Small Searches For Innovative Uses Of Media In Places Big Can't.
You’ll all be happy to hear this will be a shorter blog than most. But, in my opinion, a valuable and important one, nonetheless. The use of media to your advantage creatively. Oh sure, I could make this longer by using really prodigious words to pontificate and expatiate my point but that would be a rather diaphanous display of elaborateness, don’t you think? I’ll stick with what I’m good at. Small stuff. Like words.
So, onto my topic. When I say finding innovative uses of media that big can’t, I am not implying that bigger shops can’t. They certainly do it and do it exceptionally. What I am saying is Small can get into the nitty gritty for clients trying to squeeze every last drop out of their smaller advertising budgets. Big simply cannot operate in that space profitably. Small can operate in both.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Instead of standard posting, which is all well and good, why not play with the space you’re in. There are so many things you can do visually and breaking the Facebook or Instagram wall is one of them or using the Pinterest environment to surprise and delight your customers, like this Bonefish Grill ad we created that looked like 2 ads in one.
A traditional medium, yes. But not an excuse to not look for new ways to optimize your messaging beyond the, well, traditional ad. Try playing with page numbers of the magazine or running a classified like we did for Intrepid for roughly $200 that garnered a flood of calls into the sales team leading to several boat sales. Or how we created an insert on a cocktail napkin? Or how about instead of a full-page ad, is there an idea in dispersing your messaging in small spaces around a single publication? Thinking this way could get more bang for you messaging buck.
TV
We’ve taken existing footage of food porn that everyone does and simply tweaked the audio to be highly unexpected based on an idea that grabbed attention immediately. It’s as simple as that. FedEx did a wonderful Super Bowl spot years ago using just the color bars saying they used another service to ship their commercial and it never arrived at the TV station.
DIGITAL
Lots of opportunity here. And lots of great work being done here all around. I am particularly fond of a standard display ad created by Pringles that just grabs you and keeps you clicking. Small price. Big reward. Even little ol’ us created some more engaging standard-sized banners to help save the African Elephant. Or turning your mouse into a magnifying glass to find the reclusive North American Gray Wolf.
DIRECT MAIL
Boring? Why does it have to be? We do quite a lot of direct mail for our client KFB Law and we always try to make the piece interactive and fun and now even link to an online landing page to further the experience on their website.
Well I believe I need to stop because it seems this turned out to be a long blog after all. So, to all out there, please allow me to extenuate my sincerest reparations in audible form. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
If you’d like to see how we can do this kind of work for you, let’s grab some coffee, say hello and discuss a project we can work on together. Email my partner Cindy at cindy@eraserfarm.com and let’s get to it.
What Is a Social Media Campaign? 7 Reasons Why You Need One
So everyone thinks they know what a social media campaign is right? Or so they think. But if your online business is struggling to generate income, then maybe there's a few things you're falling short of. More often than not, online businesses fail without their owners knowing why. Some fail because of poor website design while some fail because of financial mismanagement. But the most prominent reason why online businesses fail is that they lack an online presence. This means that when people look up anything related to their business on search engines like Google, other business will come up first on the list. To help boost your online visibility, you’re going to need a good social media campaign.
Why do you need it, you ask? Excellent question indeed. It's a way for you to increase your revenue by integrating social media into your business. Some people may have second thoughts about making one because social media doesn’t fit their business’s tone.
Here's a few things we've found to keep in mind when creating a campaign regardless of your business's tone.
1. Drive That Brand Recognition North Of The Border
The main reason why people overlook a certain brand or business is that they don’t necessarily recognize it. Recognition is important because this is a key to gaining the trust of customers. Having customers trust your brand is the first step towards a successful business.
Social media marketing will is a sure-fire way to help with all that. Many other businesses are already turning to Facebook and Twitter to increase their brand’s awareness, in fact. And that's because they know most people log in to their social media accounts whenever they go online. You know, like when they're in meetings they're bored with. Or in the bathroom. Or basically anywhere.
So, they make their own business page, post content, and pay for ads on social media platforms. Doing this introduces their brand to people and while it takes a while, the constant presence is a start to familiarizing potential customers to your brand.
2. Increase That Cha-Ching Sound For On-Site Sales
Ah that's music to your ears, no? After a while, people should have enough time getting to know your brand and you should start noticing an increase in your sales when this happens. Yep, it's a big perk you can get when you get a good social media strategy together. This happens when someone likes what they see about your business while they browse and often gets them clicking away on the content they see. If the links you made are right, then it should lead them back to your business’s website. Customers are then free to browse your website. They’ll either arrive at the landing page or the page of the product they clicked on. If it’s the latter, chances are they'll buy the product.
This will result in a big ol' leap in on-site sales over a period of time and it's also a great way to increase the traffic going to your website.
3. Referrals, Referrals, Referrals. Get More of 'Em.
What’s great about social media is that everyone is, in different ways, connected with one another. This gives your business a chance to thrive in a social media community because people tend to share positive experiences with other people who may like them. Basically what this means is that running a social media campaign may ensure success if you’re targeting a niche. You'll have no trouble getting the word out about your product and customers who liked your products or services will be the ones to do it for you.
Also, because your existing customers who are doing the referring are also those who find some interest in your product, retention in your website will increase as well. People will spend more time on your website checking everything out. So, making a functional website will allow your new visitors to have a good time exploring your site.
4. It Increases Your Marketing Opportunities
Another great perk with social media marketing is that it ensures your future. Through social media marketing, your website will never die because active users will be the ones keeping it alive. There have been times where Google struck out high-ranking businesses before. Inactivity was the root cause of Google’s move. Not enough people were visiting them even though they were at the top of the search results.
A good social media marketing strategy prevents that from happening to your website because there are a lot of ways you can market through social media. Using your existing customer base, the content you post, and ads for marketing can all provide a new opportunity for someone new to become a potential customer.
This can bring in new customers for an indefinite amount of time. As long as you have a way to reach customers, your website will never be inactive.
5. Want More Partnership Opportunities? Done And Done
Social media platforms are great places to discover amazing partnerships and can vary from small companies to big ones, even to individual people. Regardless of which one you will have a partnership with, they can help your business out a lot. You can collaborate with small business. Doing this will allow you to share each other’s demographic to boost traffic with one another. Big business collaborations could do the same but with a larger crowd.
Individuals, also known as influencers, talk you up to their audience for a price and, quite often, they have a large audience to showcase you to. So, their prices tend to be worth the exposure.
6. Climb The Ladder Of SEO Ranking
Your SEO score is huge and, yes, social media marketing helps improve your organic growth rate. All the actions that we mentioned above, from customer retention to link building with different social media organizations all work towards increasing your search engine optimization score. Increasing your SEO score will help your website appear on the first page of search engines. This will allow even more people to discover your business and means you can nab more customers and visitors for your website.
7. Stay Hungry And Stay Competitive
The main benefit you can reap from social media marketing is you can stand toe to toe with your competitors. In fact, great social media strategy planning will put you ahead of your competition because of everything mentioned above. Everything works towards making your website the next big thing on the internet. It’s true that all other websites already do everything I've mentioned but, rest assured, you can make it better because you can take your time to personalize it. And personalization becomes easier through social media marketing because you know what your customers like by looking at their profiles. It'll give you a significant edge over people who don’t perform any kind of marketing.
So Now You're A Social Media Campaign Expert Right?
What is a social media campaign and why is it important? I hope this guide answered all your concerns and provided a little more insight into what you should do to move forward. But if you need help planning your social marketing campaign, we'd be ecstatic to partner up with you. Contact us here and we’ll get in touch as soon as we can.
The Flipside of User Generated Content
Consumer distrust. It’s a problem that runs through a marketer’s nightmares like a runaway train. User Generated Content is a good start to pull that train back into the station. And to no surprise, it’s become such a big part of current trends like influencer marketing. UGC is a more authentic than typical content. It is more relatable to consumers and is a great way to connect with them in real ways. Do we really believe a product or service is better because a celebrity is telling us so? I certainly wouldn’t. I am more inclined to believe someone who seems just like a regular Joe like me. The rub is that when brands engage their UGC with influencers who have tons of followers, relatability and authenticity of the content can get a little dicey. Particularly when you’re trying to differentitae between ad and advocacy.
One of the unique elements of UGC is that it taps into consumer trust and relationship building. It’s a good tactic, for sure. Particularly when used with influencer marketing because the content users create is presented organically to those users’ social audiences. In fact, I recently saw a study conducted by Reevoo that said “61 percent of people would be more likely to engage with an advertisement if it contained user generated content.” And another from Bazaar found that “51 percent of Americans trust UGC more than other information on a company website.”
But….
And this is a big “but”. UGC is just half of a story that needs the whole story told. I wholeheartedly believe that organic distribution is perceived as more authentic than paid, but when all brands care about or hone in on the size of someone’s audience, they risk missing out on the other powerful half of the user content story. And that is User Inspired Content.
Organic stories are more powerful than organic reach. And that’s why we should stop focusing in on how content is distributed and instead create the kind that people actually want to listen to. Content people want to read about and content people want to watch. The kind that places the user in the spotlight.
Take Patagonia, for example. This is a company whose mission is rooted in social responsibility. A lofty and worthy goal, and not one that’s easily communicated through banners or 30-second ads. To get its message across, Patagonia uses content to build a passionate community of people who share those values – and eventually support the company through purchases. They’ve produced and supported short films that tackle environmental issues, such as “The Refuge”, about two women from the Gwich’in people of Alaska who are on a quest to protect their land. They didn’t send them gear with the agreement that they’d post images wearing their stuff. Instead the powerful and emotionally charged story connects with users because it’s real and far from feeling anything remotely close to advertising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4DH5cK37Y8
REI, another outdoor company with strongly held beliefs and a passionate and devoted following, released the 30-minute film “Paul’s Boots,” that tells the story of a hiker who dreamed of completing the Appalachian Trail but passed away before ever starting. A group of hikers carried his boots along the trail to realize Paul’s dream. The film has garnered more than 1 million views on YouTube.
The risk you run by passing your voice to an influencer is you are fueling the relationship they have with your consumers. Is that a risk you’re willing to take considering the investment you’ve made cultivating followers and reach through your own channels, your paid media and PR? Instead, why not give your advocates the podium, like Patagonia or REI did? Their story is the star. And because your brand plays a supporting role, the User Inspired Content is real and authentic. And it’s content a consumer will believe. And become an advocate themself.