Tag: Strategy

A collection of techniques used to achieve something.

The Big Temptation

When a brand starts posting content to its social media profiles it is very common to make the mistake of sharing too much. They post ten times a day on every possible platform they can. This is wrong!

Think about it as a user, a follower, and not a brand. You start following your favorite car company, or whatever you like, and suddenly they start flooding your news feed with their posts and stories. One week later, you unfollow them.

You don’t need to post ten times a day. That will get you nothing. You are not going to get more followers and, very possibly, you will lose the ones you have. Don’t do it.

We have already discussed the fact that you don’t need to be on every social media platform that there is, especially if you don’t have enough content or the strategy to do it. The same thing happens with your post frequency.

You can start by posting two times a week on Facebook and Instagram and work from there depending on how many followers you have and the interactions that you get. For LinkedIn, make it once a week.

If you are using Twitter, you can make between two and five tweets a day, but make sure to stay in topic and don’t repeat the same content too much. Try different days and times.

It is very hard to resist temptation, but in the same way, we avoid eating too much dessert, we have to resist posting too much. Photo by Giorgia Licini on Pexels.com.

Like we said before, it is a great idea to boost your posts when starting on social media. Once you have a reasonable audience, try paid ads. They are really helpful when you’re trying to attract more followers to your profiles.

Remember to keep an eye on your metrics and make adjustments based on what they’re telling you. Resist the temptation of posting too much and having a profile on every social media platform. You don’t need that.

What you need to do is to have a strategy, stick to your plan of content, and build a community. Of course, you can try new things, new formats, and new topics, but you have to make it in a planned manner.

Your numbers will tell you when to start posting more frequently. And even then, make it gradually. You don’t want to overwhelm your followers. Remember you are an intruder on social media. They were not meant for you to advertise there. We use it that way because it works, but that’s not their main purpose.

8 de January de 2023
Merry Christmas!

Let me tell you a story. Many years ago, I was hired by a luxury car brand to manage their social media campaigns in Mexico City. I can’t tell you which one, but I can tell you Elvis liked it a lot.

Well, I had been working there only for a few months when I decided it was time to have a Christmas giveaway. But I needed a prize first, so I asked my then-boss to whom I needed to talk to get one because depending on the prize the size and duration of the campaign would change.

I explained what I wanted to do and gave him all the details about this campaign. When I finished, he was just staring at me, as if I had committed a crime. He said: “You don’t know a thing about marketing. You never never mess with Christmas“.

Remember this happened in Mexico City, and Christmas there is something sacred, so you have to be very careful and try not to offend anybody. You can see many “Happy Holidays” campaigns, but none explicitly mention Christmas.

I explained to him that, the year before, I had a similar giveaway for another car brand – their main competitor actually – and that it had performed really well. As a matter of fact, that campaign gave such good results that it had landed me that job.

To keep it short, He agreed reluctantly to the campaign and I started doing what I needed to do to get it going. After a week, I showed my boss a report with all the metrics and all the results. It performed really great.

What happened next is not relevant to what I want to tell you, which is that, in social media and digital marketing in general, there are no rules, as we’ve been saying from the beginning.

This idea that I couldn’t have a campaign related to Christmas was so aberrant for me, that I had to show my boss that his concepts and his “recipes” on traditional marketing didn’t apply to social media. This was something new and we had to try new things.

If you want to have a giveaway or a dynamic of any kind on your social media, do it. Be respectful of all the different traditions, and try to include everyone, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do it.

All these old concepts and formulas that traditional marketing people have, need to change. With the internet and social media, everything changed, so we have to change the way we promote our brands. We have to change the way we interact with our audience.

So go ahead and try new things. Don’t be afraid and experiment with images, copy, platforms, and formats. Measure everything you can, so later you can learn from your results, whichever they are, but never refrain from having the campaign that you want to have.

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, or whatever works for you, just enjoy this season, hopefully with the company of your loved ones, and take care of yourselves.

25 de December de 2022
Starting in YouTube

When you start a new YouTube channel, you will face some new challenges. You will compete with thousands of content creators that are already there and that have the same interest that you have in becoming a success on this platform.

When you start setting up your channel, make sure you have a great title that communicates in an effective manner the kind of content that you will be uploading. Add a well designed banner that helps you do this.

Make sure that your phone number is verified so you can create videos longer than 15 minutes, upload custom thumbnails, live stream, and appeal Content ID claims. Add a watermark to brand your content and make it look professional. It can be your logo.

It is important to choose a topic, and it’s even better if you find a niche. For example, if your topic is cooking, you can focus on vegan cooking or Caribbean cooking, to make it more attractive. Don’t overdo it, so you don’t end up with something just interesting for a very limited group of people.

Once you have a topic and a niche, it’s easier to identify who will watch your videos. You need to do this because you need to know what your audience needs, what they like, and what they don’t. Content that is useful works better. Take your time and try different things.

Every time you can, tell your audience what your content is about and what they will get for watching it. Are they going to learn a new language? Are they learning how to cook? Are you giving them traveling tips? Content of value for your audience has a better chance to be watched.

Another good idea is to check what others are doing, specifically the ones that do the same thing that you do. Maybe they inspire you and give you new ideas. They are your competition, but maybe you could collaborate with them and make some kind of alliance that is beneficial for both sides.

Get the right equipment. YouTube favors videos that are recorded in 4k or at least HD, so make sure you can produce content in such qualities. Photo by Terje Sollie on Pexels.com

Remember that the most important thing is to have a plan. Don’t go crazy publishing ten videos the first week just to abandon your channel for a month. It’s better to upload content regularly (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, whatever works better for you), so people know when to look for it.

If one week you have a lot of ideas, write them down and schedule them, because there will be times when you don’t have any idea at all. This way you will always have something to upload and your channel will not look abandoned.

Keep the tone, style, and quality consistent, don’t rush it. It’s better to upload something a day later than to share something that looks half-done or that doesn’t have the same level of production as your previous material.

Get the right equipment, even if it’s basic equipment, and learn how YouTube works. Find out which keywords work best for your type of content, so you can include them in the description of your videos. YouTube offers a lot of tools for you, so use them.

One last step would be to advertise your content. Like we said before, it doesn’t matter if you have the best content ever if nobody knows it’s there. Invest as much as you can so you get the best results possible. This way you will be monetizing your content in no time.

18 de December de 2022
About Twitter (My opinion)

I hate Twitter. I just don’t get it. Negative sentiment is present in most tweets. So many people complaining about everything. I agree with those who say that in the future all the stories about the end of the world will start with “In 2006 when Twitter was founded…”.

Yes, I have an account. I opened it in 2009 and I used it to get news for many years. I also have worked with clients that use Twitter as a CRM tool, handling all the complaints about their products, and I have to admit that it works.

In the last few years, an increasing number of clients haven’t included Twitter in their digital marketing strategies. Some as a consequence of my advice, and some because they didn’t want to do it without me having anything to do with their decision.

But let me tell you why I don’t recommend it. If you take a look at some of Twitter’s numbers, you will find some interesting facts. I am not saying this just because I don’t like it. But then again, if it works for you and you want to give it a try, go ahead. There’s nothing wrong with that.

I don’t see a lot of conversation or listening happening on Twitter., just the same people talking to themselves, so there is no point in including it in a digital marketing strategy. Photo by nappy on Pexels.com

Twitter has around 430 million active monthly users, and about half of those accounts are monetizable. It is mostly used in the United States by people in the 25-34 age category, and around 57% of them are males. So far, so good.

500 million tweets are made every day with an average length of 34 characters, even though the limit was increased to 280 characters in 2017. Only 12% of all tweets are longer than 140 characters. Tweets get lost very easily.

Almost 400 million Twitter accounts have no followers, and around 500 million users access this platform every day without logging in. 44% of all the accounts have been created and left without ever sending a single tweet. So there isn’t too much conversation going on.

An average Twitter user spends less than 10 minutes a day on the platform. Only 16% of internet users have used it for brand research. This tells me that, even when 54% of all users say that they are likely to buy new products using this platform, not too many conversions are taking place there.

Twitter spam is still on the rise, despite the platform’s measures to prevent this. About 20% of the accounts are fake, and every day they flood real users with their products and harmful links. Doesn’t sound right, does it?

I am not going to talk about the political reasons for not using Twitter, because I think it’s entirely up to you, but if you want to know more about who the new owner is, and why that fact is important, just Google it.

But don’t trust me, this is just my opinion. Do your research. You can find Twitter statistics very easily on many websites. The important thing to do is to have your interpretation of these numbers, which is something that you should be doing anyway.

11 de December de 2022
Let them find you!

Let’s say that you have the greatest business card ever. It has a beautiful design, a perfect font face, an engaging and catchy slogan, and it’s printed on a kind of paper that not only looks great but also feels wonderful to the touch. How will anybody know about this if you don’t share it?

The same thing happens with your social media profiles and your website. You might have the perfect website and the greatest social media content ever, but you need to let people know that it exists and where to find it for it to work.

That’s what advertising does for you. It makes it easy for your audience to find your website and your content. It also tells people how to contact you and what products or services they can buy from you.

In a previous post, we had already said that digital marketing is a lot cheaper than traditional marketing, but it still has a cost. The best thing is that there is no minimum required, so you decide how much you want to spend on it. Obviously, the more you invest, the better the results you will get.

What makes a digital ad different from a boosted post is that digital campaigns, which are made of ads, can have many different business objectives, while boosting a post can only be used to increase the number of people that sees it and/or to help it get more likes and comments.

Brands invest a lot of money in advertising, just to let people know what products or services you could buy from them. Photo by Jose Francisco Fernandez Saura on Pexels.com

Imagine that you’re just starting a new business, and as we said in the first paragraph, you already have a great website and social media content. Now, you need to tell everybody that you exist, what is it that you do, and where they can find you. But how?

Facebook and Instagram will recommend you boost your posts, and doing that would be great, but that doesn’t help you increase the traffic to your website, where clients would learn more about you, subscribe to your new podcast, schedule an appointment, or whichever the action you want them to do.

Google can help you with that. A digital campaign on that platform would show your ad to people that would already be looking for somebody that does the same thing that you do, and that is what you want, so Google is one option.

Another option is to advertise on Facebook and Instagram, or whichever social media platform you choose, instead of just boosting your posts. You could start a campaign and that would do an excellent job, given that you invest a reasonable amount in it.

Or even better, you could do both things at the same time and start a campaign on Google and social media. That would allow you to try different formats, content and even do some experimentation, to see what works better.

Remember that there are no magic recipes, and whatever works for one brand might not do the same for another. This would make the last option the best alternative, so don’t be afraid to try new things, start small and increase the investment once you’ve found what works for you.

Digital ads and boosted posts serve different purposes. Depending on what your objectives are and your budget, you could use one, the other, or both options to get the results you want.

4 de December de 2022
Give it a boost!

The term “organic reach” represents the number of people that sees your content on social media without you having to pay for it. A few years ago, you could have some pretty decent interaction and reach numbers this way, but not anymore.

Social media platforms have made sure that the organic reach of your content gets seriously limited because they want you to pay. They want you to invest in the promotion of your content because that’s their business, that’s the way they make money.

Surely, you’ve already heard something about the algorithms and their negative effect on the reach of your content. Maybe you’ve heard someone blaming the algorithms for their posts’ low interaction and engagement.

Algorithms are just mathematical expressions that work as a set of instructions when performing a calculation. For example, the algorithm that determines the number of people that sees your content on their news feed for free versus the number of people that sees that very same post when you pay to boost it.

Paid reach is always greater than organic reach, and it helps you grow your audience in a shorter time. It would take you years to get your organic reach to the levels that paid reach does in just a few weeks. So definitely paid reach and boosted content should be a part of your strategy.

Just like a ladder helps you reach higher spots, boosting social media content will help you reach a wider audience. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

But what happens if you are working on a limited budget? Don’t worry. You don’t need to spend a lot, there is no minimum amount to invest. You can spend as little as a few dollars a month and get some results.

Obviously, the more you invest the better your numbers will be, but even just a few dollars a month can make a difference for your brand, especially in the early stages of a campaign or when launching a new product.

Promoting on social media will always be cheaper than doing it on traditional media, like television, radio, or newspapers, and the results you get are a lot better too, so don’t hesitate to invest your money in boosting your content.

It is a shame to see a lot of quality content go to waste because of the extremely low organic reach it gets. Many brands make the mistake of increasing the frequency of their posts, instead of increasing their reach by boosting them.

One important clarification that has to be made is that boosting your content will only get you a greater reach for your content, and more engagement too, but it is not the same as Paid Ads, that’s another story and we will talk about it later

27 de November de 2022
The World Cup has started, be careful

Today, the FIFA World Cup started in Qatar. Many brands see this as an opportunity to promote themselves by talking about this, supporting their home teams, orusing the same hashtags.

That can be a great idea as long as you know what you’re talking about, but if you don’t know anything about soccer, it’s better to stay out of the discussion, because it could work against you.

It is generally a great idea to stay away from topics that have nothing to do with you as a brand, be it politics, sports, or whatever subject comes to mind. If your brand is not related to sports, why would you say something about them?

Supporting your home team is one of the pretty safe things you can do, but be careful and do not engage in a discussion with the opposite team. If you do, keep it polite, keep it brief, and keep it about the sport.

If you’ve spent some time doing marketing stuff, you surely have noticed that you should never engage in a discussion about politics, unless you are a politician and/or fully understand every aspect of the topic that’s being discussed.

The same thing happens with sports. Especially soccer, which is some kind of religion in some countries like Brazil or Argentina, or even Mexico. So, if you are not a soccer expert, stay away from it.

You don’t want to be seen as an opportunistic brand or as a fake fan. That’s a label that’s going to take a lot of effort to remove once you’ve earned it. You’d think it’s harmless, but it’s not.

Sportswear brands are generally very careful with their content. They have to make sure they are not sending the wrong message. Photo by EVG Kowalievska on Pexels.com

Sportswear brands are very careful with this kind of thing. They hire experts to handle their content, so they don’t say anything inappropriate or anything stupid. One post can cause a lot of damage to your brand.

Every time you post something, you should consider every aspect of it. Are you saying something that could be misinterpreted in some way? What is it saying about your brand?

Remember, you should only talk about things that you want to be associated with. When someone thinks about your brand, do you want them to think about sports? About soccer?

If the answer is no, then don’t even think about using the World Cup’s hashtags or saying something about it in your content. Soccer fans are very passionate, and even using the wrong terms can be very costly reputation-wise.

You don’t need to be a part of every trend. Your content doesn’t need to include every hashtag. Pick only the ones that say the right things about your company, above all if it is about soccer and Qatar.

20 de November de 2022
Tools for everything

Once you start generating your own content, you will probably find yourself looking for a website where you can get free images, design resources, video and image editing software, and other similar tasks.

Every social media platform offers free tools that can help you with these, and some of them even do it automatically, but the resulting images look pretty much the same for everybody.

If you want your images to look different and reflect your brand’s personality, one option is to pay for third-party tools, which can be expensive for some budgets, especially if you are a small business.

Luckily, there are free tools for everything all over the internet, and most are really good at what they do. You just have to look for them and pick the one that works best for you.

It’s a matter of personal taste and whether the tool does whatever you need. The great news is that you can try them all and pick one because they are all free or have a free tier of service.

There are free tools for everything on the internet. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Photo by Tranmautritam on Pexels.com

Unsplash and Pexels are two websites where you can get free images. It is always best to generate your pictures, but if you just need an image to go with a post, then you’re safe. Never use them on a campaign.

Maybe you want to modify that free image to make sure your post doesn’t look the same as everybody else’s. You could try Canva or Adobe Express to find some templates that help you make a composition.

If you need to take it a step further, you could use GIMP, a free open-source alternative to Photoshop. Maybe it lacks Adobe’s software most recent functionality, but it can do almost everything its paid cousin does.

You need to have some computer skills to use this kind of software, so if you want to keep things simple, stay with the first two options or try something like Picmonkey or Stencil.

Infogr.am lets you create infographics and maps that you can present to your audience. Piktochart is another popular tool that does the same thing and has a great free plan to start with.

Landscape is a great tool for resizing images that you want to use on social media. What I like about it is that you don’t need to remember the exact size in pixels for each platform, this tool does that for you and it stays updated.

Clipchamp is a free tool for editing video, in case you need something more than the native tools of Instagram, YouTube, or Vimeo. Adobe Express also has a free video editing tool with which you can start.

Like we said at the beginning of this post, there are tools for everything, and all you have to do is look for them on the internet and pick one. Don’t be afraid to try new things.

The worst thing that could happen is that you end up looking different than the rest of your competitors, and that is exactly what you want to do.

13 de November de 2022
You don’t need to be everywhere

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Pinterest are just a few of the many social media platforms that brands use to promote their products. But, should you have a profile in all of them?

The short answer is no. You should only invest your time and money where your target audience spends their time. Different groups of people use different social media networks, so your choices depend on with whom you want to talk.

For example, younger audiences use apps like Tiktok and Snapchat almost everyday, while most of the adult population tend to use Facebook and Instagram. They might use other apps, of course, but these are the ones that they use predominantly.

Another example is Pinterest. Almost 80% of their regular users are adult women, so if your strategy is focused on this segment of the population, you should definitely consider this platform.

Depending on the age group you wish to target, you have to choose the social media platform where you will invest time and money. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Depending on the age group you wish to target, your choice of social networks will take place. Facebook is the default choice for a lot of brands, simply because of the millions of users it has.

Another very important factor to consider is what you do. If you want to talk politics, Twitter is where you need to be. If you make movies and/or create video content, YouTube and Vimeo should be your focus.

LinkedIn has always been job oriented, so if you want to position yourself as an expert in your area, you should consider posting more frequently to this network, or even better, starting your blog.

As you can see, you don’t need to be everywhere. You don’t need to have a profile on every social network that exists, You need to do some research and find out where your target audience spends their time. That’s where you want to be.

6 de November de 2022
The “perfect” Community Manager

Many companies are looking for the “perfect” community manager. They want someone who knows everything about every social media platform in existence, but also has great skills as a graphic designer, video editor, content generator, paid media manager, copyrighter, programmer, and speaks four languages.

That’s like looking for an excellent Quarterback, who can play as a wide receiver, a linebacker, a tackle, and can also score a 50-yard field goal. And, of course, if they can coach themselves that’s a big plus.

Nobody can do that. Nobody.

You might find someone who can handle all of that quite ok, but they won’t be excellent at it, in the same way a drummer is not great at playing guitar, or a chemist is not great at applied physics.

The drummer and the guitar player are both musicians, but they have specialized in different areas. The same thing applies to scientists: chemistry, physics, and biology are completely different things.

There is no reason why a community manager should know anything about programming or graphic design. They might know a few things about it, but their area of expertise is another.

You can’t expect your community manager to be like a swiss army knife: a multitool that fixes everything. There are specialized tools for specific jobs. Photo courtesy of the Openverse.

Community managers, SEO experts, traffickers, social media managers, content writers, and web designers are just a few of the professions in the digital marketing industry, and each one of them has a very specific role, and each one of them requires a different set of skills.

I’ve heard many stories about a graphic designer who gets hired to build a website, create content for Facebook, edit videos for Instagram, manage Google ads campaigns, and a lot more. Obviously, the results are far from perfect.

I’ve also heard a lot of complaints about them spending too much time on their phones or Facebook when asking somebody about the new community manager they hired. Of course, they do, that’s their job.

Community managers are supposed to generate a conversation about your brand, and they do that on social media using a cellphone and/or a laptop. They’re not supposed to build websites or create your new logo. They manage your communities on social media.

You need a team to handle your digital marketing, not just an individual. You will only get the results that you want if you understand what needs to be done and the function of each person.

Your perfect Community Manager doesn’t exist. Stop looking for it and build your team of digital experts or, even better, hire one, because they will already have the experience that your marketing needs.

29 de October de 2022