Social Media Strategy - Binary

#BeyondTheBasics – Social Media!

Ecommerce

Post author By binadmin
Post date 28 Nov 2018

What was communication before the domination of digital media? Very few of us would remember, isn’t it? Come on, we all know how Social media has taken communication to a whole new level. It’s safe to accept that people’s experience can make or break future business through more than just word of mouth.

And that’s exactly why it’s really essential to hold an upstanding image online as well as communicate effectively through social mediums.

Pro-Tip : If you are going to be on social media platforms, do it right or don’t do it at all.

How , you ask? Go beyond the basics. These crucial steps are sometimes neglected by advanced social media users too. Check out what we think can help you best :

1. Make sure your social profiles are complete and up to date:

Many of the people who see your business (or personal) profile on a social network are seeing you or your business for the first time.

What they see and read – their first impression – will influence what they think about your business and/or you personally.

That first impression will play an important role in determining whether they want to know more about you, or not.

Ever tried googling about yourself? Ever noticed the social networks that rank on the first two pages? Well, pick those & make a note of it to further scrutinise.

Visit each profile to make sure all of your information is filled out and up to date. This includes updating your website information if you’ve added anything new, such as a blog or an online store; adding your location; adding your story or journey in brief; and also your interests to help like minded people connect better.

2. Be consistent with your branding & communication:

This is so important – you must pin it ! Ensuring that your branding represents your business well and is consistent across all your online networks and print materials is often overlooked.

However, it’s supposed to be well taken care of as visitors would like to easily recall your website, your social networks even if they see some print advertising.

Consistent branding also means that your profile picture is consistent across your various social networks. Whether your logo or your photo, ensure you’re using a high quality, professional looking , share image across all social networks.

Remember : You want people to be able to easily recognize your brand (or you) on not just one social network but everywhere your branding or image appears. Including when they meet you or visit your office or store.

3. Cross promote your social profiles:

Nobody can promote you as better as you can. Whether it’s adding links from one social profile to others or giving redirects on blogs, or promoting in your email signature , smart cross promotion can take you a long way.

For example : Instagram helps you connect to Twitter , Facebook & Tumblr; YouTube offers a spot for Twitter , Facebook & Google+; Google+, allows you to link to as many of your other social profiles as you choose.

4. Respond / Engage with your customers frequently:

There’s no better way to connect with your user at such ease than at social media. This means communicating with your customers quickly and in a timely manner. Not responding three days later because you don’t check your social platforms that often is not acceptable.

Social platforms are almost as important as your website because of the way people communicate. It’s easy to discuss the good and the bad with just a button click away. Even if we know that the person on the other side of the account may not be a manager, it is their job to maintain customer satisfaction. Of course, this increases the power any consumer has with messages via instant communication, along with reviews that are being left.

Again, each network is somewhat different as to what is acceptable but as with most things customer related, faster (within a few hours) is always better.

5. Check your email contacts for new people to connect with on social networks, and do this periodically:

Who better to follow or befriend than the ones you’ve already engaged with. If nothing this leaves you with an opportunity to reconnect. Whether it’s been a few months or a few years since you last checked your email contacts for new people to connect with on social networks, it’s always a great idea to initiate now.

6. Stop buying followers and fans:

If you thought simply inflating your number of social followers shall guarantee you success, you’re surely mistaken. Much to your surprise, social networks like Facebook are already removing fake likes from pages; and tools for Twitter are exposing accounts with a high volume of fake followers. So remember that it’s not worth it – fake followers and fans will do nothing for your engagement or your bottom line.

7. Use Google Analytics to measure your social media efforts:

Wait! Before you get started on that you must first set up goals in Google Analytics & only then use the new social reporting features of Google Analytics.
This shall ensure that you are getting results from your social media marketing campaign. You may not be able to measure some benefits of social media like engagement and the resulting consumer loyalty with your social media followers, but you can measure how much traffic social media brings to your website and how much of that traffic results in conversions.

This data shall act as a fuel to your upcoming marketing strategy & give you the much needed push for your plan of action.

8. Evaluate , learn & keep improvising as you go along the way:

Who’s a better teacher than your past act? Whether it’s a rewarding attempt or a failure, your activities prove to become a foundation of your next step. Each move that you make teaches you something new, the key is to keep a watch out. Evaluate all the efforts you’ve taken so far, draw some learnings out of them & improvise to strive better.

Remember , innovations & adaptations are always well embraced by the consumers. No matter what’s that one new thing you’re attempting, make sure you’ve thought through it.

9. Persevere to succeed:

Real progress or growth with social media is a slow, steady and sometimes a little painful. This is especially true when you are just getting started with social media. Like most anything of value, social media requires time, attention and especially perseverance to produce results.

To wrap things up, you can’t overlook that social networking doesn’t work on autopilot. You should guarantee that no stone is left unturned along a brand’s image. Social networking has turned into a foundation of digital marketing. While it doesn’t make a difference what industry you’re in, it is a device you ought to utilize each day to communicate with customers.

So, don’t wait, get started today!
Need help with your social media marketing? We offer a variety of digital marketing services based on the unique needs of business clients. Wave us a hello in comments below or write to us at : mktg@binaryic.com

Time To Say Hello To Instagram Stories!

Ecommerce Technology

Post author By binadmin
Post date 15 Nov 2018

The audience was just getting hooked to the various filters & dynamics of Snapchat Stories that we got a sweet surprise from Instagram! Ever since its launch, it has spread like a wild fire. Whether its personal endorsements, daily routine updates or brand announcements, both the viewers & the uploader are equally in awe & love of this darling feature!

What is the BIG DEAL?

While, in the beginning Instagram received a lot of flak for copying “Snapchat”, it definitely has a lot more to offer. Honestly, the biggest difference is that unlike Snapchat, users can add text and stickers, draw on them, and even include a link or mention other users. It’s the last two features that help Instagram’s version stand out, though.

With the ability to add links and mention users Instagram creates a culture of inclusion, rather than secrecy and exclusion that is often the draw of Snapchat.

Instagram Stories are also searchable and appear publicly on a profile if a profile is set to public. This stands in contrast to Snapchat, which doesn’t have “profiles” for users to see previous content or view Stories. You must follow someone on Snapchat to discover his or her content.

That’s not all, more recently, Instagram moved Boomerang directly into the app. Now, users can create a Boomerang directly in a Story.

So, how do we LEVERAGE this?

One of the most important reasons for businesses to use Instagram Stories is relevancy in your followers’ feeds. Since Instagram updated the feed to be & algorithmic in June of 2016, having stories always appear at the top of a follower’s feed helps your brand remain top-of-mind. Popular Stories also appear at the top of the Explore page, helping gain an even wider reach.

The most common mistake that content creators or users make is missing out on opportunity of building a larger audience.

You’re creating Stories, but do you think that’s enough? Well sure, you can use relevant hashtags and tag as many people as regular images but that’s not the key.

Check out our recommended tactics and strategies below :

1. Repost or prepost content from your Stories to your feed

About to have an event? Post an announcement image to your regular feed letting users know to be on the lookout for the upcoming Stories that are sure to come.

Create a great Story? Before you post it, press the “save” button in the lower right and post it again as a regular image. You can save images after posting them by opening your Story and swiping up. If you’ve posted more than one image, it will save as a video slideshow.

2. Go live often

Alongside other popular trending Stories in the Explore page are the “Top Live” posts. Live video is becoming an arms race and Instagram is pushing it just as hard.

If you’re going live and providing great content, more people are going to tune in. These videos often rotate as more viewers tune in, and live videos end. So by going live often, you’re giving yourself a chance to appear and gain more followers.

Dr.Pradeep Gadge, diabetologist in Mumbai is often seen interacting with his audience LIVE on Instagram on various topic linked to #Diabetes.

3. Mention people

It’s no secret that people love attention, especially on social media. Give the people what they want by using the mention feature in your Instagram Stories. You can tag customers, followers, or those who inspire you with a personalized message. This sends a notification to the user who will more than likely see the content. Be careful with this one, though. You don’t want to wear out your welcome by over-tagging people.

IISM , India’s Pioneer in Sports Management Education, using the tag feature to promote the sponsors for their Life@IISM initiative :Junoon Sports Fet

4. Give out all the relevant information

Where was this picture taken? How beautiful was the location? Were you eating some amazing food or dancing to your favourite album? These little details can intrigue your audiences to know more & engage.

Softsens Baby, organic baby care product & apparel comapny using the LOCATION feature to promote its store at Banglore.

5. Gain more followers

This one seems pretty straightforward because it is. The more followers you have, the more potential your Instagram Stories have to be seen. Follow other users, use relevant hashtags on regular posts, and engage with the content of those you would like to follow you back.

6. Create great content

Again, not groundbreaking but still the best way to organically grow your following. The more accounts that are watching your Stories, sending messages, and engaging with them in other ways, the better chance your brand’s account has of appearing on the “Explore” page alongside other trending Stories.

Use interactive gifs, ask some cool poll questions, conduct a Q&A , just ensure your content is driving the user towards you & not pushing them away.

Binaryic, a digital marketing firm, interacting with their audience by using the POLL feature..

7. Sponsored Instagram Story Ads

This one is more indirect, but running ads is a good way to increase both followers and engagement on your account. Plus, it can provide a boost to your algorithmic score. In turn, this can make it more likely that your Stories will appear on the Explore page.

SoulTree- Organic beauty,skin & hair care provider promotes its festive offer with Sponsored Story Ads

What’s Next?

• Strategise :

Use this knowledge to develop a strategy for promoting your brand, inviting followers behind the scenes, and broadening your audience with high-quality live video and stories.

• Define A Goal :

There are many creative ways brands are using Instagram already. Ultimately, it comes down to what your campaign goals are for Instagram.

Do you want to help a promotion gain a wider audience?
Are you attempting to drive more traffic to a blog post, landing page, or video?

• Get, Set, Go!

Whether you’re a casual Instagram user or leading a social media team looking for more ways to engage your audience, Instagram Stories can benefit you and your company.

Now is the time to capitalize on a well-thought-out strategy before your competitors do. Engage your audience more with Instagram Stories and be sure to drive them to a relevant, dedicated landing page.

What’s your take on this? We’d love to know, share below!

Top key strategies to help you gain back the traffic on your site

Ecommerce Technology

Post author By binadmin
Post date 21 Aug 2017

Getting traffic on the websites is one of the key elements to get customers buying products from you. There are remarkable ways through which you can attract your customers by knowing the right time and place to market your business. Mobile optimization is one of the top priorities because more and more people are shopping on-the-go so brands should be making super easy for them to get on their webpage and have a hurdle-free shopping experience. Let us take a look at some of the key strategies that will help to gain traffic on your webpage.

Optimized Mobile Strategy – Physical stores have geographic limitations, this can be overcome by the means of Geotargetting. Geotargetting helps to boost the food traffic on webpages through shopping and making use of search campaigns. The bid modifiers help to target relevant ads while shoppers are closer to store.A survey by Deloitte showed 49% of mobile traffic. Google’s free tool allows anyone to check on the site speed and provide recommendations on different ways that can help optimize the mobile site.Cart abandonment is a common issue; brands should provide frictionless buying experiences to their customers. Customers are looking for similar experiences the way they find it on using desktops. Checkout options must be optimized that ensures to keep up with the sale.
Maximizing Returns on Investments – The past data can be useful in predicting the top performers; it also helps to analyze previous year’s output. The past data helps to make informed decisions on products.Remarketing strategies are highly sustainable with proper approach; you can make a list of audiences that bought products and then increasing the bids on those audiences. It will help to derive a conversion.
Promotional Strategy – Promotions are part and parcel of any business, competitive pricing helps shoppers who are looking for good deals. Promotion price can also be offered for special festivity and occasions.Some consumers are also looking for Free Shipping; it’s a great way to attract customers. A study by Deloitte says that 63% consumers shop from online retailers offering free shipping.
Social Media Strategy – Social media strategies form the base of online purchase, research shows 27% consumers make use of social media platforms to make online buying decisions. Customers vouch for colorful images; they attract more attention and help to stand out from the competition.

Marketers make use of audience strategy, custom audiences on Facebook helps to target your customer base. Brand can expand their reach by using Lookalike audiences on Facebook for targeting the consumers which are very similar to demographics.

Why you need a Social Media Strategy

Post author By binadmin
Post date 05 Aug 2017

Social Media planning

For organizations it has become highly important to follow a specific strategy that will help them achieve their company goals. Strategies are nothing but a set of defined rules and methods that organizations will follow at a given point of time to achieve strategic goals. Social media strategy regulates the use of methods supporting platforms and tools. Social strategies play an important role in engaging your audience to your business. Some businesses do not make use of planning but important is to know that strategies will help them to stand out even if they are not actively involved, because their competitors are. Let us discuss few of the key points to consider Why Social Media Strategy is a useful for your Business

Social Media is vast and growing

Social Media is stealthily growing quicker than we think. The key factors driving the social web according to Global Web Index study are the use of Mobiles and Older User Adoption. The mobile internet usage increased to 818.4m that is by almost 60.3% between 2012 and 2014. The people in the age group of 55-64 years age group are adopting Twitter at fastest demographic rate of 79% since 2012. As compared to this, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook and Google+ stands at 45-54 years of age. Overall globally there has been an improved mobile connectivity; people are using mobiles “on-the-go”. People are using social networks like never before, they are getting online, sharing the watching the videos. The Ruder Finn social media usage research in the US shows why people go online and why social outings are the driving elements.

A targeted social media strategy helps to focus on using relevant platforms to connect with new and existing customers.

Social Media influences Buying Decisions

The Social media trends keeps changing, right now the focus is on commerce and personalization. Earlier it was audience building and engagement. The platforms increasingly lured marketers with improved APIs and smart targeting. It included the ability for uploading email lists for running personal remarketing campaigns. With the use of Facebook API marketers’ helps to manage audience data for custom audience targeting, creating the campaigns and ads, building custom dashboards and run analytics. The Crowdtap research shows 64% of 3,000 people surveyed make use of social for shopping purposes, it is driven by retailers to target consumers with personal offers and deals on social networks.

Almost 46% of social media users are using social platforms while they are thinking of making a purchase. 40% of users are deciding of buying while already making use of social media platforms, this also includes reviews and recommendations. The recommendations from peers are influencing factors when it comes to holiday purchases. Each social network plays a vital role in the purchase cycle. Some social networks works better with visual products where people find inspiration. Facebook is better for businesses for sharing content and finding promotions.

Strategy Absence gives Competitors the benefit

Every organization today is following some kind of strategies that aligns with their business goals. Marketers prepare a strategy that has a framework through which they can plan, prioritize, execute, measure and optimize. A proper framework will give better results because the activity has been designed and has a direction.

The absence of proper social strategy will not give a clear idea if the campaigns are successful or not. Simply posting social content would not always show results, the efforts that are being put up should have some direction and some objective in mind.
A non-structured approach will lead to gap in communication and measurement. The marketing team would not know what to post, when to post, how, to whom and why to post. The savvy competitors’ works smarter by engaging customers having clear objectives, goals and targets to perform better and give better measuring tools.

Active Customers on Social Media

The new technologies have emerged as a manifestation of all social tools that work with integrations to give finest benefits to the users of the technology. People can access, use and share the information based on their choices. Many people simply make use of Social platforms like Facebook to read content rather actually reading any blogs. It doesn’t amount to a total number of audience, although a subset, some customers may want an information from a social network. Twitter is highly known amongst brand for providing customer service, it acts as a good backbone for brands looking to solve customer enquiries and act as a problem resolution channel.

Strategy is required by brands to connect with its customers through strategic thinking. The social strategy needs proper aligning with other communication channels to define its role and understand.

Social Networks have Key Influencers

Influencers can turn tables in a matter of just few minutes, hours or days, so never underestimate the power of peers. It is a known fact that over years, retailers have seen increase in conversion rates by the power of peer influence. The feedbacks from other customers are seen as worth. Endorsements from experts help to increase brand credibility. The high-end tech markets have led to more people relying on opinions from experts in the field or celebrity or a famous person’s endorsements.

It is highly important for brands to be part of influencer’s world, if you don’t; you have the bigger risk of losing out on market share that has more aware competitors that are creative and innovative with their campaigns.

Social networks can Make or Break a Brand

Social networks help brands to deliver an experience to users, they are good valuable resource to uphold a particular reputation hence reputations are enhanced or destroyed on social networks. Social platforms give voice to the users to have their voice heard on the networks. They are transparent and portable and are readily available to users. The below example shows Aldi social team; launched a genuine marketing campaign which attracted a lot of negative tweets and trolls.

Many companies have faced social media backlash and they literally struggle to cope with negative comments and feedbacks. Some companies having social media strategy with crisis response have failed at giving handling such backlash and bring back the same reputation to the brands. The damage is irreparable so it is best advised to have a social media strategy that helps to take effective steps towards maintaining online and offline reputation.

Top 3 ideas to repurpose User-Generated Content in Social Media Strategy

Sneak Peak on why use Repurpose UGC?

UGC is undoubtedly ted good news for the brands as well as for marketing purposes. It helps to bring in more sales and build customers relations. The audiences can see the experiences and how other customers feel. It is more than convincing for a person to see a product is willingly appreciated by the other user than the brand publishing it. A recent survey, states that 76 percent of users trust UGC than the ads by the brand itself. Almost 84% trust online reviews put up by buyers similar to personal recommendations. As we earlier said, how brand engagement is important from a sales perspective – 97% of people purchase with the brand they interact with and it boosts conversions by a whopping 78% percent.

Now, the next question that confuses your mind is whether to use the UGC content, is it really legal?

UGC is nothing sort of a lethal bomb, UGCs are a content that is generated by the users and using Hashtags itself means that they are implying to use that content for the purpose of marketing or viewership or whatever. Social works rely on the data that is copyrighted and original so the sole rights are with the creator of the original content even if your brand Hashtag is being used.

If you go a legal way, there are lot of implications that are attached to it and questions that are innumerate like – do you require permissions from original poster? Do you require permissions of the person in the image? Can you repost it? Do you send some sort of agreement asking for posting? Etc. Let us take an example of Airbnb. They reach out to users on Instagram who use their tags or posts, asking their permissions to post content in their own feeds. The brand leaves a comment for users to click on the link where they can read terms of use for UGC. Users can reply with #airbnbphoto for confirming and also provide the link to Airbnb for featured image.

Every social network comes with its terms and conditions so assume that all content is copyrighted so the best option is to seek permissions from the original content creators. The users should know that it is the brand that is walking up to them, and there is no doubt about any sort of intentions. Do not jeopardize with the brand reputation by holding it loose, there should be no contradictions to the brand using UGC seeking permissions.

So, finally how can you Generate UGC?

For making optimum use of UGC, your brand should exactly know the system how, when and why you are going to use UGC. The first and foremost is the basic is to create a brand Hashtag so that you can use to repost it into your own feeds. Customers are willingly sharing your brand Hashtag and when you ask for permissions to repost them it is their chance to stand in the limelight hence almost 65% will grant permission to use the content within 24 hours.

Brand can also use UGC by holding contests or sweepstakes that challenge the people to use the brand Hashtag in a photo or any posts to gain entry in to the prize draw. Take for example; Japanese retailer MUJI encouraged their followers on social media to post its photos of artwork with MUJI pens. The brand campaign saw a good 2,500 people entering the contest with the Hashtag #mujipenart. This greatly increased its social out-reach and it created an entirely UGC based campaign that drove many people to it in return for awards and prizes.

The buzz created by your audiences far outweighs the total marketing costs and in bargain you may win a lot of customer loyalty. UGC generates customer engagement and the brands will possess images and comment mentioning them that further goes on to speak how good the brand is or how better the experience was. The UGC campaigns may fall short of your marketing needs sometimes; in that case brands can always rely on influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is a sure shot way of bringing attention to your brand with a popular personality or a celebrity having millions of followers promoting your brand. Instagram influencers help to create content on behalf of your brand, this allows your brand to gain credibility and engage with your customers. So that is all about creating your brand market buzz, influencers will keep doing their targeted work, now let’s check how you can succeed with UGC? How you can repurpose the UGC created?

Steps to Repurposing User-Generated content

The big data that is available on web is truly humungous and to make a good use of it is an art that only few social media companies utilize. It’s no big deal, it’s actually a standard norm but to stand out of the crowd you need to do things differently.

Publishing UGC with the product
As a brand you already have multiple things and material that you are using for marketing purposes. the example of Sonos is truly inspiring, they have embedded Instagram UGC as a part of the buying process on its website. The Sonos product page shows the product alongside customers with the product to show how they are using the product and how they like the brand. The images inspire new customers to look over it and visualize their lives with the pictures depicted and hence buy the product.

UGC inside emails and promotion materialsHere we take an example of the brand Chubbies where you receive newsletters with UGC content. The brand doesn’t necessarily promote their products but simply use real photos with happy customers that show users how authentic the brand and the product is.The brand simply influences users by promoting products with customer satisfied faces. Chubbies collects its data from customers by asking its customers to share their experiences with Chubbies on social media. The brand has inspired a total of 331, 000 people to follow them on Instagram and 1.6 million on Facebook.
Have your brand’s Hashtag
Hashtags are the future and prominent methods to promote your business. Have a unique Hashtag for your business that differentiates itself from others. It could be your company name, or using your own tagline, you can also make use of products in your marketing campaigns for Hashtags. Take an example of Coca-Cola’s #shareacoke campaign that results in a 2 percent increase in sales.There can a Hashtag that doesn’t at all talk about our brand name but reflects everything about your brand. Make use of user sentences that will inspire the likes of people in that product segmented group.

p style=”text-align: justify;”>Hashtags give an identity to the brand and helps start a conversation with whoever is familiar or not familiar with thebrand. You can build or tablish the brand loyalty amongst the customers.