Category: Social Media

Let’s start by clarifying that aren’t stating the obvious. Both channels are traditionally used for very different purposes. Facebook is used to share photos from vacation and connect with friends and family. Linkedin is used by businesses to share updates while staying update What we would like to elaborate is how digital marketers can create the right mix to use both Facebook and Linkedin to their advantage. In this blog, we can take you through some of the latest ad formats to try out and case studies on how the same company is using both media differently. The core part is you are communicating with people on both fronts except that they are looking at you with a different lens on each platform.   1. Leverage on UGC from Facebook and on lead generation from Linkedin   We will neither claim this to be the right way or the only way as vice versa of the above statement works equally well. In most cases UGC is easily generated on Facebook as people have a way to rate your business and drop visitor posts. For a consumer-facing brand, leveraging Facebook to amplify positivity around the brand and eventually get to lead generation makes sense. It is like your digital word-of-mouth. Running consumer ads on Facebook is also a great way generate leads. Given the basic association of professionals with the medium, ads on Linkedin are more veered towards the generation of leads. From professional courses to connecting with the right people within an organization, lead generation from a business perspective works well on this medium. Let’s take an example where the same product can be used for different types of lead generation. Sahil has been teaching Kickboxing for a while. When he wanted to recruit more people from a particular area of the city, he turned to targeted lead generation from Facebook. When he wanted to start batches for corporate, he targeted HR managers at corporate for lead generations and sales.   2. Individual stories v/s 360 degree PR stories Facebook is a great platform for telling individual stories. It allows you to take each of your users and put them on a pedestal and share their story. Linkedin can work well when you connect all these stories and showcase this from a brand perspective on how the brand is helping users collectively. Again, there is no right or wrong here. Because Linkedin acts as a communication point to professionals, talking about the brand gives it context from a different view.   3. Brand building v/s brand advocate building When you want to say something amazing about your products and brand in a visually appealing manner, Facebooks works wonderfully to a marketer’s advantage. Let’s say your company sells travel packages, talking about destinations in all their visual glory works well on Facebook. On the other hand, talking about the numbers and behaviour around travel, that especially comes from your CXO level brand advocates, grounds your company in a superior level intellectually.   4. Awareness and Reach v/s Penetration When it comes to awareness and reach, Facebook beats most social channels hands down. Because of the sheer user base, time on the channel and engagement, Facebook is a good medium to get visibility. Linkedin is used when your targeting is niche and you can almost identify people by their position in the organization and reach out to them with a clear ask.   5. Linkedin Groups v/s Facebook Groups Both social channels have the groups feature that allow users with similar interests to have conversations within the restrictions and guidelines of the group. The motive of engagement in the groups tend to vary. A company selling a mixer grinder may create a general user community group on Facebook to share recipes. Here the company executives may subtly steer conversations that feature their product once in a while. The same company may have an active group of innovators on Linkedin who take pride in food or tech innovations around the product. With these two channels its never an or but an and. As a organizations, it is important to maintain different facets of your social side on both these channels. Have you done a 360-degree campaign using both channels effectively and differently? Do share your case study with us to be featured in this space.   Watch: We are a Content-First Agency

Digital marketing has one significant advantage over traditional marketing. And that is its ability to create a two-way dialogue between customers and the brand. Unlike traditional marketing where brands shove a bunch of information down customers’ throats, digital marketing allows you to build a relationship with your customers; thereby creating a loyal following. Unfortunately, most marketers don’t leverage this unique ability of digital marketing. They continue to use the same one-way technique that traditional marketing is known for even in their digital efforts. As a result, customers end up feeling disconnected from the brand. Forget customer retention and loyalty, even acquiring new customers becomes a challenge. If you’re serious about building a Digital marketing strategy that engages customers in the long run, here are some invaluable tips: Tip 1: Measure, measure, and then measure some more You can’t grow something if you’re not tracking it obsessively and that stands true for customer engagement as well. With analytics tools like Kissmetrics, Mixpanel, and Amplitude, you can easily figure out how customers are engaging with the product. You can find out which buyer personas are engaging more, where users are dropping off, where cohorts are churning, and so on. This gives you major insights into how customers are engaging with your product today, which will become the foundation for the next steps. Also, try to combine qualitative analysis with quantitative metrics for maximum effectiveness. Tip 2: Deliver exemplary customer experience No amount of customer engagement techniques will work unless you focus on delivering a superlative customer experience. Nothing puts a customer off more than a bad experience. So unless you have a monopoly, chances are that a bad experience equals a lost customer. In fact, 42% of brands say that they invest in customer experience in order to build customer retention. As a brand, start by setting up strong metrics around the customer experience that are relevant to your brand — whether that’s time for query resolution, days to delivery, or time for first response. Then track those metrics relentlessly and even link staff bonuses to these metrics if need be. Tip 3: Involve your brand advocates Chances are that you have a small group of customers who absolutely love your brand. These are the people who will give you a consistent 10 on your NPS (Net Promoter Score), organically tell people about how great your product is, and want to give you feedback. Leveraging your brand advocates effectively is a great engagement strategy. You can start off with simple things, like giving them a sneak preview of your new products/updates and asking them to spread the information via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. You can also rope them in to conduct user tests before launching a new product or an upgrade. This will not only keep your loyal customers engaged with the brand but will also help you build credibility among a wider audience. Tip 4: Build a brand people relate to In today’s day and age, you have to work on humanizing your brand. People are much likelier to buy your products if they relate to your message as a brand. And this doesn’t just go for exciting, hip brands like Kylie Cosmetics or Red Bull. It also applies to everyday brands that are usually perceived as “boring”— whether that’s a B2B SaaS product or a supply chain management company. If you belong in the latter category, it’s a good idea to find someone in the company who feels passionately about your product to become the “face” of your brand. It could be a CXO, but it could also be someone from middle management who just loves what the company represents. Position this person as a thought leader, publishing whitepapers, case studies, conducting webinars, and so on. It will immediately make your brand more relatable to your target audience. Tip 5: Build a community The best part about social media marketing is that it gives customers a platform to directly engage with your brand. Use this opportunity to create a community of loyal users, many of whom are likely to have shared interests. While Facebooks groups are a great way to build a strong community, Slack is another upcoming option. Many companies these days use an exclusive Slack channel to build a loyal community of brand advocates. Tip 6: Personalize communication Personalization is the best way to engage customers throughout the customer journey. On average,  36% of customers say they want to purchase personalized products and service and 48% say that they’re willing to wait longer for a personalized product or service. From powerful recommendation engines to a customized email, personalization can take many forms. Using marketing automation platforms like MoEngage and WebEngage can also help you deliver a more personalized experience, through customized push notifications, texts, and emails. Tip 7: Listen to your customers Listening to your customers may sound like an obvious cliche, but the latest digital marketing tools enable you to listen to your customers in new and interesting ways. Every few minutes on the internet, whether you’re aware of it or not, customers are expressing their opinion about your brand. By using social listening tools like Buzzsumo, SproutSocial, or SocialMention,, you can tune into what your customers are saying about you. The negative feedback will help you focus on where you need to improve while you can leverage the positive feedback and incorporate into a holistic marketing strategy. With customer acquisition costs becoming sky-high, retaining and engaging customers is rapidly becoming the biggest factor in brand success. Make user engagement and retention the focus of your business and design metrics and policies accordingly. And do let us know in the comments if these tips help you get there. Watch: We are a Content-First Agency

All digital marketers know that there are dime a dozen new social channels emerging every day, all wanting to be the next Facebook and take over the world. What the savvy digital marketer really wants to know is which of these should he or she bet their money on. Existing social giants have changed the algorithm several times to nullify our investment. Most brands went after increasing fan follower count aggressively on Facebook until one fine day it just didn’t matter how many you had as the organic reach was going to be paltry at best. But for other social channels, follower count still matters, and so do metrics like engagement. So, essentially, what we are saying is that an average Digital marketer is living the ‘Fast and Furious’ life with a ‘Ride or die’ attitude. We have to try things out constantly, know how it works, blog about it, educate others, keep learning and experimenting and use the collective intelligence of the hive to see how to use the platform. Let’s check out some of the newbies in the digital arena and how you can find a way to begin experimenting with them.   Tiktok   Entertaining, addictive and fun are some of the adjectives used to describe this popular app whose meteoric rise to stardom in 3 short years is commendable. By their own definition, they sound like a competitor to YouTube – they are a music and video platform that allows users to create and share videos on any topic. But the two platforms are vastly different. Primarily because Tiktok is for really short vertical videos ranging between 15 – 60 secs in length. Known as Douyin in China, the app is simple to use, loved by the younger audience (especially teenagers), is strongly driven by localized content and has the Apple music library. Claim to fame Fastest downloaded app, challenges, high degree of engagement – much higher than existing platforms and celebrity endorsement. In fact Tiktok really aced on local celebrity endorsement and this was one of the biggest reasons it grew so fast so quickly. It has spawned a new breed of influencers called Tiktok influencers and you see their popularity flowing from online to offline. How brands can leverage TikTok Challenges are an interesting way to get attention on TikTok. Challenges are as crazy as they come. There was the #achoo challenge where people jumped from one character to another after a sneeze. Other challenges are organically, and in this case, literally rolled out by celebrities like the #Tumbleweed challenge by Jimmy Fallon. In eyeballs and engagement is your criteria, TikTok can do the job for you with their target audience. The Har ghoot mein swag challenge by Pepsi had celebrities Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani showing off the #SwagStep and encouraged other users to share their steps. Until date, challenge has over 15 billion views! There is something about a doable challenge that makes people take it up, then circle back and tag friends to do the same – like the Ice bucket one. The premise of such challenges is that engagement with the brand eventually works to a recall and likability perspective. The users of the future aren’t passive but have a point of view and aren’t shy of expressing it. So where is this whole engagement going? It is allowing brands to build a ‘brand community’ of sorts filled with advocates and super users who can maximize the reach. The wait and watch for TikTok is how the platform will shape up to eventually to help marketers reach their ROI at the end of the rainbow.   Vero Vero was started in 2015 but it became the “hot new” only 2018. It’s claim to fame is that it is “authentic” by not using an algorithm to determine content visibility. It is also an ad-free platform (for now). That’s how Instagram started, remember? The good part is that people who are dissatisfied of being short-changed by Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm and have worried about their content being lost are now in a more comfortable space with Vero. At least, the organic appeal is not lost. Leveraging Vero Since the platform is ad free, changing this status can mean losing user base. As a brand, this means you get to organically test out your traction with this user base. Since there isn’t a shift of marketing money involved, the adoption by brands may be better justified than another new social platform. On the other hand, we’ve burned our efforts with other platforms like this that haven’t been able to continue their scaling without advertiser money. The other ‘What if’ that you should consider before you jump on the Vero wagon is ‘What if one of the bigger fishes eats this one?’   Lasso Facebook has a simple policy – either buy your competition or make a simpler and better version of what they have to beat them. Since TikTok comes as a threat in the social space, Facebook decided to quietly launch Lasso. It has mostly similar features. What makes it ‘easier’ is that you can user your Facebook / Instagram account to login and also share Lasso videos as stories on Facebook. This will be eventually available for Instagram too. Leveraging Lasso Facebook knows how to make a business out of a product. You can expect them to throw their might behind Lasso too to outrun TikTok. Given the existing platform synergies, it makes it easier for marketers to adopt. However, Lasso currently seems like a late entrant in the short video player game. This one we closely watch on how things can turn out. More information here   Caffeine Caffeine is the new Twitch. It’s the social media platform for live streamers. The platform is aimed at gamers and artists. Started by a couple of Apple designers in 2018, the startup came to limelight when it raised $100 million from 21st Century Fox for a content joint venture. The platform

LinkedIn is one of the most underrated social media platforms there is. A lot of people think it simply doesn’t have the kind of numbers that Facebook and Instagram do. But if you think about it, LinkedIn is really a curated platform. It may have only 575 million users (compared to Facebook and Instagram’s billion-plus users) but they’re largely white-collar professionals who are on the platform because they want to build their career or business in some way. In short, LinkedIn is a great place to get recognized— whether you’re a freelancer, a professional, or a business owner. And if you have a B2B company, then LinkedIn is probably the first place that you need to look at from a marketing perspective. Another challenge people sometimes find with LinkedIn is that it’s unfamiliar. So even though you know it’s an important platform you’re not always sure about how to go about using it. Most importantly, you’re not sure of how ads work on LinkedIn. And while it’s true that the platform can be a little unfamiliar, and that the cost per click is relatively expensive, there is no better way than LinkedIn ads to generate B2B leads in the short run. So in this article, we breakdown the whole LinkedIn Ads platform and help you launch your very first LinkedIn Ads campaign.   Step 1: Build strong personal and company profiles LinkedIn allows people to see everything about a prospect before deciding whether to engage with them. This means your LinkedIn profile has to be spot on, and this includes both your personal profile and your company page. So first off, analyze your personal profile; make sure you haven’t missed out on anything that’s noteworthy and that will build your credibility as someone people want to do business with. As a next step, set up your company page. Here’s how you do it in just 2 clicks:   Image Source   Then add your company name and your profile URL.   Image Source   Although company pages can be fairly extensive, there are a few things that you need to add right off the bat. These include: Your cover image Your logo Your “about us” summary. This helps you with getting recognized in Google searches so make sure you include all the important keywords here. Your header and profile picture should reflect your brand. Many people just use their logo for their profile picture so that people immediately know who they’re dealing with. Ask everyone on your team to connect their profile with the company page so that any prospect knows they’ll be working with a solid team.   Step 2: Share unique content   Before you create ads on LinkedIn, you need to start by posting and promoting great content. This will give you valuable insights into the kind of content that works, helping you decide what content to spend your advertising budget on. LinkedIn is probably the most underrated content platform. There are about 9 billion content impressions every week on LinkedIn, and these are being driven by just 3 million users. What this means is you have an opportunity to get great engagement on your content without having to deal with too much competition. Here are a few things to keep in mind while promoting content on LinkedIn: Post content every day Consistency is an absolute must with LinkedIn. You can post a variety of content — from company updates to blog posts to industry articles to thought leadership pieces. It’s just important to share content every single day. Post snappy content A compelling headline, a brief but interesting introduction, and a clear CTA (Call to Action) are all prerequisites for good content. Also, make sure that your content is asking readers thoughtful questions and discussing their pain points, as opposed to talking about yourself. Use tags Tagging people and companies who might find your content relevant will help you get some quick likes and comments. This, in turn, will signal to LinkedIn that this is the content that they should share with a wider audience.   Step 3: In-depth data analysis Go to the Engagement highlights on your business page to analyze the performance of your content.   There are two main things you need to get from this exercise. Find out who is seeing your posts You need to make sure your posts are reaching the right audience. If that isn’t happening, experiment with changing the headlines to capture a more relevant audience. Knowing how to target the right audience is an important key to effective advertising on LinkedIn. Figure out which kind of content is working You also need to see which type of content is actually working well; in terms of tone, content format, topics, etc. This will help you make important decisions around which content you should be spending your ad budget on.   Step 4: Sponsored content   You are now ready to begin your LinkedIn ad campaign. There are 3 main options for your ad campaign. These include: Sponsored posts Text and dynamic ads Sponsored InMails. Sponsored posts are a good starting point because they reach a wider audience at a lesser cost compared to display ads and InMails. Plus, you already know which content is working well so you won’t have too much trouble there. Here are the steps you need to follow to begin your campaign: Go to your company page, go to the post you want to sponsor and click the Sponsor Now button   2. You’ll be taken to the Campaign manager. Click on Create Campaign. 3. Specify the campaign name and choose a campaign goal. For the first campaign, sending people to your website is probably the best goal. 4. Choose your target audience. The best feature about LinkedIn ads is how narrowly you can define your target audience so use this option well. 5. Choose your budget and bidding option. There are two bidding options – Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per

When it comes to content, the competition becomes more intense every day. And for any brand that hopes to capture that slice of the customer’s attention, posting quality content simply isn’t enough. I can post a great Insta story or a witty meme with an even wittier caption, but if I’m doing it once in two weeks, there’s simply no point. Consistency is key — everyone from the biggest online brands to fledgeling Youtubers swears by this one rule.  But consistency comes with its own issues. When you’re posting twice a day on Facebook, thrice on Instagram, four times on Twitter, and so on, chances are you’ll make a mistake or two. From racking your brains to create memorable copy to finding/creating that perfect image, there are way too many things that go into a social media post. Sometimes, the mistake may be as trivial as a misspelt word (which can still have a strong impact on your reputation) or you may just upload a completely wrong image! Whatever be the issue, here’s the complete guide on how you can resolve it. We’ve broken down editing options by social media platform, along with instructions on how to make things right. So here we go:   Facebook Facebook is the one platform that’s part of the default marketing strategy for most brands. Given how frequently we end up posting on Facebook, it’s important to know how to quickly backtrack when necessary.  What can be edited You can easily edit wrong spellings, poorly worded captions, and even entire textual content. Basically, as long as you’re dealing with the written word, Facebook lets you edit the post whenever you want. In fact, you can even change or add tags, whether that’s for brands, individual, or even locations. You can also edit posts with the Facebook Page Manager App. Keep on mind that edits on Facebook can be made by any Page admin. Plus, edits are also visible on the platform, including the ones that have been made before the post was published. Finally, the post’s edit history is actually public so any user can really look at the editing history if they really want to. This obviously shouldn’t deter you from making the edits you need to, it’s just something to keep in mind. How to edit   Simply click/tap on the three dots which are present on the top right-hand corner of the actual post. Then select “Edit Post” from the drop-down menu that appears. Make your changes and just click “Save”.   What cannot be edited Unlike textual content, photos and videos cannot be edited on the platform. So if you attach the wrong image or video to the post, you’ll simply have to delete the post and start from scratch. The only exception is if you are editing your post in the Facebook Pages app and you need to change an image. In that case, you can upload the new photo to a post and save it. Once you save the post, go to editing mode and delete the old photo. Importantly, if a post has been boosted, or is part of an ad campaign, it cannot be edited. So when you’re advertising on Facebook, please make sure your post is perfect before it goes live. Otherwise, you’ll have to keep deleting the old post and creating a new one.   Twitter   Twitter is the one platform where posting frequency is the maximum. In fact, many companies run a thriving customer support channel on Twitter.  What can be edited Nothing! Unfortunately, there is no option of editing tweets as of now. This has been the subject of a lot of discussions but as of now, there is no move by the platform to provide an editing option. The company feels that giving the edit option would take away from the free-flowing nature of the platform. At times, Twitter has indicated that it might provide an editing option, with an ‘editing window’ of around 5 minutes after the tweet has been posted. However, there is no concrete progress on this as of now.  How to edit Since there is no real editing option for tweets, if you make an error you simply have to delete the tweet and start again. Luckily, the limited size of a tweet makes it much easier to accomplish this.   Instagram Instagram has become the most popular social media platform after Facebook. Plus, its young demographic (more than 600 million followers are under the age of 34) and high engagement rates means its often the primary platform for many marketers.  What can be edited Just like Facebook, you can change textual information on Instagram. Which means you can edit your caption, add or change any location tag, and add or delete account tags. You can also add and edit alt text tags.  How to edit   Keep in mind that you can’t edit captions on the desktop version of Instagram. It can only be done within the app on your mobile. To edit the caption, go to your post and click the three dots on the top right side. Then tap the ‘edit’ button after which you can make changes like editing the caption, changing location, and adding account tags to the photo or video. Once the editing is complete, tap the “Done” button on the upper right side.    What can’t be edited Similar to Facebook, you cannot edit the videos and images in a post once you’ve uploaded them. You’ll have to delete the post and start again.   LinkedIn In recent years, LinkedIn has become the go-to platform for every B2B brand and two professionals join LinkedIn every second.  What you can edit You can edit posts both from the Company page as well as your personal profile. Once again, you can only change the text.  How to edit   To edit your post, go to the page you posted from, and find the post. Click on the three dots on

Social media marketing is no longer a novelty but an everyday reality for most companies. In fact, research reveals that 90% of customers have already used social media as a way to communicate with a brand while another 63% of customers actually expect companies to offer customer service via social media. The problem is that while most brands have enthusiastically adopted a social media presence, few are using it to build a genuine connection with customers. Most social media marketers we speak with are confused about where their social media strategy is going, and end up creating random content for the sake of consistency, without enough clarity on how to achieve their marketing goals. While it’s not the only thing to factor in, an important starting point of any good social media strategy is the choice of social media channels. There are so many different social media platforms today, all of which seem compelling in their own way. It’s important to recognize which channel is best suited to your product, your marketing goals, and your brand voice. It’s also important to be aware of the latest shifts in social media usage so that you can stay ahead of the curve and design a futuristic marketing strategy that pays off in the medium to long-term. In this article, we will break down the social media channels of 2019 and help you decide which ones you should incorporate in your marketing strategy.   Is it the end of the road for Facebook?   There are a number of recent changes that many experts believe will herald the end of Facebook’s domination. For instance, the changes in their newsfeed algorithm have wiped out massive organic reach for so many brands and advertising now seems like the only way to build a following. The Cambridge Data Analytica scandal and the recent privacy issues also mean the brand reputation has taken a hit. Finally, there’s Facebook’s biggest challenge — it simply isn’t hip anymore. The younger demographic across the world is increasingly moving towards Instagram as its go-to social media channel and Generation Z looks upon Facebook activity as infra dig. Reinventing itself is the biggest challenge Facebook will face in the next decade. So should you just give up on Facebook marketing altogether? Of course not. Despite its shortcomings, Facebook, with its user base of over 2 billion and rich marketing features is still the platform with the widest reach. Yet, keep these things in mind when you’re leveraging Facebook. Focus more on newer features like stories, Messenger, and groups. Facebook is looking to build groups in a big way so this is the right time to build and nurture a thriving online community. Definitely, do not put all your eggs in the Facebook basket. If your social media marketing strategy is predominantly Facebook-dependent, start diversifying immediately.   The Challengers: Instagram and Linkedin   Last year, Instagram crossed the milestone of 1 billion users. More exciting than the number itself is the fact that they actually doubled their user base in 2 years. With a much younger demographic (Users under 35 make up more than 70 per cent of Instagram accounts) and higher levels of engagement (the average Instagram user spends 53 minutes per day on the Android app), Instagram has definitely emerged as a massive marketing opportunity. With features like Stories that see amazing engagement rates, Instagram is the platform of the present and the future. For a long time, marketers have complained that Instagram simply isn’t as marketing-friendly as other platforms but the slew of marketing features they have launched in 2018 will change that. Instagram marketing is definitely something that should become an integral part of your marketing mix. LinkedIn is the other incumbent that will really shine in 2019. LinkedIn has always had a stronghold in B2B marketing but it has consolidated this position with a well thought out strategy and feature roll out. LinkedIn doesn’t suffer from the loss of credibility and trust that other social media channels have been subjected to. Over time, it has grown into a platform that’s much more than an online resume. It’s a place where people engage meaningfully over work-related conversations and that will not change anytime soon.   The Up-and-comers: Whatsapp and Tik-Tok   2019’s round-up of the best social media channels is incomplete without talking about two new entrants. Although both are at very different stages, they are both still new for marketers, who are still finding their feet with the platforms. The first of course is Whatsapp. After years of relentless focus on user experience with no thought of monetization, Whatsapp has finally launched its Whatsapp for Business app which already has more than 5 million users. Given Whatsapp’s strict focus on user experience and privacy, chances are it will never become the thrust of your marketing strategy. Yet, Whatsapp can be a great complement to your primary marketing channels, especially to deliver better customer experience. This brings us to the newest kid on the block; Tik-Tok. The platform has grown at a phenomenal rate and already boasts of 500 million monthly active users. Tik-Tok is the new avatar of Musical.ly after its acquisition by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. Although the channel is still very nascent and building marketing features is probably not in the picture yet, this is undoubtedly the channel of the future. If you’re looking to build a futuristic strategy, this is the time to start experimenting with some organic brand content on the platform and get ahead of the curve. At the end of the day, the choice of social media channels and the emphasis on each one is a very personal decision. It is a combination of factors — previous performance, suitability to your product, and relevance to your current goals. Having said that, it’s important to be aware of the shifting trends in social media channels so that you stop playing catch up and are able to build a competitive strategy.