The Public Safety Network is excited
to announce that Marie
Eason has joined our team to focus on
digital marketing for public safety technology companies. Marie is a digital marketing consultant who has worked
with several different businesses across a variety of industries, including
public safety technology. A self-described data nerd, Marie loves tracking and
reporting on social and digital insights using tools such as Hootsuite and
Google Analytics. Keep on
reading for her perspectives and recommendations on social media strategies for
public safety tech companies:
Where do you start?
Social media is no longer an optional marketing channel –
it’s a necessary one. As a result, more and more public safety businesses are jumping
on board with building robust social media strategies that highlight their
brand in a digital space.
The first step to creating an effective social media
strategy is establishing your objectives and goals. Common marketing objectives
for public safety clients typically include goals involving brand awareness,
driving website traffic, and recruiting. Once you have goals, you can determine
which social platforms will be the best fit. It was a best practice to set up
accounts on all the major social media platforms in the past. It is now best
practice to focus on the platforms where your customers exist and are searching
for information. We have found that Twitter and LinkedIn have the most
substantial followers and engagement for public safety industry clients.
What should you post and how should you utilize data to
drive your content calendar?
Building out a content calendar is a lot like recipe
testing. You have to make a plan, tweak things here or there, and ultimately
serve your creation. If you are just starting an account, you will want to test
various content types or themes and monitor your engagement with each post
style. Post theme ideas can include FAQs, case studies, employee introductions,
product demonstrations, celebrations, job posts, customer reviews, videos, and
upcoming event information.
At the end of each month or campaign, you will want to
monitor key metrics such as reach, engagement, impressions, and click-through
rates for each style and theme of the post. All of the major social media
platforms have an easy-to-use analytics component to help you organize and make
sense of this data.
Utilizing this data will help determine which themes and
style posts drive the most engagement. As you build your calendar for the
following month, you will want to focus on utilizing this content more often.
What apps and tools should you use?
Hootsuite is an
excellent tool for planning out your content calendar, monitoring analytics,
and responding to comments. Canva is a
free-to-use online graphic design tool. You can use Canva to create posts,
stories, videos, etc. Shutterstock
is a provider of stock photography and stock footage. You can pull images from
their platform to post onto your social accounts. Bitly
is a URL shortening service and a link management platform for condensing links
within your social posts. Finally, Grammarly
is a cloud-based typing assistant that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation,
clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes. This tool is helpful when writing
social posts and blogs.
What are some good public safety accounts to follow?
It is crucial to not only follow your competitors to monitor
what they are posting, but it is also helpful to follow public safety accounts
for content ideas. We recommend following these accounts as a starting point:
Kymeta‘s
account keeps followers in the loop with upcoming events and product
information, posts consistently, and has a strong social media following.
Sonim‘s account
not only posts its own content but also invests time in liking and re-tweeting
relevant public safety content from various other accounts.
Western
Fire Chiefs’ account utilizes the Instagram stories function to share their
posts further and relevant content in which they are tagged.
FirstNet‘s
account is an excellent example of an account that utilizes video content to
drive strong engagement.
If you are interested in learning more about utilizing
social media marketing to achieve your business goals, don’t hesitate to get in
touch with us here.
