Social Media

 by Basim Mirza

Marketing Plan Done Right [Video]

Create a strategic marketing plan that helps you build outstanding campaigns.

Your Marketing Plan MUST produce returns…



 



Most people think that you should just shot-gun your message out there and see what sticks. That hopefully you might get someone to come at you and be your client. But it doesn’t work like that. What you should do is think about this strategically. You need to think 2-4 months ahead or semi-annually – as far as you can go in your marketing plan. The more you start to plan ahead, the more you start to anticipate what you are trying to do. When you start to anticipate, you can actually think about your content or your messaging and how you can approve it. So pre-scheduling your campaign in such a way that you can do that, will also attract the right people to work with as well. If you are attracting other people who are also thinking ahead, you are actually going to be proactive rather than reactive. When being proactive, that is when you are at your best and when you are moving forward.

Harry Rosen doesn’t just wake up one day and say to himself “I think I am going to sell socks tomorrow”. It doesn’t work like that. Harry Rosen is a retailer and as a retailer, he is going to have to think seasonally about his marketing plan when he is going to sell socks. He may know a quarter in advance or a year in advance. You have to think like a retailer in order to make your business work. This is a real business aspect of things, where you have to think like a business and how you can anticipate your next move. The anticipation is what is key. When people react that is when they fall, so if you don’t want to fall start anticipating and start thinking about how you can be more proactive in your business.

 

in Business / Content / Marketing / Social Media 0 comments
 by Basim Mirza

Digital Marketing: Understanding The Varying Degrees

networking, growing networks, linkedin, prospecting

 

Over the years I have managed to build an extensive network that has brought incredible benefits. From going best seller to landing dream clients. Other than growth, if there was one concept I could really point to that helped me get to this point, it would be what I call “Degree Networking”. This concept was first brought to life by Stanley Milgram’s in the book Individual In A Social World written in 1967. Back then there wasn’t the technology and infrastructure to support the level of networking we conduct today.

Networking, Six Degrees of Separation, Stanley Milgram

In today’s world, Digital Marketing is making it possible to open up new connections and possibilities. This means that every mutual contact can direct you towards a desired opportunity. Whether that’s meeting people asking them for referrals, or connect with an influencer on LinkedIn and have access to his or her contacts.

To really understand the impact behind this methodology, you’ve got to understand who would be the direct connection, and who’s the end referral. Once you know the former two, you’ll be able to route a path towards your destination.

Referrals, Networking, Prospecting

Your destination is the referral you want, which is based on your needs. You have to know exactly what it is you’re looking for. Your inquiry will be sent to the mutual contact, it is up to that person to make the introduction. Whether he or she decides to make the introduction, it will depend on 3 key factors:

  • Trust between you and the mutual contact
  • Validity of your request
  • Strength of relationship between the mutual contact and referral

By strategically identifying your target prospect, and having a disciplined approach towards asking for referrals, you’ll be able to make full use of your extensive network. If you keep doing this, you’ll continue to grow your networks exponentially, have access to more valuable resources, become a more valuable resource to others, and build social proof.

in Business / Marketing / Networking / Social Media 0 comments
 by Emma Cameron

The 5 Most Memorable Social Media Marketing Campaigns of 2015

There have been countless unique and successful social media marketing campaigns over the last year, but five really stood out to us. Take a look at the ones we really enjoyed following this past year!

toms

TOMS #WithoutShoes Hashtag on Instagram

TOMS Shoes has been known for their philanthropic efforts ever since the company was started in 2006. The company is known for their goal of donating one pair of shoes to needy children for each pair sold. This year TOMS Shoes extended their philanthropic efforts and used Instagram as their platform to execute their campaign. Every time someone posted an Instagram photo of their bare feet and used the hashtag #withoutshoes, TOMS Shoes would donate a pair of shoes. Through the campaign TOMS was able to donate 296,243 pairs of shoes and really increased their following on social media.

lowes-fix-in-six_campaigns_01

Lowe’s ‘Fix in Six’ Vine Videos

Lowe’s jumped on the Vine bandwagon in 2013, but really made a splash this year on the video sharing app. Lowe’s does a great job of capturing the essence of vine through their six second long DIY videos that are named ‘Fix in Six’ (#lowesfixinsix). While Vine appeals to a younger demographic, it has enabled Lowe’s to position their brand to attract attention from a demographic that they may have not been able to reach before – resulting in a growing following, as well as over 44 million vine loops per video.

bend rules

HP’s #bendtherules Campaign on Vine

HP took a different route this year when it came to showing off their design of the new HP Pavilion x360 convertible laptop. Instead of buying ads on social media platforms, HP teamed up paid social influencers on the video sharing app Vine. HP picked top vine stars such as Marcus John, Robby Ayala, and others to showcase the product and raise awareness through funny and entertaining short videos. The campaign excelled on the interactive app where some videos earned nearly 250,000 likes and more than 8,000 comments – impressive!

burberry

Burberry’s Live-Stream Fashion Show on Periscope and Snapchat

In June 2015, Burberry took live-streaming to the next level by using two powerful social media apps – Periscope and Snapchat- to provide video and photo updates from their menswear fashion show. The use of Periscope and Snapchat was an immediate successful and Burberry received the best digital engagement that the British fashion brand has ever had. Due to their first successful campaign, Burberry tried this type of live engagement once again a month later where they live-streamed their Los Angeles fashion show over Snapchat and Periscope again. This set a record high for their engagement, which brought in over 100 million viewers and proved that Burberry is on top of the live-streaming game!

tacobell-snapchat1

Taco Bell on Snapchat

Taco Bell has been utilizing Snapchat in many different ways this year to engage followers as well as using Snapchat to market and advertise. Recently, Taco Bell has been using Snapchat to creatively launch new menu items and contests by uploading to their Snapchat story feed – giving exclusive access to just these followers. This type of exclusivity has proven to be very successful because Taco Bell now has a following of over 200,000 on Snapchat, and has a 90% return on engagement from followers – mind-blowing!

Lets see what 2016 has in store for social media marketing campaigns!

in Business / Marketing / Social Media / Uncategorized 0 comments
 by Emma Cameron

How the Advertising Feature on Instagram Works

Have you ever scrolled through your Instagram feed, and were surprised to see an advertisement from your favourite brand? Have you ever wondered how these advertisements matched your interest or hobbies so well? Well in 2014, Instagram introduced the advertisement feature that allows brands to sponsor ads to their target consumer(s). These ads pop up on the targeted users feed, regardless of if the user is following the brand or not. Brands can pick from three ad formats – photo, video, and carousel ads.

Instagram uses Facebook’s demographic data to present the correct ads to the appropriate demographic. For an example, you would never want a 40 year old male who is interested in sports seeing an ad for beauty products targeted at teens. This is important to ensure that relevant content is being shared with the right audience.

Instagram first tested the advertising feature by selecting specific brands – Taco Bell, Mercedes-Benz, and Chobani were some of the earliest adopters! After a successful run over the course of a few months, the ad feature is now available to businesses big or small! Though the advertising feature appeared to be working successfully, Instagram did fine that they needed to give users the opportunity to mute these sponsored ads. Advertisements are always labeled as sponsored and users have the ability to hide ads if they are not pleased with the disruption on their feed – giving the user control over what they see. Instagram has found this to be successful, and consumers are responding well to this control.

Many brands who have used the advertising feature on Instagram have been more than pleased with the return they have gotten on these ads. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream ad campaign reached an estimated 9.8 million people just in the United States in only eight days – impressive! Mercedes-Benz used Instagram to launch its compact SUV called the “GLA” in collaboration with Facebook last fall and saw an increase of 580 percent to their site! Happn has been using the advertising feature for a month now, and has reached an estimated 3 million users in London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Paulo. The app has seen a conversion rate of 84 percent in terms of app downloads as well as registered users – incredible!

There are over 400 million Instagram users worldwide, and over 70 million photos and videos uploaded everyday – making Instagram the perfect untapped app for advertising and branding! If executed properly, Instagram advertisements can open up a new market and even a new target consumer to businesses!

in Business / Lifestyle / Marketing / Social Media / Tech 0 comments
facebook, news, advertising
 by Mitchell Cameron

Facebook -People Use Social Media for News

In the past people always relied on news broadcasters, radio stations and the newspaper to stay informed about current events. Today, there are approximately 1.23 BILLION users on Facebook! So while people are browsing, they are tuning into news updates almost instantly as they happen. Facebook has features like Top Trending news – hence, it’s no surprise that companies like CNN and BBC are recognizing the massive benefits of using this platform. In the past people searched for news and tuned into their favourite newscaster or broadcaster. Now the tables have turned. People want the news to come to them.

Facebook constantly looks for new ways to engage its users and increase the frequency and duration of time people spend on the platform. To do this they have created instant news articles with credible high quality content to engage people as they are browsing the site. Over the past couple of years this feature has been introduced and statistics show that the average person would rather turn to social media for the latest news rather than watching it on TV or reading the paper.

In fact 63% of Americans reported getting news on Facebook and Twitter in 2015 versus approximately 50% in 2013. Some statistics show that people spend an average of at least 20 minutes on social media whereas other stats show that people spend at least an hour or more. Regardless of which of these are true, this is a huge percentage of the population using social media daily and specifically for news purposes outlining the drastic shift in the public’s habits.

The Threat to Publishers and News Stations

With this shift in the public’s perception of the News they receive, publishers and news stations must realign their business strategies to adapt to the people’s habits. Therefore companies like CNN and BBC have used avenues online to target their viewers. However they can also fall into a trap of relying too heavily on one media source because they will give up control of their audience to that source. On social media there are many different News companies that broadcast their content in one location. If a company relies too heavily on social media for its viewers than it risks losing them to other features or even competitors content that is published.

Facebook Surpasses Google

According to Parse.ly’s first-party data across 400 publisher sites, Facebook took over Google as the number one source of traffic to publisher sites in July 2015. The company is trying to dominate the share of the market when it comes to publishing and posting news content as a traffic source. This would lead to a reliance on social media to get their News content to their targeted audiences. While publishers and news companies used to rely on their viewers’ loyalty. Now they must depend on social media to get their content out.

Publishers and News Agencies Pay Big Bucks

It is possible to post free content on Facebook but if a company wants to drive significant amount of traffic towards its own content, than you must pay Facebook for these referrals. This is good for Facebook but this payment also creates a reliance on Facebook for traffic. As mentioned, Facebook is trying to trap these publishers and agencies into their site so that they can offer quality content to their users while making these companies reliant on their referrals.

In conclusion we can see a dramatic shift in the way people gain access to news content online. From 2013 to 2015 there has been a 13% increase in the amount of people who use Facebook and Twitter for news. This shift should be taken very seriously by publishers and news companies who intend to keep and gain audiences in the future.

Mirza International is up to date with the best Facebook advertising and referral practices. To book a marketing consultation click here.

 

 

in Business / Marketing / Social Media 0 comments