Posts

 

By Wayne Brown

One of the most common questions I get asked a lot is which social media platforms should a company use. There are so many these days and managing them is a full-time job. However, every business model is different and there really is no cookie-cutter approach. As long as the platforms you select bring engagement and actionable results, you have a great opportunity to create brand awareness and turn your social communities into customers. Here are my minimum recommendations, which I feel are essential for any business wanting to connect with a qualified audience.

Let’s start with Facebook. Facebook is still one of the most widely used social media platforms for businesses today with more than 1.94 billion users worldwide. Since a large majority of people are using it, there’s a good chance your customers and prospects are, too.

Out of all the social media platforms, Facebook has the best and most strategic advertising options, and is a great investment when it comes to social media advertising. Clicking a hashtag on Facebook will bring you to a separate page with related posts that are visible to you based on the various users’ privacy settings.

• Facebook
  1.94 billion users worldwide
  88% of 18–29 year olds use Facebook
  84% of 30–49 year olds use Facebook
  72% of 50–64 year old use Facebook
  62% of 65+ year old use Facebook
  Source: Pew Social Media Update 2016

Next is Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. This is a social media platform that is completely photo-friendly and continues to grow, especially with 18-29 year olds. It’s a platform that seems to be much “quieter” than Facebook and Twitter. For a business, Instagram can be successful when you post quality photos. If you’re not sure if this platform is right for your business, I always suggest taking yourself out of the “picture” (no pun intended) and think through the eyes of your customers and whether they would likely engage in photos of your business.

Hashtagging on Instagram will take you to a separate page with photos similar to the ones you’ve posted.

• Instagram
  700 million users worldwide
  59% of 18–29 year olds use Instagram
  33% of 30–49 year olds use Instagram
  18% of 50–64 year olds use Instagram
  8% of people 65+ use Instagram
  Source: Pew Social Media Update 2016

With 1 billion users worldwide and 4 billion views per day, YouTube would be your best bet for posting and archiving your videos on your company channel. YouTube is a social media platform, although many businesses don’t realize this. It’s owned by Google and its SEO capabilities can drive traffic to your website. Also, Millennials prefer YouTube nearly twice as much over traditional TV.

One misconception businesses have about YouTube is that you don’t have to spend a ton of money on creating professional videos. While it’s important to have a few professional videos for your website, simply using your smartphone camera is enough to get your point across on a daily basis.

Hashtagging is typically done in the comments section, where you’ll be to click-thru to a page that has that particular hashtag in its title.

The platform that actually gave us the “hashtag” is Twitter, which provides a great way to create conversations with customers and prospects, while gaining a following. Using a hashtag allows users to tweet at your location, much easier than searching for your other social media platforms. Twitter is also great if your business is hosting an event because Twitter hashtags can easily track those conversations.

• 328 million users worldwide
  36% of 18–29 year olds use Twitter
  23% of 30–49 year olds use Twitter
  21% of 50–64 year olds use Twitter
  10% of 65+ year olds use Twitter
  Nearly 79% of Twitter accounts are located outside of the US
  Source: Pew Social Media Update 2016

Clients also ask me about LinkedIn. According to Pew Social Media Update 2016, 25% of all U.S. adults use LinkedIn, which continues to be popular with college graduates and high income earners. LinkedIn has evolved over the years and has become successful with its emphasis on publishing, where members can use this platform as a blogging platform. My problem with LinkedIn is that it’s not supposed to be “social” the way Facebook is because it is a business site, so you have to make sure your posts and blogs are specific to your business. You can’t talk about “those Yankees” if there’s no business action behind it. The other problem I have with business LinkedIn profiles is that most people want to connect with other people. A business brand, while it may have personality attributes, may not appear to be very human when other members are looking for conversations.

There are other platforms like Snapchat and Slideshare, which can be difficult for businesses to master, and like I said before, these are my minimum recommendations because they are effective and easy to use. Of course, none of these platforms will be effective without your amazing content, which comes from your photos, blogs, and videos.

By Wayne Brown

December is a tough month for me, not just because of the holidays, but for the additional 8 people in my immediate family who celebrate their birthdays. A couple of years ago, I came to the realization that greeting cards aren’t cheap, and while they have great graphics, the clever greetings just didn’t come from my heart.  So, being in the marketing/advertising industry, and fully capable of illustrating, designing, and copywriting, I felt I could do a better job of creating cards that would emotionally connect with the people I care about. It does take a lot of effort to customize a creative card, but now my family won’t accept anything less.

I think businesses can do better, too. The generic, snail-mailed, corporate holiday card gets thrown out after a week, and depending on your industry, the average opening rate for an eblast is only 22%. With just a few days before the big holidays arrive, here are a few ideas to add new twists into your holiday greetings.

• First, whatever you do, make sure you tie in your product or service.
• Next, get personal. Humor works, as does thanking your customers.
• Give a gift or informative tip. This doesn’t have to break the bank. Let’s say you own a bakery; include a discount or a recipe. Or, if you own a fitness center, include a tip to work off those holiday pounds!
• Make a card like I do. This does take some time, and make sure you include some or all of the above.
• Make a video. This is my personal favorite for businesses. You can create a custom video with help from a template using online services, such as animoto.com. Videos are great because you can share by mailing (DVD or flash drive), emailing, and posting on social media. The good thing about creating a video is that you don’t need any special equipment. A simple smartphone will do. Keep it short. 60% of viewers will stop watching after 2 minutes. Here’s an opportunity to get creative or act silly. For example, your take on The Harlem Shake can get your fans in a festive mood. However, the big internet craze right now is the Mannequin Challenge (#MannequinChallenge). If you’re planning a holiday party soon, this would be a great time to test your “freeze” skills. Another of my favorites is having members of the staff each sing a line of a famous holiday song. Insert the raw footage into a program like Windows Movie Maker, and “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

Happy Holidays to all!

 

By Wayne Brown

In today’s technical world of open-source platforms and plug-ins, it’s easier than ever to track and market to people who’ve come into contact with your brand through ad click-thrus and website visits. There are great opportunities to market your products and services to users who’ve expressed interest no matter where they go on the internet. The two terms you hear most about when it comes to this approach are Remarketing and Retargeting.

Remarketing is an email strategy that marketers use to continue engaging customers who’ve already purchased a product or service or came close to buying, but bailed just before checkout. The reasons for sending a user an email can include thanking them for a purchase, asking why they abandoned a purchase, up-selling and cross-selling, and letting them know about warranties and product updates. These users have expressed an interest in your brand, sometimes buying, sometimes not. For those on-the-fence shoppers, an email can be a great way to convert them to a sale by helping them overcome any obstacles in their decision-making process.

Retargeting takes a little more effort, but is relatively inexpensive with a potentially high ROI. This is your opportunity to keep your brand fresh in the minds of potential customers. Retargeting involves placing online ads and display ads, based on a user’s activity on your site. After a cookie is set, you can target ads to these users on other similar sites they visit. This can be done by using 3^rd party networks like Ad Roll and the Google Display Network. This approach allows marketers to reach potential customers wherever they go on millions of sites.

So which is better? Actually, it makes more sense to use both. You want to use email remarketing when you have a customer or potential customer who has shown a significant interest in buying, while ad retargeting works to keep your brand fresh on the minds of consumers wherever they take their online searches for products and services similar to yours.

By Wayne Brown

When it comes to connecting with consumers, the old marketing adage that less is more still holds true. People don’t want to read ads, they want to scan them and still be able to get the message. People don’t even use maps anymore, thanks to GPS, and who wants to read the latest bestseller when it’s been made into a movie? A year from now, I don’t even know if I will still be writing for this blog. I may go straight to video. Video has become such a powerful medium these days; it makes sense to incorporate its use into any marketing campaign.

Let’s face it, all print ads are static. However, video allows you to tell a story with moving frames, human voices, and emotions, which explains why YouTube receives more than a billion unique visitors every month and streams about 3 months’ worth of video every minute. In fact, YouTube accounts for over 28% of all Google searches (Comscore).

Consider these statistics:

• Video search results have a 41% better click through rate than its text counterpart
• Globally, online video traffic will be 55 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016. (Cisco)
• Video promotion is over 6 times more effective than print and online (Atlas)
• Video content can increase the chances of front page Google ranking by 53 times (Cisco)
• Videos are shared 1,200% more times than links and text combined (Simply Measured)
• “Video” in the subject line of emails increase click through rate by 7-13% (Experian)

Nowadays, a video campaign doesn’t have to be an expensive proposition thanks to advances in technology, which have made videography more affordable than ever. Whether you use a high-end camera with professional lighting or your cell phone, make sure your presentation is creative first, cost second. Depending on your budget, a professionally-produced video can cost in the neighborhood of $1,000-$2,000 a minute, while uploading your iPhone video to YouTube, Vimeo or your company’s Facebook page is free. While the truism “you get what you pay for” still applies, you can still get a high quality video for your money, especially with programs as simple as Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Premiere Elements 13.

Now, all this information doesn’t mean you should give up print advertising. In fact, you can incorporate your print campaigns into your online videos by adding a QR code. One quick scan and a consumer goes straight to your video, where 90% of online shoppers find video helpful in making purchase decisions (Video Brewery). Bottom line – video ads increase traffic and conversions, while video content marketing makes your brand stronger and your audience smarter.

By Wayne Brown

It used to be that only websites relied on keywords to help with SEO, but nowadays it’s common practice for users to tag their social media posts with keywords in order to make topics searchable by others. In fact, it’s become so common that people use them in everything from text messages to advertisements. The question is can putting a simple pound symbol in front of words really help your business?

Hashtags work when a user clicks on the word or phrase that is preceded by a hash mark (#) and indexed by a social network, then taken to another page that collects all the posts with the same hashtagged keyword or phrase. If promoted by enough people, a topic can “trend” and attract more users to a discussion. Keep in mind that every users’ trending topics are different based on their location and social connections. Sometimes people use hashtags with words that are used to convey emotion rather than for categorizing. For example, “This article is boring. #boring #fallingasleep”

For companies, creating a hashtag can make your brand stronger by allowing you to trend within your own circle of fans and followers. It’s important to use words that are relevant to your company and brand so that your campaigns do well. Using words that you think are clever, might actually be ambiguous and lead users to conversations that have nothing to do with you. The best solution is to find and use positive keywords that are already associated with your brand, keeping it simple and direct. Some companies, like Nike, experimented with using hashtags on their print ads with much success. The key is to make sure you’re driving your followers to your social platforms so they can find your hashtag.

Considering that pretty much most social media platforms use hashtags to organize data in their own unique ways, it’s safe to say that this is not a “trend,” but is here to stay, since social media is already integrated into our lives. Using hashtags is a great way to share news and updates about your business to people who might be interested, but not necessarily searching for that particular topic, while ultimately making it easy to find these conversations in the first place.