For the sake of this blog, let’s start with a quick description of the term brand and how it will be interpreted – even before we get to brand communications and audience engagement. One of the easiest ways to go about it is to say what a brand is not. A brand is not your visual identity – it does not reside within your logo and end there.

A brand is the set of perceptions that your audience forms about your brand. They form these perceptions as they experience your brand – mainly a result of the brand’s behaviour but also thanks to the stories your brand tells in the form of brand and promotional communication, pricing, product offering, packaging, and all the other touchpoints your brand uses to come in contact with the world outside.

Of course, your logo and visual identity are essential. They are the quickest way of jolting an individual’s memory and call up all the perceptions that person has about your brand. They will recollect what they think your brand stands for, its reason for existence, its values or principles, and a clear understanding of its personality.

With a strong brand, one look at your logo and the person viewing it will recall a very defined set of recollections. Strong brands are consistent in their behaviour, have the ability to focus on what they represent and differentiate themselves clearly from the competition. They are charismatic to the point where they are believed to be unmatched in their category and their personality is unfalteringly clear and defined. They can change significant portions of their identity to suit the times they’re in without denting their brand value.

Apple is a strong band where consumer electronics are concerned. Asus makes an even broader set of devices than Apple does and competes in the same markets. The Asus brand is worth a respectable $1.7 billion. Apple is worth 154x that at $263 billion. Yet Apple’s products are not 154x as good as those made by Asus. And if Asus had Apple’s logo, I bet the figures would be exactly the same.

If we acknowledge the monetary value of brand equity, an even more solid argument in favour of a brand’s behaviour and personality is a comparison with Samsung, the electronics giant that produces a staggering spread of consumer devices.

Samsung, while undoubtedly manufacturing excellent products, has a deeply boring persona that’s punctuated by one or two very glitzy campaigns every year. Love it or hate it, you have a clear idea of what Apple stands for. Do you know as much about the story of Samsung and would you even care?

Brand behaviour vs Brand Communications

As humans, we decide who to trust based on people’s behaviour and not their words. When is the last time you believed a stranger who said, “Trust me.”? 

When brands speak and when audiences listen are very often disconnected. Just as we gain significantly more information during a conversation from non-verbal cues than we do from the words actually spoken, our own personal relationships with the brands we know and love are built on our experience of the brand and not their overt communication.

It follows that brand behaviour is significantly more important than brand communications. A brand’s audience is, by definition, getting more savvy and better connected every day. One person’s experience with your brand can travel far and wide. And that experience is a well-informed one to begin with, with audiences making increasingly high demands of the brands they choose.

Luckily for the market, brands can no longer make claims they cannot possibly uphold and are called out for aligning with a cause that’s purely self-serving. Luckily for good brands, there is a very rewarding audience out there, willing to reward the brands that behave according to a sound set of principles with their cash or their crypto.

[Example: Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. It is built on one of the first blockchains that doesn’t support any of the fancy stuff that the new ones do. It is also an expensive one to run, with newer blockchains having significantly lower overheads. But Bitcoin has a strong brand. It is worth almost half the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization. One bit of advice to anyone with a good idea is that no matter what we say about brand, first-mover advantage remains one hell of a driver.]

In essence, brand thinking must originate from behaviour and brand communications should be crafted around this behaviour. This validates brand communications and adds significant value to them. The audiences that sit up and listen when certain brands speak are those that know the brand to follow through on their communication. This consistency of premise counts. Our audiences will forgive a font that’s slightly ‘off-brand’. I’ve looked at brand communications, horrified that the designer had used Arial instead of Helvetica. Seven other type nerds noticed. No one else cared.

Communication is, of course, part of a brand’s behaviour. The messages a brand decides to send, the way in which it reaches its audiences, the personality with which it communicates, and the values it upholds are all being assessed, consciously or unconsciously, by a brand’s audiences. The more behaviour and communication are one, the more likely an audience is to engage with the brand.

Why do brands communicate?

Brands communicate to inform. They use this opportunity to express their core beliefs and, while they do so, they inescapably betray their personality. If the personality is true to their fundamentals, then it is one we believe and engage with. So when brands inform us about something promotional, a new product offering or a pricing update for instance, the audience is also assessing the brand’s personality.

Whether we like it or not, we form an opinion heavily based on the personality of the communicator. Quite why brands separate ‘brand communications’ from ‘promotional communications’ is often puzzling. You’ve seen promotional communication that violates a brand’s core values for the sake of a quick sale. It is a wasted opportunity, a case of marketing spend that could easily have been marketing investment.

Very often, too often really, brands speak because they want to say something and not because they have something to say. These tend to be the ones that audiences stop listening to. They are the ones that complain about low audience engagement on their social feeds.

This does not always stem from a desire to be every-present. Many brands make the mistake of originating communication based on their activity rather than on what audiences want to hear. It is easy to assume that if you’ve spent a lot of time, money, and effort doing something, then your audience wants to know about it. Sometimes, all it takes is to ask an appropriately cynical audience about whether the public will care about this piece of communication before spending a ton on spreading the word.

There are exceptions of course, those brands that are so innovative (or traditional) that their process is an integral part of the story. It takes cunning or humility to know whether the brand you represent is one of these or not. For every story told that we don’t want to hear there is probably an interesting story that the brand hasn’t thought of telling.

“We’ve spent a million refurbishing your favourite clothes store.” No one cares.

“Now even better tasting.” One should hope so.

“We understand that you want [this] so we’re giving it to you.” Mildly condescending, wholly untrue, and no one cares.

We’re all guilty of this behaviour. We’ve all had budgets to spend, campaigns that must go out by a specific date because it’s back-to-school or just-before-summer or those awkward shoulder months. It is an inevitability but one that can be mitigated by a degree of empathy with our audiences.

Brands that see most reward from their communication, the ones that drive sales through deep audience engagement, do so by cleverly putting themselves in the shoes of their audiences. They take the time to understand the specific profile of their carefully defined audience. They are ruthless at eliminating all the stuff that audiences don’t care about. Even if they are itching to scream about some obscure feature because it took them two years to get it right.

These are brands that don’t sacrifice their ideals because of the nature of the opportunity to communicate. A 2-for-1 sticker at point of sale is as important as any other piece of communication and it deserves to represent the brand with respect. In the eyes of your consumer, how a brand does anything is how a brand does everything.

What kind of communication do audiences relate to?

To answer this question, we need to ask ourselves the same question about a brand that is very far from the one we’re working on. We need to find a brand from a completely different category, one that makes us happy to be its audience, and analyse the nature of that communication.

If you were a member of that audience and were given a chance to ask a brand to speak to you in a specific way, you’d be well within your rights to tell the brand, “Tell me what I want to hear and not what you want to say.” 

Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and ask yourself: “What will I feel as a result of interacting with your brand?”

Communication that audiences will listen to is:

Human. Brands are owned and run by experts in their specific industry. The people who own the brand know how their product is better than that of their competitor’s because of some obscure technical feature. They know the industry language. They know the internal politics of the company. And they make the mistake of thinking their audience cares. Communication that starts from the inside and works its way out is destined to fail. Every time.

Real. We allow brands a little wiggle room for overstating or dramatizing their products. We know the burger on a fast food restaurant photo is not what we’ll unwrap when we buy one. But that’s as far as audiences will forgive. Brands that make unlikely claims and that pretend to be something they’re not are inevitably called out. Sometimes a simple “Would I fall for this?” would suffice before approving that piece of collateral.

Relevant. Useless brands die. Useless products by useful brands die as well. Brand communication is relevant to the time, the place, and the audience that consumes it. Converse is irreverent, very street, and wholly of today. So they still sell sneakers from the seventies. They don’t speak about their heritage overtly and they are relevant to three generations of humans who are connected by little else than their desire to be of today. Even better, speak to me about how your brand is going to make my future better.

Ask: “How will my life’s story be better with your brand in it?”

Concise.

Unusual. The creative conundrum is always where to err. Too close to what’s familiar, and it’s boring. Too far from what we know, and it’s detached. In between these is the playground of brand communication – unusual enough to stand out while retaining the right amount of familiarity to draw me in. Like every good creative endeavour, there is bravery involved, the potential for failure must be there as we release communication. If you feel entirely certain that it will ‘work’, it will do just that – it won’t offend and it won’t excite. And if it doesn’t excite, we relegate that communication to our working memory, the bit of our monkey brain that we purge when we go to sleep to make room for exciting stuff that’s about to happen tomorrow.

Mildly unpopular. If your brand is universally popular, your brand sucks. We are tribal creatures. We love to stand for something. “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC”, “Take the Pepsi challenge”. Even in products as generic as colas there exist fans. Brave brands behave in a way that acknowledges that they’re not for everyone. The brave brand that’s smart about its communication makes sure that it speaks the way it behaves. It identifies its audience and says, “This one’s for you. It’s not for everyone.”  

Respectful. Don’t tell me too much. My most precious resource in a post-consumerist world is my time. I won’t grant you much of it. Just enough headline will intrigue me, particularly if it is slightly incomplete and can be completed by me and something from my life experience. If I care enough, I’ll dig deeper, I’ll look you up, I’ll follow your communication funnel all the way to ‘add to cart’. 

Consistent. Once again, your audience doesn’t want on-brand communication to have the right colours and fonts. For an agency guy this might sound strange – what I’m saying is that if you have the right agency this isn’t something to worry about ever again. Your audience wants consistency of premise. Why does the brand wake up in the morning? What are its values or behavioural principles? What’s it promising me? What do I want to feel as a result of connecting with this brand?

In essence, do what helps you get to know your audience because it will enable you to craft the right message and use the right channels. And that’s the way you can speak to an audience and have them listen.

The benefits of relatable brand communication

Money can’t buy us love. The Beatles made that quite clear. But the goal of a brand is not directly to make money. Rather, the better a brand behaves, the more money will come in as an inevitable consequence.

[Money is the desired consequence only for commercial brands. Martin Luther King is an example of a strong personal brand that had a cause rather than profit as an intended outcome of that brand’s efforts. Analyse his brand in terms of focus, charisma, unwavering purpose, audience engagement, and many other brand performance indicators and the strength of the brand is undeniable.]

Powerful brand communication knows who it is speaking to and, just as importantly, who it is leaving out. It is better to relate strongly with your audience than attempt a weaker bond with a larger audience that will most likely never care about your brand anyway. An audience that knows it is being addressed specifically is much more likely to be properly attentive to messaging. Think of the tortuous path to accurate generational communication and you will see how hard work when addressing audiences the right way can pay off in spades.

Relatable communication tells its audience that the brand gets it, that while the brand could just get on with stuff and show us a product and a price it is willing to go a step further, speak our language, respect our time, and make the effort to earn my attention.

We all know one of these brands. They are the ones that, in our personal lives, reach for that magical bit of money we are prepared to spend irrationally out of love for that brand. They are inevitably the brands that have, over time, paid attention to our emotions and behaved in a way that earned our loyalty and trust.

Emotion in a single piece of communication does not do this. The brands that create a beautiful piece of emotional advertising once a year, for Christmas, become those brands that we can depend on for a beautiful piece of TV around Christmas. They do not weave emotion into their everyday behaviour and we don’t engage emotionally with them every day either. They remain brands that we are largely indifferent to. Coca Cola is the kind of product that has linked emotion to its product every single day for well over a century and it is one of the most loved drinks on the planet – so much so that we don’t stop to assess the product for what it really is.

In effect, brands that communicate in a way that truly relates to our state of mind are those that speak to us about an outcome, rather than a product. 

“1,000 songs in your pocket” was the line that created the iPod

“Open happiness” doesn’t speak about the product at all.

“Because you’re worth it” places self worth above product features or benefits

These are the brands that realise that their audiences are made up of actual humans who will only lend a moment of their time to a brand that addresses their state as a person rather than a brand that is conceited enough to think a person cares about their product. Of course, the product is at the heart of brand communication but we are drawn in with a promise of an outcome to ourselves as a human rather than the specific action of purchasing a product.

Brands that understand their audiences and create relatable and respectful communication with relentless consistency are the ones that audiences grow to love and brand live runs rings around the spark that surrounds a single transaction. And brands we know and love for a long time are the ones we are prepared to forgive for an occasional transgression.

And soon, brand love turns into the profit margin we call brand equity – so perhaps love can earn us money, even if the reverse does not apply. One way of considering brand equity is the monetary gap between the price of our brand and its equivalent generic. Ask: “Do you want your brand to be generic, in nature and in pricing?”

In conclusion, brand communication that leads to deep engagement is led by behaviour first – it is the communication that is true to a brand’s purpose and values. It is also communication that understands an audience and relates to it by being respectful and promising a desirable outcome. If a brand’s behaviour and communication is consistent with these fundamentals it can build a life-long, value-based relationship with your audience. And isn’t that the ultimate goal of any brand?

The post Brand Communications for Long-term Audience Engagement appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Here’s the how and why:

Whenever a Page will make use of such spammy content, systematically and repeatedly, Facebook will start decreasing the reach of such posts. This will result in lower engagement and reach of the Page. Ultimately, using engagement bait content will be counterproductive. The reason for this fight against engagement bait is that Facebook wants to encourage authenticity and promote meaningful conversations on the platform through the use of relevant content.
We’ve all been guilty of using this ‘cheat’ at some point or another, but Facebook is finally drawing a line and no longer allowing over-use of this sort of content to increase engagement and reach.
We need to keep in mind that Facebook’s ultimate goal is for the consumer to remain on the platform, and unfortunately, due to the continuous spam content, people had begun to lose interest in Facebook’s newsfeed.
This isn’t the first time that Facebook has waged war on bait. Remember when all the articles shared on Facebook would have these kinds of titles “You won’t believe what happens next”? We do too. Well, Facebook has managed to find a way to reduce that sort of content, and they will be doing the same with spammy posts.
One month into 2018, we’ve already seen a difference in the content displayed on our newsfeed, and this is just the beginning.
So what does that mean for businesses on Facebook? It’s a great opportunity to start producing good quality content which is both interesting and engaging.
Remember to please tag your grandparents in the comments and share this article with your pet. Thanks. ????

The post Fighting engagement bait appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

No amount of paid media is going to turn bad creative into good content. – Gary Vaynerchuk

For my first Switchversary last year, I blogged about what Switch is, this year I want to write about the importance of producing good content.

In the past two years at Switch, I have had the opportunity to understand the difference between boosting a post and creating good, quality content. See, most people believe that allocating a boosting budget to a post is enough to reach the desired target audience and get them to engage. Excuse my French, but that is bullshit – you will reach your audience and force them to consume something that they might not be interested in seeing, but you can’t be certain that they will engage with your post.

Nowadays there are still so many people who would rather post a floating image of their product on Facebook and spend money boosting it than investing their money in good, relevant, content.

 Here’s why you need to start investing in quality content rather than boosted curated or low quality posts.

Good Content: Paid VS Organic Reach

If it were up to me, I would never boost any sort of content (sorry, Mark Zuckerberg) – this is because I truly believe in organic reach and engagement. The difference between Paid reach and Organic reach is in the word itself: with paid you are spending money in order to reach your audience, whereas with organic it’s the audience finding you thanks to Facebook’s algorithms and the engagement of their friends with the post.  

It’s quite simple when you think about it – if you create good content, your audience will want to engage with it and share it with friends. In this way, your post will grow in reach automatically. When you share a post just for the sake of putting content on your page and then boosting it, you are basically throwing your money away,

Why would you want to reach your audience but NOT get them to engage with your brand?

This is exactly what we did with Kinnie: we’ve worked on a strategy to produce content that was more relevant to a local audience and to the brand itself. We’ve identified different content streams, all of which had different objectives and target audiences. Some of the content streams were more relevant for an older audience, whereas others directly targeted people in their twenties. Some pieces of content were more informative, and others were simply used to reinforce the message that Kinnie is a great local drink.

Exhibit A: We produced a series of recipe videos to show creative ways through which people can consume Kinnie – this is because we like to think outside the box and believe that Kinnie could be showcased as more than just a drink, but as a delicious ingredient too.

Exhibit B: To reinforce the culture and origins of Kinnie, we’ve launched a series of streams that solely aimed at showcasing the beautiful islands. We did this by snapping images of Kinnie around popular locations, but also by producing short videos that showed in deeper details beautiful locations around Malta, Gozo and Comino. It’s a combination of consumables and wanderlust – and what could be more engaging than that?

Instead of using high budgets to boost posts, we invested the money into creating quality content. The result?  With more than half the number of posts and less  boosting budget than the previous year, we’ve increased the Page’s total reach by 80%, the average organic reach per post by 370% and the Page’s total engagement by 47% in just under a year.

Want to find out more about how we achieved these numbers? You can contact us here – the coffee’s on us.

Good Content: Aspirational VS Irrelevant

Let me use Max Factor Malta as an example. We’ve been working with this cosmetic brand since 2014, but we’ve always had one main problem: we wouldn’t have relevant content to work with. We’ve had to use the content produced by Max Factor International to promote products/events/promotions on the page, and although it is aesthetically beautiful, the content just did not make sense for the Maltese market.

Most of the visuals involve Victoria’s Secret models using the products – and it’s no news that using overly-photoshopped models to promote cosmetics doesn’t quite work anymore. This is why we have launched the Max Factor Squad – a six month campaign which features six Maltese influencers who promote the brand locally. This was one done by producing high-quality visuals in our studio – a variety of videos and images that are being shared on social media and used to reinforce the message at point of sale in stores.

https://www.facebook.com/406671259436256/photos/a.461503730619675.1073741828.406671259436256/1055886301181412/?type=3&theater

When comparing the figures from June to August 2016 (period without local campaign) to the June to August 2017 figures  (period with local campaign), we have noticed that the Max Factor Malta Facebook’s Page’s total reach increased by 226%, of which 285% was the organic reach increase, along as a 350% increase in Engagement.

Good Content: Virality VS Dormant

I think that every agency, marketing executive and freelancer has heard the sentence ‘I want this to go viral’ at least once in their career (I’ve heard it approximately 47 times in the past three years). If creating content that goes viral was so easy, we’d all have over 500K likes on our images/videos, but it’s not. Virality just happens, and most of the time it hits when you least expect it. One thing that we can certainly do is increase the chances of a post performing well – and how do we do that? That’s right, by creating good content.

Start by defining your story (be it emotional, funny, serious, interesting etc), see how you want to say that story, and then produce it. Always keep in mind your audience – who are they? What do they like to see? Will they understand the message behind your story? You should always make sure that:

1. Your story makes sense to your viewer
2. It triggers a feeling – this is how you’ll get your audience to engage with it

This always makes me think about this one great advert, from Christmas 2015 – and if you’ve already seen it, it’s worth watching it again:

Good Content: the key to success

I can’t emphasize this enough to our clients: create good content and you will see results.

It’s very difficult for us marketers to work with brands that resort to stock photography and images of floating products in order to communicate a message. We no longer live in the era where we need to fight over a magazine spot – the challenge now is to produce content that is better than what others are creating, and I am not only referring to your competitors. As consumers, we are constantly thrown some sort of advertisement our way (boosted posts, sponsored posts, Google ads, banner ads etc etc), that we now manage to filter it all and carefully choose the ones we want to look at.

So: do you want to stand out from the crowd with good content, or are you okay with being filtered out with your boosted post? It’s all about making the transition from simply having an online presence to leaving an impact on your audience. If you don’t know where to start, we can help. Get in touch today.

The post The power of good content appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

But why?

First of all – can you think of anyone who doesn’t like a little bit of humour sprinkled into their mundane day-to-day life? We’re guessing you can’t.
Second of all there are a couple of reasons as to why showing your fun side is the way to go. Let’s explore a few of them.

It makes you memorable

Most of the time, when people think of big companies they think of the standard white office cubicles with fitted carpeting and a struggling office plant. They think about people working their daily 9 to 5 in white shirts and black trousers or skirts. They think of fluorescent lighting and dull lunches.
Okay, this probably isn’t completely true – but let’s be honest when you think ‘professional’ you’re not exactly excited. Well, no need to worry because over the years companies have learnt that you can be professional  and still be fun – Google is a perfect example.
By introducing some humour into your marketing campaigns you become more memorable – if you manage to make people laugh, or even simply smile, then you’ve managed to create a positive impression. Psychologically this means that followers will associate your brand with a positive message which will make you more memorable.
Apart from that humour can also help you stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Think about Christmas adverts. Most marketers will go to the end of the World to figure out how best to tug on your heartstrings and have you reaching for the tissues. Their strategy is to connect with their audiences through emotion (which is quite a successful way of doing things). However humour might give you the edge you need.

Why?

Because while everyone else is showing tear-jerkers which make you all warm and fuzzy inside but eventually get a bit predictable, you could be making people laugh. Let’s face it – the reality is that Christmas time family gatherings will hardly ever look like the ones we see in adverts. So why not laugh about the real situation?
Ikea did this brilliantly with their 2014 #XmasNoMatterWhat advert. They showed the reality of Christmas – the messed up cables, the burnt dinner, the failed gingerbread house. This would create a sense of relateability with their audience because after all none of us are perfect and we’ve all had those table-flip moments.
The genius behind the ad though is that while it’s funny because people can relate to it, there’s still a subtle insertion of those Christmassy warm and fuzzy feelings… because after all it’s Christmas. Check it out for yourself.

It creates engagement

People will engage with things that make them happy. Positivity breeds more positivity and creates a whole cycle of happy. What’s more is that humour is entertaining- it’s shareable and connects people because everyone loves a good laugh.
This can be seen very clearly when interacting with followers on social media. You could go down the usual professional route where the people replying to messages are somewhat robotic, or you could add a touch of friendliness and credibility by allowing the people behind your company to be themselves and show their human side.
Followers don’t want to feel like a number – they want to feel as though they’re talking to a real person, because after all they are. So by allowing your employee’s personalities to shine through you’ll be establishing a connection with the person on the other end.
So if someone writes something funny in your comments, a witty comeback (which doesn’t insult them) could win you points.
Old Spice and Cadbury have high engagement due to their quick wit.


Of course there are a few things you need to keep in mind – such as never crossing the thin line between being funny and being offensive, and that just because you make something funny it doesn’t mean it will work.
There’s a lot of thought that goes into marketing strategies and you must always think of every aspect and every little thing that could go wrong. Always come up with a plan B and always ensure that what you’re doing fits in with your company’s brand.
There is one golden rule you really have to follow though – you can’t have fun campaigns if the office life in your company is similar to that of a wilted lettuce leaf. If you want to have fun campaigns then you’ve got to be fun- otherwise you’re simply setting yourself up for failure.
Here at Switch we’re huge fans of fun. Feel free to drop us a line if you’d like to inject some humour into your campaigns and need some ideas!

The post H is for Humour appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Someone who is tracking a particular person, group, organisation, etc. on a social media website or application: she remains an immensely divisive figure, but she has a million followers on Facebook – The Oxford Dictionaries

Followers – they can make or break your brand.
How do you get them? What do you do with them? Are they really  that important?
These are all questions which will flit through any social media savvy person’s mind, but in truth these questions have been around for ages – even before social media.
Brands have always worked diligently at increasing their fan base – why? Because more people means more customers and that means more money.
There are many aspects to followers and there’s a lot that can be said about them, so here’s a breakdown.

What followers can do for you

Followers can do a variety of things. They can actually become paying customers, they can be ambassadors for your brand – preaching their love for it with everyone they meet, they can create engagement, and they can also generate content. If you show them love – they’ll show you double the amount.
Followers are like a group of hard working ants, they’ll work together to help build your brand and their loyalty will reap great rewards.

What you can do for your followers

It’s simple – show them you care. You’ve got to build a relationship with your followers – neglect them and they’ll give up on you. But if you treat them with respect and interact with them on a human level you’ll be showing that they’re important – which they are, because these days your brand is nothing if it doesn’t have followers.
Simply organising giveaways, sharing their content, or even sending out a thank you note every once in a while will make sure you’ve got a permanent place in their heart. At the end of the day we all want to be appreciated, these people are human beings and your brand should be human.

So how do you get them?

This is probably the million dollar question everyone keeps asking. Marketers work their fingers to the bones trying to come up with creative ways of attracting more followers, some going to crazy lengths and spending far too much money on this. The reality is that it’s not that hard – you just need to have a good head on your shoulders and the will to work.
There is off course the easy way out, and this is to go down the desperate route and simply follow hundreds of people in the hopes that they’ll follow you back. This might work on a short term scale – but in the long run you’ll end up with a skewed follow to follower ratio and probably won’t have valuable followers who genuinely care.
If you put a little bit of effort into it though you could end up with a healthy list of followers. Just follow these tips:

• Social media flirting – Spend some time each day going through the particular social media platform. Look for people with similar interests and like their posts. Comment on things you find very interesting, and where possible interact with people who don’t have a huge following. Going for the smaller users first will help you – they love receiving attention from brands as this makes them feel important, so go ahead and see what they’re up to. They might just provide you with inspiration!
• Create valuable content – If you want people to share your content then you’ve got to make sure it’s interesting. Get creative, share motivational or useful tips, and invest in high quality copy and visuals. With a bit of effort you’ll quickly get people sharing your content – increasing your brand’s visibility.
• Remain relevant – Get with the times, involve yourself in current trends, just make sure that the trend is in some way applicable to your brand.
• Cater for your audience – Don’t share the exact same content on all your social media platforms. Write specific copy for specific platforms so that you appeal to your readers. An instagram style post wouldn’t be effective on LinkedIn and vice versa.
• Be consistent – You’ve got to have a plan. Posting sporadically will mean that you’re not constantly at the top of your followers’ minds. So keep things regular in order to see great improvements.
• Analyse – this is perhaps one of the most important things in digital marketing. Crunch the numbers and see which posts do really well and why. Look into your audience’s demographics and learn from your mistakes.

The above are actually pretty simple – they just require dedication, but with a minimum of an hour a day you could boost your brand’s presence on social media and acquire loyal, loving followers who will be more than happy to shout our about how amazing you are.
Remember, it’s quality over quantity – you’re better off having 90 followers who really love your brand than 900 who never engage with you! If you’re stuck in a rut we’re happy to help, why not drop us a line?

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Anyone with an internet connection knows what email is. It’s a means of communication that has become a staple in our lives, and people will ask for an e-mail address way before asking for an address or even a mobile number.
Email is the perhaps the perfect means of communication – it can be formal or informal, it can be to one or many, and it can sometimes provide you with enough of a safety blanket for you to do things you might normally feel awkward doing – like saying hello to a complete stranger just because you thought their site was cool.
Of course we’re not saying email should replace face to face communication – but it’s definitely the perfect mediator.
There are a variety of ways to use email. Whether to simply communicate between your team, update people on the latest events through a newsletter, or use email campaigns to promote your latest products or offers. There’s a lot that can be done with a bit of creativity, but there are certain things which you should keep in mind, especially when emailing large groups of people.

1. Be Friendly

Just because you’re emailing someone it doesn’t mean you can’t be friendly. We’re not telling you to act like you’re their best friend but do your best to make yourself sound like a real person (you are a real person right?) People receive many e-mails each day and they get tired of reading the same kind of thing. So allow yourself to stand out.

2. Be Subtle

The last thing you want to do is remind the person you’re emailing that he or she is one out of a couple hundred people on a mailing list. Use personalisations where necessary and as much as possible make it sound like you’re speaking to them and no one else. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

3. Be Responsive

There are two sides to this story. First of all if you’re sending out newsletters make sure they’re mobile friendly – most people check their emails from their phone, so it’s no use having a beautifully designed newsletter if it can’t be read properly on mobile.
Secondly, if someone emails you – respond. It’s that simple! Oh, and while we’re at it, never use a ‘no reply’ email address, you’ll be completely destroying the communication cycle.

4. Be engaging

Since we just mentioned communication, remember to interact with the people you’re emailing. Sometimes you’ve got to forget about all the fancy html coding and just drop them a line asking what they think of the service.

5. Let them Opt Out

The truth is that they might have really wanted to subscribe at some point in their life, but now no longer enjoy seeing your name in their inbox. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it happens. So at least make the process simple and provide them the option of opting out.
These are just five basic insights, think of them as the five bases you’ve got to cover. If you’re curious to learn more about email marketing then check out these 10 tips or pop in for a chat.

The post E is for email appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Okay, so technically this isn’t one word. Forgive us for this one, but we felt it was far too important not to mention.
Those of you who are number crunching analysts might be wondering why we’ve decided to pull a Dr. Phil, but don’t worry – we’ll make it worth your while.
Developing relationships is important for obvious reasons, but in the world of Digital Marketing these reasons are sometimes forgotten. We get so caught up in calls to action, growth hacking, and KPIs that we forget what the root to all successful digital marketing is.
Marketing has always been linked to humans, stories, and relationships. Just because it has moved onto the digital aspect it doesn’t mean that this is any different. We don’t call them Social Media platforms for nothing.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Blogs…. you name it – they all involve a complex network of relationships. If the relationships were to end then so would the social media platforms.
So in what world would it make sense to create a marketing strategy which checks all the boxes but forgets about that one fundamental core – the development of relationships?

How do you do it?

You can’t exactly instantly become best friends with your consumers (without coming across as creepy) – but you can slowly build and develop a relationship with them.

Show them you’re human

If you want them to love you you’re going to give them something to love. Show that your brand is made of real people, not zombies.

Engage in conversation

Don’t be afraid to talk to your consumers. Ask them questions and reply in a genuine manner.
Simply using your first name could make all the difference.

Share content which they can relate to

Sometimes all it takes is a simple post which makes them smile. It could be as easy as a post related to Monday morning madness, or something about the weekend.

Be a Social Listener

Keep an eye on what people are saying about your brand. Do they love it or hate it and why? Reward those who love you and speak to those who have any problems.

Why do you do it?

You do it because you can. You do it because you’re human, and part of being human is the development of relationships. Gone are the days when companies shout at their audience in an attempt to get their attention. 2015 is the year of Human to Human marketing, so make it your aim to start developing relationships with your audiences in order to earn their loyalty.
If you’re still struggling to understand why developing relationships is so important then take a look at this:

So tell us… will you be bringing the love back?

The post D for Developing relationships appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Dos

Online marketing will be perfect for your company if you have a large local or international target and if your offers are constantly evolving; marketing itself is always changing. Here are the five rules of thumb for efficient online marketing.

1. Make a plan

One of the key elements in marketing is anticipation. You have a ton of questions to answer: Who? Where? When? How will you target people? In addition you have to be convinced by your offer before trying to convince anybody else. Make sure your plan is comprehensive and your offer understandable – it’s vital for converting potential customers into real ones.

2. Create a relationship

Make your brand known → Make your brand loved → Make people buy your product
The priority in marketing is to create a relationship between your company and your clients. Nowadays we are challenged to create proper relationships through social media and it can be difficult for a customer to feel close to an international brand. Besides, social media tends to become antisocial media, this is why you absolutely have to adapt your marketing to the different country or the different gender, or age. Be global but act local, thus, your brand image will be loved by clients.

3. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer

Competition is positive. It helps your company to continuously improve the service it offers, but in order to do that, you need to know your competitor. Regularly run a search on different social networks and see what your competitors are up to. Don’t try to do the same thing – it would be a waste of time and energy. Rather, try to do better!

 4. Be active

The internet, and our society as a whole, is always changing. According to Wearesocial.com 2078 billion social media accounts are active right now, so you must be too! Online marketing can really be a source of advantages if used well. Indeed the goal is not to be simply noticed, but to have relevant, updated and non redundant content. Your main mission is to catch the attention of the reader and make him want to come back to your website. It is essential for a company to have at least one person in charge of online marketing who will assure the company’s visibility on social media.

 5. Do your own research

Yes, the internet is useful, fast, and comprehensive. But since the internet is accessible by everyone, that means that everyone has the same information, the same “original” ideas. You are not everybody! Do your own research, borrow books from the nearest library, subscribe to a specialised magazine and take a look around you. If you are not taking any risks, nothing will come of your efforts. Obviously, this does not mean acting before thinking, but we’re definitely encouraging you to be more original and less fearful.

Don’ts

As useful and wonderful as online marketing is, that doesn’t mean that nothing can go wrong. A little slip up could easily damage your brand image. It’s all about e-reputation. You may know what you are posting on your blog, your Facebook wall or Pinterest board… but are you aware of what internet users think about your company?

1. Lie

More and more internet users tend to lose trust in brands because of their often exaggerated promises. Nowadays consumers look towards online peers for honest reviews and opinions. They ask questions on fora, they give advice on comparison websites and they share information about products. If you are lying about your products or capacities, you can be sure that it will be made public in the blink of an eye. Your brand will be damaged and it will be really hard to convince your clients that you are honest with them. The result? You risk losing them and any other potential customers.

 2. Spam

Yes, you have to update your content and keep it interesting, but if you post too often, followers might begin to resent the constant barrage of content. Schedule content so it’s spread over the day, not all at once. Users would want to find what they saw previously and show it to their friends so when you fill their feed with spam they would not be able to do this.

 3. Use poor language

The online marketing language can be less formal than a commercial brochure or a business letter, however bad language is banned! You have to take care of your spelling and make sure that the tone of voice isn’t too casual. Of course, adapt your writing style according to your company’s tone of voice. For instance it is not useful to put smiley faces everywhere if you are a professional appliances retailer.

 4. Waste your time

You cannot try to target everybody. By having an online marketing plan which is too vast, nobody will feel concerned about it. You have to focus on your main audience and take care of it. Do not waste your time and energy, instead of reaching everybody you will reach nobody!

5. Forget about SEO impact

Search Engine Optimization is a compulsory step for you to improve your online marketing. SEO is not that complicated, you can easily develop some skills by searching for information on suitable content. If you cannot do that for any reason, you will have to put somebody in charge of, it is true you will spend money to pay someone but it will quickly become profitable. SEO is one of the keys to success.
What you have to keep in mind…
Online marketing through social media is the first impression that potential clients will have of your company. This is simply the mirror image of your values, your work, and your relationship with the clients. Even if you’re not selling products on the internet, you should not disregard online marketing. Having a social media presence will broadcast a good brand image and let the customers know you are there for them!
If you want to find out more about how to improve your social media marketing, why not pop in for a chat over coffee?

The post Dos and Donts of Online Marketing – 10 Before 10:00 appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.