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by Michael Stuart

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Why Social Media Marketing Goals Must Be Flexible

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A lot has changed in the world of social media marketing over the past few years. What used to work a few years ago may not be effective anymore. That’s why it’s important to have flexible social media marketing goals. You need to be able to adapt as new changes and trends come up to stay ahead…

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Social media Best posting times

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Social Media Image

Social media marketing centers around getting the attention of your present and prospective customers.

What is the best time to post on social media?

“The best time to post on social media is when your customers (both present and prospective) are online”.

When to post on Social Media in 2020

Social media eCommerce trends indicate that the use of social networks for eCommerce is on the rise with an estimated global eCommerce sales of $4.5 trillion by 2021, a 246.15% rise. Hence, questions like why post on social media and what are the implications of not posting on social media are becoming more and more irrelevant. Now, the only question that needs to be answered is when to post on social media for maximum engagement.

Best time to post on social media in 2020 – Facebook

  • It is more or less safe to post on Facebook on weekdays between 1 pm to 4 p.m. for those who would like to indulge in a bit of online shopping during lunch hours at work.
  • The best time to post on Facebook for online retail brands is not one single time slot but rather a few optimum times are present:
    • Wednesday between 11am-3pm
    • Thursday at 2 p.m. and 4 pm
    • Friday between 10 am to 3 pm
  • Weekends are usually considered to have the lowest engagement rates for consumer goods brands.


What to post on social media for your business: A Guide for FacebookSince Facebook’s audience is highly coveted by online businesses simply because of its sheer reach, you could have a regular flow of informational content, industry news and updates, and product promotions. These will generate brand loyalty and increased sales. Remember to have an effective CTA to your posts on Facebook, like Steam Horse Dry Goods Co. below. The post is crisp, to the point and has a clear CTA.

Best time to post on social media in 2020– Instagram

  • The safest times to post are every day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • The best time to post on Instagram for online retailers is Saturdays and particularly at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
  • Wednesday has been seen as the day with the most engagement.
  • Monday is the least engaged day for consumer goods, maybe because people are more likely to catch up on work, and everyone, in general, is more focused on getting ready for the week ahead.

What to post on social media for your business: A Guide for InstagramPrimarily a photo sharing app, Instagram is highly impacted by product images and is a key driver of brand awareness for eCommerce. New product launches, lifestyle posts, and user-generated content teamed up with effective hashtags have been seen to be doing really well on Instagram. You could also post short videos.

Best time to post on social media in 2020 – Twitter

  • The safe time to post on Twitter is between 1 to 3 p.m. every day.
  • The best day and time to post on Twitter for eCommerce brands is on Saturdays at 1 p.m.
  • Sunday has been reported to be the lowest in terms of engagement but has seen some engagement at 11 a.m. and between 1 to 4 p.m. on this day.

Some other types of content to post on social media sites

  1. Posts of your company
  2. Industry news
  3. Curated content
  4. Questions
  5. Videos
  6. Advice
  7. Memes 
  8. Contests
  9. Holiday Posts
  10. Links to freebies

How to post on Social Media? – Apps that post on social media for you

Very often you might be required to post to multiple social media accounts at once, and it can be very daunting for those who don’t know how to post on social media. Here are some tools that will help you with this:

  1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a great tool which enables you to schedule your posts across all major social media pages at specific times. Available both as a free and paid version, this is an excellent tool to publish and monitor your posts on multiple platforms from one single screen. It also has an “auto-schedule” option which is based on the company’s own knowledge on the best time to post on Instagram or on Facebook. 

  1. Hubspot

Apart from publishing and monitoring, if you are also looking for an app that will also do the reporting for you, Hubspot is the app to go to. It provides a closed-loop reporting data, which means that you’re not just seeing which channels are giving you the most engagement, you can also track the funnel down further to see which posts are driving actual leads and sales.

  1. TweetDeck

If you are focusing on just Twitter, you should not look any farther than TweetDeck. Apart from being one of the oldest to be around, it is one of the best too. You can follow several conversations at once with this tool, and it is actually quite fun at times.

  1. IFTTT (or Zapier)

This is a Trigger-and-action tool. Acronym for ‘If This Then That’, IFTTT is an automation tool that can save you a lot of time while it manages your social platforms effectively. The tool links your website, social media pages, and apps based on a trigger and an action. Based on a particular trigger you create, it starts an action. For example, if you publish a blog (the trigger), then IFTTT will automate and create a tweet (the action) about it.


  1. Raven

Apart from allowing you to access data and schedule posts from a variety of social media platforms, Raven provides reports from information gathered about pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), and social media channels. Thus, you get insights on topics like what the best time to post on Instagram is or if SEO is a better channel than PPC campaigns.

  1. Buffer (DLVR.it)

Buffer or Dlvr.it are advanced applications that provide Automated scheduling and engagement analysis.

Conclusion There is really no magic rule to engage with users. Every brand is different and so are their respective audiences.

 

Since the birth of e-commerce, marketing experts have disagreed about the future

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Since the birth of e-commerce, marketing experts have disagreed about the future role of brands.
  • Some have predicted that digital technologies will hasten the demise of brands because customers will have ready access to information they need to make purchase decisions, and “brand” will, therefore, become less relevant.
  • Others have prophesied an increasing importance of brand as a simple way to evaluate choices in an era of information overkill.
To find out which school of thought is more accurate, we looked at the value of brands and customer relationships as revealed by M&A data covering over 6,000 mergers and acquisitions worldwide between 2003 and 2013. The beauty of M&A for examining valuation trends is that M&As reveal the dollar valuations of all assets at the time of the acquisition. Upon acquiring a business, companies have to value the different assets they acquired for their accounts and balance sheet in accordance with accounting and reporting standards. These valuations include – among other assets – brands (trademarks) and customer relationships.
 
This graph, based on data from the MARKABLES database, represents brand and customer relationship valuations as a percent of total enterprise value. The percentages come from fair value assessments done by purchase price allocation experts according to established accounting standards.
 
 
As the graph bracingly shows, brand valuations declined by nearly half (falling from 18% to 10%) while customer relationship values doubled (climbing from 9% to 18%) over a decade. All other categories of intangibles remained stable. These numbers reveal a dramatic shift in the strategic approach to marketing over the last 10 years. Acquirers have decisively moved from investing into businesses with strong brands to businesses with strong customer relationships.
M&A strategies often concentrated on brands and on growing brands through better brand management and internationalization.
  • Today, such brand growth strategies appear to be either limited or too expensive.
  • Instead, M&A strategies now concentrate more on acquiring firms with strong customer relationships – with all the loyalty and cross-selling benefits that confers.
This trend is powerfully reinforced by digital technologies. These allow more direct interactions with customers, bypassing expensive middlemen and reducing the cost of sales and marketing; they allow firms to optimize customer lifecycle management based on detailed data and analysis of customers’ needs; they improve efficiency and quality across the value chain as a result of continuous customer feedback; and, finally, they facilitate the realization of merging two brands into one, or rebranding. As a result, the price of direct engagement with customers relative to traditional branding and media campaigns has dropped while the effectiveness of such marketing efforts has grown.
There is a parallel development on the demand (customer) side. Digitalization makes information, including information about brands, easily accessible. For example, a customer shopping for a new car can now instantly examine and compare the specifications and performance of different car models.
Thus, purchasing decisions have become more fact based, and less brand-image based. Customers still value strong brands, but what constitutes a strong brand is now more dependent on customers’ direct experience with an offering, and with their relationship with the firm that produces it.
 
Marketing resources now directed at brand building should be more fully integrated with those designed to reinforce relationships. Strong brand communications are and will remain important especially in attracting new customers and in enhancing desirability for higher price premiums.
 
As Peter Drucker said, well before the advent of the information age, the sole purpose of a business is to create a customer.
source hbr.org/2015/04/why-strong-customer-relationships-trump-powerful-brands
 

What’s Your Story?

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Brand storytelling is an art and a science, and in today’s world it had better be highly strategic.

Storytelling should convey not only what a company does, but who it is, and why—as well as tap into the emotions of its readers all at the same time. 

Five steps to help tell your story

1: Authentic

Storytelling should convey who you are as a company and not only focus on what you do. Improving your brand’s story involves tapping into the power of emotions and connecting with your consumers on a personal level. Be authentic. Make your readers feel something. Feelings cultivate brand affinity.

  • Loyal customers are willing to stick with a brand even if presented with meaningful and available alternatives if they feel an emotional connection. Strong emotional connections to retailers result in 32% more store visits and 46% more money spent, according to a recent Gallup poll.
  • There are seven emotions that result in stronger sales through increased customer connections, fear, frustration, hope, excitement, anger, fear of missing out, and desire to be first. If you can tell your story in a way that makes the consumer connect with one of these feelings, a sale may be imminent.

 

2: Take a Stand

Make your storytelling demonstrate that you have a clear understanding of trends and current issues happening in your consumers’ world.

  • Quickly State the Problem: Today’s consumers are bombarded with messages; statistics show brands have eight seconds to get a consumer’s attention. If your message doesn’t resonate immediately, you’ve lost. Win your consumers over by demonstrating that you understand their challenges and can provide a solution.
  • Be Timely: What is top of mind today? Review and analyze current headlines and social trends to make connections whenever and wherever possible with your brand. Demonstrating this level of knowledge is a convincing way to engage consumers.
  • Share Your Mission: Define your brand responsibility in society. What is your corporate mission? What issues does your brand stand behind and how do you support those causes? Create communications that share the work you’re doing and publicize it via print, online, and social channels.
  • Take a Stand: Consumers are loyal to brands with a conscience and respond favorably to companies who own their truth.

 

3: Technology

Technology should be at the heart of all your storytelling efforts. From initial concept to optimizing keywords, technology can amplify your brand message across all channels. However, technology for technology’s sake is an endless road. To achieve maximum results, your technology investment in brand storytelling should include: Ease of Use: The ability to host multiple web pages, images, and conversations simultaneously, managed with a platform that lets you publish content and respond to consumer comments quickly and easily, is essential. Distribution Across Channels: Your brand needs a solution that allows you to publish across any channel. Consumers want to hear from brands where and when they want, so if you aren’t delivering your message on their desired device at the time they want it, your brand isn’t maintaining consistent user experience. Measurement Tools: Successful marketers understand the importance of analyzing how and where content is consumed. A key to your success is adjusting content accordingly when measurement tools report that certain communications are underperforming.

 

4: Change

Marketers and content contributors have to master different channels and content as new devices are introduced. Each channel comes with its own set of rules for display experiences and mastering those techniques is essential. Make sure that the quality of your communications doesn’t diminish when published across various channels. Don’t be afraid to try new forms of content. The written word is just one of many ways brands are creating emotional connections with consumers. Videos and images can also be powerful communication tools that resonate.

5: Stats

Your brand story is always a work in progress and it’s important to measure the success/reach of each component to discover which topics, types, and channels perform best. Pay attention to all the specifics you can: bounce rates, social metrics, conversions, leads, etc. Are you analyzing things like the number of visits, sessions, channel-specific traffic, and any other metrics that are important to your particular business?

You have a big opportunity to inspire consumers through effective storytelling and complementing this with the right technology is key to success. Implementing these tips will help you build stronger consumer relationships and increase engagement.

Source: econtentmag.com