Use Social Media Marketing To Improve Your Brand Identity

Social Media Marketing also known as SMM is a form of online marketing that makes use of the various Social Media networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn and more. The goal is to meet the pre-defined marketing objectives or to simply create and manage your brand Identity. How you communicate across these platforms and how well your target audience receives this communication is the key to success for any marketing campaign across Social Media.

You may be a beginner wanting to create a brand identity via Social Media Marketing or you may be an established brand looking at improving your brand identity. In either case, you need to be clear about your objective of Social Media marketing. Whether you are seeking better engagement with your target audience or you want to spread word about your products or services; you have to define and create a balanced mix across the various social platforms to achieve these goals.

Once your objectives have been clearly laid out, you begin with identifying the right social networks where your target audience is most likely to spend time or hang out online. These networks would serve as your platform to engage your audience and improve your brand identity. However, the approach you follow would be crucial. After all, you would not want to be the recipient of irate customers on public platforms.

Remember, that each social network has a unique characteristic and functionality. Though most of us have our profiles across major social platforms, the type of interactions happening on each of them differ a lot. Let’s begin with understanding the popular Social Media platforms where your target audience is most likely to be found:

Facebook
Facebook is the world’s largest form of social networking that exists today with more than 1 billion users across the globe. . Facebook has a casual, friendly environment where text, pictures, links and videos work as a form of communication. It gives you the options of creating a user profile, a fan page or a group. You can begin with creating your corporate fan page and start inviting your friends to like the page and hence become the initial word-of-mouth agents for you. Make sure your fan page reflects your brand not just visually but also in the content that you post. Keep the tone casual and the content relevant to your business and industry. Make it a point to reply to the comments & messages promptly and in a friendly manner.

Twitter:
Followers are to twitter what fans are to Facebook. You can post about the latest deals and offers and broadcast them to a wider audience by adding some generic hashtags (#sale #specialoffer #discounts etc.). The only restriction being – 140 characters limit. Retweet whenever someone says anything good about you and answer a question for example. Make sure you reply quickly since the communication on this platform is far more quick and short-lived. Twitter has more than 250 million active users across the world, more than 500 million tweets are sent per day, and Twitter supports more than 35 languages currently.

Google+:
This is the aptly called Google’s Facebook. The format is also very much similar to Facebook when it comes to sharing information or content. The advantage of Google+ is that whatever content you post here can give you SEO benefits as per some SEO experts. Also, you can further segregate your followers into smaller groups called circles and hence create more focused marketing messages. For instance, you can create a circle of privileged members and share special discount offers with them. The tone again needs to be casual and light. Today, Google+ has more than 550 million users across the globe, is the 2nd largest social networking site and it’s growing rapidly every day.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is one of the most professional social networking websites. You can begin with creating your company page which your audience and business associates can follow. The best form of Social Media marketing on LinkedIn would be to engage in conversation and discussion with professionals from a similar industry. This would eventually help you establish your brand as a thought leader in your field. You can also invite your customers to write recommendations for your products & services thus building credibility and adding to your brand identity. LinkedIn has a professional and business environment which needs to be taken on a more corporate feel versus your other social networking sites. LinkedIn has more than 300 million professionals across the globe today that are using this powerful form of business networking.

YouTube:
This is certainly one of the most powerful Social Media marketing tools for creating as well as improving your brand identity. Create useful ‘how to’ videos of your product for your YouTube channel that you can create. You can embed these videos across your digital interfaces like your website, blog, Facebook, LinkedIn profiles etc. Your customers can subscribe to your channel and get the incredibly effective video form of brand communication directly. YouTube has more than 1 billion unique visitor’s visiting YouTube every month and more than 6 billion hours is watched across YouTube every month.

Conclusion:
Once you have a clear understanding of the social networks and the probability of finding your target audience on each, you can begin with defining a brand identity across all the social networking platforms. Next, focus on the content keeping in mind the nature of each Social Media platform and follow a consistent tone to resonate your brand message. Make sure you cover the most crucial aspect of every Social Media marketing strategy – reply to each consumer query or complaint quickly and smartly. Your promptness/ignorance can make or break your brand identity. The impact is almost irrevocable. Social Media is a very powerful tool that when used effectively can have a huge impact on your business, your bottom line, and your brand. It is something that can no longer be ignored and needs to be taken very seriously.

We have tried to list the properties of different Social Media marketing across various social networks. By creating the right mix of content and active participation, you can very effectively use Social Media marketing to take your business to the next level. If you need any help with your Social Media marketing or anything digital marketing related, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.

Reference-https://www.minddigital.com/use-social-media-marketing-to-improve-your-brand-identity/

What Benefits Can Social Media Bring To Your Business

There is a lot of buzz around Social Media sites these days and the kind of options that it can provide to businesses globally. If you are new to the business world, you might find this strange or perhaps not that majority of businesses in the market nowadays make use of Social Media in some way. Sometimes it is to spread the word about their products or services, address customer complaints or even create brand advocates on Social Media. So, how can Social Media marketing help your business grow? Social Media marketing and engagement is not only used to spread the word about your business but also helps in building your brand and allows you to actively engage with your target audience in a more personal way. The main Social Media marketing sites these days that are the most used in the market are Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter. If you can cover these 4, you will have a good reach amongst your customers and prospects within the Social Media world.

Social Media marketing allows you to not only target your audience but understand what your customers are interested in and what they are looking for. For example, if someone buys a product or service you offer and gives feedback of that product or service in a positive or negative way through Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on, you can understand the thought process of this customer along with the feedback they are providing. You can understand what they liked or disliked with your product or service and make the necessary changes if need be. For example, if they are a happy customer, you can thank them and if they are not happy for whatever reason, you can directly address any problems that they may have. This will allow you to not only address any negative Social Media comments but can help you turn an upset customer into a brand advocate through direct personal interaction. Consumers will appreciate and become brand advocates as a result of the personalized interaction they receive from your business through Social Media. Here, we will take a quick look at some of the benefits that Social Media marketing can have on your business.

✓ Better engagement
One of the main benefits of Social Media marketing services is better engagement. Customers today are exposed to the world of the Internet more than ever and therefore they are well informed and research on more products or services than they did earlier. This means that as a business owner you need to go out and engage with your customers and convince them why they should choose to buy your products or services. With Social Media marketing, you can do just that as you can create profiles on Social Media sites and turn your business into a unique personality that interacts and gives out the right information about your business. With Social Media marketing, you can ask direct questions to your customers and in return get real time feedback and suggestions. This will help you in not only in retaining customers but also acquire new ones.

✓ Build your brand
Building your brand is important if you want your business to succeed. For this, you will need Social Media marketing services that represent your business across all Social Media portals to make your brand consistent. This simplifies the equation of turning your brand into a live person and communicating with the audience to ensure that they are getting a similar experience across all platforms. With the help of a Social Media marketing company, you can do this easily as they have the expertise to help you build your brand online. They can advise the do’s and don’ts when it comes to Social Media as they will have the expertise and experience.

✓ Updates & information
Staying updated is something that customers like in this fast pace world. Consumers today are connected through mobile devices and computers and therefore they seek updates and information at all times. With the help of Social Media marketing, you can update your customers about your new products or services and also about how you are investing in the future to bring them better options. Social Media marketing services can also help you to post information about new contests and events that your business will hold in the future.

✓ Building a reputation
With the help of Social Media sites you can focus on your brand and business reputation. Social media marketing services can help you develop a reputation and voice on Social Media sites such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn or Twitter. This will indicate the level of your business popularity and how you can take advantage of that reputation and popularity to boost your business further in the future. You will be pleasantly surprised as to the impact that a Social Media campaign can have on your bottom line and how it can increase the reputation/brand of your company. You can easily and quickly build a loyal following and acquire new customers

Summary
Social Media marketing and engagement has almost become a necessity these days. With more and more people spending time online and engaging with brands, friends and family, Social Media has become a party of daily life. People are more than likely to believe or try a new product or service that has been used by someone on their Social Media network versus a TV ad. No matter how small or large your business is, the power of Social Media can no longer be ignored. If you want to be engaged, visible and connect to your customers or prospects, Social Media is one of the best ways to do so. If you are looking for a creative, reliable and experienced Social Media marketing team the can help you, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital group. We would be more than happy to help you on how you can become more “Social.”

Reference-https://www.minddigital.com/what-benefits-can-social-media-bring-to-your-business/

Social Media Optimization (SMO) Benefits To Your Business Or Website

Experts consider SMO to be the next wave of online marketing. They have reached at this conclusion after analysing social networks and their ever-growing usages worldwide.

Social media is now much more than just a platform to chat, converse and post photos. These networks feature prominently in online marketing strategies of brands small and big alike cutting across industries.

Further, SMO is a perfect mix of social media and SEO and thus, its benefits are bound to be manifold. This branch of marketing is meant to give a visibility boost to your website across social networks.

Which means, even the best SEO service won’t be able to fill in the value created by optimization efforts you do put for social media. This is why SMO matters a lot.
 

Is SMO worth the investment?

This is a good question particularly for brands low on budget yet want to leverage social networks to full. The answer is YES! Well, to understand why an investment in SMO is worth the effort, you need to look at some stats and figures –

✓ The userbase of Facebook is now reached at 1.71 billion people worldwide

✓ Over 1 billion people use social site YouTube

✓ 70% of the total internet population uses social media

✓ Some 200 million users are added to social networks annually

✓ 83% of Fortune 500 companies use Twitter while the rest have a presence on Facebook

You can see how social media is growing at an amazing rate. If your business is not on these networks, it then stands to lose a lot for sure.
 

Why SMO?

We know social media is one of the best ways to improve organic search results of websites. We also know how social networks have risen in usages world over and how they can’t be ignored.

Here are reasons why SMO is important –

✓ It gives your business an opportunity to connect and reach out to people in various online venues

✓ You leverage social networks and extend the reach of the business

✓ People on the internet can easily link back to your website

✓ Traffic gets driven to your website

✓ Brand awareness takes place

✓ Brand loyalty happens

✓ Your content is shared and spread across social channels

✓ The visibility of your website gets a boost

✓ Your business’ conversion rates go up
 

Things to know in SMO

SMO is important. Without it, your business won’t be able to extract the most out of social networks. However, there is plenty to consider with social media optimization.
 

Here are some of things to know in SMO

✓ SMO is about optimizing your site largely through social media

✓ Apart from social network, this marketing method also involves promotion through blogs, communities, podcasts etc.

✓ Experts use RSS feeds, blogging, social bookmarking, photo & image sharing and social news buttons for optimization purposes

✓ It’s about creating links to a site by boosting social media visibility of the website

✓ There as two ways or methods to leverage SMO efforts, first by adding to the content social media features and secondly by doing promotional activities in social media

✓ SMO is about driving traffic to your site sources other than search engines however with the focus to improve ranking and visibility in search engines

✓ It involves getting links to your website

✓ Your social media optimization also includes creating inbound links

✓ You need to do bookmarking and tagging

✓ Your content needs to be shared and spread so that others can benefit from it and make use of it

✓ The more your content travels, the more SMO benefits reach to your website or business
 

Tips to make SMO beneficial for your website and business

Well, your social media efforts need to be rewarded in due manner as this is why you do it in the first place. However, you need to be aware of the ways and methods of doing SMO and then only can you thing of doing it perfectly.

Here are valuable tips to get the most out of your SMO efforts –

#Create attention-grabbing content

The backbone of your SMO effort would be to creating attention-grabbing content and then spreading it further. You need to cover engaging and compelling topics and post regularly across social channels. Enrich your blog with appealing content, tweet something that catches the attention and use social platforms to inform and entertain your audience.

#Look for more buzz through connections

Social media is all about networking and connections if you’re a brand. Whether your network or friend’s or competitors or industry pals – you need to tap into them all. All your posts and updates and content must get comments, LIKES so that more buzz is created. In a sense, you need to leverage connections no matter from where they come and get the most out of social media.

#Grow and expand your base/audience

Social media benefits more if you have a large audience. Brands that are aware of this don’t delay in engaging with anyone on social media. They know the value of starting a conversation, coming in contact with both, those who matter to the business and even those that don’t. You got to look for ways to expand the base and audience for your business.

#Get the audience back to the site

What purpose of expanding the audience and horizon when you can’t convert them into prospects? So, you must have CTA back to the site. All your marketing materials, including teasers and giveaways, should aim to cox the audience back to the site. In a sense, your messages and ideas and content should guide users clearly about how to reach to the site.

#Get the content updated regularly

The best way to engage your audience is by giving them fresh, unique and updated content to consume. This way, you not only inform them but add value and open the window of enrichment. So, every aspect of your social activity, social posts, including your status and updates must be in tune with the current times.

#Show to the world you social signals

Your social signals are an asset worth spreading and worth showcasing to the world. This way, you can build trust among users and also aim to gain new users for sure. So, from friends to comments to LIKES to tweets to retweets, everything must be shown and leveraged to win the confidence of the target audience out there.

#Promote others’ stuff

Social networks are more of a give-and-take kind of arrangement where you get what you give. This is true in terms of sharing and liking. So, you need to share and promote the stuff of all those who do yours without issues. You need to reciprocate others as only this can help you reach up the ladder and build the brand presence.

#Engage your audience

SMO is successful if you know the art of engaging your audience. Engaging the audience means giving them something they relate to, something that adds value to them. Your social content should be enriching, informative, valuable and compelling, all at the same time. Your audience matters above everything else and you need to keep then engaged.

In overall, you need to trust and hire social media consulting services and open the big world of prospects for your business. After all, social media is something you just can’t ignore ever.

Reference- https://www.minddigital.com/social-media-optimization-smo-benefits-to-your-business-or-website/

Social Media Is Here To Stay

Social Media has been perplexing for most companies. On one hand it is a network for people who share their daily lives on it and has little to do with business or work, on the other hand, it opens up a direct line of contact with potential customers and can become a priceless source for invaluable leads. This was the challenge that most companies faced when Social Media first took off. Today, more and more companies are trying to be more “social” in order to achieve the same growth and sales that popular brands have managed to achieve through Social Media. We can say for sure now that this is not just a flash in the pan and that social media has already proven that it is here to stay. Today, even small businesses are using Social Media to interact with their potential customers and existing customers. People are talking less and less on the phone but are engaging with each other via Social Media channels. As a result, companies of all sizes need to be engaged with where their customers are spending there time which is Social Media.

Why Social Media Matters & How to Leverage it
Do not think of Social Media as your employees wasting time on the Internet as they chat with friends or relatives. Instead, consider this as an opportunity to reach out to people in every corner of the world. There are several benefits of engaging in Social Media marketing, one of which is a boost in your Search Engine Optimization rankings according to some experts. When you engage in Social Media marketing, you ensure that anyone who has a query or complaint about your product or brand can contact you directly. Sending a message on Facebook or Twitter is always simpler than drafting an email to your company. An active Social Media presence also ensures that people reach out to you whereas when it comes to email, people might wonder if they will even get a reply. You essentially make yourself more available and thus become a more likeable brand. In addition, ensure that any complaint or compliment you get, respond back to those people who contacted you via Social Media channels. The worst thing you can do is not respond at all to a complaint for example on Social Media as it can sometimes seriously spread like wildfire.

Promotion Through Social Media
By simply creating an online presence, you make sure that people can tag you when they are talking about you. Create a catchy profile, engage with brand loyalists, and they will promote you to their entire extended network. When you launch a new product or service or announce a special deal/offer, these same loyalists will inform their friends and share your updates. It will therefore give you a wider reach than you could ever have achieved otherwise. All of this is not just hypothetical, it has been successfully implemented by several businesses, both big and small. There are hundreds of companies that get more website traffic from Social Media channels than they do from search engines and that alone is enough to tell you how powerful this medium can be. There are so many examples of Social Media campaigns that have gone viral such as the Oreo’s tweet during the Super Bowl blackout which is a perfect example of what can happen when you are on the money with your Social Media.

✓ Create a brand image in the mind of people

✓ Announce new products or services more effectively

✓ Interact and engage with your customers/potential customers

✓ Build trust and loyalty with your customers or potential customers

✓ Get free brand promotion from existing customers

✓ Get great SEO advantages as well

Summary
Social Media marketing is the future of online business and for the coming years for every business. You will be giving up on invaluable information and potential sales leads if you do not manage and engage in Social Media. Already, one is hard pressed to find a big brand that is not active on Social Media as all of these organizaitrons see the value that Social Media can have on your brand. If you need any assistance or advice on your Social Media, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.

Reference:-https://www.minddigital.com/social-media-is-here-to-stay/

Four Steps To A Comprehensive Content Marketing Strategy – Part 2

Secrets and Tricks for creating viral content

Humans are inquisitive creatures. They are naturally attracted to mysteries and secrets almost like moths to a flame. Hence, one secret to creating viral content is to create articles with the right headlines — headlines with the word “secret” in it.

A few examples to illustrate this:

If you are a tour operator or travel agency, your blog could contain an article titled ‘Seven Secret Rafting Locations in Colorado.’ Variations on that theme such as “Hidden Places in Colorado” and so on will work as well. A Google search is useful as that will provide a measure of help to gauge the number of articles that already exist on the topic and what are the “related searches” to your article title. You may need to or choose to tweak your article headline based on insights from Google.

The other popular headline writing technique and article format is to have a ‘Top 10’ format list such as “10 Secret Healthy Lunch Ingredients” or “Top 10 Beaches in Florida/Southern California/Gold Coast” and so on.

Becoming an expert in some niche can ensure you have a good audience for your content. Of course, becoming someone like Suze Orman in financial planning or Phil Plait in astronomy takes a lot of effort and only a few people will have the skills and will be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to succeed.

You could produce deeply researched articles on some topics and attract significant traffic to your website — something like WaitButWhy.com comes to mind with its massive articles about The Fermi Paradox orSpaceX or Tesla Motors. Online publishers may republish your content/article and this can get greater traffic for your website as well as revenue for syndication.

Quora is one more popular social media where you can share your expertise and online publications such asSlate reproduce some Quora answers under a partnership. Quartz also publishes content from Quora.
 

Ideas and Examples of Viral YouTube Videos:

Creating popular YouTube videos is not as difficult as becoming a Nobel Laureate. You only have to be smart enough to find your own niche area of expertise that also has a popular appeal and can attract an audience.

Different domains will have different levels of competition and existing players who already have an established brand recognition, reputation, wide audience, large number of followers and possibly a deep pocket and global presence.

If you are in the travel business and plan or produce a blog or vlog or YouTube videos, you are up against the likes of Lonely Planet, TripAdvisor, National Geographic, Fox Travel, BBC Travel, et cetera et cetera.

So any content that you produce must be unique enough in some way and not available at the sites mentioned above. But food and travel are such popular and vast business verticals that there is always scope to try and create an identity of your own that lets you stand out from all the other existing businesses.

After all, food and travel constitute some of the core and perennial hobbies of many. And the habits, fashions, and preferences change. New travel destinations suddenly become popular. New holiday activities go viral. Food fashion changes based on taste as well as the latest fad diet.

Perhaps of more limited interest than a popular YouTube channel about food/recipes/cooking would be one devoted to explaining common scientific phenomena as well as the technology inside everyday appliances. Such a YouTube channel or blog can also provide helpful tips regarding the common faults or malfunctions in those appliances and DIY methods to repair the appliances.

The technological complexity of the world we live in growing and people are often at a loss about sundry gadgets and how they work.

Even if something similar already exists, there can always be a different — perhaps fun or quirky — way to talk about those things.

Think about the wild popularity of a show like Top Gear with its trio of hosts including the ever controversial Jeremy Clarkson. It was all about being fun, outlandish, outrageous, quirky, and being irreverent and rebels which apparently appealed to millions of people around the world.

Among examples of brands using viral YouTube marketing, there is this from GoPro, the action camera company. Its ad containing video footage of a fireman in Fresno rescuing an unconscious cat reached more than 30 million viewers.

Another ad titled “Girls Don’t Poop” from bathroom deo maker Poo-Pourri acquired viral status with its toilet humor and got more than 30 million viewers.

The #DancePonyDance campaign from Three Mobile in the UK enjoyed good social media success with its related video of a dancing, moon-walking Shetland pony.

Science as well as science communication spans the whole gamut from wildly expensive to super-cheap and from Nobel Prize winning level of nerdiness to the amateur enthusiast. If you ever wondered what would happen if you soaked a piece of cloth in water and then squeezed it in zero gravity, then there is a video of astronaut Chris Hadfield doing exactly that in the ISS.

If you wanted to ever check out the tracks made by the massive, Apollo-era crawler transporter as it ferried a space shuttle to the launch pad in the old days prior to the shuttles being retired, well there is astronaut Mike Massimino doing that and much more and having loads of fun.

But non-astronauts like us can develop some serious expertise about, say, the Apollo missions, and create YouTube videos explaining interesting stuff about those historic missions and technologies.

That would be something like what Amy Shira Teitel does in her YouTube channel.

You might be a Nobel Prize winner like Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle and then you could talk about stuff like Bose Einstein condensates.

But you don’t have to be a Nobelist to explain mirror reversal in a YouTube video.

So the point is that there are countless niches and you just have to find one that meets your needs or aligns with your business goals or area of expertise.

Use a brainstorming session in the office to decide your strategy. Or many sessions.

Use the hive mind of Twitter may be.

Take ‘citizen science’ projects like SETI@home. What can be a business equivalent of this where consumers and just lay persons somehow become enthusiasts and participate in some project that you create?

If you are a tour operator who organizes adventurous activities such as whitewater rafting or sky-diving et cetera, you could post articles to your blog or create YouTube videos where you talk about the basics and the dangers and safety precautions to be taken while performing various adventurous activities.

Your company’s YouTube channel can also share YouTube videos from your customers doing various thrilling things like some edgy whitewater rafting.

Different companies have different levels of engagement with social media. Some like Tesla Motors have a cult following among social media-savvy technology enthusiasts and naturally there are plenty of viral videos of people driving their Tesla Model S sedans in ‘insane’ mode or using the latest Autopilot features. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is himself a pro at using Twitter not only during product or feature launches but at other times as well such as when some crisis hits the company. No other CEO of a major auto company like Ford, Toyota, GM, Ferrari, Fiat, Mercedes and so on deploys Twitter or any other social media tool with comparable aplomb.

Tesla is a minnow in the global auto business. Whereas large auto companies sell millions of cars per year, Tesla sold about 50,000 of its Model S sedans last year for a turnover of about $5 billion. But using social media, Tesla has built a level of visibility for itself where it is seen as a global player as well and its name is taken as seriously as the other auto businesses some of whom have been around for longer than a century.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has a Twitter account that he uses occasionally and Apple itself got its own Twitter account only in 2015. Apple can afford to be blasé about doing social media marketing or outreach but small businesses who don’t have Apple’s level of cult following cannot.

In fact, Apple’s cult following is such that enterprising individuals are harnessing it for their own commercial gain by creating YouTube videos that go viral.

Duncan Sinfield and others post monthly updates about the construction progress of Apple’s Campus 2 and these get hundreds of thousands of hits.

Then there are those who put an iPhone in boiling Coke and upload the resulting video to YouTube and get millions of viewers for that.

If individuals can create interesting drone videos, the takeaway for consumer facing businesses is that they too can do similar videos with relevance to their own businesses.

A travel agency who organizes whitewater rafting or hikes on the Appalachian Trail can surely create nice drone footage of the rivers and trail routes and these will make for engaging viewing.

Reference:-https://www.minddigital.com/four-steps-to-a-comprehensive-content-marketing-strategy-part-2/