If you don’t have the time to read this article now, you can download the PDF version of Marketing Trends 2024 for free by clicking below. Otherwise, just keep reading.

For the past three years running, brands have been living on borrowed goodwill. They have been happily jumping onto every bandwagon without thinking more deeply than showcasing their innovative thinking. 

Consumers don’t want just innovation. Consumers want action. Consumers want the brands they follow to speak up for them. Consumers – especially the younger generation, the ones that have yet to settle their loyalties with one brand – know that their purchasing power has a way of changing the status quo, and aren’t afraid to wield it. 

In 2024, businesses are practically the only trusted institution remaining. Governments, NGOs, and media entities are all lagging behind. Their ability to influence their audiences, their equity, and the power of their voice is all eroding underneath the faster-paced, louder business presence. 

But this doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way. 

And marketing in 2024 will mean very little unless this is understood very clearly by the brands doing the marketing. 

This is not a year where you can please both sides. This is a year where brands have to make a decision on which consumers they want to speak to – and to consistently speak to them thereafter. 

And they can do that by speaking where consumers will hear them. 

A snapshot of 2023: 

Marketing grows more complicated every year that passes. 

There’s new technology to use. There are new audiences to speak to. There are new voices added to an already crowded fray.  Every campaign has to be better than the ones of the year before. Every campaign has to cut through the noise of what’s happening outside the little slices of the world that brands live in. 

And 2023 had a lot of noise. The world is in crisis, and has been for a while – wars, recessions, climate crisis, growing dissatisfaction, protests on protests. 2024 will not see things get better immediately (and could possibly see things getting worse) – but as we said in our Consumer Macro Trends blog, there is light at the end of the tunnel for marketers. 

Brands just need to put in a little more work to make sure they’re on the right side of the conversation. 

Marketing trends in 2024: innovation, escalation, personalisation

Barriers between consumers are shrinking – and something that happens halfway around the world will be heard everywhere in a matter of seconds. 

But it isn’t just for bad news. Brands that do good – or at least their best to do good – will find that their accolades are shouted about in markets that they might not have previously considered – and the old method of communicating with their consumers based on their basic demographics is proving itself to be lacking when it comes to this generation of consumers. 

In 2024, brands aren’t speaking to audiences that are bound by causes, by opinions, by the way that they see things in the world, by the technology that they use, by a deep and understated need to find themselves in marketing. 

It means better conversations, deeper analysis of those audiences, and best of all, the room to let creativity go wild. 

It means innovation, escalation, and personalisation.

Trend 1: Innovation 

• Short-form video has the highest ROI of all marketing ventures. 
• 79% of consumers want to use AR before buying a product. 
• 65% of all internet traffic is conducted via mobile 

We live in an age of unmatched connection. Everything, from customer service to entertainment, is available immediately and in its full scope. 

Consumers no longer like to wait. As new technology is dreamed of, finding consumers who are willing to wait for your brand to keep up with current events is harder and harder – so, as they say, if you can’t beat them, join them. 

But it’s not just a case of having a website. 

There are technologies available today that make your brand experience an experience. Whether it’s using AR to showcase your products in real time, or hopping onto the latest social media trend in video, you can’t avoid beating technology, so you might as well join it. 

In 2023, the metaverse was all the rage. This isn’t the case in 2024, but we’re seeing fringe technologies like AR and VR command attention.

It isn’t really about the tech. 

For consumers, it’s about the brand; it’s about knowing what product or service they’re buying is actually what they want. Globally, the real value of wages is down. Globally, there is a sense of being out of control, and being unable to fix the big, glaring issues that affect most of society. Something that takes them out of that state of thinking – even if it’s only a little thing – will make waves. 

Case study 

Hand in hand with ten leading ASD associations and over 100 patients, Samsung released a free app called ‘Unfear’ that pairs with their Galaxy earbuds to help people with auditory sensitivities live their lives freely. The app, which is AI-enabled, blocks distressing noises and plays sounds to cover the noises that distress that user in particular – and suppresses what it can’t block. 

 Trend 2: Escalation – deeper communication fostered

• 40% of marketers see controversy as inevitable. 
• The increase of over 2.3 million US citizens as cross-border buyers precipitates greater cross-border and no-border purchases in 2024. 
• 76% of consumers are using social media as a search engine. 

If you’re marketing in 2024, you’re marketing to the entire world – both the good and the bad. 

Brands have been slowly, inexorably going global since the creation of the internet, but it was after COVID-19 that globalisation really peaked. On the one hand, it’s an excellent opportunity to court the kind of audience that might be difficult to find locally; on the other, it means that your conversations are subject to a lot more scrutiny than they might have been initially. 

Coupled with an audience that has become increasingly stratified and a worldwide obsession with black-and-white thinking, brands have to dig deeper to make the kind of conversational connections that they used to – and that’s not taking into account the moments when those conversations go wrong. 

This isn’t bad for brand. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. Consumers like this care deeply about a company – so deeply that they see brands as extensions of themselves, extensions of how they think about the world, extensions that they can proudly champion. 

While it means that brands need to be more careful about what they say, and craft their narrative to fall on the side of the conversation they want to be on, audiences today are smart and dedicated to the companies that they want to see thrive. For brands, it’s an easy win, and a hard road to get there. 

This doesn’t mean that brands will always be in the right. Controversy is part of the brand experience for 2024, and no amount of hedging your bets is going to help you avoid that.

If you find a position you’re willing to stand by, stand by it. If you find an argument you want to make, make it. If you think that an issue has no place for you to communicate in, stay quiet, and communicate about an issue you can talk about. 

Brands cannot afford to stay silent.  

What does this mean for you and your business?

You have to pick a side, and you have to talk. Controversy is unavoidable – that isn’t a bad thing. There will always be an audience that will see the side of things that you see, so if you’re happy to continue to communicate with that audience, then do so. If you’re not, you need to communicate with the audience that you are happy to talk to. 

Staying silent, pleasing both sides, and simply walking back any controversial statement has diminishing returns. It’s time for your brand personality to take the centre  

Case study 

Ahead of the release of Scream VI, QYOU created a series of interactive content campaigns that played out across social media in order to draw the interest of both new and existing fans of the franchise. They employed over 16 creators in four different campaigns that culminated in 17.5M views, 1.9M engagement, and an overall click-thru rate nearly 3x the platform’s benchmark. 

Trend 3: Personalisation – the individual, not the audience

• 56% of consumers state they will become repeat buyers after a highly personalised experience. 
• 92% of businesses will be investing in AI to create better personalised experiences.
• 62% of consumers will move away from a brand if it does not provide personalised recommendations.

The amount of data brands have at their disposal is staggering – so it isn’t surprising that consumers expect more from their experiences with brands than what they currently get. Add in the lingering effects of the post-pandemic chaos, and the fact that there is simply too much choice for consumers to make, and you have a perfect storm of consumers that both expect a personalised experience from brands, while maintaining a modicum of privacy and rigidly aware of the minor factors that can make or break a successful brand interaction. 

Think of cookies. 

Cookies offer that very personalisation by knowing you: knowing what you browse, knowing what you buy, knowing where you go when you want to read something or spend some time on the internet. However, as a result of the changing legal requirements around consumer data privacy – pushed into law by the same consumers who thrive on personalised shopping approaches – third party cookies are on their way out. 

Consumers have an overabundance of choice available to them, and there are few brands who will be able to withstand an audience deciding to switch. As consumers more heavily consider brands as an extension of their own selves, they expect to see a reflection of what they find interesting in the brand selection process to start with, and for brands to know them as well as all that collected data suggests. 

Case study 

Dove teamed up with Open Source Afro Hair Library and Edelman to launch the ‘Code My Crown’ campaign, a free to use guide that teaches young gamers and developers how to code natural and protective hairstyles in video games. The guide follows on from Dove’s previous efforts to end race-based hair discrimination in workplaces and schools and champion a real change in the world for the individual. 

What does this mean for you and your business?

You probably already have data on your consumers. Now it’s time to dig deeper into it, and find the aspects of that data that you can use to show your business knows its audience as well as they know themselves. 

This means occasionally leaning into efforts that might not result in immediate return, but can build your brand’s efforts to stand out, to speak for its consumers, and to create a real, lasting change. 

Trend 4: Fandometrics

• 83% of consumers admit that tie-ins influence purchase decisions. 
• 61% of fans enjoy seeing brands create content that relates to their fandom, provided that they make an effort to understand it. 
• 95% of 2023 content was part of a franchise. 

Fandom has come a long way from being a movement on the fringe edges of awareness; it’s now something that dictates a significant portion of the entertainment industry, and spills over into several others. Brands that partner up with fandoms tend to see a surge of interest in their products, and as 2024 rolls on, the power of the fandom is even more pronounced. 

Tie-ins, brand deals, limited edition offerings: these are all excellent ways to build a conversation with a powerful segment of modern audiences, however it comes with its own pitfalls. Fandom is particularly finicky about how brands communicate to them, and it is likely that any attempt to speak to a fandom by prioritising the brand over the fandom will not be met well. 

Figure out a happy in-between, though, and it’s an excellent way to start an organic conversation with your audience that has a lot of opportunity to keep growing. What it does mean is investing some time into understanding these audience segments – and making sure that they feel listened to.

Case study 

LEGO has recently unveiled their kid-friendly metaverse, a multiplayer crafting-based spin-off of Fortnite, one of the most popular games for the segment they are targeting with over 400 million registered users and around 80 million active players per month. This continues on from Lego’s increasing attempts to digitise their offerings, following their online loyalty program launch, Lego Insiders, this past August. 

What does this mean for you and your business?

Fandom is powerful, and fandom can make you money – but if you’re going to wade into this facet of marketing, you need to know the fandom you’re speaking with will almost certainly be split into factions, and that pleasing all of them is going to be difficult. However, this doesn’t mean you should avoid it: not at all. Study the way other brands interact with fandoms. At the end of the day, this is another conversation, another tie you can build with your consumers, another form of data that you can use – and done well, it has immense potential for lasting brand relationships. 

And in the end…

Business has come a long way since 2020. What started as an upheaval due to COVID-19 has become a completely new way of doing business – and, as a result, a new way of marketing. 

This would be the part where we say there’s no wrong way to market. 

It would be a lie. 

It has become increasingly obvious that the way marketing works has changed, and both marketers and brands have to walk a fine line. Partially due to brands’ easy access to a near never-ending audience, partially due to the fact that that same audience is tired of being marketed to, marketing is no longer as effective as it used to be, and more thought has to go into the messages being relayed to consumers. 

This means understanding those consumers, and also understanding that there is a limit to the amount of marketing messages that those consumers will absorb, much less listen to. 

But this isn’t new. This is the continuation of something that started before now, with a deepening pattern of globalisation and audiences that are inundated with a barrage of information at all times. 

It isn’t hopeless. Most brands can easily pivot into communicating in ways that matter. 

But it takes time, and it takes understanding your audience – and how it changes from one year to the next. 

If you struggle with that, and you need some extra advice, we can help you.

The post Marketing Trends 2024 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Most studies on social media usage and metrics tend to look at audiences present in much bigger countries, and some of those results can be difficult to apply to Maltese businesses, Maltese consumers, and Maltese behaviours. With the benefit of a much broader range of responses behind them, global studies predict behaviours that might take a longer time to get to Malta – and in this, the studies that we can use to predict local behaviour are limited. 

There’s a way around it, of course. 

You can create your own survey. 

Here’s one we prepared earlier, and what it means for your business. 

The survey

Our aim was to understand how consumers use social media. 

Social media plays an important role in businesses around the world: it’s become a significantly important e-commerce platform, brand building tool, and a communication method between businesses and consumers. It’s also become an early way to predict what’s going to happen in the future. 

People talk. Those conversations happen everywhere, but a lot of them happen online, and those online conversations are how we can tell what’s going to happen to businesses in the future, what trends will emerge as the year closes out and a new one begins, and how to work within what the early signs are telling you. 

For this survey, we had an additional aim: to produce a report that would highlight Malta’s unique perspective on social media. As a small island, finding statistics that apply to us specifically can be a struggle. 

So we ran a survey, and collected answers through Facebook. 

Now, we have our own report to look at. 

Here’s what we found out. 

Less than 40% of 13- to 17-year-olds use Facebook multiple times a day.

Ages 25 – 34 use Facebook most frequently, with 27.5% checking Facebook multiple times a day, followed by 35 – 44 at 20.83%. 

Facebook has a 93.1% penetration rate in Malta. This means that mostly everyone uses Facebook, and more than that: they use it to find out what their favourite businesses are doing, and they use it often.

Except if they’re younger. If they’re younger, Facebook usage in that age group is down. For 13-17 year olds, the most popular platforms to use constantly are Instagram (74.4%), Tiktok (69.2%), and Youtube (44.7%). 

What does this mean for your business?

If you’re not catering to this audience, not a lot – you can go ahead and keep doing what you’re doing if all you’re interested in is short-term sales. 

However, if you’re looking to build your brand, this is a statistic you want to keep an eye on. Facebook might be serving you well right now to attract consumers with the disposable cash to make purchasing decisions, but omitting the importance of the 13-17 age group is a mistake: they’re going to come into their own money eventually, and it’ll be a lot harder to build a connection with clients who don’t know you from their formative years. While it isn’t impossible, nostalgia is a huge connecting point for consumers – and it’s one you need to keep in mind. 

What should you do about it?

Start working on brand representation on other platforms as quickly as you can. This audience in particular needs time and dedication to address correctly – but they’re an audience with a high pay-off when you give them enough time to come to terms with who you are as a brand. 

7/10 13 – 17 year olds use Tiktok multiple times a day.

Tiktok’s hold on the younger generation is well-documented – and Malta hasn’t escaped the wave of Gen Z turning to Tiktok as their primary social media platform, but it goes beyond using Tiktok as a social media platform. From search engine to communication device to source of entertainment, Tiktok’s tiny communities have created real-world consequences for brands: Vaseline has become synonymous with good skincare, makeup brands are struggling to keep ‘Tiktok famous’ products in stock, and companies can build their reputation overnight with one well-memed video. 

What does this mean for your business?

It depends on how early you want to start building up your audience. For most brands, 13-17 is a segment of audience that has limited access to funds that will allow them to purchase your products, and therefore if your business objective is purely to turn a profit, creating a Tiktok profile might not be something that meets that business objective. However, building a brand connection to a younger generation is not necessarily a waste of your time: on the other hand, if that connection has already been put into place before the audience is ready to purchase, you’ll find that the nostalgia factor can prove useful in the long term. 

What should you do about it?

Creating a Tiktok account is not going to waste your time – but if you’re not ready to take that plunge, then you can look into the current trends on Tiktok instead, or consider Tiktok as another marketing platform to take advantage of. There are influencers who will market your products to their audiences, and it’s worth looking into if you’re interested in using Tiktok, but not quite ready to add another social media platform to your list.

⅔ of consumers trust brands more than influencers. 

How likely are you to trust communication about a brand/service from the brand itself?

Influencers were – and still are – a brand staple for a number of reasons: brands tend to struggle to communicate on a human level with consumers, and influencers put a relatable human face on a brand in a way that is difficult to emulate when it’s a corporation speaking. However, influencer burnout is real – and while megainfluencers have already felt the pinch in bigger markets, in Malta it’s only just started to take hold. 

Part of this is because Malta is a smaller country, and so we have far fewer influencers to use. Anyone who has reached the point where they are a recognisable face might already have become old news according to consumers, and consumers who have a specific dislike for that influencer may be repelled away from the brand that aligns itself to them. 

What does this mean for your business? 

If you’re already investing in influencer marketing, you need to take a look at who you’re using. If you have a tendency to choose the same influencers for your campaigns, it might be worth revisiting if those influencers are the right ones to align with your brand. 

What should you do about it? 

Influencer marketing can be effective, so you need to figure out how it’s going to be effective for you. Take a look at your audience: who’s most likely to resonate with them? Is the big-name influencer with a dedicated following that’s been in business for years, or would they relish seeing a fresh face on the scene, someone with a smaller audience but a lot more authenticity? This will depend between brands: there’s no one correct answer for everything, and it’ll depend a lot on the areas you’ve grown your audiences in. Younger audiences might prefer someone their own age; older generations might prefer someone that looks like them or a familiar face from their childhood. To find out, you need to go back to your brand. 

People who prefer watching short-form videos cite Instagram Reels and Tiktoks as their top choices twice as often as Youtube Shorts

Although Youtube has a decent user-base as a platform, its short-form video content hasn’t quite picked up to the same extent as Tiktoks and Instagram reels. Only 25.6% of consumers mention using Youtube Shorts, which can still be a usable audience segment, however it’s worth pointing out that the lower figures may be difficult to overcome given Youtube’s position as a social media platform. Youtube is well known for its longform videos, but Instagram and Tiktok have already claimed a significant share of the short-form audience, and so Shorts can take longer to pay off at the same rate of success. 

What does this mean for your business? 

If you want your content to stand out, creating material for Youtube Shorts is definitely an option, especially if you’re already in the habit of creating short-form video content already. 

What should you do about it?

Take a look at your content. 

Chances are, there’s some content that will serve better as shortform video, and that’s the content that you should consider putting up on Youtube shorts. Content that tends to speak to Youtube’s core nature – crafting, cooking, organising, tech: all those physical, handy things – might tend to do a little better than Instagram reels, which focus on beautiful aesthetics, or Tiktoks, which can tend to cycle through trends faster than other platforms. For content that’s meant to stay online for longer, content that’s explanatory, content that you can turn into a longform video, you might want to try Youtube Shorts. 

Over 50% of surveyed say that brand behaviour affects their purchase decisions.

What you do matters, and this is not new information. Consumers don’t like to support brands that go against their values, and they certainly know that their purchases will make a difference; annoy enough consumers, and your bottom line will suffer. 

That said, you won’t be able to please everyone. This is where you, as a brand, need to decide where your loyalties lie, and how best to meet those loyalties – but regardless of what position you choose, this doesn’t change the fact that the way you act matters to your consumers. 

What does this mean for your business?

Your brand is more than just the products it sells. It’s how it talks to its consumers. It’s what it supports as a movement. It’s how it addresses complaints. If these are aspects of your business that you’ve either neglected or have simply just not paid enough attention to, it’s time to start – and to make a public effort to showcase what your brand stands for. 

What should you do about it?

All of this goes back to brand. Do you know what your brand stands for? Is it something you can put into words? Remember: you can’t please everyone. Your brand is going to behave in ways that will annoy some people, and will please others, and the only thing you can do is decide which side of the conversation you’re going to stand on. This is one thing you can’t avoid: trying to please everyone means you won’t please anyone. Pick your side. 

3 out of 4 people would spend a little more if the brand acted responsibly.

This goes hand in hand with brand behaviour, but it bears a unique perspective in Malta. Maltese consumers are used to irresponsible behaviour – just hop onto any Facebook page and see how they react to the latest construction news – and while it’s true that most of those reactions are negative, what they’re reacting to is largely issues that the average Maltese consumer has already expressed dislike for. 

Brands acting responsibly, like brands choosing a side, means that they are at the heart of those conversations, and championing causes that people feel strongly about means that they’ll create lasting impressions of their brand. 

The monetary pay-off follows naturally then. 

What does this mean for your business?

It’s time to take a look at what causes you’re championing – and if you’re championing none of them, it’s time to start thinking about which ones to add. In today’s world, every brand has to stand for something, and yours needs to as well.

What should you do about it?

Find a cause to support. State that support loudly, and with pride. Consumers aren’t stupid – far from it – and the way that you support initiatives will say a lot about who you are as a company, and conversely, the people who choose to purchase your products. 

Almost 40% tend to choose a local retailer over a global brand.

There’s one great thing about local retailers: the shipping. 

The global shipping industry has been through a couple of rough years – and while it’s starting to ease back into pre-COVID functionality, we’re still a long way off from regaining the same levels as before, and so it’s not surprising that consumers are mindful of where they’re shopping from. Add to that the steep prices that Maltese consumers often have to pay for shipping, and the fact that not every website ships to the island, and the popularity of local retailers makes sense. 

What does this mean for your business?

If there’s a retail aspect to your business, you need to look at how it works. If your biggest competitors on the island are local businesses, that could mean revamping the way that you advertise, the way that you use your e-commerce, the way that you communicate. Local stores can have a big advantage over much larger global storefronts, so it’s important to see where, and what, you can do to make the most of your local consumers. 

What should you do about it?

If you’re struggling to make an impact with local consumers, it might be time to look at what you’re doing to connect with them. Do you post on social media only and leave it at that, or do you also do events? How do people buy your products? If you have repeat consumers, what keeps them coming back? 

Most importantly: do you offer any benefit to your customers that makes you a more appealing option than the bigger stores available online? If you can’t compete on variety, then can you compete on shipping? Once you have those answers, you can start recreating the way your brand exists to locals. 

Every third person follows a brand because of their value alignment within the brand.

This isn’t new information, but people tend to use the brands they support as a larger extension of their own personality, ideals, and character, and so they seek out brands that will align with them on values. This is especially true for younger audiences, and only grows more significant as brands continue to communicate on social media. 

What does this mean for your business?

Similar to championing a cause, this means you need to know your business well enough to understand why consumers follow you, and why they pick your products over any other. There is a reason why your primary consumers are drawn to you, and understanding that reason is the first step to helping your business grow bigger and better. 

What should you do about it?

Take a look at your brand values. Are they still values that you agree with?

If your brand has changed in the intervening years, and you no longer feel as though your brand values represent the brand, it might be time for a change. Whatever adjustment you do make, though, remember this: consumers pick the brands they like for a number of reasons, and it’s not all based on price. Making your brand values clear to your consumers can surprise you. 

34% of all interviewed shop both online and in-store.

We’re a small island. It’s understandable that online shopping is part and parcel of living on that small island: sometimes, the brands that we do want to use don’t come to local stores, or we’re looking for something that no retailer in Malta carries.

What’s interesting to note is that there doesn’t seem to be a big preference for one or the other among the younger generation, the split between shopping online and shopping in-store is about 50/50, and that tapers off as you go up in the age-groups. 

However: the older generation has a tendency to prefer online shopping above shopping in-store, with almost 42% of 35 – 44 year old respondents preferring to shop mostly online.  

What does this mean for your business? 

It doesn’t mean shut down your e-commerce store, but it does suggest that e-commerce is only a small part of the main driver behind which brands local consumers tend to pick. If you’re putting a lot of effort into your online store, but neglecting other aspects of your brand, it might be time to put some of that effort in other areas. 

What should you do about it?

Convenience is still a very important factor to keep in mind, but it can take a lot more forms than just allowing for online purchasing. See if there’s pain points in your business that’s driving people away from purchasing from your brands: you might be surprised at what you find. 

95% of all interviewed are interested in giveaways/competitions if they like the brand.

Say you want to drum up support for an initiative. What kind of prize do you offer?

Overwhelmingly, the answer seems to be this: something that’s related to your own brand, merchandise that they either can’t get through a normal store, or something that’s created specifically for this contest. It’s interesting because brand merchandise has become a status symbol in its own right – we all remember LIDL bringing out its own range of clothing, and how quickly it all sold out. 

What does this mean for your business?

If you’re in the habit of running giveaways, your brand is your biggest asset, and creating products that showcase your own brand is more likely to get you responses that provide some meaningful interactions. 

What should you do about it? 

Brand merchandise. Your brand is followed for a reason, and humans are collectors of the things that they like: give them something to collect.

Why should I know all this?

Whether you’re a local business or not, it highlights a microcosm of the world. Consumer demand changes, and it changes rapidly. 

Brands need to be able to pivot to keep up with what’s going on: this means understanding your values, understanding your brand, and understanding how the combination you work with can influence the audiences you connect with. 

It also means that you need to keep a regular eye on the way that your brand is, and anticipate how it’ll need to change. 

And your brand will need to change. 

The world is getting confusing. Brands need to make their voices heard, but this way forward is pitted with places where they can stumble. 

Understanding your audience is part of the way forward. 

And if you need help figuring out how, we’re always happy to lend a hand.

The post Social Media Use in Malta: A Switch Survey appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

You use social media. Not as a selling tool, but to build your reputation. 

Social media is a communication tool at its heart. By creating and posting content regularly, it can turn a brand into a trustworthy reference point and a thought leader in its industry rather than yet another service provider. 

But it’s not just about posting. 

You also need to look into what you’re posting. 

Content Matters

It’s not just about posting as often as you can. Your content is the key to building trust between your brand and your audience: the more high quality the content is, the greater the value you’re giving your consumers, and the better the relationship will become. It’s true for B2C communication, where the customer might not necessarily need to get to know the brand on a deep level. And it’s especially true for B2B communication where your audience is going to be significantly more wary about trusting their company to your services. 

Posting great content helps with that. Great content shows that your brand is an authority in its field, and that you’re not really just in it for the bottom line. That you’re providing the valuable content for free also sets the tone for the kind of customer relationship and brand you want to have – and it’s often the very first step to take in every kind of industry if you’re going to leverage your social media to build relationships with your audience. 

And at the end of the day, even if you don’t have frequent social media posts, having strong content can make up for the shortfall. Establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry will be essential: your brand will then become an authority, someone that other brands look at to see how things are done. 

All of that happens from social media and social media posting. 

How to Be Social on Social Media

Here are some quick tips for building trust at scale using social media: 

• When you post, don’t just push your product: talk to your followers in ways that offer a lot of value for free. Share insider knowledge.
• Interact with others on your social media. Like, engage, and respond to questions: talk! The more you interact successfully, the more the algorithm of your selected social media will push your content. 
• If you’re personally on LinkedIn, post frequently as an individual. Any positive light you shed on yourself will reflect on your company
• React to news and content within your industry, and provide your 2c based on your own experience. Be genuine.
• Be patient. Just because you don’t see business leads rolling in after a few weeks or months of posting, it doesn’t mean you’re not having an effect. It takes time to build a reputation. Keep at it.

The bottom line is this: your social media is an invaluable asset. Use it like one, and it can serve you well.                                                  

The post How B2B Companies Can Build Trust at Scale with Social Media appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Not the first rodeo

This phenomenon of double releases has happened multiple times before in cinema and other platforms like video games. It has been dubbed in the Cambridge dictionary as – Counterprogramming, when two completely different things are available at the same time, to attract an audience. Some notable instances of counterprogramming include:

• Mamma Mia! And the Dark Knight on 18 July 2008
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons and DOOM Eternal on 20 March 2020 
• Warm Bodies and the SuperBowl XLVII on 1st February 2013

Barbenheimer was one of the larger-scale cases of this phenomenon, during the social media age (although “gimme gimme gimme a Dark Knight after midnight” should’ve been a thing in my opinion). This can mean more deliberate attempts at counterprogramming down the line, following this massive success.

Barbie’s aggressive approach

To get to their 162 million dollar opening weekend, they used a lot of unusual methods of marketing to target audiences, and not just their intended audience. A lot of it came through collaborations. Some include:

• Fashion brands like Forever 21, Zara, H&M, Aldo, Crocs etc. 
• Other collaborations like:
  • AirBnb for a recreation of the Malibu DreamHouse
  • Bumble for dating tips from Barbie and Ken
  • Ruggable for Pink machine-washable rugs
  • And god knows what other collaborations happened.

In their teaser trailer i.e the parody of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, Space Odyssey, Barbie showed the world that the movie is not going to be a pink filled nostalgia cash grab. In a later trailer, they even mentioned the slogan “If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you”, implying that they wanted everyone to come and watch it.

The movie also generated a lot of hype on social media. They had AI filters to turn people into Barbie characters on TikTok. There were also countless memes and posts from users, especially from TikTok. According to Comscore, Barbie’s video views on Tiktok were around 243.1 million, compared to the 92.4 million of Avatar 2: The Way of the Water, one of the most anticipated releases of last year (This included content mentioning “Barbie movie”, “barbiemovie” or “Barbie the movie” or “Barbiethemovie” or “Barbie Pelicula”)

Barbie wanted everyone to be pulled into Barbieland, even those who don’t want to.

Silence speaks

Contrasting with Barbie’s colourful immersion, Oppenheimer was much more enigmatic in its approach. It certainly is tougher marketing the father of the nuclear bomb as a movie than the childhood dolls made by Mattel, and Oppenheimer’s trailers and teasers were limited in material, piquing curiosity rather than awe.

However, Oppenheimer has an advantage that few movies ever can use, which is their director, Christopher Nolan. You know, that guy who made blockbuster movies like Interstellar, Inception, The Dark Knight trilogy, Dunkirk, The Prestige and 50 other godly movies. When you have a director with such a reputation and track record, everyone is practically going to want to know what’s going on.

The movie’s Twitter feed (Or is it X?) in fact, mainly is composed of shots and teasers of the movie and its star studded cast with some reviews by magazines like People. In addition, there was an online countdown to the 78th anniversary to the first nuclear explosion. Much more lowkey and reliant on the cast than flashy tik tok filters, collaborations and much more akin to the traditional style of marketing a movie.

Fusion and Fission

Normally, two movies coming out on the same day happens to create a rivalry at the box office: the larger movie appealing to a wider audience, whilst the smaller movie would appeal to the underrepresented group that would not normally go to the larger movie.

However, in this instance, it endorsed more of a double feature i.e people watching them both. With the internet going mad on this with more memes, merchandise and user-generated content that most movies can hope to dream of. According to Wikipedia, Vue International stated that 20% of people who bought tickets to Oppenheimer also bought a ticket for Barbie.

This was further fuelled by the fact that some of the casts of both movies actively encouraged to watch both movies, with other actors like Tom Cruise jumping on the trend as well.

It works because they appeal to such different audiences and yet they both played off it. They both inadvertently played into the joke and social media further fuelled it with what social media does best. Both movies knew what their audiences wanted and in return, gave them engagement and revenue that exceeded expectations.

Multiple instances of counterprogramming happened before this, yet this one was the most prominent despite Oppenheimer having an enigmatic approach and the cinema yet recovering from the pandemic and with the problem that are Marvel movies.

What we can learn from Barbenheimer

This instance of movie greatness (yes, I have watched both and they are amazing) can be applied to businesses, obviously in different levels and depending on the size of the business, in the form of collaboration and memes.

Some events happen outside of your company that you have zero control over and still affect your brand. For better or for worse, reacting to these unexpected events quickly and creatively can foster engagement and give you an opportunity that normally few companies have the privilege of benefitting from. Outright ignoring the conversation around the brand can lose golden opportunities or even damage the reputation of the brand itself.

Memes on the other hand can be a way to create a lot of engagement with a company for low costs and yet show a human side to the company. It can help to build hype, build relations with people who interact with the post and make people feel like they’re “in on the joke”. When done right, they can be a method of achieving business objectives like no other.

Barbenheimer is not just a coincidence that happened to generate extra revenue. It is a case study that shows that through quick reactions with some creativity, you can help get increased awareness and engagement with your brand.

Meet the author

For the past three months, Ranson’s been interning at Switch and working on all kinds of projects. From campaign shoots to merchandising to manning activations and writing blogs, there’s nothing Ranson won’t do, with a smile and with the same boundless enthusiasm that propels him through gruelling gym sessions. A University of Malta graduate in accounting and marketing, he’s now looking to start a Masters and has about ten thousand ideas for a thesis hashed out in between gaming sessions.

The post The Barbenheimer Phenomenon appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Fast-forward to today. 

We just wrapped up our most-successful pop-up sale to date. It even surpassed all three Black Friday sales we’ve held so far. 

Here’s how this worked out. 

The expected is good

We’re all aware of the most anticipated sale period of the year: the notorious Black Friday. We all know it’s coming. We ‘window-shop’ in advance. We make lists. And we rush to buy, buy, buy as soon as the offers drop. 

To make it even more intense, in recent years, retailers have gone past the long weekend of Black Friday and run full-on Black Months.

While the Black Friday model seems like a win-win scenario for retailers and shoppers, the rehearsed aspect of it being a global shopping event can be its main downfall, especially for smaller retailers who can’t even dream of competing with the Amazons of the world. 

Every business that sells something or another is advertising before and during Black Friday. Capturing the attention of your audience during this period can get very pricey, and even more expensive to keep the momentum going for multiple weeks. 

But if everyone does it, it must be worth it, right?

Perhaps. 

And perhaps there’s another way to run a limited-time promotion and meet – or even surpass – your Black Friday numbers. 

The unexpected is better

This is exactly what happened with the most recent Lucy sale. 

The special offer ran for four days in mid-May. It was just a random Sunday to Wednesday: no special occasion like Christmas or Mother’s Day attached to capitalise on. But the offer was really good – 25% off (almost) everything. 

Interestingly, this is the same offer Lucy had during their past Black Friday sales.

Four days later, we were looking at a 50% increase in orders, and a 34% increase in overall sales when compared to our most successful Black Friday sale to date – and all of that with only an eighth of the spend we had on the same Black Friday.

So what’s so different about this sale event that made it such a huge success?

For one, other than a few hints on Lucy’s social channels in the days leading up to the event, people didn’t really know what to expect. We got their attention by making them curious.

Secondly, we did not have to directly compete for attention with every other business in the world. 

And finally, even if the Lucy audience wasn’t really planning a shopping spree on a random Sunday in May, when the offer dropped, they were there to make the most of it.

But all of this did not happen by chance. 

Consistency and collaboration are key

When we say “the audience was there to make the most of the offer” we don’t mean “they just magically appeared in the right place at the right time.” 

Since the day Lucy opened its first retail store, the client has led a strong social media strategy. Through a consistent brand presence and communications via Lucy’s Facebook, Instagram and TikTok channels, Lucy built a loyal community of makeup and beauty lovers around the Lucy brand – so when we stepped in to assist with the launch of the new website and digital advertising strategy, we had solid foundations to continue building the Lucy brand on. 

In collaboration with the client, we developed a strong digital strategy to complement the existing social media presence. Keeping a consistent stream of brand and tactical communications throughout the year allows Lucy to always stay top-of-mind.

So if, and when, a really good offer comes up, our audience is primed and ready to shop with a moment’s notice, which allows Lucy to have successful sales outside of the globally-prescribed sales event calendar. 

The post How we beat Black Friday with a sale in May appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Fair warning, this is a relatively long read. If you don’t have the time to take it all in now, you can download the PDF version of our 2023 Social Media Trends for free by clicking below. Otherwise, just keep reading!

Intro to Social Media Trends 2023

• 59% of the world is on social media as of April 2022. 
• The modern consumer is on a minimum of 3 platforms. 
• Leveraging social media for the best use means using it for more than just sales.
• Using social media for entertainment or education builds trust with your consumers.

As of April 2022, 59% of the world is on social media. That doesn’t take into account the remainder of the year, which can see several new users added to socials by the time the new year rings in. According to Data Reportal, social media has already seen an additional 200 million users hop onto the platforms in July 2022. 

The rest of the year will be no different. And the changes that businesses have seen as a result of social media are going to grow ever more complex as we head into a new era of online.

A Global Snapshot

The modern consumer is on a minimum of three platforms. The modern consumer is invested in communicating with brands the same way they communicate with friends. The modern consumer is used to rapid-fire responses, an algorithm they need to game to achieve certain results, and their data online for everyone to see. 

Social media has retrained not just businesses, but also their consumers into making a space for social media in its midst. That’s a fact. 

Here’s another fact for you: social media is in as much of a state of flux as every other industry. 

For the last three years, the internet penetration rate has grown partially as a result of the pandemic, partially as a result of the increasingly technological ways of our lives, and partially just because it’s now become very difficult to work, study, or live without the internet as a necessity. 2023 will not see a slowdown – but some facets of the internet and social media which have been taken as part and parcel of online life are struggling. 

Others are rising to the occasion. 

What’s here to stay: 

There are a few things that 2022 ushered in that aren’t going anywhere, anytime soon – they’re too useful to the lives we have built, too part of the way we work online, and too much like a good thing. 

Here’s what’s staying for 2023. 

1. E-commerce Boom

The only thing surprising about the social media e-commerce industry is that it took so long to come to the West. In China, where it already made up 14.3% of total online retail sales by 2021, social commerce is old enough to be second nature, which the West is rapidly discovering. Brands that expand into social media storefronts are in the next step of their evolution as household names; brands that haven’t yet but are planning it into their strategy for next year will soon find that social media storefronts afford convenience both for them and for their consumers, and brands who have yet not decided whether they want a social media storefront might yet consider trying it out. Regardless of what side you fall on, social commerce is not going anywhere. 

2. I’m Listening

It follows that if a lot more people are spending time shopping on social media, they’re also looking to connect with customer service, and this is something that’s going to follow on into 2023. Regardless of what the product or service is, digital customer service is a fundamental investment for any business that knows a significant part of its consumers want immediate connection, and want it now. With social media available for most on several devices, it’s much easier to expect an answer within the hour than within 2-3 business days – and, more to the point, consumers will not wait that long for any response. 

In 2023, digital customer service is going to gain new importance as more consumers opt to connect with brands in less formalised ways – and ways that require far less effort to engage in. 

What changed in 2022?

There’s one distinct thing that has changed from 2021 to 2022. 

And that’s the attitude towards social media. 

It’s not an unwarranted change. 

Social media has had a hell of a year. Between algorithm critiques and takeovers and shifting consumer priorities, no social media platform has come out of 2022 without a negative news story attached to it – and for some of them, the negatives have far outweighed the positives. 

Facebook’s user loss. TikTok’s harmful algorithm. The Twitter takeover. Instagram changing to become so much like Tiktok that it has strayed from its original intent: still photography and snapshots of human life.

In the greater scheme of things, these changes were always going to happen. We’re in the era of the internet of social media, and the only way for socials to stay on top is to take the best parts of what works on another platform and subsume it into themselves. We have Instagram that looks like Tiktok that looks like Facebook, with algorithms that push content that is quick to consume and will generate the kind of likes that only a black-and-white opinion can generate – something that is increasingly becoming the norm across all social media platforms. When you can make money generating the kind of content that people will either love or hate, it’s no wonder that social media has become a place where everything but the grey goes. 

However, there is a likelihood that this is a short-lived phenomenon. The ongoing nostalgic push for an internet similar to the early days is showing itself in strange ways on social media. 

Here are some of them, explained. 

Trends 2023

Megatrend: You Are Your Community

Before we get into the trends for 2023, there’s something we need to say. 

Any content that follows from here assumes that your goal for using social media is no longer just to convert as many people as possible into following or using your brand. 

Here’s why. 

We’ve been saying for a few years now that the internet – and social media, to a certain extent – has become increasingly pay-and-play. The more money you put into a post or a piece of content, the more it spreads, the more conversions that you ideally see in the end – and in the beginning of the internet of social media, it worked. 

But it no longer works now. And we’d argue that it didn’t work then, either, if you value long-lasting relationships over quick conversions. Using ad spend to spread your message far and wide only gets you as far as awareness. 

It won’t get a consumer to trust you. And it won’t get the consumer relationship that brands need today to do more than just survive. 

Social media is a great tool. 

For brands, it’s one of the best ways to build a loyal customer base that will keep you going – but you have to invest the time and the effort to use social media the way that it wasn’t intended: as something long-lasting, bigger than you are, and with the potential to change the way you think. 

Social media is a great tool: for entertainment, for authentic connection, for limitless communication, but how you use it matters. 

On the Edge

Trend 1: alternative social media usage on the rise

For every Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, there’s a Digg, Reddit, and BeReal. 

When we talk about alternative social media, we mean social media that doesn’t have the popularity of the larger counterparts we’re all used to. Whether it’s because businesses cannot monetise the platform as well or because it’s one of those socials that’s specifically built for a purpose that only a few like, these platforms exist on the edges of popularity, used by dedicated people, but rarely considered for brand campaigns or for advertising. 

That might change in 2023. 

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are all popular platforms for a reason: they were there early enough, and had the right combination of factors, to rise right to the top. 

That was back in 2004, with MySpace. MySpace itself is an alternative social media platform now, though back in the early days of the internet, it was the social media platform.

The social media platforms that we have today have become as much a product of their time as MySpace. With the internet so inundated with ads, and social media becoming an e-commerce platform for most brands, consumers are looking for a place on the internet where they don’t have to constantly think about buying products that they might not necessarily need. 

Alternative social media gives them that opportunity. 

This doesn’t mean that the platforms we know are going anywhere. Some – like Facebook – have had problems for quite a while, but they’ve reached a point where they’re big enough that a few customer losses aren’t necessarily going to break down Facebook – but it would mean that there is less profit to be gained from that platform. 

And with less profit come more opportunities to experiment. 

Alternative social media is going nowhere. They might not be entirely ready to advertise on, but consumers are increasingly looking for places where that’s exactly what’s needed: a refuge for those who don’t want to buy. 

Here’s another aspect of shifting to alternative social media: your targeting is going to be less accurate. Brands will struggle to connect to individuals, a little bit like the way they struggled to connect at the start. You can likely still get good results targeting communities, but the down-to-the-minute information of your current consumer of choice is rapidly becoming an unattainable reality – and not just because of alternative social media. 

Data is a big concern for most consumers. With many of the bigger tech companies shifting to more ad-heavy or ad-beneficial platforms, we’re likely to see more consumers limiting what they share online – which means that, even if they are on your platform of choice, you might need to work harder to find out what you need to know about your consumers. 

This doesn’t mean you won’t see results. 

In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s the way to build a long-lasting relationship with a community, unlimited by age, demographic, or gender. 

Statistics: 

• Global consumers spend 2.5 hours on social media daily. 
• Whatsapp and Instagram are the most popular social media platforms.
• Consumers will use an average of 7.5 social media platforms a month.

How do I use this trend?

This trend will take a little time to use well. 

You need to start by first building your community on a social media platform that’s outside of the norm. It isn’t going to be easy, especially for brands: part of the reason that these social medias are popular is because there’s little to no advertising on them. Going in and making it your new brand voice is not going to curry favour. 

However, hopping into a new social media and creating a presence there that isn’t to sell will help set your brand up as one that cares about its consumers – and that wants to talk to them regardless of limitations. 

Who did it best?

BeReal is a brand free-for-all at the moment: the social media site challenges you to upload a front-and-back photo in less than two minutes, which is then distributed through the entire platform at random. That is the only post you’re allowed to post that day, limiting the spread of content. 

On paper, it is not a platform for brands. However, Chipotle thought they could leverage it – and did. 

Their first foray into BeReal was a picture of a reusable promo code where the first hundred people would get a free entree at their Chipotle of choice. Within 30 minutes, the codes were gone, and further days saw their codes getting snatched up almost instantly. 

Longest, Long, Shorter, Short, Shortest

Trend 2: Video gets a boost

Short form 

Short-form video has been around since the early days of Youtube, but it’s Tiktok’s skyrocketing popularity that makes this trend so prevalent for 2023. 

During the pandemic, Tiktok’s short-form, no-focus-needed entertainment provided a source of low-effort engagement that kept people watching despite the ongoing issues on other social media platforms. After the pandemic, the habit of going onto Tiktok to find a revolving stream of new content stayed – and other social media platforms started to notice the decline of users who were now looking for a way to sate their scrolling appetite with more bite-sized content. 

As a medium, short-form video has always been excellent for advertising, but the scale and size of Tiktok’s growth has pushed it into becoming a significant portion of the internet in 2022 – and in 2023. 

However, it’s not the only kind of video that’s doing well on social media at the moment. 

Long-form content

Think podcasts. Think pieces. Think video essays. 

Think long. 

Longform content exists in a strange place on social media: too long, and only dedicated fans will log on to watch; too short, and those same fans will go elsewhere. 

And it exists alongside – and despite – short form video. 

Longform video content can be half an hour. It can be an hour. It can be longer. 

On Youtube, the long-form video essays that break down current dramas or fan culture theories are some of the most popular categories on the platform – more so now that short-form video has taken over other social media platforms. However, it doesn’t exist in a separate vacuum to short-form video; it exists in spite of it, and brands that can leverage both are going to do better than brands that opt for one or the other. 

But you have to have good content. And it has to be content people care about. 

Longform video is hard to do right for that reason. The things that consumers care about are infinite, but it’s only a select sort of consumer that will care enough to watch a long video on something that they’re dedicated to. Find the right formula, the right combination of things, and it can spark a new pipeline for the brand in creating content that people will watch regardless. 

Statistics: 

• People will watch an average of 19 hours of online video per week. 
• 60% of Gen Z users will use Youtube to watch more content about a show or a movie they’ve just watched. 
• 88% of consumers have been convinced to purchase a product after watching a brand’s video. 

How do I use this trend?

Start with short-form video. 

And start with entertainment first. 

Put out ads-that-aren’t-ads. Introduce consumers to your brand’s world, to what it likes, to what it engages with and what it looks for. Make relating to your consumers the central point of video. 

Nobody is going to watch an hour-long video on anything unless the content in it is worth consuming at length. This doesn’t mean that you need to throw out your entire content plan, or switch to making long-form videos only: it just means that, regardless of the length of the video, it has to be content that has more to it than just advertising a product. 

Revisit your content plan. See where the gaps in your content are. See what you can offer consumers that just want to just relax, to watch something interesting, to occupy their brains for a little while. Not only will it give you a new content stream to work on, but every consumer wants a brand that engages with them for more reasons than just selling something. 

Be that brand. 

Who did it best?

SOYYO Candle is a DTC home goods brand that has to contend with a considerable amount of competition from both the home goods sector and the candles and scent good industry – however, it leverages Instagram to create a personable brand presence that appeals to consumers. Not only does it post regular curated content on its Instagram feed, SOYYO Candles has a whole stream dedicated to how best to use, and enjoy, their products. 

For consumers that are fanatical about their home goods, a brand that comes out with content giving them further tips to increase the lifespan of their candles can only be a good thing – and for consumers who are new to the industry or just dipping their toes in, SOYYO candles positions itself as a helpful authority which only wants the best for them. 

What Would You Do?

Trend 3: User-generated content creators grow in popularity

Our Head of Social is fond of saying, “everyone’s an influencer”. 

And with the big-name influencers dropping in popularity, that’s never been more true. 

User-generated content is not going anywhere: it’s just getting smaller, more intimate, and more personal, with anyone with access to a social media account having the opportunity to post snippets of their daily life and become a brand ambassador. The rise of movements such as cleaning, reading list curation, and perfume collecting has given a greater insight into the kind of slower hobbies that people watch – and seek out – online. Even though most might not be in the market to purchase right at the time of finding that content, it still ranks highly on the entertainment scale – and it’s still something brands need to keep in mind. 

Statistics: 

• 76% of consumers have purchased a product based on someone’s recommendation before. 
• 84% of users are more likely to trust a brand that uses UGC in its marketing. 
• Video user-generated content generates 12X the engagement rate over any other type of content. 

How do I use this trend?

When in doubt, let your users show you what kind of content they want to see more of. 

Social media has a habit of turning even the most mundane product into the next must-have, and the right, rising opportunity can give your brand a new way of showcasing its benefits to a wider audience, some of which may never have heard of it. If you want to partner with an influencer, go for someone on the smaller scale of audience metrics: someone whose content might not have the most views, but whose engagement is definitely on the right track. 

As influencers grow, their popularity and believability tends to drop. The rapid scaling of the influencer industry back in 2016 led to some of the biggest names in the industry, who today will struggle to maintain the same connection that they had starting out. Add in nearly ten years of drama on the social media circuit, and opting for a smaller influencer might be the best thing for your brand to start building a trustworthy voice in an audience of consumers.  

Who did it best?

Wayfair’s entire Instagram is an excellent showcase of user-generated content where the label of content creator applies to anyone who purchases a Wayfair product and posts a picture of it on their personal account. Using the hashtag #wayfairathome, Wayfair takes the tricky problem of buying furniture online and negates it – and by opting not to partner with one or two trusted influencers, and opening the floor to everyone to showcase how their products look in a variety of settings, it really highlights how the brand itself takes a back seat from its own advertising and allows its users and positive reviews to speak for themselves – and it works. 

Conclusion

It’s easier to say that social media is changing than it is to say that the internet is. 

The internet has always been characterised by exploration and entertainment. The early days of the internet, where finding anything online was a task that took up hours and hours of your afternoon, have been gone for a while now, but the spirit of that same entertainment is coming back. 

Call it nostalgia. Call it advertising burnout. Whatever it is, the internet of social media isn’t fading away, but it is adapting to become a place where entertainment is once again the priority, whether it makes money or not. 

Do brands have a place in this internet? Absolutely. 

But there has to be a shift away from the profit-building-at-all-costs way of brand thinking. 

Times are shifting away from rampant consumerism. They’re shifting away from consumers getting drawn in by ads claiming that their product will make your life better. There are bigger problems at stake, deeper worries to contend with, and brands that fail to recognise they might no longer be a top priority are going to lose credibility. 

On the other hand, brands exist to make profit – and there is profit to be made. 

However, the cost of making that profit is putting time into building up your brand in real time. Into forging new connections with your audiences. Into creating entertainment for consumers who have never thought of your brand as anything other than a commodity. Into make your brand more than a commodity. 

It will take time. 

But it can be done. 

And if you need help on the best way to do it, then reach out. Social media is vast, and a lot of it can be difficult to manage on your own, even if you do understand the ins and outs of the different platforms and the different nuances you need to keep in mind when posting on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Digg, Pinterest, StumbleUpon: the list goes on. 

So reach out. Be prepared to take a little time to find out who your brand is on social media. 

It’ll be worth it. 

The post Social Media Trends 2023 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

But the latest App Store update by Apple might change things slightly. 

It is possible that in the future small business owners and influencers using iOS apps will incur some extra costs when advertising on Meta platforms.

But why?

Recently, Apple has updated its App Store rules to require that iOS developers have to use in-app purchases, giving Apple a 30% commission on all in-app purchases across the App Store. 

While Apple’s in-app purchase system is nothing new, Facebook and Instagram have never used it in their apps, meaning that the whole ‘boost’ amount went straight to Meta to pay for your ads. 

By forcing in-app purchases on all apps, Apple swung a big hit at Meta, but it’s the small businesses that depend on its advertising tools that might suffer the most.

Here’s why.

The current rules do not apply to Meta’s standalone ads manager, meaning that ads created off the iOS apps do not incur the same 30% tax. 

The problem is that normally an ads manager is used by larger companies and corporations with large spending budgets. 

It makes sense: their digital marketing activities can involve huge, complicated campaigns that need to be (you guessed it) ‘managed’.

If we look at the ‘Boost’ button option on Facebook and Instagram, it does not quite compare to the Ads Manager when it comes to tailoring audience targeting or personalising ad placements. 

But it’s simple. And simple does the job when you’ve got a small business to run. 

Until big tech says it doesn’t any more.

Meta argues that the aftermath of these changes by Apple will be felt the most by small businesses and influencers, potentially reducing the effectiveness of their advertising spend.

It is so far unclear whether the extra costs will be applied to iOS users only or spread out across all Meta advertisers. It’s also unclear when the changes will take place. But there might be something you can do in anticipation of what’s to come.

What do I do now?

If you can’t beat them, join them.

It is clear that using Meta’s Ads Manager does have its benefits. And if you’re an owner of an SME, it’s a good way to get around the new iOS tax. 

You probably have a lot of questions at this point and we’re here to guide you.

Here’s how we think Meta’s business manager works best.

Setup: Meta Business Manager

First of all, think of the Ads Manager as a tool that needs its own box. 

In the Meta suite, Meta Business Manager is the equivalent of the tool box. It is your main advertising hub for Facebook and Instagram, where you can manage all of your assets like Pages and Ad Accounts. 

It will also help keep your business and private accounts separate, as they should be –

especially if you expect your business to grow and more people will have to be involved. 

As an agency, we see the mix of business and private accounts way too often, and those setup mistakes can interfere with the advertising process and are very time consuming to fix. 

If they can be fixed at all.

To start your Meta Business Manager:

1. Go to business.facebook.com/overview.
2. Click Create account.
3. Enter a name for your business, your name and work email address and click Next.
4. Enter your business details and click Submit.

Business Info & Payments

Once you’ve got your Business manager open, you’ll be able to easily add the following by navigating the lefthand side menu:

• Business info (business name, address, Tax ID, etc.)
• Payment method (card you want to use to pay for your ads)

Connecting existing Pages and Accounts

If you already have an existing Facebook page, Instagram account, or ad account, follow the Setup Guide in the lefthand side menu to easily link those assets to your new Business account.

To create a new Ad Account:

1. Navigate to Ad Accounts.
2. Click Add.
3. Click Add a new ad account and follow instructions.

Ads Manager

Once you have all of your assets created or connected to your new Meta business manager, head to your Ads Manager and you’re ready to start advertising. 

Well, technically.

Since the setup of the Ads Manager is quite different from using the ‘Boost’ button, we recommend that you look into the Meta Blueprint, which provides free learning on all things Meta or check out a couple of Youtube tutorials for step by step guides, tips and tricks.

We know, it’s a lot. We didn’t say it was going to be easy. But it will be worth it knowing that your hard-earned advertising budget is being spent effectively.

A Temporary Fix

The Ads Manager method is a good short-term solution that will allow you to make the most of your digital advertising budget. 

At least in the meantime. 

However, it is likely that Apple will eventually require the same charge for Meta’s standalone ads manager app, which will have a larger impact on businesses as a whole. Watch this space for updates. 

We do not normally work with smaller clients, but we know that a situation like this can be overwhelming. If you need help or advice on the issue, feel free to get in touch, we’d be happy to help. 

The post Boosting on Facebook & Instagram may get 30% Pricier – Here’s Why appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

But it’s Pride again and Burger King Austria has brought out a campaign that has everyone with a Twitter handle burning the midnight tweets. 

Let’s talk about it. 

The Burger King Pride Ad 2022

Burger King has been bringing out Pride ads since 2014, so this isn’t exactly out of the left field for them. In fact, given Burger King’s most recent ads, this is exactly what a 2022 Pride ad for a Burger King branch is supposed to be: tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted, and kind of silly. 

The backlash against this ad goes one of two ways: either ‘burgers don’t have to be a political statement’ or ‘you didn’t consult a single queer person in making this ad’. Thinkpieces on CNN, Forbes, Gizmodo, and others have been making the rounds on social media by taking jokes about the tweet out of context under the banner of rage, and racking up a lot of views in the process. 

And – through it all – Burger King gets free publicity. 

It’s an ingenious, calculated marketing move that shows clearly that Burger King has learned from its mistakes. 

Or, it’s a mistake, but a harmless one. 

Here’s what we think.

Why Burger King Pride 2022 Works

Look: pride campaigns have a challenging road ahead of them to ‘good’. When you throw in a human cause with the express intention of drawing your audience to one side of the line in the sand, something will get mixed up along the way, and what you’ll be left with is an ad campaign that phones it in. 

There are exceptions. 

This Burger King Pride ad is one of them. 

It’s different. It stands out without taking the same route to Pride as other brands do: the rainbow packaging, the all-inclusive catch-phrase. Burger King, as a brand, is still at the forefront of this ad, something that becomes a rarity once Pride comes around and organisations try to make it very clear where they stand. 

It sticks to the brand tone of voice.

It sparked a conversation. 

It doesn’t pander. And the choice of translating it into English for international appeal can be seen as a deliberate move to get exactly this sort of reaction; to see exactly this kind of conversation play out. 

As Tom put it, “it’s just a bit funny, really, and sort of – reverse psychology, I think. It’s all we’ve been talking about, after all.”

From a quick look at Twitter, Tom seems to be right on the money. The most popular tweet about the whole saga gained 12.8k retweets and over 600k likes in just five days. 

On the other hand: Why Burger King Pride 2022 doesn’t work

The biggest thing that has been said about it online is ‘you didn’t consult anyone gay, did you?’

As a Pride ad without the Pride taken into account, it works. 

Once you look at the audience that it was intended for, you can see that it doesn’t really. Or, as our Accounts Manager Lisa Cutugno said, “it’s like they didn’t think it through.”

Top and bottom subcultures have been around for decades, so using terminology that’s thrived since the 50s is a step in the right direction. The problem lies in the fact that the terminologies used have taken on a different identity in the mainstream, and it’s partially the concept of always-online fandom culture to blame. 

Luke puts it best, “it seems like they didn’t take into account the fact that the terms ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ have entered the mainstream lexicon in the last few years and just went the equal route, as in same-sex – this might have worked better like 7 or 8 years ago when those terms were less well known, perhaps.”

Actually it’s been done before—

In 2017, McDonald’s came out with this campaign. 

It’s an identical campaign, save for a different cast and country.

What’s interesting about this campaign is that it didn’t have any backlash. 

To be fair, it also wasn’t well-known outside of the country – two things that set the Burger King Austria ad apart. Whether or not it is more successful than the McDonald’s campaign of 2017 has yet to be seen, but it is definitely far more noticeable which says a lot about the way that consumers have changed the way they feel about these conversations.

Risk or Reward?

Controversial or not, our CEO had a very valid point to make: “if you are not ready to face potential backlash, you’ll never do anything different. So I applaud their appetite for risk, even if they went awry this time around.”

Burger King has a tendency to make mistakes. All big corporations will eventually put out an ad that draws ire from someone. 

However, it seems as though the fallout from their Women’s Day tweet seems to have taught them a lesson in how to balance risk with reward, and when to go for it.

At the end of the day, this campaign is not going to be remembered in the long-run – but for a brief moment, it had the whole world talking and no lasting damage was done except to fragile right-wing pundits who get offended at everything. 

All in all, not bad for a regional campaign. 

The post Burger King Pride 2022, or When Controversy Works appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

And – if you’re not on social media – do people know the best side of your brand?

There’s a lot we can say about social media and what it has done to the way we communicate, the way we absorb information, and the way we measure what we know against what we see online. We can talk about how the changes on the internet are down to social media, and talk about whether social media is ultimately good or ultimately bad (spoiler: it’s a tool. It’s what you do with it that changes things). 

What we’re going to talk about now is how important social media is – for your brand, for your reputation, and for communicating with your consumers. 

Let’s do this. 

Social Media: Statistics

Everyone is on social media: you, your brand, your consumers, your competitors, people who say they’re not on social media. The internet has become increasingly narrowed into these channels where to talk and connect with anyone on a wider spectrum, you go to Twitter, you go to Instagram, you go to Reddit or Tumblr. 

According to Data Reportal, social media user numbers grow by about 7.5% annually, or at a rate of more than 10 new users per second – that can be quantifiable. Most social media companies restrict their usage of the platform to anyone under 13, and there’s the problem of bots and duplicate accounts to consider, but even when you keep these things in mind, we’re looking at social media users as 75% of the global population.

When you take those figures into account, it’s not surprising that brands are on social media – and that social media dictates what brands do, especially for B2C. 

But B2B is catching up. 

Social media trends for 2022

2022 continued the legacy of upheavals that COVID-19 put into place, and we saw the fluctuation in some of the world’s biggest social medias: Tiktok’s star continued to rise, Twitter has changed leadership, and Meta launched its Metaverse to mixed reactions. 

The platforms themselves haven’t changed – much. 

But the trends have. 

Here’s a few that benefit B2B marketing. 

1. Fringe to Mainstream

The three big social media platforms aren’t going anywhere (yet), but B2B marketing is having a moment on the smaller, fringe platforms. LinkedIn especially has seen an uptick in users, and no wonder: over 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn.  

As a platform, LinkedIn is perfect for B2B marketing: it’s a place where professionals network, so if you’re looking for your next big client or B2B pitch, knowing what conversations are happening on LinkedIn is important – and the more you get into a habit of using LinkedIn, the better you can connect with the kind of clients you want to work with. We’ve written more about it here. 

2. Target, Re-Target, Target

If you want to get the most out of social media, you need to invest in social media. It’s true for B2C clients, and it’s also true for B2B marketing. 

Putting out good, eye-catching content is step one. 

Step two is putting your money where your mouth is. 

Social media ads are going to get drowned out; that’s just the nature of the noise on the internet. You’re not the only person advertising in the same space, so what you’re saying might skip a couple of audiences if you’re not careful about who you want to listen in. 

That needs targeting. Targeting needs a paid social media campaign. 

Figure out who your audience is. Figure out what they want to see from you: digital papers, more of your work, research that can help them run their next campaign? Once you have that, figure out how much you want to put behind it. 

Putting targeted, boosted campaigns on social media isn’t a waste of money: it’s how the people you want to work with see what you can do. 

3. Conscious Content

This one isn’t a new trend, but it has gained new importance in 2022. 

As a B2B organisation, there’s a chance that your own marketing and content gets displaced in favours of your clients’ work – and sometimes, it could be weeks before you post an update on your social media pages. 

Don’t do that. We’re telling you this because we do it ourselves, and it needs to stop. 

Clients, potential and otherwise, want to see what you can do. If you post on social media infrequently and put out content that doesn’t put your brand’s best foot forward, it’s not going to do your brand any favours. 

Worst of all, it’s not going to help people remember your brand.

Content is important. Good, beautiful content that looks amazing is even more important. 

Good, beautiful content that looks amazing and is frequently updated is even better. 

Your clients in the B2B sector are still people. Like B2C clients, they want to know more about the brands that they’re working with. They want the story of who’s behind their last collaboration or partnership. 

Give them that story.

Oh – and make sure to tag it.

4. Mobile-first design

You have the time to read this blog. 

But where are you reading it? Laptop? Computer?

Or mobile-phone?

Mobile-first web-design is another old trend coming to the forefront, but there’s a reason for it: in a world that’s go-go-go all the time, sitting down and committing to the time that it takes you to read a blog is harder than you think. 

However, if that blog is on your mobile, you might find time to scroll through it – and if the content is good enough, you might even go back to it or share it. 

We spend most of our time on our phones: tiny little powerhouses of information, easier to plug-and-play than a laptop, more portable than some tablets. 

Mobile-first design takes the idea that tablets and phones are how most people access content these days and makes it the foundation for all design. 

And when 56% of online traffic comes from mobile, it makes a lot of sense to make sure your content works as well on mobile devices as it does on a computer.

5. Live a Little

Twitter Audio. Instagram Stories. LinkedIn Live. 

Immediate, fleeting, and humanising. 

Live content is complex to get right: on top of making sure it looks good, it has to be engaging, and on top of it being engaging, it has to show you in the right way. It’s no wonder why it’s one of those effective marketing tools that just gets shunted to the wayside. 

That said, if you manage to try even one new thing this year, make it live content. Behind-the-scenes content and live content create a direct relationship with whoever you’re targeting, which makes it so much easier to build a connection with them in the long-run. 

People are curious creatures. Just because they’re working for a brand doesn’t make them less curious. 

We all want to see if the grass is really greener on the other side. 

All of this sounds great. How do I start?

Find your story. 

You have one. Every brand and business in the world has a story, the thing that they roll out of bed and go to work for. Your story is the key to what makes your brand stand out, and all of these tactics and techniques won’t work unless you know what your message is. 

Treat your B2B clients the same way you would treat a B2C client, and tell them a story. 

And if you need help coming up with one, we’re happy to help you there. 

The post Social Trends Affecting B2B appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Well. I’ll show you one stat to convince you that you definitely should be on Linkedin: 

66% of professionals state that they would be more likely to recommend a company or a brand if they followed one of the company executives on Linkedin (source).

So now that we’re past that debate, the next logical question is “How should I use LinkedIn?”. 

There’s no hard and fast rule. Everyone should use LinkedIn in the way that makes the most sense for their industry and their personal brand, but over the course of this post we’re hoping to help you figure out how to get started on your journey of LinkedIn mastery.

LinkedIn is one of the strongest tools available for businesses, no matter whether you’re looking for a job, looking for employees, trying to grow your personal network or looking to generate leads.

One last caveat before we dig in: This post is not here to help salespeople use LinkedIn for cold prospecting. LinkedIn can be extremely effective for sales, but that’s not my area of expertise, so I won’t venture into it.

The concepts outlined here, however, apply for CEOs, for business leaders, for employers and for potential recruits. They apply to anyone who’s out there to build a personal brand, no matter whether it’s for themselves or for their business.

Know Your Audience

It’s critical to get on the LinkedIn train as quickly as possible, but don’t just rush into posting. Start with some careful following of people in your industry. 

Once you’ve followed them, monitor their posting habits carefully, and be sure to take a note of what their audiences are reacting to.

If you can, also spend some time on the profiles of some people who you feel would match your ideal audience, too. Look at their activity. See the kind of content they’re engaging with, and see which of their posts are doing well, too.

This should give you a much better idea of who you should be talking to, what drives them, what they like, and what they don’t react to.

If I’m very certain about my audience, I also use a little trick – I pretend that I have an audience of one. If I’m writing a post for a very specific subset of my audience I will actually think of someone in particular, and write my posts as if they’re the only person who I want to influence with my post.

Friendly tip: Write out your target audience persona in a document and keep it on hand when writing a post, take a look, choose who you’re writing for and let the magic happen.

Who do you want to be on LinkedIn?

We’re all multifaceted individuals, and while we would never recommend trying to be someone who you aren’t, you should be selective about which sides of your persona to share on LinkedIn. 

At face value this might sound nefarious, however we don’t mean it in that way.

The first rule of LinkedIn is Authenticity, and we stick by that claim.

But curation does not preclude authenticity. I’m interested in a hundred things. God knows I’m interested in too many. But I leave most of my interests off LinkedIn, simply because LinkedIn is not a personal interest network. 

I never talk about travel, food, hiking, running or music on LinkedIn, even though they’re my biggest passions in life. I might use them to highlight a professional point, however that’s where it stops.

But that’s just me. I follow some people on LinkedIn who have made exercise part of their LinkedIn persona, and it’s fine. As long as you think about it and make a conscious choice and stick to it, there is no right or wrong selection.

In my case, for example, I’ll write about marketing, about business leadership, about working conditions and employees’ wellbeing, about company culture and about my personal/professional life.

Friendly Tip: If you want this to be easier, write down your topics in a document and browse through them any time you’re stuck for a post. This list is not set in stone, so feel free to update it at any point.

Know your Mission

LinkedIn can be what you want it to be. You can find it to be absolutely useless, and you can derive extreme value from it, but that lies solely up to you, and up to how clear you are on your mission from LinkedIn.

You can’t be everything to everyone, and the quicker you learn that, the better. Some people will post exclusively to entertain, others will choose to use LinkedIn to teach about a subject that’s really close to their heart, while some others still will use LinkedIn to show their expertise in a subject, to become thought leaders in their field.

Our bias here is firmly towards the last option, most of the advice in this post is geared towards establishing your personal brand as a thought leader, but whatever your mission is, we’ll stick by our advice to choose your mission and to be clear about it.

Having a mission will help guide your behaviour on the platform, just like choosing your audience and choosing which areas of yourself you want to focus on.

Friendly Tip: Not having a mission can make your posts feel disjointed, and it will confuse people who are trying to figure you out. If in doubt, we’d recommend going for thought leadership because it’s a route that should work for anyone who has something to contribute.

Read and engage

Some people head to LinkedIn with one simple mission. To use it as a loudspeaker. They think that the only use for LinkedIn is to go out and amplify their voice. 

Well. No.

To build a network you need two-way traffic. You have to take the time to read (or watch) other people’s content and to engage with it meaningfully.

Do this with intent. Don’t just like random things. Take the time to find content from people (and brands) that you find interesting, leave valuable comments when you have something to add. 

There are many advantages. You get to consume content that you enjoy, teaching you more about what works and what doesn’t work on the platform. By engaging with other people’s content meaningfully you also increase your reach and, more importantly, you start building (or continue nurturing) relationships with the people who you’re engaging with.

The number of people who leave engaging comments is much smaller than the number of people who simply browse LinkedIn, so this is a great way to get noticed, especially if you engage with posts that have a lower reach.

Friendly Tip: Do not engage and comment on posts indiscriminately. You’ll be caught out, and you’ll be flagged as a spammer. Only leave a comment on a post if you have something valuable to say.

How to Fix your LinkedIn Profile

Your LinkedIn profile is a version of your CV/Resume that everyone has access to, so you should spend some time looking at it and planning out what you want potential connections to think of you when they land on it.

First of all ensure that you have a recent, professional profile picture. One that really emphasises who you are and what people can expect from you once they get to know you. Don’t use a crop from a group photo or a photo of you from your last summer vacation, sunglasses on your face and two margaritas in your hand.

There’s nothing wrong with going on vacation, or with margaritas, but it’s not the right place to highlight your drinking habit (unless you’re applying for jobs with a drinks company).

Next, make sure to write a great “About” section. Tell people who land on your profile what to expect from you, why you should be trusted for the areas you want to be trusted on, what drives you and what your areas of expertise are. 

Go through all your roles and your education and fill in the sections with as much detail as you possibly can, highlighting achievements and accomplishments, and articulating what each of your experiences has taught you.

Choose a featured post that highlights your greatest achievement(s) and if you have any notable projects that you can boast about, make sure to include them.

Last, but definitely not least, take a look at your headline and optimise this to help people understand why they should be interested in you. The headline is the only thing that pops up when people view your profile at a glance (like when they hover over your name when you comment on a post), so this should be compelling enough to draw them in further.

Friendly Tip: If you’re stuck here, this would be one of the places I’d choose to spend some money on and bring in a professional to help you out. A great profile goes a long way in establishing whether you’re trustworthy or not.

Be consistent

My final piece of advice today is to be consistent. Your success or failure of your LinkedIn presence is contingent on consistency.

Be consistent with your presence. Make it a point to log in daily, and make it a point to spend some time interacting with content, as suggested above.

Be consistent with your content – don’t post three times in a day and then abandon the platform for another 3 weeks, only to log in again and post another sporadic burst.

Be consistent with your engagement with others, engage with content that makes sense to you, and engage with it on a regular basis.

Be consistent with growing your network. Add people who make sense to you, and accept connections who you think might be valuable, but don’t just accept anyone.

Friendly tip: Find a time that works well for you and create a habit of logging in to LinkedIn. If you feel like you don’t have the time for it, replace one of your other social media habits with it. It’s easy enough. 

And in the end…

LinkedIn is powerful. If used correctly it can transform your career and it can catapult your business to new heights. Don’t abuse it, and don’t abandon it. Do it just right, and you’ll reap the rewards for years to come.

If you feel like you don’t have the time to handle it regularly enough, talk to us. We can provide you with more tips and tricks we use to keep our LinkedIn constantly updated. If you just want it off your plate, we also offer a concierge service for LinkedIn for busy executives.

The post A guide to LinkedIn for Business Leaders appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.