Ep 7: Tips and Tricks for Inclusive Social Media Marketing
Shownotes
In this episode, Joyann Boyce goes through some of the things you can look out for when trying to make your social media marketing inclusive. This starts from the beginning with strategy, through to content and data.
Useful links:
Influencer Pay Gap Report: http://www.mslgroup.co.uk/paygap
https://www.arimacompany.com/blog/how-to-make-your-social-media-posts-inclusive
You can find Joyann at: https://twitter.com/joyannboyce
Transcription
Joyann Boyce 0:02
Welcome to the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast. I am your host, Joyann Boyce. On this podcast, we're going to discuss all things inclusive marketing, from persona creation, campaigns and even some of the mishaps we see in the media. Tune in and let me know your thoughts and how we can make inclusive marketing the industry standard.
Joyann Boyce 0:23
Hi, welcome. And welcome back to the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast, I am your host, Joyann Boyce. And today we're going to talk all about how you can make social media marketing inclusive. So I'm going to take you on a mini journey as thinking as a social media manager, your company is now going to go onto the social platforms. So you're going to start with your strategy.
Joyann Boyce 0:42
Now the strategy is a great area to implement some thinking around inclusivity. Say that you're thinking around, okay, we're going to pull inspo from influencers within the sector. Who does influences? What inspiration are you pulling from? And where are you getting that inspiration from? And is that inspiration crediting the individuals who originally created it. Sometimes when we're researching things, and we're pulling information, what can happen in the social media world is the original creator doesn't get credit. And then as a brand, if you're then trying to say, oh, we were inspired by a dance made by this creator, it is very vulnerable for the brand to credit the wrong person. It can lead to a lot of people in their comments saying, oh no, your crediting in the wrong person, you're stealing from this creates and not giving them credit. So wherever you're drawing inspiration from, make sure you take the time to research and make sure that the people that you're drawing inspiration from is diverse.
Joyann Boyce 1:38
Then you have wherever you're going to lead the traffic to. So if you're leading the traffic to a brand's website or you're leading the traffic to a particular area, check that the area that people are landing on is accessible, is able to be used by those who are using screen readers and so forth. This is not necessarily something that you're going to do. But it's something you can highlight to those who are responsible for it.
Joyann Boyce 2:02
And within that strategy, also think about your why. So thinking about, okay, we want to make sure that the content we're publishing on our platforms is diverse is represented is inclusive, but who are our target audience? Thinking about that persona, thinking about that target audience and then explore using data user research, how diverse that target audience is, where do they hang out online? For, I always use gaming, but for gaming, say you're going to do a social media strategy plan for a game, you can have a look at are there any women's groups online? Are there any black gamers groups online, or any disabled gamers groups online that would be interested in this game, that you can engage with, you can reach out to, that you can comment and share their content that they publish?
Joyann Boyce 2:48
So all of that is areas that you can make your strategy before you go to social platforms inclusive. And then when you're thinking about the content, the areas within the content, let's go from a small to a large brand. So a small organisation just getting started is likely to use a lot of stock photos, when they're publishing to social platforms, they may not have the budget to do photography and full shoots. But when you're using the stock photos, if you're pulling stock photos that fit a certain aesthetic, fit a certain brand guidelines have a reflection, if they include individuals in them, what did those individuals look like? And the beautiful thing about social is, I'm not saying that you need to make every single image you posts look like United Nations. Terrible term, but you get what I mean. But you have essentially a three-by-three grid to represent your brand. And in those nine squares, what does it say? Is every single one of those nine squares a skinny white woman who is non-disabled? Or is it various people using your content.
Joyann Boyce 3:49
So that's if you're stock photos, then going up another level say you have a lot of people who are posting about your product or your service and your reposting and re-sharing that user-generated content have a look at if you're missing certain individuals, because the unfortunate thing with social platforms is that the algorithm tends to work against those from marginalised background. So there may be micro-influencers and individuals raving and talking positively about your product or service. But you're not necessarily getting served them or they're not getting the highest views and clicks. And that's the algorithms problem and we can discuss that on another podcast. But what you can ensure you're doing is looking at the who you're reposting and who's engaging you to see in areas that are missing, maybe you need to reach out to influencers who are from Black and Asian backgrounds. Or maybe there's something in the product that is not attracting influencers or individuals who are from the LGBT+ community or disabled. That's a signifier. If you're only getting user-generated content from a certain demographic, either the algorithm is suppressing certain things, or your product or service is not appealing to that certain demographic. So explore that.
Joyann Boyce 4:56
Another aspect is when, we'll mention influencers, when working with influencers, there was a report published and I'm going to find it by an agency called SevenSix. And they found that there's a pay gap when brands are paying influencers, between white influencers and black influencers. And I'm sure this pay gap crossover into many other intersections. But transparency, I say over and over again, the more transparent you can be a more trusting people be of your brand. And that is even when you're working with influencers. Yes, they'll have their individual rates. But I think it's important to pay people sounds so simple and so obvious. But as a social media or a brand manager, or the influencer, I understand that there are budgets, I understand that, you know, you're trying to get the biggest bang for your bang. But I just don't know how you can watch a campaign where everyone's doing the same amount of work, and see a disparity and not try to make a difference.
Joyann Boyce 5:58
But that's just me, that's me and my ethics and my morals. And you know, because I believe in karma, but, that was a joke. I'm not trying to guilt anyone into doing these things. But it's important when you're putting aside budgets to make sure what you say the budget is what it means, because what black influencers were finding in this report, is that when they asked their white counterparts with the same amount of following, the same amount of engagement, they were getting three, four times as much for the same campaign. And that disparity is just not encouraging people to come back and work with your brand. So if your brand and develops a reputation of underpaying influences from a marginalised background, that reputation is going to carry forward with their following, that reputation is going to carry forward and just going to be negatively impacted on your brand.
Joyann Boyce 6:41
In regards to posting the content, I think it's really important to ensure when you're posting, you're making the content accessible. Now there's various ways to make content accessible on social, the most obvious way that's come about is all the platforms now allow you to input alt text. If you're unsure what alt text is, it's a way to describe an image and add context. So for example, for those listening and not watching, if you are watching, I would describe this as Joanne Boyce is sat on a chair and she is a Black woman with shoulder-length dreadlocks sitting in front of a background of plants and arts work. That would give enough context to describe what I'm talking about. Mentioning that I'm a black woman adds context to the level of things I'm saying and the words I'm using.
Joyann Boyce 7:31
But adding alt text on your social media posts is important in the sense of expands audience reach. So people who are visually impaired or have difficulty seeing your images can get value from it anyway. I've seen some amazing ways of using alt tags where a creator uses alt texts as a way to extend that caption. So it encourages those who may not be visually impaired to actually click on it and see what is the extended version it's still descriptive, it's still adding value. And so adding contexts from for the images, but it's also adding some more entertainment. I haven't seen any brands get creative with old texts. I've seen quite boring, so that's another way on all platforms, you can add alt text.
Joyann Boyce 8:12
And then to wrap this mini episode up, is explore the data. I've spoken to a lot of companies where their assumption is because their following is a certain demographic, say that following is 80% men, but when they've built their target audience, they said that they were actually building 50% women and 50% men. A lot of brands and businesses blame the algorithm and say, oh well, you know, that's just how it is. But data is something that we can play with something that is moldable. And you have the opportunity to explore that data. It might be that your content is particularly for men and that's your intention cool. I'm not saying you to change anything or to explore anything there. But if that's not your original goal of your brand, have a look at what you're posting, have a look at what you're engaging with, is there a way to shift that narrative? Is there a way to test that data's theories? Even if your, your following is 90% men. what is the diversity within that? Have you explored what percentage of your followers are possibly disabled, possibly neurodivergent, queer? And are you appealing or creating content for that demographic within your audience?
Joyann Boyce 9:30
There's a lot of things to take in. And we can take a deep dive on each one. But to go over all of it, when you're thinking about social media and how to make it inclusive, think about it each step from your strategy, what are you implementing? What are the goals and how can being inclusive with those benefit the business, benefit the brand, your content creation? How do you make that inclusive, representative and accessible? And then finally, what is the data saying? How do you question it? How do you improve it? How do you then refer that data back to your strategy and ensure that reinforcing their original inclusive marketing goals you said that was a lot to take in.
Joyann Boyce 10:09
If you have any questions or anything you want to share or other ways that you've come across, made your brand on social media more inclusive. Feel free to tweet us or tweet myself at Joyann Boyce on all platforms. And thank you for tuning in to the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast.
