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5 Easy Steps to Using Surveys to Understand your Audience (Plus 2 Difficult Steps)

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Surveys are a powerful tool for gaining direct insights into what your audience wants, needs, and values.  

This article describes how you can effectively use surveys to understand your audience’s preferences and tailor your offerings.

Step 1 – Define Your Goals:  Every survey question will be oriented around the objective of what you are trying to discover.  Starting the out the process, write down in once sentence what you want to learn from the survey.  Are you seeking feedback on a specific product, service, content, or overall brand perception?

Step 2 – Choose a Survey Platform:  Use a reputable survey platform such as SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, Typeform, or Qualtrics to create and distribute your survey.

Step 3 – Choose a Survey Type:  Common types include multiple-choice, open-ended questions, rating scales, and Likert scales (opinions on a spectrum of 5 points).  Exploratory surveys, where you are looking for depth of insight, would use more open-ended (short answer or long paragraphs) questions, and where your audience may be small.  Statistical sampling can be done with a large population of responses, but will require questions to be written with precision, and answer choices which cover the universe of possibilities in order for the results to provide meaning.   

Step 4 – Craft Clear and Concise Questions:  Create questions that are easy to understand and avoid ambiguity. Use simple language and avoid leading questions.

How to write good questions for an online survey

Question Development Guidelines: 

  • Focus on Relevant Topics:  Keep your survey focused on topics that are directly relevant to your audience and your goals. Avoid asking unrelated or unnecessary questions. 
  • Use a Mix of Question Types:  Include a variety of question types to gather both quantitative and qualitative data. This can provide a more comprehensive understanding.
  • Keep Surveys Short:  Respect your audience’s time by keeping surveys concise. Long surveys can lead to survey fatigue and incomplete responses.
  • Ask the Right Questions: The quality of your survey data depends on the quality of the questions you ask. Craft your questions carefully to gather actionable insights that can help you better understand your audience and tailor your offerings to meet their needs and preferences.

Step 5 – Test Your Survey and Initiate:  Test the survey on a small group to identify any issues with question clarity, formatting, or technical glitches.  After making adjustments based on testing, you may initiate your survey and watch the results roll in.

Difficult Step 1 – Promote Your Survey:  Share your survey through various channels, including email, social media, your website, and relevant online communities.  Getting responsiveness on your survey invitation may be a challenge, but underscoring a greater good or specific benefit to your customer will increase responsiveness. 

  • Convey a greater purpose to your audience.  The messaging behind the survey will be key to encouraging participation.  From an audience perspective, surveys can be quite a hassle.  They always take more time than advertised, and the longer the survey, the more nonsensical the questions become.  Who wants to waste their time with a set of meaningless questions?  The user should feel that by taking the survey, they are a part of something greater, and contributing to the good of society.  That kind of messaging gives motivation and meaning to the user in exchange for the 5 (or 10) minutes they will take out of their day to finish the question list.
  • Offer Incentives such as discounts, freebies, or entry into a giveaway to encourage participation.  The key question here to answer is, “what benefit is there to the customer for taking the survey?”
  • Use Engaging Survey Titles:  Craft a compelling and concise survey title that captures attention and conveys the importance of participating.
  • Personalize Invitations:  Personalize survey invitations with the recipient’s name and relevant details. Personalization can increase response rates.
  • Maximize Social Media:  Share the survey link on your social media platforms, and encourage your followers to share it with their networks. Use paid social media advertising for wider reach.
  • Engage Online Communities:  Share your survey in online communities, forums, and groups that are relevant to your target audience. Ensure you’re following community guidelines.
  • Collaborate with Influencers:  Partner with influencers or individuals with a strong online presence who can help promote your survey to their followers.
  • Use Visuals:  Eye-catching visuals or graphics can help to highlight key aspects of the survey and make your promotion more appealing.
  • Highlight Previous Survey Insights:  If you’ve conducted surveys before, share insights or improvements you’ve made based on participant feedback.
  • Simplify the Survey Process:  Ensure that the survey is easy to access, navigate, and complete. A user-friendly experience can reduce drop-offs.
  • Ask for Referrals:  Encourage survey participants to refer the survey to their contacts.
  • Transparent Data Use:  Assure participants that their data will be used responsibly and confidentially, addressing potential privacy concerns.
  • Thank Participants:  Express gratitude to participants for taking the time to complete the survey. A thank-you message can leave a positive impression.

Difficult Step 2 – Extract Actionable Meaning:  Analyzing the results is easy.  Once you’ve collected responses, analyze the data to identify trends, patterns, and insights.  Look at both quantitative data (numbers) and qualitative data (comments).  Knowing what to do about what you see is the hard part. 

  • Segment Your Audience:  If you have a diverse audience, consider segmenting your survey to tailor questions to specific groups.  What are the common preferences, pain points, or suggestions from your audience?
  • Adjust Your Strategy:  Use the insights gained from the survey to inform your content, product development, marketing strategies, and customer service efforts.  Ask the following questions: Does the survey indicate any surprises?  Is there something new you learned about your audience that you didn’t expect to see? Specifically what about the marketing strategy is validated through the survey?
  • Set up for a future survey:  Test the same or similar survey format in the future to determine if your changes had an impact. 
  • Know your audience: What kind of person has taken the survey?  Inversely, who did not take the survey, and what does this mean to the results?

Leverage survey results to gain audience insights

Surveying your audience is just one approach to learning.  One-on-one engagement, responding to comments, and researching publicly available information about your line of business will help to bring greater insights and depth of understanding to your survey analysis.

Advanced Account Management – A/B Testing

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A/B testing, also known as split testing, informs the social media marketer which advertisement or promotion text is more effective.  A/B testing involves comparing two versions of a social media post to determine which one does a better job in achieving an objective, which can be higher audience engagement, reach, click-through rates (CTR), conversions or any other promotional success metric.

Before addressing the step-by-step approach to A/B testing, knowing what to get out of it will enable thinking backwards from the end goal, to ensure that you get the most out of the testing process.  Are you testing for higher engagement, conversions, or another metric?  For a starting point, we will focus on CTR.

A/B testing enables greater social media impact

Why is A/B testing important for a social media marketer?  A/B testing enables data-driven decisioning over promotional effectiveness, and aims to provide a clear pathway forward to achieve better results.  It enables content creators to determine which types of content (e.g., images, videos, text) resonate best with their audiences, and by testing different variations of content, key drivers for higher engagement, click-through rates, and conversions can be better understood. 

This understanding comes from obtaining insights about your audience’s preferences and behavior.  You can test different messaging or creative approaches to see what appeals most to your target demographic, helping you refine your content strategy.  For paid social media advertising in particular, A/B testing is crucial to refining ad copy, images, targeting options, and ad formats, to ensure maximum financial return on the promotional budget.

Beyond just the financial results, A/B testing can help to optimize the user experience by testing different layouts, navigation options, or call-to-action buttons, and in this way can lead to higher user engagement and conversion rates.  Most importantly, by testing variations of landing pages or lead generation forms linked from social media, you can optimize lead generation and ultimately improve revenue from online offers. 

A/B testing is not just about format.  Timing and scheduling can also be tested, to determine the optimal times and days to post content.  This ensures that your posts reach your audience when they are most active and likely to engage.

A/B testing is an iterative process, enabling a virtuous cycle of continuous learning on the part of the social media promoter, and provides an empirical basis through which to refine social media content and promotional strategies.  Slight improvements over time can generate meaningful differences over the long run, which will give you and your business a competitive social media landscape.  Through this process, you will discover innovative approaches that differentiate your brand and messaging from others in your industry.

The steps to conducting an A/B test

  1. Choose a Variable to Test:  Decide on the element you want to test. This could be the headline, image, call-to-action (CTA), posting time, caption, or any other aspect of the post.
  2. Create Variations:  Create two versions of the social media post, keeping everything the same except for the variable you’re testing. For example, if you’re testing the headline, use the same image, caption, and CTA in both versions.
  3. Determine Your Sample Size:  Decide how many users or followers you want to include in the test.  Ideally, it should be a statistically significant sample size to ensure accurate results.  Statistical sampling is a topic for another day, but if your audience size is small, then aim to divide the samples evenly.  Keep the variations limited and focused – but with significant differences to test – so that the outcome can be clearly understood.  If the sampling is small, then keep in mind that the results, due to random factors over which you have no control, may show a small enough difference that you cannot fully determine which version is better. 
  4. Randomize the Audience:  Split your sample audience randomly into two groups.  The groups should be similar in terms of demographics and other relevant factors.
  5. Schedule the Posts:  Schedule the two versions of the posts to go live at the same time. This minimizes the impact of external factors like time of day (unless you are testing for differences in posting times, in which case your promotional text would be the same, and the only variable difference is in the timing). 
  6. Monitor Engagement:  Track the engagement metrics for both versions of the post. This could include likes, comments, shares, clicks, conversions, or any other relevant metrics. 
  7. Analyze the Results:  After the posts have been live for a sufficient amount of time, analyze the results. Compare the performance of the two versions to see which one achieved your desired outcome. 

Improving insights from A/B testing

While the steps to conducting an A/B test are straightforward, the art is in the application of Insights and in identifying the winning elements of your test to improve engagement and results.  To enable better insights and to accurately attribute the results to a specific variable, ensure that you’re testing only one element at a time.  Testing multiple variables in one test can make it challenging to identify which element led to the change in performance.  As noted above, this is especially important if your audience size is small (less than 50 viewers). 

Conducting an A/B test is only the first step in achieving sustainable improvement over time.  A/B testing is an ongoing process.  Continuously test and refine your content based on the results you gather, and to develop a better understanding of what resonates with your audience.  By systematically testing different elements, you can refine your strategies and improve your social media engagement, reach, and conversions.

You can “up your game” with A/B testing with a broad range of testing tools.  Start with your own social media management platform, which frequently provides A/B testing features and key engagement metrics to track your success.  These tools can help you set up and manage A/B tests more efficiently.

A/B testing tools to improve analysis

Here are some tools that you may use:

  • Google Optimize is a user-friendly tool that allows you to create A/B tests and multivariate tests.  The advantage of using this tool is that It integrates well with Google Analytics.
  • Optimizely is a robust experimentation platform that offers A/B testing, multivariate testing, and personalization features. It’s suitable for both web-based platforms and mobile apps.
  • VWO offers A/B testing and split URL testing. It includes a visual editor for making changes without coding knowledge.
  • Unbounce is primarily designed for landing page optimization and A/B testing.  It offers drag-and-drop functionality for creating landing pages and experiments.
  • Convert is an optimization tool that supports A/B testing and facilitates split URL testing. It also includes advanced targeting and personalization options.
  • Crazy Egg is a more advanced tool for A/B testing which also provides a heatmap function and user session recordings. It’s focused on improving user experience and conversion rates.
  • Adobe Target is part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud and offers A/B testing, personalization, and targeted content delivery.
  • Split.io specializes in feature flagging and experimentation for software and product development. It is optimized for testing new features and changes.
  • Apptimize is aimed at mobile app optimization and A/B testing. It includes support for improving user experiences within mobile applications.
  • Other applications for consideration include HubSpot (own marketing platform), Leanplum (mobile-focused), Webflow (includes web design tools), Kameleoon  and Omniconvert (both with AI-driven experimentation).

The choice of the aforementioned tools will be driven by your own platform focus, as many of these are specialized for either web-based or mobile-based content.  Other key drivers are your budget, level of technical expertise and ability to integrate these with your existing platform. 

While these tools can provide insights and facilitate large scale testing, A/B testing does not require complex tools to start out, but rather, only your ability to collect and analyze the resulting data.  The power of A/B testing is taking the guesswork out of marketing decisions. Instead of relying on intuition or assumptions (which are usually good for a starting point), you make better decisions over time based on real world data, leading to more effective and efficient marketing strategies.  By systematically testing different elements of their campaigns, marketers can optimize their efforts and adapt to the ever-changing dynamics of social media platforms.

Advanced Account Management – Calculating the SMM ROI

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Calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) of a social media campaign involves measuring the revenue generated from the campaign against the costs associated with it. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you calculate the ROI of your social media campaign.

Steps to calculating social media ROI

  1. Define Your Objectives:  Clearly define the goals and objectives of your social media campaign. Are you aiming to increase sales, website traffic, brand awareness, or engagement? Each goal will require different metrics for measurement.  This step also requires that you define the time frame over which you’re measuring ROI.  Some campaigns might generate revenue over a longer period, so make sure to account for ongoing effects.
  2. Determine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):  Identify the specific metrics that align with your campaign goals. For example, if your goal is to increase sales, relevant KPIs might include the number of conversions, revenue generated, and average order value.
  3. Calculate Total Revenue Generated:  Sum up the revenue generated directly from the social media campaign. This could include sales attributed to the campaign, leads generated, or other monetizable actions.  This might involve using tracking links, unique promo codes, or specific landing pages for the campaign to specifically link revenue results with campaign efforts.
  4. Calculate Campaign Costs:  Calculate all costs associated with the campaign, including ad spend, content creation costs, tools or software expenses, and labor costs (hours spent by your team working on the campaign).
  5. Subtract Costs from Revenue:  Subtract the total campaign costs from the total revenue generated to get the net profit attributable to the campaign.
  6. Calculate ROI:  Divide the net profit by the total campaign costs and multiply by 100 to get the ROI percentage.

    ROI (%) = [(Net Profit / Total Campaign Costs) * 100]

A positive ROI indicates that your campaign generated more revenue than it cost, resulting in a profit. A negative ROI indicates that the campaign incurred more costs than revenue.

What’s in a number? 

What are the factors that might be directly tied to revenue but still contribute to the campaign’s success, such as brand awareness, customer engagement, and long-term customer retention? 

Is there an investment factor at play?  To what extent can the revenue generated can be directly attributed to the campaign?

What is your benchmark for success?  Can you compare industry benchmarks or previous campaigns to assess your campaign effectiveness?

Can you regularly monitor your campaign’s performance and adjust your strategies based on the results?  

The ROI metric can help you identify which campaigns are successful and which need further optimization or re-messaging.  At the same time, it has inherent limitations.  In other words, the value of social media to your branding may go beyond immediate revenue by contributing to building brand loyalty, customer relationships, and long-term business growth.

Advanced Account Management – Sentiment Monitoring

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While audience sentiment is a more abstract and subtle layer of understanding, therein lies its power – crafting themes which leverage emotion. 

What is sentiment analysis?

Sentiment analysis allows you to gain deeper insights into how your audience feels about your brand, products, services, and content. This knowledge helps you understand customer opinions, preferences, and pain points.  You can better tailor your content strategy to match their emotional state.  Positive sentiment, for example, is optimally placed in the context of messaging that reinforces loyalty and sustainable co-identification with the brand.  Addressing negative sentiment can help you improve areas of concern, enabling you to better manage your brand’s online reputation. You can address negative sentiment promptly and engage with customers to resolve issues before they escalate.  Negative sentiment towards an external situation can be used as a rallying point for customers to reinforce community identity. 

Sentiment analysis relies on uncovering emerging trends and shifts in opinions, and with that, you can more effectively adapt your strategies and offerings to stay aligned with customer expectations.  Understanding sentiment not only applies to your brand but also to your competitors.  Analyzing the sentiment around your competitors can help you identify their strengths (for you to enhance and replicate) and weaknesses (for you to expose and leverage).  Negative sentiment points to specific product or service issues that need attention, enabling you to solve a problem in the market and to make advance improvements to enhance customer satisfaction.

What makes monitoring sentiment difficult is that there is no way to perfectly quantify feelings and opinions.  Data analytics relies on key words and phrases, and associating these with desired responses in engagement and purchasing.  Recognizing patterns of behavior and applying these with your messaging demonstrates that you’re listening to your customers and valuing their opinions.  This can foster customer loyalty and long-term relationships.  People are more likely to interact with content that reflects their feelings.

What can you do with sentiment monitoring? 

  • Better Decision-Making: provide data-driven guidance for marketing strategies, product development and customer support.
  • Crisis Management: understanding sentiment allows you to gauge the extent of the issue and take appropriate actions to mitigate its impact.
  • Personalization: more personalized and relevant interactions, improving customer satisfaction and increasing click-through rates and ultimately, increased sales.
  • Opportunity Identification: positive sentiment can highlight areas where your brand is excelling. You can leverage these strengths to further engage your audience and differentiate your brand.
  • Refined Marketing Messages: craft marketing messages that resonate emotionally with your audience, leading to stronger connections and higher conversions.

How can you carry out sentiment monitoring?

Incorporating sentiment analysis into your business strategy empowers you to make informed decisions, tailor your interactions with customers, and foster a positive brand perception. By addressing both positive and negative sentiment, you can build a more resilient and customer-focused brand that thrives in the digital landscape.

This analysis is no longer exclusively the domain of “rocket scientists” and back-room quants.  There are several automated tools and platforms available that can help you gauge the sentiment of your audience.  Advanced tools use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms to analyze and categorize the sentiment expressed in social media posts, comments, and mentions.  Here are some popular options:

  • Brandwatch – social listening and analytics services, including sentiment analysis, to help you track how your brand is perceived on social media.
  • Sprout Social – social media management tools, enabling categorizing of social media mentions as positive, negative, or neutral, helping you understand how your audience feels about your brand.
  • Talkwalker – a social listening and analytics platform to help monitor your brand’s reputation across social media channels.
  • Hootsuite Insights – also enables understanding of the tone of conversations surrounding your brand or platform, giving assessment of content as positive, negative, or neutral.
  • Meltwater – a media intelligence platform.
  • IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding – natural language processing tool.
  • Socialbakers –social media marketing and analytics tools.
  • Lexalytics – text analytics platform.
  • MonkeyLearn – text analysis platform utilizing machine learning models.

Wrapping it up

Before choosing a tool, consider factors such as the social media platforms it supports, the depth of analysis it provides, its ease of integration with your existing tools, and its pricing structure. While these tools can automate sentiment analysis, when it comes to your own learning and understanding of your audience, nothing beats manually reviewing and interpreting results, developing hypotheses of audience motivation, and frequently testing these hypotheses through frequent and personal engagement.

Advanced Account Management – Unlocking Demographic Insights

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What can you learn about your audience by studying their demographics, and how can you use that knowledge to create better content?

Studying your audience’s demographics can provide valuable insights into their characteristics, preferences, and behaviors. This information can help you tailor your content to better meet their needs and interests.

Start with the basics – age and gender.  The focus here is on life stages and experiences.  More than just general trends among young males versus aged females, see your audience in contrast to opposing demographics to identify what makes your audience unique.  For example, content for a younger audience might focus on trends and pop culture, while content for an older audience might emphasize practical tips and advice.

Bring the age and gender analysis to a higher level by overlaying this understanding with geographic-based trends.  Knowing where your audience is located can help you create content that’s relevant to their geographic interests, in particular, keeping note of local events and holidays, and local culture in the form of cuisine, historical context, and music.  Local festivals and seasonal events are ripe for promotion opportunities.  Furthermore, with a broader geographic base of customers, language and national cultural opens up new areas to explore variations in offers and messaging. 

Beyond basic demographic indicators – and more difficult to track – are variables related to education and occupation.  These allow you to tailor your content’s complexity and tone.  A key driver of audience participation and engagement is their ability to associate themselves with your content.  Content for professionals might be more in-depth and industry-focused, while content for a general audience should be accessible and engaging.  Inversely, a highly educated audience would not prefer content that is written simply, with flashy colors or cartoon images.  This association is sometimes the most subtle, but at the same time most effective. 

Taking that analysis to the next level, a useful though exercise is to ask the question, if your audience were to design your platform, content and social media, what would it look like?  What does your audience expect to see? 

Additional demographic differentiators:

  • Interests and hobbies are driven significantly by lifestyle, location and social networks.  References to leisure activities can conjure feelings of passion, bringing a positive co-association to your brand. 
  • Buying behavior and income are key to highlighting the impact of purchasing power and preferences.  Is your audience more tailored for evaluating offers based on cost effectiveness or value-for-money assessments?  Are they focused on quality or quantity?  Does a discount motivate purchases or bring a mass appeal to your offer?  Does a “mass appeal” turn off potential high-value shoppers?
  • Family structure (singles, families, parents, or caregivers) can guide you in creating content that addresses life challenges and core needs. 
  • Emotional triggers and pain points can further reinforce emotional association to your products or services.  Pets, social issues and identity references can bring a more personal and human touch to your messaging.  These can also conjure opposition, underscoring the importance of having a full and comprehensive profile of your audience, and of the segments of your audience which are most likely to engage and spend.

Continuously monitor engagement metrics and gather feedback from your audience. Adjust your content strategy based on their reactions and comments.  At the same time, avoid overgeneralizing.  Each person is unique, and adherence to demographic expectations can risk identifying new and unexpected preferences among your audience.  In other words, keep an open mind. 

As your audience evolves, their preferences may change. Regularly update your understanding of your audience’s demographics and adapt your content strategy accordingly.  By using demographic data to guide your content creation, you can ensure that your content resonates with your audience, builds stronger connections, and delivers value that meets their specific needs and interests.

Advanced Account Management – Optimizing Posting Times

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How can a business optimize its posting timing?

Test test test.  That is the answer.  At the end of the day (proverbially speaking) there is no magic formula for determining the best time to capture your audience’s attention without some trial and error testing. 

Nonetheless, there are some notable patterns. Determining the best time of day to post on social media leverages a combination of understanding your target audience’s behavior and taking advantage of platform-specific insights.

This article provides a starting point for this analysis, and highlights key tactics to optimize your posting times. 

Optimizing posting time for audience engagement

Know Your Audience – Start with demographics, habits, and time zones. Who is your customer and what is their profile?  Other factors include age, profession, and typical lifestyle to estimate when they’re most likely to be active on social media.

Analyze Audience Insights – Leverage your data from past postings.  Keeping a close track of platform analytics will help to gather data on when your audience is most active. Most social media platforms provide insights into your followers’ online behavior.

Experiment and Track – Begin by posting at different times of the day and track the engagement metrics for each post. Over time, patterns will emerge, and you’ll be able to identify the times that consistently yield the best results.  This analysis, in particular, will help you find peak hours.  Generally, posting during peak hours (when users are most active) can maximize visibility. These hours can vary depending on the platform and your audience’s location.

Third-Party Tools – As always, there are several applications that can support this process, but which will take some time to learn.  While the best foundational knowledge is gained through sifting through the user data (did we mention above, know your customer?), there are various tools and services that can analyze your audience’s behavior and suggest optimal posting times based on the data you input into the application. 

Understand the Platform – A growing body of research in recent years has shown patterns of engagement in common social media platform.  Some platforms will prioritize content when it’s initially posted, while others might distribute it over a longer period, to enable a pattern of likes and shares to develop.

Key variables in optimizing posting time

For many social media marketers, there are some specific variables to assess in determining most favorable posting times:  

  • Commute Schedule:  When there’s nothing else to do on the morning public transport commute, many users engage with social media.
  • Competitor Behavior:  Observe when your competitors post and when they seem to receive the most engagement.
  • Audience Profile: Younger audiences are more likely to turn to social media after dinner, versus older audiences who are still attached to network broadcasting for entertainment.
  • Platform Usage Patterns: Different platforms have different peak usage times. For example, LinkedIn daytime is relatively busier than evening Instagram.

A more sophisticated analysis will track engagement statistics not just for volume, but also for quality.  Analyze when your posts receive the highest engagement (likes, comments, shares), which can indicate when your audience is most active and most open to new offers. 

As always, continuously analyze your data and adjust your posting schedule based on what works best for your specific audience and goals.  The best posting times can evolve over time as your audience changes and social media trends shift.  Regularly review your analytics and be willing to adjust your strategy to maximize engagement and reach.

Advanced Account Management – Optimizing Hashtags

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Here is a quick reference article on the use of hashtags.  Using hashtags can significantly improve your content’s visibility, reach, and engagement on social media platforms.  

Choose Relevant Hashtags – just get started by researching possible tags, see which ones reflect your messaging themes, and also note which additional hashtags are most often connected to the ones you think would be most relevant.  Here is where you will find new possibilities that you can use as the basis for testing different tags.  Research hashtags that your competitors and industry leaders are using. This can give you insights into what’s popular and effective within your niche.

Use a combination of broad, niche, and specific hashtags. Broad hashtags might have high competition, while niche and specific ones can help you reach a more targeted audience.

Create branded hashtags.  Develop a unique hashtag for your brand or campaign.  Take inspiration from competitors and successful brand promotions from leading companies.  Branded hashtags can help build a community and encourage user-generated content.  At the same time, these are best used at a more mature stage in audience development.  A silent, unused hashtag would show your customers that you have not yet reached a broad appeal in the market.  If your followers have a very niche or distinguished identity, a branded hashtag can help build a sense of community identity.

Hashtags are best when the are short.  Avoid long and complicated hashtags. Keep them memorable, and easy to spell to encourage more users to engage with them.

Use location-based hashtags to show your unique presence in the community.

Check hashtag popularity.  Use tools like Instagram’s search bar or third-party platforms to check the popularity of hashtags. Balancing between popular and less competitive hashtags can improve your post’s visibility.

While one hashtag is not enough, 4 or 5 are too many.  Avoid overloading hashtags.  While platforms like Instagram allow many hashtags, avoid overloading.  Aim for quality.

Test and track hashtag performance.  This can be done by experimenting with different combinations of hashtags and track which ones perform best.  Analyze engagement and reach to refine your strategy.

Weave hashtags into Stories.  Add relevant hashtags to your Stories. They can help them appear in hashtag-related searches and increase discoverability. 

As with many things in life, the more you give the more you get.  The same is true of hashtags.  engage with hashtag communities.  Like, comment, and interact with other posters using the same hashtags. Positive engagement increases your content’s exposure and builds connections.

Hashtags effectiveness is driven by your audience and your content.  Regularly review your analytics to understand which hashtags are driving the most engagement and refine your strategy accordingly.

Social media marketing execution plan – pet boarding case study

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Social media is a powerful tool for local businesses to connect with potential customers, and is an essential part of the marketing strategy for any small retail business.

This case study will explore specific steps a local pet boarding business can take to leverage social media marketing and achieve success.

Meet Happy Paws Pet Boarding

Happy Paws is a cozy, family-run pet boarding facility known for its loving care and personalized attention. However, they faced the challenge of reaching a wider audience and attracting new clients.

The Social Media Strategy

Happy Paws identified their target audience – pet owners who prioritize their furry friends’ well-being. They focused on platforms popular with this demographic, like Instagram and Facebook.

Content is King

Visual Appeal: High-quality photos and videos showcasing happy pets playing, napping, and enjoying the facilities are key. Behind the Scenes: Introduce the staff, their experience, and daily routines to build trust.

Testimonials: Share positive reviews and heartwarming stories from satisfied customers.

Educational Content: Offer pet care tips, highlight boarding benefits (stress-free travel!), and address common concerns.

Interactive Engagement: Respond promptly to comments and messages, fostering a sense of community.

Run contests and giveaways: Encourage pet photos, adoption stories, or boarding questions. Offer free consultations or discounts as prizes.

Host live Q&A sessions: Address pet boarding anxieties and showcase your expertise.

Leverage pet holidays: Create fun content around National Dog Day or National Cat Day.

Paid Advertising: Utilize targeted social media ads to reach pet owners in your local area. Highlight special offers or promote specific services like puppy playtime or senior pet care.

Track and Analyze: Monitor post performance and audience engagement. Identify what resonates with your followers and adapt your strategy accordingly.

The Results

By consistently implementing these steps, pet boarding social media marketers can see a significant increase in social media followers through a continually growing community of engaged pet owners. Furthermore, more potential customers will explore your services, which leads to greater interest in booking inquiries

Conclusion

Happy Paws’ case study demonstrates the power of social media marketing for local pet boarding businesses. By focusing on high-quality content, audience engagement, and targeted advertising, you can build trust, attract new clients, and establish your business as a trusted pet care provider in your community.

Amping up your game with online referrals

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How do I get online referrals?

Getting online referrals involves encouraging your current customers, followers, and contacts to recommend your products or services to their networks.  Referrals can be a powerful way to expand your customer base and build trust with new prospects.  Many of the strategies for successful rules are the same strategies you would apply for any robust marketing plan. 

Are you effectively engaging your audience to encourage their referrals?   Put yourself at the top of your game in each of the following areas:

  • Deliver Exceptional Customer Service – No need to elaborate in detail.  Happy customers are more likely to refer you.  Enough said. 
  • Ask for Referrals – While this recommendation would fit very high on the “Obvious Scale”, it all-too-often sits very low on the “Did You Do It Scale”.  Ask your satisfied customers to refer your business to their friends, family, or colleagues.  You can include a request for referrals in your follow-up emails or order confirmations. 
  • Create a Referral Program – You can entice them for successful referrals through discounts or freebies.  Design a referral program that rewards customers for referring others.
  • Leverage Social Media – As always, encourage your social media followers to share their positive experiences with your products or services.  Share user-generated content and testimonials to showcase real experiences by satisfied customers.
  • Highlight Referral Stories – Share success stories of customers who were referred by others and had positive experiences. This can inspire others to refer and attract new customers.
  • Incorporate Referral Links – Include unique referral links to facilitate sharing.  These links can be tracked to identify successful referrals.
  • Send Personalized Invitations – Reach out to your most loyal customers with personalized invitations to join your referral program. Make them feel special and appreciated.
  • Use Referral Software – Invest in referral software that can automate the tracking of referrals and rewards. Referral Factory, Refersion and CrewFire are leading examples of referral tracking software that can be integrated into the marketing campaign to track characteristics of successful referral efforts. 
  • Run Contests and Giveaways – Host referral-based contests or giveaways where participants earn entries by referring others. This can generate excitement and encourage referrals.
  • Collaborate with Influencers – Partner with influencers or individuals who have a strong online presence. Their recommendations can carry weight and introduce your business to a new audience.
  • Show Appreciation – Recognize and thank customers who refer others. Publicly acknowledge their efforts on social media or through your marketing channels.
  • And finally, if something negative happens, immediate put out fires as fast as you can.  More effort is required to develop positive brand perceptions than negative ones. 

Building a strong referral program takes time and consistent effort. Make it easy for customers to refer others, and always focus on providing value and exceptional experiences. As you create a network of satisfied customers who are willing to refer, your business can grow through the power of word-of-mouth.

Selling online – it’s the whole point! 

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If you aim to make money by online marketing – some would say that’s the whole reason for digital marketing – how can you increase your conversion rates among your audience? 

Up to now, most of the articles on Content Savants have addressed tactics to increasing followers and better engaging with audiences.  Once you have built a following and are now regularly engaging with your prospective customers, it is time to take a closer look at methods to increasing online conversion rates. 

Increase Conversion

Increasing conversion involves optimizing various aspects of your website and marketing strategies to encourage more visitors to take the desired action – signing up for a newsletter, buying your product or service, or joining your community – all of these demand a response from your audience.  The most basic way to attract your audience to your offer is to… 

  • Optimize Your Website Design and User Experience – As always, we like to begin with the basics.  Is your website is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and mobile-responsive?  A user-friendly interface can improve the overall shopping experience and encourage conversions.  Nonetheless, the greatest website in the world will do nothing unless there is a…
  • Clear Call-to-Action (CTA) – Beyond the mere basics of a good user experience (and it is amazing how many, even name-brand websites, totally fail at this basic step), let your call to action be easily understood.  At the start of the journey, set aside fancy wordings and attempted mind tricks.  If you build up the value of your offer well enough, you don’t need to be clever about it.  Are you giving your audience a fair deal or not?  Use prominent and compelling CTAs that guide visitors toward the desired action.  To be sure, the language you use is important to get right.  Use action-oriented language like “Buy Now,” “Add to Cart,” or “Get Started.”  These are quite straightforward and basic, and for a more sophisticated audience, subtlety would be appreciated, but no need to forego clarity for subtlety.  With all humility and reverence, kindly ask them to pay.  To further help them in the decisioning process, be sure to present…
  • High-Quality Product Images and Descriptions – Provide clear, high-resolution images of your products from various angles.  Generally, more pictures and graphics has two effects:  1) it gives your audience greater comfort and assurance of what they are going to get.  One picture is not enough to generate a lasting mental image.  Photos, videos, verbal descriptions… all of these play a crucial role in making your audience comfortable with a purchase.  2) while your readers are clicking through the photos and descriptions, they are convincing themselves that they want it.  The more engagement you give them in revealing your offer, the longer they have to talk themselves into a purchase.  The only way to benefit by not providing a broad range of descriptive content is if you have something to hide.  Show your prospective customers that you are not the phony website that is trying to sell them something worthless.  Show them how much value you have to offer, and give them the information they need to make themselves feel comfortable with it.  Therefore, you may…
  • Showcase Customer Reviews and Testimonials – Display genuine customer reviews and testimonials to build trust and credibility.  This is where active and genuine interaction with your audience is especially helpful.  If you can elicit their positive feedback through thoughtful communication, their response will come across with greater sincerity than any crafted advertisement could ever achieve.  For further encouragement of interest in your offer, you can…
  • Offer Limited-Time Promotions – Create a sense of urgency by offering time-limited promotions or discounts.  Scarcity can motivate visitors to take action quickly.  As always, don’t overdo it.  The world as a whole is becoming more skeptical, and for good reason.  Smart customers will see past it, but if you have something in limited supply or for a truly limited time, let it be known.  Promotion is one thing, but customers can be easily distracted, so it is best to…
  • Simplify the Checkout Process – Most of the check-out process will follow according to your payment service, but avoid offering too many options or adding on further clicks to the purchase.  Every additional click risks losing the customers time and interest.  Streamline the checkout process to minimize steps and make it as simple as possible. Allow guest checkout and offer at least three payment options.  Simplifying the process is essential, but closing a deal will require that your audience has confidence in your claims and your delivery of the expected quality.  You can enhance your customer’s confidence when you…
  • Send Trust Signals – Display trust badges, SSL certificates, and secure payment icons to reassure visitors about the safety of their personal and payment information.  Usually customers will not notice these individually (there are so many of them out there, who can keep track?), but having them there is at least a display of confidence.  One of the most effective ways you can engender trust is to…
  • Be Transparent About Shipping and Return Information – Use every opportunity you can to generate goodwill with your customers and portray your business as upright and honest.  Transparency of information, particularly around costs, is key to building trust.  Clearly communicate shipping costs, delivery times, and return policies. Transparency builds confidence in the buying process and creates a positive brand identity in the mind of your customers.  Nonetheless, as you identify some customers who back out of the purchasing process, you can…
  • Use Retargeting and Remarketing – Your buying process should have as few steps as possible, however some customers will back out along the way.  Capture this data to enable retargeting ads to reach visitors who have shown interest but didn’t complete the purchase.  Remind them of the product and encourage them to return.  Use split testing on your marketing to identify if there are problematic themes or otherwise messages that may be more effective to customers who are on the edge of their decisions.  This step is the beginning of analysis where you begin to categorize your audience and increase the sophistication of your marketing efforts, and is the basis for you to…
  • Segment Your Audience – Segment your audience based on their behavior and preferences. This allows you to tailor your marketing messages and offers to specific customer segments.  Segmentation is a topic in itself, and is the focus of entire volumes of marketing research, theories and ivory tower debate.  Set the deep thinking aside for a moment, and think about a few categories of customers that would be interested in your promotion.  How old are they?  What is their net worth?  Are they male or female (or otherwise)?  Here’s where you can take the progressive and idealistic notions of humans being the same, and delve into what makes us all unique, and how does that uniqueness affect our motivations to buy, and how can that uniqueness be leveraged to increase your sales?  You can effectively use segmentation to…
  • Personalize Your Recommendations – With some customer data in hand, you can use this understanding of your customer characteristics to provide personalized product recommendations based on a visitor’s browsing and purchase history.  What are they more likely to be interested in, based on their past behavior?  Finding the bullseye will take extensive study of data and numerous iterations, combined with a little wisdom from experience.  You can further hone your understanding of customer preferences and how to personalize your recommendations by directly engaging with your audience, where you…
  • Provide Live Chat Support – Offer real-time customer support through live chat. This can help address any last-minute concerns and provide assistance during the decision-making process.  Use this interactive process to understand what may be objections from your customers.  Can you shape your messaging around answering potential objections before they arise?  This knowledge will be key to developing an effective…
  • Email Marketing Campaign – A well-crafted email marketing strategy will further nurture leads, provide valuable information to your customers about your products and services, and guide potential customers back to your website.

Increasing online conversions is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and optimization. Regularly analyze your website analytics to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement, and adapt your strategies accordingly.