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Building Your Brand Should Be Your Social Media Focus *

Building Your Brand Should Be Your Social Media Focus *

by | Mar 4, 2021 | Social Media

Build Your Brand Using Social Media

 

Branding is at the very core of everything you do to build your business.  You’re building your BRAND.  No matter how or where you spread the word about your business, your focus should be on creating a targeted brand image that your audience will easily identify.

3,000,000,000 people.  That’s how many people around the world use social media every month.   That’s an amazing number, that noone could have imagined when GeoCities went online in 1994.  Your target audience for most business owners is just a tiny fraction of those users.  Your problem is selecting the social media platform that works best for you and connects with the audience you need.

The graphic below, from Pew Research puts numbers to how people use the different social media platforms.  It shows that Facebook (68%) and YouTube (73%) dominate, especially with older users.  Younger users embrace a variety of platforms and use them frequently.  Instagram (35%), Pinterest (29%), Snapchat (27%), Linkedin (25%), Twitter (24%), and WhatsApp (22%) are also popular.

 

A Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults finds that the social media landscape in early 2018 is defined by a mix of long-standing trends and newly emerging narratives

The first thing you need to realize is that it’s not always just about the numbers.  It matters who your audience is and what you are trying to accomplish.  If you are involved in B2B sales or services and interested in business networking, Linkedin might be a better fit for you than Instagram, Pinterest, or SnapChat.

There’s a lot of competition for user interest on all the social media platforms.  You have to decide which platform will help your brand stand out from all the other companies seeking attention from the audience that you need to attract.  It’s a lot like jumping up and down in a crowd and shouting “look at me.”  

Your branding strategy is just part of the solution.  That’s why your social media strategy should build brand recognition, rather than just advertising your products or services.

 

Your Brand Needs to Be Familiar and Predictable

 

Using social media provides you with the opportunity you need to connect with your customers.  By making an emotional connection with your audience, they’re more likely to share your content with others and expanding your reach.  Playing on their emotions helps build their loyalty toward your brand.

When your users connect with your brand emotionally, they feel that they are developing a relationship with you.  Become predictable, post at consistent times and with the same voice and personality.  Being consistent applies to your posts across all the platforms you’re on.  You shouldn’t be humorous on Twitter and serious on Facebook.

Trying to consistently post on varied platforms is difficult.  You need to schedule your social media posts ahead using a robust social media planning tool.  This allows you to easily stay on top of promoting your posts across multiple social media channels.

 

You Should Market Across Multiple Channels

 

Think about how you market your brand in real life and online.  Online, using different social media platforms allows you to communicate your message effectively to the diverse audiences found on the different social platforms.

Offline, tell people about your social media presence.  Share specific hashtags in real life and invite users to snap an image and upload it with the hashtag.  Your goal should be to excite your online users about your offline presence, and vice versa.

Using Google’s social media analytics helps you determine how effective your social media efforts have been in attracting your audience.

 

Raise Your Voice Above the Noise

 

It’s not surprising that more than 88 percent of businesses market use social media.  We are all bombarded with ads everywhere we go.  Many respond by just tuning out those ads.  A strong brand voice allows you to highlight your business and grab the attention of overwhelmed users.

Self-promotion hardly ever works.  Imagine what your customers pain points are and how you might solve those.  Using educational, or entertaining videos helps you engage people using your social media.  You need to imagine what you’d want to know if you were the consumer, then deliver the answers on social media and elsewhere.

 

Wayfair highlights their products but makes the posts unique by tapping into the humorous side of life and entertaining guests.

Wayfair highlights their products but makes the posts unique by tapping into the humorous side of life and entertaining guests.  They mention you might burn the waffles, but your guests won’t care when they see your beautiful patio set.  

Their image grabs your attention, and Wayfair keeps their branding strategy intact by using the same lighthearted communication they use on Instagram.  

 

Create Special Offers for Unique Audiences

 

Marketing on social media provides the unique opportunity for you to create special offers for different and unique audiences that you are trying to reach.  Offering a discount or free trial encourages people to try your brand.  After taking your product or service for a “test drive,” they’re more likely to become fans than if they never experience your brand at all.

A big part of branding is finding ambassadors who love what you do and want to tell everyone they know. Identifying your “brand fans” is easier than ever.  Thanks to influencers on social media, who often try and share their feelings about products or services it is much easier to spread your message.

 

Ipsy uses inspirational sayings and events and offers discounts which appeal to their core audience.

In their social media posts, Ipsy uses inspirational sayings and events and offers discounts which appeal to their core audience.  In the example above they use a witty marketing ploy tied into an inspirational meme likely to get shared with others.

 

Relevant Giveaways Engage Your Audience

 

Social media platforms are the perfect location for contests and giveaways. However, if you want to attract targeted leads, you must make the prize something relevant to your target audience. Think about your company’s mission, as well as what types of things your customers purchase already.

You should give away part of your product or service or something related to the mission of your brand. Brand every giveaway with your company philosophy and appearance.

 

Loot Crate sells fandom subscription boxes, so their customers are most interested in certain types of events.

Loot Crate sells fandom subscription boxes.  Their customers are interested in specific types of events.  Loot Crate often offers event tickets as part of their giveaways and as a way of attracting new followers.  The offer of Wrestlemania tickets in the screenshot above, provides a strong incentive to participate.

 

Plan Your Year’s Posts

 

It’s easy to get into a rut, finding yourself repeating information over and over on social media?  You can keep your posts fresh and engaging by planning your annual marketing calendar.  

Examine each month and think about the content you’ll be sharing.  Develop a theme for your posts to write your posts to answer questions your audience has about your chosen theme.

 

Planning your posts allows you to get on a regular schedule, but also shows what tasks you need to complete and when

Planning your posts allows you to establish a regular schedule.  It also establishes what tasks have been completed and which you need to complete.  For example, if you plan an educational series, the articles or webinar must be ready to go well before you start promoting to your networks.

You can always shift your calendar to accommodate changes, but without a schedule, your efforts will not have the necessary focus and may mostly go to waste.

 

The best times to post online courtesy of Blog2Social

Blog2Social is the social media management tool I have chosen.  It integrates seamlessly with the DIVI theme for WordPress.  It also has features which ensure that my posts go live at the best time and day for each of the social media platforms that I use.  The above graphic shows when posts on each of the different platforms will reach their optimal audience.

 

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Your Brand Is Everything

 

Your brand is your businesses introduction to the world.  Every action you take impacts your vision and how others see your company.  You need to spend your time thinking about the best ways to get your message across on social media.  

Study what your competitors are doing, and offer something different for your followers.  Planning your marketing campaigns is the key to winning new customers and creating lifelong fans.

 

Grow Your Community Using Social Media Branding *

Grow Your Community Using Social Media Branding *

by | Jan 20, 2021 | Social Media

Social Media Builds Your Brand

Develop a Social Community Mindset

 

To build a successful Social Media Community, you have to think like a community builder.  Throw out your old marketing ideas when it comes to Social Media Marketing.  You have to develop the social mindset essential to achieving your goals.

 

You Need to be Social

 

We all understand the opportunities Social Media presents for businesses.  It allows them to convey their message to a broader audience.  However, using Social Media as only a broadcast channel is only achieving  half of your goal.  Without interacting with others on social media, you’re not making the real connections that you need to make.

It’s all just making digital noise if you are not connecting with people, carrying on the conversations that you need to use to have your message resonate and even be shared and liked by others.  It’s not enough to say “Look at what we’re doing, this is really great.”  

You actually have to respond to comments, answer questions, and embrace the one-on-one conversations that are the real goal of your social media presence.  If you’re not doing those things, you’re wasting your and others’ time.  

Social media really is for socializing.  If you’re not answering questions and having one-on-one conversations, you’re wasting your time on social media.  Make your time spent on social media productive and interactive.

 

You Need to be Fearless

 

Many don’t really understand what it means to be a marketing expert.  Being a marketing expert is constantly evolving as market conditions and technology change and expand.

It would surprise you how much energy we put into trying new things at the Better Business Alliance.  We don’t know everything and are constantly reading blogs and searching for the best new marketing ideas and the technology to make marketing better, quicker and more engaging.

Right now we are working on a messenger bot for our page, hoping it can become a tool to enhance our service to others.  So we’re doing a lot of research about bots and how we can apply to enhance visitor engagement.

Even marketing experts need to try new things for growth.

 

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Maintain a Social Media Perspective

Learn to Focus and Pace Yourself

When I first started doing this, I had a hard time turning things off.  I’ve gotten used to the idea that at some point you must sleep.  If someone tweets at 2 a.m., they’re not going to get an answer.  

I want to do the best possible job I can, and my definition of that has evolved.  Doing the best job doesn’t mean I have to stop and answer every tweet because then I lose my focus on everything else that’s important.

 

Use Native Analytics to Gauge Your Success

 

People underestimate the usefulness of Twitter and Facebook native analytics.  These give us critical demographic information about our audience.  You need to try different thing, constantly testing and checking the results achieved against your expended effort.  Only experience and analytics will educate you on what works for you.  Invest your time wisely.

 

How to Decrease Your Time on Social Media and be Productive *

How to Decrease Your Time on Social Media and be Productive *

by | Dec 9, 2020 | Social Media

How to Keep Social Media From Sucking Up all of Your Time

 

As bloggers, social media is a key tool for promoting our blogs.  Social media helps us to grow our blogs.  Social media allows us to interact with our readers.  Social Media gives us the opportunity to build our communities.  Social media keeps us informed about current events and news in our niche.  

However, social media can also be a massive drain on the limited time available to us.  The big challenge for all bloggers is time management.  How can we keep social media from sucking up all of our limited available time?

 

Two Ways Your Social Media Habits Could Impact Your Productivity

 

Avoid Spending Unscheduled Time on Social Media

 

Are you the blogger who spends large chunks of time on social media networks?  I understand that it is important to tending to your own community.  You do need to engage with other communities by leaving comments, and contributing to online discussions.  It is important to increase your exposure and become known in your niche.  However, you should schedule time for social media engagement.  Then stick to your schedule.

 

Avoid Constantly Checking Your Social Media for Comments

 

Don’t be the blogger who is constantly checking their social media.  Even using small amounts of time throughout your day adds up.  These small distractions can quickly add up to wasting a significant amount of time during your day.  Again, your social media time needs to be scheduled.  Stick to your schedule.  If you are unable to complete your tasks on social media, perhaps you need to schedule more time for those tasks.

 

How Does Your Social Media Behavior Impact Your Productivity?

 

How does this behavior on social media impact their productivity?  Social media impacts your productivity in three key ways:

 

  1. If the time you spend on social media outweighs your gains from using your social media networks.
  2. Single tasking can increase your blogging productivity while reducing your stress.  Research from the American Psychological Association has shown that multi tasking can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.
  3. Dividing your time between writing and social media takes you much longer to write your blog post because your mind is not 100% on the task at hand. Focus on writing while ignoring everything else.

 

Reduce the distraction of social media.  You need to reduce the above impacts and increase your blogging productivity.  It doesn’t mean that you can’t be on social media.  It just means you need to take a more planned and proactive approach to how you go about it.  Following are two actions you can take to enhance your productivity:

 

Create a Social Media Strategy That Reduces Distractions

It can be very tempting to sign up to every social media network.  Spending time daily on each of them is one way to create a social media presence, but it is unlikely to be successful.  

If you want to maximize the time you spend on social media, you need a defined social media strategy for your blog.  Your social media strategy doesn’t have to be complex and detailed.  But it needs to cover these key points:

 

How much time per day/week can you spend on social media?

You have to determine how much time you have available for blogging.  Then you have to decide how much of that time you need to spend on social media.  The amount of time will vary between bloggers.  There will be times when you may increase your time on social media to support your blogging goals.  The key is setting how much time you will spend on social media and then sticking to it.

 

What Networks are Best for Your Social Media Engagement?

 

Many bloggers sign up to most social media networks to have a presence on them.  However, unless you have a Social media manager, you may not have the time needed to truly engage on all of them.

Instead it may be preferable to select 2 or 3 and focus on them.  It’s more important to create great content to share and spend time building your communities on the best networks for showcasing your blog and business.

The benefits from having a more effective presence on fewer social media networks will be greater than spreading your efforts thinly over lots of networks.

 

You Should Define Your Goals for Each Social Media Network

 

You should have a goal for what you hope to achieve on each social media network.  It’s important to know why you are even on each social network.  For example, my goal for Twitter is to be seen as an expert in my niche.  I want to use Twitter to create freelance and media opportunities.

Facebook is about building a community where I can share high quality articles I curate specifically for them.  Through helping them as much as I can, I am building up trust that will hopefully lead to them purchasing my products and services.

 

You Need to Determine Your Posting Frequency for Each Social Network

 

It’s tough to stand out and be noticed on all of the social networks.  But that doesn’t mean posting more stuff will get you more notice.  Buffer recently changed their Facebook social media strategy with great success.

Buffer cut their posting frequency by more than 50% on Facebook and decided to focus on quality over quantity.  Their results underwent a dramatic shift.  More than the most optimistic social media manager couldn’t have expected.

Even though they were posting less, their Facebook reach and engagement began to increase.

 

How Changing Our Social Media Scheduling Reaped Rewards

 

  • I determined how frequently I post to each network and the type of content I share.  I use Blog2Social to schedule my posts to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, Medium and Tumblr.
  • I use Feedly to read blogs and articles.  Feedly helps me digest a lot of information to share on my networks. I will spend 10 – 15 minutes several times a week selecting items that I want to share.
  • I set aside 45 – 60 mins a week to batch schedule my recycled and repurposed social media posts.  I head to Blog2Social to determine which posts I will repurpose and share and to what networks.

 

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Develop a Social Media Process That Works for You

 

Creating a specific process like this means you reduce the amount of time you go searching for content to share or procrastinating about what to share. Once I have the week scheduled, I see this as my base content and will still often share content, add conversation and respond to questions/comments on my networks when I check in once a day.

Social media doesn’t have to decrease your productivity. Create a social media strategy and batching process so you are in control of how you spend your time on social media and see your productivity flourish!

Do you find you are spending too much time on social media?

 

Marketing’s Future Is Embracing Artificial Intelligence *

Marketing’s Future Is Embracing Artificial Intelligence *

by | Dec 3, 2020 | Marketing

Marketing’s Future Is Embracing Artificial Intelligence

by | Marketing

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Is AI Marketing’s Future?

 

Balancing analysis and execution has always been part of the marketing equation.   Moving into the digital age marketing has only become more complicated, especially with the growth of social media’s influence.  However, the established cycle of analyzing, optimizing, executing, and repeating is still the foundation of all our successful initiatives.

Today, the era of personalized marketing has arrived.  Robot assistants are able to perform more of the mundane duties that human marketers had to do in the past.  Robots can complete these tasks more quickly and accurately than human marketers have ever been able to.  A driving force behind these developments and one of the early innovators behind artificial intelligence is IBM.

With their Watson Marketing suite of tools and APIs, IBM is powering an increasing number of real-time analysis and optimization opportunities.  Using Watson CMS, the IBM Think Marketing portal automatically serves up a different mix of content based on what you’ve read in the past.

 

In digital marketing, the cycle of analyzing optimizing executing repeating is the nucleus of all successful initiatives.

We were given a glimpse of marketing’s future, at The Masters’ golf tournament.  IBM is a long-time sponsor of this internationally recognized event.  Because of their sponsorship, they provide the tournaments technology.  For the first time, IBM used Watson to automatically determine which video clips should appear on the official Masters’ website and mobile app.

Watson based its decisions on real-time signals it gathered live on-site.  These included variables such as loudness of the crowd’s reaction and by analyzing the announcers’ commentary.  Watson instantly identified a piece of video as a highlight, tagged the video, and pushed it live out to social media.

Can you imagine the ability to have this technology applied to your YouTube channel?  Or how it could be used to determine the optimal email subject line for each recipient of your email campaign.  Or creating instant ad buys for content that outperforms your past efforts.  Today, human marketers can do all of these tasks.  However, it requires a lot of their time and a lot of effort to do so.

 

Are The Robots Here to Help?

 

Artificial Intelligence learns from each interaction, getting smarter and making it able to take many labor-intensive functions and automate them.  Because of this marketers are freed from mundane tasks and given the time to think and create.  While robots work.  Rather than being artificial intelligence, AI for marketers is actually augmented intelligence.  

There’s really no fear that robots will replace marketers.  Instead, it’s exciting to imagine how robots will help marketers do their jobs better and faster.  AI will help create communications that are more relevant and impactful between visitors and businesses who choose to embrace the future.

 

Artificial Intelligence will create communications that are more relevant and impactful

Watson and other cognitive systems are only as good as the data, requests, and other inputs fed into it.  This is why the successful marketers of the future will understand and embrace new technologies moving forward.  Learning what is possible, and how to structure the feeds, sequences, and triggers needed to maximize the benefits of real-time technology at their disposal.

 

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Will Artificial Intelligence Be Marketings Future?

 

The currency among professional marketers is their insatiable curiosity, combined with an acute understanding of data, applied to ever more varied customer journeys.  All marketers will need to understand what actually motivates your visitors to become customers.  If you want to hone your digital marketing skills subscribe to my Business blog.

 

Digital marketers pride themselves on their ability to CREATE something that breaks through

Marketers have always taken pride in their creativity.  The ability to develop a concept that is both groundbreaking and effective attracting customers to their product or service.  In the digital age, many interactions will soon be specifically tailored to your individual customers’ needs.  We are witnessing the dream of personalized marketing becoming a reality.

Have you adopted the use of Artificial Intelligence in your business?  How is Artificial Intelligence making your marketing easier?  Leave us a comment about how AI has helped your business.

 

Social Media Analytics Give Your Business Creative Benefits *

Social Media Analytics Give Your Business Creative Benefits *

by | Nov 24, 2020 | Social Media

Social Media Analytics Help Track Your Marketing Results

 

It’s important to track your results to determine how successful your social media efforts are.  The basic social media analytics software is good for tracking data such as likes, clicks, shares and other types of engagement.

If you want to plan more effective social media campaigns it’s important to understand your audience.  You need to find creative ways to benefit from analytics by using a comprehensive social media monitoring or listening strategy.  Let’s examine a few of the ways this can help your business track your success.

 

Social Media Analytics Help Engage Your Audience

 

It’s difficult to keep up with the social media activity that impacts your brand.  You should at the very least monitor your own accounts and respond to direct questions and comments.  It is likely that there are many conversations going on all over social media that affect your industry and your business.  How can you possibly keep current with all the topics of interest being discussed on the many available platform options.

 

Social Media Analytics Help You Identify and Engage Your Audience

People may be asking pertinent questions on Quora, tweeting about a news story or posting relevant photos on Facebook or Instagram.  If you were able to listen to social media on a large scale it would allow you to insert yourself into some of these discussions, gaining new followers and customers.

Engaging allows you to answer questions and make helpful suggestions.  It’s best to do this in a low-key manner rather than overtly selling your own product.

 

Social Media Analytics Identify and Engage Your Top Customers

 

You also need to identify influencers and loyal customers who support your business.  Social media analytics are key to tracking your most valuable customers and brand advocates.

Monitoring social media, informs you when people are touting your products.  This helps you build stronger relationships with your best customers.  You can sometimes include them in your marketing efforts.

An influencer who’s fond of your brand might review your latest product on his or her YouTube channel or Instagram account.

 

Social Media Analytics Help Monitor Your Competition

 

Your business needs to use social media analytics to help track your competition.  You can learn a lot from your competitors about dealing effectively with your target audience.

Social media analytics can tell you which strategies are working for you, and which aren’t.  you can see who is responding to your posts and what they are saying.  Your company might learn valuable tips by “spying” on a larger and established business in the same niche or industry.

The easiest way to track your competitors on social media is to simply follow them.  Following people on Twitter, can help you gain more followers yourself.

 

Social Media Analytics Help You Monitor Your Competition

Facebook provides a useful tool that lets you track your competitors’ pages.  Using their Pages to Watch feature, you can access analytics from other Facebook Pages. You can use other social media analytics software and services to get detailed data about your competitors.  Some of these tools let you search your competitors’ posts and replies.

It’s also useful to keep track of which social media sites your competitors are using.  This isn’t hard to find out, as businesses openly advertise their links.  If you notice that a competitor is active on Instagram and you don’t yet have an account there, it’s important to understand how successful they are.  If they have lots of followers and engagement, that’s a clue to make that part of your marketing plan.

 

Social Media Analytics Can Improve Customer Relations

 

This is where social media monitoring overlaps your reputation management.  Review sites such as Google, Yelp, Angie’s List and others provide the opportunity to monitor your reviews and respond to them.

Many of your customers will also talk about you on social media.  If someone tweets a complaint about your business or makes a comment on another site, you need to know about it and have the ability to respond.

 

Social Media Analytics Can Help Improve Your Customer Relations

This gives you an opportunity to regain a customers trust.  If all you can do is apologize, you’re at least showing the customer and everyone else who sees your comments that you care.

With the growing number of social media sites, it’s important to monitor all mentions of your brand.  If you’re mentioned on a review site, a blog-type site such as Tumblr or one of the large social media platforms.  You need to know everything being said about your brand.

 

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Social Media Analytics Can Predict Your Future

 

Today, it’s critical to be on the leading edge of your field, niche or industry.  That’s why it’s necessary for you to monitor discussions about the latest trends and news.  This applies to every industry in our fast paced society.

If you have a restaurant, you need to keep up with the latest food trends.  If people are suddenly raving about a new dish, beverage or dessert.  You might want to add it to your menu.

If you’re in fashion, you surely want to be current on what people around the world are wearing.  It’s the same for any industry.  When people get interested in something new, they post their thoughts and images about it on social media.  Monitoring this activity gives you an edge over your competitors.

As social media expands, it increasingly becomes important to use analytics tools to track your campaigns. In addition to tracking your basic analytics, it’s also great to go beyond this and monitor your competitors and their discussions that are relevant to your business.

 

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