All posts tagged Social Media Marketing

Every company marketer posting on social media is curious about the best times to post their content. While each audience is unique, having a rule of thumb can be extremely helpful when you’re first starting out. Sprout Social recently published the results of their “Best Times to Post on Social Media: 2018 Industry Research”, a report which includes preferred time slots for the big 4 — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Unlike other reports I’ve seen on this topic, which often recommend a single time or small window, Sprout has detailed “heat maps” for each channel. I reached out to Rachael Samuels, Social Media Manager at Sprout Social, to find out more about the report and the research behind their findings.

Harrison: Other companies have looked into the best times to post on social. What did your data science team do differently?

Samuels: Sprout Social’s data science team constructed a more targeted approach that takes into account interactions with 935 million messages across 420,000 social profiles connected to Sprout. The data that our team uncovered not only provides specific days and times for the most engagement on social for each platform, but offers similar data for specific industries, including tech, CPG, and healthcare, among others. Using this data as a guide empowers marketers with the best opportunities to maximize personalized consumer engagement.

Read more: What Are The Best Times To Post On Social Media? (These “Heat Maps” Have The Answers)

Social networks have, to a large extent, defined the way we work and live. Not only do these conversational tools ignite debate and broaden networks, but in a very real sense they nourish a collective consciousness, an understanding of what it means to be alive in the world right here, right now.

From a business standpoint, there’s never been a better time to harness the power of this 21st-century medium to gain clients and generate leads. We’re not talking about showy brand waving: we’re talking about using social media to get clients on the phone and through the door. To leverage apps used by billions to acquire new business and make meaningful connections.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But the truth is, while the rewards are great, getting social media marketing right can be a challenge. There are a myriad of powerful management tools and services available, an array of techniques and stratagems which promise to put your brand in front of prospective clients and capture their interest. Social media platforms, lest we forget, are crowded spaces. How can you make yourself heard above the noise? How will you differentiate your brand? And is landing your dream client actually realistic?

Read more: 4 Tips For Harnessing Social Media To Win Clients And Grow Revenue

2018 has been a busy year in the social media marketing world. From major news feed changes to the introduction of exciting new features, social media marketers have certainly been kept on their toes.

Join us as we reflect on all the valuable lessons we’ve learnt from working in the social media space this past year.

Creativity is key

With hundreds of thousands of updates being posted to popular social media sites every minute, creativity is key to standing out in the crowd. It’s no longer enough to share a simple piece of text on your business’s products or services – marketers need to create compelling copy and captivating imagery and/or videos in order to catch, and hold, their customers’ attention.

Read more: Social Media Marketing Lessons Learnt in 2018

Social media is an important channel for marketers looking to make a holiday splash.

As consumers begin their holiday shopping for gifts and bargains, they are more and more likely to be influenced by social media posts. A well-placed call to action on Instagram or Facebook, or a LinkedIn campaign, might make the difference between a happy new year and a lackluster holiday season.

This infographic from Animoto details how marketers should approach social media efforts for the holidays.

Insights include:

• Seventy-nine percent of marketers say they will run a holiday ad on social media this year.
• Of the marketers who ran a holiday ad last year on social channels, 88 percent say it was effective.
• Some 56 percent say a holiday social media video campaign influenced a purchasing decision.

Read more: Infographic: Social media marketing insights for the holidays

Every marketer today wants to make their brand presence felt. That is the reason why social media is being leveraged on a big scale.  Whether one owns an established business or a startup, social media marketing is something that everyone is using to reach and communicate with the customers. Doesn’t it make sense to be in a place where the crowd is? One often comes across some social media marketing activities that fail. While, on the other hand, some Facebook and Twitter pages become popular than the others. Many times, marketers observe that their competitors are doing better than them in social media marketing!

Everybody does make mistakes. How can social media marketers be any different? But the fact is, making too many mistakes can see the followers dwindle and their count drop. Indeed, it does affect the revenue of a business. As with all mistakes, the first step is understanding and becoming aware of them. It then becomes easier to avoid them in the future. Let’s discuss top five common social media marketing mistakes that one must avoid in the coming year – 2019.

1. Undefined goals and targeting the wrong audience. As a marketer, one may be working very hard, yet they may suffer badly if they aim and shoot in the dark. A marketer needs to ensure that they are not targeting the wrong audience. The key to success in social media marketing is to know and reach the target audience.

Most marketers commit one of the biggest social media marketing mistakes, that is, not properly defining their goals. Can anyone win without a goal? Once the goals are set, one can start working on their social media strategy and create a plan. For example, some of the goals that work well with social media could be to improve customer engagement or increase event attendance or increase website visits, etc.

Read more: Five Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2019

Patient engagement via social media and digital marketing are vital for growing medical practices, says health care marketing consultant Jennifer Dally, of Attune Marketing Group in Powell, Ohio.

Speaking at the 2018 annual meeting of the Large Urology Group Practice Association, Dally said the physician-patient relationship is about more than diagnosis and treatment. What patients want most is connection, which “brings peace of mind.” Transparency, active listening, trust, convenience, customer service, and good communication are among the attributes that patients say establish connection, Dally says.

“We expect a certain level of experience in general as a consumer, and that has translated into the health care world as well,” she says.

Attempts to improve the patient experience can be simple. For example, Dally says, when physicians wrap up a patient visit, they can say to a patient, “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

Physicians need to understand that patients already have been on a medical journey before a medical encounter. “I’m trying to give them context of the journey patients take before they arrive at their practice and what could they do to influence that journey.”

She emphasizes 4 essentials for every medical practice: a website; search business listings; social media engagement; and review management. A website must consider patients’ needs, not those of the practice. All websites should enable patients to pay bills online and to schedule appointments, as well as provide a link to a patient portal, she says. Website content should be produced with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. The goal is to have a website rank high on search engine results pages. This determines how patients or physicians find a practice “in the digital landscape,” Dally says. High Google rankings matter a lot, she says.

Read more: Social Media, Digital Marketing Key to Building Medical Practices

There’s no doubt social media has become an important channel for business growth. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 68% of U.S. adults are Facebook users and more than half of U.S. adults use the platform several times a day.

Most Americans also rely on social media to shop and inform themselves about products and services, including mortgages. The problem is relatively few credit unions are fully taking advantage of this trend. They may have social media accounts, but many fail to leverage these platforms to create targeted messaging to cultivate members for life.

Read more: 3 Keys to Successful Social Media Marketing

Humans are visual creatures. Half of the human brain is designed to process visuals, more than the other senses such as touch and hearing. The brain is able to identify images in as fast as 13 milliseconds, and humans are able to remember more than 2000 pictures with at least 90% accuracy. So if someone sees a beautiful or a haunting image, they’ll won’t likely forget it.

In the age of social media, a picture is truly worth a thousand words. If you want to stand out, you must have really compelling visuals in your arsenal. Online consumers are said to retain only 10% to 20% of information, but when plain text is paired with visuals, they are able to remember 65% of the information. Another study revealed that content with photos or infographics registered a 94% increase in page views compared to non-visual content.

With billions of social media content out there, it is important that as marketers and content producers you are able to draw attention to your social media images, or people are going to forget about you.

Here are the best practices for visual content to get you started on improving the overall look and feel of your social media channels.

Use dynamic colour schemes
Using key colours that enable consumers to easily identify your brand or company is great, but that doesn’t mean you are stuck with blues or reds. Colours convey not just your logo, but also warmth and emotion. They set the mood and the atmosphere. While key colours help make branding more consistent, you don’t want to risk being too predictable.

A study on the impact of colour marketing found that 90% of snap judgements are made based on colour alone. This shows just how important colour is in social media design.

Instead of the flat colours, use light and dark gradients for a more unique feel. Evaluate whether you should go bold and bright or a little subdued. The key here is to be dynamic, allowing your brand to surprise even your most loyal fans. In order to get someone’s attention on social media, you must always keep it fresh and relevant. Keep your visual content consistent and exciting, and let your choice of colours do the trick for you.

Read more: 5 ways to enhance your marketing images on social media

Only a handful of technologies could measure up to the internet in terms of the impact it had on the way small companies operate. All of a sudden, the majority of these locally-operating businesses were transported onto the global market, where they now had to struggle for survival against others of their kind.

Luckily, the world wide web has also given these companies a some new of means of dealing with this new competitive environment. Among the tools at their disposal, social networks are the ones that are seeing the most use. Companies of all sizes utilize social media to enhance their online standing in a number of ways, allowing them to acquire a more significant share of the market.

Not all companies have managed to leverage the power of social media to their advantage. Usually, this is due to limitations in terms of time, staff, and resources that are common among small businesses. With that being said, even a small business operation can find a way to utilize social media in their favor.

If you want to know more about this topic, you can scroll down and check out our short guide on social media marketing basics for small business.

How to Develop a Social Media Marketing Strategy
One of the main selling points of social media is the relative ease with which you can get an account up and running. Social media has been a mainstay of internet culture for a while now – I would be hard-pressed to find a person who hasn’t used an account on some social network at some point in their life. While this kind of knowledge is certainly a useful place to start, it is not sufficient for running a social media campaign for a business.

In order to use social media marketing for business, you first need to develop a strategy. Doing so involves figuring out what you hope to accomplish by promoting your business on social media. For instance, you might want to improve the conversion rate of your landing pages, increase overall website traffic, strengthen your brand, or get in touch with your most loyal customers.

Read more: Social Media Marketing for Small Business: What You Need to Know?

Thousands of years ago, clans gathered around fires to share their day’s experiences and to tell stories that established group norms and shaped social organization. Today, the fire’s embers have been replaced by the glow of internet-connected devices, but the communal exchange of stories and perspectives remains a fundamental force in social development.

From a business standpoint, a few important differences emerge from this evolution. Social media users can now publicly discuss their experiences with brands or products, forming large coalitions of interest that exert vast social pressure on brands and other organizations. From the presidential election to the newest cereal, everything is now a matter of public interest.

The essential principle, however, of shaping our world by sharing stories remains the same. The connections we build with others around us are the infrastructure of social change. Understanding how these connections are formed on social media, the purpose of these connections and how they can be leveraged is foundational to social media marketing.

Read more: Winning the social media marketing game