Archive for category: Social Media Marketing

Present day, social media for business is one of the best ways to differentiate your brand from competitors by allowing you to post creative and tailored content. Here are 7 tips for 2017 to help your company fully utilize social media for business.

1.) Maintain Your Relationships with Current Followers

As we know, it is far more expensive to gain new customers or followers than it is to retain current ones. In saying this it is important to maintain the relationships between your loyal followers. This can be done with thoughtful posts where attempt to get your customers involved in your decision making process for new products or services. Ask questions that engage your audience and start a discussion. You may also feature “customer appreciation days” where you giveaway prizes or offer discounts. When making these posts make sure to truly acknowledge the appreciation you have for those customers.

2.) Use More Discretion When Posting Content

I have come across countless social media business pages that post content completely unrelated to the products or services they offer. When posting 2017 make sure to ask yourself these questions before posting in order to determine if you are going to receive the most value from your post:

1.) Is this valuable information?

2.) Is this information entertaining or practical to my audience?

3.) Does this post relate to my brand?

4.) Will this post help my audience to connect with my brand?

5.) Have I included a call to action?

3.) Take Advantages of Trends

Social media trends come and go but if you catch on within the right amount of time they can help boost your relevance factor as a brand. Constantly educate yourself on upcoming technology or topics people are discussing. Then try to incorporate these ideas into the content you post.

4.) Try Color Psychology

92.6{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of people say visual stimulation was the reason they pushed the “buy now” button. Colors have been proven to affect marketing because they affect the subconscious are of the brain. Color psychology works because it taps into our emotions. Refer to the guide below when creating colorful posts so you can figure out which emotion you may want to evoke pertaining to your brand.

5.) Create 360 videos and images

Consumers more than ever want to feel included in your brand experience. Instead of posting simple videos or images about an event pertaining to your company, try utilizing 360 videos and images to fully immerse them in the experience.

 

6.) Utilize Social Media 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.

7.) Focus on One Social Media Platform

We are all familiar with the divide and conquer strategy relating to social media platforms. Without a sufficient amount of funds, developing every social media platform is costly and time consuming. Focus on and refine the social media platform that best relates to your brand and then utilize your resources accordingly. One strong social media platform with a huge following and engagement carries far more weight than 5 different evenly spread platforms.

Social media for business is crucial to differentiate your brand from your competitors. Working with a social media marketing agency such as Bright Age can help your business create a marketing plan for the upcoming 2017 year.

Instagram has recently revealed the creation of their in-app shopping experience, Instagram Shopping. It is said that 84{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of smartphone users in the US browse, research or compare products via a web browser or mobile app. Therefore, it is no surprise that Instagram marketing is growing and has taken the initiative to make shopping within their app convenient and effective. During an internal survey, Instagram found that only 21{bfa23e0adf5035fdfa71191ffe91e54dd073cdba85c1f10af47dda85ac37f507} of online purchases are made within a day. This is due to a lack of information for the consumers. Also, up until now there has been no simple way to receive information and then buy a posted product.

Dave Gilboa, co- founder and CEO of eyewear company Warby Parker says that “Instagram and Warby Parker share a similar appreciation for design and seamless experiences. But right now, there isn’t a simple, clean way for us to share details about the products featured within our posts. Customers often have to ask, which creates a bulky experience on both sides. We love how seamlessly integrated and consumer-centric this new experience is.”

There are currently 20 retail brand testing Instagram Shopping within their profiles. Brands include Warby Parker, Kate Spade, Levi’s, JackThreads and BaubleBar. How Instagram Shopping works is simple.  First retailers tag products in their photos. Each post can hold up to five products. The product information is hidden behind a “tap to view products” button located on the lower left hand corner of the image. Then the consumer clicks on which specific item they would like to view. After the product is chosen, an in app page brings up the items price description, additional products and a “shop now” button. By clicking the “shop now” button, the consumer is automatically brought to the brand website with their desired product.

Until now, most “shop now” buttons bring the consumer directly to check out for the item, rather than letting the individual decide whether or not they have an interest in purchasing the product. People tend to prefer more information before their final purchasing decision is made. Also, Instagram Shopping keeps users in the app longer than previous online shopping methods. By only giving customers the “shop now” choice, they are pulled quickly away from the app. But giving them information to read and discover keeps them engaged on Instagram longer.

By providing extensive product information, Instagram Shopping is not only enhancing the online shopping experience, but also increasing potential turnover for companies. Time will tell if this exciting new feature from Instagram marketing catches on. If so, Instagram Shopping has the capability to change the game of online shopping.

Does Instagram Shopping sound like a feature that can enhance your business? If so, working with an experienced Instagram marketing agency such as Bright Age can help you utilize this feature to create returns from your products.

When trying to figure out how to market your business on social media, the available platforms and how they function can be quite overwhelming. Each has different elements that may or may not work for your type of business.  This is why we have created an overview of a few of the top social media platforms, and how they can help your company grow.

Instagram

1.) Instagram is best for businesses that have a creative element. It tends to well for those promoting food, a lifestyle, fashion, luxury or a personality. Instagram allows you to share visual content such as photos and videos. To succeed on Instagram, you should try to post at least once a day, at a time best fit to reach your target audience. The best way to figure out the best times to post is to test different times or research sites that have already collected the information for you. Also, remember to use as many hashtags as possible when posting. Unlike other platforms, the more hashtags on Instagram means the more people are likely to find and like your content. Make sure the hashtags are appropriate for your content.

Facebook

2.) Every business should be on Facebook. With 1.71 billion active users, there is a market for every business. Facebook is great for sharing interesting content, events pertaining to your business and ads. It is a fantastic place to engage with customers and bring them to your website. This can be done with your creative content or by utilizing Facebook Ads. Facebook allows you to track which of your posts are the most effective while running an ad or simply utilizing a regular post. In order to succeed on Facebook, one must create a genuine page that contains curated content and interacts with customers. Also, it is best to post once or twice a day.

Twitter

3.) Twitter is a fast paced and involved platform that everyone should be using. It allows for constant communication between other people and brands. In order to well on Twitter, a business must be able to post constantly. Information does not stay relevant for long considering how fast a more interesting topic can arise. Also, be sure to constantly like, retweet and be involved in conversations. Remember to use only 3 or 4 hashtags with your posts to help them perform better.

Pinterest

4.) Pinterest is great platform for posts related to travel, food, fashion, design and DIY. It is another creative platform that has a largely female user base. On Pinterest one can create boards of “pinned” and “re-pinned” posts, meaning photos they upload and photos they re-share from others. One should post and re-pin multiple times per day to help build a following.

 

YouTube

5.) YouTube is used to create video content. Higher quality content with interesting titles tends to do well. Also, YouTube takes away the need to run an advertising campaign on television. It is now easier than ever for businesses to create an interesting video, then post it with no additional costs. Posting interesting content that gets people talking can cause it to go viral, thus bringing more attention to your company.

Yelp

6.) Yelp is wonderful for brick and mortar stores, bloggers and reviewers. The more stars and reviews your business has, the more people are likely to use your services or visit your store. To succeed on Yelp, remember to actively engage with people who take time to review your business. Also, add as much information to your Yelp such as website links, “about us”, etc. Then be sure to update that information as changes are made.

Overall, there are many platforms that can be used to market your business on social media. The best way to figure out what works for you is to test the ones that resonate with your needs the most. Using a social media marketing company such as Bright Age can help you to strategize which platforms should be used to market your business on social media.

Remember the days of meeting up with random strangers from Craigslist to buy goods without having any clue about who they were coming from? Those times are soon to be gone with the launch of the Facebook Marketplace. With over 450 million people already visiting buy-sell-trade groups on Facebook, the creation of the Facebook Marketplace is a no brainer.

Prior to Facebook Marketplace, individuals were predominately using Craigslist and buy-sell-trade groups on Facebook to find local goods to purchase. The main problem with Craigslist is that it is impossible to know who you are buying from. There have been countless stories of individuals being ripped off and even robbed from Craigslist sellers. Facebook took this issue and decided to change the game.

When using Facebook Marketplace, you know exactly who is selling your desired product. The marketplace is hooked up to an individual’s Facebook profile. This allows you to get a feeling of what the other person is about before deciding to engage in a business transaction. Users can also filter by location, category and price to find exactly what they are looking for. What the feature lacks is a rating system, just like Amazon of Ebay uses, to find out whether the seller has products that truly fit their description, and what they are like as a seller.

The implementation of Facebook Marketplace is genius. On average, people spend about 50 minutes per day on Facebook. This new feature is a simple tap away within the program. The overall convenience makes it all that more appealing to users. There are similar start-up companies such as LetGo, Wallapop and Close5 who will be in competition with Facebook Marketplace. The obvious advantage Facebook has is their 1.17 billion active users. Facebook will also take action on those abusing the service. They are not afraid to remove listings or ban users altogether.

After they build upon the marketplace, it is more than likely that Facebook will integrate news feed ads or sponsored placement within this experience. They may also allow local businesses to sell their products as well. This is when a Facebook marketing agency such as Bright Age can help you to create the most effective content for your business.

Social media platforms such as Facebook are constantly looking for ways to improve satisfaction for their users. It is critical that your social media content creation process contains high quality, creative and authentic content. Without these three elements, making your social media presence successful is not possible.

To begin with, humans are simple. We enjoy content that can resonate with us. Self- promotional spam or boring media is not as appealing. This has to be taken into consideration during your social media content creation process.

One simple way to differentiate between quality content and self-promotion is to ask, “Why should others care or share my post?” In this context quality means to “add or give value” to your intended audience. What value can you ultimately give to others that would make them want your product or service?

In saying this, people share more authentic content as opposed to promotions. Your marketed value should not stem from a sale or special being offered. Instead it should originate from articles or quality photos. Non engaging posts can turn people away from the building of your customer base.

Platforms such as Facebook constantly improve their algorithms to weed out “click-bait” or heavily advertisement based posts. Content such as this typically gets sent to the bottom of an individual’s news feed, or simply does not appear as often. Keep this in mind during the creation of your social media content.

A few tips to remember when creating high quality content include:

1.) Use high resolution photography that pertains to your aesthetic

2.) Post consistent content that can engage your audience

3.) Create content that people want to share. Be sure to stay on top of current events and web trends

4.) Readability is a must! Create posts with short sentences that get your point across.

When creating amusing articles or beautiful posts, one can never go wrong with authentic and promotion-less content. Working with a social media management agency such as Bright Age can help your business create the best social media content possible.