot get with your competitors.”