Tag: Strategy

Hey, Have You Heard About Influencer Marketing?

Posted on January 31, 2017 by - Content, Marketing, Tips & Tricks

Influencer marketing: a key component of business and sales which has been around for a very long time, is slowly evolving into a much more accessible platform due to the emergence of social media. Typical influencer marketing is the process of targeting key customer influencers, and hiring them as advocates for your business. This marketing avenue selects specific individuals that are influential towards the focal business’s target market.

The Good

Often, key influencers have an extremely broad reach, as well as creative campaigns that drive sales and benefit both your business and theirs. When working with an influencer that shares values and interests with your brand, you are directly communicating with a relevant audience that shares similar interests with your brand as well. Additionally, influencer marketing has a positive effect on your SEO, the more links that are shared for your website, the better your SEO becomes. Established influencers have been around for quite a while, so partnerships can not only boost ROI, but also boost the credibility of your brand. If viewers or followers believe in their influencers and trust their opinion, endorsements of your brand will not be taken lightly. Finally, influencer marketing’s most profitable benefit: it requires little work on your part. That’s right, when you sign up to partner with an influencer, the campaigns, man hours, and dedication to promote your product are mostly on their end. Of course, your responsibility continues to be micromanaging the campaign remotely, but with an influencer, you can remain out of the spotlight, while your ambassador promotes your brand for you.

The Bad

Influencer marketing’s main criticism is the risk involved in selecting the right influencer. Unfortunately, there is an opportunity for error in picking the ideal influencer, and given the nature of mass media, unless your product or service directly correlates with the values and purpose of your influencer’s channel, page, or feed, you will be reaching out to a sizeable audience that might not care for your business at all. This being said, the problem can be eliminated or the risk may be reduced through heavy research and strategizing prior to launching your campaign. The good news is that Web Toaster’s team of marketing and brand specialists are fully equipped to handle your business’s influencer marketing all on our own! Rapidly expand your brand through influencers in any medium, including (but not limited to) Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram. 

The Bottom Line

All things considered, influencer marketing is the way of the future. Given how accessible the internet is, social media has allowed us to leverage the popularity and influence of individuals all over the world, and use them as a marketing outlet. This process not only benefits you as a business, but a strong relationship will have a positive outcome for your influencer as well. Despite the arduous research and strategizing, influencer marketing can result in a very high ROI if implemented correctly, and Web Toaster would love to help you get started today!

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Posted on January 5, 2017 by - Social Media, Tips & Tricks, Website Design

Is there really a problem with social media marketing? Do you question whether the time, money, and effort you put into social media nurturing is worth it? We believe there is a HUGE problem with social media: the term itself.

“Social media” is an umbrella term that incorporates dozens of websites and apps, each with unique features, benefits, and drawbacks. The problem is that all of these unique platforms are being grouped together and companies feel that in order to have a successful social media presence, they need to be involved in every social media platform.  This stems from the rise of social media in 2006, when to say “social media presence” meant being involved with Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter, which were all of the major platforms.  However, over the past 8 years, there has been rapid growth in the social media industry and dozens of apps and websites now fall under the term, but many marketers are stuck in 2006, when it was the norm to participate in all of them.

How is this a problem? A simple rule of economics is that specialization is necessary for an efficient and profitable economy – the same holds true for social media.

These problems may occur when involved in an excessive amount of platforms:

1) Unique Customer Relevant Content – Customer Presence = Poor Following

You may be providing unique, customer-targeted content for each platform, and spending a lot of time to do so, but since your customer presence may not be strong in all these platforms, the returns and following generated from your efforts and investment may not meet expectations.

2) Reusing = Irrelevant = Inconsistent Following

Another alternative is that you are saving time by posting the same content on multiple platforms, however, customers use different platforms with different expectations. For example, the same post may be very successful on Facebook but irrelevant on Twitter, making your Twitter presence and following suffer.

3) Platform Relevant Content – Customer Relevant = High Following

A third possibility is that you have a strong following in all your social media platforms, and have spent a lot of your budget in doing so. However, the demographics and content of different platforms vary greatly. In this situation, it is likely that content was created to match the audience on each social media channel, rather than to match the company’s target audience. Though following will be high, this does not translate into business because the content is not targeted at your potential customers.

So what is the solution? Strategic social media nurturing! Brands should treat their social media strategy the same way they’d treat any other marketing communication tool. Research each individual platform and strategically plan your approach. Consider the following for each platform: who is the target audience? What are the strengths and weaknesses? What are its unique offerings? Where are your competitors? Can you realistically provide effective content on that platform?

For a great example of effective targeted social media use, look at Apple, who for years only nurtured Twitter accounts. Apple recently joined Tumblr because they felt that Tumblr “separates itself from a creative standpoint”. They specifically use this account to advertise their iPhone 5c because its target audience matches up with Tumblr’s audience; 56% of Tumblr users are under 34, which is the same for the iPhone 5c.

Don’t let social media become a problem. Use effective targeting, strategy and planning to maximize its benefits and minimize waste. If you need a hand in coming up with strong, relevant, targeted social media strategy, we’ll be happy to help.