Social Media

Time to Deck Your Marketing Strategy This Holiday Season

Jennifer Edwards — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 18:23:14 +0000

Time to Deck Your Marketing Strategy This Holiday Season

Jennifer Edwards Wed, 12/10/2014 - 12:23pm

Although Black Friday has come and gone, we are still just getting into the holiday shopping season. Don’t wait any longer to pump up your marketing strategy — now is the time to give your customers some holiday cheer. Here are three ways you can improve your marketing this holiday season.

Oh what a sight

Winter is one of the most beautiful times of the year, so take advantage of it by wowing your customers with gorgeous visuals of the season. Whether you prefer an elegant Christmas tree or a snow covered forest, make sure to use high-quality photos that will catch people’s attention.

If you are ready to take it a step further, try asking your customers to send in photos. What is better than using great visuals made by real customers? Not only will they love being recognized on social media, but incorporating user-generated images can even allow you to run promotions centered around your fans’ content.

Send some cheer

You would be surprised how many companies actually take the time to send out holiday greetings this time of year. Stand out from your competition by getting a little creative this year with your cards or e-cards.

Want to stand out even more? Send your holiday card on non-traditional card-sending holidays, like New Year’s Eve. You’ll be sure to be the company on your customers’ minds as they go into the new year.

Give a little back

Since it is the season of giving, why not make a donation to a charitable foundation or volunteer some time for a special cause in place of sending gift baskets to your clients. This is the time to give back to the community, so choose a cause that hits the heart and gets your entire team excited.

And let your clients know about it, too! Include in your next newsletter or holiday card that your company is donating — whether it’s money or time — to a great cause this holiday season. You’d be amazed how far a little “warm and fuzzy” can go.

Are you ready for the season?

Preparing your marketing strategy for the holiday season doesn’t have to be daunting. Instead, make it a fun and creative time the whole office can get in on.

Are you using an outdated strategy? Download our Digital Marketing Guide to Growth to get started on developing your content marketing strategy that will truly wow your customers this season.

[Image credit: wlodi- license]

Social Media: The Customer’s New Voice

Jennifer Edwards — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 13:18:06 +0000

Social Media: The Customer’s New Voice

Jennifer Edwards Tue, 06/10/2014 - 8:18am

As social media platforms continue merging with the marketing world, there has been a transformation in the way customers can interact with a company, both positively and negatively. These social media platforms provide businesses the ability to connect and communicate with their target audience, allowing the audience to learn about the company, and ask questions or provide feedback.

Why does this matter?

Customers can now comment directly on your company’s social media page to avoid waiting on the phone to speak to a customer service representative.

Social media is used by consumers to express their opinions of brands, share customer service experiences, product reviews, and more. This can be done by a customer directly posting on the company’s social media page, or even by just posting about the company on their own personal page.

If you don’t respond to a complaint in a timely manner, not only will the customer remember this, they are likely to talk about it elsewhere: 95% of consumers report sharing bad customer service experiences with others.

Not only will the unhappy customer share with people they know, but most social media comments by consumers are posted publicly on a company’s social media page, like through tweets or Facebook posts.

How to deal with the bad

Once a consumer leaves an upset comment or tweet about your company, it is out there for everyone to see. Not only will the unhappy customer be waiting for a response, but your whole audience will be waiting to see how you reply.

There are a variety of ways to respond to a complaint; however, here are three tactics you should avoid when responding to complaints on social media:

Don’t delete the comment. Although deleting a negative comment about your business seems like the easy way out, it can produce a lot of backlash. The unhappy customer will not forget about the issue just because the comment has disappeared — in fact, he will most likely become even angrier when he sees his comment was deleted.
Don’t ignore the comment. If your customer feels strongly enough about the problem to actually go on their social media account and complain, they deserve a timely and respectful answer. Also, remember not only can the individual see the comment, but so can the rest of your audience, and they are most likely waiting for a reply to the complaint as well.
Don’t lose your cool. Not every consumer is going to be polite when leaving a complaint; it is your job to stay professional and reply respectfully. Your audience will see this as your company keeping its cool under pressure. Furthermore, ever heard of the saying “you attract more bees with honey”? You might even change the person’s opinion of your company!

Stay on top of social media

The best way to handle complaints on social media is to respond quickly and politely. Everything posted on social media is public, so your conversation is not only between you and an individual person, but also your entire social media audience.

Not everything posted about your company on social media will be negative — in fact, most of it may be positive. This doesn’t mean you don’t need to respond — happy customers want to be heard as well! Make sure your customers know they are being heard and that their happiness matters to your business.
Need help with social media?

Whether you are a B2B or B2C company, having a social media strategy in place can help you generate more leads and grow your business, as well as prepare you for communicating with your audience no matter the circumstance.

Drop us a line today to discuss how we can help.

[Image credit: Colleen Simon - license]

Social Media Marketing Takes Over in 2014

Jennifer Edwards — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 13:32:24 +0000

Social Media Marketing Takes Over in 2014

Jennifer Edwards Wed, 04/23/2014 - 8:32am

As we fly through another year (is it really almost May already?!), the emergence of social media platforms continues its upward growth. We are seeing a shift in the need for businesses to implement some sort of social media marketing from a suggestion to a necessity.

The benefits of integrating your business’s social media with your content strategy are evident; however, don’t waste time and resources on platforms that aren’t going to help.

It’s important to research where your specific audience is — what social networking sites are they connected to? To help you further, here are some social media platforms predicted to dominate in 2014.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Image-based social media sites are becoming increasingly popular. I’m constantly hearing teens and tweens say, “Insta[gram] pic!” or “I found it on Pinterest!”

Visual content is growing rapidly, and so are the platforms available on which to share that content. Image-based social media sites — like Slideshare and Tumblr — are potential platforms on which you can share your business’ content.

Don’t let your social media content marketing efforts go to waste — make sure your current social media visual content is shareable. Pictures from your website or blog can be shared on these image-based social media sites, providing new ways to reach customers (just make sure to include a link back to your original content!).

Micro-video on the rise!

At first Vine was primarily used by younger users, which eventually led to the hilarious trend “Do it for the Vine.”

However, some businesses have expanded their marketing content to this application and have been doing some pretty cool things. Check out how Lowe’s is leading the pack on developing some unique marketing content on Vine.

Although this hasn’t become a main platform for social media marketing yet, video-sharing sites might soon change the playing field in the consumer world.

The comeback kid

Believe it or not, Myspace is making a comeback! With some re-branding efforts and a complete design makeover, Myspace is back on track to become a popular platform again. With its new iPhone app, Myspace is allowing its users to send private messages, network, and even listen to their own radio station!

Although Myspace may never be able to truly compete with Facebook or Twitter, it is developing a strong market position. With its expansion into music, Myspace is increasing its market of potential users. Overall, Myspace is becoming a promising social networking site, expanding out to new audiences.

Google+, no surprise here!

Google has always managed to stay ahead of the curve by constantly improving their applications. Google+ specifically has seen a lot of innovation and growth resulting from it recently. Although Facebook still takes first in terms of number of active monthly users (1.15 billion users counted in 2013), Google+ is right on their heels!

Google+ is becoming more than a social media platform. With Google’s focus on collecting personal information (i.e. demographics, age, etc.), it is forming itself to be an all-in-one social network.

Since the platform is acquiring personal information, it is contributing to Google’s attempt to provide a more personalized search in terms of SEO and social signals.

Although it is not very clear if it is Google+ growing individually or as result of Google’s auto-creating a Google+ account for every Google account, it’s obvious Google+ will eventually become the platform with all the information.

Get linked with LinkedIn

LinkedIn is currently the top social networking site for professionals, with a booming user base of 238 million users! However, instead of just relaxing and enjoying its fame, LinkedIn is working to provide even more for its users.

LinkedIn launched its Influencers program in the past year, giving users the ability to follow influential professionals in various industries. Now not only is this platform a professional networking site, it also provides sources for content generation and other strategies.

As LinkedIn continues growing and accumulating more users, the professional networking site will become increasingly valuable, especially with B2B marketers.

Now get started

Now that you have an idea of which social media sites will be beneficial, you can begin integrating your content strategy on these sites. By researching and developing your target audience, you will be able to reach them more efficiently through social media platforms. If you know where your target audience is located, you can ensure you don’t waste time and resources on the wrong platforms.

The social networking sites mentioned above show promise of growth and great advantages for businesses, continuing to expand the social media marketing world as we blaze through 2014.

[Image credit: Jason Howie - creative commons license]

Facebook Advertising Just Got Much More Powerful

Wes Mills — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 20:43:53 +0000

Facebook Advertising Just Got Much More Powerful

Wes Mills Wed, 04/02/2014 - 3:43pm

Up until now, targeting your ads on Facebook to those who have visited your site had to be done through a third-party company, like AdRoll. Yes, remarketing — that’s what I’m talking about. As excited as I am that it’s finally available to advertisers, I can’t believe it’s taken this long. But it’s powerful and everything I could’ve hoped for.

Remarketing is a wonderful thing

I’ll preface with providing a context about why remarketing is incredibly important and why Facebook’s new change is a big deal. It’s a way to re-engage your target audience.

When you’re browsing around the web and notice ads from the websites you’ve recently visited, you’re being re-engaged and exposed again to the brand. Traditionally, users who visit a website from a remarketing ad are much more valuable.

For those indecisive visitors who haven’t converted yet, or those who visited your site and have forgotten how amazing it was, this is your opportunity to invite them back.

But not every visitor is the same and you can’t market to them like they’re all the same. And this is why Facebook’s refresh of custom audiences is awesome.

It’s time to get creative

Facebook’s new custom audiences can be broken down into three levels:

All visitors
Visitors of a specific set of pages
Converters

From a marketing perspective, it’s instinctual that all three of these categories are marketed to with their own unique messaging. This is where we can be creative.

I’ll use a home builder’s website to conceptualize my point here. On this website, there’s a portfolio that’s organized by varying styles — all of which are unique. We’ll call one of the organized sections “Contemporary Living” and another “Classical Charm.”

With Facebook’s custom audiences, advertisers can now create one audience who has viewed the “Contemporary Living” portfolio and another audience that viewed “Classical Charm.”

Separating these audiences will now allow for highly targeted ads that you already know appeal to those users.

A good example of this would be two different sponsored stories, each targeted to the two the organized sections. Each ad could contain one of the popular pictures from the section on your site, with a call-to-action that may look like “View our most recent Contemporary Living homes by subscribing to our blog!”. This may be not the best call-to-action, but hopefully you get the idea.

This is just a simple example. The possibilities are endless, of course, but let’s look at how it can get more complex.

If you love Google Analytics as much as I do, you’re probably familiar with reverse goal paths and knowing which of the pages on your site create conversions. With this knowledge, you can easily create a custom audience that only includes visitors of those pages.

But wait, there’s more!

There’s one caveat to all of this: you have to have a significant amount of visitors to your website for your campaigns to have any kind of traction. But Facebook has a solution to that, too.

Facebook has always given the option to create a lookalike audience. After creating a custom audience, Facebook will look into a number of different variables and turn that audience into millions.

This was always a great option when creating audiences from email lists, but it just got much more valuable now with remarketing.

[Note: Facebook is somewhat ambiguous as to what exactly they’re looking at, so testing and pulling reports regularly is highly recommended when using a lookalike audience.]

For most businesses, the most valuable visitors are those who convert. Now that Facebook has remarketing available to those converters, the “create a lookalike audience” gives you a plethora of Facebook users to are similar to those who already converted on your site.

For those of you who are perspicacious, the ideas are probably already flowing through your head!

Pro tip: don’t be creepy

It’s important when developing your remarketing strategy to take your mind out of the context of the business and put your consumer hat on for a moment.

Remember to have your messaging highly targeted, but not so targeted that the audience becomes uncomfortable, which can be really easy to do.

A good example of this was an ad I saw on Facebook that used my name. While this was great targeting, don’t do this. With the thought of privacy very prevalent in everyone’s mind nowadays, it’s best to be discreet about knowing who your audience is. Admittedly, I thought it was awesome and immediately Google’d how they did it. But I won’t use it and you shouldn’t either!

Frequency plays another role in not being creepy. Facebook gives you the option of how long to keep a user on your remarketing lists, with a maximum of 180 days.

This is all dependent on your business, obviously, but don’t overdo it. It’s not beneficial to keep showing your ad to someone who has visited your site once 60 days ago and has not been back since.

Google Tag Manager can be your silver bullet

This is really where you can create endless possibilities with your Facebook advertising strategy. Google Tag Manager is a tool that deploys JavaScript snippets across your site asynchronously. But with each “tag” or snippet of code — like the Facebook remarketing code — comes a custom firing schedule.

Depending on your level of expertise with JavaScript, you can define custom rules that will only fire for certain web browsers, operating systems, mobile phones, or after a visitor has spent a certain amount of time on a page.

I doubt that Facebook will release these as native features anytime soon, or at all, but I am a huge fan of Google Tag Manager and the wonderful things it can do.

Is your mind blown yet?

You still have to be marketing smart

Facebook’s new robust audience options are great, but they don’t do everything for you. To leverage them correctly, you still have to be a great marketer and understand who your audience is and what they respond to.

But if you don’t have a clue, no need to worry. Luckily for you, we’re digital marketing experts and know what it takes to reach success with Facebook advertising.

Do you feel that you’re not getting the most out of your Facebook advertising? Or are you ready to start leveraging the most ubiquitous social platform in the world to drive valuable leads to your business? Drop us a line here, and let’s talk about how we can help.

Sorry to Interrupt, But Let's Talk Strategy

Jennifer Edwards — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:35:11 +0000

Sorry to Interrupt, But Let's Talk Strategy

Jennifer Edwards Tue, 03/11/2014 - 8:35am

As the Internet and business worlds continue integrating, many businesses are switching from outbound (or “interruption”) marketing to inbound marketing, which provides businesses with an effective way to organically attract customers and build lasting relationships.

However, the use of interruption marketing is not necessarily obsolete. Let’s explore how to make the most of inbound marketing and which interruption marketing strategies are still beneficial to businesses.

Inbound vs. interruption marketing

Inbound marketing

Inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that attracts people to a business organically. Rather than attempting to buy customers, inbound marketing specifically aligns a business’ content with the customers’ interests.

In layman’s terms, inbound marketing reaches the customer when they go looking for something to buy.

Interruption marketing

Interruption marketing refers to any form of advertising that interrupts someone’s flow of activity in order to get their attention.

This advertising strategy ranges from print and pop-up ads to paid app reviews. However, interruption marketing is becoming an outdated strategy due to inbound marketing. Although it attracts attention, it is rejected by users 90% of the time.

How to utilize inbound marketing

Creating and sharing content is key. In order for your marketing to be effective, your content must be designed to appeal to your target customer, thus attracting potential prospects to your business.

To fully optimize inbound marketing, you must integrate your content on multiple channels, like social media, your website, blogs, etc. This way you have a better chance of reaching your customer when they are searching for your product/service.

Once you develop a presence on multiple channels, you will be able to personalize your message throughout the channels, making it specific to your customers’ needs.

Four major steps to inbound marketing

There are four major steps to an inbound marketing strategy:

Attract. Create content that aligns with your customer’s buyer persona, encompassing their personal and demographic information through blogging, social media, and SEO.
Convert. Once you’ve attracted potential customers, convert them into leads by gathering their contact information. This can be done through calls-to-action buttons, landing pages, or asking them to subscribe to your newsletter.
Close. Now that you’ve converted your visitors into leads, you need to turn them into customers. Some closing tools include emailing relevant content, marketing automation, and closed-loop reporting.
Delight. Whether you’re dealing with leads or existing customers, you need to continue to produce attractive content. Continue to engage (and delight) your current customers through social media, email, and marketing automation.

By sticking to these steps, you connect with your target customers as they interact with your company through the buying cycle.

Instead of using interruptive methods, your marketing is relevant and helpful to your customers without having to shove advertisements in their face.

Now let me interrupt…

Despite the clear advantages of using inbound marketing, interruptive marketing still has a role in the consumer world. In fact, most social media advertising is considered to be on the interruption marketing side.

Personally, I think it will be a long time before traditional paid advertising disappears. The use of TV, radio, and print ads are still relevant in many markets.

Furthermore, interruptive marketing has benefits that inbound marketing cannot provide, like product sampling and reaching audiences that are not always online.

There are a few key strategies you should keep in mind when using an interruptive marketing strategy:

Know your customers. No matter what strategy you implement, you will not be able to deliver your message effectively if you do not know who your customers are.
Develop a persuasive USP and offer. A USP (unique selling proposition) describes what differentiates you from your competitors. The offer you deliver in your advertisement must stand out and show why you are unique. What can you offer that your competitors can’t?

So which one is for you?

In order to truly succeed with and optimize your marketing efforts, find a healthy balance of both marketing strategies. Inbound marketing is quickly becoming the leading marketing strategy — but some traditional marketing methods could still be a beneficial addition.

Strategy is key

Are you using an outdated or ineffective marketing strategy? Don’t fall short because of your strategy — download our free Marketing Plan for Growth to learn all you need to know about developing an inbound marketing plan.

Download my paper

[Image Credit: Tom Fishburne - license]
[Infographic Credit: Moz]

What Everybody Ought to Know About Video Marketing

Jennifer Edwards — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 15:36:09 +0000

What Everybody Ought to Know About Video Marketing

Jennifer Edwards Wed, 02/19/2014 - 9:36am

Businesses are no longer restricted by traditional marketing techniques. The world wide web has opened multiple possibilities in marketing, and video marketing is proving to be one of the most effective ones yet. Contrary to popular belief, video marketing is not just simply throwing a few videos on YouTube. It requires work. Thankfully, there are ways you can optimize your video marketing to ensure its full potential.

The benefits of video marketing

The Internet provides companies with one of the easiest ways to connect with a mass audience. Not only is most of the US population on the Internet, but in 2012, more than 21 billion videos were watched.

Also, video marketing is effective and can be a low cost marketing tool. You are able to pass on your marketing message through a variety of mediums, providing multiple ways for your target audience to see your content. Video marketing utilizes images and sound, making it easier for the audience to understand the idea and increase their time spent on your page.

With new video apps coming out all the time, the possibilities of video marketing are endless. Applications such as Vine, Snapchat, and Instagram provide businesses with creative and effective ways to reach their audience. These video applications provide a fast and easy way to upload videos.

Become more search friendly

When developing your video marketing, remember it is not simply uploading videos to YouTube or other video platforms. In order to assure full optimization of your videos, it is important you add key information for SEO.

Don’t focus on what is flashy by dressing up your words when attaching keywords and descriptions to your content, but rather what people are more likely to search for. By using Google’s Adwords Planner, you can identify some words for which you would like to rank in your industry. This will make sure your tags and meta descriptions are relevant and search friendly.

Embedded videos can boost search rankings

To further optimize the search results for your video content, upload your content on multiple platforms. First, upload your video to YouTube and other distribution sites, but alter the title a little for each platform. Then embed the video into your site, thus providing multiple sites where your video can be viewed.

This will ensure you are taking advantage of your SEO, and not restricting its variability. Furthermore, pages with embedded videos can potentially show up higher in search results, allowing your content to stand out more.

Don’t aim to go viral

When utilizing video marketing, do not create the content with the mindset of going “viral.” The majority of content that has gone viral did so by accident. Content generally goes viral because it evoked emotions from the user, influencing them to share it.

However, attempting to create content solely for shares and clicks might leave you short handed. Simply fluffing up the title or description of a video to attract viewers can be identified as being phony, thus potentially leaving the company looking desperate and in poor reputation.

By focusing on what your target audience is looking for, you will be able to better create and optimize your video marketing. However, this must connect with content that is sharable and influence clicks. Focus on your message, while forming to your audience’s needs. The content will be relevant and credible, rather than misleading.

[Image Credit: codenamecueball]

Submitted by Melody Mendoza on Fri, 02/28/2014 - 1:53am

Great blog. It may seem like a short video can be done quick, but if you want it to be effective, then it has to be strategic. We just filmed a video that was supposed to be short today. Once my team heard the idea, it became strategic and it's coming along well. It has a more effective message and is a lot better than it originated as.

Submitted by Jennifer Edwards on Fri, 02/28/2014 - 11:16am

That's great to hear Melody. It is so important to create a strategic plan for your video to ensure you are optimizing your message and reaching your target audience effectively. Thank you for reading and commenting! Good luck with the video!

Facebook Advertising: A Love-Hate Relationship

Wes Mills — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 14:11:47 +0000

Facebook Advertising: A Love-Hate Relationship

Wes Mills Tue, 02/11/2014 - 8:11am

After using Facebook Ads regularly for the last five months, there’s a lot I’ve found to love. There’s also a few things that make me want to pull my hair out. Hair-pulling aside, the ubiquity of Facebook makes it an incredibly powerful advertising medium with enough targeting options to keep anyone busy with A/B testing.

The love

The targeting options Facebook gives advertisers are wonderful. And this is arguably my favorite part about advertising through Facebook. Even if your target audience is broad, you can get creative with your messaging and targeting. Just how creative can you get? Here’s a screenshot of just a few of the categories in Power Editor:

Now this is just an example. Each of those categories expands into more subcategories.

Compared to Google AdWords, Facebook makes getting your message across a little easier — you’re not limited to 35 characters. At least when you’re using Page Post Ads, like the example shown below.

I look at this as a trade-off, though. While Google limits your character space, your ad is shown to people actively searching for your keywords. On Facebook, your ad is shown based on your targeting criteria that you’ve outlined. Meaning, you tell Facebook what kind of people you want to see your ad. That aside, being able to include a picture, video, etc. tied to your messaging and product (with a link to your page) is insanely awesome.

While I could go on about the things that are great about Facebook Ads, I’ll refrain and direct you to Jon Loomer’s blog, which has a plethora of valuable information regarding Facebook Ads.

The hate

When it comes to digital marketing, there’s a fine line between “the bad” and “the ugly.” So I’ll tread carefully here to outline “the bad” on Facebook Ads.

Facebook’s Ad Manager

Above, I mentioned Facebook’s Power Editor. If you’re familiar with AdWords Editor, it’s essentially the same concept — it allows you to work offline and make bulk changes that would take much longer in the Ads Manager, along with a plenitude of other options. I learned to master Power Editor before really delving into the traditional interface. So perhaps I am biased.

I preface with that to provide a contrast against the ad creator that Facebook provides in the Ad Manager. To put it bluntly: it sucks. It feels like an incredibly watered-down version of Power Editor with less options to the advertiser. There’s no ability to save audiences, post texts are limited to 90 characters, and there’s no ability to copy and paste from different campaigns (if I’m missing some options, please feel free to let me know where to find this in the comments below).

I’m not entirely sure who Facebook made the interface for. By the looks of it, probably a elementary school student wanting to get into the digital marketing world. I honestly don’t think anyone who is serious uses this. If they do, it’s because no one has been kind enough to tell them about Power Editor.

Nothing is perfect

Alas, Power Editor isn’t perfect. The hair-pulling generally comes from one critical option that is missing — you can’t edit Page Post Ads after you create them. “What?!” you ask?

Yes, if I create a PPA (Page Post Ad) in Power Editor and change my mind about something or find a typo, I have to create a whole new unpublished post. Which isn’t necessarily time consuming, but more of an annoyance than anything. Here’s what you have to fill out and get right the first time (It’s taught me to proofread like no other):

The worst formula, ever

There is just one last thing that I feel has to be mentioned and that’s Facebook’s formula for showing your ad. To provide some context, Facebook wants to make money. So they only want to show ads that:

Are on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) structure; OR
Have a relatively high CTR (click-through rate)

While this doesn’t seem troublesome on the surface, it makes A/B testing incredibly hard.

When you first post an ad, Facebook will show your ad briefly. If it doesn’t get any clicks in that short amount of time, your ad won’t gain any more impressions (on a CPC bidding structure). This is a big deal because there’s a lot of factors that determine when people click on ads (like time of day, day of week, etc). Unlike Google AdWords, where you can optimize two weeks or a month down the road, not much optimization can be done. In fact, if your ad shows a certain amount of times with no clicks, Facebook will literally quit showing it at all — I’ve seen an ad stop showing after just 20 impressions.

For some anecdotal evidence, here is a situation that happened last month.

Generally I’ll start a campaign with only one ad. If it does poorly, I’ll pause it and run another variation. I do this because the audience I’m targeting is somewhat small, so this is the best approach for A/B testing.

In January, though, I mistakenly paused and then un-paused the same ad after it had shown about 100 times with no clicks. The ad started getting impressions again, and ultimately became the highest-converting Facebook ad I’ve done. Without changing a thing.

So from an analytical standpoint, one can see how this is frustrating when it comes to optimizing your ad spend. Impossible, though? No, but it definitely presents a challenge.

It’s mostly love for Facebook

Despite my much longer rant of things I disliked, the good definitely outweighs the bad. Facebook is an amazing medium not only for branding, but audience engagement, too. It’s unique and has an incredibly large reach — which is all a marketer could ask for.

Do you need help whipping your digital marketing strategy into shape? Luckily for you, that’s what we do. We’d love to give you a free consultation and explore how we could help you grow your business.

For Better or Worse? Social Media ROI Measurement is Changing

Amy Peveto — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 14:54:39 +0000

For Better or Worse? Social Media ROI Measurement is Changing

Amy Peveto Wed, 11/06/2013 - 8:54am

Once in a job interview I was asked, “How should companies measure return on investment of social media?” It’s the query of the decade, and the answer varies depending on who you ask. But recently companies have been moving away from traditional measurements and toward things like brand awareness and customer relations.

Social media measurement is changing

While many companies have spent the last few years focusing on dollar-value metrics — conversion rate, profit per customer, customer acquisition costs, etc. — for their ROI calculations, a recent study by BI Intelligence indicates things are getting a bit more touchy-feely. Organizations are now starting to gauge the value of their social media campaigns based on "audience-building, brand awareness, and customer relations."

Is this the right move?

While I’m glad to hear of companies’ willingness to look at something other than conversions and revenue (this can be complex and expensive to track when it comes to social media), I do worry that too much focus on “shares” and “retweets” could result in depending heavily on unactionable vanity metrics.

There’s lots of advice out there on how to prove the value of social media without worrying about conversions and monetary gain, but they feel flimsy at best.

Besides, can you imagine imagine most CEOs’ response to, “We have 10,000 followers and our latest post got 950 shares!” being anything other than, “And how much money did that make us?”

Do you like this new trend in social media ROI measurement? How do you measure social media’s effectiveness?

More on social media

[Image: Adam Bartlett]

Growing Your Business: #Hashtag Power

Michelle Kafie — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 13:44:56 +0000

Growing Your Business: #Hashtag Power

Michelle Kafie Tue, 10/08/2013 - 8:44am

Hashtags have grown increasingly popular over the past couple of years and many social media websites now support them. Visit Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or any other social media site and you’ll find people using them. Many people may think that hashtags are used just for fun. What you may not know is that hashtags can be a powerful tool that can help you extend your content’s reach.

What is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a word or a phrase preceded by the pound (#) symbol. You may have seen examples of this all around you: #marketing #love #food. These hashtags allow you to categorize these words or phrases so that when people do a search for that specific hashtag, the content you posted and hashtagged will show up on their feed because it is relevant to what they are looking for. It is like grouping similar information into a category.

For example, I did a search for the hashtag #SanAntonio on Twitter and all of the other tweets that had the hashtag #SanAntonio are together in one page.

Benefits of hashtags

Hashtags have proven to be successful for many companies, especially as social media’s popularity continues to grow. Hashtags allow you to engage with your audience and effectively communicate with them. They give you an opportunity to advertise your business. Here at Digett, we use #Digett to promote and build our brand. If a customer wants to know more about us they can use the hashtag #Digett and find all the information related to us on a particular social media site.

Different uses of hashtags

Another way businesses use hashtags is to promote events or campaigns. If you have an upcoming event and you want to raise awareness for it, using a hashtag will help you spread the word. This will also help you after the event, when you can tell people to tag all of the pictures they take with the same hashtag. This allows all of the people who attended the event and even their friends to look at all of the pictures. This means that by using one simple hashtag you are creating or increasing awareness for your brand. It also allows people to associate a specific hashtag with your brand creating brand recognition. You are also reaching out to a wider audience that could become potential customers for you.

Hashtags have proven very effective for promoting campaigns. If you are organizing one it is always good to keep a consistent hashtag to keep track of everything that is going on. Try to find a campaign name that is not widely used and preferably unique to your business. Customers like this because it gives them an opportunity to be involved with your business and feel part of it.

Hashtags give your customers the opportunity to engage more easily with your brand through social networks. If you use them consistently around all of the social networks you use, it will be easier for your customers and other people to remember those hashtags and use them. Just remember to keep them short, unique and easy to remember.

Beware hashtag overuse

There is one thing you have to remember before you start using hashtags for your business: #Do #not #overuse #them. Best practices recommend not using more than two hashtags per tweet or picture. You do not want to make it so crowded that it confuses your customers and overwhelms them. Besides that, it’s annoying — as is shown in this video of Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake overusing them in real life (NSFW, so wear your headphones).

Brands Get Creative with Social Media

Sarah Van Dyke — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 15:54:32 +0000

Brands Get Creative with Social Media

Sarah Van Dyke Wed, 07/17/2013 - 10:54am

I’ve seen several real-life examples lately of how businesses of all sizes are using social media in creative and inspiring ways to boost their brand. Here's the three I think are most exciting, and could be used by almost any business.

Pinterest and Nordstrom

First up is high-end retailer Nordstrom and their use of Pinterest. Because Pinterest is the largest and fastest growing social network for their company, they launched a campaign to integrate data from Pinterest into in-store displays.

They have created displays in several departments, such as women’s shoes and handbags, highlighting their most-pinned items front and center. This innovative idea is a great way to tie in social media marketing as a part of a larger campaign, as well as to showcase popular products.

Vine and Lowe’s

Another example is the home improvement store Lowe’s. When you think of Lowe’s, odds are you think of hardware and tools, not creative marketing. But recently they have created short, simple and helpful videos on the video sharing network Vine. The videos are clean and aesthetically appealing, and in just six seconds they demonstrate simple tricks to make daily life easier. These videos are a really creative way to provide value to customers, generate buzz online, and position themselves as a leader in content among their competitors.

Facebook and...cheese?

Recently, Mashable has been featuring several case studies that pair small businesses with social media marketers to help them improve their campaigns and expand their reach. The example I found most interesting came from a small Virginia cheese shop that was able to use Facebook to grow their online presence.

The owner of the cheese shop, Jill Erber, created informational videos and used their posts to position the store as a cheese expert to improve their image. But the most creative aspect of her campaign came when the FDA announced a ban on a French cheese called mimolette. She leveraged this industry news by creating a clever promotion on Facebook calling for fans to post photos of themselves “frowning pathetically” to win a ¼ lb of mimolette from her shop’s short supply. She had around 80 people participate, and the stunt was even featured on the national news.

Although a cheese shop may seem like an unlikely business to benefit from social media marketing, they were able to use it to their advantage and see significant results.

Large or small, all businesses can benefit

The social media scene is always growing and evolving, and as these examples have shown, there are constantly new and inventive ways to add a social media aspect to your marketing efforts.

All three of these businesses are vastly different from one another, but all three found innovative ways to integrate social media into their marketing mix.

With so many creative possibilities, social media is certainly not something businesses should ignore.

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Large or small, all businesses can benefit

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