How to Use Social Media Customer Care to Grow Your Social Channels

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With social media’s growing importance in the business world, it becomes vital for companies to have a strong online presence in order to achieve higher sales, popularity, and a good reputation. According to the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, 60{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of Americans regularly interact with companies on a social media website and a staggering 93{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} want to see the presence of brands on their social media sites. Consumers expect quality products and services, but more importantly, they seek top tier social media customer care or social CRM.

What is Social CRM?

Social CRM (social customer relationship management) is the use of social media platforms, like Facebook or Twitter, as a strategy to allow companies to build and maintain relationships with customers. Rather than using social media solely as a platform for companies to get the word out, social media customer care is encouraging businesses to use social to receive inbound conversations and inquiries to increase engagement. It is all about collaboration with the customer in order to build your brand. By monitoring and using the data provided from social media platforms, companies can gain a better understanding of the consumer, placing the consumer at the center of the organization.

social media customer care

How is Social CRM Different from Traditional CRM?

The major difference between social CRM and traditional CRM is the importance of communication with the customer. CRM is defined by the company, while social CRM is defined by the consumer. In traditional CRM, data is gathered on consumers, but there is no personalization or interaction. It is simply about gathering and managing data, whereas social CRM seeks engagement from that data. In addition, traditional CRM is based on a customer service system that operates under company hours and often uses an impersonal script that is read by a worker to the customer. However, with social media customer care, consumers set the hours and can expect quicker replies since social media exists in real time.

How Can You Utilize Social CRM?

social media customer careAccording to the Brand Science Institute, European Perspective in 2010, only 7{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of organizations understand the value of social CRM. With such a low number of companies utilizing social media customer care, you can increase growth and profits by being one of the few who do. At Bright Age, we assist our clients in their interaction with the consumer in order to maximize their successes. Your social media customer care team can use social CRM to interact with the consumer promptly at all hours, monitor social media sites for complaints to quickly minimize issues, and reward brand advocates for their support. By using social media to your advantage, your company will build a happier customer base, which in the end, benefits your brand.

social media agency

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Social Media is surely becoming one of the most popular ways to market brands to potential customers. Whether your brand is years old or just beginning, it is crucial to understand how social media may help to contribute to its overall growth. We are going to introduce the top 5 metrics you should measure to ensure that your brand will grow through social media. We hope that you will gain the knowledge to monitor your brand’s growth, and as always you can always contact our social media agency for help. Let’s dive in!

Community Growth

When it comes to growing your social media, your content will tend to have more reach when more people follow you. Having more followers tends to give off the impression that your brand is likeable and that your brand is popular. It is important to take into consideration that your followers should be real authentic people and companies. You do not want to diminish the credibility of your brand by purchasing fake followers or paying others to follow you. It may be wise to spend some extra money, and contact a social media company to help expand your community.

Impressions/Reach

An impression is the amount of times your content is displayed, while reach is the number of people who see your content. These two metrics are very important indicators to determine whether your content matches well with social media algorithms which ensure that your ads are reaching your desired market. If you are still confused on the difference between reach and impressions, feel free to check out Sprout Social to further your knowledge on each topic.

Engagements

Engagement is another crucial metric when it comes to growing your brand. Engagement is one of the terms used in social media that has no distinct definition. Digital marketing agencies measure engagements by the amount of people who respond to or interact with their social media posts. For example, if you post a picture on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, the amount of comments, likes, and retweets are engagements between you and your followers. These help to extend the reach of your brand, but do not use likes and comments as your only measures of success.igor-ovsyannykov-277762 (2)

Website Visits

Social Media is an effective way to drive traffic to your website. Your brand’s marketing is working efficiently when you catch your customer’s interest, and they look at your website for more information.  Social media companies may help lead more people to your website by deciding the optimal social media platforms for your brand, creating posts most suitable for your customers, and posting at times when most people are active on social media.

Conversions

Conversions are the final metric that should be monitored when using social media to expand your brand. You may have a goal to have potential customers to click a link directly to your website or to like your Facebook page. Conversions would be measured based on how many people went and clicked on your website link, or liked your Facebook page. To have a high conversion rate make sure you are sending your customers directly to the page they need to be on. Your customers should not have to look around to find your page on another website they were directed to.

How to Utilize Social Media Demographics

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Marketing today is harder than it has ever been. We are straying away from traditional television advertising and heading towards complete digital interaction. Social media and social media demographics has become the epicenter for marketing specialists and the main platform for marketing strategies.

As always, businesses must identify their target audience and create the right segmentation. Sounds easy right? Actually, it isn’t when you consider the different types of social media websites and their demographics. Different websites require different content and creativity, and depending on your product, some websites will be better/worse for your product. For example, your target audience can be on Facebook and Instagram but require different approaches since they both have different demographics.

An easy way to solve this is to look at a website’s demographics and create a strategy from there. A social media marketing agency like Bright Age is perfect for creating your social media campaign. Here are the main social media demographics and how your business can take advantage of them!

Social Media in General

Needless to say, social media is full of endless marketing opportunities. Here are the general social media demographics that you should be aware of.

  • 8 billion social media users worldwide
  • 37{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} global penetration
  • 22{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} increase in last year

Facebook

As of today, Facebook contains the highest number of users at an astonishing 1.9 billion monthly inhabitants. These users are predominately female, yielding at 83{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} online female users while 75{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} online male users. As for reach, Facebook is the best place to reach Millennials and Generation X (ages 18 – 49).

LENDELEDE, BELGIUM - MAY 24TH 2016: hand holding iphone6 mobile phone which displays the Facebook app on the touch screen

Facebook is a great place to have a detailed and aesthetic digital representation of your brand. Here, you can provide the fine details on why your business is so great while providing attractive picture/text content. Think of this as your business page, but with the ability to reach millions of people at any given time. Once you drive traffic to your Facebook page; make sure your business location, product details, and general info are appealing and easy to spot. And of course, take into careful consideration of the social media demographics we provided above!

YouTube

YouTube is a pretty popular site and has been around for quite a while. Coming in at 1 billion users, it just might be better than TV with more opportunities of exposure. YouTube is predominately male, with 55{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of users being male with respect to its 45{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} female users. Per minute, there are about 2 million videos watched a day!

This site has been around for a long time and doesn’t really hold a grab on a specific demographic. Young to old and from culture to culture, when looking for a video YouTube is the world’s first choice. With that, YouTube is perfect for anytime you want a create a timeless video on your product. It’s a good way for consumers to learn about your product/business in even greater detail. And if you get really big, you can even generate some ad revenue from YouTube!

Instagram

Instagram is quite impressive in its own right, they’ve grown exponentially and at a rate higher than any other social media site.  They currently hold 600 million monthly users with 90{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of them being under 35.

insta-demographics

Obviously, Instagram appeals more to the younger generation. It is incredibly important to keep this in mind when creating a post and text content. Include relevant trends, fads, and make sure your hashtags are catchy! Also, it is important to note that 53{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of users follow brands. This a great opportunity to keep your followers updated and engaged.

Twitter

Twitter is an in-the-moment and live way to keep followers engaged and informed about your brand. It has 317 Million monthly users being predominately male around the ages of 18-29. Only 47{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of users post updates and spend an average of 2.7 minutes daily on Twitter.

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Since twitter predominately holds a younger audience content must be create that caters towards this demographic. When you effectively engage, you are creating the opportunity to gain more followers, more engagement, and more traffic towards your website.

Pinterest

To date, this is the most evergreen social media site around. It has 317 million monthly users, which consists of around 75{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} female. As for the age demographic, they are evenly distributed between 18-64.

What is important to note, is that 10{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} people referred to Pinterest are more likely to purchase on e-commerce. Use this opportunity to showcase your product as aesthetically as possible to make it more visually appealing. Text content is not as important on Pinterest, but be sure to provide links that will showcase your product in more detail.

Even though all of these sites have different demographics and require different content. The main goal is to combine the necessary platforms for your brand so that you can create an effective social media campaign. Having the right combination and content between all these social media sites will create the interaction and exposure your brand needs to stay relevant in the market. Our social media marketing agency will help you to create the right combination for your social media campaign!

7 Tips for Marketing Your Business This Spring

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Whether you’re starting a social media campaign or doing some spring cleaning, your business can always use some useful social media marketing tips. A Los Angeles social media agency such as Bright Age is perfect for getting your business on the right track. With our social media marketing tips, your campaign will reach your target market, move in the right direction, and create a presence that will solidify you from your competitors. Here are our 7 social media marketing tips for getting your business going this Spring!

Choose and Build the Right Campaign

This first step is the most crucial in starting or maintaining your campaign. Set reasonable goals and establish the tools necessary to reach them.

Different campaigns give different results – Choose a social media platform that will get you to your goals. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn all have different capabilities and reach. Creating the right combination and content between these platforms is an essential first step.

Choose an SEO and Social Media Analytics Service

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a deciding factor on whether your business will make it or break it. No matter how great your product is, without your market being properly informed it is practically useless. Having an SEO engine will assist you in getting your brand some good exposure.

Use a social media analytics service – Services such as Sprout Social and Hootsuite will let you know how effective your social media posts are. You’ll see which posts created the most buzz, which demographic it appealed to, how many impressions it made, and ultimately if it was successful or not.

Reply/Engage with Your Fans

Do your best to build a lasting relationship with your fans on a personal level. Like and comment on their photos to build favorable attitudes towards your brand. Additionally, do the same on potential customers posts for brand exposure. Doing this helps humanizes your brand and increases your social prescence.

Look at Your Top Three Competitors

Take a look at who you’re competing against, especially the top 3 competitors in the market. Compare your strategy with theirs and see what puts them at the top of the market. See what flaws they have in their strategy and build upon your own. Our Los Angeles social media agency are experts in identifying and analyzing competitors for you!

Do a Quick Brand Check

At this point, you’ve established yourself and are almost at your goals. Brand consistency is key and a good cleanup task for this Spring.

Build trust, credibility, and awareness by answering yes to these 3 questions.

  • Is your profile or avatar the same on every photo?
  • Is your header or cover image consistent?
  • Are your bios, descriptions, and URL identical?

Measure and Analyze Your Campaigns Success

As you begin to wrap up your campaign, assess the progress made on your original goals. Measure both quantitative and qualitative results. By analyzing your campaign, you may discover some new information – such as how customers are using your products post-purchase, etc. You’ll see which tactics provided the most reward and which ones were unsuccessful. This is where your social media analytics service will come into play.

Create New Goals

As this campaign comes to an end, it is time to look onto the next season and establish new goals. If you met your goals with these last 6 steps, take those strategies and translate them into monthly, quarterly, and annual goals.

See where you want to be in a year, 5 years, and even 10 years. Having goals and metrics appear on paper creates accountability and the drive to complete them. Our Los Angeles social media Agency is perfect for reaching your short-term and long-term goals!

Instagram Carousel Opens Up New Possibilities for Advertisements

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Sometimes one photo is not enough to tell your whole story. Instagram has released a new feature where you can share multiple photos at once. This feature known as “carousel” lets you post up to 10 photos and videos into 1 swipeable post. A social media company such as Bright Age is perfect for capitalizing on this new feature. Instagram essentially wants users to share their experiences to its fullest extent from beginning to end. Imagine cooking your favorite dish and creating a carousel showing your followers step by step how to make it. Or maybe a carousel on a tree in your backyard as it goes through the seasons. This is sort of a side step from the Instagram stories feature and is modeled after Snapchat. New features like this give more opportunities for social media marketing services to expand your brand. Here is how it works and what it can do for your product/service!

How It Works

Instagram has always improved their software by enhancing the features of their competitors. This time is no different. Instagram has become more than just a social media platform, it has become a lifestyle and business that connects personalities around the world. A social media company can capitalize on this and market a brand to its fullest capabilities.

The feature itself is relatively easy to learn. When users post to their feed, they’ll see a button for selecting multiple photos. They can then edit up to 10 photos and videos individually, add a filter if they please, choose the order, and tag the appropriate friends. The location, caption, likes, and comments will apply to the whole post and will follow the same format as a regular Instagram post. Social media marketing services will have endless possibilities with this new feature.

If you’re still a little confused on how this might look, click here for an example of a carousel post.

Use It For Your Brand!

Instagram has always been perfect for marketing and creating brand awareness but never really captured Snapchat’s concentrated marketing scope. One of the main difficulties was that the Instagram story was not the center of the experience like Snapchat. You’d have to scroll up on Instagram to view stories vs. Snapchat where it is the main experience.

Social media marketing services will use this new feature to market products and services in more detail. Brands will be able to show the full extent of their services instead of being limited to creating brand awareness. This feature could showcase the before and after effects of their product insisting on how the consumer will be better off after using their product. 10 pictures/videos give a lot of room for creativity and brands can market their product in more detail giving consumers a more in depth view.  Simple photo editing and filters can accentuate this so the possibilities are endless.  A social media company like Bright Age can utilize this new feature and showcase your product or service!

 

The Benefit of Instagram Stories V Snapchat Stories for Social Media Marketing

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Social Media is an ever-changing landscape and brands must be able to adapt to ongoing trends and innovations. Every social media marketing agency should provide the most engaging way for viewers to interact and gain interest in their product. Instagram and Snapchat stories can do just that and much more. These stories provide live and in the moment video/picture content for consumers to see. These stories are easy to utilize for any social media marketing agency. Here at Bright Age, we can optimize Snapchat and Instagram stories to tailor your specifications and brand goals. However, each platform is different and must be utilized correctly in respect to different types of products. Here are some quick tips and what each platform can offer over the other!

Identify Your Audience

The first step is always to identify your audience. Snapchat and Instagram primarily have young audiences but Snapchat grasps an especially younger group – 25{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of users are young than 18 and use Snapchat as their primary social media and messaging tool. Instagram grazes 22{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of users younger than 18. Notably, Instagram is best for consumer-focused brands that have channels for products and services relegated towards fashion, food, athletics, and lifestyle. Even if your brand falls out of these categories, Instagram provides a variety of opportunities for engagement. These are some of the factors brands must consider when using Instagram versus Snapchat stories. A Los Angeles social media agency like Bright Age is perfect for relegating what channels are perfect for your brand.

The Difference – Advantages & Disadvantages

An important aspect to consider is how these two platforms differentiate from each other. Instagram gives you the ability to tags users directly so that you can reach brands, members, media, or individuals. You can then continue a dialogue that you have started in your feed which can lead to sturdier brand continuity.

Snapchat on the other hand must add brands intentionally. In general, Snapchat has a distinctly more concentrated scope. A social media marketing agency might be more inclined to use Snapchat for event marketing or connection with a celebrity or public figure.

Although Instagram may seem to hold the throne on stories versus Snapchat, there are creative features that Instagram does not feature.

  • Stories are not the center of the experience, you must scroll up to the top and engage it yourself.
  • Snapchat opens the camera so users can take a picture right away.
  • Snapchat offers bitmoji.

The one true advantage that Instagram may have is that they plug you directly into your existing social network. In other words, you can automatically see stories from people that you already follow on Instagram.

Pros and Cons

Here are some the quick pros and cons that a social media marketing agency might consider when choosing a platform.

Snapchat Stories

  • Geotags give brands an opportunity to insert themselves into private conversations.
  • The audience is more engaged because users must act – i.e., visit your site, manually follow you and take screenshots.
  • There’s more person-to-person contact since individuals view brands on their Snapchat feed as friends.
  • No marketing metrics for ads.
  • No way to measure views, peak hours for engagement or demographic info.
  • It is difficult for advertisers to have active and engaging conversations with consumers.

Instagram Stories

  • Use of visually appealing images.
  • Brands can link out ads in the bio.
  • The ability to post multiple photos at once.
  • Brands can harness the power of Instagram’s advertising father – Facebook.
  • Metrics on organic posts are not robust.
  • Plausible to lead to advertising fatigue.
  • Younger demographic may depart because of similarities to Facebook. Younger generation is often deterred by Facebook software similarities.

Moving Forward

A Los Angeles social media agency like Bright Age takes these factors into consideration when developing an advertising campaign for specific brands. If companies were to ask us which would be the undisputed winner, we would say it is a tie. Different products have different markets and reach potential. We do our best to maximize a brand’s potential while making their marketing strategies unique.

How to use Social Media to Grow E-Commerce Sales

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Social media for E-Commerce is essential for helping build brand awareness and loyalty. Doing so can help grow sales in the present and the long run. Here are a few different ways to utilize social media for E-Commerce that can benefit your brand.

Use Hashtags

Platforms such as Instagram have over 500 million followers plus an average of 95 million pieces of new content posted per day. Therefore one needs to consistently utilize hashtags for a better chance of being discovered and not buried under posts. Keep in mind that different social media platforms handle hashtags differently. For example, Instagram posts do better with about 11 related hashtags. Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest do best with only two.

Try Paid Advertising

If you have not yet tried paid advertising on Facebook, Instagram or Snap, now is the time. Organic brand visibility has slowly been on the decline due to the amount of competition. Creative and tailored content can help your brand receive the visibility it requires to grow. Prevent the waste of ad dollars by being as specific as possible when targeting your demographic, location and behaviors of the audience you wish to capture.

Interact with Customers

Social media has become an easy way to include customers in your decision making processes. Build credibility for your brand by responding to questions/comments, thanking customers for their loyalty and creating questions to generate discussion. Building credibility means customers are more likely trust your brand which can increase sales.

Utilize the Best Platforms for Your Brand

Choosing the correct social media platforms can be difficult because there are an abundance to pick from. When deciding on platforms it is crucial not to choose every option possible. One would need additional time and resources to maintain a number of platforms. Therefore try to choose two that can be most beneficial to your brand and then start to build a following. Two platforms with a large amount of followers and interactions carries far more weight than 5 platforms with minimal followers or engagements.

Working with a social media marketing agency such as Bright Age can help you utilize social media for E-Commerce and build your brand.

Top 7 Social Media Platforms for Marketing Your Business Online

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Online marketing is a very important tool that is being utilized for all types of businesses. Many social media sites have announced tools for businesses to market themselves online. Knowing how to take advantage of these features will be an asset to your business and a social media marketing agency can help. Advertising on social media is very influential and these top 7 social media platforms have introduced features that are beneficial for marketing your business online.

Facebook

Facebook is the largest social media network today with over 1.6 billion daily users. Facebook has many valuable features for marketers including its remarkable targeting abilities and ad objectives. Utilizing Facebook for your businesses is necessary in today’s society because of the large user base and amount of time people spend on this platform each day.

Instagram

Instagram is the fastest growing social media network with over 500 million users. Instagram has been introducing new features to make their platform more attractive for marketers. Instagram recently announced new ad options and platform improvement. One major tool that was recently introduced is dynamic ads for Instagram. This added feature will benefit online marketers by allowing businesses to upload their catalog of products to Instagram at once and Instagram will then promote certain products to the right people at the right time.

Twitter

Twitter is a social media platform that fosters more personal connections. Businesses can respond to consumers and monitor what is being said about their company. Currently, Twitter has 310 million monthly active users which businesses can target. Twitter is an excellent tool for tweeting during live events and obtaining brand sponsors.

Snapchat

Snapchat is a newer and up and coming social media platform. This social media network is currently dominated by millennials however, this platform is growing and becoming more and more popular among other generations. Snapchat is also another very personal platform and great for location targeting. With Snapchat, businesses can create custom geofilters to target a specific location at a specific time.

Pinterest

This social media platform is superb for creative companies and for consumers to find design ideas. The main audience for Pinterest is females who are looking to create something and get inspiration. Businesses using Pinterest should have an innovative company that targets females and provides a creative shopping experience.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social media site that is primarily for Business-to-Business and it targets high-end professionals. On LinkedIn, users can create a profile and connect and network with other LinkedIn users and big brands. This site benefits marketers because they can connect with competitors and find out how to better their businesses

Google Plus

Google Plus helps brands with their online presence. Using Google Plus makes your business look more professional when showing up in Google searches. Utilizing Google Plus also improves your search engine optimization which will grow your business by appearing when consumers are searching on Google.
Advertising on social media is becoming a large market for businesses. Utilizing these tools that these social media platforms offer will benefit your business. A social media marketing agency can take these useful tools that have been developed to drive traffic to your website and engage more consumers.

Author: Alyssa Perel

Alyssa is currently pursuing a degree in Media Studies with a minor in Marketing at San Diego State University. Her interest in social media and marketing has grown vastly over the years and she enjoys discovering new things about this field every day. You can connect with Alyssa via Facebook and Instagram @aperel.

 

A Guide to Online Reputation Management

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Social media has taken off over the last few years and businesses must maintain their social media accounts for online reputation management. Consumers expect companies to use various social media platforms and businesses that do not have a presence on social media lose a large audience. Businesses that engage with their customers are more likely to boost their sales and have better relationships with their clients. Online reputation management is important for your business and working with a social media agency can create a smooth, consistent, and effective reputation management process. These three tips can help you better manage your social media accounts.

Have a strategy

Businesses need to have a strategy and establish guidelines when posting on social media. Companies must decide what is appropriate for their brand and how to target the correct audience. Being able to come up with a strategy and establish guidelines is important for online reputation management because many times, employees are the ones posting and interacting on social media. Employees must know what is expected of them before they post on social media because one wrong post can be detrimental to your reputation.

Interaction

Millions of people are on social media every day and business should take advantage of the amount of people they can reach by posting and engaging with their followers. Monitoring your social media accounts is important because there are people sharing, liking, and commenting on social media platforms at all times of the day. Businesses must monitor their social media to keep consumers engaged and content.

Response Time

Customers use social media as a platform to rate a company. Upset customers will post reviews and complaints on social media. Customers’ comments can harm a company’s reputation because others will see it and react. Businesses must be active on their social media accounts and respond quickly to customers. The customer is always right so businesses have to realize that in order to salvage customer relations, they must respond quickly and be apologetic.

Dog Haus is a restaurant franchise Bright Age has been working with. Bright Age started with Dog Haus in Canoga Park and worked with this company to open twelve more restaurants nationwide. Since Bright Age, Dog Haus saw a 1,636{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} increase in likes on their Facebook page prior to opening day. Bright Age has helped maintain the positive reputation Dog Haus has received by managing their social media accounts. Bright Age managed to turn one star Yelp reviews to five stars by providing a customized apology letters and coupons for the restaurant. This important gesture created loyal customers for Dog Haus.

Reputation management on social media plays an important role for the success of any business and managing various social media platforms can be overwhelming. Maintaining a positive reputation online can be difficult when balancing multiple tasks because of the time and effort it takes to create an online reputation. Here at Bright Age, we take away the stress of social media management by overseeing all social media platforms while interacting with consumers.

 

Author: Alyssa Perel

Alyssa is currently pursuing a degree in Media Studies with a minor in Marketing at San Diego State University. Her interest in social media and marketing has grown vastly over the years and she enjoys discovering new things about this field every day. You can connect with Alyssa via Facebook and Instagram @aperel.

Snapchat Advertising in 2016 and What It Means for Online Marketers

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Snapchat might be new to the advertising world, but it’s definitely not a force to be reckoned with.  2016 means big changes for the social media app favored by teens and young adults.  Just last week the application rolled out its long anticipated advertising API, Snapchat Partners, which will hook up more than 20 tech-minded companies.  Snapchat advertising is soon to be bigger and better than ever imagined, and should be on every marketer’s radars.

Until only recently, it was believed that Snapchat wouldn’t be able to take full advantage of their millennial audience.  After hiring their first chief strategy officer, Imran Khan, the company took a different turn in the world of marketing.  Regarding advertisers, Khan states, “Different marketers have different objectives, and we just want to make it easier for them to buy ads on the platform.  We want brands to have a place where they can tell their stories, you know, in a better way.”   From the sounds of Khan, Snapchat marketing is going to be a lot more than just a scroll through ad as seen on Facebook or Instagram.

For the first time, Snapchat ads are going to be sold by third parties.  This new approach will be divided into two parts: Ad Partners and Creative Partners.  Ad partners will be focused on developing the software for snapchat advertising. They will enable the buying, optimizing, and analyzing of campaigns. Creative partners will be working with Snapchat’s vertical-video format.  There will be a mix of partners that are experienced in the social content and formatting of these videos.

The upcoming availability to advertise on Snapchat is big news for Snapchat marketing.  Until very recently, only massive companies with lots of push in the industry could really do much with the media sharing app.  This was due to the extreme demand and little availability to advertise with Snapchat.  A prime example of a very successful previous ad campaign run on Snapchat was Taco Bell’s Cinco De Mayo filter.  The user’s heads were turned into a taco shell by a lens.  This resulted in 224 million views in a single day, one extremely successful ad campaign.  For smaller, more local brands, something like this could be incredibly successful, but until recently was either extremely out of budget or not taken seriously by Snapchat.

Geofilters are one of Snapchat’s most popular features, and have big marketing potential.  With Snapchat’s new updates, anyone will be able to create and publish their own filters for a fee.  The process of submitting a geofilter involves creating the PNG, selecting a geographic area on the website, and then purchasing the filter.  The largest geographic area allowed is 5 million square feet with the maximum exposure time being 30 days.  A small restaurant can purchase a filter for one day around $5-$10. A larger shopping mall might end up costing around $5,000 for a weekend.  This is all very early on in the world of Snapchat marketing, and we are excited to see what the future holds for the business.

Currently, the focus for the start of Snapchat advertising is around video ads.  This doesn’t mean that potentially branded Geofilters and Lenses are out of the question, though, just an idea for the near future.

Just advertising via Snapchat may not be enough, though.  Having your brand’s actual presence in the application is proving to be more crucial over time as well.  A study from L2 revealed that brands on average post 26 times per week on Snapchat.  This number is significantly larger than that of Instagram, with only the fashion industry in the double digit weekly posts.

As Snapchat marketing continues to grow and embrace advertising via the application, businesses have much to look forward to.  With the social application growing rapidly each day, getting your brand onto the platform sooner rather than later is definitely a smart business move.