The Social Media Marketing App You’ve Been Waiting For?

Have you ever worked hard on a marketing campaign, and been disappointed when it does not produce the results you were hoping for? Then this new app may be what you have been waiting for. Born from the frustrations felt by a social media marketing agency, Socket Plugin aims to put an end to the hours spent laboriously searching for your target audience. Launching later in 2015, the app will look like a humble search bar, and will scout and analyse social media platforms to show users all of the information they need to create a tailored, targeted, and successful marketing campaign. Ultimately, this will eradicate contacting people who are not interested, and will save marketing teams – especially those from SMEs on a small budget – time and money. Not only this, a more targeted campaign should result in higher success rates!

So, how does it work?

Let’s say for example, you’d like to promote a new gym that is going to be opening. You would use Socket to search for whichever keywords you see as relevant to this campaign, for example, in this case: ‘health,’ ‘fitness’, ‘exercise.’ From here, Socket will show its users who in what area is posting about these topics, and, further to this, will also show what social media networks these people are most active on. From these results, a business can ensure they are targeting the people who will have a genuine interest in their business, product or service.

Ultimately, Socket will give businesses the information they need to determine what content to share where, and to who. A true breath of fresh air for marketing teams, and perhaps one step closer to the end of targeting the wrong people.

Socket will release later this year. For updates, follow @socketplugin on Twitter.

Why You Should Be Using Infographics in Your Marketing

A few years ago, the word “Infographic” would’ve meant very little to the average person. Today, they are one of the most widely used forms of visual communication across social media. Not using them yet? You should be! To make it a little more interesting we put our reasons into this super cool infographic. If you find it useful, let us know via Twitter or share this post using the buttons below!

Want to make your own Infographic? Check out Piktochart for a really easy to use design experience. We even used it to produce this one!

But – what do you think? Are infographics the best thing since sliced bread – are here to stay? Leave a comment below!

The Importance of Strong Branding For Small Businesses

Branding. Definition: The practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products. Your brand is everything you stand for and the way you present yourself to customers and potential customers. But, what is so important about it? We asked our good friends over at White Elephant in Toronto, Canada to talk all about it:

—-

“It’s not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.” – Marty Neumeier, Brand Gap

From Facebook to Twitter to Instagram, your customers are talking. In public, and in private. They are sharing wonderful experiences among each other and reliving horrible ones on Yelp.

Branding, and the concept of marketing has changed forever with the introduction of technology. Brand building, and brand development is no longer a one way street but rather an organic process. Don’t think Research & Development— think Relationships & Revenues.

Relationships

Behind every great product, there are great people. There is a great team, a devoted team, and a passionate team. And in today’s connected age, consumers care more than ever about the people behind the product. Consumers want to get behind brands that they can connect to. They want to connect with brands that are talking to them, instead of talking at them. If and when they decide to invest in you, its because you’ve demonstrated to them that you understand their needs, wants and concerns.

Revenue

In today’s age, consumers have an abundance of options at their disposal. Where they choose to spend their disposal income is decided by whether or not your a relationship exists with your brand. Truth is, consumers are more likely to buy in to a product if they know potential for a relationship exists. Why buy a Rolex over an Omega? Toyota over KIA? Apple over Google? Because many times, consumers often know what they are receiving. Their parents had the product, their friend currently has one, or they simply connect to what the brand stands for.

The worlds strongest brands understand the importance of relationships to consumers. They don’t just understand what they can do for consumers, they understand what consumers can do for them. A strong brand is not an overnight task, it’s the result of years of trust, honesty, and consistency— just like any relationship.

About the Writer:

Eve Aphayboun

Principal Designer, White Elephant
416.453.6546
info@whiteelephant.agency
http://www.whiteelephant.agency

Should Your Business Run A Blog?

This post is brought to our readers via a guest blogger

————————————————

Over the past few years, blogging has become very popular for businesses. With millions of new blogs being created all the time, it is a hugely valuable tool that allows engagement and interaction with customers and potential customers. But, is blogging right for you? Should you be doing it for your business? To help you make the decision, we’ve given you a few advantages and disadvantages of business blogging.

Advantages – Why You Should Consider Blogging

Blogging can allow you to explore certain niche issues of your business in depth, and offer readers an insight into these. If there are issues related to your business that you think you can explore and discuss – then blog about! Blogging in this way will allow you to present yourself as industry experts and thought leaders.
You can create conversations and form relationships through blogging, as it is much less formal than other types of content. If done in the correct way, you can encourage engagement, interaction, and discussion with your readers.
Blogging can allow your business to become a bit more personal. Having a personality and identity to your brand increases customer loyalty.
In terms of your overall marketing plan, blogging is a very low cost option – possibly even free!
SEO can be improved quite significantly through blogging. As blogging tends to involve the publication of new content on quite a frequent basis, search engines pick up on this and reward you for it in rankings!
Blogging can create a buzz about you and your brand. You can promote yourself in a variety of different ways and have a chance to get creative!

Disadvantages – Business Blogging Drawbacks

Blogging takes time and dedication. Firstly, you have to plan and write a post. Then you have to share it around on multiple platforms to make sure it reaches as many people as possible. It sounds like a cliche, but with blogging, you really do get out what you put in!
With millions of blogs being made every week, finding something that has not been talked about too many times before can be quite difficult. Make sure you’re heavily stocked up on fresh ideas!
Results aren’t always immediate with blogging. You can’t just expect to post once and then be flooded with orders or enquiries. If you’re looking for quick ways to make sales – blogging isn’t it!

So, what do you think? Do the advantages of running a business blog outweigh the disadvantages? Is blogging a good thing to add to the overall marketing efforts?

Let us know in the comment section, or send us a tweet.

Why You Should be Using YouTube to Promote Your Business

As you probably know, YouTube has become a global phenomenon. After starting in 2005 with a Me at at the zoo“, YouTube has transformed from a simple video sharing site into a huge global network of individual content creators who actually make careers out of sharing their videos online. However, videos of cute kittens and useless tutorials aside, YouTube can open up a whole new way of promotion for small businesses. Below are 5 reasons why you should be using YouTube to promote your business:

Free Advertising
The wonderful thing about online video content is that, for the most part, it’s free! You can upload whatever you want to YouTube and there is absolutely no cost. Imagine YouTube is a TV and your videos are adverts – your next YouTube video is free advertising! Show off your products, promote your services, and remember that every hit to a video is a possible customer.
Personality
Putting out videos onto YouTube is your chance to get a bit creative. It will allow you to add a touch of personality to your brand and business, bringing it to life! Making your customers and potential customers feel like they really know you is a really effective way to drive more sales, as it increases brand trust and loyalty.
Share
One huge benefit of putting out YouTube content is that it gives you an excuse to get in touch with your customers and share your latest video. You can do this through a lot of different methods such as social media, email campaigns, and blog posts.
Viral Possibilities
It’s highly unlikely that your video will go viral, as everyone is trying to do it. However, there is always the possibility with YouTube that if you get your video right, it will do just that! A great example of a marketing campaign that went viral online is Dove’s “Real Beauty Campaign,” which can be viewed here.
Expertise
Video content is a great platform to comment on industry news and events. Offering your own insight into things going on in your industry, will showcase your expertise and could seriously raise your reputation. As the YouTube medium is a highly interactive platform, this is a great way to start conversations with others in your field.

All of the ideas discussed are more ways that, if you create good quality content for YouTube, you can drive really targeted traffic to your website. So, what do you think? Do you see the benefit in using YouTube to promote your business?

How to Make A Website Mobile Friendly

The number of people using their smart phone to browse the web is growing every day, meaning it has become increasingly important for websites to be mobile friendly. Use the handy guide below to make improvements on your site’s mobile usability.

1. Ensure your text is big enough to read on mobile devices. Optimum sizes are anything above 14. Having text any smaller than this will usually result in mobile users having to “pinch” to view content on your site.

2. Make sure links are far enough apart. Remember, when someone visits your site on mobile, they’ll be clicking with their thumb. This means the “clickable” parts of your site need to be far enough apart that links can be clicked with ease.

3. Add contact details. It is worth keeping in mind that most people looking at your site on a mobile will be on-the-go and looking for opening times/email address/phone number. Make sure these details are on your home page!

4. Keep your layout simple. Over complicated layouts will appear cluttered when visitng on mobile and will increase load times. Slow web pages will turn customers away!

5. Finally, TEST! One of the best tools for testing mobile usability is Google’s Mobile Friendly Test. You can take this test here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/.

Any questions? Please tweet @BlueBiscuitUK!

10 New Digital Marketing Ideas To try in 2015

Is there any better time than the turning of a new year to try new things? We don’t think so! When things work for you and your business it makes sense to keep doing them. However, this can sometimes lead to forgetting to try new things. So, with that in mind, Blue Biscuit have put together a list of 10 New Digital Marketing Ideas for YOU to try in 2015!

——————-

1. Infographics
Infographics are becoming an increasingly popular way to display information. We even made one, here! They can be used in a variety of ways to simplify information or just display it in a more visual format. Consider creating your own and sharing it via social media. You never know, it might even go viral.

2. Paid promotions
Lots of social media platforms (e.g Twitter and Facebook) now have paid promotions options. They are fully customisable, and will send your message out within your budget. Consider these paid promotions for 2015 – they’re a great way to reach more people on social media!

3. Visual
It’s becoming more and more important to include images in our content. Not only is this good for SEO, it engages visitors. For 2015, think about designing some images or taking your own photos for your website and social media platforms. It beats pages and pages of text any day!

4. Video
We are living in an age where YouTube has become so big, people can make multi-million pound careers out of the social media platform. Now, while Blue Biscuit can’t promise you’ll reach these heights, we can promise you’ll benefit from posting videos to YouTube or other video sharing sites. Posting videos allows you to communicate with your customers in a much more personal way, without actually meeting them. You could create tutorials, behind the scenes videos, or case study videos. The possibilities really are endless when it comes to video.

5. Discounts
Some businesses shudder at the thought, however it is well known by now that discounts = business. If you’ve never done one before, make 2015 the year you offer your customers an exclusive discount for a limited time! It could be promoted on social media or even through an email.

6. Blog
Blogging is big for businesses right now. Creating a blog will allow you to show your expertise and knowledge. As well, linking back to your main site is great for SEO.

7. Go mobile
Optimise your website for mobile. More and more people are accessing content on their phones now and if your website isn’t compatible, that could turn visitors and potential customers away…

8. Webinar
Host a webinar. This will show viewers how much you know and how you can help them. It might even be fun!

9. Content
It might be a good idea to do a rewrite of your content this year. Keeping content new and fresh will be great for your SEO and will keep visitors interested. You’d be surprised at how much useless/dead content you actually keep published, so giving your content a clear out should definitely be on your 2015 list!

10. Review your strategy
Digital marketing strategies should have 3 parts: Where are we? Where do we want to be? How are we going to get there? Over the course of a year, these three things can change dramatically. Start 2015 off positively by reviewing this. Ask yourself whether or not your strategy needs a change.

5 Email Marketing Tips

Email marketing is and has always been a really useful tool for businesses to keep in touch with their customer base. However, for email marketing to produce good results, lots of hard work needs to be put in! Blue Biscuit has put together these 5 tips for email marketing success:

Subject Line
Often, it is the subject line which determines whether or not a customer is going to open your email. Your subject line needs to make potential readers click on your email without a second hesitation. Set aside time to focus solely on coming up with ideas for an engaging subject line. Try to avoid overusing capital letters and exclamation marks as these will trigger spam filters.
Validate
Validation is a task that can often be overlooked due to it taking a lot of time. And, we mean A LOT! However, if you have a huge database that has been built up over many years, some of your data will be outdated and inaccurate. Sending to these contacts will result in bounce backs and low open rates. To avoid this, call your list and check they’re still around! Or, buy email cleansing services from an external company.
Promote
Promote your email through social media and on your website. Not only will this improve your open rate, but it may also encourage more people to subscribe to your emails.
Embed Media
There’s nothing more boring than a text heavy email that goes on for pages and pages. Excite your readers! Include pictures, videos, animations. Link back to your website and interesting news stories from around the web.
Personalisation
Personalise your emails. For example, “To John” is much more personal for your customer to receive than “Hi there.” It is well known that personalised emails gain a much higher success rate!

Content Ideas For Your Next Company Newsletter

Blue Biscuit have put together this quick infographic with 10 simple content ideas for your next company newsletter!