SoLoMo: What Is It and Why You Need to Master It in 2021
Last update: 15 July 2021 at 10:51 am
5.00/5SoLoMo, an acronym formed by the words social, local, and mobile. It refers to the convergence of these three key elements for digital marketing.
In this article, we will review in detail what SoLoMo is and why businesses should include it in their strategies in 2021 and beyond.
What Does SoLoMo Mean?
The first thing you should be clear about is that the concept of SoLoMo will depend on the perspective from which you are looking at: user or business. For the purposes of this article, we will focus on a corporate one, but not before clarifying each one.
For digital users, SoLoMo refers to the integration of social networks and the real world or physical space.
A perfect example of this is a mobile app that recognizes your current location, provides you with relevant information such as opening hours and ratings from other users.
It also allows you to interact and upload content available to third parties such as a photo, your opinion, or experience.
Social Networks in Our Lives
Google Maps or Waze, Foursquare, and dare we say it, basically any social network today provides these functions.
This is because behind each platform there is a team that has been able to listen to the needs of their consumers and has been adapting to provide them with the solutions they are looking for.
On the other hand, for companies, SoLoMo is an opportunity to attract new customers.
What do we mean by this?
Quite simply, today’s consumers have given very clear signs of the importanceof social networks and the digital world in their purchasing decisions.
And you, as a company, have the duty to listen to them, understand their needs and ways of acting to get the most out of them, and thus create close relationships with your consumers.
Understanding and acting taking into account the best of the three worlds that make up SoLoMo opens the door to a “win-win“.
The user wins because he gets to satisfy a need he had and the company wins because it manages to increase its sales, position its brand and build customer loyalty.
Three Elements That Make Up SoLoMo
SoLoMo, as we said above, comes from the words Social, Local, and Mobile. This seeks to explain the way today’s users act.
Social
If we review the most frequent interactions of consumers in digital media and social networks we realize that, for the most part, they are looking for or sharing opinions about different products and services.
This is nothing more than a big warning that we must begin to assume: today’s consumer values the opinion of third parties more than the information that you, as a brand or business, can share.
We suggest you stop for a moment and think about whether you are taking advantage of the opinions of third parties about your products or services.
Do you make them public? Are they easily accessible? How long has it been since you updated them? Do you encourage your users to share their comments?
Local
Have you ever checked how many applications on your mobile devices you share your location information with?
It is estimated that at least three-quarters of smartphone users make use of geolocation apps and services, hence the success of apps like Groupon and Foursquare.
Understanding this data is key for the design and distribution of your next marketing campaigns.
Now, we invite you to check if you have active campaigns for different locations.
If so, what parameters are you using, what channels are you running the campaign on, and have the results been good?
Mobile
Gone are the days when you needed to be at home or in the office to connect to the Internet and get in touch with a brand. Today, users interact in different ways with a brand in the process of making a purchase.
To help you understand this last point, we find it prudent to share an example of a digital native’s buying process.
He sees a brand post on a social network, ‘like‘s it, then searches other portals or networks for opinions and comments about the product.
He may even ask a couple of questions on the website chat. And, at the time of purchase, he leaves a review of the store and his experience, to finish by sharing a photo on different social networks with the product in use.
In this third point, we consider it important to analyze a bit your presence in digital media.
Where does your brand have active profiles? What kind of content do you share? How many interactions do you receive per month? How do you encourage participation and conversation with your customers and potential customers?
As you can see, shopping today is mainly lived in digital media and involves several platforms.
The role your business must assume is to get to know your users, understand which channels they are using most frequently, what they are looking for, how they interact, what messages resonate most with them, and improve their consumer experience.
How Can You Apply SoLoMo in Your Company?
Once you are convinced of the importance of SoLoMo and the benefits it brings, your marketing team should start designing a strategy focused on the user experience and not on selling your products.
By this, we don’t mean that you put aside the sales of your products. Of course, it is still part of the marketing objectives.
However, this must be done in such a way that your consumers “fall in love” with your products or services, that they feel so comfortable with them that they want to share it and recommend it to their friends, family, and followers on social networks.
The first thing you must be clear about is that you must leave aside the traditional marketing discourse that sought to highlight the attributes of your products and services. And start focusing on the user’s experience when acquiring them.
To do this, it is essential to know your consumers, “walk in their shoes”, understand their tastes, interests, and aspirations.
You must dedicate enough time to ask questions, observe, analyze the buying process of your consumers. Understanding that this goes from the moment they realize they have a need to cover until they share their opinions and comments once they have purchased it.
On the other hand, you should focus on creating a strategy with actions that encourage interaction between the digital and the real world.
For example, your users can learn about your products through different digital media. And, once they have purchased it, they can share a post on their social media profiles to participate in discount coupons or VIP experiences.
To succeed, it is key to think outside the box. There are audiences that are more responsive to certain actions; there are others that are not. Hence the importance of first understanding who your target audience is.
In this same sense, you must ensure that your brand is easy to “discover” in digital media. That is, you must have a presence in the channels that your users frequent. You must also have good SEO work so that your brand or product always appears in the first results for different keywords.
Some additional ideas are to activate a digital ad campaign across different platforms, have remarketing ads targeted to those who have interacted in some way with your brand.
You can also create an application that streamlines the sales process or provides solutions to a market need. Open a blog where you share the content of interest to your users and encourage your consumers to share their opinions about your products or services.
Conclusion
To conclude, remember that before you start working on your SoLoMo strategy, you should focus on reviewing who your target audience is, analyze the stages they go through before, during, and after making a purchase. Then you can start the process of designing your digital marketing strategy and the different actions that go along with it.
