As a small business, how can your company effectively use the proper social media channels to leverage your offerings to your audience? Are the popular channels the best for your company and industry?
I received my Bachelors in Marketing and Certification in the Pastry Arts. I have managed a wide array of printed and digital marketing needs.
What is a social media content calendar? The social media content calendar is a very helpful tool in defining what, where, and when your company will publish developed social content. It will encompass the complete social marketing strategy and break it up in to a cohesive and consistent message throughout your fiscal year and/or campaign(s) schedule(s).
I received my Bachelors in Marketing and Certification in the Pastry Arts. I have managed a wide array of printed and digital marketing needs.
What is social media? Let’s start at the very beginning. Social media is an interactive digital technology that allows for virtual communication and collaboration between users and networks. For businesses, social media is a marketing instrument of how businesses can attract, engage, and convert their consumers on a consistent and swift basis.
I received my Bachelors in Marketing and Certification in the Pastry Arts. I have managed a wide array of printed and digital marketing needs.
Small Business & Social Media: Social media has become a large driver of how businesses can attract, engage, and convert their consumers. It can also be very overwhelming on what channels and tactics are most efficient in delivering great results.
I received my Bachelors in Marketing and Certification in the Pastry Arts. I have managed a wide array of printed and digital marketing needs.
Influencer marketing is collaboration between a celebrity or an influential person (usually on social media) with a company to promote a service, product or campaign.
It used to be that celebrity endorsements (think of Michael Jordan with Nike) was the driving force that would influence an audience to buy products, but with this digital age, “influencers” can come from social media and blogs. These will be people with a large following with a niche audience.
This can be a powerful marketing tactic in your arsenal that provides the consumer with trust and value of your brand. A third party recommendation or ‘seal of approval’ can boost your company and offerings’ reputation.
The partner you work with will not only bring with them their own network of followers, but their follower’s network as well. You have automatically increased your social media presence and traffic to your site through this connection.
Even though there are many options to block out the marketing noise that people can hear through commercials with on-demand, streaming and settings to block certain items seen on your feed – the internet has become the avenue where everyone is corralled and influencer marketing provides an extreme opportunity to align with an influencer who will best support your brand’s vision and goals.
You must make sure that you assess your brand’s campaign goals and the influencer’s content before making any partnerships. Other items to consider are:
You want the influencer to build trust and have their following value the opinions they present. Without this, there will be no conversion for your brand.
This will solely be based upon your agreed upon terms with the influencer, but be prepared to release some creative control. They have built their entire following upon a specific passion, service or product. Collaborate with them on what they feel best will resonate with their following, but also adheres to your brand standards.
Legally, they must follow rules from the Federal Trade Commission, specifically under disclosure. This should be built in to your agreement.
Compensation will and should be part of your agreement as they are providing a service to your company to drive traffic and increase sales. All influencers will want different types of compensation pending the level of involvement and visibility of their following.
First, you must determine what the main goal is for partnering with an influencer – awareness, lead generation, social media presence lift, sales, etc.? Being as specific as possible when setting your goals will be valuable in reviewing results in the end to determine the ROI. Examples below:
We can apply the same items that are used to consider an influencer to measure the ROI (return on investment) that will optimize your success.
Sales: if you are looking to increase your sales of a service or product, an easy way to measure is to include a specific code or tracked URL to the influencer to include in their posts.
Lead Generation: was the content created inviting enough for the influencer to push out to allow for more subscribers or followers to further share the information?
Social Media: view the likes or subscribers to your page after an influencer campaign has ended. Make sure to record numbers before and after versus cost (compensation to the influencer plus any paid ads per social media platform).
Engagement: measuring the views, clicks, likes, shares and mentions will help analyze the success of the campaign versus cost (compensation to the influencer plus any paid ads per social media platform).
Reach: did the content that was crafted resonate and bring meaning with this niche group that the influencer is a part of?
Pending on the value that needs to be added to your brand, utilizing the influencer marketing tactic can be very beneficial and can come with a huge reward for minimal cost that the digital space leverages. Careful evaluation of the potential influencers and their network is a key component as you can reach a highly niche audience that is beneficial to your mass market product or service.
At Colleen Eakins Design, we can help strategize what design components will be needed in your campaign that the chosen influencer can utilize.
I received my Bachelors in Marketing and Certification in the Pastry Arts. I have managed a wide array of printed and digital marketing needs.
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