The Top Three Secrets to Succeeding at Social Media
Business owners often don’t understand the importance of social media. Yes, when teenagers are posting selfies on their Facebook pages, it’s easy to think that Facebook is for “the kids.” But here’s a reality check: More than a billion people are on Facebook and, unlike TV advertising, businesses can target them based on very specific aspects of their lives. Business owners should think of their brands’ social media as their own “channels,” in much the way that TV channels work: the more good, interesting content you put out there, the more likely people are to latch on to you, follow you and engage with you. Of course, social media also means there’s much more room for glut – but it’s also a place for small businesses to defy the odds through clever marketing strategies. Here are some key takeaways for small business owners to help maximize their social media exposure. 1. Yes, You Need to Be on Social Media. Regardless of a business’s size, being active on social media can only help your company. If you think people aren’t interested about, say, commercial plumbing services in Reno, Nevada, you’re wrong: people tweet and post about nearly every topic imaginable. Plus, social media is a great opportunity to field customer service inquires. Businesses that still aren’t sure about social can implement testing strategies to determine social success, but be forewarned: as the world becomes more and more digital, there will be more and more reasons to be on social media. 2. No, You Don’t Need to Be on Every Social Media Outlet. [quote]A company that specializes in SEO doesn’t necessarily need to be on Pinterest and Instagram, particularly if the business’s customers aren’t on Pinterest and Instagram.[/quote]Business owners have limited bandwidth, and with such an influx of social media outlets, no one expects a business owner to be on all of them. In fact, doing so could actually cause harm, because in trying to build communities on all of them, a business owner could essentially fail to cultivate a community on any of them. What’s the best way to deal with this? Select your small business’s first social media outlet carefully, and expand from there. Typically, companies will first look to Facebook or Twitter, and can expand once they’ve established a routine and a community on one of those sites. 3. You Might Want to Put a Few Bucks Into Social Advertising. Companies that aren’t experimenting with social ads could see if a social ad strategy works for them. Facebook ads are hyper-targeted and can offer, for some businesses, a high return on investment for carefully crafted ads. The same goes for Twitter. However, for some companies, Facebook ads may not make sense. For example, due to stiff competition, searches related to car insurance have a high premium on keywords. However, other outlets such as Reddit and Pinterest offer ads that may be a better fit for brands with competitive keywords. These tips can help small businesses build their communities, ultimately leading to better brand engagement. The team at our Florida advertising agency has even more tips to help you build your brand, so contact us for more information on how to build your brand’s social media strategy!
How You Can Better Understand the Customer Journey
I’m always baffled when I learn about marketers who don’t have a full understanding of their customers’ behaviors. To me, the customer’s journey is the first place marketers should turn when trying to analyze ways they can improve their business. From a theoretical perspective, understanding the journey helps the marketer understand the business itself. Oftentimes, marketers who instinctively look to the customer journey don’t have a specific name for it; at our Florida marketing agency, we think clarifying why customer’s take a certain journey is a huge step in growing a business. Analyzing a customer journey offers an opportunity for marketers to learn about how awareness leads to a purchase or other action. Assessing the customer journey helps determine whether, for example, the client should spend more money on awareness efforts or should stick to optimizing a website. [quote]The customer journey first involves looking at where people get most of their information about a company’s products or services.[/quote]Years ago, marketers could create conversions after connecting with a customer approximately seven times, typically though print or television advertising. However, because of the rise of social media, these various touches don’t always create as much impact, and now marketers suggest that it requires between 20-30 touch points to gain a new customer. In the digital space, social media steers these touch points, driving the first step in the customer journey: awareness. Be it paid or owned social media, this is often the first line of contact. However, it can also come from paid or organic search. Understanding where customers are finding out about your product or service helps target your advertising efforts to where you’re more likely to drive traffic to your website. Next comes consideration. This is where it becomes important for a marketer to convince a person that a product or service is right for them. This requires having a strong understanding of your target demographic, complete with user personas. Having a firm understanding of your target customer can help guide all brand decisions, and the results of these decisions should be able to push people into the next phase of the customer journey: intent. While good UX should always be a strong consideration when building a website or virtual shopping cart, it’s most important in the intent phase. Think of Amazon.com’s shopping cart feature. Sometimes, people who drop off at this point may have intent to purchase, but forget or drop off for some other reason. This is where strategies such as ad retargeting can be helpful, reminding the user of their intent to purchase. Citing Amazon again, think of “1-Click” ordering. A person can choose to purchase in a single click, making the user experience as flawless as possible… and giving people fewer chances to change their minds between the intent phase and the next phase: the purchase. Finally, the customer will make a purchase, resulting in a sale for the business. However, this is not necessarily the end of the customer journey; some marketers link this back to advocacy, such as when a person writes a glowing product review or shares it with friends. Understanding your customer’s journey can help marketers find ways to simplify the process by cutting out friction in the purchasing or conversion phases. For more information on ways to simplify the customer journey, contact our Florida marketing agency for a consultation.
Do You Know How the best way to Advertise on Twitter?
Fresh on the heels of an IPO, there’s plenty of speculation about the future value of Twitter and how it will sustain revenue over the next few years. Certainly, it’s been proven that Twitter is around to stay, with a sizable base of users who constantly check their feeds for more content. Plus, there’s significant buzz around the value of Twitter, given its decision to close off its API and keep tracking data internal. Regardless of how investors feel about Twitter, there are real opportunities for businesses of all sizes to advertise on the social media platform. There are three different ways to advertise on Twitter: Promoted Hashtags, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets. The team at our Florida ad agency thought it would be helpful to break down Twitter ads to figure out the best ways to help businesses lever Twitter marking for their businesses. Promoted Trends Promoted trends are the true moneymakers for Twitter. Companies can purchase a Twitter hashtag for 24 hours, starting at about $200,000, for the exclusive right to be featured prominently as a trending hashtag throughout the course of the day. Obviously, this requires a huge marketing budget, but large businesses that can afford a promoted trend can typically expect to see a massive return on investment. Sponsored hashtags appear in the trends section of the desktop site and have featured placement on Twitter mobile. On a recent Tuesday, the evening’s promoted trend was #TuesdayNightFootball. The hashtag appeared in a sidebar for every person who used Twitter on his or her computer for that entire day. The success of that marketing effort wasn’t just massive Twitter appeal; much of it was in the fact that people were consistently using that hashtag in their own Tweets, creating a network of posts and retweets to help create awareness of Tuesday Night Football. It also became a cross-promotional effort, with TV viewers being encouraged to tweet with that hashtag and attracting new viewers to their televisions to watch Tuesday Night Football. Companies who opt to go with this type of advertising often do so through agencies, and do it in order to promote events or product launches. Only one promoted hashtag will run at a given time, so it is given a premium spot at a premium rate. Promoted Accounts Business owners can promote their accounts for much cheaper than they can purchase promoted hashtags. A promoted account features the advertiser’s account prominently on the desktop under “Who to Follow,” and reach only people who fit a particular profile, as determined by the advertiser. Promoted accounts works best for people looking to grow their user base over time by cultivating user engagement. These seem to be a longer-term strategy. Also, advertisers only pay for users who follow their accounts as a result of the promoted account. Promoted Tweets [quote]Most small business Twitter success stories come from promoted Tweets.[/quote]These are easy to implement and geotarget, or, small businesses can choose to relay such tweets to niche populations who are interested in specific subject matter (which is based on the accounts a person follows and tweet topics). These are best to use to drive immediate traffic. Recently, a friend of mine who had a recently published book decided to take a shot at Twitter advertising. Her efforts garnered more than 2,000 impressions and hundreds of new followers. And, this all cost her a mere $5. With careful planning, this tactic can be an effective strategy for engaging with potential customers. Increasingly, businesses are learning to leverage Twitter to help grow their user base and engage with them more. People who are not getting the results they want from simply tweeting may wish to investigate Twitter advertising as an additional source of awareness. Business owners who have yet to experiment with Twitter advertising can contact our Florida marketing agency for help with creating the perfect Twitter ad campaign.
BIGEYE Hires Former Agency President as Senior Director
ORLANDO, FLORIDA – December 3, 2013 – BIGEYE announced this afternoon the appointment of 20-year marketing veteran Wágner dos Santos, formerly with Evok Advertising and Beloved, to the position of Senior Director of Marketing & Strategic Planning.[quote]Wágner dos Santos is the seventh new hire for the agency in 2013 as BIGEYE looks to strengthen its team in support of recent growth. “BIGEYE is in the perfect position for growth,” says Justin Ramb, CEO at BIGEYE . “In his new role, Wágner will use his industry experience and strategic talents to further advance our agency’s desire to become a regional leader.” Prior to BigEye Creative, Mr. dos Santos was the Vice President of Client Services for Evok Advertising and former President/CEO of Beloved, a national award-winning marketing agency based in Orlando. He built his marketing and advertising career from such agency powerhouses as Momentum Worldwide (Interpublic Group), GMR Marketing (Omnicom) and Havas Impact. Mr. dos Santos has worked on some impressive national brands which include Coca-Cola Zero, Google, Sprint, Target, Ford, Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse and State Farm, to name a few. A community leader who gives back, dos Santos serves as a trustee and past president of the American Advertising Federation-Orlando, former chair of the American Advertising Federation-Fourth District Marketing & Communications Committee and a brand strategist for the Greater Orlando Human Trafficking Task Force. Dos Santos is also a frequent guest speaker on experiential and influencer marketing. In his new role at BIGEYE, dos Santos will be instrumental in expanding the agency’s client roster while also providing strategic planning for its existing clients. “I am looking forward to working closely with the BIGEYE team and its clients to help them both realize success and exponential growth,” said dos Santos. About BIGEYE BIGEYE is a full-service marketing and advertising agency located in downtown Orlando, Florida that creates effective and award-winning work, which produces measurable results for its clients. Celebrating over 11 years, BIGEYE was recently named to Forbes list of the “Top 100 Global Ad Agencies That Know Social Media and Google”. For more information, please visit www.bigeyecreative.com. Contact: Shelby Hughes BigEye Creative 407.839.8599 Shelby@BigEyeCreative.com