A Broader Perspective: Social Media As An Ecosystem
- Walter Boza
- Mar 20, 2024
- 5 min read
“Can The Collab Hub support me with my social strategy?”
We were recently asked this question by a prospect who was looking for someone to help revamp their Facebook and IG pages, explore TikTok, and create and post content.
This question is not at all uncommon.
The concept of social media often gets confined to a set of familiar platforms like Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok. While all of these are “social media”, they represent only a subset of the full landscape. A more precise term for these usual suspects would be “social networks” or “media sharing networks”.
There’s a broader landscape of social media out there worth exploring. Each brings its own set of possibilities. This article aims to offer a more holistic approach to social media, beyond the confines of “social networks”, shedding some light on its diverse forms and functionalities.
Social Media: A Broader Definition
To fully harness the power of social media I suggest expanding its definition to include any digital platform that allows users to react to and interact with the content in the same interface, makes that interaction public, and consequently, the interaction itself becomes at the same time content and feedback for the original content.
McKinsey summarizes it as “social media comprises the applications and websites that allow people to interact with other users, businesses, communities, and content” [1].
Based on this broader definition, McKinsey goes on to categorize social media according to its primary function:
Social networks: these are our usual suspects. Their original purpose is to allow for connections among people with similar interests. McKinsey includes Facebook and X (Twitter) in this category.
Media-sharing networks: the name is pretty self-explanatory and includes more of the usual suspects. Think about platforms that are designed for higher-quality and richer content formats to be shared. Think about YouTube, TikTok or Instagram.
Discussion forums: these are a type of crowd-sourced Q&A, where the public can ask questions and give advice on a wide array of topics. McKinsey includes Reddit in this category.
Consumer reviews: these are designed to get feedback on products, services, or destinations, and to make that feedback public so it can influence future decisions by potential customers. Yelp and TripAdvisor are included here.
Of course, Facebook or YouTube can be used as discussion forums, and Instagram can be used to leave your reviews on a product, making the lines between these categories a bit blurry. But while not perfect, breaking down social media into distinct categories can help us better understand which ones to use, and more importantly, why and how to use them.
Social Media and the compression of the marketing funnel
Plenty has been written about the collapse of the marketing funnel (just do a quick Google search on it and you’ll have plenty of good reading material). Some argue that the funnel is dead[2], and others that it has evolved to be non-linear[3].
We still haven’t found many cases, if any, of consumers who went ahead and made a conscious purchase without at least having some level of awareness and interest in what they are purchasing. That’s why we prefer to use the term “compression” when referring to the funnel.
Digital, and more specifically, social media have produced this compression. Anyone can, from their IG feed, be exposed to a brand video, read the comments for reviews, decide to make the purchase, buy, write a comment themselves, and share a post about their purchase in the same general interaction.
But as mentioned earlier, not all social media are created equal. Because each has its set of virtues and limitations, their potential for each phase in the funnel is different. Some are better at generating awareness and telling the brand story, and others at driving conversion (reviews). Some work really well to generate engagement, others to drive advocacy. Social media can be used as a powerful CRM platform, and also as a source of data and insights to inform future marketing strategy and tactics.
Putting it all together: Towards a Holistic Social Media Strategy
There’s much more to social media than what we can cover in this article. Platforms change and user habits evolve at a very fast pace. This is not intended to be an “all you need to know” piece. Our intention is to broaden your perspective, and now, give you some general tips on how to think about the next iteration of your social media strategy.
Have clear goals. It’s much easier to know what to do if you know where you’re going. Think about what you’re trying to accomplish, where you want to go and what’s your starting point.
Know thy customer.What social media are they using and how? If you don’t have your own data, here are some great starting points: Pew Research: Americans Social Media Use, Pew Research: Teens Social Media and Technology, Sprout Social: New Social Media Demographics.
Think of social media as an ecosystem.Look at the different platforms and channels as different components of a larger puzzle. Understand their virtues and limitations. With this and a deep understanding of how your customer uses each platform, determine which ones are better suited for what you’re trying to accomplish. Just don’t take the easy route of reducing social media to Facebook and TikTok.
Even if you’re not maximizing the ecosystem, make sure you maximize the social media you’re using.Maybe you don’t have the resources (human or financial) to use all the social media you should. But once you define the ones that you’re using, make sure you leverage their full potential. Remember that in a collapsed funnel, one platform can contain all the stages in the funnel. Can you generate sales from that social channel? Are you using it to learn and inform future strategies and tactics? Don’t settle for vanity metrics.
You don’t have to know it all
Going back to the question that inspired this article: “Can The Collab Hub support me with my social strategy?”
We’ll share the answer we gave our prospect:
Yes we can, but social media is much more than posting on Facebook.
The good news is that you don’t have to know it all! In reality, no one knows it all when it comes to social media. If you’re a brand manager or marketing director, your role is to drive the overall strategy and rely on experts to support you.
At The Collab Hub we have experts who can help. We can support you in devising your strategy, creating content, integrating platforms, and using data to learn and optimize so you can make the most of your social media.
Keep engaged!
About the Author:
Walter Boza is a senior advertising executive with over 20 years of leadership experience in Strategy, Account Management and Operations across the US and International markets. He is the founder and one of the Collaborators at The Collab Hub.
The Collab Hub is a network of independent advertising and marketing professionals ready to connect, collaborate, unlock, and flawlessly execute solutions for our clients’ marketing challenges.
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