Tag Archives: Social Media Marketing

Case Study – Dentists

September 24, 2024 admin Leave a comment

Promoting dentists on social media can prove to be a challenge. That isn’t because of the subject matter or the nature of the work, but because in a way, dental practices themselves are prime candidates for social media that there is a substantial amount of competition. Dentistry is a perfect candidate for social media marketing – everyone needs one, it is a high-value service, and the target audience (frequent dental users) is frequently online.

There are some key areas where dentists must take special care in their social media engagements, and these areas can make marketing online for dentists a bit of a challenge. From this perspective, there are two main areas to control: Patient-centric considerations and the promotional content itself. Details into these areas are elaborated further below.

Patient-centric areas to control

Confidentiality: As for all healthcare professionals, dentists are bound by strict patient confidentiality and privacy regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States. Explicit consent is required for sharing any patient-related information or images. The social media promoter must ensure that all content is fully neutral when it comes to identifying information or data points. In this case, customer testimonials are tricky, and generally not a commonly-used theme . In the same way, dental-related topics are not as easily shareable. Creating content that users want to engage with is, in this case, more challenging.
Credibility: Building credibility on social media goes hand in hand with building trust on the part of prospective customers or patients. With established trust in their dentist’s expertise and professionalism, any messaging that follows will be better-received. Dentistry-related content must be first oriented around education, and informing the audience of tips to improve health and increase prevention is key.

Content-specific areas to control

Visual Content: Unlike some industries that can easily share visually appealing content, dental procedures may not be visually appealing or suitable for all audiences. People may be uncomfortable seeing images or videos of dental treatments. The good news for dentists is that happy and clean smiles are attractive for any marketing effort, and are of unique relevance to dentists. Images should leverage this association as much as possible.
Regulatory Compliance: Similar to other healthcare professions, dentists adhere to advertising and marketing regulations specific to healthcare. While specific regulations vary by location, they are universally restrictive, limiting content development to topics of general health interest, with mainly an educational motivation.
Extreme cases: As dentists are all-too-well aware, many patients have some anxiety when coming to the dentist’s office. Promoting dentistry on social media can unintentionally trigger fear or anxiety in potential patients. Sensitivity is paramount when it comes to technical terms, diagrams, pictures and descriptive text.

The fact remains that many dentists do not have the time or expertise to effectively manage social media accounts or create compelling content. A dentist can, however, undertake a basic campaign without too much difficulty. Some tasks can be allocated to clinic administrative staff. Otherwise, many dentists rely on marketing professionals or agencies, but these can be costly.

Despite these challenges, some dentists have successfully leveraged social media to promote their practices by focusing on educational content, community engagement, testimonials (with patient consent), and by highlighting their expertise and commitment to patient care. With regular and consistent care – similar to the advice that dentists give their patients – building a strong online presence for a dental practice can be done, and at the same time can provide value to the audience.

Dentists who have succeeded in social media promotion have employed strategies which are categorized into a few key areas, as described below.

Educational Content

Educational Content – includes sharing informative content related to oral health. This type of content can include tips for maintaining healthy teeth, information about different dental procedures, or explanations of common dental problems or symptoms. In this way, the dentist is being positioned as authoritative, but at the same time, building rapport and trust with the audience, being seen to put the patients’ needs as number one priority.
Visual content – as mentioned above, dentistry can take advantage of the attractive lure of bright and beautiful smiles. Before-and-After Photos (with Consent or taken from other marketing sources which are approved by the source) can highlight results of dental treatments.
Free Q&A Sessions – gives patients and practitioners a chance to get to know each other prior to scheduling a treatment or check-up appointment.
Multimedia content – education videos can be turned into short videos.

Audience Connection

Community Engagement – dental care presentations can be given at schools or senior citizens organizations, or by participating in or sponsoring events, supporting charitable causes, or sharing local news and stories. This type of activity is good for directly networking with potential patients, and also makes for great content to share on all social media channels. Use location-based hashtags to connect with local residents.
Interactive Content – best used after a large audience has been developed, to encourage interaction through polls, quizzes, and questions. For example, you could ask followers about their oral health habits or dental trivia questions.
Quick response – responses to online comments and messages is key to building trust and rapport. The dentist or someone on staff should actively monitor social media channels for quick responses. This responsiveness also demonstrates a commitment to patient care.

Focused Promotional Efforts

Promotions and Special Offers can be used sparingly. The dentist would not want to appear as too much of a salesman. Occasionally the practice can offer promotions or discounts on dental services through social media, which also enables further engagement and interaction with the audience.
Collaborate with other local businesses or influencers to expand your reach. For example, partner with a local gym to promote overall health or collaborate with a beauty salon for a smile makeover package.
Patient Referral Program: Encourage existing patients to refer friends and family by offering incentives or discounts for successful referrals.

Consistent efforts will show benefits over time. Monitoring of social channels and tracking the results will reveal optimal themes that strike a positive note with the audience. From there, social media efforts will become more efficient (and easier to post) over time.

9 Basic Steps to Increasing Hotel Occupancy – and 10 Unique Opportunities for Hotel Marketing

August 28, 2024 admin Leave a comment

Increasing hotel guests using social media requires a strategic approach that leverages the power of these platforms to attract and engage potential guests. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it. This article is focused specifically around small to medium-sized hotel owners

If the steps described below sound similar to the other articles on this site, that’s because these steps are effective for promoting nearly any type of business. As with anything in social media promotion, consistency is key. Having said that, there are a few areas where hotel promotions stand out from the rest, and these will be highlighted below.

Basics of Online Hotel Marketing

First, without the basics in place, an advanced campaign targeted at high-value customers would not succeed.

State the Objective: While the end-goal is most likely profitability and a higher income, identifying an intermediate objective can help to refine and enhance the marketing strategy. For example, are you looking to increase bookings, raise brand awareness, or promote special offers? Your intermediate objectives will shape your social media strategy.
Define Your Audience: Understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, and behaviors. This information will help align your content to your marketing strategy.
Create Compelling Content: Share high-quality photos and videos of your hotel’s rooms, facilities, and amenities. Showcase what makes your property unique and appealing. Use professional photography if possible. Having more photos gives your audience a sense of familiarity. Familiarity develops comfort, and comfort enables openness to the offer, which leads to sales. Otherwise, what type of content can be posted? Share Local Attractions: Highlight nearby attractions, restaurants, and activities. This can make your hotel more appealing to travelers who want to explore the area. Make it Personal: Share stories of local people who are successful, or who benefit from the tourism that has grown in their community, or who have special tours/experiences to offer your guest. Special Offers and Promotions: Promote special offers and packages exclusively on social media. Limited-time deals can create a sense of urgency and drive bookings.
Run Contests and Giveaways: Host social media contests or giveaways to encourage engagement and attract new followers. Offer prizes like a free stay or a discount.
Post Consistently: Develop a content calendar to plan and schedule posts in advance. Consistency is key in maintaining an active social media presence. Be active on platforms that are most relevant to your target audience. For hotels, platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are highly effective due to their visual orientation of content.
Engage with Your Audience: Unless you are marketing for a global hotel chain, your time spent with individual customers can effectively move the needle in your favor – especially if you are aiming to scrape market share away from the major players. This is an area where small or medium-sized hotels and resorts can win out over the highest-value global brands, ie., adding the personal touch. An effective audience engagement approach requires consistent attention and responsiveness over the long run. While few hotel owners have the personal bandwidth and energy to carry out this strategy, the point remains that those who do can earn a high investment on the time they spend, picking up one customer or one booking at a time, sometimes for as little as a few minutes of chat. At the minimum, appointing a marketing person to respond to comments, messages, and reviews promptly and professionally will be necessary as a means of engaging with your audience, to build trust and loyalty.
Use Hashtags Strategically: Research and use relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts. Create a branded hashtag for your hotel to encourage user-generated content.
Promote User-Generated Content: Encourage guests to share their experiences on social media and tag your hotel. Share their posts with proper credit. Focus on providing a good customer experience to ensure that reviews are positive. Subtly encourage guests to post reviews – a personal approach is best, as people generally find it difficult to say no. Furthermore, if a guest has a complaint, hearing their complaint first-hand – before they post it on social media – reduces the chance that they will post a negative review, because they feel that their complaint was addressed and heard already.
Plan a Budget: Using paid advertising on social media platforms is expensive, but it allows you to target specific demographics and reach a larger audience. Another variation on budgeted promotions is collaboration with Influencers. Partner with social media influencers in the travel and hospitality niche, or with a local presence in a specific market you are targeting. Promote special offers and packages exclusively on social media, and use limited-time deals to create a sense of urgency and drive bookings.

Throughout these steps, the most important point is to continue learning and improving. Regularly analyze your social media analytics to understand what’s working and what’s not. Continuously assess the return on investment (ROI) of your promotional strategy, including tracking of direct bookings from social media links or monitoring followers and engagement.

Building a strong social media presence takes time and effort. Consistency, creativity, and genuine engagement are essential for success.

Marketing Opportunities Unique to Hotel Businesses

Hotel marketing should include focus areas that are unique to the business.

Visual Appeal: Hotels are inherently visual businesses. They can showcase stunning visuals of their rooms, facilities, pool areas, dining options, and surrounding landscapes. This visual appeal makes it easier to create engaging content that can captivate potential guests.
Emotion and Experience: Staying in a hotel often involves emotions and experiences that are different from buying a product or service. Travelers seek to create memories, relaxation, and adventure, making it important for hotels to tap into these emotions through their storytelling.
Seasonality and Events: Hotels often have seasonal promotions and special events (e.g., weddings, conferences, holidays). Social media allows hotels to promote these time-bound offers effectively and reach the right audience at the right time.
User-Generated Content: Hotels can benefit greatly from user-generated content (guests sharing their experiences). Guests often post pictures and reviews on social media, providing authentic endorsements that can influence others to book. This opportunity is often overlooked by hotel owners and marketers who seek full editorial control over content.
Influencer Collaborations: Hotels can collaborate with travel influencers and bloggers who can share their experiences with a wide audience. This can be more impactful than traditional influencer marketing for other businesses.
Local Attractions: Many hotel guests are interested in exploring the local area. Hotels can use social media to promote nearby attractions, restaurants, and activities.
Booking and Reservations: Hotels can directly benefit from social media bookings and reservations. Travelers can click through from a social media post to the hotel’s booking page and make reservations, which is more direct and immediate than many other businesses’ conversion processes.
Trust and Reputation: Social media reviews and responses play a crucial role in managing and enhancing a hotel’s reputation.
Customer Support and Engagement: Hotels often use social media for real-time customer support, answering queries, addressing concerns, and providing information about amenities and services.
Local and International Audience: Hotels have the potential to attract both local and international guests, making their social media strategies more diverse and complex compared to businesses that primarily serve a local market.

In summary, promoting a hotel on social media is unique because it combines visual appeal, emotions, experiences, user-generated content, influencer collaborations, local attractions, and direct booking opportunities. Additionally, the hospitality industry places a strong emphasis on reputation management and customer engagement through social media. These factors make the social media strategy for hotels distinct from that of many other businesses, thereby posing both a unique challenge for marketers, as well as a broad spectrum of creative opportunities.

Case Study – Grooming and Pet Services

August 2, 2024 admin Leave a comment

Content Savants has had the privilege of working with a wide range of clients and business types, from hotels and restaurants, to specialty manufacturing and services. One of our more unique clients is with a small pet boarding establishment situated in Kuala Lumpur’s charming Sri Petaling neighborhood.

Through the generation of mainly graphical social media content and strategic implementation of a consistent meme-based campaign on Facebook and Instagram, the pet services salon has experienced a remarkable turnaround in customer queries and social reach. What was once a fledgling business, frequently grappling with days of no customers, transitioned into into a thriving enterprise that saw a steady stream of clients. This initial surge in positivity paved the way for sustained growth, culminating in profitability just four months down the line.

This transitional phase marked a significant operational improvement and served as a catalyst for the business’s success. Content Savants continued to collaborate closely with the business owners, as they expanded their set of services from only pet boarding to also include a specialty retail shop, and in partnership with a local free agent groomer, grooming services for dogs and cats. As a result of the social media campaign support, the initial results boasted a monthly Return on Investment (RoI) exceeding a remarkable 100% for their social media marketing expenditures.

Content Savants’ content services empowered the pet boarding business to engage in frequent and consistent social media posting, a strategy that drew the attention of their existing following (over 3,000 followers already on Facebook), which had grown organically over the business’s three-year history. The number of followers also showed steady growth, increasing by approximately 5% each month. While this metric hinted at further optimization opportunities, the immediate focus for the business was to enhance their appeal to existing customers, with other metrics taking a backseat to the bottom line. Content Savants aligned their approach with this priority during initial discussions with the business, devising a cost-effective strategy to generate early, positive results.

The social media theme was built upon two fundamental principles:

Branding: Fostering a positive association between the business and its customers over time. The implementation strategy also involved creating content featuring quotes about dogs and cats from renowned authors, actors, and other celebrities, which were then transformed into engaging memes and shared on Facebook and Instagram. This content not only supported the goal of forging positive associations but also positioned the business alongside influential figures, leaving a favorable impression on customers who recognized these beloved personalities sharing their love for animals.
Personal Attention: highlighting the personalized nature of the boarding services, and contrasting these to many of its competitors, which often confined their overnight guests in cages. This theme was brought to life through the inclusion of original photographs taken within the shop, depicting animals in playful and enjoyable settings. A diverse array of images showcased dogs and cats of various breeds, along with the occasional appearance of unique pets that the establishment accommodated from time to time.

While the initial phase of the pet shop’s online presence proved sufficient to propel the business to profitability and achieve a social media RoI that exceeded expectations, a second phase called for a more sophisticated approach, which included management of a marketing campaign that seamlessly blended online social media engagement with regular blog updates on the business’s website.

This more holistic and comprehensive approach is made possible thanks to the foundational efforts of its initial strategy, which relied on simple content development and consistent publishing to its growing audience. This strategy is available to any business with an online presence.

The key to success with this approach has been proven over and again in the context of nearly every business venture. Getting started requires the following (easy) steps:

Pick a Platform: Deciding on a preferred social media platform as the initial focus of communication and building a mass audience. Facebook… Instagram… Youtube… these and many others are fully suitable for a beginning campaign. Start with whichever is most familiar to you.
Use it Effectively: Learn more and more over time about what the platform offers and how to use it effectively.
Develop a Theme: Or rather, an online personality, or a voice through which you will express your thoughts. This is really about thinking of what to say, then how to say it. Search similar businesses online for inspiration (not copying! Remember, search engines are very harsh on copied content).
Focus on Consistency: Finding the time and pushing away the distractions to start writing, developing graphics, videos and any other format that will engage your audience and capture their eyeballs.
Up your game: Once you have a foundation of content in place, published consistently over an extended period of time, your skills will gradually improve and you will begin to seek out additional, more sophisticated ways to engage your audience.

The early success of the pet board business and its social media marketing strategy serves as a testament to the immense potential of this medium in elevating business profiles and captivating the attention of online customers.

How can you grow your website from 0 to 100,000

July 26, 2024 admin Leave a comment

Starting from scratch? You’re at the bottom of the mountain, and the trek looks daunting.

There’s good news: effort, time and persistence is all you need.

Let’s break that down:

Effort: This one is really about making good content. You should be posting an article on your blog at least 3 times per month, and ideally twice per week (at a minimum), to get off to a good start. This should be content that is better in quality on average than other similar websites.
Time: It takes time for search engines to pick up your work, and it takes time for your website to be noticed by others. When the search engines see that you are posting on a regular basis and have good content, your page will occasionally appear on searches where the search terms match your content. At the start, it would be helpful to write about topics that are niche in nature. Most-commonly searched phrases are already well-covered by major platforms in any field of work. Some are more easy to achieve rankings than others. The important thing is to start with something, and let the work you’ve done yield its result.
Patience: This is where you will have an advantage. Going beyond average in content creation and – most importantly – consistency over time will yield the best results. All you have to do is do something more than the average and longer than the average. It will take about a year to start seeing needle-moving results. Do a search and look up websites which cover a similar topic. You can almost be guaranteed that when you look at the blog dates, you will see an intensive period of writing (maybe a year), and then after that, nothing. These are the sites you’re looking to beat. Play the long game.

Barriers to entry:

“Not good enough”: If you’re concerned about your content not being better than the rest, and are waiting to find time so that you can really do a good job, forget it, you’ll never get it done. Just start by writing decent content. Make sure whatever you write follows the 3 Cs – Clean, Clear and Concise. Be a little bit critical of your content after you have posted it, and compare your work to others. Over time you will naturally get better, with a little bit of effort.
“Don’t have time”: If you don’t have time, then forget it, you’ll never get it done. If you genuinely want to market your products or services online, then you have to find the time. Fortunately to get started and to have at least a modest result in building an audience, a few hours per week is sufficient. Of course you can pay someone to take care of your social media marketing.
“So much to learn”: No there isn’t. If you know anything about your line of work, then you should be able to write an article about what you do. If you can write one, you can write another. Break down the topic into its individual components. Search the internet to find out what is interesting to others. Add your own style and views on the matter, and with consistent practice in writing, you will get faster and more proficient.

For internet marketing, traffic growth is related to revenue growth. Like anything in life, practice makes perfect. Unlike some skills in life, for social media marketing, you do not need 10 years to become a pro. You can start now, with the skills you have. You will only improve over time.

How many daily visitors do you want to reach your blog? Pick a number… any number…

Let’s say, 100,000.

Let’s say, for example:

50 blogs: this would be a reasonable target to achieve by the end of the year. Ensure that your articles have keywords that are relevant to your target audience. More than just “key words”, but think of phrases that are relevant, which may receive at least 500 searches per month. Check ads.google.com for potential keywords to target.
50% CTR: this is your click-through rate. Clearly your end-goal is not just showing up on a search engine. You want an audience to see your blog, and to eventually see your online offer. If you are achieving a CTR from the search page of 50%, that is a good result.

At this point you should be getting some noteworthy traffic.

Example formula: 50 articles x 500 searches x 50% CTR = 12,500 visitors per month, or approximately 400 per day.

By this time you are essentially a “pro” at social media content development. Let’s break this down into what it means to achieve the higher goal of a mass audience.

If you can get 10% of your readers to share an article on Facebook (for example), then at this point you’re generating 1,250 shares per month, or around 40 per day.

If we assume that a Facebook account has 200 friends (actually, 500 is not an unreasonable assumption), and let’s assume a modest 10% click rate from your social media reach, then your additional daily visitor rate would be 800 new visitors per day.

Example formula: 40 x 200 x 10% = 800

Each month you will increase your visitors by ~24,000, and increasingly over time.

But, if your target is 100,000… is that total? Is that per month? Daily?

The factor at play here is how much more content development do you need to reach your target? Calculate your multiple, and apply that multiple to all the audience-development work that you do already.

Track the time and cost of the work you do. Where you are getting a positive result but it is taking you a long time to do it, you can hire out the work (from blog writing up to total campaign management). Because at this point you will have a good view as to your return on investment, you will be able to calculate the value of external support with authority, and negotiate accordingly.

Now on to next steps:

Measure your results in detail. This will show you what you’re doing right. Focus on that and do it over and over again.
Increase the amount of content you post – pay particular attention to which pages are getting the most views and comments, and focus on these topics, adding something different occasionally to test the response.
Invest in paid traffic – ensure your content, headers, phrasing and other variables are optimized to elicit conversions. Optimize your content to fit the audience and motivate traffic.
Include email marketing, to follow up on existing and past customers.
Double-up where you see success.

Social Media Marketing – Filling Your Restaurant

July 22, 2024 admin Leave a comment

Marketing a restaurant on social media requires special considerations to effectively showcase the dining experience, engage with food enthusiasts, and drive foot traffic or online orders. For restaurants in particular, we highlight some of the key areas of marketing that are key for success.

Visual Content (or “image”) is Everything: Restaurants should focus on high-quality, mouthwatering visuals of their dishes. Invest in professional food photography to make your menu items look irresistible. Instagram is particularly well-suited for showcasing food and beverages.
Regular Menu Updates: Use social media to announce and promote new menu items, seasonal specials, and limited-time offers. Creating anticipation for new dishes can generate interest and curiosity, and bring in customers.
User-Generated Content: Encourage diners to share photos of their meals on social media with a branded hashtag. Repost user-generated content on your restaurant’s profile to build authenticity and social proof.
Live Videos and Stories: usse live streaming and Stories on platforms like Instagram and Facebook to give followers a behind-the-scenes look at your kitchen, chef, and food preparation process. Live videos create a sense of connection with your audience.
Engage with Foodies and Influencers: Partner with local food influencers or bloggers to review your restaurant or collaborate on content. Their reviews and recommendations can carry a lot of weight with food enthusiasts. Emphasize unique dishes.
Promote Events and Special Occasions: Highlight special events, such as wine tastings, themed nights, or holiday promotions, to attract a diverse audience and create a sense of community.
Interactive Content: Run polls, quizzes, and contests related to food preferences, restaurant trivia, or menu choices. This type of interactive content can boost engagement and keep your audience involved.
Local SEO and Geotagging: Optimize your social media profiles for local search by including location-specific keywords, hours of operation, and contact information. Use geotags when posting to help potential customers find your restaurant easily.
Customer Reviews and Feedback: Monitor and respond to customer reviews and comments promptly and professionally. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews, and address negative feedback diplomatically. A polite acknowledgment with resolve goes a long way to assuring future customers that the situation was one-off. It also gives you control – end the exchange on a positive note, and your potential customers also get a good positive feeling inside.
Loyalty Programs and Discounts: Use social media to promote loyalty programs, discounts, and special offers. Create exclusive deals for your social media followers to encourage repeat visits.
Highlight the Community: Engage with the local community by participating in or sponsoring events, charity initiatives, or collaborations with nearby businesses. Sharing your community involvement fosters goodwill.
Storytelling: Share the story behind your restaurant, including its history, chef’s background, and the inspiration behind your cuisine. This personal touch can create a stronger emotional connection with your audience.
Online Ordering and Reservations: If your restaurant offers online ordering or reservations, promote these services prominently on your social media profiles. Include direct links.

Marketing a restaurant on social media requires a mix of creativity, engagement, and strategic thinking. By understanding the unique considerations mentioned above, you can create a compelling online presence that attracts diners and builds a loyal customer base.

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

July 2, 2024 admin Leave a comment

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

June 25, 2024 admin Leave a comment

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

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.
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.
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.
Randomize the Audience: Split your sample audience randomly into two groups. The groups should be similar in terms of demographics and other relevant factors.
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).
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.
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

June 18, 2024 admin Leave a comment

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

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.
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.
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.
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).
Subtract Costs from Revenue: Subtract the total campaign costs from the total revenue generated to get the net profit attributable to the campaign.
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

June 11, 2024 admin Leave a comment

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

June 3, 2024 admin Leave a comment

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.