Tweeting To Your Full Business Potential – Promoted Accounts & Promoted Tweets

May 1, 2015 by Amy Duce ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Twitter Basics

If you don’t yet have a Twitter account, you almost certainly still would have heard about Twitter. Twitter enables anyone with an account anywhere in the world to express something in 140 characters from a range of topics including sports events, music, new films, TV series, daily events etc etc. I personally my favourite thing about Twitter would have to be following the comedy accounts, which regularly post ‘memes’ Using a hashtag enables people to connect and interact over similar topics of interest. There are numerous benefits of Twitter for personal use. In addition to being a social media tool, Twitter is also a valid marketing technique. Tweeting allows your business to interact with consumers and advertise new products/services/news. Read some of the benefits of having a Twitter Business Account.

If a consumer has a good experience with you, 64% are likely to tweet about it to all their followers and 70% are likely to spread your news to their followers by re-tweeting. Considering there are over 240 million active monthly users on Twitter, this is an exciting opportunity to spread the word of your business. Here is a guide to starting your Tweeting Strategy

(Twitter. 2014)

Millions of businesses use Twitter every day. But are you using Twitter to it’s full potential ?

Promoted Accounts & Promoted Tweets

Advertising on Twitter takes the form of promoted accounts and promoted tweets. Twitter (2015) describes its promoted accounts as ‘ad units that are included in Followers campaigns. They enable you to quickly gain relevant followers – 70% of whom provide free advertising through Retweets and 43% will make multiple purchases in the future.’

What is the difference between a promoted account and a promoted tweet?

Promoted accounts are used to increase followers, your account will be advertised to your desired target audience. Potential followers can be identified based on factors such as whether they follow your main competitors. More Details.

Promoted tweets are used to promote a particular announcement or message you want to spread to a wider audience, this allows for your tweet to be shown to people who do not currently follow you. This audience can be targeted via language targeting and general demographics. More details

(Luarion. 2014)

The Twitter analytics feature allows for you to identify which Tweets do well and display ;

how many times you’ve Tweeted
how many people have seen your Tweets, visited your profile, mentioned your @username or followed your account
how many times people have shared links to your site
your top Tweets and followers with the largest network in any given month (Benson. 2015)

So you can measure how you are doing and see what works best for your business.

Click to see clearer image

This type of ‘conversion tracking’ allows for you to accurately measure your actions – to justify a budget and be smart when spending money on your digital marketing strategy. (Ganguly. 2015) Twitter can now also help you work out the ROI on your ads. Read more.

Twitter has a YouTube account with lots of videos about the different ways in which Twitter can be used specifically for business. To get your started – Promote your accounts step by step – Promote your tweets step by step

Benefits


Increased Followers	The more followers you have, the bigger your brand’s ‘social capital’. Basically the more successful you will be on social media. This has been proven to positively correlate with financial performance. (Baines et al. 2011)
Increased Engagement	More people will be seeing your brand’s tweets, giving them the opportunity to engage with your brand which they may not have seen before. Consumer’s may be enticed by your tweet and give you a try.
Brand Awareness	More Followers, more people seeing your tweets – it is all increasing your brand awareness and establishing your place in the market.
User-Generated Content	Once you have done some hard work, people will start re-tweeting and tweeting your business which allows for – ‘Unpaid advertising and marketing efforts, undertaken by brand loyalists’ (Baines et al. 2011)

This form of advertising is predicted to be the way forward from more traditional forms such as standard banner advertisements, the correct audience can be reached via – Interest targeting, Behavioural/Cognition targeting, Custom targeting and Lookalike targeting. – meaning your marketing will be much more effective and economical as opposed to mass advertising. (Ganguly. 2015) Read Sonny Ganguly’s full article about the explosion of social media advertising here.

Burton (2011) studied use of Twitter across different firms and found that what some companies do not get right about their Twitter marketing, is the lack of consistency. Frequent posts allow for ‘enlightened engagement’ ( Harris 2011) which would mean using your channel to its full potential, Ensure you are doing this with your Twitter campaign before starting anything else!

Examples of Promoted Accounts and Tweets

Read Twitter success story ‘Ting’

Promoted Tweet – Airbnb (@Airbnb)

With an exclusive offer, Airbnb saw an initial 4% engagement rate in people interested in their online marketplace for rentals. This continued as people kept noticing the tweet in their timelines and the engagement is still increasing every day!

Promoted Account – Hubspot @HubSpot

In addition to using Promoted Tweets, HubSpot experienced growth in sales, conversion rates and ROI, and resulted in overall lower cost-per-lead.

150% increase in sales through Twitter
46% lower cost-per-lead
32% ROI

(Bullas. 2015) Read about these cases in further detail

So whats the catch…?

Creating an account with Twitter is free, however the feature to promote your account or tweet is not.

Promoted accounts work on a cost-per-follow basis (CPF)

Promoted tweets work on an auction model, where you bid to access a wider audience and have your tweet displayed.

… And of course you may pay this money to reach all these people – but theres no promise of them engaging, so it could actually be ineffective. But fingers crossed in theory it will!

HOWEVER.. It doesn’t always work out.

I regularly see promoted tweets appearing on my own timeline, I feel that the promoted tweets are more effective than the accounts. From my own perspective this is because a tweet promotes a message, almost like an actual offer of something. For Example, ASOS communicating their latest sale. But I never tend to take much notice of promoted accounts, in fact I find them a bit irritating.

I think the story below of MasterCard is a valuable lesson, and a bit funny!

MasterCard quickly jumped onto advertising on Twitter, part of their campaign was appearing in people’s followers…. even though they were not actually following them…

It seems people do not appreciate being made to look like they follow someone they don’t.

It is pretty misleading, although the account does say that it is being promoted. When looking through famous people’s followers at this time it appeared that nearly everyone looked like they followed MasterCard… from Barack Obama to their main competitor ‘Visa’ !!!

And this did not have the desired effect

References

Baines, P. Fill,C and Page, K. (2011). Digital Marketing. In:Marketing. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p 625 – 629.

Benson, B. (2015). New analytics homepage and quick promote now available. Available: https://blog.twitter.com/2015/new-analytics-homepage-and-quick-promote-now-available. Last accessed 19th April 2015.

Burton, S. and Soboleva, A. (2011) “Interactive or reactive? Marketing with Twitter”. Journal of Consumer Marketing. Vol. 28 (7). pp 491 – 499 ]

Ganguly, S. (2015). Why Social Media Advertising Is Set To Explode In The Next 3 Years. Available: http://marketingland.com/social-media-advertising-set-explode-next-3-years-121691. Last accessed 19th April 2015.

Harris, L & Dennis, C. (2011). Engaging Customers On Facebook.Journal of Consumer Behaviour . 10 (6), p 338-346.

Laurion, D. (2014). When to Consider Twitter Ads and the Difference Between Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets. Available: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140625171530-79555391-when-to-consider-twitter-ads-and-the-difference-between-promoted-accounts-and-promoted-tweets. Last accessed 19th April 2015.

Sullivan, D. (2014). Twitter Ads Make It Seem Like People Follow Brands, Even If They Don’t. Available: http://marketingland.com/twitter-ads-following-list-112686. Last accessed 19th April 2015.

Twitter. (2015). Promoted Accounts. Available: https://business.twitter.com/solutions/promoted-accounts. Last accessed 19th April 2015.

How To : Start Vlogging For Your Business

May 1, 2015 by Amy Duce ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

So, in one of my previous blogs I established that Vlogging was more powerful than blogging. But then I was thinking.. how do you create a successful vlog?

Vlogging is a fantastic tool for not only marketing your products but also some E-PR (electronic public relations), it allows you to maximise favourable mentions about your brand, company website etc… and potentially drive some traffic towards your website! It will also give you the opportunity to minimise your negative E-PR by monitoring and influencing conversations.

… If you get it right of course!

(Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick. 2012)

Firstly, Choosing the right platform

Before you get started.. you need to know WHERE to get started. The two most popular platforms to start creating your Vlog are : YouTube and Vimeo. But which one is best for you?

YouTube

Thinking about it…. What is YouTube?

So.. YouTube in general is a lot of things! But for your brand it could be the way to powerfully engage with your consumers. Over 72 hours of YouTube content is uploaded every minute, making it one of the most powerful and used websites on the internet. (Young. 2013)

You Tube Pros vs Cons
Most popular video sharing platform	Traffic cannibalisation – YouTube might advertise related videos, related to.. your competitors. Great. Thanks!
It’s free!	The quality of the content – so much is uploaded onto YouTube every hour, your video could be displayed next to anything – literally ANYTHING! Might not be the most professional outlook?
There are paid advertising solutions available	Competitive advertising – people are out to steal your consumers, bringing them to your YouTube channel could almost be handing them over on a plate

(King. 2014)

Vimeo

Click on the image to watch a video about Vimeo and read how Vimeo works in detail.

Vimeo Pros Vs Cons
No annoying video advertisements!	Google Rumours – Speculations state that as Google owns YouTube it will remove start to remove videos from their results pages that aren’t hosted by YouTube
It’s not free but -Low cost business account	Limited Amount of uploads – no matter what type of account, you can’t just upload however many you want!
Quality of content & community	Less traffic than YouTube – traffic is on the increase but not at a competitive level with YouTube yet, meaning you won’t reach as many people as you possibly could.

(King. 2014)

Although your company videos may not ‘go viral’ if you read at my blog about creating successful videos, you should be able to identify what components are needed to create a successful video in general before we move onto VLOGGING.

Vlogging, Blogging and Social Media in general, have an element of an online community. It is important to remember some of the fundamental differences for this type of marketing and E-PR, from what you may be used to in more traditional forms. Before we begin looking at what sort of things to blog about, take note of these considerations :

The audience is directly connected to your business. This is only really going to be seen by the people who want to see it, it is a directional form of communication.
The audience are connected to each other. Social networking allows for communication between users, or for example, individuals to post their own blogs about your brand and its products.. this could either be a good thing or a bad thing!
The audience has access to other information. Whatever you are talking about and claiming, make sure you have done your research first so you don’t get publicly challenged for all to see!
Audiences pull information. There are so many other Vlogs out there and options, it is not hard just to switch and look elsewhere. Their choices are endless!

(Ranchhod. 2002 in Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick. 2012) Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 11.35.32

In my opinion, for a small business, you are going to be able to reach a lot more people via a YouTube channel. (Because it has a much larger user base) So for the rest of this blog I will focus on Vlogging via YouTube.

Although, the general principles are also applicable to other platforms.

Secondly, What to Vlog About

What can your business Vlog about?

1) Inform – Educate your audience, show why they need your product or service. Introduce scenarios where they need YOU.

2) Showcase – What better way to market your products and services than seeing them in action. More interesting than a photo and some writing, show your audience what they can do.

3) Interview – Try and interview influencers/experts in your industry and market. Look at hot topics, see whats trending and tell people what they want to know about.

4) Introduce – Introduce aspects of your business that differentiate you. Show them around a warehouse or ‘where the magic happens’. Introduce some of your employees so they can see the people behind you, put names to faces so your customers know who they’re dealing with.

(Flynn. 2015)

A lot of the large, well-established brands have YouTube Channels, these are just some examples of how they use their channel and what it is used for. (Click on the links to visit their channels directly)

TOPSHOP

Channel used for –

* Broadcasting fashion shows

* Showcasing new lines (like a virtual catalogue)

* Makeup masterclasses

* Behind the scenes

* Models / celebrities short broadcast messages

RIP CURL

Channel used for –

* Highlights of surf competitions

* Showcasing products in action on the beach/surfing

* Mob-flash type advertising on the beach

* Behind the scenes of the T.V ads

* Top surfers footage & insights

Twitter

Twitter for business (one of many Twitter Channels)

Channel used for –

* ‘How To’ tutorials for business features

* Success stories of Twitter in a marketing strategy

* Research Insights, Facts & Figures

HSBC

Lisa Wood (head of marketing at HSBC) said this about incorporating YouTube into their digital marketing strategy –

(Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick. 2012)

They are the big players though, most likely with huge marketing budgets to create sophisticated videos…. in addition to the fact they already have tons of fans.

Is your business not on this scale ? Do you not have thousands/millions to spend on marketing?

GOOD NEWS, regardless of the size of your business – YouTube can still work for you!

Small Business – YouTube Success Story

Have you ever heard of ‘Orabrush’? Regardless of whether you have or haven’t – A lot of people have.. via YouTube. Dr Robert Wagstaff invented the ‘Orabrush’ as a dental hygiene tool to help people conquer bad breath. However, when trying to market his product through traditional tools.. he failed. Collaborating with a marketing student then led to trying something new – the creation of a YouTube channel. The results were AMAZING. The channel has generated millions of views on YouTube, and 19% of those viewers have visited Orabrush’s website. Click here to take a look at their flourishing channel

The Orabrush channel has many types of videos including :

‘How to’ .. test if you have bad breath.
Information about what causes bad breath
A comical series of bad breath scenarios
Customer reviews

Orabrush claim their success is primarily from their YouTube channel, which involves –

o Distributors from over 40 countries have inquired about stocking Orabrush
o Over 35 million YouTube channel views
o Over 116,000 YouTube subscribers
o Over 271,000 Facebook fans (driven mostly from YouTube)

(Sutton. 2011)

Click here to take a look at the story in more detail and read Adam Sutton’s analysis of their YouTube strategy tactics.

Convinced yet?

Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 22.21.35

User Generated Content Takes A Starring Role

Recently the fashion industry has taken an interest in Vlogs created by fashion bloggers, brand loyalists etc Kulmala (2013) This could be because –

MarketingLand (2014)

Also Thakur (2013) claims user generated content is proved to influence consumer attitudes.

I follow a fashion blogger on Instagram, called Sarah Ashcroft. I regularly visit her YouTube channel when she posts things I like, and actually have bought a few of them!

So as a business it may be worth identifying the benefits of UCG and perhaps trying to get in contact with these bloggers/vloggers or send them your products in a hope your business is their next subject!

Ready to get started?

You may want to have a look at this article which a YouTube Marketing Guide for some further clarification about how to get started

Use this check list to ensure you are developing and progressing yourself into a successful business Vlogger.

What Content?

– are you being helpful?

– are you being unique?

– are you telling interesting stories?

– are you quoting experts?

– are you keeping updated with trends?
Who is the Target?

– reaching those who are interested in similar content?

– are you reaching out to influencers/promoters

– are you getting personal exposure?
Relationship advice?

– are you building relationships

– are you building a loyal audience

– are you sharing other people’s content?

– are you ENGAGING on social media?
Your Search-ability ?

– can you be found through the most relevant keywords?
Looking good?

– is your content original?

– are your videos attractive enough to attract traffic?
Getting Personal?

– are you converting traffic into leads?

– are you connecting with people ?
Adoring Audience?

– do you understand your audience?

– are you meeting your audience’s needs?
SHARE SHARE SHARE

– are you maximising your channel as much as possible over all possible social media?

(Morrison. 2015)

I hope you have found this blog interesting and I wish you all the best with your business vlog!

References

Chaffey, D. & Ellis-Chadwick, F. 2012, Digital marketing: strategy, implementation and practice, Pearson Education, Harlow.
Flynn, S. (2015). What can your business Vlog about?. Available: http://www.smexperts.co.uk/video/business-vlog-about/. Last accessed 26th April 2015.
King, K. (2014). Vimeo vs YouTube : which is best for business?.Available: http://sproutsocial.com/insights/youtube-vs-vimeo-business/. Last accessed 26th April 2015.
Kulmala, M., Mesiranta, N. & Tuominen, P. 2013, “Organic and amplified eWOM in consumer fashion blogs”, Journal of fashion marketing and management, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 20-37.
MarketingLand. (2014). Infographic: Using User Generated Content To Boost Sales. Available: http://marketingland.com/infographic-ugc-sales-85103. Last accessed 20th April 2015.
Morrison, K. (2015). How To Promote your blog effectively. Available: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/how-to-promote-your-blog-effectively-infographic/618939. Last accessed 26th April 2015.
Sutton, A. (2011). HOW TO Inbound Marketing: Small business builds YouTube channel from the ground up, expands to 40 countries.Available: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/how-to/small-business-builds-youtube-channel. Last accessed 26th April 2015.
Thakur, R., Summey, J.H. & Joby, J. (2013), “A perceptual approach to understanding user-generated media behavior”, The journal of consumer marketing, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 4-16.
Young, S. (2013). The 2013 YouTube Marketing Guide. Available: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/2013-youtube-marketing-guide/. Last accessed 26th April 2015.

A Valuable Lesson In Creating Videos For Your Business’s Facebook Account

April 11, 2015May 1, 2015 by Amy Duce ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Nowadays most companies will either have a Facebook page, or be thinking about making one. However, whether you are a small start-up company or a well-established brand, you want to be posting stuff that not only advertises your products and services.. but is actually interesting to the people who have liked your page. Getting people to like your page is only the first step – now you have to try and keep them!

What is one of the most effective ways to engage your audience to promote your message? A video! (Evans. 2012)

And who knows, if it is interesting enough maybe… it could even go viral?!

The market for sharing videos is showing no signs of slowing down either – it is the fastest growing form of advertising, and is expected to grow by a quarter for the next five years in the U.K. alone. (Williams. 2014)

Almost 60% of video shares World wide occur on Facebook, so if you are going to create a video, this would be the best platform to post it on. (Gesenhues. 2014)

A lot of businesses have been incorporating videos into their online marketing strategies with the aim of ‘going viral’, and some have experienced unimaginable success rates. (Trimble. 2014)

Some Examples Of Successful Marketing Campaigns

Evian

Dove

Lay’s

So these are just a handful of examples… click here to see more I can see the idea behind the Dove video and the message it is promoting, but did not find it that interesting and thought it lasted a bit long to be honest. However the Evian one.. I think is hilarious, and definitely one of my favourite viral campaigns.

But what do these videos have in common?

The Evian video is humorous, the Dove video is not funny but more thought-provoking and the Lay’s video is trying to evoke some involvement with a crowdsourcing approach.

So there is no common theme here….

I was interested to see what makes people share videos on social media sites, if I can understand why people view and share videos, then I should be able to underpin what is required to make a successful video. After some primary and secondary research these are…

‘MY FIVE BE’S’

Be Positive ! Positive content is more likely to be shared than negative (Berger and Milkman. 2012)
Be Relevant ! If people are more likely to view and share things they can relate to and see relevant to themselves. (Luo et al. 2013)
Be Emotional ! When content triggers an emotion in someone, they are more likely to engage with it. (Berger and Milkman. 2012)
Be Aware ! People feel if they are raising awareness for a cause by sharing or liking something, they feel as though they are physically helping. (Grummas. 2014)
Be Quick ! The first few days of shares tend to be when the video is most popular, be sure to promote your video as much as possible from early on the beginning (eMarketer. 2013)

So all ready to go and create a viral hit? … Not so fast

However no one ever said it was going to be easy to create a viral hit over night. Over an hour of video content is uploaded to YouTube every second (Seattle. 2013) and not every video ‘goes viral’… in fact only a tiny fraction of them do. (Evans. 2012)

I conducted a short survey of 100 people aged between 18 – 35, the results showed that videos advertising products or advertising services were actually the videos they were least likely to share.. bad news for our aims as a business.

The Winners

1 ) Funny Videos

2) Videos with friends or family in

3) News Stories or Political issues

Before creating a video there are also many practical considerations such as;

Timing

It is going to take you a considerable amount of time to create and edit a video before posting. With no guarantee the video will be a success, what is your opportunity cost? Is it a risk you can afford to take?

It is important to consider what your video involves when posting… check the news and see what is going on in the wider environment. Madonna posting this video, seen as glamorising guns, in the wake of the Sandy Hook School Massacre in 2013 did not go down too well and was condemned as being insensitive.

Cost

Creating a video can vary from either end of the scale depending on how you create it. You might want to pay actors, editors, editing software or Facebook to promote your post so more people see it. Again there is no promise your video will get seen by thousands or shared… A risk worth taking ? Or a waste of budget which could be spent on other elements of marketing for your business?

I like this Hi-Tec video… although the editing is quite sophisticated, the actual video itself features a lot of their products, but cost little to actually film and make.

Content Ownership

Copyright is always an issue with any type of marketing. Who owns the content you are sharing or creating? Copyright Laws differ between countries and must be abided by. (Baines et al. 2011)

Singer Rihanna sued Topshop for using her photo without permission, this video discusses some of the implications for businesses of this type of behaviour with regards to this landmark case.

If you think these are obstacles you can overcome, and you have a good idea for a video for your business, stick to the ‘5 Be’s” and hope for the best!!

References

Baines, P. Fill,C and Page, K. . (2011). Digital Marketing. In:Marketing. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p 625 – 629.

Berger,J & Milkman,K. (2012) What Makes Online Content Viral?. Journal of Marketing Research: April 2012, Vol. 49, No. 2, p192-205.

EMarketer. (2013). Video Ad’s success Hinges on Social Sharing in the Early Days . Available: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Video-Ads-Success-Hinges-on-Social-Sharing-Early-Days/1009852. Last accessed 11th April 2015.

Evans, D. (2012). Week 3, Social Content – Text, Photos, Audio, and Video. In: Murphy, A. and Gaughan, P. Social Media Marketing. 2nd ed. Canada : John Wiley & Sons Inc. . p225-227. p70.

Gesenhues, A. (2014). Nearly 60% Of Video Shares Worldwide Occur On Facebook. Available: http://marketingland.com/report-60-video-shares-worldwide-happen-on-facebook-107931. Last accessed 11th April 2015.

Grummas, E. (2014). Likes don’t save lives – lessons from a social media campaign. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/likes-dont-save-lives-unicef-social-media. Last accessed 11th April 2015.

Luo, L et al . (2013). Marketing via social Media : a case study. Library Hi Tech. 31 (3), p455-466.

Seattle, M. (2013). Internet Epidemiology . Available: http://www.economist.com/node/21573237. Last accessed 11th April 2015.

Trimble, C. (2014). Why online video is the future of content marketing. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/jan/14/video-content-marketing-media-online. Last accessed 11th April 2015.

Williams, C. (2014). Online video ads to lead UK media market growth. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/10873372/Online-video-ads-to-lead-UK-media-market-growth.html. Last accessed 11th April 2015.

Instagram Business…. Is It Any Of Your Business?

April 10, 2015May 1, 2015 by Amy Duce ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Bought by Facebook for one billion dollars in 2012, (BBC. 2012) the photo editing and sharing app Instagram is fast growing and now bigger than Twitter… and is expecting it’s user base to top 100 million by 2018. (eMarketer. 2015)

Although Instagram may initially have been seen as a social networking tool for sharing ‘selfies’ , it is quickly becoming much more than that…. a valuable platform for a vast variety of businesses.

Instagram claim that having a business account with them will provide ..

Screen Shot 2015-04-08 at 20.49.21

So these seem like pretty big claims for an app…..

but the results seem to back this up!

(Click on the name’s to read the full report)

Ben&Jerry’s

The ice cream ads reached 9.8 million people in the U.S and saw a 17% more people aware of new flavours as they were released.

Levis

With frequent fashion posts, Levis ads were seen by 7.4 million U.S users and observed a 24pt lift in their ad recall.

Mercedes Benz

Using a combination of Instagram and Facebook ads, Mercedes Benz noticed a 54% increase in website visits and 14pt lift in ad recall.

Unsure about what to do or how to get started?

Instagram offer a business blog… which gives tips on setting up, shows how other businesses are most effectively using their platform and provides plenty of information or news with regards to a business Instagram account.

Personally, on my own Instagram account, I tend to follow fashion retailers. Often there is a promotional deal which will post a unique code if you are following them for 10% off and likewise!

Once a business begins sharing content and creating hashtags, it will soon be followed by User Generated Content (UCG).. perfect for marketing on a budget! Once you have posted your own photos etc, you have a host of users who will want to also share their own photos of your products etc …. Potentially this can work in your favour… but there is always a risk that this content will not always be positive! If customers do complain or have issues with their products, this is a prime opportunity to demonstrate excellent customer service and publicly deal with the problem. Ultimately building credibility and a brand that potential consumers can trust. Therefore, agreeably a risk worth taking! (eMarketer. 2012)

But no app is perfect . . .

Firstly, Instagram is yet to offer a publishing-application-program. This means posts cannot be scheduled in advance and post themselves at certain times… someone has to manually do it…from a phone. (Unlike Facebook & Twitter who offer this facility) Logistically, this is not ideal! (Delo. 2014)

Secondly, the digital marketing considerations which apply include;

Ownership – Who owns the content that is being created and shared? All content must comply with copyright laws.
Permissions – Content needs to abide by The European Union Data Protective Directive, the right permissions are required to share content.
Security – Accounts need to be secure, an account hack could be devastating to the brand reputation. Fraud and identity theft do not apply so much to Instagram as no personal details are used.
Accessibility – Can everyone who wants access, have access? The account and it’s content must comply with Disability and Discrimination laws.

(Baines. 2011)

Thirdly, how relative is Instagram to your target audience? The app is available to all smartphone platforms (Dredge. 2013) but is this platform being used by your particular audience? Instagram is mostly used by the 18-29 age demographic…(eMarketer. 2015) so if your intended audience is a bit older it may be worth looking at this article to see if there would be a more suitable social media platform instead. In addition, Instagram only allows for sharing photos and short video clips, no text documents. This may be worth considering depending on the type of business operated in.

Once you’ve managed to start racking up some followers.. you need to make sure you keep them! All content needs to be of a similar theme to keep the users interested and ensure they stay following the account, if this is done correctly the customer engagement with the brand should increase. (Evans. 2012)

On the note of racking up followers…

Instagram is fantastic in that you can post something and people from all over the World, of all ages, of all backgrounds, of all genders, (ETC you get the point) can view it! HOWEVER..it is inevitable that not everyone is going to like every post on your Instagram account, that can’t be helped. BUT it is important to make sure that content does not upset anyone. Unlike standard advertising campaigns rolled out world-wide, where the marketing strategy will involve adapting the campaign to particular cultures, for example McDonalds …this is not possible from one singular Instagram account. So it is important to consider the wider community when posting pictures or videos.

It is also important to read the small print about the ownership and privacy rights you have to the content you upload. Click here to see what Instagram say about this.

References

Baines, P. Fill,C and Page, K. . (2011). Digital Marketing. In:Marketing. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p 625 – 629.

BBC. (2012). Facebook Buys Instagram Photo Sharing Network for $1bn. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17658264. Last accessed 8th April 2015.

Delo, C. (2014). Why Its hard to be a brand on Instagram. Advertising Age. 85 (8), p 10.

Dredge, S. (2013). Instagram arrives on Windows Phone (and yes, you CAN take photos). Available: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/20/instagram-windows-phone-photos-videos. Last accessed 10th April 2015.

EMarketer. (2012). For Brands, Social Media Shows Returns but Measurement Hurdles Remain. Available: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Brands-Social-Media-Shows-Returns-Measurement-Hurdles-Remain/1009011. Last accessed 27th January 2015.

EMarketer. (2015). Instagram Will Top 100 Million US Users by 2018.Available: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Instagram-Will-Top-100-Million-US-Users-by-2018/1012148. Last accessed 8th April 2015

EMarketer. (2015). Young Users Zoom In On Instagram. Available: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Young-Users-Zoom-on-Instagram/1011795. Last accessed 10th April 2015.

Evans, D. (2012). The Social Feedback Cycle. In: Social Media Marketing. Indiana : John Wiley & Sons Inc. . P75-85.

For a retail business… To Blog or To Vlog?… Or not bother at all?

April 8, 2015April 28, 2015 by Amy Duce ♥ 2 Comments

A blog can be described as an online page consisting of journal entries which is regularly updated with popular topics or stories, and then shared with readers. There is a variety of online platforms such as Tumblr, WordPress and YouTube channels which can be used to create blogs for free and share with subscribers. Blogs also allow for users to leave comments at the end, with the opportunity to comment on what they liked/disliked or leave further questions for the blogger. (BBC. 2003)

If executed correctly a blog can initiate conversations or generate a buzz around a topic. (Baxter and Connolly. 2013) It is thought that a blog can give your organisation a personality as well as another method of communication and interaction with your target audience. In addition to this, a blog is more likely to be shared than a ‘dull press release’ (Maxwell. 2013)

Some examples of retail business blogs and what they do :

Asos Blog

Postings from the different boutiques and suppliers showcasing their latest range available on ASOS.

Nike Blog

Insights into new upcoming products soon to be released, with images & descriptions.

Tesco Blog

Recipes and culinary ideas using Tesco products & ingredients.

So blogs work well – But what engages an audience to promote an idea or message in a more effective way visually than any words can…. A video! (Evans. 2012)

One step up from a ~~standard blog~~ is a VLOG…

This is where a video is used for each entry of the blog as oppose to text and pictures. The global video blogging world is fast growing, with some Vloggers experiencing huge success such as :

ZOELLA

Vlogs about : Beauty Products, Fashion,

YouTube Figures :

7,816,260 subscribers
409,752,109 views

TANYA BURR

Vlogs About : Beauty, Fashion & Lifestyle

YouTube Figures :

2,903,356 subscribers
203,357,609 views

MARCUS BUTLER

Vlogs About : Anything and everything including sports, pranks and activities with friends.

YouTube Figures :

3,604,132 subscribers
211,349,170 views

These are just a selection of three of the top vloggers online at the moment (De Grunwald. 2014)

So what can an individual business vlog about?

* Company updates – latest products and changes in the business

* Industry and world news – hot topics which will make interesting reads

* Instruction or experience – tell people how to use products or talk about experiences with products

(Siegchrist. 2015)

The benefits that any business can reap from using this form of social media are :

* Staying informed – finding out what your customers really think about your product or service

* Raising your profile – the more wide spread you are, the more people will know about you

* Building your brand nature awareness – the way in which you interact with consumers and deal with issues will build an image of your company in a person’s mind

* Influence consumers – tell them the benefits and why they should buy your products

* Viral effect – if people share your blog/vlog this will have a Word Of Mouth effect for your product

(Damian and Calvin. 2012)

It has been claimed that Vlogging is changing the face of advertising and marketing, and setting the shape for the future. (Chawla. 2014) Sharing videos on social media sites is expected to grow in the U.K by nearly a quarter every year for the next five years…. making this predicted to be the FASTEST growing form of advertising. (Williams. 2014)

So surely it would make business sense to start vlogging…?

Maybe Not…….

This survey aimed to illustrate how consumers become aware of new products

Please click the link below to see the full article and result –

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11393587/Why-vloggers-are-a-waste-of-time-and-money-for-brands.html

The findings of this survey would suggest that for a brand, vlogs are perhaps not as effective as other channels and therefore should not be a key focus or take priority in a digital marketing strategy… perhaps even a waste of time.

There are also many considerations with regards to creating a Blog or Vlog in that ;

* They are time consuming to create

* They need to be relevant and interesting to the target audience

* The comments allow for negative feedback

* Who is the writer – the business ? consumers with experience? industry experts?

References

Baxter, G and Connolly T. (2013). The ‘state of the art’ of organisational blogging. The Learning Organization. 20 (2), p 104 – 117.

BBC. (2013). About social networks and blogs. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/0/22717886. Last accessed 8th April 2015.

Burr, T. (2015). About Tanya. Available: http://www.tanyaburr.co.uk/?p=about.tanya. Last accessed 4th April.

Butler, M. (2015). About me. Available: http://www.marcusbutler.co.uk/how-it-all-began-marcusbutlertv. Last accessed 4th April 2015..

Chawla, D. (2014). The Young Vloggers and their Fans who are changing the face of youth culture . Available: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/28/vloggers-changing-future-advertising. Last accessed 4th April 2015

Damian, R and Calvin, J. (2012). Social media and online consumer engagement. In: Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Engaging the Digital Generation. Online: Kogan Page Ltd. p 156.

De Grunwald, T. (2014). Meet the youtube big hitters : The bright young vloggers who have more fans than 1D . Available: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2656209/The-teen-phenomenon-thats-taking-Youtube.html. Last accessed 4th April 2015.

Evans, D. (2012). Week 3, Social Content – Text, Photos, Audio, and Video. In: Murphy, A. and Gaughan, P. Social Media Marketing. 2nd ed. Canada : John Wiley & Sons Inc. . p225-227. p70.

Maxwell, C. (2013). Blogging for Business. Director. 66 (7), p 67 – 73.

Siegchrist, G. (2015). Video Blogging for businesses . Available: http://desktopvideo.about.com/od/videoblogging/p/businessvlog.htm. Last accessed 4th April 2015.

YouTube. (2015). About : Zoella . Available: https://www.youtube.com/user/zoella280390/about. Last accessed 4th April 2015.

YouTube. (2015). About : Tanya Burr. Available: https://www.youtube.com/user/pixi2woo/about. Last accessed 4th April 2015.

YouTube. (2015). About : Marcus Butler. Available: https://www.youtube.com/user/MarcusButlerTV/about. Last accessed 4th April 2015.

A Very Brief Overview of Using Facebook In A Digital Marketing Strategy!

March 9, 2015 by Amy Duce ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Social networking tools provide a constant opportunity for people to connect and communicate with each other, from a profession perspective this provides an increase in the chance for a business to engage with their target audience, that more traditional forms of marketing could not offer. (Brown, S. 2012)

Facebook claim that using their social media platform can provide countless benefits for any size business including;

Transforming communication from one-way to two-way
Promote themselves to try and change their consumer’s behaviour
Allows content sharing with potential viral marketing effects

(Facebook. 2015)

One of the best things about creating a Facebook page, in comparison to more traditional forms of marketing, is that it is completely free! (Hansson et al. 2013) It is also interesting to note that the top brands who effectively used social media to engage with their target audience, found a positive correlation with financial performance (Li. 2009)

Harris and Dennis (2011) identified that the main stages different organisations will go through when using Facebook are ..

‘Let’s Be Social’ Focus on advertising and creating an online presence for the brand
‘Enlightened Engagement’ Recognising consumers expect regular online interaction
‘Store Of The Community’ Consumers can voice opinion to drive product selection
‘Frictionless Commerce’ buying process is changed to fully ‘customer centric’

Harris and Dennis (2011) did note that most organisations were stuck in the first phase of this process, however this article is four years old and in such a fast paced digital marketing environment this may not be strictly true any longer.

However there are also some downsides to using Facebook. One key consideration is negative effect of some comments that may be left once a consumer has liked the company page; Consumers may write complaints about their own bad experience with the company for all other members of the page to see, which can damage reputation. It has been suggested that rather than deleting these negative comments, the best solution is to effectively deal with the issue online so that other consumers see the organisation takes complaints seriously. (Hansson et al. 2013)

To try and utilise Facebook to it’s full potential and avoid some of the negative effects, there are some basic guidelines that should be adhered to which should increase the effectiveness of using social media in general;

Be selective with which platform is being used to reach the target audience
Be sociable and engage with consumers as oppose to just making announcements
Quickly adapt to changes and trends on social media as it is a rapid paced environment (Coleman, A. 2012)

Some Examples of Companies Using Facebook In Successful Different Ways (Inc. 2015)

Clarisonic

‘Clarisonic’ offering virtual tours demonstrating how to use their product, alongside competitions whereby consumers send in a video of themselves using their product with the possibility of winning a new one.

Burt’s Bees

Consumer’s can buy the products directly through the Facebook page and watch the company’s own video series.

Candles off Main

Consumers can take advantage of the weekly give-aways and coupons offered by being a member of the Facebook page. This is in addition to offering information in the form of videos and pictures about the products.

References

Brown, S. (2012). Social Networks. In: Social Information – Gaining Competitive and Business Advantage Using Social Media Tools . USA: Chandos Publishing. p19 -107.

Coleman, A. (2012). How social media can benefit small businesses.Available: http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2012/aug/14/small-business-benefit-social-media. Last accessed 18th Feb 2015.

Facebook. (2011). Why Facebook Marketing is important in promoting businesses nowadays?. Available: https://www.facebook.com/notes/webuzz/why-facebook-marketing-is-important-in-promoting-businesses-nowadays/228337750515634. Last accessed 18th Feb 2015.

Hansson, L. Wrangmo, A & Solberg, K. (2013). Optimal ways for companies to use Facebook as a marketing channel. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. 11 (2), p 112- 126.

Harris, L & Dennis, C. (2011). Engaging Customers On Facebook.Journal of Consumer Behaviour . 10 (6), p 338-346.

Inc.. (2015). 20 Best Company Facebook Pages. Available: http://www.inc.com/ss/20-best-company-facebook-pages?slide=4. Last accessed 8th March 2015.

Li, C (2009) – Baines, P. Fill,C and Page, K. . (2011). Digital Marketing. In:Marketing. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p 625- 662.

Analysis of a personalised marketing email from Clinique.

November 8, 2014 by Amy Duce ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Recently, I purchased a foundation from the Clinique concession in Churchill Square shopping centre. When making my purchase I was advised by the shop assistant to log my details on their database, so I can receive the latest offers and store the details of products I have purchased for future reference. Within a few days I had received my first personalised marketing email, which invited me to a complimentary skin care consultation where I would receive a free eye cream sample. This type of house list campaign, has appeared to be periodic, I have received another email from Clinique since with advertisements informing me of a new product line.

Although I do not frequently open every single marketing email I receive, the subject line – which was ‘ We’re treating you with a free eye cream’ – provided an incentive to entice me to into opening the email. Consequently, a subject line attracting attention was one of the key tactics identified by Ellis Chadwick (2012) in the Role of Email Marketing.

The email was personally addressed to me and specifically invited me to the Brighton store, as this is where I had shopped previously. The template of the email was not particularly over crowded with images and had quite a neutral colour scheme, which mirrors the Clinique website, I feel this reinforces the brand image . The message itself was very concise and not too long, which is all that was necessary to convey the information intended. If the message had been longer and more detailed then consumers may not bother to read through it all and be put off by the length of the email.

Typically, Clinique’s target audience is aimed at an older demographic than myself, which I feel is reflected in the format of this particular email. Firstly, the product itself is a ‘Repairwear Laser Focus Wrinkle Correcting Eye Cream’, this is not a product that would usually be recommended to someone myself at the age twenty-one. When I gave my personal details to the shop assistant I was asked my date of birth; Yet I still received an email for a product which was not that relevant to my age category, which leads me to think that because the majority of Clinique’s client base is usually within a certain age bracket, they do not take age into consideration as a factor when sending marketing emails. Secondly, the actual voucher part of the email implies that you would should print out the email and cut around the voucher to present in store. I personally feel this is quite an outdated style of using a voucher, nowadays most vouchers/codes are shown from a smartphone, so perhaps this is aimed at a slightly older generation due to the fact they may not have smartphones or prefer to have a hard copy of the voucher to use.

On the other hand, the email does contain interactive features, such as a link to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube, which would imply the person opening the email has more of a technical grasp than initially expected with cutting out the voucher.

Overall, I do think that this is quite an effective piece of email marketing. It contains all tactics mentioned in the Ellis-Chadwick (2012) article including; Length of email, subect headline, illustrations and interactive features, which I have used a template to review the email structure in this blog. Even though the product was not that relevant to me personally, the email managed to attract my attention, maintain my attention throughout the email and if the product had been more relevant to my age category – then it would have effectively persuaded me to go into the store and redeem the voucher.

Reference –

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

Hello world!

November 5, 2014 by Amy Duce ♥ 1 Comment

my first blog post!

Hello world!

November 5, 2014 by Amy Duce ♥ 1 Comment

Welcome to your brand new blog at University of Brighton Blog Network.

To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.

For assistance, visit our comprehensive support site, check out our Edublogs User Guide guide or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.

You can also subscribe to our brilliant free publication, The Edublogger, which is jammed with helpful tips, ideas and more.

Amy's blog, xo

Just another University of Brighton Blog Network site

Tweeting To Your Full Business Potential – Promoted Accounts & Promoted Tweets

How To : Start Vlogging For Your Business

A Valuable Lesson In Creating Videos For Your Business’s Facebook Account

Instagram Business…. Is It Any Of Your Business?

For a retail business… To Blog or To Vlog?… Or not bother at all?

A Very Brief Overview of Using Facebook In A Digital Marketing Strategy!

Analysis of a personalised marketing email from Clinique.

Hello world!

Hello world!