Consumers have changed. They know they have the power. And they use that when they make purchase decisions.

The times when companies simply used to talk about their business and their products are gone. Now is the time of the consumer, where WIIIFM or “what’s in it for me” is more relevant than ever.

In the world of social media, blogging, podcasting, video broadcasting, etc. customer-centricity is the only way for them to be heard among the noise. It is WIIFM that brands need to communicate throughout the entire customer journey.

There’s one industry where this is extremely palpable – sustainability with surrounding terms such as resource scarcity, sustainable supply chains and sourcing, climate change, eco-efficiency etc.

Why? Because all these words are confusing, hard to understand and often regarded as greenwashing by the normal consumer.

That’s something I’ve discovered when I was doing my own research for my dissertation, but is also evident year after year in the results of Sustainly’s Social Media Sustainability Index.

The latest one even opens up with the question: “How do you talk about sustainability when no-one really knows what it means?”

Our behaviour as consumers and shoppers has changed dramatically over the past few years. We now not only buy online, but we do research on-the-go or in-store, we compare vendors and products on our smartphones, we rely on social media for recommendations and ideas.

As a recent report by PwC points out, we are inclined to shop multi-channel – the power of choice lies in our hands, it is up to us to decide where to buy and when to buy.

The consumer and buyer journeys have become increasingly complicated and so understanding and actually creating a sales cycle turns out to be an almost impossible task for companies.

One is certain though – brands cannot ignore the digital revolution. They are required to use digital technology and create new buying experiences that are better fitted to the way we now like to explore, learn, buy, try and recommend. And that’s largely mobile and online. 

Even Google has realised that – coming April 21^st, Google will start penalising websites that are not mobile-friendly, which will have significant impact on search results and companies’ ability to rank for consumer queries.

And let’s not forget that many of us are now addicted mobile windows shoppers – we may make the actual purchase more on our desktops or in-store, but it is mobile that inspires us and drives us to buy. It is Instagram that we learn about new products, it is Facebook that we get recommendations from friends and families, it is Twitter that we learn about brand fails – and we access those networks mostly through our smartphones.

So, what can brands do to be part of our consumer journeys?

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by social media? Have you struggled organising your time in order to handle your social media activities?

Social media is just too much, right? Too many posts, too many people, too many questions, too many tweets, too much noise, too much to do to go through it all. And you only have a few hours a day to get everything done…

Fear not, it’s not just you, it’s almost everyone.

The past few months with my move to a new country and my new job have been super busy for me, so I have also felt overwhelmed. What helped me was HubSpot’s very simple formula that you can use to make the most of your time on social media on a daily basis. And because it’s worked so well for me, so I decided to share it with you today. Hopefully, this will give you a daily structure of how to more efficiently handle your social media activities every day.  

Last week, the CIPR published the results of its annual State of the PR Profession survey. I must admit, the results are frankly sad: from a clear inequality pay gap of £8,483 in favour of men that is purely based on gender, not service, seniority, parenthood, or a higher prevalence of part-time work amongst women, to 51% of senior managers in PR saying that they are "extremely stressed" or "very stressed" in their roles.

Steven Waddington wrote a terrific post about these and the other eight “area of pain in public relations”. I encourage you to read it, however what I want to focus on today are the findings and key learnings PR students should take into consideration to help them prepare for their next journey – getting their first PR job after graduation and excelling as a PR professional.

I would imagine that reading through the survey results, you are probably asking yourself: Why do I even want to work in PR?

And rightly so… Yes, the industry is indeed facing some serious issues. Yes, it may not be easy to solve them. And yes, you’ve chosen a challenging career, but you have a role to play too, because you the ones who will be shaping the future of the industry. Isn’t making an impact better than just having a job?

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to participate in a Q&A session for a social media strategy workshop that was held by a friend of mine – Chryssa Skodra – for a group of start-ups in Finland. I really enjoyed being part of it via Google Hangout as I got to interact with some bright entrepreneurs and share my knowledge around social media and blogging.

My friend Chryssa, who follows the HubSpot blog and knows that we post a ton of useful content there, also asked me to send over a list of curated articles on social media strategy to share with the participants. I happily obliged, of course, and thought that this list of resources would be super useful for you too, so I decided to share it with you today.

Please note, this a strategy guide, not an implementation guide – how you create and optimise your social media profiles or what social media posts to create are topics for another piece. This one is about understanding what social media is, how it can benefit your business and what you need to consider to get started.