Hello readers!

In this blog I am going to explain how businesses can create engagement through building credibility. I hope you find it useful as I did when I was writing it and that it clarifies the topic for you!

Social media has changed the way organisations communicate with stakeholders. Consumers are now, active participants in adding value to the companies and social media has become an essential part of marketing strategies. Companies need to explain and inform stakeholders the factors that will help them build and maintain relationships and invest in them to make them strong with the activities on the brand page, (e.g. posts and media uploads) and the reactions from the users, (Popp, Horbel and Woratsche,2015) .

Facebook is the biggest social media networking site with 1.86 billion monthly active users, (Zephoria, 2017) used as other many social media platforms, to achieve important marketing goals such as relationships with the brand, brand interaction and to increase customer loyalty. The combination between the activities from the company and the users create a Facebook page and it contributes to its success, (Popp, Horbel and Woratsche,2015).

Click in this link to watch a video on how to improve engagement for your business https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaE7kmjuisU

Engagement is one of the concepts that explains the consumers’ role when creating consumer-brand relationships. According to McGur (2014), understanding engagement is the way to understand the value of social media marketing. “Engagement is the interaction between people and brands in social media” McGur (2014). In Facebook, these are the likes, comments and shares.

Marketers see engagement as a key target to achieve objectives such as positive word of mouth, product sales and product innovation. Businesses need to be patient until they see results because engagement requires trust and credibility. To make people trust your brand, businesses need to create valuable content, experience and relationships, (Popp, Horbel and Woratsche,2015).

With Social Media, companies are not just a brand communicating on the platform, people see them as having a personality and credibility is essential to create engagement and therefore relationships. It is the public’s perception of a brand’s expertise and trustworthiness. When used effectively, the following three categories tend to build the credibility for brand communities.

 

CATEGORIES THAT INFLUENCE CREDIBILITY IN SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

Mae Kim, C. (2016) Social Media Campaigns

 

• Highlighting brand personality:

“Brand personality is the set of human characteristics associated with the brand”. (Moe Kim, 2016)

This method includes specific actions and tactics that build personality. Companies using this method of engagement try to enhance the perception of their expertise, trustworthiness and reputation, (Mae Kim. 2016).

For instance, showing how the business maintains relationships in the community, demonstrating their expertise in certain area or any activity that humanises the brand.

Businesses need to know that credibility is not a permanent state. The perceptions from the public with which they interact can change and that is why consistency is so important in social media. The posts from a brand on Facebook can interfere with the personality of the brand in previous occasions and this could lead to losing relationships, (Mae Kim, 2016).

 

• Conversation building:

Building conversations contributing to, interacting with and responding to communications from publics. Writing and the approach to the message is crucial because it contributes directly to credibility, (Mae Kim, 2016). There are 4 areas to consider:

• Engagement speed: If the response is rapid, public will feel that the platform is accurate and the brand is active. If the communication lacks or is slow and poor, people may thing that the brand is hiding something or that the brand isn’t interesting.
• Brand accessibility: Businesses need to be active in social media platforms to create possible access from stakeholders into the brand.
• Transparency: it leads to a more customer centric atmosphere which leads to deeper relationships with stakeholders humanising the brand and making customers feel there is a personal connection, (Zucal, 2016).

Individualised communication: Social media requires interactions that are more like a face-to-face conversation. These personal conversations increase the quality of the relationships and credibility. Mechanised communication must be avoided, (Mae Kim, 2016)

 

• Shared values:

Showing how the brand community and the organisation have common interests and values is a powerful tool to build credibility, (Mae Kim, 2016). Values that the community consider important and even better if they help in a positive way the community. This concept is called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). For instance, a company that is dedicated at upcycling furniture will have a great concept to share with people in social media platforms about how to reduce landfill waste.

 

I hope you enjoyed this post. I found it very interesting whilst I wrote it and I have learnt a lot doing it. Especially because when I read about engagement, a lot of other different concepts came up and everything seemed to be a bit confusing.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Lara

 

REFERENCES

Mae Kim, C. (2016) Social Media Campaigns, Strategies for Public Relations and Marketing, E-book, Routledge: London, chapter 4, pp. 88-140 [Accessed date: 18^th April 2017].

McGurk, S. (2014) What is Social Media Engagement and why it matters to your Business? Fussionfarm, A Digital Marketing & Creative Agency, [Online] Available: http://blog.fusionfarm.com/what-is-social-media-engagement-and-why-it-matters-for-your-business [Accessed date: 14^th April 2017].

Popp, B., Wilson, B. Horbel, C. and Woratschek, H. (2015) Relationship building through Facebook Brand Pages: the Multifaceted Roles of Identification, Satisfaction and perceived Relationship Investment, pp. 278-294.

Zephoria Digital Marketing (2017) The Top 20 Valuable Facebook Statistics [Online] Available: https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ [Accessed date: 14^th April 2017].

Zucal, C. (2016) Why Transparency Matters to your Business? [Online] Available: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/why-transparency-matters-your-business-1 [Accessed date: 14^th April 2017].

Hello again everyone! 🙂

I’m back once again to write in this blog about how Facebook can be used to promote crafts and DIY businesses and also about the most important measurements for Facebook marketing strategies. I hope you find this blog useful and that you enjoy the reading!!!

Facebook is a powerful platform with which your business can reach an immense number of people. Businesses can help people find products or services that they look for, it connects and engages with current and potential customers, creates a community around your business and promotes other content that you might create, including webinars, blog articles or others.

Getting Fans on Facebook 

• Worldwide, there are over 1.86 billion monthly active Facebook users.
• There are 1.15 billion mobile daily active users.
• The most common age demographic is 25 to 34 which is many businesses’ target market. Possibility to engage target market.
• 76% of Facebook users are female and 66% are male. There is not a very big difference between these percentages which means you can reach both through Facebook.

Creating a customized business site in which you can write information about your business will allow people to become fans of your page. Facebook permits other features that will help engage your community creating interaction and shares with discussion forums, videos, photos and testimonials.

Web Site Links

Facebook allows you to enter one or more links to websites where people can learn more about your company. For instance, it is popular to use links to direct people to a company´s blog or website. According to Halligan, B. and Shah, D. (2009) , this links generate (if any) very little SEO value because they are usually no follow links. However, this tool can still drive people to your website or blog.

Facebook Live

For DIY and crafts marketers it is worth to know about Facebook live where businesses can live streaming of an event or of a tutorial. This is a powerful tool when it comes to encouraging people to do their own work from home and sharing tutorials and information with customers and fans. Click in the following link to see an example: http://bit.ly/2nBeBpw 

Electronic Word of Mouth

When a customer or fan has liked your site and you post a photo, video, etc. that they like, they are likely to share it with their friends which produces a multiplying effect leading to a very powerful form of electronic word of mouth in marketing. According to a study conducted by Khosravani, S. and, Mohammadkazemib, R. and Rezvanibe, M. (2014) eWOM impacts directly on customer’s decision to purchase a product or service as well as the quality of the expertise that the reviewers have on the product. Click here to find out more about eWOM and its influence on product purchase. On the other hand, there is little control over who and what is posted on Facebook, for instance, it is very easy for an angry rival or an old employee to post harmful comments that could affect your business. It is important to invest time and effort on maintaining control over the content that appears on your Facebook.

Replying to Messages

You can see on Facebook business pages the time it takes for a company to reply back to messages from customers or people interested in your business. People nowadays want a quick response and by turning on your notifications you can keep track easily your messages. It is important because:

• You want to keep activity in your business site
• You want your Facebook page to show a good time response which is measured by the platform.

Post consistently 

Facebook has made it easy to post consistently with an scheduling tool. When you want to publish any relevant information to your business, just click the arrow next to “publish” bottom and select schedule.

“Consistency builds trust”. In order to achieve success, a company’s brand should maintain presence and brand voice. These will boost brand identity and creates an emotional respond from customers or fans.

Fill Out your About Section

Imagine a customer or a fan clicks on ads that your business has created or it pops up in their news-feed. If they are interested about the product, they will want to know more straight away and About page can provide them with information about you such as website, telephone, email and your business story.

Measuring results on Facebook?

Here are some Facebook metrics that businesses should be measuring: (Click here to find out where and how to do this)

• Fan Reach: Organic Reach. It shows you how many fans have seen your post.
• Engagement: According to Facebook, with regards to post level metrics, “engagement is the number of people who clicked anywhere in your post” .
• People talking about this: Measures how many people liked, commented and shared your posts.
• Click-through rate: Shows you the number of people who clicked on a link in your content, watched a video or seen a photo.
• Negative feedback: It shows the number of people who didn’t like something in your content or in their news-feed.

And once again,dear readers,  I hope you find this blog post useful to help your business to improve Facebook marketing. Thanks for reading and I will see you again very soon!!!

Lara de la Rosa

REFERENCES:

Facebook for small Business, How to get Discovered and generate new Business, Constant Contact (2016) [Online] http://img.constantcontact.com/docs/pdf/facebook-for-small-business.pdf [Accessed date: 24th March 2017].

Halligan, B. and Shah, D. (2009), Inbound Marketing get found using Google, Social Media and Blogs, [e-book] Available:  https://www.dawsonera.com/readonline/9780470550175, John Wiley & Sons, [Accessed date: 20th March 2017].

How to use Facebook for Business, Hubspot, [Online] Available: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/blog/docs/facebook_for_business_ebook_hubspot.pdf [Accessed date: 20th March 2017].

Ernould, E. (2013) 6 Facebook Metrics Marketers should be Measuring, [Online] Available: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-page-metrics/ [Accessed date: 28th March 2017].

Khosravani, S. and, Mohammadkazemib, R. and Rezvanibe, M. (2014) Investigating the effect of Electronic Word Of Mouth on customer’s purchase intention of digital products [Online] Available: http://www.growingscience.com/msl/Vol4/msl_2014_296.pdf [Accessed date: 24th March 2017].

Rem, J. and Schneider, A. and Baum, N. (2014) Social Media Networking, Youtube and Search Engine Optimization, [Online] Available: http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/docview/856362270?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=9727 [Accessed date: 26th March 2017].

Smith, M. (2011) How to measure Facebook Engagement, Social Media Examiner, [Online] Available: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-measure-your-facebook-engagement/ [Accessed date: 27th March 2017].

Webster, L. (2016) The Disadvantages of Facebook for Business Needs, [Online] Available: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantages-using-facebook-business-needs-38685.html [Accessed date: 12th April 2017].

Zephoria, (2017), The Top 20 valuable Facebook Statistics, Updated March 2017, [Online] Available: https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ [Accessed date: 24th March 2017].

Hello readers!

This blog is going to explain how Pinterest can promote your brand if your business is within the crafts and DIY industry.

I have chosen the most interesting and up to date advice from different blogs, websites, youtube videos, etc to create this useful blog for anyone who is interested in using Pinterest to promote their business and create engagement.

As one of the fastest growing digital platforms, Pinterest offer visual content where people can create boards and pin the images they like. It offers a great marketing potential, however, research has shown that only 27% of its users follow any brand on the platform and marketers have struggled to figure out the best approach, Gilbreath, W. (2014).

According to King, C. (2014) after interviewing some of the top social media professionals, Pinterest users are not only looking for inspiration through Pinterest, they are ready to buy too so including price tags to products and services offered will potentially lead to sales. Images with prices obtain 36% more likes than the ones without, King, C.  It is recommended to use the platform providing value to the community, inspiring, informing and teaching interesting things related to your business, for instance selling a lifestyle including your products on the images.

Create boards that reflect your content core: Here you need to think about what your audience really wants and cares about and what you want to say combining both. Your boards need to have an interesting and inviting title and your boards need to look like window displays, Hauff, A. (2016).The key point here is to communicate issues and values that the company has using the board. For instance, if your company runs CSR initiatives, you can create a board where it shows what the company is doing. Here are some examples of what images you could use for your boards:

• currently working on
• inspirational ideas
• related items
• how to use tools (paint, ingredients, etc)
• testimonials from customers
• photos of your customers wearing or using your crafts

Watch the following video and find out more about creating boards:

Build relationships with influencers. whether you are a big or a small business, every platform has influencers that can help your business to build your online social standing, increase your SEO and drive traffic to your blog. Follow influencers who are targeting your audience, repin the content you like and make some comments on their pins to start building that relationship with them. Find out more about influencers.

A good technique to drive people to your website is posting good images with a catchy text like for instance “how to paint without spending lots of money” so that people click in the image to find out more. If people are already looking at your website and find beautiful, interesting, inspirational or useful images, make sure to add Pin It buttons and Pin It hover button that will appear in your images using Pinterest for Business widgets. Pinterest Widget Builder.

You can connect your twitter profile to your Pinterest account in order to share your pins there with others. Here there is a video on how to do this:

Find Popular Group Boards.

Ray, M. (2014 cited by King, C. (2014)) as one of the most successful digital marketers recommends companies to use Pinterest group boards to reach more people and get repins. Using PinGroupie is an easy and free way to do this. You can find group boards by searching by categories and you can filter the results by pins, collaborators, repins, likes and followers. He recommends to filter by repins explaining that images with more repins will be more engaging.

Pinterest is according to Gilbreath, B. “the analogy to flipping through a magazine”. He argues how one of the main reasons why Pinterest is so popular is because of its digital equivalence to the traditional magazine where readers try to find topics that they are interested about and when they find them, for instance a recipe, home decor idea or others they would rip the article and store it in a folder. The same happens with Pinterest but replace “ripping for pinning” and “folders with boards” and you can find a good description of Pinterest users and the boards.

There is many different tactics that can be used in Pinterest to build a following and build relationships with your customers on Pinterest. I have mentioned the ones that I found more interesting for business related to crafts, art, and high visual content.

I hope this blog helps many businesses to get better results from this great application that keeps growing every year! Remember, Pinterest might not have as many users as Facebook or Twitter, Gilbreath, B. However, Pinterest users are looking for ideas and inspiration that could lead to a purchase more likely than using Facebook or other social platforms where people normally just want to see what their friends are up to and any brand marketing will feel totally uninvited.

 

REFERENCES

Craft Business, n/a,  8 Pinterest Tips to boost Sales and Traffic, (2016) Crafty Magazine, [Online] Available: http://www.craftymag.com/item/377-craft-business-pinterest-tips [Accessed date: 17th January 2017].

Gilbreath, B. (2014) Thinking differently about Pinterest,  Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, 2014, Volume 2, Issue 2 [Online] Available:

Hauff, A. (2016) The ultimate Guide on how to use Pinterest for Marketing, [Online] Available: http://coschedule.com/blog/how-to-use-pinterest-for-marketing [Accessed date: 14th January 2017].

King, C. (2014) 7 Pinterest Marketing Tips to improve your Visibility, [Online] Available: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/pinterest-marketing-tips/ [Accessed date: 15th February 2017].

McGrimmon, L. (2016) How to use Pinterest to grow your Craft Business, [Online] Available: http://www.craftprofessional.com/how-to-use-pinterest.html [Accessed date: 17th January 2017].

 

Dear readers,

In this blog, I have analysed an email I received from lookfantastic.com, a company that specialised in both, professional hairdressing as well as Rene Guinot beauty services. I subscribed to they’re newsletter a couple of years ago when I was looking for a particular product and I bought it from this company.

I think most people will agree with me that it is nice when one of your favourite companies remembers your birthday and treats you with a discount voucher or something similar. It is also nice that companies remember what you have been buying from them and send you information in regards to new similar products  ‘if you liked this product, try these’. I have observed that the emails I have received from lookfantastic.com are not personalised, which to be honest, surprised me and made me feel a bit emotional :( as I am one of their customers and decided to subscribe to receive information about their products. To personalise their emails will help them to create trust and make customers feel valued and respected (click here to find out more about customer trust). However, that product and subsequent products that I have purchased have all been really good, which has given me confidence and trust in the company. Because of this I am happy that they keep emailing me with new products and offers.

If I decide I no longer want to receive their email marketing, I can unsubscribe easily (you can see the option to opt-out of their list on the top right of the email). Investors in email marketing need to make sure they fully read and understand the  CAN-SPAM law regarding opt-out requests from customers, it is a legal requirement! (read this if you want a successful email campaign).

Back to the emails from lookfantastic.com,  the main image, (above) which is design to grab your attention presumably about a particular product that I could then search online, wasn’t clear as to what they are offering. The text says “Wickedly wearable: The Pro Series”.  What does this mean??? No idea...I have noticed that they use a lot of bold in their information about the products in offer, which made me think they were hyperlinks but they weren’t. This is quite confusing… The layout of the email is not very clear, they make you look through the whole email to find different products. If you find yourself  interested in one of them, you can click on the hyperlinks which will take you straight to their website, www.lookfantastic.com, and you will be able to find lots of CTA (Call to Action) bottoms, which encourage customers to buy immediately, add to shopping bag and/or to continue shopping. There are too many products in one same line and the hyperlinks are not in the same line which in my opinion, makes it look unclean and unprofessional.

 

The company uses a different colour on the text to catch your attention. When I opened the email it was the first thing I saw, words such as ” save 20%, etc…” Marketers know that they only have a few seconds to engage customers to read their emails. The text is well written and concise  with generous spaces between lines which makes the reading very easy and….( because I love my product that I previously bought from them)….. I wanted to read more!. However, when you read the text, it feels a bit pushy when they mention “be quick, the clock is ticking and time is running out to secure a scarily good deal in time for Halloween”. My first thought was “What does this type of company has to do with Halloween?” They are just trying to sale and they don’t care about customers needs, they must think customers just want to spend money for Halloween??? If they decide to use Halloween as an excuse to sell, I would recommend them to at least be playful, for instance:

All and all, it could be better but it could also be worse. I just think that with a few tweaks, it could be a lot more catchy and interesting, specially for costumers that already like their products and are interested in buying again. “Like myself!”

These changes that can seem small for some people, could help them engage with customers a lot better and potentially increase traffic to the site and sales.

Thanks for reading and see you soon!!!

Lara de la Rosa

REFERENCES

Brownlaw, M., (2010), Eight Ways to Improve your Email Marketing Analysis, [Online] Available: http://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-marketing-analytics/email-marketing-analysis/, [Accessed date: 29th October 2016].

Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.

Hinz, J. (2015) The Power of Customer Trust in Brand Marketing, [Online] Available:http://marketingland.com/power-customer-trust-brand-marketing-147355 [Accessed date:3rd November 2016].

Mohammadi, M., Malekian, K., Nosrati, M., & Karimi, R. (2013). Email Marketing as a Popular Type of Small Business Advertisement: A Short Review. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 7(4), 786-790

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello and welcome to my first post for Digital Marketing in which I am going to talk about a case study about Argos.

Argos is the UK’s leading digital retailer with 738  million website visits annually . They wanted to take the innovation into the real world and transform the traditional store experience so they opened 53 new digital stores in UK.

CHALLENGE

40 years of trading experience, they knew their customers expectations were high and their though was “would the change of look affect customers?”. Social media helped them to find out about this with the modern “word of mouth”.

They wanted to embrace and act on this valuable feedback but with over  million customers a year Managing, Dissecting and Digesting the volume of response was going to be a challenge!

SOLUTION

Brandwatch analytics enabled Argos to understand individuals behing their comments in social media, (sexual orientation, gender, age, preferences, interests,….) turning data into insights, revealing meaning from numbers and simplifying the most relevant data.

VALIDATING INNOVATION WITH SOCIAL INSIGHTS

Categories and Rules:

Argos created categories and subcategories to chart and filter data. Now everytime certain store was mentioned online they could:

• Identify which store performs best
• Praise for staff can be fed back direct to store manager
• Issues can be actioned instantly
• Reveals varying taste and anuances of people around the country (more tailored experience)

Demographics and Location:

It is useful to understand who and where customers talk. there are different trends depending which region you live in.

Feedback and Response:

Some people missed the previous store environment and this insight validated decision to keep small number of copies of catalogues behind the counters.

Looking Ahead:

Social Analytics has helped them to make sure new digital stores deliver the exact experience customers want.

Here is a video about Brandwatch Analytics that might be useful, enjoy!

 

 

 

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