The Key Benefits of Social Media in eCommerce

At first blush, the idea of being an online merchant may seem way easier than running a brick and mortar store. All you need is to decide which ecommerce platform is right for you, upload photos of your services or merchandise, and let the money roll in, right?

Uh, not exactly. Your first order of business is to reckon with the fact that you’re up against millions of competitors who also thought that being an online merchant would be a cinch (or at least a good idea). Add to that the tangled task of curating your social media channels to sharpen your brand visibility. In many ways, the world of digital advertising can be split into social and SEO. We’ve written before about ecommerce SEO best practices—but how can social media also help you expand your ecommerce operation?

First, let’s delineate a few related terms—social selling, social commerce, and social media ecommerce marketing:

Social Selling: Using social media to find and nurture sales prospects.
Social Commerce: Selling services and products via social media storefronts. (Facebook Shops, Instagram Shops, Pinterest’s Product Pins, the Collections feature of Snapchat, and so on.)
Social Media Ecommerce Marketing: A broader category that encompasses building brand awareness, routing web traffic to your site, advertising and selling, as well as social selling and social commerce.

For this blog, we’re going to focus on how social media ecommerce marketing can enhance your ecommerce presence. Considering that 44.8% of internet users use social media to find brand-related information, and that consumers spend about two and a half hours per day on social media, developing social tactics tailored to your ecommerce store may help you reach a larger audience and bolster your bottom line. So let’s explore a few ways you can use social media to build your ecommerce brand.

Define Your Conversion Goals

Before you sprint ahead and sign up for accounts on all the major social media platforms, you need to ask yourself which one is right for you. Research who your target audience is, which social channels they frequent, and what types of content they engage with. Imagine that you’re a working, traveling mom of young children who shares tips via Instagram about how to navigate planes, trains, and automobiles with a few tykes and a cooler of breastmilk in tow. Your target demographic is probably going to be working, traveling moms of young children—women who may be about 25–35 years old, who frequent Instagram and Pinterest, and who are just as tech-savvy as the person serving them content.

With this audience in mind, determine the end-goal of your social strategy. Are you trying to drive them to your site, or are you engaging in some good-new-fashioned social commerce (which we’ll get to later), or both? Let that quandary marinate, and then let the platform you decide to use help you hone in on your objectives. Instagram and Facebook, for instance, let businesses pick one of three conversion goals:

Catalog Sales: Allows you to pull products from your catalog and put them into ads.
Conversions: Helps you encourage your audience to take a specific action on your site. (Add a product to your cart, for instance.)
Store Traffic: Tailored to brick and mortar shops, this ad goal helps you promote your store to customers who are nearby your store.

Instagram and Facebook also let you pair ad formats to your campaigns—usually through video, image, carousel, or collection ads. That last option is a handy tool for ecommerce brands, as it’s designed for vendors to show off their wares, which helps them tap into the importance of mobile commerce. But scope out the sales features of all the big social platforms to figure out which ones will best showcase your products and services.

Build Brand Awareness

Perhaps the key benefit of developing a social media ecommerce strategy is that you can expand your brand awareness. Branding is crucial to your business because it tells your story, establishes trust, and clarifies how you stand out among all the other ecommerce brands out there. Consider social media to be an opportunity to show off whatever makes your brand unique—the depth of your expertise, the empathy you have for social movements, or that penchant of yours to make total strangers laugh out loud. (If that last point sounds trite, remember that humor is a surefire way to drum up a following or clinch a sale.)

An inevitable question lurking about this topic is how social media impacts ROI. Unfortunately, those calculations can get squirrely, because social media often amounts to an engagement strategy with your audience that increases how many people know about—and, ideally, like—your brand. Social media, as they say, is about retention, not acquisition. So transmuting metrics of audience reach into money can turn into a guessing-game. Still, we know that 53% of Americans who follow brands on social media become more loyal to those brands, and that the key to increasing the awareness of your ecommerce store through social media is to post consistently.

Tweet out a fleeting thought once every six weeks, or livestream on Instagram a few times a year, and you won’t see any uptick in the number of people who follow you. Instead, be an active presence on your channels, reply to your customers’ comments, and create content that consumers find valuable. If your posts fail to give your audience the answers they’re looking for, they’ll seek out other social accounts that they find to be more resourceful.

Sell Through Social Commerce

Remember the social commerce options that we listed at the outset of this blog—Facebook Shops, Instagram Shops, Pinterest’s Product Pins? Take full advantage of them. They’re free, and they’re integrated to make the sales process easy. Plus, Facebook and Instagram are better known than you are (at least, we’re assuming they are), so until you become a household name, capitalize on the legitimacy they impart on their users. Somebody coming across “Wacky Bob’s Ecommerce Emporium of Miscellaneous Wonders” via a Google search might think twice about clicking that link, but somebody who finds a miscellaneous wonder that Wacky Bob’s selling on Facebook Shops might figure, okay, Facebook’s vetted this guy, so this will be a safe transaction.

Many brands far more prominent than Wacky Bob, such as Target, use social commerce to add videos, post reviews, list events, upload photo albums, include maps of nearby stores, and create abundant opportunities for people to browse products ranging from honeywood blossom candles to the Martha Stewart MTS-PS10 telescoping electric pole chain saw. (Which, at $99, feels like a steal.)

Let’s say that you do want to buy Martha’s telescoping chain saw on Target’s Facebook page. You’d click the “View on Website” button, which would link you off to Target’s site. For other transactions, that button might read “Buy on Facebook.” You can link up your social media accounts and purchasing channels into a warp and woof of loops and connections, but the fundamental point here is to bear in mind what you’re selling. Candles or chainsaws of summer swimwear—sure, snap a pic and throw it on a Facebook or Instagram Shops page. For more complex sales, however, where users need to examine and mull over the thing they’re purchasing—engagement rings and mortgage refinancing terms and leases for senior living communities all come to mind—social commerce is probably not the best channel to sell on, since users tend to make snap decisions on social and buy the same way they would pull clothes off a rack at Target a few hours before going to a party. Instead, nurture prospects of more intricate sales on your website. And speaking of which …

Drive Traffic to Your Site

One downside to social commerce is that, although selling through the shopping interfaces of major platforms has its perks, you are still, in some sense, selling under the awning of another merchant’s storefront. Another tack you might take is to set up your social media accounts to serve as a slip ’n slide that routes users into your site—the checkout counter that you control. Consider the sheer volume of users that you could reach advertising on these channels:

Facebook: 190 million people.
LinkedIn: 170 million people.
Instagram: 140 million people.

Granted, the audience interested in your niche is probably a fraction of all those unwashed masses, and only companies with canyon-deep pockets can afford to pay enough to plunk content in front of most of them. But let’s say you’re that Instagram startup influencer who posts traveling tips for working moms. Social media can serve your operation as an inbound marketing tool, sending other working, traveling moms to your site to buy your training materials or hire you as a consultant.

Our advice for this influencer is to observe the 80/20 rule of social content, which holds that 80% of your strategy should be quality posts or videos, while 20% should be CTAs or discounts that promote your brand. Remember how we said that social and search comprised the two spheres of digital advertising? Those spheres often overlap. Case in point: The more that users share your social content, the higher your ecommerce store will float up the SERPs (or search engine results pages). Which makes sense: Inundate people with offers and they may think you’re spamming them. Share content that interests or educates them, and they’ll keep following you—and even look forward to the next time that you post.

Collaborate With Influencers

Another benefit of social media: The ease with which you can team up with influencers that your followers love, or with another brand in your niche that can introduce your business to a larger audience.

Again, let’s say that you run an Instagram account with tips for mothers of young children who travel for work, finding ways to pump or store breastmilk in an airport or a convention center. Reach out to an influencer who specializes in car seat safety or Yeti coolers:

Interview them for your podcast.
Ask them to review your site and services.
Host a Q&A session on Instagram Live about the industry you’re in.

Newsjacking, or the art of aligning your brand with a topic that’s trending, is a related strategy. As everyone with a New York Times app knows, each day brings a fresh opportunity for the media to blast us with “Breaking News” updates. So if you’re overseeing the aforementioned Instagram account and a story breaks about all the Yeti coolers in North America have been recalled due to safety concerns, your task is now to newsjack that report before another story breaks in its place and sweeps it away. Comment on it. Post a video about it. Redirect people to all the Igloo or Coleman coolers that you’re selling on your ecommerce platform (rather than anything that that charlatan Yeti’s peddling these days).

To generate user interest in your content, you could also partner with your own users. Encourage your viewers to share their stories about how traversing the TSA checkpoint at an airport is 1,000 times more harrowing with an infant or a suitcase of pumping equipment. Give them the stage to explain how the Mother’s Lounge is a life-saving oasis, the Starbucks barista can’t grasp why you need a cup of hot water to warm up a bottle of milk, and the passengers on your flight are put out that you’ve brought your child with you, but what they don’t understand is that you’re in Mama Bear mode and your baby isn’t on the plane with them—they’re on the plane with your baby.

Asking your followers to post about their experiences will help consolidate a community that becomes loyal to your brand. Once you’ve amassed a following, point them in the direction of a third-party website like Amazon where you sell some of the products that you trust or that you developed. A tactic like this is akin to leveraging the influence of platforms like Facebook or Instagram to engage in social commerce. Uploading products into Amazon will let you capitalize off the legitimacy of the largest ecommerce brand in the galaxy—and help you set up your shop amid a more rapid stream of digital traffic than you may be used to sustaining.

Work with a Social Media Agency

We often think of social media as the top-of-the-funnel channels where you charm and attract users to your brand, rather than an opportunity to close a sale. Yet the recent innovations in social media ecommerce may be changing the character of social from an organic customer acquisition generator to a paid media model. Time will tell. For the last 21 years, we’ve seen social media undergo seismic changes, and our job involves monitoring its ever-shifting uses and features and advising our clients how to harness it to achieve their goals. Reach out to learn how the insights of this social media agency can benefit your ecommerce brand.

How Social Media Drives the Perception of Service in the Medical and Healthcare Industry

At first glance, healthcare and social media wouldn’t seem to mix well together. Medicine is one of those old, august professions, like law, full of Latinate terms and suggestive of stern erudition. Social media, meanwhile, often resembles a game of three-year-old soccer—an anything-goes melee of quite public mud-wrestles and high-pitched screaming. Plus, isn’t healthcare full of HIPAA and compliance issues and regulatory matters concerning privacy? If you livestream an open-heart surgery on Instagram, couldn’t you get sued?

The answer to that is yes. Do not livestream an open-heart surgery on Instagram. With that said, medicine is a pretty tech-savvy field. Think eMAR. Think telehealth. Think VR headsets that patients use to overcome motor deficiencies. So calm your qualms: Social media marketing can help providers reach more patients and act as leaders during a health crisis. Fact-check your messaging and observe industry rules about sharing patient data, and you can turn those puckish platforms into loudspeakers for the public good. Here’s how.

Keep People Informed

We’re still living through what may be the deadliest global pandemic since the 1918 Spanish flu: COVID-19. For the past year and a half, most of us have checked our social feeds every day for any number of updates—the latest CDC guidelines, takeaways from our governor’s press conference, stats on deaths and infections regionally, nationally, globally. One of the dangers of social media is that it can foster misinformation, and make no mistake, the internet is awash with health tips that are patently false. But reputable social media accounts, like the WHO or Johns Hopkins or your local hospital, can provide much-needed advisories on public health matters such as COVID, ebola, a particularly infectious flu season, and so on.

Companies use social media to grab an audience’s attention, but medical marketing can often work in the opposite direction: People seeking insights from life science professionals about imminent threats. As of January 2021, 53% of US adults reported that they get their news “often” or “sometimes” from social media—which provides the added bonus of being able to keep up with the minute-by-minute, exponential pace of viral outbreaks. Health authorities, then, should use their social accounts to announce updates with the data and transparency needed to navigate through an emergency. A few digital DEFCON tactics to consider:

Integrate a chat box function into your site to help people work through any problems they’re experiencing.
Publish a Q&A section on your site. (No matter how many insights you give people about COVID, they’ll still have questions.)
Ask your social team to reply to comments that users leave on your posts so that you can dispel baseless screeds and route people to fact-based, objective resources. (Yes, such things still exist.)

Striking up a dialog with your audience in times of distress won’t just boost your social metrics—it’ll provide a sense of clarity that transcends a transaction. After all, what better way to earn people’s trust than to resolve issues about their health and wellbeing?

Interact with Patients

Health organizations can use their social media to keep the public apprised of pollution levels, disease risks, transmission rates, and so on. But they can also use their social platforms to maintain a dialog with patients about their individual health concerns.

Facebook, for one, lets users create what’s known as a “secret group”—which, yes, has a comical, double-secret-probation ring to it, but which is actually quite useful, as it provides its members with one degree of privacy deeper than a Facebook “closed group.” These secret groups are hidden from trolls and roboscammers. You can’t search for them or request to join them. To get in, someone has to invite you, and all the content shared inside it is visible only to its members, making it the perfect digital round table to host discussions between, say, hundreds of people who may have been treated for Crohn’s and colitis at the same hospital.

Caregivers and physicians can use these secret groups to share links to the latest research on Crohn’s, recommend nutrition tips and treatment advice, analyze environmental triggers, or give their professional opinion on episodes or flare-ups that different members may be battling through at the moment. These groups aren’t meant to be substitutes for regular appointments. Instead, they can operate as an ongoing panel where patients and physicians stay connected, lowering the possibility that someone in need of medical advice can’t get it in time.

Make Your Services More Accessible

Healthcare is a sprawling enterprise in the US, employing 11% of US workers and accounting for nearly one-quarter of government spending. With all the money flowing through this sector, it’s no surprise that it’s maddeningly complex. Getting a doctor’s appointment is difficult. Deconstructing an insurance policy requires a law degree. Keeping the differences between payer, prescriber, pharma, and PBM straight is beyond the ken of most mortals.

Nothing about the medical landscape in this country screams “easy to access”—yet social media bills itself as the easy-to-access interface with the world. So how do you pair a speedy function with a cumbersome form? You post content that lets patients access your services no matter which stage of the funnel they’re in.

Again, imagine that your clinic specializes in treating Crohn’s and colitis. Post content that builds a relationship with people diagnosed with Crohn’s who are still in the awareness stage. Share research and link to articles about Crohn’s for other people who are familiar with you (and, therefore, deeper in your funnel). Offer resources for them to connect with you in case they want to switch doctors or need a second opinion about whether they should undergo surgery. Set up your life science marketing strategy to clear hurdles for them. Patients will love you for simplifying the escalating intricacies of healthcare—especially since contacting most providers nowadays is as straightforward as calling the Pentagon.

Change the Perception of Health

We’ll admit it: Advertising can be an unlikeable field, especially when it tricks consumers into funnels that are exploitative or unethical. (Payday scams or pitches for harmful herbicides or attempts to gloss over data breaches all spring to mind.) Yet advertising can also reshape our norms for the better. MADD (“Mothers Against Drunk Driving”) started as a grassroots organization in the 1970s, but through decades-long campaign work, they’ve changed how we view drinking. Pre-MADD, bartenders overserved without compunction, people wheeled their way home from their neighborhood tavern cheerfully snockered, and none of your buddies even had the vocabulary to say, “Who’s the DD tonight?”

Granted, MADD’s ads can be a touch shamey and Prohibitionesque, but they still altered how we behaved at the bar and helped create the Uber-home world we live in today. Leaders and brands can take a cue from MADD’s mad success and urge people to lead healthier lifestyles. Take Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative, or United Healthcare’s “Step Up for Summer” pledge to get enough sleep, walk 10,000 steps a day, and eat more fruits and veggies. What’s social media’s role in all this? Serving as the open-air forum where we raise awareness about breast cancer, make sexual health a comfortable conversation, share stories from a global community of patients—the list of potential campaigns is endless.

Advocate for Your Constituents

Yes, the idea of a company that champions a social cause is very much in vogue these days, but fear not: We’re not advocating that you advocate for a polarizing issue and forever hold the high ground. Yet we are aware that health organizations are often quite involved in the communities around them, so use your preferred platform to talk to those communities:

Give out the address of nearby needle exchanges.
Combat misinformation about opioid abuse or pain medication management.
Link to webinars that educate the public about a given topic—anything from the efficacy of mask-wearing to Lamaze classes.

Consider the demographics of the region that you’re in and post health-related content that the people who you care for most frequently would benefit from.

Stay Compliant

Despite everything that we’re saying about the miracles of social media in healthcare, we still want to stress the importance of the regulations that buttress that industry. Know your HIPAA, but also follow your FDA, because that agency will review your social posts and they will send you warning letters if, for example, you’re touting drugs that have not yet been approved.

That sounds like a simple enough fix: Don’t advertise unapproved drugs. But social media moves quickly, content creators most likely aren’t versed in the FD&C Act, and mistakes happen. To minimize mistakes, pass any posts that you’re unsure about by the lawyers. You may not want attorneys running your Snapchat account, but it is useful to have some knowledgeable staffer in-house who can steer your social strategy through the galaxy of regulations in healthcare—as well as through the health content terms of service for each social platform that you’re using.

And since this is such a sensitive field, monitor the comments that users leave on your social media. False claims, malicious statements, or descriptions that might breach someone’s privacy can all raise compliance issues. Lean on your legal team to advise you here, and use an app like Hootsuite’s Social Safeguard, which lets you upload the policies that you have to abide by and filter your posts through its auditing software.

Partner with the Pros

Ah, social media—the kiss-and-tell darling of the digital era, the funhouse mirror that we all use to show off everything from muffin recipes to our vacay in St. Lucia to our uninhibited willingness to duke it out with total strangers over whether Jordan or LeBron is the GOAT. (LeBron, duh.) According to data from Salesforce, social media is the most popular method for consumers to engage with brands, and social ads happen to be relatively cheap these days. So what’s our diagnosis? If you’re in the medical and healthcare industry, treat yourself to the wonders of social media.

Here’s our only caveat: Don’t use social media to make medicine cool. Don’t pressure some emeritus surgeon into TikTok’ing, well, anything (unless s/he’s an avid choreographer on the side). Don’t compromise your institution’s professionalism for a marketing ploy. Conversely, don’t churn out content if it’s not your specialty, because a lot of healthcare social feels sterile. (There, we said it.) All of the tips that we’ve recommended can help you turn prospects into patients. But, first, talk to a social media agency that’s worked with medical pioneers before—and knows how to bring your brand to life.

How to Boost Facebook and Instagram Posts The Right Way

First, A Disclaimer

You know how you’re not supposed to use the boost button on the social platforms, specifically Facebook and Instagram, because the management and resulting data doesn’t live in the Ads Manager? That’s still a thing. So when we say boost, we mean promoting your organically posted content through Ads Manager. It’s best to have your data in one place for both ease of management and analysis.

Why you need to boost posts

This is pretty simple. If you have a lot of content that you’re sharing that is distinct from your more direct-response-based or brand-boosting social ads and it’s hanging out in organic-no-reach limbo, then you’re definitely not reaching your full audience.

We know Facebook has low organic reach and we know that Instagram is not much better, so it makes sense that you want to get your content in front of the people that follow you. They did already indicate an interest in you by following in the first place, you know. That’s why you need to boost. Capiche?

What objective you should use

Again, don’t confuse your boosted content with your social ads. The point of posting something to social organically is often to reach people with a message or a variety of messages depending on your posting frequency and cadence. Sometimes that message is to click a link or do something other than read, like, or comment, but you should think like a real person thinks and post like a real person posts — with the intent of FIRST getting a message across about something worthy of being consumed. Make your message so good that the natural next step is for the reader to seek a deeper relationship through whatever means they find necessary, be it reading more posts, clicking to your website, or sharing your content with their friends.

What we’re getting at is that you want as many of your fans and followers to see your content often to keep your product top of mind. And you want them to interact with it. That’s proof they like what you have to say. So the short of it is that you should make your objective on your boosted posts either reach or engagement — save the traffic and video views objectives for social ads. (And keep this in mind, the optics of a highly-engaged post say a lot to the potential viewer.)

What content should be boosted

Ok, there’s a chicken and egg issue here. One one hand your best organic content has proved itself to be worthy of recognition, which makes it prime for boosting (and cheaper per result). On the other hand, you may have some strategic messages that you need your followers to see. Maybe you want to tell them about a sale, a change, or a message that will help them become more knowledgeable about your product. Based on your budget, you can do both or can go either way. But in our view, if you only had $100, you should pick the strategic message over the high-performing content 10 times out of 10. (If you’re really crafty your strategic message could be the high performing content. That’s a real win-win, you sly dog, you.) It’s better to get that one key message out than your top performing post that was of a meme that barely related to your brand.

So there’s our two cents. Boosting makes sense but only if you put a sound strategy behind it. Leave it to chance and you’re pretty much trying to steer a rudderless ship.

Want us to help you boost? Give a shout!

San Diego Branding Agency – Jacob Tyler

Want to Make Your Social Marketing Stand Out? Read This.

You know what we dislike more than anything at Jacob Tyler? Boring social media marketing. OK, well, any boring marketing and advertising, but we’re talking about social media today.

Just take a look around. Boring work is everywhere. Now look at the social media marketing landscape and it’s multiplied by a million. Why is that? It’s because social media is ubiquitous and has a low barrier to entry that anyone can now become a “marketer” there. But great marketing isn’t created with an Instagram account and an iPhone X alone. It’s so much more than that. And so the result is there is an insane amount boring marketing messages online.

And although it gives us an edge, we’d much rather see great work that inspires and makes us think, “Damn, we should’ve thought of that!” We believe that great work begets great work.

That’s why we’re sharing our tried-and-true three point method (with a bonus tip at the end) for creating standout marketing for social media. Pay attention, because each bullet builds on the previous.

First, Set Objectives Before Literally Anything Else

Making an impact in the news feed doesn’t mean much if you don’t eventually make an impact on the bottom line. So you need to have a marketing objective in place that leads to tangible business outcomes. This objective is the north star that guides your strategy which then drives your tactics. If you don’t know exactly what your objective is you won’t be working with intention and purpose — and you won’t stand out to your target audience!

Here’s an example, “Our objective is to create mass awareness for [company/brand/product] among Gen-X dads in the Ohio metropolitan market.”

Is the objective bland? Yeah, usually it is, but that’s OK because it’s 100% necessary.

Next, Know Your Audience Like They’re Family

If you’re in marketing and not clearly defining your audience, go ahead and just flush your cash down the toilet (better yet, call us). After objectives, audience is everything. You need to know who you’re talking to, why they’d care about what you have to offer, what drives them, how old they are, where they live, and so on. This is going to be very important as you continue forward because you need to know who you want your customers to be.

Here’s an example building on our objective from the previous paragraph: “Our audience are Gen-X dads in Ohio who are urban dwelling professionals with a household income of $100K+. They are weekend gym warriors who are looking for a way to maximize their workout efforts. They care about what they put into their body and want to get the most out of their adult lives.”

When you clearly define your audience you can target them with a message that resonates.

And Make Great Creative Like Your Job Depends On It (Because It Might)

Speaking of a message that resonates. You know what you want to do (objective), and you know who you want to go after (audience). It’s time for the holy grail of advertising, marketing, and communications: the creative. The words and imagery you use are the differentiator in this game. Great creative builds a bridge between your audience and your brand, and by that it helps you achieve your objectives. But it has must be memorable. If you follow this framework your marketing content will sing in a way that grabs attention and makes the intended audience think, “Just take my money already!”

Real quick though, we know we said it like it was easy, but great creative is hard. It take a lot of time and effort and a scrupulous eye for detail.

BONUS TIP!

We find that although a lot of folks know the above points, they still don’t put the effort in to doing it really well. Bummer for them. But guess what: even if they do know that stuff and even if they put it into place every time, 99% of them don’t have this capability in their social media marketing tool belt.

What’s the secret weapon? BE INSANELY NIMBLE.

That’s right. This is social media, not print advertising, TV commercials, or billboards. You’re not locked into anything for a month at a time. You have the ability to look at what’s working and double down. You can look at what’s not working and cut it. And you can do it quickly. Because time moves crazy fast online. Sudden opportunity? Take advantage. Relevant trending topics? Capitalize on it. Analyze often and optimize when you need to. It’s the only way to make sure you’re never doing boring work.

Final Thoughts

We’ve pretty much just helped you develop a framework for a social media marketing strategy that can actually work. From here you’ll just need to plug in some tactical pieces (easier said than done, we know) and get down to business. Standing out on social is hard. It takes time and effort. But use the above to guide you and we’re certain you’ll be on the right track in no time.

Hey, it’s worked for us.

Why “Stories” Will Dominate Social Media in 2019

With the announcement of YouTube Stories, Facebook’s recent shift in getting more users to view its own somewhat neglected Stories feature, and Instagram’s scandalously effective move of completely ripping off Snapchat’s Stories experience blow-for-blow, — which started this all, by the way — we thought we’d take a step back to look at why we believe Stories blew up in 2018 and why they’ll dominate social media in 2019.

Why Stories Blew Up in 2018

It didn’t start in 2018, but because of Instagram’s Stories rollout in the second half of 2017 this was the year Stories moved into the larger cultural conversation. It’s not hard to understand why things turned out this way. Snapchat’s ephemeral proto-Stories appeal was in full swing a few years ago, but it really only worked on a large scale with Gen Z and the younger half of Millennial users. Older people liked it, too, but found Snapchat’s interface to be confusing, so they opted to stay in familiar territory with Facebook and Instagram. Instagram got the clue and rolled out its Stories in 2017 to instant success. And since using the platform was easy, it became nearly everyone’s favorite new social media tool at a rapid clip.

Why People Adopted Stories So Eagerly

It’s simple when you think about it. The feed is “permanent,” Stories are momentary. People wanted a way to share more moments without it being something that can always be referenced or scanned the way the feed photos are (real talk: everyone creeps on someone else’s feed when they first meet). Which makes sense when you consider how curating the perfect photos, day after day, that portray the perfect life can be too arduous for even the most seasoned selfie taker. Moreover, it’s not real. People are starting to realize that what’s in the feed is not the full, well, story. Stories pull back the curtain on a person’s real life and the real moments. The times that don’t need to be soaked in filters or angular poses or like-inducing locales. Stories are the antidote to the inauthentic social persona.

Why Stories Will Dominate Social in 2019

First keep in mind what we just mentioned. But just as important is the emphasis that the social platforms themselves are putting on this media type now and doubly so in 2019. With an over-saturated ad inventory and a keen habit for putting ads anywhere users are known to hang out, you can bet that algorithms will change, platform layouts will change, and features will change. And it’s all to put Stories at the forefront. Because the more people view Stories, the more money the platforms can potentially bring in. Think about how it happened in the exact same way with social video a few years back. Plus, there’s a reason every platform is going down the same exact path (we’re waiting on you, Twitter). Because no matter where they are offered, people really, really love to tell their own stories — almost as much as they love watching other people’s Stories. So if one platform doesn’t offer the medium, another will. With the war for attention in full swing, Stories are now social media table stacks.

That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.

That was fun. We didn’t touch on brands, businesses, and other types of organizations here, but if you want to talk about how Stories can help you tell your story, just pick up the phone or drop us an email. We’re masters of the brand narrative in all its forms.

Should You Use Twitter for Business?

Aside from Snapchat, Twitter is often the hardest nut for the marketer/brand/business to crack. What are you supposed to say and who are you saying it to? Do hashtags matter and if so which one’s do you use? How come no one is following you?

We empathize. Listen, Twitter is freakin’ tough. A lot of people who run brands and businesses are told they should be there but they’re not told why. It doesn’t have to be this way. Fact is, sometimes Twitter’s right for your business and sometimes it’s wrong. We can’t breakdown everything here, but we can help you get started.

Hopefully this blog will help you decipher where you should be.

What’s #Trending on Twitter?

Before we get into whether you should use it, you should know three key things about the platform.

How many people are using Twitter? 100 million people every day. (Click that link to get more great stats), 63% of which are 18-45 years old.
What’s currently happening with Twitter? A lot, actually. Its founder is considering adding an edit feature. Politics as usual are well, pretty standard here and they can be pretty extreme. And the change to 280 characters didn’t make the platform implode.
Is Twitter even relevant anymore? That depends on who you ask. Short answer: yes. But, if Statista is to be believed (they are), then a stall-out in user growth over the last two years is certainly something to watch. But … it’s still the platform for breaking news and trends — a critical element for 21st century media consumption and culture.

Who’s Using Twitter, Really?

Jump on the platform and it becomes clear that Twitter’s upper strata is formed by media outlets, celebrities, influencers, and sports figures. Why? Because they have something to say that people care about. Of course, us regular people are having conversations there, too, and the big dogs wouldn’t be there without us. But the fact of the matter is that if you use Twitter you should have something to say about something that matters. Also, you should have someone to say it to. Essentially, don’t be noise. Be a voice that stands for something. Even if that voice is about something mundane like B2C siding and roofing sales. Trolling people, trashing brands, and getting people riled up with controversial statements doesn’t count, btw. Please, don’t go that route. People who do that are barely people.

Just Tell Me If I Should Use It or Not!

Jeez, ok. We’re getting to it. Here’s how we break it down — on a high level — for our clients.

Who’s the audience you want to reach and are they on Twitter? If they are, then proceed.
Ok, are you willing to put 3 times as much (or more) effort into this platform as your are on your other social channels? You are? Great. Because that’s a must for Twitter. It’s user base is smaller than IG, Facebook, and Snapchat. It’s more work to consume content for the users compared with the other platforms. And it’s filled with noise you have to break through to be relevant. OK, continue please.
Do you think people will be seeking you out on Twitter for customer service? This is huge because it adds another complicated layer to your social media ecosystem. We’re advocates for top-notch customer service, so if this a yes for you, you’ll need to make sure you do it right by putting framework into place that gives customers what they’re looking for.

OK, so now we’re getting somewhere. We can’t actually tell you if you should use it. You need to consider the questions above and think long and hard about how Twitter fits into your marketing mix. Should you choose to use it though, this would be the point where you start figuring out what your audience values and what you can deliver, which is the critical piece. Then, when you get to this point you can start putting your Twitter strategy together.

Oh, and by the way, you can totally consider Twitter as a straight up ad platform if you want. It’s OK to do that. This is advertising, after all. Sometimes we should just accept that it is what it is.

We should reiterate that this is a super basic outline. Like all social channels, Twitter is complex and no two brands or strategies are alike. But if you wanna talk more about it, we’d be happy to. Feel free to tweet at us @JTCG (Jacob Tyler Creative Group, if you’re wondering). Or, just go old school and give us a call.

Down and Dirty: Facebook Retargeting

Hey. We’ve only got a minute. We just wanted to tell you why we like Facebook Retargeting real quick. Ready?

Everyone knows that retargeting rules because you get to reach “hand-raisers” again, making it far more likely you’ll move them down your carefully crafted conversion funnel. 3 things we love about Facebook’s version in particular are:

Standard and Custom Conversion Events

Standard and custom conversion events make it easy to set up any website action that you want to monitor and retarget against. Seriously. You can track everything. — blog views, newsletter sign ups, downloads, e-commerce, and more. Track it all, we say. Then, when you want to create an ad that speaks to a specific audience that performed a specific action, you can create a new audience based on that action. Message directly until your heart’s content.

E-commerce Integrations

Facebook works with various e-commerce partners to make social attribution tracking very easy. You just have to plug in your Facebook pixel id on the partner platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.) and any standard event actions that happen on the e-commerce page will show up in the Facebook pixel analytics dashboard. Pretty, pretty, pretty sweet. Say goodbye to cart abandonment or welcome previous customers with messages that hit them right in the feels.

Engagement Retargeting

Lastly, and probably the most under the radar is that you can retarget against engagement on your social content and on your pages. You don’t need the pixel for this, but if you want to hit people up that came to your Facebook or Instagram page or who watched your video, you can. This tactic is a literal no-brainer. You just select the option when creating a custom audience and pick the one that makes the most sense for you (hint: try the Instagram bio visits one).

There you go. Facebook Retargeting is our jam. We love it. All the above can be found in the Facebook Ads Manager dashboard. Poke around and you’ll find it. Or, if you don’t want to mess with it or just want someone to do it for you, give us a shout. We’re down to help (in exchange for money, of course).

That year-end marketing budget is worth more than you think.

‘Use it or lose it’ is the mantra of many organizations when it comes to year-end budgets. If you’re in charge of the budget, it should be more than just a mantra, it should be your battle cry.

For starters, not spending allocated funds this year could mean you won’t receive those dollars next year. It’s no secret that budget planning is rooted in what departments spent the previous year to achieve their goals. To avoid being shortchanged in 2017, come up with a plan to do something your marketing team may not have tried before – a new tactic that could generate leads, drive revenue or build greater brand awareness.

You may be thinking, “Okay, cool. So, what should we do?” When considering what to spend those clams on, think in terms of the objectives you didn’t get to do this year. Some examples to kick start the ideas include the following:

End-of-Year email campaign – Creating an end-of-year email campaign can drum up business fast for the New Year. Consider a 3 email “drip campaign” with a landing page featuring content that addresses common consumer problems. To gain access to the content, the recipient will need to provide a name and email – giving you the contact information of a potential lead. As far as content, provide some thought leadership in your market by offering a whitepaper, video or E-book that provides value about the solving the issues your customers face. As an additional option, use the email campaign to generate buzz around a New Year special offer if your business has a product or service that could benefit customers as they start the year with fresh new purchasing or technology budgets.
Blog Posts – Speaking of content, investing in some fresh content for your website is an affordable and smart thing to do with year-end dollars. Hire a writer or agency that specializes in targeted content that can position your company as an industry thought leader. This is a fast, low cost option that can happen BEFORE the ball drops on 2016.
SEO Audit – Are the keywords on your website hitting the mark? Work with a strategic agency partner that can help your business identify keywords that are relevant to your product or service. An SEO-focused writer can make sure those SEO keyword opportunities are woven through your website in a logical, cohesive way.
Social Media Advertising Campaign – There’s an art to doing a social media campaign the right way. Social media advertising has grown to the point that sponsoring ads is having a powerful effect on driving awareness and conversions. Post one of your best performing offer ads and then sponsor the ad on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter depending on where your customers engage the most. Follow this up by considering an ad re-targeting strategy. Have an experienced firm set up a targeted ad campaign for people who have visited your website. Your ad will show up in their social media feeds, ensuring your product or service is always top of mind. Statistics are showing that retargeting is the most successful form of social advertising right now and social media engagement continues to grow at a voracious rate.
Get your info out there – Everyone’s talking about infographics. Easy to share through social media channels, on your website or in a presentation, infographics are a powerful “at-a-glance” tool for describing how your business can solve customer challenges. Find a partner or designer who is not only skilled at creating a visually appealing campaign but also developing a concept or theme for the graphic. Your customers love infographics. Trust me!

When it comes to year-end budgets, the bottom line is don’t lose it! Find new, affordable and creative ways to raise awareness, generate leads and ultimately, close deals. If you’d like to learn more about the tactics listed above or discover other ways to get the most out of your marketing budget, reach out.

We love talking about this stuff.

Marketing in San Diego | Jacob Tyler

On the Fourth Day of Creative: MaxLinear

As told by our Interactive Art Director, Azenith “Zee” Salenga…

On the fourth Day of Creative, I present to you the 2015 MaxLinear IBC Convention posters! MaxLinear is a technology company specializing in high-performance broadband and networking semiconductors. We were tasked with creating 12 posters for use at the 2015 IBC Conference in Amsterdam. To be a success, phase one of the project required a considerable amount of product understanding.

Prior to kicking off design, the MaxLinear team provided us with detailed diagrams and walked us through each—a few were fairly straightforward, but majority were quite complex. The challenge was to translate these mockups into something that made sense to a novice audience while remaining on brand. After some deliberation and research, we decided to take an infographic approach comprised of minimalistic visuals and illustrations portraying both speed and data.

This was an exciting challenge, but the outcome was truly rewarding. Working with the MaxLinear team was a great experience and we are thrilled to have made a lasting impact on their business and their brand.