How can your company create better social media content and increase engagement? A cost-effective marketing strategy that is often overlooked today is employee — we prefer “team”— activation. Not only can employee activation, hence forth, team activation, benefit brands externally but internally as well.

What is Team Activation?

Team activation provides team members with social media guardrails. This approach allows them to share content and ideas on social media that align to their interests and professional goals.

More than 10 years ago, employee advocacy was popular. Team activation is similar but more engaging and collaborative. Employee advocacy forces team members to blast boilerplate messages and brand content to their social networks. The generic approach and efforts of employee advocacy fizzled out over time.

But team activation encourages employees to authentically create and share content that aligns with their company, on their own channels. If done properly, team activation benefits brands from employee engagement and communication to marketing and sales. As well as much more.

How does this work on different social channels?

Team activation works across all the social networks, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Over the past few years, according to our clients’ successful team activation campaigns, we have found:

• Team members grow to consistently like brand posts on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
• Whereas they like LinkedIn posts and tweets, they also reshare or RT the information to their personal accounts.

How does this help the brand internally?

When team members are socially engaged, they are more likely:

• Stay at their company
• Optimistic about the company’s future
• To believe the brand is more competitive

How does this approach help the brand externally?

Here’s a fact: sales reps using social media as part of their sales strategies outsell 78% of their peers. According to Social Media Today, content shared by employees receives 8x more engagement than organic content shared by brand channels. More and more, social algorithms bury a company’s page posts, tweets, pins, etc. And, people believe individuals’ social media posts and engagement are more authentic and creditable than a brands’.

Done well and right, your team becomes real brand advocates. Think less expensive form on influencer marketing. We can help. Front Porch Marketing holds collaborative in person or virtual team workshops. Also, we do one-on-one team member training.

What is an influencer?

Who hasn’t scrolled through an Instagram or TikTok feed and stumbled upon a random person on an amazing vacation, eating a mouth-watering meal, or wearing a fabulous outfit and thought to themselves, “I wish that were me”? As social media has risen in popularity, internet celebrities and influencers in the marketing world have learned to use their influence and followers to promote products and lifestyles. Influencers are content creators who have the power to influence or alter the decisions of others. These trendsetters have become experts at producing effective “subliminal” ads reminding us that we “need” those shoes or we have yet to visit that vacation destination.

Finding your niche

The first step to becoming an influencer is to find your niche. My mother follows other mom influencers, I follow account that are more popular and targeted to teens, and my little brother is obsessed with the guys who do cool trick shots on YouTube. There are a multitude of niches on social media from health/beauty to fashion to travel to lifestyle/relationships. The cosmetic and fashion industry alone is worth more than five hundred billion dollars annually and frequently pays content creators to offer tutorials and testimonials. Companies often compensate travel influencers’ flights, cruises, and hotels in exchange for featuring them in their feed. Influencers are also eager to offer advice to anxious new parents in exchange for compensation and merchandise.  

How is being an influencer a career?

Influencers have to be active and consistent. There are very few days off for content creators. The more popular accounts often post multiple times per day. Companies will pay to have these influencers on Instagram to do giveaways, OOTDs (outfit of the day), or short videos using the product. YouTubers will typically have unboxing videos or use the product somewhere in the video. Anytime you see a product in a video, the person is most likely being compensated for it. 

Why is using an influencer a good marketing strategy?

People like to do what is popular or “trending”. If a TikTok star starts doing something new, chances are good that their fans will follow. Whether that is doing a TikTok dance or buying a pair of jeans that are “the most comfortable pants ever”. Consumers also trust a third party over the company that is producing the product. Social media users choose to follow accounts because they identify and trust the creators. When an influencer recommends a product, it often feels like a friend is recommending it.

Let’s be honest: we used to roll our eyes at influencers dancing on the beach and constantly filming videos in restaurants before we recognized their genius. These creators have a massive effect on modern society through social media platforms. Virtually all companies have begun to use influencers, making them major players in the marketing world.

PR and social media are both based on communication. But social media, with its real-time messaging, strengthens your client’s awareness. And it supports PR efforts. This allows PR to be stronger and more effective. Content published via press releases lives longer, spreads faster and has a further reach with the support of social media. Social media PR is today’s word-of-mouth/grassroots marketing.

Social Media PR Position Clients in the News

As stories are shared in real time, public relations professionals can use social channels as a tool to leverage their client’s brand. Follow specific hashtags that are relevant to the client. In addition, follow the journalists that cover applicable beats.

Journalists often use Twitter as means to find an expert for a story they are working. They are also searching for an idea that is coordinated with their editorial beat. Use Twitter as a research tool: view journalists’ tweets and retweets and arm yourself with the topics they’re interested in. Observe the people they engage with and use this insight to craft your message.

Setting The Stage for Success

When setting the stage for a major announcement or activation – start teasing the message on your client’s social platforms with hashtags that include media outlets. The teaser campaign should include strategic story angles that will whet the interest of news outlets. Beyond dropping links on LinkedIn or Twitter, consider additional formatting ideas such as:

• Highlighting key press release points in the caption
• Providing bullet points or a “condensed” release in conjunction with the external link
• Organizing the release into an image or infographic

When you get a media placement, share it across all platforms to integrate your client’s social media and PR strategies.

Takeaway

Social has given brands new outlets to connect and share information. The channels are constantly changing, challenging brands to adjust quickly and create compelling content to reach target markets across a variety of mediums. Brands that recognize the power of PR and social media have emerged as industry leaders, bringing value to their overall brand and creating loyalty customers.

Everyone knows your business needs to be on social media. We see all the big and even smaller players doing it. If your company isn’t on social media, you’re late to the game. We often see companies jump in with no real strategy, plan or goal. That’s where audits come in! I know that word sounds a bit threatening, but it’s not as scary as it may seem. A social media audit is simply a way to measure your strategy and success by tracking metrics consistently across your social media accounts. This way you can see what’s working and what needs to be improved in your social media campaigns. Let’s go step by step on how to create one.

Track Down All Your Accounts

The first step in creating an audit is to track down all of your existing social media accounts. Make sure when you are following these step that you are doing in this in an Excel spreadsheet. Once you have all the accounts typed in, try to decide which ones you primarily want to focus on.

Have Consistent Branding

Now that you have all your accounts make sure that the branding is consistent across all of your platforms. This means your bio needs to be consistent, your banners need to be the same, consistent landing page links, and the hashtags that you use. Try to stick to certain color palette and theme in your content. Look at any major corporation and you’ll see that their branding is consistent.

Find The Best Content For Your Audit

Go into each of your accounts and find the top five best posts. Track their performance by using metrics such as, engagement, or impressions. Engagement is the number of interactions your post had such as (likes, comments, shares, link clicks) and impressions are the amount of times your content was viewed. I recommend first focusing on impressions to build brand awarness, and then switching to engagement. Also if you want to save time, I recommend using a social media management tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite. while they do come at a price, they help plan out your posts and measure data all in one place.

Know the Audience on Each Platform

The next step is to understand and document the demographics on each platform. Facebook is mainly where people 35-44 hangout. For Instagram ages 16-24 is the sweet spot. Track down each of these for your accounts and type them in your audit.

Set Your Goals and How to Take Action

You’re almost done! At this point all you have left to do is is set your goals for each of your accounts. Is it to build followers and brand awareness? Or are you trying to get to more people to click on your landing page. Once you have established your goals now just document how you are going to take action. What direction are you going to go in? Do you need to create a marketing budget? Decide what’s going to work best for you.

Time to Execute!

Now that you know how to create an audit. What’s slowing you down? Marketing is all about staying on top of trends and strategizing how to move forward. Take this time to build your audit, you’ll be one step closer to having a successful marketing campaign!

Blogging for Business Benefits in 2022

Is your business blogging? Blogging for business benefits is a cost-effective way to establish your thought leadership and more. One of our new clients asked us last week why they should be blogging. Working towards being the expert in your industry means sharing your expertise.  Blogging is a simple, clear, cost-effective way to do this. When done properly and consistently, blogging brings benefits to your business. And this translates into more visibility, more customers and customer loyalty.

What are the Benefits of Business Blogging?

Business blogging contributes to your marketing strategy. This particular practice of marketing is called Content Marketing. When you consistently write about topics that are important to your audience, you’ll enjoy these three business benefits:

1. Creating new branded content to share. Are you always trying to come up with something to share on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram that supports your branding? Write a blog! This blog post can then become branded content. Share on your social channels, like our client The Slay Diaz Group does.
2. When you offer a behind-the-scenes look into your product, your process, or your industry, you are building loyalty with your customers. Share insider information — like our client Diamond Brand Gear does — and it will help you build a relationship with your existing customers and attract new ones.
3. You can also instruct people on how to do something specific. Help them achieve a goal or get an answer to a question, like our client Spot On Talent does. Here, you are establishing your authority and building organic SEO (search engine optimization) with Google. Putting keywords that speak to a topic in your headers and copy about that subject in your blog post makes you more likely to be the one that Google sends people to on search results when they ask Google a question.

Sharing Your Business Knowledge Makes You a Leader

If you’re a long-time reader of the Front Porch marketing newsletter and blog, you’ll see that we put these content marketing strategies into practice not only for our clients, but for ourselves. We want everyone to succeed, and we want you to be able to benefit from our business experience. So we share it openly. We want you to be able to optimize your LinkedIn profile, practice successful PR, and know what’s important in marketing if you’re a start-up business.

If you’re ready to level up your marketing and demonstrate to your industry that you’re a leader by adding Content Marketing to your mix, let us know. We can guide you through the process and help you set up an easily-executable calendar, schedule and topics. We can even ghost write your blog posts for you, share your content to your social channels, and optimize your content for better SEO.

Going Digital is the Future

If there’s anything we learned from the pandemic it’s that going digital is the ultimate way to survive as a business. No one expected an event like this to disrupt the world as fast as it did, but we adapted. Lots of corporations switched to being remote or hybrid; and Zoom became a household name. With the world going digital many of us started to realize the importance of marketing ourselves online and there’s no better place than LinkedIn. Membership has climbed to reach over 780 million since the pandemic hit. So there’s no better time than now to upgrade your LinkedIn!

Personal branding is a topic we’re all familiar with. We all know it’s important, but many of us don’t give it the attention it really deserves. Most of the time were just too busy to give it any real time or thought. We think “I know there’s more I could be doing to improve my LinkedIn.” However, in this day and age its crucial to have your personal brand looking clean and professional. Here are a couple of tips and tricks to improve your LinkedIn profile.

Upgrade Your Profile Picture

Your picture is the first thing people see when they click on your LinkedIn profile. It’s important that you get this right. First make sure the picture is a recent photo of you, then make sure your face takes up about 60% of the frame. No long distance shots, and smile with your eyes!

Choose a Background Photo

Choose a background photo that represents either what you do, or your interest in visually interesting way. If you don’t have your own photos to work with, I recommend using a free hd stock image site called Unsplash. Also try to stick with a photo that fits within 1584 (w) x 396 (h) pixels for the best quality.

Get Creative With Your Headline

Your Headline doesnt just have to be what your business is. Try to add a little bit of flair or creativity to it. For example take a look at EA Talent Recruiter Jason Yuan’s LinkedIn headline, “I don’t usually stalk profiles, but when I do I usually have a career opportunity for you. Want to connect!?”. See how he managed to hook your attention and explain what he does? This is what you should be shooting for.

Expand your Network

Linkedin has amazing networking opportunities and has made it very easy to expand your network. One helpful tip is to link your profile with your email address book. LinkedIn will then suggest people you should connect with. Once you start connecting with people you may even notice that you have connections working at companies that you are currently applying for. I strongly suggest if you are in college that you connect with those who go to your school in your major. You never know when that connection may come in handy.

Take Skill Assessments

These are free tests that LinkedIn has created to help you stand out amongst the crowd. According to Linkedin candidates who have certified skills are 30% more likely to get hired. I recommend to getting certified in the Microsoft Excel assessment. It’s a universal skillset that will always help you standout. Obviously the more certified skills you have the better.

Publish Your Own Content

The best way to get noticed on LinkedIn is to publish engaging, long content. You should start pumping these out to start conversations. Make sure it’s interesting. A good tip is to look at the trending articles on LinkedIn News on the right hand side of your account. Look at the trending topics on the platform and share your thoughts or experiences on the topic. If you can don’t be afraid to sprinkle in a little emojis. It may sound stupid but it actually increases reader engagement. Just don’t over do it. Also try to steer away from politics on LinkedIn. This is a platform for professional networking, it’s not Facebook or Twitter.

A Brighter Future Awaits

Upgrading your LinkedIn doesn’t have to be done all in one day. Try to take it in small chunks. These steps may seem trivial at first, but I promise if you knock these out when you have your lunch break, or when find yourself with extra fee time you won’t regret it. Allow LinkedIn to work for you by taking the first step!

Social media trends for 2022 look a little different than last year.

Social media trends for 2022 will increasingly be about customer experience and personalization. Those agendas are paramount. And, most if not all social media platforms are increasingly moving more and more toward “pay to play”. In other words, platforms want you to pay to get people to see your social media. For instance, this looks like boosting posts on Facebook. Trends that involve an interaction with customers, and especially those that offer some measure of personalization (as opposed to just pushing out a message to everyone) will top brands’ to-do lists.

Here are some of the social media trends we see for 2022.

• Short-form Video – Less is more, and people don’t read. The human attention span is short. So, a video a minute or shorter is plenty long enough. Do a series of short videos each making one point, instead of one long video. Repurpose your existing long videos into shorter snippets and program them for different social media channels. Reveal a different aspect of your company, or solve a different problem on different channels as opposed to playing the same content on the same day on the same channels.
• Customer Service – Customers are conversing more than ever via DMs, Twitter and comments on posts. Monitor these conversations and be responsive on any channel that customers are contacting you on.
• Social Commerce – Customers want to check out immediately on whatever social channel they are on. Social commerce offerings (like buying a dress directly from an Instagram photo) are growing on every channel. Perhaps this social media trend is appropriate for your product or service.
• Paid Social Advertising – Algorithms continue to change. And, platforms continue to ramp up their paid social offerings. There may be a need to add a paid strategy to your organic posts to get wider reach and more engagement. The ultimate goal is connecting with more potential customers, right?
• Influencer Marketing – Micro or local influencers are more important. Work with these influencers who really already love your brand. They can demonstrate your product or service in a way that is unique to them and resonates with their audience.

Content remains king.

Have a plan. Don’t chase squirrels. Plan your content for the year – or at least the next quarter – to meet your brand’s sales goals, branding initiatives, limited offerings, or even just calendar holidays. Planning your content means have a blog and regularly contribute to it. Then, promote your new content on your social media platforms. Build your content marketing practice like you’d grow a garden. Keep at it.

What do customers want to know? Customers want content that is focused on:

• Deeper Meaning – Be authentic. Answer questions that are helpful and offer perspectives that can be touch points for your brand in a customer’s life. Find your commonality. Create your company’s tenets, and do those fewer stronger things in a deeper way.
• Giving Back – Showcase volunteer efforts and donations. A company’s charitable giving is important for 73% of Americans’ purchase decisions. People WANT to love you. Showcase how you are showing love for others. Giving back increases loyalty.

Overall, after the past few years of being disconnected, consumers are craving connection in every aspect of their lives. But make connection with your brand meaningful. Be convicted. Be consistent. Create a connection that will last, create loyalty, and continue these social media trends for 2022 to the years ahead.

Are you ready to spring clean your brand for 2022?

Spring is in the air! As much as we need to enjoy this time and “smell the roses” it’s time to go through your media channels and update them. Use the idea of spring cleaning on your brand and your company’s media assets to help you stay relevant with what’s going on in terms of design, copy, content, PR and media to be competitive in today’s marketplace. Maybe its time for a marketing audit?

Could your logo use updating?

Let’s first start with your logo. Is it still relevant? Does it convey what your company stands for and the products/services you provide? Maybe it doesn’t necessarily need to change, it just might need an update. Use these questions as more of a checklist, and think about your logo against the backdrop of your company’s competitors’ logos. Sometimes business have had the same logo for decades and it works, but sometimes it does not. What these companies often do is simplify their logo, and clean up the look of it to make it feel more modern.

Is your social media talking to the right people in the right way?

Try a spring cleaning social audit:

It’s time to get your hands dirty and do some data analysis – spring clean your social media. Take a look at the insights/analytics offered on each of your social media platforms to find out better times to post. See what content you have posted in the past that got the most likes and comments, and then do more of that. Long-term, you can record your followers and likes in an excel sheet or Google sheet, to track changes from month to month. Or you can subscribe to a scheduling app like Buffer or Hootsuite to post your social media. Those types of platforms have great analytics to track your engagement over time.

Then do a competitive analysis:

Hello Neighbor! Your social media be doing well and be on track, but it’s important that you see what your competitors are up to as well. Pablo Picasso once said “good artists copy, great artist steal.” Now don’t take this advice literally, but don’t be afraid to adopt similar strategies that other companies in your industry are doing. It’s a great place to start. Work smarter not harder. Start with something that works in your industry, make it your own, and then improve on it.

Brush the cobwebs off your website.

Your website is your company’s home. This is probably the most important place to focus your spring cleaning because this where you want your clients to go – again and again. Since this is your brand’s home, how good is your homepage? Make sure you have quality imagery, an engaging font, and text that flows well when read.

It’s important to consider not only how your website looks, but also how it works. Is it easy to navigate your website? Does your website answer the questions that people would ask about your product or service? You might also consider adding Google Analytics code to your website so that you can study your site visits. Where do visitors come from? What pages do they read? How long are they staying on your site? This information can help you continue to build a better and better website over time.

Conclusion:

It’s important to stay up to date with your brand’s image online and this spring is the perfect time to do it. Get your spring cleaning done sooner than later, and welcome your customers and fans into your remodeled “house” the rest of the year!

How to communicate corporate social responsibility for your brand

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a business’ commitment to philanthropic endeavors and environmentally friendly practices. It is essential for businesses in 2022. Why? Sure, today’s successful businesses are “responsible” organizations committed to profits. But in today’s world they are also responsible for other higher callings. Their consumers now demand it.

Gen Z is all in with brands who demonstrate corporate social responsibility. First, younger generations thirst for buying these products. Next, they want to work for these companies. So CSR gives businesses an opportunity to engage with not only their consumers and their employees, but with the communities in which they live and work in a meaningful way.

Yes, deeper client and customer connections will follow.

CSR efforts benefit the economy, society and environment. They demonstrate how the organization uses its resources in broadly beneficial and ethical ways. Showing that your company or brand is a responsible partner, employer and neighbor will be key to business success going forward.

How does a brand communicate CSR activities?

Talk about your company’s corporate social responsibility with a CSR report. A CSR report highlights your organization’s achievements. It builds social responsibility into your brand’s identity. This report makes the organization accountable to its stakeholders. And it shows progress year over year. Then highlight how your company has saved energy or fuel, renewed land, or reduced their carbon footprint. Finally, showcase better employees work environments with safety initiatives. Also implement DE & I programs that promote equity in hiring and promoting employees.

Your CSR report’s content can then be repurposed all year long as social media assets. Highlight individual specific goals your company has met with this effort. Statistics and data can be turned into compelling visuals and narratives that speak to your customers, your client partners, your employees and your community. Communicate your social responsibility efforts in these ways:

• Email Marketing – create an eblast once a month or quarterly to key stakeholders
• Social Media – create content and consistently communicate, once a week or month
• Internal Communication – utilize existing intranet or internal emails to communicate CSR activities

What size business needs to show Corporate Social Responsibility?

A CSR report may be easier for larger businesses to execute. But, small to midsize businesses can do it too. These businesses are exercising the same values albeit in smaller, yet still remarkable ways. And that is worth talking about. CSR activities can separate your business from the competition in a truly meaningful way. So consider incorporating this important effort into your business.

Inquiring minds want to know!

TikTok is in the top six social media networks for 2022. Does that mean that your brand should have a presence? Maybe. Maybe not. To find out if your brand should be on TikTok, take a deep look at the components of your brand: your mission, your audience, your goals, your assets before you just jump right in. Having a plan for any endeavor translates into better success. This includes your brand being on TikTok – no matter how shiny it seems to you this moment.

The social media landscape is continuously evolving.

Social media can be scary to some people and some brands, but exciting for others. And, being aware of new channels and finding the next one for your brand is what a smart marketing leader does. Examine your brand before deciding.

Let us help you answer the TikTok question by asking a few questions.

Brands on TikTok?

1. Who is your target audience?
2. What are your marketing goals?
3. What are your marketing strategies?
4. How much potential does TikTok have for lead generation or driving potential website traffic among your target?
5. Do you have additional resources to support another social media network consistently?
6. Do your internal personnel have the bandwidth or do you have the budget to add incremental dollars to your agency partner’s fees to manage it for you?

There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to your brand on TikTok.

There are many brands who choose to be on TikTok because it is advantageous for them to do so in some way. But there are also many brands for whom TikTok is not a good marketing channel fit, and their needs are better met by other social media channels more appropriate to their audience, their product, and their goals.

Don’t get shiny object syndrome. Focus on the big picture that fuels the growth of your brand. If TikTok will be a part of that, it will be. You’ll make it happen, but maybe not this year. And that’s ok. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Plan for your future success first, on this and every possible marketing channel, and you can make the most of the social media channels that are right for you.