What’s Wrong With Social Media?

6 May 2019May 7, 2019Ann Mills4 Comments

After succumbing to her curiosity and peeking in the box, Pandora tries to quickly close the top as creatures representing evil and disease escape.

It’s hard to believe that Facebook only came into existence in February 2004–just 15 years ago. Once named thefacebook.com, it began a communication revolution which has put social media at the front and center of many parts of our daily lives. Whether we use Messenger to talk to friends, Instagram to follow our favorite influencer or Pinterest to find a trending product, social media is everywhere.

Negative headlines about data privacy and streams of egregious content have been flashing warning signs about social media for some time. As the manager of a digital marketing agency, here are a few cautionary signs that I see which tell me rigorous regulation of this industry is long overdue, and when it does arrive, it will be a welcome reprieve.

1. Influencer marketing means what you see is not what you get

Called brand partnerships, social media influencers often get paid to blog and post about products. As a rule of thumb, every follower an influencer has equates to a penny. Therefore, an influencer with 10,000 followers may charge $100 per post plus additional production expenses, but ethically, if that person is posting about a product or service as part of the brand partnership, (s)he should disclose it visibly. On social platforms, partner relationships are now being referenced more explicitly, but not always. That means that people may follow influencers and try products being promoted in the posts without realizing influencers are taking fees for creating the posts.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has caught on to undisclosed brand partnerships. The FTC Endorsement Guides require a “material connection” between the two parties, the paid endorser of the product or service and the brand advertiser, to be conspicuously disclosed. Social media platforms are busy rolling out branded content tools that will require tagging of a business partner where there has been an “exchange of value,” but prior to these guidelines, consumers, sometimes children, were none the wiser.

2. Online reviews provide no recourse

Online reviews are an essential part of the digital era, and social media platforms such as Facebook and Yelp are an important source of consumer reviews. According to the BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2018, 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, and that percentage jumps to 95% for people aged 18 to 34. The problem is that consumers know the importance of reviews, and some of them are savvy at abusing them.

For example, people who want to post a negative review frequently copy and paste the same review on as many social platforms as possible. Angry customers will put a negative review on Yelp, Facebook, and then Google My Business, a feature of the Google search engine. The business can answer the review, of course, but it can be incredibly difficult to defend oneself without being seen to disparage the reviewer, who by the way, is not always right. We recently talked with one of our customers that owns a local, 5-star rated business. They provided a retail service for a child, and afterward, the mother paid the bill and left with the boy, both quite happy. Two weeks later, the father returned with the boy to say how unhappy he was with the service that had been provided. The man proceeded to post a 1-star review on three platforms, remove a 5-star review that he had posted for the business a few months earlier, and disparage employees by name in the review.

There’s no arbitration for an online review, no “other side” of the story and with some exception, the review site often does not verify a purchase has even been made. The same BrightLocal survey says, “Negative reviews stop 40% of consumers wanting to use a business,” so the ability of consumers to post any review they would like, even if they have never purchased the product or service, needs to change. Even competitors can post a negative review using fake names; there’s nothing in place to stop them. A fair review process requires vetting–did a purchase actually take place–and some form of reasonable recourse for the business, a monumental technological challenge for both social networks and search engines.

3. Social media platforms offer no real customer service

You might imagine that as a digital marketing agency, we are working with different social media platforms each day. Facebook has a market capitalization, the value of its outstanding shares, of circa 550 billion dollars. Yet, if you have an issue, you have one preliminary option for support. You can click the round question mark button in the navigation. From there, you submit your help request online using their Report a Problem form.

As measured by its market cap, Facebook is the sixth largest company in the world. Facebook also operates Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, and it is not obliged to provide any human form of customer service. Of course, neither are small businesses, but it’s hard to imagine one of the largest companies in the world operating with a Report a Problem form as the first stage of the customer service journey.

4. Social media content is now too vast to police

If you think about movies, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has a rating system for films to warn audiences about film content and its age appropriateness. Contrast the MPAA rating system to the current social media landscape which has no enforceable content guidelines. If you disagree with content posted about your business and even content that tags your business, you can appeal to Facebook to remove it. Our agency’s experience has been that those requests have been declined 100% of the time even when there is a clear pattern of abuse.

Facebook Live, a broadcasting feature available within the Facebook app, has been used to capture murders and suicides. Social media posts on many platforms are rife with profanity and hate speech. As a user, you can block people, but you have no way to actively filter newsfeed content for profanity or inappropriate imagery. I suppose that similar to the movies, you can choose not to “attend,” but really there should be a viable filter available for social media users who wish to block images of violence or profanity in the copy if they so chose. However, allowing the user to filter content would imperil the revenue model for social media networks which is dependent on users seeing ads interspersed in the newsfeed.

5. Personal data is not secure with social media companies

The revelations that came to light in the Cambridge Analytica scandal were shocking. Cambridge Analytica employees and contractors acquired the data of tens of millions of Facebook users via a Facebook data breach in 2014. This data was utilized to construct user profiles in advance of the 2016 US presidential election and effectively audience target marketing campaigns. According to The Guardian, when Facebook found out about the breach in 2015 and that individual data had been harvested, it failed to notify Facebook users that were affected. Facebook also did not work to recover the data from the breach.

In fact, the rapid growth of social media platforms over the last 15 years has meant that social media companies have not been held to the same standard as other traditional media companies and corporations in many areas, including privacy. They should be. It’s been convenient to be labeled a social media platform as if best practice for other companies does not apply. Facebook put out a recent announcement that the company anticipates a fine from the FTC of 3 to 5 billion dollars for privacy breaches and has set aside 3 billion for legal fees which reaffirm the gravity of the situation.

So, what’s wrong with social media? Ads drive the revenue model for social media companies and only work if the platforms are continuously and actively used. Otherwise, no one would see the ads. To a certain extent, questionable content attracts more users, and this phenomenon has fueled the success of companies such as Snapchat where often teens, in particular, post inappropriate content that conveniently disappears. But of course, the posts have already served their purpose and captured the attention of the audience the teen was hoping to reach. Similarly, outrageous reviews, hate speech, and online bullying attract an audience, so social media companies are not particularly incentivized to restrain them. If you haven’t done so recently, scroll through your Twitter feed and glance at the barbs traded daily.

Maturing social networks need leadership that is sensible, ethical and genuinely interested in doing what is in the public interest. Company leadership must be held accountable too, which becomes difficult when within our own legislative branch, there is such a limited understanding of the revenue model that drives social media companies. In a Joint Hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees on Capitol Hill in April of last year, Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, asked Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, “So, how do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?” Mark Zuckerberg replied, “Senator, we run ads.” Without a broad understanding of that basic truism and how to impact it, no real behavioral change will occur by social media networks.

Perhaps not quite as grim as the Greek myth, Pandora’s Box, wherein Pandora’s curiosity gets the better of her and she unleashes all the evils of the world from a box, the exponential growth of social media has nonetheless unleashed its own form of tyranny. Only when the latest features and app updates are truly secondary to the ethical execution of a meaningful company mission will the issues caused by social media start to wane.

Why RELEVANCE is Key to a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy

4 April 2019June 21, 2019Ann Mills23 Comments

An excerpt from Ann Mills’ presentation on digital marketing at Swap The Biz, Short Hills, NJ.

Imagine –

You’ve just been invited to a party, and you have the perfect outfit but need a matching pair of shoes. You head to the local shopping mall and come across a store advertising DRESS SHOES for any occasion. You wander in, and to your dismay, you see rows and rows of sneakers in every style and size. After looking around, you see there are a few dress shoes over in one corner, but certainly not many, and so you leave.

Your experience in the shoe store is a problem digital marketers see played out over and over again in the digital advertising space. People search for a product or service on the Internet and land on a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ad, an ad the advertiser only pays for when the person clicks. Potential customers click on the ad, and they land on a website which does not offer what they are looking for and if it does, it’s pretty hard to find.

In an attempt to prevent this scenario from happening, search platforms and social networks rigorously evaluate advertising campaigns using many different metrics, the most important of which is RELEVANCE.

What is RELEVANCE and why does it matter?

In digital marketing, relevance is exactly what you might imagine–it’s a score that serves as a barometer of whether your messaging truly appeals to the audience you are targeting. It is measured using a combination of variables as a person moves from search query to ad to website. So, for example, if a person types in a search query using certain keywords and sees your business’ Google ad, she will decide whether to click on the ad. If she doesn’t, chances are she did not find the ad relevant to the original query, and over time, that ad will be shown less and cost more for your business to run.

There’s no doubt that marketing your business in the digital space is challenging to execute and when it’s off track, tough to recalibrate. Marketing can be expensive too, so understanding its relevance and your Return on Investment (ROI) are essential. The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends that businesses with under 5 million in sales spend approximately 7 to 8% of gross revenue on marketing. For start-ups in a competitive industry, the percentage can be more like 20% which means advertising can get costly as a business gears up.

Facebook Relevance Score

In Facebook, relevance has historically been defined by an ad’s Relevance Score. Measured on a scale of 1 to 10, highly relevant ads are awarded a higher number. Just one example, if there are positive reactions to a boosted post, it will help the relevance score and not surprisingly, negative reactions will do the opposite. In Facebook, an ad must have 500+ impressions for the Relevance Score to show in the metrics, but marketers have found that a high Facebook Relevance Score does not always correlate to whether the ad works for the business.

In a recent development, Facebook announced that as of April 30, 2019, Relevance Score will be replaced by three more granular relevancy metrics which will measure ad quality, engagement rate, and conversion rate. More importantly, the scores will be relative to similar ads that are competing for the same target audience. Therefore, if these relevancy metrics are not strong for one of your ads, your competitors are doing a better job with similar ads.

Google Quality Score

Similarly, Google defines relevance as, “How closely the elements of your ad campaign match what a person seems to be looking for.” Therefore, optimized ad campaigns have keywords that trigger ads which take the visitor to a user-friendly website page. Ads can also direct people to stand-alone landing pages–single web pages designed to encourage a specific action. A relevant landing page will prompt high click-through rates and Google will reward the business for this positive user experience by prompting more ad impressions at a lower cost. If the ad is truly relevant to the audience it is targeting, it has a measurable marketing advantage over comparable ads in the same space.

Similar to the relevancy metrics recently announced by Facebook, Google has multiple data points which combine to determine an ad’s overall Quality Score. These data points include a Quality Score for the keywords, an assessment of the landing page experience, ad relevance, and the expected click-through rate.

How your website design impacts relevance

It’s important to remember that ad views are impressions, but behind every click is a person. When people who have viewed your ad decide to click the ad to learn more, that click-through takes them to your website or landing page. The construction and organization of your website are critically important to delivering and optimizing the visitor experience once they click.

Look at college and university websites. Often, they divide their navigation into Students, Faculty and Staff, and Alumni when they organize the information for their audience groups. What is relevant to a student or even a prospective student is completely different than what is relevant to an alumnus. Similarly, hotels often organize information by Rooms, Dining, and Events. This type of logical organization structure is essential to relevance. A digital marketer that maps an ad back to a general website page with broadly written content will never be able to impact the business revenue in the same way as if he can direct an ad back to specific, well-written content. Relevant content directly speaks to the audience it is meant to target, and it answers their queries. In the context of the dress shoe example, a store that advertises DRESS SHOES should have rows and rows of dress shoes, not sneakers. If the shoes are organized into sections for men, women, and teens, even better because consumers can easily find what they need.

The DoubleTree by Hilton cookie–a lesson in relevance

If you ever check in at a DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, you are given a warm chocolate chip cookie, a tradition since the 1980s. Aligned with that practice, when you are searching for family-friendly hotels and come across DoubleTree in your search results, you see the following ad:

There’s also a page on the DoubleTree by Hilton website that tells website visitors all about the history of the cookie and that to DoubleTree, “…the cookie means so much more. It represents our constant dedication to our guests and thoughtful touches that ensure you feel special and cared for throughout your stay.”

DoubleTree by Hilton keeps their advertising relevant to customers by associating warm cookies with a welcoming atmosphere and pulls this theme through in their ads and website. Digital marketers have analyzed DoubleTree tweets, and at times, more than 60% of the tweets they are tagged in are about the cookie.

Two takeaways on relevance

Like the DoubleTree by Hilton marketing campaigns, keywords, ads and websites have to work together seamlessly to create powerful, relevant messaging. As you think about your businesses, here are two takeaways on relevance for you to consider:

Figure out your DoubleTree cookie. What makes you different, and by different, I don’t mean just identifying a particular product or service. What really makes your business different from your competitors, and why should someone call you? The answer to these questions is the foundation for an impactful, relevant digital marketing campaign.
Look at your website. On average, when people land on your website homepage, they take 3 seconds to determine if they can find what they need. If they can’t figure out where to go quickly to answer their query, they will leave–it’s the dress shoe example.

Relevance is by far the most important metric in digital marketing, and by the same token, it can be one of the most difficult to pin down. Each brand has a digital footprint which includes all of its assets in the digital space–website, logos, marketing campaigns, social media platforms. If you think your marketing strategy is not engaging potential customers, the culprit could be low relevance. Contact Resourceful Business to learn more.

5 MORE Signs Digital Marketing is Replacing Traditional Media

26 December 2018December 28, 2018Ann Mills2 Comments

In a previous blog, 5 Signs Digital Marketing is Replacing Traditional Media, we wrote about the signs of the digital marketing transformation unfolding around us. From disappearing office addresses to uber thin fonts and interactive documents, all the signposts were telling us that marketing as we knew it was being upended. What began as a slow and steady stream of changes has become a rising flood that has now enveloped the media landscape in its entirety.

As the sea change continues, we thought we would share 5 MORE signs digital marketing is replacing traditional media.

1. Digital ads overtake television ad spend

In 2017, digital ad spending in the US surpassed traditional TV ad expenditures for the first time–much of the shift driven by mobile. In fact, eMarketer projects, “By 2020, [mobile] will represent 43% of total media ad spending in the US—a greater percentage than all traditional media combined.” As Millennials, in particular, migrate to video and online streaming of their favorite programming, digital ads give marketers the platform and versatility to target them. Traditional television ads are comparatively random in their audience reach, and overall television viewership is declining in the United States as well. A study by Omnicom Media Group found that “…in 2016 the smartphone replaced the TV as the device most watched by Millennials,” and there’s even a new marketing nickname for the 22 to 35-year-old demographic that eschews traditional television–the Unreachables.

PEW Research Center estimated newspaper circulations

2. Newspaper circulations decline sharply

The recent Pew Research Center Newspapers: Fact Sheet notes that the estimated total circulation of U.S. daily newspapers has fallen precipitously since the early 1990s. The decline extends to both Sunday and weekday circulations. By the numbers, total estimated circulation of U.S. newspapers halved to circa 31 million in 2017 from 62 million in 1990.

Although digital newspaper circulations are not easy to gauge, the estimated number of unique visitors to the top 50 U.S. online newspaper sites appeared stable in 2017 and saw double-digit gains both in 2016 and 2015. The growth in digital newspaper readership is in sharp contrast to the trend in physical newspaper circulation.

3. Not just office addresses, but offices disappear

Remote working is here to stay. Not only are more employees working remotely, but they are spending longer periods of time engaged in remote work as well. In Freelancing in America 2018, Upwork noted that 56.7 million Americans, or 35% of the workforce, now freelance, and the number of Americans that are freelancing has increased by 3.7 million people since 2014. As the freelancing revolution takes hold, multi-channel digital marketing is adept at targeting a mobile labor force used to working in different spaces, on multiple devices, and in the cloud.

“Audiences continue to abandon traditional media, and ad dollars follow.” –eMarketer

4. Business cards fall by the wayside

I recently attended a business dinner with 15 other marketing professionals, C-Suite executives, and startup co-founders. When I asked a few attendees for business cards, each had the same response–I don’t carry business cards anymore. One person told me his company did not want to pay for physical business cards. The digital age has ushered in the concept of “connecting,” and in fact, after dinner, several people connected with me on LinkedIn. There are also numerous business card apps so people can exchange their contact information digitally. It is estimated that 88% of physical business cards are thrown away within one week of people receiving them which explains why even marketing oneself has gone digital.

5. Digital ads use keywords to identify potential customers

According to Google Benchmarks and Insights, Google display campaigns–image-based digital ads–reach 80% of global internet users. Not only do Google Ads have incredible reach, but they have sophisticated, data-driven audience targeting tools. The ads are driven in part by keywords, words or phrases relevant to an Internet search. These keywords are one component of the algorithmic calculation that determines relevance, a critical metric that forms the basis for which digital ads a person sees.

Broadly categorized into three types, keywords help digital marketers identify and hone in on specific stages of the buyer’s journey with a level of precision not possible using traditional media. Briefly,

Navigational keywords go to a certain website or destination, often a company name or brand
Informational keywords help the user acquire information (how to, compare, information about)
Transactional keywords prompt action (buy, get, contact, sign up)

Based on cues such as keywords, digital marketers can efficiently fashion ads for the multi-stage buyer’s journey and optimize the audiences that see the ad.

So, there you have 5 MORE signs digital marketing is replacing traditional media. At Resourceful Business, we continue to evolve our marketing strategies to respond to the rapidly changing marketing landscape and the challenges that accompany it.

If you’re interested in learning more about how digital marketing can grow your business, please contact us.

Finding Your Ideal Customer Using the Power of Digital Marketing

8 September 2018September 27, 2018Ann Mills4 Comments

An excerpt from Ann Mills’ presentation on digital marketing at Swap The Biz, Short Hills, NJ.

_________

You are on your way to a networking event.

When you arrive, you are surprised to find not one room but three to choose from–each filled with 50 people. Tacked on the door of each room is a sign with some information about each of the people in the room–ages, income bracket, and town. The information also includes whether the person is a parent and his or her areas of interest.

You look at the information on each door and think:

In Room #1, there are one or two people who seem like they might be an ideal networking opportunity.

Room #2–about half of the people in the room seem to fit the profile of your ideal networking opportunity.

In Room #3, all 50 people fit your ideal networking persona. They are the right age, live in a nearby location, and they seem like people who might be interested in the product or service you sell.

Which room will you enter? Probably Room #3.

In the context of marketing:

Room #1 with its 2 to 3 prospects is perhaps the equivalent of a mailer like this one about dining room sets. If you are not buying a dining room set, you’ll probably throw the mailer out. Even if you are buying a dining room set, you may not look at the mailer. If you’re the business that sent the mailer, you can’t be sure who actually read it, and as one print company executive said to me recently, “People pretty much open their mail over the trash can.”

Room #2 with about 25 possible networking opportunities is representative of a networking group. You have a higher chance of connecting and exchanging business with people in the room. They more closely fit your ideal networking persona, and you have more in common with people in the group than acquaintances you make outside the group.

Room #3 with 50 of 50 people seemingly possible networking opportunities personifies digital marketing and, in particular, a powerful tool we use called audience targeting.

What is digital marketing?

If you ask someone what digital marketing is, they will probably tell you that it is advertising delivered via a digital channel. It might be a website, Pay-Per-Click campaign (the advertiser pays for the ad only when someone clicks on it), remarketing campaign, email, social media post, or even a response to an online review. Weaved together, digital marketers create omnichannel marketing strategies.

However, that definition of digital marketing does not convey what is so important about it. Primarily:

A digital campaign audience is not guesswork.
Campaign results are measurable, actionable, and data-driven.
Marketing campaigns can be timed to maximize impact.
Digital campaigns can be changed and scaled quickly.

Let me give you two examples of the agility and versatility afforded by digital marketing:

A mortgage banker in New Jersey deals almost exclusively with clients purchasing high-end homes. In an effort to broaden his target audience of potential clients, a digital agency does an analysis of zip codes in Manhattan where residents typically pay four to five-thousand dollars in rent each month. Intuitively, it’s clear that many of these young professionals might be thinking of starting families as well. The agency develops a Pay-Per-Click ad campaign to market the banker’s services into specific zip codes in New York City where the high-rent-paying population lives.

A client with multiple retail locations in New Jersey has her online reviews on Google, Facebook, and Yelp managed by a digital agency. The agency notices that some of the online reviews are in Spanish and come to believe that it is perhaps a far more important demographic than had been previously realized. In addition to Google AdWords Pay-Per-Click campaigns targeting English-speaking people which are already in place, the agency turns Spanish-speaking living in the United States on as a demographic trait for her Google AdWords campaigns. In addition to posts in English, the social media agency also begins to add Spanish posts to her social media feeds. The agency then rolls out corporate overview videos–one with an English voiceover and another with a voiceover in Spanish.

The results seen by our digital marketing clients have been striking. One client has quadrupled sales. Another found that their seasonal summer dip in sales disappeared. One company was named to a prominent list of the fastest growing companies in New Jersey in 2017 and in America in 2018.

Micro-Moments

Google defines something called a Micro-Moment. A Micro-Moment is an intent rich moment when a person turns to a device to act on a need–to know, go, do or buy.

The power of digital marketing is that it allows your business to be present at those micro-moments in a way traditional media cannot. In so doing, your business can get:

the right message,

to the right people,

at exactly the right time.

________________

Interested in learning more? Contact us.

A Digital Marketing Trifecta That Will Turbocharge Reach

30 January 2018January 31, 2018Ann MillsLeave a comment

Sometimes 1 + 1 = 3.

In digital marketing, the connectivity afforded across platforms can sometimes have a domino effect on customer reach and engagement. When you find these synergies, the impact is powerful. With that in mind, here’s one of our favorite digital marketing combinations for consumer-facing businesses of any size. It’s a digital trifecta and a must-do for your marketing strategy.

1. Add all company events to Facebook Events

Every business should have a Facebook company page, even if it’s a solopreneur. There are a number of features available on Facebook company pages that are not offered on an individual profile page.

One of these essential features is Facebook Events, and you will see the Events tab on the left side of a company page. In general, why is adding an event to Facebook Events so important?

With Facebook Events, you can:

Add the event location so page visitors can find it or get directions via an interactive map
Link a registration page where people can purchase tickets
Establish recurring events–especially handy for classes
Tag the event with keywords
Post about the event leading up to the date or afterward; the post can link to the Event page
Boost the event reach with a paid social media ad

Less well-known is a new feature that makes posting in Facebook Events essential for businesses. Now, the Facebook Local app is pushing the Facebook Events feed into Facebook user notifications. If an event is in the area and the Facebook algorithm decides that it may be of interest, a person may see a notification of the event in his or her personal Notifications stream. The Notifications stream is where you typically track page likes, comments, and activity. An example of an Events notification in a person’s feed is, “[Business Name] has added a new event near you,” and when a person clicks on the notification, it goes straight to the Facebook Events page of the business.

2. Create a community calendar for your business in Burbio

Burbio is a digital, local event aggregation platform that pulls event feeds from the community at large. Burbio users can follow calendars created by local businesses, schools, the public library, recreation sports teams or the chamber of commerce. These community calendars showcase all types of events like classes, lunch and learn meetups, or town sports, and people can register for them if website links are provided.

As a business owner, once you set up a business Burbio account, your Burbio calendar can integrate with your Facebook Events feed, so Facebook Events will push to the calendar automatically. If you use a personal calendar for events, Burbio can also integrate with iCal or a Google calendar. All of the events businesses are adding to their Facebook Events, iCal or Google calendars can flow straight through to the local Burbio community calendar. Burbio.com will promote your events in their weekly digests that go out to the community and will also allow users to “follow” your calendar for twice-weekly email updates, integrating your business into the community experience of residents.

3. The Freebie: events are accessible in Ask Alexa voice search

One of the most interesting features of Burbio is that there is a Burbio Alexa Skill for users of Amazon’s Ask Alexa. The integration with the voice platform means that events on a Burbio calendar can be accessed via voice search using Alexa-enabled Amazon devices.

If a person prompts Alexa with, “Alexa, ask Burbio what’s happening in [town, state],” the Ask Alexa app will come back with, “Here’s what’s happening in [town, state]” and proceed to rattle off the events. As long as you configure your Facebook Event titles in the exact way you want Alexa to say them, your event is now available to anyone using Ask Alexa who has downloaded the Burbio skill.

So, now you have an easy, digital marketing trifecta. With two simple steps, you can have your business events pushed to customer notification streams via Facebook Events, integrated into a rapidly growing community calendar application and then get the added bonus of having your events available in voice search.

It’s the payoff of a trifecta without the cost – surely a bet worth making.

10 Go-To Digital Marketing Tools

30 April 2016July 13, 2021Ann Mills1 Comment

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”– Michael Jordan

With so many apps and tools at our fingertips, one would think digital marketing has never been easier. Not so. As the freelancing or “gig” economy takes off, remote teams are becoming commonplace; and digital marketing with its many moving parts can pose real logistical challenges. Upwork estimates one-third of American workers are now freelancing, and project work, digital or otherwise, demands that everyone stays talking, collaborating and informed.

It can be frustrating to roll out a collaborative tool only to find it doesn’t have the functionality to facilitate a team or do what is needed. Over the past several years, my team has found that some of the tools we use for our digital marketing projects consistently make the “A” list. So, I thought I would share! Whether you’re a small business mostly managing your own marketing efforts or a large cross-border team, there is something on this list for everyone.

Here is the Resourceful Business list of ten go-to digital marketing tools:

VISUALS

1. Create great visuals in Canva

Graphics are a necessity for online marketing and often need to be created. While Adobe Photoshop is best for more complex projects, Canva is a simple drag-and-drop design platform for creating social posts, documents, banners and other visuals. It is an important tool for our social media team. The canvas size you choose can be customized by social network (e.g., Facebook post, Instagram post, Pinterest graphic), and pictures and watermarks can be maintained in an Uploads library. There is a wide selection of fonts and templates; and in the premium version, designers can create brand folders, save brand colors, and resize images for different social platforms.

Favorite Canva feature: Team stream, which allows different team members to share their work and comment on team submissions

Canva.com

2. Find high resolution, free stock photos on Stock Up

It’s impossible to be in digital marketing and not utilize imagery. According to Hubspot, “Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images.” It’s only one of 37 must-read visual marketing stats in a recent Hubspot article. Stock Up is a unique website that aggregates photos from 27 free stock photo sites. There are close to 14,000 pictures, and the number continues to grow. Users can put keywords in a search bar to search for images, and the photo selections are expansive and varied.

Favorite Stock Up feature: If you hover over the photo, the license terms appear.

sitebuilderreport.com/stock-up

SOCIAL MEDIA

3. Schedule Instagram posts with ScheduGram

For any business that has the luxury of beautiful product visuals, Instagram is an essential social platform. As a digital marketing agency creating social media for clients, we prefer not to do things on the fly. ScheduGram is a scheduling platform for Instagram posts, and it is available on desktop. In our view, this feature is mission critical. Posts can be scheduled in advance, and first comments–the preferred location for hashtags–can be as well. ScheduGram allows us to review, edit and see our posts on a desktop prior to posting. Tagging photos, or identifying other people or businesses in the post, through the Schedugram platform is currently in test, and we hope the ability to add location will follow in short order.

Favorite Schedugram feature: First Comments field so that hashtags can be scheduled in the first comment at the same time you schedule the post itself

schedugr.am

4. Manage social media posts with Hootsuite

Social media work for clients should be a collaborative, tag team effort. Content can be written by one part of the team and then edited and hashtagged by another. Creatives can design graphics, and if the client uses paid social campaigns, other team members can manage the ads too. For us, scheduling social media posts is a must because it drives consistency, quality and collaboration. We use Hootsuite for social media; it allows us to schedule posts and use different team members in the creation process. Recently, Hootsuite added an integration with YouTube, so now you can schedule videos too.

Favorite Hootsuite feature: AutoSchedule, which will send scheduled posts at optimal times

hootsuite.com

5. Develop a list of relevant hashtags with Hashtagify

When a “#” is put in front of a word, it creates a hashtag, or clickable link, that directs you to content which also contains that hashtag. Hashtags are an important tool in marketing, because they can drive a person to your content–and ultimately your business–via the hashtag. If a person doesn’t know about your company, (s)he may never find your brand through traditional search. However, hashtags can attract an audience with an interest in your subject matter. The Hashtagify portal allows a user to type in a hashtag and see other related, popular hashtags. Visuals like the size of a circle that surrounds a hashtag and the thickness of connecting lines that extend from the hashtag being analyzed cue the user to a hashtag’s popularity. You can even see Top Influencers and compare performance between hashtags.

Favorite Hashtagify feature: The Hashtag Wall which gives a tiled, visual representation of recent posts for a hashtag

hashtagify.me

CONTENT CREATION

6. Correct spelling and grammar with Grammarly

Grammarly is a writing app which has a handy Chrome add-on. It highlights grammar, syntax and spelling errors. The interface is incredibly user-friendly. Errors are underlined in red and then upon hover, fixes are suggested in green. It is easy to see errors visually, and Grammarly offers an explanation for the problem. You can take the suggestion or decline it. Although not currently integrated with Google Drive, a quick workaround is to download your Google Doc as a Microsoft Word document and just pick the errors up from there. Another alternative is to copy and paste the copy into Grammarly directly. A Google Drive integration is apparently in the works.

Favorite Grammarly feature: explanation cards for errors which describe the mistake, suggest the correction and offer an “Add to Dictionary” option

grammarly.com

COLLABORATION

7. Collect client input with Google Forms

Whether it is a website information questionnaire or input for a logo design, every business needs client input. The collector must be user-friendly, gathered in an organized way and viewable by the team. Google has a cloud-based solution for survey creation, Google Forms. There are several ways to receive and view the responses. Our favorite is to have the responses automatically populate a Google Sheet, which is accessible by the entire team.

Favorite Google Forms feature: basic customization tools for branding such as a header image for logos and a color palette

google.com/forms

8. Collaborate with Google Drive

Great content begins with a talented writer or creative. Better content is a collaboration of many inputs and viewpoints. Google Drive, a cloud-based file creation and storage service offered by Google, is our go-to tool for team collaboration. Notwithstanding the importance of all of the work being in the cloud for accessibility by the team, the Google Drive interface allows for direct editing, review and comments. A user can see past revisions and which team member has recently worked on the document. In fact, our team will drag and drop almost everything a client sends us into organized Google Drive folders, and the search toolbar functionality is robust. One handy feature is the ability to see Recent items that have been worked on or viewed, which makes finding current work a breeze.

Favorite Google Drive feature: Suggesting mode so team edits are seen as suggestions and only incorporated if accepted

google.com/drive/

9. Assign work out to the team with Wrike

As any business grows, so too does its client base, project list and task complexity. Our agency needed an application that would allow the management team to assign out the various moving parts of each project, keep track of progress and deadlines, and allow other members of the team to provide input. We landed on Wrike. As projects come in, they are scheduled on Wrike and assigned out to team members. Tasks can be made recurring, moved around on a calendar, and organized by folder. The team can add comments, upload attachments and mark assignments as complete.

Favorite Wrike feature: Daily To Do emails that show tasks and overdue tasks, each with a link back to the original Wrike task

wrike.com

10. Tackle big projects with Basecamp

There are projects and then there are projects. Large, complicated client engagements, websites for example, have many inputs and require the involvement of multiple parties, possibly even outside freelancers and creatives. Basecamp is one of the most versatile project applications around, and it has a great dashboard–my personal favorite of any of the applications I use. In the various sections on the dashboard, project team members can see documents, the project schedule, team chats in the campfire section, and the running to-do list. It shows team profiles across the top of the dashboard so you always know who is involved, and importantly, it will email or “ping” people to keep them posted on updates and communications.

Favorite Basecamp feature: Link a Google doc, where you can add a document by just linking the URL of a Google Doc

basecamp.com

What makes a digital marketing tool best in class?

No doubt you will have noticed some consistencies in our list of go-to digital marketing tools. They offer user-friendly dashboards and portals, utilize the cloud for accessibility and storage, and facilitate the many inputs and stages of complex project work. Tools that are emerging as best in class facilitate teams collaborating from all corners of the world.

Think of the possibilities!

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Please note that on occasion, RB may use an affiliate link in its blog and receive some form of compensation should you purchase a specific product. RB will only use an affiliate link for a tool we actively use ourselves and recommend as a resource.

5 Signs Digital Marketing is Replacing Traditional Media

18 October 2015July 13, 2021Ann Mills4 Comments

Why would a company remove their office address from a brochure or ask for marketing material to be developed that will never go to print? Why would a marketing piece be written in a way that assumes the reader will only peruse the subheads and perhaps a few bullet points?

These requests are real, so what is prompting companies to dramatically revise the way they are choosing to communicate? The answer is more straightforward than you might think. Taken out of context, these demands may seem a little offbeat, but they actually reflect an important shift towards digital media. As digital marketing slowly subsumes some traditional forms of communication, companies are learning to adapt their marketing material to reach audiences in new ways.

The cues are everywhere. Here are a few we are seeing and believe are 5 signs that digital marketing is replacing traditional media.

1. Office addresses disappear

Companies are doing away with their physical office location(s) on marketing material. Instead, they are asking for three reference pieces of information in documents created in interactive Portable Document Format (PDF), a format that supports features such as hyperlinks and buttons:

the company name
the company website with a hyperlink
the company phone number with a link that will open a phone dialer

The shift is proof that for some businesses, technology is making geographic location irrelevant. Companies can service and communicate with clients all over the world, and they want their literature to transcend references to a physical location.

2. Interactive PDFs

Now more than ever, brochures are created as interactive PDFs which assume readers will view them on their desktop, tablet or mobile device. A high resolution rendering of a document on screen opens up a host of visual options not available in print. For some organizations, printable versions are almost an afterthought, sometimes used only for a conference display table. Rather, the marketing strategy is simply to send brochures that are both visual and interactive and then push for a meeting.

3. Uber thin fonts

In marketing material, there are often font combinations that contrast paragraph text from subheads or headings. For example, you might see all of the subheads in a sans serif font (fonts without little projections at the tips of the letters) and the paragraph text in a complimentary serif font (fonts with the decorative tips at the ends of the letters). The combination gives the piece visual appeal and sets apart important headings.

With digital delivery of marketing material, it is possible to use extremely thin fonts which convey a crisp, sophisticated look. These types of fonts are more challenging to use in print, especially over a dark background. An example of a popular combination we like to use in interactive PDFs is Helvetica Neue UltraLight and Georgia.

4. 24/7 digital marketing requests

The workday is on a global 24-hour clock, and client requests even extend through the weekend. It’s really no surprise. Proofs are exchanged electronically. The cloud helps creative teams work from anywhere. We have reached out to firms in other countries and timezones to help us with our work. Platforms such as Upwork, have freelancers from all over the world that actively bid on projects. The payment portal and user experience are almost effortless, and in some ways easier than traditional billing and payment cycles.

Sometimes clients put work requests in on a Friday evening, and even with several rounds of revisions throughout the weekend, the finished product is ready on Monday. I personally don’t believe digital marketing is meant to fit neatly into Monday to Friday office hours, and why not take advantage of a global talent pool for project work?

5. Less, more impactful content

It’s not a coincidence that platforms like BuzzFeed, a social news and entertainment network, and Snapchat, a social messaging app, have huge user growth. They offer imagery, immediacy and in the case of Snapchat, the ability to post a “snap” that even disappears after it is viewed. They remind us how brief the period of time is that a digital marketer has to capture someone’s attention.

Companies see the same trends and observe clients quickly scanning their marketing materials if the brochure is even read at all. The challenge for content creators in the digital age is to write less frequent, more impactful content. If concepts can be represented visually or interactively, they will more easily catch the reader’s attention for a marketing edge.

There’s no doubt that when it comes to marketing, change is all around us. Companies are thinking more about who they want to reach and how. With a suite of digital tools available, getting a message out has never been easier. Ideating content good enough to rise above the marketing noise and captivate an audience – that’s as hard as ever.

If your traditional marketing campaign needs a digital overhaul, contact us or call (973) 218-6558. In the sometimes confusing age of new media, we would love to create a digital marketing strategy for your company that will engage your audience and grow your brand.

photo credit: By Takashi Hososhima from Tokyo, Japan (A typewriter) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

7 Digital Marketing Strategies Guaranteed to Engage

21 April 2015July 25, 2022Ann MillsLeave a comment

Imagine two full days with digital marketers sharing their insights, experiences, strategies and blunders. That was ClickZ Live (#CZLNY), a digital marketing conference I recently attended in New York. The amount of resources that companies are investing in digital marketing is vast, and the stakes are high. A Nielsen survey, An Era of Growth: The Cross-Platform Report, confirmed that the average American adult spends 10 hours each day on electronic media, now a primary source of entertainment, shopping, information gathering and socialization. The result is that digital marketing sits on the front lines of the battle for consumer engagement.

The fabulous ClickZ Live event gave too many insights to enumerate, but here are 7 of my favorite digital marketing strategies and insights guaranteed to engage:

1. Create authentic content

Many of the speakers returned to the same core message: create authentic content. The litmus test is to consider what actually makes you or your company an authority on a topic. It sounds simple, but actually it’s not. When creating digital marketing strategies, look harder at the areas where the business excels and the commentary could have weight. At Resourceful Business, our team will have more of these types of conversations with clients and map out areas where they can be authoritative, because those topics will be the basis for authentic, meaningful content.

2. Provide transparency into aspects of your business

At #CZLNY, there were so many incredible examples of companies using digital strategies to give their customers insight into their businesses. We saw a fantastic GE video featuring an original soundtrack by electronic music artist, Matthew Dear, called Drop Science. Dear utilized thousands of audio emission sounds from GE facilities and turned them into a soundtrack. The video included Marquese “Nonstop” Scott, an iconic dancer, performing to the music in a breathtaking GE testing facility in Peebles, OH. The video gave viewers a peek into GE’s testing facilities and the vast array of complex equipment GE engineers are working with every day. It was a great example of giving clients insight into places they normally cannot see or go, yet it still reminds the viewer of the business brand and what the company does.

3. Understand the different types of content

Jinal Shah, of J. Walter Thompson Worldwide, a premiere marketing communications company, categorized digital content on a continuum: lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight. It was interesting that lightweight was really a vehicle to push out middleweight and heavyweight content, not necessarily a basis for a marketing strategy in and of itself. In trying to maintain a certain standard when producing digital content, social media was cited as the one medium that presented the most challenges. However, the Oreo Moment, when Oreo put out a tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl XLVII blackout saying “YOU CAN STILL DUNK IN THE DARK,” was mentioned as a powerful reminder of the impact lightweight media can have nonetheless. The Oreo Moment achieved 18,000 Facebook likes, 10,000 retweets, and 5,000 shares in the first hour.

Seeing digital marketing content on a continuum is a more constructive way to view content, and it will ensure that a strategy is in place in each of the three categories.

Lightweight

Middleweight

Heavyweight

Example: Social media

Quick
Can be curated content
Real time
A means to push out Middleweight and Heavyweight content
Can fill the gap in-between Middleweight and Heavyweight content
Often not searchable
Can present Middleweight or Heavyweight content to a new audience in a different way

Examples: infographics, blogs,
question and answer (Q&A) series, microburst videos, surveys, email campaigns, cinemagraphs

More substantive content
Can be time-consuming to produce
Can show expertise in a field
Does not have to be real time

Examples: webinars, case studies, white papers, e-books, explainer videos, lengthier videos

Content which requires time and mindfulness
Often expensive to create
May need art direction
Evergreen, if successful
Establishes thought leadership

4. Budget for digital marketing

Every digital marketing strategy must have an ad budget. An ad budget permits a digital strategist to boost key pieces of content with paid social, for example, because organic reach is often not sufficient when you are trying to distribute specific content to a target audience. So, maintain a digital marketing budget for the added flexibility of giving a strategic content piece a push through paid ads.

5. Develop a pop culture calendar

Every business can relate to key holidays, events or songs. These pop culture tie-ins can lead to high levels of engagement, especially if they are current. A landscaping business, for example, could plan a marketing campaign around Earth Day every year. Small businesses should always have a digital marketing campaign around Small Business Saturday. A restaurant could create a featured dish for Superbowl Sunday or March Madness. Pop culture draws engagement, so create a pop culture calendar and develop relevant, timely digital marketing around the different events.

6. Prioritize owned versus borrowed media

At #CZLNY, many of the digital marketers emphasized that the only platform a company truly “owns” is its website. All of the other platforms are “borrowed media.” From a fantastic lesson in optimizing content for mobile by John Shehata of ABC News to discussions on the importance of shareable content on your website, we left #CZLNY with the understanding that a company’s website is the most important digital marketing asset it has, and you really cannot spend too much time or energy on this all important “owned media.”

7. Leverage the brand awareness of others

In this Meghan Trainor video, Lips Are Movin, the popular singer utilizes the brand awareness of several popular stars on Vine, YouTube and Instagram who are well-known content creators and influencers. The video includes:

Marcus and Cody Johns – Vine stars
Mei Kawajiri – NY nail artist
Bri Emery – set designer and used for art direction
Barkley the Pom – a Pomeranian with 478,000 Instagram followers

By leveraging the successful brand recognition of other people, partners or even pets, a company can open up new audiences and gain priceless exposure.

At the time of the video, Barkley the Pom had approximately 370,000 Instagram followers. Now with 478,000 followers, it is clear that leveraging someone else’s brand awareness can be a remarkably effective strategy.

Impactful Digital Marketing is Key to Engagement

Great conferences like #CZLNY have a way of crystallizing information that is meaningful and thought-provoking. The innovation in the digital marketing landscape is breathtaking, and any digital marketing strategy will take energy and constant review to keep pace and remain relevant. Hopefully, these seven examples and insights will give your digital marketing some added punch, but if your company’s strategy could still use an overhaul, contact us or call (973) 218-6558.

Why a Personal Brand has Become a Marketing Must

12 July 2014May 4, 2017Ann MillsLeave a comment

Small businesses come in all shapes and sizes. Your company might even be just one person – you! Although you may have never really thought about it, you do have a personal brand which can be one of your most important marketing tools. A personal brand is your reputation, your experience, your approach to business and how you conduct yourself when working with clients or colleagues. It determines how you are perceived by others and whether people trust you.

Answering e-mails in a timely fashion, returning phone calls promptly, showing up to meetings on time and even how you dress are all components of a personal brand. It is imperative to convey it thoughtfully and consistently across websites, social media, blogs and personal interactions. Most importantly, your personal brand must reflect who you really are, not what you believe the market demands.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, a personal brand has become a marketing must. If you don’t have one, here are some steps to help you get started.

Compile your past experience and see what strikes you about it

When building your personal brand, start by making a list and make sure to include all of your volunteer work, board positions, outside coursework or hobbies and anything that defines you as an interesting person. Look for patterns in your work, education and activities. If you are always volunteering for a certain charity or work in a particular field, these interests are the start of your personal brand. Pull out two or three and feature them in your marketing strategy. Build a LinkedIn profile while doing it!

Consider how you would like to be perceived by your clients

If you want to be viewed as a thought leader in your field, you should have a professionally branded blog page which frames the key aspects of your experience. Blog and create original, timely content at least once a month. If it is important for you to be looked at as tech savvy, then develop a social media strategy and presence with branded backgrounds, banners and professionally photographed profile pictures to convey your abilities and understanding in this area. Link your social media account to your blog page with stylish icons that further reflect your personal brand.

Develop consistency in your branding

If you are a solopreneur, then don’t be afraid to blog as “I” or present yourself as an individual when building your personal brand. If you are part of a team, then make sure to differentiate your personal brand from that of the team and define areas that highlight your skills as opposed to those of the team. Whether it be in your website copy, social media or blog, stay consistent and remain “I” or “we,” otherwise clients will become confused.

Create an online presence and reference your brand in the domain name

One of the critical components of creating a personal brand is deciding how people will search for you online. If you have developed a business that centers around your expertise in an area and plan to blog, for example, your domain name might be your name, www.yourname.com. Also, if your network of contacts is from business school or college, classmates may search for you by name; or if your business is a consultancy, a blog that uses a domain with your name may be an excellent choice. However, if you plan to operate under a business name, your domain should reflect the business name and then define your personal brand under an About page on the website instead.

Create valuable, original content by writing a blog

Whatever your field of interest, take the time to build your personal brand by writing original content and posting it in a blog. Brand the blog and choose a platform like WordPress which can be optimized for search and tailored to reflect your personal style and image. Make sure your blog has a headshot on the page or you have uploaded an avatar (the small profile picture associated with your blogs or comments), so people can associate your face with your name. If possible, tie in the domain name to boost your personal brand.

Market your personal brand on social media

Social media is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you have a wealth of choices to market your personal brand like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram. On the other hand, people often start social media accounts and then neglect them, so social media can become a negative aspect of your personal brand. Creating a social media presence that reflects your personal brand takes time and effort, so allocate the time to build it and engage with it or have a content marketing firm do it for you. See my recent blog, Stop Ruining Your Business with Social Media.

Do you need help creating a personal brand?

At Resourceful Business, we can assist you in developing and defining your personal brand, help convey it effectively on your website and social media or even help with blog writing so your personal brand comes through with consistency. Contact us to learn more.