Don't Stop Social Media Marketing

Here are a few tips to keeping in touch with your customers during COVID19

 

People around the world are adjusting to the new normal of the impact on their business from COVID19. We are faced with social distancing, small business owners are closing their doors and large corporations as scrambling to reposition campaigns, adjust content to essential travel, first responders, PPE and anything they come up with new creative and changing day to day.  

While others are abandoning all marketing efforts during this time.  This is a mistake you can not afford to make.  If you use a social media company to run your social media marketing, yet you can't afford them during these troubled times, reach out to them and negotiate a temporary rate until business rebounds. 

Staying connected is now more important than ever, with people and businesses working from home, or remote offices, more of the population is on social media more than ever.  Frankly the population is relying on social media to stay in touch with friends, consume the news, and be entertained.  

In fact, Facebook and Instagram have seen a 48% increase in usage due to Covid-19, with views for Instagram Live and Facebook Live doubling in one week.

If your business is open but working hard to survive right now, like many retail stores, hotels and restaurants are, you’ll be wanting to share content with the goal of getting sales from social media.  But just because people are spending more time on social media doesn’t mean it’s business-as-usual.

Your followers are spending more time online than they ever have before, so it does present you with a unique opportunity to deepen your relationship with your audience and increase brand affinity.  But you also can’t just be running business-as-usual, or you risk coming across as tone-deaf to an audience with heightened anxiety and sensitivities.  And the hardest part? It feels like our world continues to change by the day (or hour).

But remember: this is brand new territory for all marketers (including us). No one is an expert in how to market your business on social media through a global pandemic.

So while we can’t offer you tried-and-tested strategies for marketing your business through this challenging time, we can give you some guiding principles to help you think through your posts and make decisions as the crisis evolves.

Ignoring Covid-19 or pretending like everything is normal can come across as inauthentic at best, and tone deaf at worst. Let your followers know that you’re listening and acknowledge our new normal.  

Even a simple “We are in this together" and "updates on your staff and business" 

can go a long way in showing your followers that you’re listening and caring.  

Let them know you also are experiencing hardships without coming off as "crying for help".  Take the approach that you are trying to stay open, operating and keeping your staff employed.  

Celebrity & business owner Kristin Cavallari did a good job of explaining why she was promoting a sale for her jewelry brand Uncommon James, by simply stating that she has 100 employees and will do everything she can to help them keep their jobs, which means promoting her sale on Instagram.

If you’re unable to market or sell your products during COVID state that and let them know your desired return to normal operations.  Focus on sharing content that aligns with your brand values instead, along the way updating your pages on staff, products, service and the latest news.  

Turn your Instagram into a valuable resource for your audience. Focus on engagement first, instead of driving traffic, by providing extra education through videos, carousel posts, or captions – instead of constantly asking to swipe up or click the link in your bio.

Adjust your hashtags during this time and stay current with trends and changes to social media platforms.  

These are un-tested times, stay safe, social distance but stay active on your pages. 

Social Live - Social Media Marketing

If your looking for a professional social media company, that won't break your budget contact

Social Live LLC.

Let a professional spread your message, brand and save you time so you and your employees can focus on clients needs.

While most businesses have realized the necessity of being on social media in some form, most are still trying to go at it alone or hiring a social media agency that is not adequate in terms of actual marketing strategy and business goals.

The time a employee is spending on your social media daily, is time they are spending away from doing their actual job you hired them for in the first place.

Time is Money - Your Money!

Do you want to spend time researching and analyzing? No, you want to be out serving your customers so that you can make more money.

If you don’t want to spend the time sitting down every day at your computer learning new social media tools and then putting in the sweat equity, then social live can help you out, we are a great way to save you time and money.

If you’re a business owner or employee, most likely you are a professional in something other than social media or online marketing. This means you have a real job to do in addition to now getting your business active enough online to see some real business growth.

The experience that a social media agency has means that not only do they free up your time by doing the legwork, the man hours invested are going to go down because they know what they’re doing and have been doing it for quite some time.

There’s no fiddling around, figuring things out and testing out different ideas that may or may not work. A good social media agency has a plan, knows what will work and knows how to help your business gain success online.

Don't think we are a company that will not fit your budget, let us customize a program for your needs and get you started today. 

Visit us on the web, or email us today

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on the web at: Social Live Click Here

Facebook Ad Mistakes To Avoid

It is important for marketers to set up and use Facebook advertising correctly.

As organic reach on Facebook continues to rapidly decline and ad impressions continue to increase , the competition is steep for marketers to keep up by ensuring ads are engaging and relevant. 

Unless you have a virtually unlimited advertising budget, your Facebook ad dollars shouldn’t be spent on qualitative goals like brand awareness or vanity metrics such as Facebook likes. Instead, your primary aim should be conversions. Ideally, your Facebook ad would catch the attention of just the right person, ready to buy, who immediately clicks through to your site and purchases your product. 

Your target audience scrolls through their Facebook feed rapidly. You must capture their attention, and you only have a fraction of a second to do so. Disrupt their feed with eye-catching creative so you can share your message. Keep a pulse on what ad styles are trending on Facebook and monitor competitor ads as well as ads outside of your industry for inspiration. However, beware, saturation is real. Fashion trends fade, and so do creative styles, so continue to try new things. Avoid turning off your potential customers with the same old same old.  

The genius of Facebook advertising is the ability to be highly targeted in reaching your ideal customer. Don’t miss the mark when it comes to the design of your ad creative. Target too broad of an audience and your message may fall flat. If you have multiple markets you’re targeting, consider segmenting your audience and creating separate creative for each.

Also keep in mind that what works best on Instagram, for instance, likely won’t be what’s best for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Google. Your audience uses each of these platforms in very different ways and you cannot approach them, in the same way, expecting to get the same results.

Don’t be afraid to step outside of the norm. Your body of creative work can vary wildly without diluting your brand identity. You can maintain certain constants between ads such as your brand color or logo while still experimenting with tone, motion and design. Just remember to tie everything back to your testable, quantifiable goal and optimize for conversions. The only rule: never run a Facebook ads campaign without an active test, if at all possible. While tracking these variations can quickly become overwhelming, working with an agency or utilizing marketing automation software can simplify the process and achieve accurate results more efficiently than any one person.

The world has gone mobile! - Social Live

How do consumers seek information via the web today using mobile devices?
According to Online Publishers Association / Frank N. Magid Associates:

99.5 percent access content/information
63.1 access the Internet
62.1 percent check email
49.2 percent listen to music
46 percent play games
41.7 percent download and use apps
15 percent make purchases
15 percent read a book

Shift to Mobile Impacts B2B Significantly

 If you imagine that the mobile usage is merely a reflection of consumers logging onto social media, checking email or conducting search, or shopping, think again.

Executives lead the way in mobile adoption, validating the theory that digital assets for a business or brand must serve target audiences 24/7, and not just during business hours.

Meeting your customers wherever they work is no longer a luxury – it is a necessity. If you wish to convert interaction to action you must compel the decision-maker.

B2B Decision-Makers Rely on Mobile Devices

Mobile is preferred over the PC for executives conducting research during and after office hours, according to the IDG Global Mobile Survey 2014.

92 percent of executives own a smartphone used for business.
77 percent of executives use their smartphone to research a product or service for their business.
93 percent of executives will purchase that product via the Internet using a laptop or desktop.
86 percent use their tablet and 72 percent of executives use their smartphone to conduct research for products or services for their business.
‪#‎sociallive‬ ‪#‎sociallivellc‬ ‪#‎socialmediatip‬ ‪#‎mobilevsdesktop‬ ‪#‎socialmediatrends‬

Facebook Updates You May Have Missed - Groups

Group admins will have more control over their communities.

Facebook is adding several features to help Group admins manage their members and grow their teams.

The new tools will provide admins with a better understanding of member activity and more control over Group membership and posting.

The updates include:

Group insights — Admins will be able to see real-time metrics about growth, engagement and membership, like the total number of Group posts and most popular times of member engagement.

Membership request filtering — Membership requests will be sorted into categories like gender or location, so admins can accept or decline requests by categories all at once.

Removed member clean-up — Admins will be able to remove Group members and their created content in one step.

Scheduled posts — Group admins and moderators will be able to create and schedule posts.

Group to group linking — Facebook is testing group-to-group linking, which allows admins to suggest similar groups to their members.

With their new community-oriented mission, Facebook plans to continue developing tools for supporting Group admins.

Instagram might not be worth the effort for every business - Social Live

It’s important to remember that Instagram might not be worth the effort for every business.

For instance, it’s only the 6th largest social media site, trailing far behind networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. If you have limited time to devote to social media marketing, you’ll have access to more users with the Big Three of social media, and Tumblr.

Instagram is also a largely mobile-based social media network, with most users perusing through photos via a smartphone app.

This means the demographic tends to skew young, making Instagram the perfect choice for a custom skateboard shop but perhaps less useful for a medical supply retailer.

You’ll have to consider your own customer demographic in order to figure out if Instagram is worth the effort.

However, effort can be reduced by linking your online store’s Instagram account to Facebook and Twitter so that any images you post are automatically posted to your other social media accounts. With this in mind, one could make the argument that Instagram is very little effort for the exposure it offers.
‪#‎sociallivellc‬ ‪#‎sociallive‬ ‪#‎instagram‬ ‪#‎socialmedia‬ ‪#‎tipoftheday‬

Hashtags for Social Media Use - Social Live Tips

The next few blogs will be about tips about hashtags, why and how to apply their use. Since the first use in 2007, the hashtag has spread from Twitter to almost all major social media networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, and even Vines.

With hashtags showing up everywhere, we wanted to take a look again at how your brand can use hashtags with success, on any kind of social media.

‪#‎WhatDoHashtagsDo

Hashtags have a number of uses, and it’s crucial to understand their purpose. You can use a hashtag to improve searchability, to tap into trends, to create a conversation around your brand, or to inject a bit of humor into your post (or of all of these at the same time!). It depends on your objective.

‪#‎Searchability

It's worth restating: hashtags improve your searchability. On social media networks, where there are reams and reams of information to sift through, users often search for certain hashtags that correspond to their demands and desires. By using a hashtag, you can tap into a popular conversation that is relevant to your brand and become a key contributor to that conversation’s sha­pe and consequences. It’s a whole new way of thinking about categorization, and a great way to give your posts more exposure.

HASHTAGS FOR BUSINESS AND BRAND - Social Live

Why create your own hashtag for brand, product and use it on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms.

Businesses can use hashtags for a variety of reasons.

If the hashtag is already in use by a community, it’s can be a great tool for networking, lead generation and more. But businesses may choose to create their hashtag for a number of reasons, including:

Encouraging event participants to live tweet
Hosting a Twitter chat
Hosting an online Q&A
To promote a product launch
To show support for a charity or cause
The list is as long as there are reasons for using Twitter itself.

Be sure that you understand what purpose your hashtag will serve before your create it.

4 steps to creating your own hashtag

Ready to jump in and create your own branded hashtag? It’s not overly complicated. Here’s how:

Brainstorm. You want this hashtag to represent your brand and the way you will be using it – but you also want it to be short and sweet.

Come up with a list of several potential hashtags that could be used based on your business name, event, etc.

Including the year works for hashtags that will be reused yearly (for annual events, for instance), and including “chat” somewhere in the hashtag is common for weekly or monthly Twitter chats.

Research. Next, check to see that your ideal hashtag isn’t already in use. Since you’re looking to create a community around your hashtag, you want to start fresh – you don’t want to encroach on another community’s space.

Use Twitter’s search to see if and when your hashtag has ever been used, and go down the list you created in the brainstorm until you find a suitable, quiet hashtag.

Promote. Your hashtag is going to be pretty quiet if no one knows about it! Tell your ideal community – your followers, your business connections – that the hashtag exists, and let them know how you will be using it. You can send an email blast, write a blog post, put up signage in your store… use whatever promotional tools are available to you to get the word out.

Monitor. Once people know about your hashtag, it’s time to use it!

Make sure you monitor the chatter, and chime in whenever it makes sense. If you’re hosting a weekly chat, monitor and use the hashtag during that hour or so each week. If it’s an event hashtag, be sure to monitor it in the days and hours leading up to the event, during the event itself, and post-event for photos and feedback.

  ‪#‎hastagtips‬ ‪#‎socialmedia‬ ‪#‎sociallive‬ ‪#‎sociallivellc‬ ‪#‎ferndalewa‬

Should my business be on Instagram?

Last few posts we did a series on hashtags and we hope your using the tips. This next few days we will cover ‪#‎instagram‬

What Is Instagram?
...

Instagram is a social media network focused on visual images.
60 Million Photos shared every day.

There are no status updates or 140 character limits, and instead the entire update is one square image (and an optional caption).

Users ‘follow’ other users that they are interested in, and can then scroll through image after image on their newsfeed.

Ideally, you should caption the images that you post on Instagram to give your followers context, such as ‘New product ready to roll out in Autumn 2014! ‪#‎fashion‬ ‪#‎handmade‬’.

The caption helps users understand what they’re looking at, while the hashtags make your post searchable for anyone who is interested in that category.

For example, users interested in ‪#‎PlusSizeFashion‬ can look at only images that contain this hashtag -- if you use it, you’ll show up with thousands of other plus-sized designers and fashion bloggers.
While it was launched in just 2010, Instagram now has around 200 million monthly active users. Today there are over 1 billion on Instagram.

Using Instagram can allow you to show a more casual side of your business -- your products in use, the process of manufacturing them, the pile of boxes to be shipped out during Christmas shopping rush -- and build your brand through a visual story.
‪#‎sociallivellc‬ ‪#‎socialmediatips‬ ‪#‎sociallive‬