Social media for businesses: What to share and what to avoid

There are several different ways in which social media can be used, but its main benefit is that users are to be able to communicate to others, whether the purpose is for personal (keeping in touch with friends or relatives) or for business use (keeping in touch with clients, marketing, generating sales leads, etc) in almost real time.

If you’re using social media for your business, it’s recommended that you separate your personal and business account. Why? Business and pleasure don’t always mix well. Apart from that, you should have a content strategy as part of your bigger marketing strategy and this will dictate the type of updates shared on your business’ social media accounts.

Keep in mind that people follow your business accounts for different reasons, whether it’s to keep up to date with what’s happening with the business or to stay up to date with the latest trends and news in your industry. If this is the case, then posting a personal update on your business account about the great dinner you had, will not offer value to those fans or followers.

Don’t scare people away, know what and what not to share on your business social media accounts.

What NOT to share:

Political rants – While you’re entitled to have your own opinion, rather post it on your personal account and keep your business out of it.
Selfies – Post your selfies on your personal profiles only. Selfies may make you look unprofessional. Remember that this account is your business account and you’re using it to create a reputation for your business.
Personal updates – Keep your private life private.
False information – Double check all info you repost.
Offensive statements – There’s an old saying that applies to this specific scenario: “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Avoid posting offensive updates that may damage your business’ reputation.

What to share:

Informative articles and other useful information related to your niche – Provide valuable information to your followers and fans.
Behind the scenes pictures – How are your products made? Or how does your team spend their day working? Let people ‘inside’ by posting behind the scenes pictures.
Business updates – Keep your customers updated by what is happening – did you land a big new contract or appoint a new employee? Post about it.

After reading this post, are you sharing appropriate content on your business’ social media accounts? Or do you have other restrictions on what to share? Let us know!

Use Pinterest to drive website traffic and sales

As a brand manager, do you sometimes feel that you are being pulled in a hundred different directions when it comes to deciding on the tactics to use to drive traffic to your ecommerce store?

Don’t panic, we have some advice to simplify the process when using Pinterest. There are many social media sites you can use to drive traffic to your ecommerce store – these include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, You Tube and your own blog to name a few. We know that it can be a daunting task to manage so many social media profiles, but with a solid content strategy and editorial calendar in place, it is more manageable.

Pinterest is another great social platform to drive traffic to your ecommerce store. According to an article written by Shopify (which is a website where you can easily create your own online store), Pinterest shoppers are 10% more likely to purchase something than shoppers coming from other social media sites. Of those purchases, the average order amount is double the order amount of customers coming from Facebook. To read the full article, follow this link: http://ow.ly/B53Dl

Here are some ways you can use Pinterest to drive ecommerce sales:

Let pinners see how your products are made. Let people in and show them the inside of your business, behind the scenes so to speak.
Create thematic boards to create new interest, and keep them updated.
Engage with followers on Pinterest and ask them to share photos of them using your product. You can even offer a prize of some sort to entice them to upload photos.
Keep track of what type of pins and boards your followers like and build on that.
Make sure there are links on your pins and boards to the relevant product pages. Make it easy for customers to find excactly what they’re looking for in your ecommerce store once they come from Pinterest.
Make use of Pinterest’s rich pins. It’s especially important for ecommerce stores as it shows the price and availability of products.
Pinterest price alerts is a great way to let people know when a product goes on sale. If the user has an unpurchased product on their board and it becomes cheaper, Pinterest will send an email informing them.
You can also use the “Promote pin” feature to promote certain pins.

You may have already realised that social media plays a big role in driving traffic to your website and ecommerce store. Pinterest in particular can offer your business the opportuity to increase traffic and sales, but you have to be diligent about using your Pinterest account strategically.

Why blogging is important

In today’s day and age, every business should have a website along with a blog.

Most marketers and digital marketing consultants will advise businesses to regularly update their blogs with relevant and quality content. Businesses will follow this advice, but they don’t really know why they are blogging, or realise the impact blogging can have.

In this post, we will explain some key benefits of blogging and why it is so important for your business. To get started, here are some of the main reasons why blogging should form part of your business’ marketing strategy:

It can drive targeted traffic to your website and as a result it can improve your website’s search engine rankings
It can position your brand as an industry leader through thought-leader and opinion posts
It can help you build better customer relationships
It can encourage visitor engagement if you include the correct calls to action in your post

Why blogging is important

Blogging should form a big part of your business’ content marketing strategy. The idea is to drive traffic back to your website from your social media and other platforms therefore you want the content that you share, to sit on your own website or blog. As part of your content strategy you can decide on different topics or themes for a week or month and focus your blog posts, social media updates, newsletter, podcasts and so forth on that specific topic.

As mentioned, blogging is also beneficial when it comes to search engine optimisation. By regularly updating your blog and correctly using keywords and meta tags, you can improve your website’s ranking on search engine result pages. It is advisable to do research on the keywords you should focus on, and to try and incorporate these keywords into your blog posts.

Blog posts can also be a good way to generate leads and sales. For instance, you can write an optimised blog post about what your product is about, how it works, what the benefits are, and so forth. You can then link to the specific product pages from your blog to encourage people to visit the page and either enquire about the product or buy it.

So if you are asking if blogging is beneficial to your business, then the answer is yes. It can be very powerful if done correctly. Do you need help with your content marketing strategy or the writing of blog posts? If yes, get in touch with our team.

Online shopping trends in South Africa

Shopping online has become the preferred form of shopping for many world wide, although it still face many challenges in some countries.

With the busy lifestyle that everyone has to deal with nowadays, online shopping has increased in popularity. E-commerce stores are making it easy for consumers to buy products, and to experience a different side of customer service than they are used to (face-to-face customer service).

As mentioned, e-commerce stores face a number of challenges. Some of these challenges include:

Consumers are hesitant to give out their credit card and personal details.
In the case of clothing and footware, will it fit?
Will the parcel be delivered on time?
Will the parcel get lost?
Can you trust that you will receive a quality product for the money you paid?
You can’t enjoy your purchase straight away (in other words, no instant gratification).

But what makes owning an e-commerce store so attractive? It’s quite simple. Business costs are dramatically influenced in a positive way. There’s no rent and costly overheads to be paid, and you have the freedom to tailor-make your service delivery to your customers’ needs.

Online shopping is not a new concept. It has been around for a few years, but South Africa has only recently began to harness the benefits of online shopping. South African businesses has to not only get past the challenges mentioned above, but also challenges unique to South Africa. These include poor transport logistics and the lack of reliable internet connection.

South Africans tend to make use of the e-commerce stores to assist them in making a purchasing decision about a certain product, but they still have the need to see and touch the product before making the purchase. An example of this is PriceCheck. Consumers use the PriceCheck website to compare prices of various goods, and many then go to the physical store and purchase the product there.

While online shopping is still relatively “new” in South Africa, it is becoming increasingly popular, and retailers that are doing it right are consistently growing their customer base.

Effective Measure released a report about the topic of e-commerce in South Africa. Their February 2014 report states that the five top South African online retailers are:

Kalahari.com
Amazon.com
Bidorbuy.co.za
Groupon.co.za
Takealot.com

This has a lot of significance in the sense that none of these retailers have a physical store where people can go and take a look at the product they are buying. They trust these e-commerce stores to deliver the product once they made the payment.

Other interesting statistics from this report are:

Mobile traffic to online stores increased to 47% from an average of 32%.
Approximately 45% of online shoppers are based in Gauteng while 22.6% are based in the Western Cape.
73.76% of online shoppers use the internet to make payments, transfer money and pay bills. 49% of these shoppers are doing that at least once per week.

As you can see, South African e-commerce stores still have a long way to go, but we believe it is definitely moving in the right direction. As long as retailers are listening to their customers’ needs, there will always be an improvement.

How South African brands use Instagram

Instagram started out as a platform for users using it more for personal reasons than businesses using it for marketing purposes.

However, these days brands understand the value of Instagram – and how to successfully integrate it with their marketing strategies. Instagram has become the ‘newest’ way to connect with target audiences by sharing visually attractive photos with short messages.

Researchers found that 92% of luxury brands who post an average of 5.5 times a week will show an increase in their customer base. (You can view the report here). So how can you utilize this amazing platform? Here are a few tips on how to use Instagram for your business:

Monitor your Instagram account constantly. Every mention you receive is a chance to engage with your audience.
Share the love. Don’t expect people to like and comment on all of your photos and you don’t return the favour. Be interactive and engaging – this is a fantastic way to grow your following.
Use hashtags. Give your audience a topic / subject to photograph and a hashtag to use. There is no better way to grow your audience and to engage with them than a competition where people can win a prize.
If you are already using hashtags on other social media platforms, use them on Instagram too. Keep in mind that hashtags used on a platform like Twitter might not have the same power when used on Instagram. Do research on the most appropriate hashtags to use (the ones your audience is looking for) to ensure maximum exposure.
Include your customers and employees. Get customers to show how they use your product and / or services. You can also do this from your side by taking a picture of your customers and showing your audience how others experience your brand. Another option is to feature images of your employees having a good time on the job – this is a good way to humanize your brand.
Reward your followers with discount codes or promotions unique to Instagram.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of our favorite brands on Instagram and how they leverage the platform. These are some of South Africa’s top brands using Instagram:

Woolworths

This is South Africa’s top brand on Instagram. They are very successful in their social media efforts and if you take a look at their Instagram account you will see why. They engage with their followers and they also include their staff and customers in their feed. In addition to this they also feature new products, post inspirational quotes and photos of their yummy looking food.

Topshop South Africa

Topshop has over 16 000 followers. They use relevant hashtags, which is most likely one of the reasons why they are so successful. They also engage with followers, but not on the same level as Woolworths.

Nifty250

We just love Nifty250’s profile! Their images are alluring, and you just can’t stop scrolling down to view more. Nifty250 is very interactive on Instagram – commenting and liking on photos on a regular basis.

Yuppiechef

They do an excellent job of including their staff and followers in their posts. They humanize their service on a very appealing level.

South African Tourism

Go take a look at their profile page, it is very impressive. The photos you will find there will make you fall in love with South Africa all over again. They use relevant hashtags and include followers by mentioning the person who took the photo.

If your brand is not yet using Instagram, what are you waiting for? If you need help incorporating Instagram with your current marketing strategy, feel free to get in touch with our team for advice.

How to use storytelling in marketing

Storytelling is not a new concept, and businesses across the world are becoming increasingly creative when using storytelling for content marketing and branding.

The purpose of storytelling is to let people know what your business can offer them in a memorable way that will not only connect with them but also make them think and take action. Consumers must be able to relate to the characters you cast and the story you are telling. Businesses must humanize their product, and the best way to do this is by storytelling. We found some fantastic examples of successful storytelling campaigns that we’d like to share with you.

Successful storytelling case studies

This is a good example of how Duracell humanized their product.

We also love this new Checkers ad, their creative team managed to use a topic that hits a nerve with South African consumers and used it to create a great ‘story’.

We have round up a few ways to help you to create the best story for your brand. If you include these, you are likely to reap the benefits of great storytelling.

Be honest

You are in fact telling a story, but it needs to be based on the truth of your brand and product.

Create relatable characters

People need to connect to the story you are telling. They need to feel something when watching your story, and that can only be done by creating characters in your story that people can relate to. Knowing the wants and needs of your target audience plays a great role here.

Hit a nerve

Creating a heart-felt and sincere story will make your story share-worthy and memorable.

Don’t give it all away

When telling a story you want to show your audience how great your product is, and not talk about it all the time. Show scenes that softly pitches your product, and let people read between the lines.

Don’t overthink

Keep it simple but striking. Tell a story that makes an emotional impact.

Stories are powerful. They inspire and move us, and that is why storytelling is such a great marketing tool for businesses. There is so much information and advertising noise in the world, it is impossible to remember it all, but for some reason people remember a great story. What is your favourite campaign and why? Chat to us in the comments, we’d love to hear from you.

Social media monitoring tools

One of the keys to social media marketing success is listening to what your audience is saying, analysing it and using these insights to improve your marketing strategy.

In our previous post we discussed tips to make the most of social media monitoring and there are many social media monitoring tools available to help you track online mentions and conversations. It’s probably a good idea to try a few of them and then choose the one that works best for you. Below we discuss some options for you to consider.

Social media monitoring tools

Hootsuite

At Twenty3Media we use Hootsuite to manage updates and comments, and Hootsuite can also be used to monitor what is being said. Hootsuite is a great monitoring tool to use when there’s multiple people working on various social media accounts. It offers everything you need in one place. Schedule your social content in advance, and engage with people across all your accounts, all conveniently located in one place. Its easy-to-read reports makes analysing data a breeze. When using Hootsuite you can manage various social networks including Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Google+, LinkedIn and Foursquare.

TweetReach

If you want to monitor what impact your tweets have, then this is the right tool for you. TweetReach also measures the implications of social media discussions. By using TweetReach you will be able to find out which influential followers to target to get better results.

Social Mention

With Social Mention companies can monitor over a hundred different social media sites, and analyse data in depth. It gives you four measurements of each social media site – the Strength, Sentiment, Passion and what Reach it had.

Twazzup

This is a Twitter monitoring tool. Just enter the name you want to track in Twazzup and it will list the most active influencers, the top retweeted photos and links as well as the top ten keywords related to your search.

HowSociable

You can measure your and your competitors’ social media presence with this tool. You can track twelve social media sites for free. HowSociable allows you to see which social media platform works best for your brand and which ones need more attention.

Sprout Social

With Sprout Social you can manage and monitor on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Its social reports provide analytics, and organizes data of user activity and demographic information.

Unilyzer

This tool can help you see which campaigns are working best on which social networks. It retrieves data from a wide variety of social media platforms and analyses the data. This tool will tell you which visitors are “loyal” and from where users are coming. It also measures social media marketing efforts over time and gives the user a growth rate.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a fantastic way to keep track of trends and interesting topics. It very useful for companies’ in the sense that you can keep track of what people are saying about you and your brand across the World Wide Web. You can also use it in a personal capacity when searching for a job, following a trending story or if you’re searching for discounts or promotions.

For more information read this article for some interesting facts about social media monitoring or contact us if you need help with your social media marketing strategy and management.

Tips to make the most of social media monitoring

The world of social media and monitoring what is being said about your brand can be confusing and daunting.

There is so much to keep in mind and so many different online platforms to monitor. Social media monitoring is also known as online analytics, social media measurement, social media management, buzz analysis, and the lists goes on.

Firstly, social media monitoring is the act of using an online tool to monitor what is being said about your brand (or a competitor for that matter) on the World Wide Web. It includes the monitoring of social media and other online platforms like blogs to determine the sentiment of an online conversation about a brand or topic.

One of the benefits of social media monitoring is that it can help marketers determine what impact their online marketing or advertising campaigns have on the public. Once the impact is determined, the marketer can identify opportunities for engagement. Social media monitoring can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers think about a specific brand or product.

There are many different online tools businesses can use to monitor a variety of social media channels. These tools allow companies to track what consumers are saying about their brand, product or actions. Companies can then react to interact with people through the social media platforms where these conversations are taking place. We will discuss the different social media monitoring tools in detail in an upcoming blog post.

Why is social media monitoring important?

You know where you stand: Monitoring conversaionts will let you know what consumers think of your product as they will tell the truth on social media as they have nothing to lose. It can also provide valuable information about what your competitors are offering.
Crisis control: Social media can quickly turn on you if you don’t pay close attention to it. By keeping your finger on the pulse, you can quickly respond to negative comments to ensure that disturbed customers are attended to.
Identify influencers: With social media monitoring you can identify those consumers whose opinions are respected among their peers. You want these people in you good books so find ways to attract and engage with them, once you have identified them.
Learn what works: You can learn from other companies’ mistakes. Keep an eye on your competitors and you will soon learn what works and what doesn’t.

How should brands handle negative comments on social media?

It is important to always be kind in your response to consumers. The old saying “the customer is always right” applies here, no matter how wrong he is! When faced with a complaint, don’t get defensive. It is best to be accommodating, polite and try to truly listen to the comment. If your business made a mistake, own up to it and apologise. Mistakes happen, and if you deal with them head-on consumers will respect that.

If you want to find out more about monitoring what is being said about your brand online, feel free to contact us to see how we can help.

Social media marketing tips for small businesses

Using social media to promote your offering and engage with consumers are not only relatively easy, but also fun and for the most part inexpensive.

Small businesses in general have limited resources (including marketing resources) and compared to other marketing tactics, you can accomplish a lot with social media.

Why is social media a great marketing tool for small businesses?

If social media is used strategically, it can offer direct engagement with your target audience. Social media will not only raise awareness for your brand, but it can also drive targeted traffic to your website.

In order to generate results with social media, you need to have a strong strategy in place. It’s easy to get started with all the platforms available, but to see a return on investment you need to understand each platform and create a social media marketing strategy for your business.

How can you effectively use social media?

Firstly, you need to understand and define your audience, and what their needs are. All your social media platforms should work together to help achieve your business’ bigger marketing goals. One of these marketing goals normally is to get people to visit your business’ online base – your website. Your social media platforms should ideally drive people to your website where they can read your blog posts, subscribe to your newsletter or buy your products or services. If you have marketing budget available, consider paid advertising on social media platforms to help reach marketing goals.

Another useful tip to increase brand awareness is to incorporate social sharing buttons on your blog posts. This will make it easy for people to share your content. Make sure you have valuable content and then make it easy for people to share.

To further ensure success, you should invest your time only in the platforms where your target market is spending their time. Even more so if you lack marketing resources. Start off small and grow your social media strategy gradually.

As part of your social media strategy, you should create a content strategy that will determine what you will post, where you will post it and when you will post it. Your content strategy can be as simple as a Word document. At Twenty3Media we like to plan content ahead and create updates a week in advance. This gives us enough time to proofread the content a couple of times, and send it to the client for final approval. A tip from our side: Always proofread your content, you will be surprised to see how many little errors can sneak in. When people are engaging and interacting with you on your social media profiles, respond to comments, mentions and feedback. If you receive negative feedback or comments, respond and try your best to turn the situation around.

Lastly, track and analyse your performance. It’s no use doing all the work if your audience is not responding positively. Make sure you identify which tactics are working and which aren’t. Based on your findings, make tweaks and implement changes and continue to monitor your efforts. Do you have any social media marketing questions? Ask us in the comments!

Twitter marketing tips

Why blogging is important

Successful storytelling case studies

Social media monitoring tools

Why is social media monitoring important?

Why is social media a great marketing tool for small businesses?

How can you effectively use social media?