The lesson here is not a political one. It’s that social followings are fragile and not entirely in your control. Building over-weighted advertising campaigns on these platforms is not only expensive, it’s dangerous.  

However, social media is still enormously powerful for communicating with current customers and connecting with new ones. Every brand should participate, but operate with this strategy in mind.

Instead of renting your customer information, aim to OWN it. 

Branden O’Neil, founder of the Atlas Rose Marketing Leadership company says that every opportunity should be taken to redirect users off social platforms and invite them to interact with your brand on your website. That’s sound advice considering a company’s website is the only online space that is designed to turn interest into action. O’Neil defines “action” as a phone call, email, form fill, or some other way the user reveals their identity and provides valuable contact information.

He continues “Once we have just a first name and email from someone, it allows us to go to work to nurture that startup relationship and make it something meaningful. Over time, a well-equipped marketer can learn more about the prospect including what specific product or service they are interested in. We want to earn the prospect’s trust and listen intently while simultaneously learning about what they want.”

If you follow this strategy, you are no longer at the mercy of social media giants. You can have intimate conversations through a combination of automated emails and personal interaction. Using this strategy, allows you to “own” the data. You are now able to communicate as frequently as you want and appear in an inbox or SMS. No longer will your message be restricted. Repeating this process over and over builds a powerful marketing engine.

How to do it.

• Cut and paste the URL from your website blog post article into a Linkedin post. Interested readers will be automatically directed to your site.
• Invite social media followers to visit your site to “enter to win” or some other promotional giveaway.
• Join relevant groups on Facebook and post only snippets of content. Invite users to click the link to your website to continue reading.
• Get help from influencers. Ask them to promote your products or services on their social platforms.

Social media remains one of the best ways to reach new audiences through paid advertising, but surviving only on that strategy isn’t always cost-effective depending on your average sales price and lifetime customer value. O’Neil gives the advice, “Go ahead and dive in deep with social platforms, but understand how to align it with your overall customer acquisition strategy. Social media alone won’t make your marketing successful. It simply fills a role in the overall marketing plan. Our goal for clients is to have them own their data so they call the shots.”