In their latest released quarterly report, Meta has highlighted that there’s been a drop of one million in global daily users, taking their figures down from 1.93 to 1.929. Added to the flat net growth of new users for Instagram and WhatsApp, the figures do not paint a pretty future for Meta. 

Websites lose people all the time. Why is this such a big deal?

Facebook isn’t a website. It’s the reason social media is the way it is, and for 18 years, it’s grown continuously, with a bulletproof stock and a formidable portfolio that just subsumes all other competing websites. At the height of its power and popularity, Facebook bought Instagram; it bought WhatsApp. It could do that, unchecked, because it had market lead and power behind it, and other start-ups couldn’t compete. 

Mark Zuckerberg said it himself: “we can likely always just buy any competitive startup.”

Now, Facebook is struggling. The drop in daily users also wiped out 26% in stock value, triggered Wall Street’s worst one-day stock decline in history, and just erased $232 billion of Facebook’s worth. 

And it pulled other tech stocks with it. 

Think of it like an ecosystem. Every ecosystem, no matter how small, relies on balance. 

For the first time in 18 years, Facebook has stumbled, and the balance of the entire social media ecosystem is in flux. 

Okay, so how did this happen?

This has been four years in the making, and it happened because Facebook ignored the signs over those four years.

When Cambridge Analytica’s Christopher Wylie came out and said that Facebook had been mining personal data from a just-for-academic-use app called This Is Your Digital Life, it hit Facebook right where it mattered most: in its unchecked, overwhelming obsession over growth. In 2018, the year of Ted Cruz and Trump and Brexit, the last thing any Facebook user wanted to add to their plate was realising their personal information had been stolen to support these causes. 

What are you talking about?

This Is Your Digital Life actually paid people to complete a Facebook survey. This was only supposed to be for academic research, but Facebook allowed it to keep mining data – and that data was later used in Ted Cruz’s campaign in the United States, Donald Trump’s campaign, and the push for Brexit. 

Collected data was used to create individual profiles that would sway people into voting for these events. The full investigation concluded that Cambridge Analytica’s influence was likely negligible (except for the Ted Cruz campaign) but that didn’t really matter: Facebook had placed itself on a side of history nobody wanted to be on – as the catalyst for some of the most chaotic political events in history, pulling the strings to influence the outcome. 

But if Facebook wasn’t found guilty—

Facebook was found guilty. 

But nothing really happened except for a handful of fines. 

At its core, Cambridge Analytica is a research firm. It’s a conservative research firm, dealing with private intelligence and the military, but it’s still just a research firm. 

Facebook is a social media company with a reach of billions, the kind of reach that a research firm can’t even dream of possessing. 

And Cambridge Analytica – with Facebook – reached it. 

Without Facebook’s consent, and without Facebook’s reach, Cambridge Analytica wouldn’t have managed to farm so much data from so many people to use for their tampering.

How does something that happened in 2018 lead to Facebook losing users four years later?

Facebook didn’t do anything with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. There’s been no reform – except for stringent ad measures that make it impossible to use Facebook for advertising – and there’s been no transparency about whether or not they’re still collecting that data or using the data. Mark Zuckerberg is a closed box on everything to do with 2018. 

However, people don’t forget. 

And when you have one big violation of privacy and trust, it’s never just one. 

In 2021, Sophie Zhang, another whistleblower, put another nail in the ‘Facebook is negligent at best and actively harmful at worst’ coffin. As part of the Facebook Site Integrity fake engagement team – yes, that’s a real thing – her task was to investigate the use of likes, comments, shares, and reactions, and see if they were made by real people. 

What she found went much deeper than that. 

Authoritarian regimes, such as in Honduras and Azerbaijan, could artificially inflate their popularity using bots and other fake entities. 

Facebook knew about it. 

Facebook did nothing because the bottom line would suffer otherwise, and Facebook’s first priority has always been Facebook. 

Wait, but Mark Zuckerberg said Tiktok was the reason that Facebook was losing users!

He’s right. 

Partially. 

The problem with Facebook is that it spent so much time at the top of its market that other competitors it didn’t consider as competitors have started to climb in popularity. TikTok boomed in the pandemic because its format – short form, bite size videos – and relatively scandal-free background made it appealing. There’s no agenda to TikTok except giving creators the room to share their creativity, a thing that Facebook has long since dropped in the reach for greater profits. 

Tiktok is definitely a reason for Facebook’s decline in popularity, but it’s about 1% of that reason. The rest is just pure Facebook shenanigans. 

Facebook’s rebranded though! And it’s doing so well! 

It’s not. 

The rebrand to Meta came on the heels of – you guessed it, another information scandal! Gold star for you. 

This time, the whistleblower was Frances Haugen, who joined Facebook in 2019 after someone she was close to was radicalised through Facebook. 

By 2021, Frances Haugen leaked ‘The Facebook Files’ to the Wall Street Journal, a collection of internal Facebook documents, online employee discussions and research reports that showed Facebook consistently, continuously ignoring the damaging effects that Facebook and Instagram had on the world. 

From influencing teenagers through Instagram to Facebook activity propping up violent insurrections like the January 6th Capitol riots, the Facebook Files didn’t just highlight that Facebook knew about its effects on people, but also that it did nothing to control it – and what it did do, such as implement an AI to detect and remove violent content, had an algorithm so poor that it only managed to act correctly less than 0.6% of the time. 

A few weeks later, Zuckerberg said that Facebook was rebranding itself as Meta, and focusing its next phase of growth on the metaverse. 

Oh, yeah! How’s that going?

The problem with putting all your eggs into the metaverse basket is that the technology that you’re working with has to be better than the technology people are used to. 

And it has to be cost effective. 

Virtual worlds where people could connect with others aren’t new: they’ve been around since the days of Runescape, World of Warcraft, and Playstation Home, and while you can make the argument that the metaverse is different from a virtual world lobby, the early analysis of Facebook’s launched virtual world are not great, considering that it’s not new tech, only tech that should be – realistically – better than a free-to-play MMO. 

So, poorly. Facebook’s metaverse push is going poorly. 

Its entire VR/AR/XR reality wing is losing money. Last year, it was $10.2 billion. Facebook’s VR headset, the Quest, has only sold around 10 million units – barely a fraction of what early VR headsets sold with less-capable tech. Zuckerberg isn’t shy about letting people know that the company is going towards more investment for VR and AR, but there’s the issue: who’s going to pay for it?

Facebook, the social media which has paid for it so far, is struggling. 

If it breaks, so does Meta. 

So… will it?

This is hard to answer, but the likelihood – given the way Facebook operates, its stringent focus on protecting itself – the chances are that things will have to change in order for Facebook to maintain itself. 

Turning a profit is another story. 

People have long memories. And Facebook hasn’t had one scandal, or two, or three: it’s had three scandals focused on how badly it mistreats and how little it cares about anything besides itself. It’s pushing for a technology that will be – at its core – out of the price range of a wide number of its users. It’s not innovating anything that users want. 

It still hasn’t addressed its algorithm problems, the AI failure, or where the data from Cambridge Analytica went. 

We talk a lot about how brands have to change to survive; how they have to adapt to consumers, not the other way around. How there’s likely, in your field and in ours, at least ten other companies offering the same product with better benefits or a cheaper price. 

This goes for big corporations as well as smaller ones. 

But in Facebook’s case, it’s had four years to address these reports. It’s had longer than that to adapt itself to a world that was always going to be this way: transparent, bare to criticism, and very competitive. 

Facebook is no longer unique. Facebook refuses to innovate. Facebook doesn’t want to put its consumers first. 

And if it doesn’t start to make changes, Facebook will struggle more. 

What do you think can save Facebook?

A time machine. 

But failing that, there’s not going to be a Facebook that thrives with Mark Zuckerberg still on its board. 

As we’ve seen with Twitter, companies have a tendency to outgrow their founders. To succeed, those founders have to step back. 

We don’t think Zuckerberg will resign – not on paper. As a PR stunt, or the result of forced governmental intervention, maybe, but not out of his own volition. 

And that’s the reality Facebook has to grapple with. 

But what does this mean for businesses?

Facebook seceding its market share means everything for businesses, especially if you advertise on Facebook or Instagram – which, if you advertise online, you kind of have to. 

To clarify: neither Facebook nor Instagram is on the brink of complete catastrophic failure. They’re still powerful, profitable businesses. And you can still use them to drive great ROI if you know what you’re doing. 

But the ground they’re standing on is getting thinner, and if it ruptures, the problems for businesses will all boil down to communications. 

How can you talk to a global audience without a platform to talk to them on?

And how can you make a profit from that?

Facebook’s business struggles impact every enterprise that uses Facebook to advertise, that puts pictures on Instagram, that sends out targeted messages with Whatsapp. This has been the status quo for 18 years. Advertising standards have been built on this pattern. 

If it falls, businesses will have to find a different way of communicating. 

The good thing is that there’s no end of ways to talk online – but you need to start figuring that out from now. Don’t wait until Facebook and Instagram become more obtuse to use, become saddled with even more add-ons, with even greater problems. 

Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat, Youtube: there’s different social medias out there that can be just as effective. 

You just need to pick a platform and start talking.

Or, if you really want to do the right thing, be on trend and focus on first-party data. Free yourself from the shackles of other platforms and build your own audience.

So – I’m okay for now?

For now. 

But all businesses have to start looking forward ten years into the future. This doesn’t even have anything to do with Facebook: it has to do with the way the world works now. 

As we’ve seen, things can change so rapidly, so blink-of-an-eye fast, that you can spend a year grappling to hold on. 

Start thinking about the worst case scenario now. Find your different social media of choice. Expand outwards. 

It makes for better storytelling, and it makes for a future-proof communication strategy. 

Facebook won’t fail this year or the next. 

But do you really want to take that risk?

The post What Facebook Losing Users Means for You appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Social media success, for a lot of brands, won’t look too dissimilar from social media success in general. Likes, comments, the fabled virality: a brand’s success on social media isn’t difficult to spot. 

This creates a problem. 

Social media success for brands isn’t the same as social media success for individuals. A social media campaign that did well might not necessarily have generated the kind of vanity metrics that it could have: maybe it’s just not that kind of campaign. It’s still a success – but it looks different from what social media success normally looks like. 

Campaigns that focus solely on vanity metrics are going to hit a wall eventually, and that wall is generating enough revenue to keep going. 

When we come up with a campaign, vanity metrics are on the sidelines: important, but not the crux of the campaign. 

Our crux is always sales. Generating sales, generating brand love that leads to sales, increasing sales: it all comes back down to sales. 

Vanity metrics are important. For established brands, they’re a check-in point to see if they still have the same pull over their audience. For new brands, they can heighten a brand’s awareness. 

But they don’t always lead to payoff. Building a campaign based just on vanity metrics is easy enough to do; just pick a trending topic, load up your post with hashtags, make sure to use the boldest colours – you’re all over the internet in no time. 

Does it have a tangible, lasting effect? Maybe. Maybe not. 

It’s a risky strategy to build your business on. 

And you need to know what you want to build your business on. Once you have a goal, it’s just a matter of fitting your strategy and KPIs around that goal.

Here’s a few examples on how. 

1. Gift a Kinnie Moment: using social media for a website launch

The challenge: introduce a newly-launched website during the first lockdown; maintain and elevate brand awareness. 

The situation: Gift a Kinnie Moment was launched a couple of months after the pandemic hit Malta – people were self-isolating, the outdoor world was shut down, and everyone was tired and worried about the future.

The strategy: The aim of this campaign was to promote the newly launched Kinnie website by sharing some love during a time of uncertainty. Through the site, people were invited to nominate friends and family to receive a Kinnie Gift delivered straight to their door. 

Since the objective was to get users onto the kinnie.com website, we launched a landing page campaign on social media through a set of ads that would showcase the mechanism of the promotion. 

Furthermore, we wanted to keep audiences engaged with the Kinnie website, so we introduced teasers for Kinnie recipe videos that could be watched for free on the website. 

The results: During the campaign, we received 6 times the number of entries that we’d planned for. 

The recipe videos increased Link Clicks by 12.6% and landing page views by 28%.

2. 1Run Campaign: the good kind of social media

The challenge: achieve €15,000 in marathon sponsorships; elevate the runners’ profiles on social media. 

 The situation: We supported two superhumans, Patrick and Claudio, on their journey through raising funds and promoting equal opportunities for all. 

Their responsibility was to run the entire 190km coastline of Malta and Gozo in a single 35-hour marathon.

Ours was to handle all their communication efforts to help them achieve their €15,000 target for the Education Support Fund administered by Kopin and JRS.

The strategy: To achieve their target, both runners needed a solid social media presence – and although the cause was a great one, we understood that people liking and commenting on a post would not generate the funds that the runners set out to achieve. 

We also had a €160 social media budget allocated to both Facebook and Instagram.

Therefore, our main aim was to target people who would donate and share the cause with their friends and families. 

During the weekend of the run, we kept the social media strategy going, employing hijack tactics to make it into the news feeds of as wide an audience as possible. With styled our social media updates like a news report, checking in live on Facebook and Instagram throughout the run. It meant having the Switch team covering the event for a solid 48 hours, taking turns to keep the stream of content flowing.

The result: We managed to reach 400,000 users, and had 21,000 engaged users during the two weeks leading up to the event and during the 35 hours run. 

We also helped raise over €23,000 for the cause.

3. Sigma: Competition submissions

The challenge: amplify SIGMA’s brand awareness; capitalise on the lockdown surge of home-DIY jobs; increase SIGMA’s brand love. 

The situation: Lockdown 2020 changed a lot of things, and the sales and advertising industries felt it deep. With things shutting down overnight, the reality was this: a lot of sectors took a hard hit. 

SIGMA was the outlier. When industrial purchases slowed, domestic purchases skyrocketed – and it gave off enough of a beacon that our client approached us with a challenge: can we make it bigger? And could we do it in spite of the magnified online marketing currently going on?

The strategy: The root of any good campaign is figuring out why people would want to look at it. With SIGMA paints, that was easy: people were taking advantage of the lockdown to spruce up their homes, and home projects always come with a built-in supply of local interest. 

So we built our strategy around that. We released a call for DIY projects and boosted posts asking locals to share their Lockdown Masterpieces with us. The only caveat? They had to be using SIGMA paints. 

The response was overwhelmingly positive, and we had to limit our selections quickly. Once we’d shortlisted ten sites, we went in person to view them and plan for a proper photoshoot; the final six were placed on social media, and people could vote for their favourites. 

Each photo had the owners of the location right in front of it to capitalise on personal equity and play with Facebook’s organic reach. After all, this was a people’s competition: we wanted to make sure that people were the front focus of the entire campaign. 

The result: Most ads generated a reach of over 95K each, and the competition contributed to an increase of 167.5% in organic page impressions. 

4. Lucy: purchases 

The challenge: create an e-commerce website for the LUCY Makeup Store with quick turnaround; promote makeup purchases during COVID-19 lockdown. 

The situation: When Franks approached us to launch an eCommerce project for Lucy Makeup Store, we were in the midst of the COVID pandemic. All of the physical stores had to remain closed and to counter the loss in revenue, LUCY needed to be online as fast as possible. 

The strategy: Building the website took priority for the initial start of the campaign, but with only two weeks’ development needed, our main goal became bringing in traffic to the website and generating sales. 

Our client came with a strong social media following of the biggest makeup fans on the island and we were able to leverage this audience in order to find other people that would love shopping at lucymakeup.com.

The off-page communications were split into two main types: evergreen and short-term campaigns. This approach ensured a steady stream of relevant content which in turn allowed us to generate a stable amount of traffic to the website, expand the Lucy audience, and keep our sales growing 

The result: We achieved an average 17% return on investment from month-to-month and our month-to-month ROI in March 2021 showed a 54X increase. 

5. Pjazza Kinnie: Showing brand love through tags

The challenge: maintain the Pjazza Kinnie event throughout COVID-19; create brand love through the use of social media tags. 

The situation: One of our favourite events must be Pjazza Kinnie at the Farsons Beer Festival in 2019. 

Our goal was to make a soft-drink stand out among the crowds, the noise, and the alcohol, and to build brand love for Kinnie at an event where the main feature and focus was alcohol. 

The strategy: We created a curated art corner that people could reach through a tunnel made of individually-programmed Kinnie-coloured lights. With live music and art exhibitions, people came to Pjazza Kinnie despite the lack of alcohol and stayed for the environment.

Our measurement of success wasn’t only defined by the foot traffic in the Pjazza Kinnie area, but also by the number of mentions that the space would generate online. 

The result: by the end of the event, half of the mentions that happened on social media about the festival were about Pjazza Kinnie, resulting in the soft-drink area being amongst the most talked of that year’s edition of the beer festival.

6. MCAST: Student Registration

The challenge: increase applications to MCAST; launch new prospectus; reach a broader audience than normal. 

The situation: Education in Malta is highly competitive, and several private and public entities already offer overlapping prospectuses. When MCAST approached us, it had a definitive understanding that its reputation should be a deciding factor for its students. 

The strategy: We operated on the assumption that we’d be communicating with two different sets of audiences: the students themselves, as well as parents who still exert an influence on their child’s education choices. We used ads and on-page content to increase awareness about MCAST’s multiple offerings, as well as chartering their career choices throughout the time they spent at MCAST. 

Our second-stage messaging focused all on MCAST benefits and the support that MCAST offered its students. 

Finally, we used the conversion stage to let audiences know that applications were open to help students make that final decision. 

Throughout all three stages of communication, we created information streams that added information about the college, life on the MCAST campus, and chartered different educational pathways. Our messaging remained simple throughout to appeal to the widest range of audience members. 

The result: Although our budget was small, we achieved over 327k impressions with the on-page posts, while the ads reached over 2.5 million impressions. 

7. Absolut: making content relevant to your market 

The challenge: increase social media engagement on the Absolut Malta Facebook page; create brand love through digital marketing. 

The situation: The content shared on the Absolut Malta Facebook Page was all produced by the Absolut global team: beautiful and high-value production content. However, the productions seemed far more similar to billboards and less like relevant Facebook posts. 

The strategy: if we wanted to build an audience of engaged users, we had to think of producing content that was both relevant and interesting to the people we were talking to. Following the creative direction established by the global team, we added a Maltese twist to our communication. Here are a few examples:

The result: On average, the localised posts received 1,300% times more engagement than the generic global content with only 50% more boost behind them.

What have we learned here?

Be deliberate with your communication. 

Social media has given markets access to achieving different goals – so whether you want to grow your brand love through user-generated content, generate leads, convert users or simply reach a wider audience, do make sure that every piece of content that your brand goes out with has a strategy in mind which includes a goal. And if you need a little support to achieve this, reach out – we’ll be happy to have a chat on how to maximise your social media efforts.

The post 7 Successful Social Media Campaigns (That Didn’t Focus on Vanity Metrics) appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

And we’re not just saying that.

For 2020, online traffic was 24% higher than it is now for the same month. Daily use of social media increased for 4 in 10 internet users globally, and apps that prioritised video and audio saw a marked jump in their popularity. 

With a sizable portion of the world’s consumers captive, it should have been a golden era for brand communication. 

The reality was different. 

Brands did capitalise on the benefits of having an audience that couldn’t escape advertising – but it didn’t always work out. They had to tread carefully to make sure that the audience they were speaking to didn’t turn away from the ads they’d taken time to put together; that those ads struck home, and turned into profit. 

A year ago, we wrote our eBook on how brands could do that (psst! it’s free – take a look!). 

A year later, we’re taking a look at what we wrote and seeing how it’s changed. 

Social Media: General

In 2020, we finished off our social media chapter with the following tips: 

1. Your tone needs to be relevant to the situation – show empathy and awareness.
2. Get creative. Look for alternative ways to create value for your customers, to support and educate them, whether it’s about your industry or the current situation.
3. Quality over quantity – don’t let your brand speak because it wants to say something. Your brand need only speak when it actually has something to say. 
4. Be relevant but not necessarily by speaking about the current situation. Everyone else is doing that. Be empathetic but also original. 
5. Engage with your audience by asking for direct feedback. Uncertain times are no time for broadcasts, they are times for active conversation.

In 2021, we say: 

The more we get into the days after the initial pandemic panic, the more we’re starting to see that COVID-19 didn’t exactly break the mold on communicating and advertising: it just brought to light what we always knew all along. 

The tips that we wrote in 2020 hold value today, they’ll hold value tomorrow, and they’ll hold value a hundred years from now. 

People are obsessed with social media. 

It’s where they go, whether it’s to look for news, follow their favourite celebrity, or dig up something to form an opinion on. For brands, this is a good thing: an audience on social media is an audience you can track, analyse, and monetise. 

But you need to know how to hold onto that audience first. 

And to hold onto that audience, you need to be human. Your social media needs to be human. Your brand needs to be human. 

You need to be human. 

Social Media: Strategies

In 2020, we wrote: 

Should I change my social media strategy? Yes, but let’s pick that apart. Firstly, no matter what product you’re selling, you should definitely take the time to look through your editorial calendar for the next few months, and make sure that your subject matter is constantly realigned with current realities and that there is empathy and compassion in your tone going forward. Anything that might sound tonedeaf can and will bring you the backlash that you definitely don’t need at this time. 

In 2021, we’re saying: 

That still holds true. You need an editorial calendar to make the most of social media – it’s not a ‘post something off the top of your head’ kind of medium any more. Social media takes planning, careful analysis, and tweaking to make it profitable and successful. Are there brands that get away with no planning? Sure. But the chances of you being one of those brands are small and growing smaller as a fed-up population uses their tiny amount of power where it matters most – on brands. 

As for if you should change your social media strategy – is it working for you? Are you happy with the way your socials are running? Can it be better? We’re personally a fan of changing your social media strategy until you’re sure it can’t get better. That can mean anything, depending on the brand you have. 

CASE STUDY: Google’s ‘Get Back to What You Love’ came a little bit out of the left field if you weren’t aware of their COVID-19 advertising campaign, but if you’re a fan of how Google tells its stories, you’ll notice what we’re about to tell you – the strategy is a work of art. Google’s perfected the understated narrative, and going back to their pandemic ‘search bar’-style advert was the perfect duological loop to enter into the next phase of their pandemic marketing. 

Social media: Content

In 2020, we wrote: 

Get creative! How can you create value online? Can you take your knowledge and teach? Can you offer product reviews? Can you start live video broadcasts

with Q&As? Can you find ways to educate your audience about your field? The goal is to add more individual, customised value versus what someone could find online themselves.

Whatever you do, don’t stop talking, otherwise you’ll be forgotten. However, remember that your content has to be in context with where your audience is. If your audience’s house is on fire, now isn’t the time to educate them on fire safety. 

In 2021, we’re saying: 

Creativity is still relevant. Creativity is always going to be relevant. People are so used to passive, low-effort posts that having a post that gives them something to think about will reach through the screen and grab their attention. Additionally, people love free content. Giving them valuable content – based on what you can teach, what you can do, what you can give – is one of the best ways to build a relationship with your audience that lasts. 

This doesn’t mean you should take over everyone’s feeds constantly. You need laser-precision. You need to know when to post what you’re posting so that it intersects with your audience’s life, not gives them another choice to make: listen to you, or keep doing what you’re doing? 

You need to talk. You need to make that conversation matter. And you need to make the content of that conversation relevant. 

This hasn’t changed post-pandemic. 

It just showed us how important it is. 

CASE STUDY: Extra’s ‘For When It’s Time’ made the rounds way back when it came out, and even within our agency, it’s controversial: people found it gross, people found it genius, people loved the direction, people thought it was overblown. Love it or hate it, you have to admit: it’s eye-catching, it’s funny, and it’s creative. That makes it memorable. And when something is memorable, you’ve hooked an audience into listening to you, seeing what you’re going to get up to next, and following what you do in the hopes they’ll see more of what makes them laugh. 

Social Media: Community

In 2020, we wrote: 

During a time of uncertainty, people look for support and reassurance whilst trying to adapt to a new way of living, communicating and working. They will be turning to online communities for this purpose. Facebook Groups provide fertile ground for long-lasting connections with your audience, especially at a time of uncertainty.

In 2021, we’re saying: 

Facebook groups are amazing – if you’re willing to spend some time building a community there. Though people are spending less time online than they were during the pandemic, those connections that they’ve brokered – with brands, with each other – will last through that, so if you’ve spent time building those connections, here’s our advice: keep them going. An audience that feels for your brand the same way they feel for their friends is fundamental to make it on social media.

CASE STUDY: Guinness’ advertising consistently rated highly among people who watched them, whether it’s because they follow the brand directly on social media or were directed to it, and this is why. Even if you’re not a Guinness drinker, ‘Welcome Back’ makes you a part of the fold, gives you a reason to feel like you belong. That’s powerful. Profit is never going to stand in for community, and Guinness shows us why. 

Social Media: What’s Changed?

We said at the start that COVID-19 didn’t change social media; it just made us more aware of what it actually means to use it. To start a social media account and make it work for you takes time. 

It takes patience and effort. It takes empathy. It takes the understanding that your brand is never going to go back to the days when it could advertise half off, and float on from year to year. Price is important; it’s no longer the only thing that’s important. 

What your brand did, and didn’t do, when people needed it matters more. How your brand talks matters more. 

In essence, nothing has changed about social media. 

A lot has changed about the people who use it. It’s become more unforgiving, less likely to avoid disaster, and more likely to create problems for you if you don’t use it right. 

So use it right. Read our ebook, read our articles, ask us questions if you want. 

We’re here to help.

The post What Do We Do Now? Social Media Strategies for (Almost) Post-Pandemic appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

But you need to use it right for the best benefits.

Over Facebook and Instagram, there are 4M story ads uploaded every month and 1BN stories shared every day. It’s a lot of content to cut through, especially if you want to take advantage of the 58% that learns about a product on social media and immediately wants to go and buy it. 

However, without a plan on how exactly you’re going to use your social media, all of that money spent targeting and putting up beautiful ads can net you nothing. 

Here’s how to start planning and stop wasting your effort on socials. 

Are you measuring success?

You need to know what works for you before you can make it. Similar to mapping out a route to visit a local hot spot, picking a vague direction and hoping for the best only really works out in movies. Most likely, you’re going to wind up lost, stuck in traffic, angry, and out a few Euros, not discovering the long lost landscape of your dreams. So, dial back the enthusiasm and start right. 

By testing. 

We’ve spoken a little bit about the importance of testing your social media strategy. We’re going to speak about it more here because it’s fundamental that you know exactly what you’re doing on social media to avoid getting lost in the stream of irrelevant content, content that doesn’t apply to your audience, or content that just doesn’t connect. 

What content types do you post on your pages? Is it just sales ads, is it engagement-related, is it posting straight from your mind? Do you use stories or just text? Do you throw images in at the last second, or have them planned out in advance?

Where are your sales coming from? What posts are getting the greatest engagement? 

It’s easy to chart a successful post. There’s always going to be evidence of people liking it, and if you’re lucky, of what they like: the picture, the tone, the way you’re addressing the audience. A post with likes, comments, and shares is easy to pick apart and sift through the remains, looking for what makes it work. 

A post with nothing gives you nothing.

So start with nothing. Post one type of content, see how it works. Vary it up the next time you post, see if it does better. 

You need to know what you’re measuring. 

You need to know what’s working. 

Without a goal in mind, you might as well hire a single man to stand on an unspecified road in Gzira and shout about your latest offers – it’s the same drop-in-the-ocean luck that you’ll get from posting on socials without a goal. 

Are you looking past the short-term benefits?

Let’s say your goal is to get more likes. 

Okay. 

What happens after that?

Likes, reactions, video views, and shares are important, don’t get us wrong. But they’re only important to make your Facebook or Instagram page look good, and to give you a basic breakdown of how many people are interested in your content. 

Beyond that, vanity metrics – where it’s focused specifically on pimping out your page for likes and comments – don’t really have any real-world benefits. People who like your posts might not buy your product. Maybe you do a great line in humorous adspeak – great! – but there’s tons of brands out there who are funny and who manage to keep themselves afloat by selling. If people are following and reacting to your posts, but the engagement stops there, that’s a problem. 

And that’s a problem that starts with you. 

Look: vanity metrics are good if you want to justify to your CEO that what you’re doing has traction. Spending money on just those metrics will just lead to a loss in the long-run since the audience you are actively seeking out isn’t always going to be interested in making a purchase. 

You’re just being funny on the internet. 

And you’re paying for it. Literally. 

What are the long-term benefits?

Brand recognition. Building a community. Building authority. 

User-generated content that comes from the people who love your brand. 

Website traffic. 

Customer service that people write glowing reviews of. 

Clever, long-term use of social media is a money-saver. When you have brand recognition and a loyal customer base, you have a tailor-made safety net to keep your business going, even when something like a highly infectious viral pandemic takes a chunk out of your profits. 

Audiences that are a fan of what you’re selling happen because you put time and money into building the right community on your social media channels. When you have that fanbase, you don’t need to spend large amounts of money to convert: they’ll follow your brand page, and hype up your products with a minimum amount of input. 

Just take a look at Apple.

Are you engaging with your audience?

Your business idea is gold. You’re pretty sure you’ve found the Product to End All Products In Its Category: a throw-back to liminal, long-houred summers, something that everyone has fond memories of. 

It’s been a while since you’ve posted on your Facebook page, but that shouldn’t matter. This is the product that’s going to go viral. 

Problems with virality aside, that’s just not how it works. 

Ernesta, our head of social, says: “Think of social media as a conversation, not a billboard. One of the main benefits of social media is that brands have direct access to their audience, and vice-versa. Creating conversations with your audience helps to understand who they are, where they are, and what they want. That way you can adjust your strategy towards success.

If you only use your Facebook page to post updates on your business hours and advertise a sale here and there, your audience doesn’t have a connection with you; they have a condensed form of what they could find out if they came to the store in person. 

Creating a social media strategy that works includes talking to your audience. 

So talk to them. 

Do you understand your audience?

Most businesses will have more than one audience and more than one priority, overlapping or phasing into different ones depending on business cycles. That’s normal. 

You need to know how to talk to all of them, and you’re not going to know when it’s the right time or how to talk to them without trial and error.

And that’s where testing comes in. 

Ernesta, our social media specialist says: Testing lets marketers make their message relevant to each audience and keeps their marketing spend in check in a way that brings the maximum results for the business. Test everything from captions and images to timing, placements and more. We recommend setting up objectives for each test, test aggressively, document your findings, make changes and repeat!

Are you gathering information to plan better content?

How are you keeping track of what you’re doing and how you’re doing it differently each time? We’re fans of Excel and the Microsoft Office suite for a lot of multiuse applications, but for this, you’ll need something with a little more tailoring. 

You need a technical set up. 

As Ernesta points out, “you can gather all of the data in the world and it will be completely useless if you don’t look at it methodically for your business. Create a set of objectives that you are interested in testing, ask questions you want answered, and go from there. Whatever data will be the most relevant, and what adjustments will need to be made, will become obvious. That’ll help you plan your communications better.”

What’s happening with your website?

Ernesta is a big, big fan of websites. 

As she says, “leveraging social media integration is how you can increase your website traffic and its authority. By using social media accounts as an extension of your marketing strategy, you give the audience more ways to interact and connect with your brand.”

And more connection is always better, especially now. 

There are two ways you can go ahead with this: 

1. Direct your social media audience to your website. Use link-in-post, link-in-bio, call to action buttons that send people to your website on moving ads, the works. They’re all effective. 
2. Link your social media accounts to your website to make it easier. Clickable icons will cut down a lot of effort in actually opening a separate website, typing in the social media page, finding your page: it’s just easier. And people love easier. 

By using your website and your social media in tandem, people can keep up with how your brand is changing and advancing. They can stay in touch with you as you adapt to new challenges and launch new products, and make your connection to them feel like it’s always been there. 

Luke has a secondary comment on this: “Leveraging your website for social media means finding ways to communicate more effectively with consumers who have already shown an interest in buying from you. For example, if 10% of all your website visitors spend over 2 minutes browsing and visit multiple pages, they’re likely quite interested in what you have to offer. Using a well-organised social media setup, you can communicate specific messages to those high-interest individuals. The possibilities for meaningful communication are endless.”

Meaningful communication. 

That’s what everyone is looking for. That’s what everyone’s been looking for ever since the economic downturn of the late nineties, ever since communicating with your audience became the way to sell, and not a way to sell. 

If you’re still stuck in the part of history where selling is all about lower prices and undercutting the competition and having the loudest, most-attention seeking ads, we’re sorry to say that you’ve missed out on a couple of decades of ad development. It happened quickly, so you’re forgiven, but you need to get on that now. 

If you haven’t missed it, but you don’t know where to start, here’s your sign to start: do it now. Do it before it’s too late. Tell better stories. Tell stories that matter. 

We’ll help you. 

In the meantime, prepare yourself for 2022 by reading up on the most popular marketing trends of the year.

The post How to Save Time (and Money) with Social Media appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

What started as a way to share files and images, keep in touch with old friends, and connect to other people through the internet has ballooned into its own unique internet subculture and social language, and created an industry based around conversations. 

And it isn’t just because the tech has changed. In many ways, the same tech that formed the exoskeleton of Web 1.0 stayed for Web 2.0. 

But we use it in a completely different way. 

The audiences, and how they communicate, have changed. So have the ways in which they communicate: from public chat to tiny, microscopic pockets on the internet; from sweeping forums to a particular, and singular, post on a singular page. 

Social media.

Whether it’s a brand poll on Instagram, a Facebook review, or a LinkedIn connection, social media has evolved into the most effective way to connect with your audience and have a conversation in a virtual space. 

And brands tend to misuse it. 

We’ve all seen a social media post that made us roll our eyes. With our friends and family, ignoring that post and all the subsequently ridiculous posts that crop up isn’t really an issue; your friends and family are (mostly) not trying to sell you anything. 

With brands, when we see a social media post that rings out false, the ramifications are much stronger than just ignoring it. 

Brands are being held to a higher standard now. The one channel where they can connect to an audience more or less freely – allowing different facets of brand personality to shine through, communicating in a way that’s varied from official communications – and brands stumble when using it.

Mistakes happen to everyone. 

Brands can’t afford to let them happen to them. 

Social media is a mirror. The way brands use it to communicate is held up as a reflection of the way the brand acts, what it supports, and how it treats its audience and consumers. Whatever happens on social media tends to have real-world ramifications for the brand.

This didn’t used to happen. Social media used to be just another platform; one more place to post an ad, and let it do whatever ads do when they’re not supervised. Like buying a billboard, only much smaller, and with a much wider reach. 

Today, the way social media works is far more finicky, but brands haven’t moved out of their ‘billboard’ phase, and haven’t elaborated their strategies beyond ‘put it on social media and see what happens’. 

That needs to change now. 

What to look out for

We spend a lot of our time on social media – both personally and professionally. It’s easier for us to pinpoint where brands go wrong than it would be for your average consumer. 

It doesn’t mean that they don’t notice. 

It just means that they might not know why a particular post just feels off. 

However, the outcome is the same: if your audience isn’t happy with how you’re posting, then you’ve lost that audience or dented their trust in you. And, right now, trust is everything. 

Here are a few things we see that can do more harm than good when it comes to using your socials. 

Co-opting hashtags

We see this a lot when it comes to movements – Black Lives Matter is one of the more recent examples. While showing support for a movement is always a good thing, only doing it on social media is not really the way to go around it. Social media is geared towards building traction: likes, comments, reblogs, all of them used to elevate whoever is using them and draw it to attention. Brands that co-opt popular hashtags like this normally don’t do a baseline amount of research to see what they’re allegedly supporting; and without the acts to back it up, it just comes off as false and pandering. 

Social media apologies

Even when done well, brand apologies on social media will come off as fake. Part of this is due to the proliferation of apologies going around right now: brands that make mistakes, influencers getting caught out doing something stupid, public figures behaving badly. Part of it is due to the fact that, after brands apologise, nothing changes, rendering both the apology and the brand’s trustworthiness moot. 

Follow up your brand apology with a lasting, behavioural change, and you might get somewhere. If you show proof that you apologised and meant it, that’s different. 

‘For exposure’ marketing

Nobody likes working for free. Brands that don’t offer to pay their collaborators are primed to become the internet’s public enemy number one, especially with the conversations always going around about charging what you’re worth. This goes for artists, mostly, but also for influencers, models, and anyone else who has a skill that the company or brand wants to exploit. It isn’t a good look to get caught begging for free things from a notable public figure; today, the audience you are speaking to wants to know that the brands they frequent have enough fairness to pay people what they’re worth. 

Our social media specialist, Ernesta, says:  “Even though the value of creators’ content for the brand is high, some brands would rather pay the same amount for a billboard. They see online creators as an extension of their digital channels, which in their mind should be almost free, and that shows a lack of partnership mentalities with brands and influencers and creators.” 

Choosing the wrong influencers

Would you buy a car recommended to you by an interior designer? Brands need to know who they’re collaborating with: who their audience is, what their audience will respond to, how they can talk to their audience in a way that will bring them value. One of the ways to do this is by partnering with influencers. 

But it has to be the right influencer. 

Fashion bloggers for fashion brands. Fitness influencers for gym equipment. Makeup youtubers for beauty content. 

Making sure you tailor the influencer to the content shows that you understand the influencer themselves, and that you’re opting for a mutually-beneficial partnership. Picking an influencer just for the amount of followers they have to sell a product that has no relevance shows that you don’t care. 

Expensive ‘green’ options

Sustainability isn’t all priced equally, and that’s alright. However, big corporations that opt into ‘green’ products with a higher price tag are forcing audiences to choose between their morals and their budget, and it’s not an easy decision for anyone. 

Furthermore, when someone with a lesser-known brand can make it cheaper, they’ll usually get talked out of the same space by multibillion brands with a greater chunk of the conversational pie. 

Kim also has a point to make about ‘greenwashing’. She says, “Greenwashing is a strategy used by brands that are neither ethical nor sustainable use to make consumers believe that they are. This is used a lot in the fashion industry, by a lot of fast fashion brands. Since people are more aware of the impact of clothes production on people and the environment, it’s in a brand’s best interest to make consumers believe that they care and that their production lines are made ethically and sustainably.  Deceiving people into thinking that they’re green is also illegal but it’s a lot more subjective, meaning that with good lawyers and the right word choices, they can get away with how they label and market their clothes.”

Laziness

Every social media platform has its own nuances. 

Most brands choose to ignore that. 

The language that works on Facebook won’t get you the same reaction on Instagram. Copying and pasting a Tweet into LinkedIn loses all of its nuance. What made a particular post work well on one social media platform – whether it’s down to content or language – is not going to work on another platform in the same way, if at all. 

But brands choose to take posts from one social platform and put it onto another, usually by copying and pasting and leaving it on their pages without editing or changing it up. Broken links, hashtags that don’t translate, and language that doesn’t ‘go’ on that platform: all of these pull focus away from the message that you are trying to convey. 

Reducing brand presence

A strong brand should have a strong tone of voice. Watering it down for the sake of adapting to a social media platform doesn’t help the brand maintain originality, and makes it easier to lose in the noise of socials.

It’s important to fit in on social media – to use language that works with the platforms, to talk in a way that fits the platform. It doesn’t mean you should stop talking like you. 

Usage

An inactive page is never interesting. An inactive page rife with content is worse. If the page can’t gain traction even with constantly posting, posting more is never the answer. 

Additionally, brands need to stop replying to just the good comments. Responding to comments is a powerful way to connect to an audience on a different level, but only responding to the good comments and hiding the bad just means you can’t handle bad press. 

Misunderstanding of the tools

Adverts which push you to a page that doesn’t service your country don’t do anything except annoy the people that get them. It’s a waste of money and a waste of time, and with so many other brands working to get things perfect, the least you need to focus on is getting things correct. 

Bots – the newest roll out – are usually poorly implemented. They won’t sound human enough to appeal to your audience, or they haven’t been programmed with the right answers; when in doubt, best not use them at all. (In Melissa’s own words: “nothing is more frustrating than brands trying to use bots to sound human, but actually ruin the experience completely.”

Tools also change. Brands that rely on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok as remaining stable and unchanging are just wasting their own time. With algorithms changing often and social media frequently updating the way they work, brands who don’t keep up with adjustments fall behind, and fall behind fast. 

Design

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but an ugly ad is not going to be considered beautiful by any metric. Bad design, such as ads that work on print media and are just cropped for social media, is another corner-cut that makes it clear social media is an afterthought for you. 

Most brands also don’t maximise their design to take advantage of the platform they’re using. Stories for Instagram should be made separately from posts for Facebook, rather than just cropping or reposting an existing image. That little bit of care goes a long way to showing that you care about your audience enough to give them content that matters. 

According to Andrea, our head of design, “there are still so many ads that pop up that have not realised that social is a medium in and of itself.”

What do you do instead?

A lot of the mistakes we’ve talked about just tend to happen. Social media is still a relatively new way of advertising, and brands aren’t used to it – yet – or to the fact that the rules made up for social media evolved naturally. They weren’t there at the start. Things just happened. 

That spontaneity is why social media advertising is simultaneously the best and the worst way to connect with an audience on a deeper level. Figuring out the best way to put forward a calculated post – and still have it seem spontaneous – is on a different level entirely. 

Here’s some tips to help cut down on some of those social media gaffes: 

• Adapt your language to social media, but don’t change your tone of voice. If you’re a brand that doesn’t sound like it will use emojis, using them purely on Instagram is going to ring false. 
• Research the hashtags you’re using. Never jump on a trending hashtag without knowing what it’s for. 
• Similarly, research the influencers you want to collaborate with. Your product is going to be associated with them; you’ll want to make sure it’s the right association. 
• Design your posts separately. Don’t copy and paste, or crop. Each platform has different requirements for design that you’ll need to follow. 
• Don’t post about something you can’t verify. Virtue-signalling on social media has a nasty way of exploding in your face. 
• Stay up to date with how other people are using the platform. Not your competitors: normal users. They can pinpoint if there’s been a change. 
• Ask for help. Social is confusing even for the pros. You shouldn’t be ashamed about making it less confusing for yourself. 

The post Social Media Behaviour that Needs to Stop, or What Drives our Social Media Team Crazy appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

#TAKEMETOMALTA

March was another busy month for Switch. After winning the pitch for Air Malta’s New Destinations Campaign, we got straight to work on both the advertising campaign and influencer campaign. A tight deadline loomed, but the excitement in the agency was palpable. This was going to be bigger than anything we’d worked on in a while.
The brief was straightforward: we needed to promote Air Malta’s new destinations outside of Malta. Locally, Air Malta is one of the top of mind brands when it comes to airlines, but it is still not that established abroad – especially in areas in which it hadn’t been operating.
The digital advertising campaign is vast, targeting 7 countries and the respective audiences within those regions. This gave us all the more reason for the ads to be as relatable, personalised and engaging as possible. If the message was going to be memorable, we needed to make it stand out among the noise.

Things didn’t stop there though. We were lucky to be working with a team at Air Malta that was open to fresh ideas, so we were thrilled when they agreed to work on something we truly believe in: Influencer Marketing. We’ve been proud advocates of Influencer Marketing from day one, and we’ve helped many brands expand their business through local collaborations – but Air Malta gave us the opportunity to take it one step further. We invited international influencers to Malta for a destination marketing campaign: #TAKEMETOMALTA.

THE SPONSORS

Between the 20th and 23rd April, we hosted 17 bloggers and influencers on our islands, on behalf of Air Malta. The goal was to show them the best that Malta has to offer through a destination marketing campaign.
Our work was cut out for us. Our target audiences in the 7 new destinations consider Malta to be a ‘party island’, a destination only ideal for students who wish to take a three-week booze-fuelled vacation away from their parents who think they’re ‘studying English’. We wanted to change that misconception; so we planned a three-day event to show the most Instagrammable places around the island. We wanted to ensure that the influencers (and their combined following of 5.2M) would see the gem we’re living in, and want to experience it themselves.
There was one restriction: we had to work within the initial budget allocated for the digital campaign. To work around this, Air Malta agreed to let us look for partners to help us make Malta’s biggest destination marketing campaign happen without breaking the bank.
The response was great – Corinthia Hotels were soon on board, providing accommodation through their three hotels (Corinthia Palace, Corinthia St George and Marina Hotel), and a delicious five-star welcome dinner at Villa Corinthia on the influencers’ first night.

A post shared by Vladisláv Karpyuk (@vladislavkarpyuk) on Apr 22, 2018 at 10:40am PDT

Ecabs also signed up as sponsors, providing transport throughout the duration of the event. From airport pickups, to drop-offs around the Island – the influencers were treated to first class transport.

A post shared by eCabs (@ecabsmalta) on May 5, 2018 at 2:54am PDT

Trabuxu, one of our favourite wine bars in Valletta, provided the perfect afternoon snack – a combination of excellent wine with cold cuts and cheeses, well needed after a stroll around the capital city.

One of our own clients, Danny’s, offered us a fantastic lunch after a long day of exploring the gems that the south of Malta has to offer (and yes, the influencers got to try their famous spicy beef cheek linguine, which they loved).

If there’s one thing we know, is that there can never be enough food. We were thrilled to collaborate with de Mondion from Xara Palace, who provided first-class service and food for the influencers‘ last dinner (and can we please talk about the view? ????)

A post shared by Xara Palace Relais & Chateaux (@thexarapalace) on Oct 9, 2017 at 8:57am PDT

THE INFLUENCERS

Finding the right people to work with for each new route took quite some time. We were after a balance of travel bloggers (people who are followed because of the blogs they write) and travel influencers (the ones who are known for their beautiful photos and short, yet useful, captions).
We opted for quality over quantity, as it was important for Air Malta to create meaningful conversations. Because of this, we chose to collaborate with ‘micro’ influencers over ‘macro’ influencers. This being said, there was nothing micro about the combined number of followers that our influencers had across their social media platforms: 5.2 million followers is no mean feat.
From Spain, we had:
Irene & David, from the Traga Viajes blog – a dynamic couple who are always on the go exploring and visiting new places.

A post shared by tragaviajes.com – Foto???? Vídeo???? (@tragaviajes) on Apr 23, 2018 at 11:59am PDT

Alii Moron, fashion and travel influencer – with over 160K followers on Instagram, Alii is known for promoting beautiful outfits in beautiful destinations.

A post shared by A L I I M O R Ó N (@aliimoron) on Apr 20, 2018 at 7:46am PDT

Dani Keral, blogger at Un Viaje Creativo – Dani travels the world with a camera in one hand, and a pen in the other.

A post shared by Un Viaje Creativo (@danikeral) on Apr 21, 2018 at 10:15am PDT

Nadia & Javi, the power couple from Travel the Life & Javi Cubo – this Spanish power couple have started travelling the world back in 2002. They’ve visited over 30 countries and launched their blog and social platforms in 2015.

A post shared by Javier Cubo (@javicubo) on Apr 27, 2018 at 12:41pm PDT

From Russia, we had:
Vladislav Karpyuk, the adventurous Instagrammer. Vlad has two obsessions: heights and puddles. If you scroll through his Instagram profile, you’ll see breathtaking views taken from the roofs of buildings, or stunning water reflections in puddles.

A post shared by Vladisláv Karpyuk (@vladislavkarpyuk) on Apr 25, 2018 at 10:45am PDT

Yulia Taskaeva, beauty and travel blogger – When she’s not travelling to Paris or Coachella for work and leisure, Yulia is either studying for her Uni exams or swatching lipsticks for her next blog.

A post shared by yulia taskaeva (@juliataskaeva) on May 2, 2018 at 1:00am PDT

Valeriya Kornacheva, traveller & photographer – Valeriya photoblogs her life, from places she’s seen (over 40 countries), to hotels she’s stayed at, to languages she’s learned and food she’s tasted.

A post shared by ????Traveler ????Photographer (@v_kornacheva) on Apr 20, 2018 at 3:39pm PDT

From Portugal, we had:
Susana Ribeiro, the solo traveller from Viaje Comigo – Susana started writing about her travels in 2013, and since then has won two awards for her blog. Her passion for discovering new places has taken her everywhere around the world!

A post shared by Viaje Comigo – Susana Ribeiro (@viajecomigo_susanaribeiro) on Apr 28, 2018 at 9:53am PDT

Carla & Rui, the travelling teachers from Viajar entre Viagens – when a geography and physics teacher decide to start a blog, no one can stop them. In between school holidays and days off, Carla & Rui have managed to tick off many countries from their list, and Malta was one of them!

A post shared by Viajar entre Viagens (@viajar_entre_viagens) on May 1, 2018 at 10:03am PDT

From Italy, we had:
Nunzia Cillo, writer and photographer – Italy is her home, but her heart belongs to the world. Nunzia writes about beauty, fashion and lifestyle, all while visiting and exploring new places.

A post shared by Nunzia Cillo (@nunziacillo) on Apr 25, 2018 at 1:15pm PDT

From Israel, we had:
Ella, hilarious blogger from Ella Travels Word – Possibly one of the most dynamic and hilarious people we’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. She’s passionate about everything, and visits every place with an open mind, no expectations and curiosity to learn about everything.

A post shared by Ella (@ellatravelsworld) on Apr 25, 2018 at 11:16am PDT

From Morocco, we had:
Zeineb Laouni, beauty and travel vlogger – Zei is a famous radio host by day, but has grown her following due to her passion for all things beauty and her curiosity to visit new places.

A post shared by Zeineb Laouni (@zeibeauty) on Apr 21, 2018 at 11:52am PDT

THE AIM

We had one goal in mind for this destination marketing campaign: to promote Malta as a holiday destination by showing how easily accessible it is thanks to Air Malta’s new routes.
Every detail of the three-day event was strategically planned in order to encourage the influencers to promote the Island, the airline and the sponsors. We took them to Malta’s most Instagrammable spots. We planned each location stop at the right time of day to ensure the best lighting for photos and videos, and we ensured that each meal was worth photographing. In a nutshell, we made sure that wherever the influencers were, there was a good-looking story to tell.
We encouraged the use of the hashtag #TAKEMETOMALTA for every tweet, story, post, blog and vlog shared related to the Air Malta’s destination marketing campaign – which resulted in over 300 posts in just under a week.

A post shared by Nadia ???? Travel the Life (@travelthelife) on Apr 25, 2018 at 2:04pm PDT

THE ACHIEVEMENTS

It’s been almost three weeks since we hosted the influencers, and the results are still pouring in. To date, we’ve recorded over 1,150 posts, stories, tweets, blogs and vlogs that were shared in relation to the destination marketing campaign #TAKEMETOMALTA; not including the blogs and vlogs that are still yet to be published, and all the photos that haven’t yet been shared.
Considering the tight budget and limited timeframe we had to work with, we were (and still are) overwhelmed with the positive results. We’re still compiling reports (the numbers keep growing by the hour!) but we can proudly say that the campaign was a resounding success.

A post shared by Nunzia Cillo (@nunziacillo) on Apr 23, 2018 at 10:13am PDT

The next stage was just as fun. As all the influencers returned home and continued to promote Malta and Air Malta (along with Corinthia Hotels and our other partners), we started rolling out the digital ads – a mix of social, Google, Yandex and VK ads) to promote the direct flights to Malta in each new destination.
This is just the beginning. As more conversations happen online, our aim is to reinforce the message that Malta is now more accessible, thanks to Air Malta’s new direct routes.
Keep your eyes peeled for the final results – we’ll be sharing them on our page the minute we have them.

The post Destination Marketing | Air Malta's International Influencer Campaign 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.

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My year at Switch

As I celebrate my first year at Switch, I’ve decided to look back at what I’ve learnt throughout this incredible year. This may be a bit of a cheesy post, but it will help you get a clearer idea of what Switch is. Most importantly you will find out who is part of this ever-growing family.

Switch is like a family

This was a relatively new concept for me, and it might have taken me a little longer than normal to get used to the idea that at Switch, people are more than just office colleagues. My background before Switch was a very monotonous office life, where you only ever meet your colleagues at work and during the occasional Christmas office party. Very little to no socialisation took place within the office, and you were given little knowledge about who you were working with. At Switch things are different – you are more than just a number within a company. There is a strong sense of community, of helping one another. The numerous team building events, beers in the boardroom, outdoor adventures, and the long chats over lunch have created a fantastic work environment. Thanks to this, there is a strong support system – we are all here for each other, and we don’t ever allow panic to take over. If one is in need of an extra hand for a project, I can assure you that five will be presented to them, and that’s just, plain, straight awesome.

Switch is an enabler

One year into Switch, and I feel like I have learnt more here than I ever have throughout my three years as an undergraduate student at University. Switch has pushed me into researching, learning and practising what interests and passionates me. Every day I am encouraged to do something I love and to always improve in what I do. Thanks to Switch I breathe and live social media, and I am constantly learning more about it. I write interesting content in-house and for our clients. My obsessive-compulsive planning disorder is actually appreciated, as I try to always plan my work, have content ready months ahead and create colour-coded to-do lists and content calendars.

Switch thinks outside the box

Really and truly, Switch is made up of creative humans that share a place together for approximately forty hours a week. Each and every person in the company has a beautiful brain that is capable of imagining and creating breathtaking works. The best brainstorming sessions are the ones where we gather all the team in one room, and throw anything we can think of on the table, to then go through each and every idea and pick the winning one. Everyone has a say, every idea is a good idea, and we work together to think outside the box. It’s fascinating, inspiring and motivating working with such a creative bunch of people.

Switch is transparent

Switch is constantly working to become the agency of transparency – how? Check out Martina’s Office Bloggers to find out. Yes, there have been bumps along the way. Yes, there will certainly be more. After all, we are humans, we make mistakes, and nothing can ever run as smoothly as we wish. Having said this, Switch is transparent with its employees and clients. It is a very straightforward way of working, where everything is communicated. That’s right, everything. If we think your idea is terrible we won’t sweet talk you out of it, but we will plainly and simply tell you to not go ahead. We are an honest and straight-talking bunch.   

Switch builds relationships

That is certain. If you either work for or with Switch, you are bound to build a long lasting relationship with the company. Clients are treated as close friends – and let’s be honest, everyone goes an extra mile to keep their friends happy. Employees are family, which makes the job that more enjoyable.

Switch loves food

I am not much of a foodie. For this reason, I get judging looks and shocked faces when I refuse a piece of cake or a saucy burger. Here at Switch, food is pretty much a sacred thing that needs to be enjoyed to the fullest. In the past year I have learnt that food is more important than meetings. Therefore no meetings should be booked at lunch time (take note, Matt!). It’s fascinating how pastizzi can bring the whole team together. Just to put you in the picture, we celebrated Bacon Day the other day, and everyone from the office brought something homemade that included bacon. It seemed only fair, that for my year anniversary, I would bake these food lovers a cake. After all, they say the best way to a wo/man’s heart is through food. 😉

There you have it folks, this is what Switch is! If you are curious to know more about us crazy humans, check out some of the work we’ve worked on. Don’t forget to like our Facebook page to keep up to date!

The post What is Switch? appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Personality goes a long way

We all have our characters, and these tend to shine through when we communicate with others. The same thing, largely, applies to our social media presence, no matter whether they’re personal or business accounts.
The best social media profiles are just like Mr or Ms popular. They manage to convey an aura of positive energy to the people around them. They create a sense of awe and envy, without being condescending or overbearing. Everybody wants a part of them, or at least to be associated with them.

Be entertaining or interesting

Good social media profiles also have another thing going for them. They are interesting, entertaining or, in certain cases, both. Hit the right balance between being interesting and entertaining and you can be assured that you’ll be a massive hit. John Oliver, for example, manages this perfectly.

If you can’t be interesting or entertaining, then offer value

“But, but…” I can already hear you protesting. How can I be entertaining or interesting if I’m selling something that is essentially boring?
Well, there’s a third factor that can help you out. Offer value. Entertainment and interest are both of immense value, but look at pages like Deal or Deal Today, which are essentially uninteresting and definitely not entertaining. They manage to generate a hell of a lot of good will by offering value to their followers.
And let’s face it. If you’re running a business that needs a Facebook page that can’t be either interesting, entertaining or offers value, then you seriously need to rethink your line of business (or your channel of communication).
Speaking of which, we need to make sure to:

Choose the right medium

Not all channels are created equal. There is no absolute right or wrong social media to choose. For our local readers, Facebook might be the default network to work with since Malta is somewhat obsessed with it, and nothing else. However you should always consider all other options, especially since local usage is growing in other networks and very few businesses are tapping into them.

So where do I start?

So where does this leave us? What should I do if I’m just starting off with my social media efforts?
I’d personally tell any clients I have to start by testing the waters and trying to get a feel for the kind of response you’re getting.

Be human

Post to your business’ page as if you were posting for yourself. See it as a natural extension of your brand, no matter how well defined it is. Always ask yourself whether you would have said what you’re about to type out to a client who just walked into your physical store.
I don’t think you greet people by shouting “SALAMI SANDWICHES – 2.50” in their face when they walk into your restaurant in the morning. But you might tell them something along the lines of: “Good morning, how’s your day? Our special of the day is the salami sandwich.” Do the same with your Facebook page.

A couple of the eateries around our office (Dobbin’s and Karrot & Ko), in fact, have got this to a tee – they both do a good job of informing their clients what they’re preparing on the day, and I realise that they’ve managed to keep us all coming back to their pages on a daily basis.
They do it by writing friendly posts that are also informative (knowing what food’s available to me is very valuable information). They have also understood how important it is to:

Be punctual

I remember the first few weeks Dobbin’s opened, they’d post their lunch menu and photos at about midday. By then we’d have already been too hungry. We’d have checked out Karrot (or some other places in the vicinity) and ordered food elsewhere.
Timing is not always crucial, but when it is, it just is. Don’t post all your Christmas offers on the 24th of December. Everybody would have bought their presents by then.

It ain’t easy

Also understand that if you might have to have to wait quite a bit before you start seeing concrete results. Building a relationship with your customers will take a fair amount of time – and you can only achieve this by doing a good job of it, consistently.
If you want to help yourself shortcut the process, then you need to be prepared to spend a bit of money. Because there’s a big misconception about social media marketing, but trust me:

It ain’t free

Be prepared to spend some money on growing your online presence. The absolute least you can spend on Facebook is a € (or a $) a day. If your business can’t afford €30/month, then, once again, you probably should not be in business.
Put some marketing budget into your Facebook page and you will immediately start seeing much better results. Good results bring better reach, and better reach brings better results. See what we did there? We created a vicious cycle. Spend more, get more of the free stuff in return too!

And in the end…

This is the end of this very short primer to social media marketing. What do you think? Are you ready to up your game? What do you find hardest (or easiest) about your social presence?
Get serious about your social media marketing, or at least get someone to take it seriously for you. We always tell our clients that we’d prefer it if they’d handle their own social media accounts, but if you don’t know where to start from or if you just don’t have the time and/or expertise to do it yourself – then just drop us a line and we’ll be glad to help you out!

The post A social media primer – The intro series appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

The technological era is moving very fast, and at times we barely manage to keep up with it. Innovative devices, software updates, online payments, new social media channels, different ways to communicate – the list goes on. In one way or another, everyone is online now; whether it is to search something on the web, to read emails, to talk to grandchildren, or to upload a selfie, we are all connected. This is why brands have turned to the online world to reach their audience and market their products/services.

5 reasons why your brand should use digital marketing

1. Cost effective

You’ll be surprised by how cost effective it can be to use digital marketing. If you are on a tight budget, or cautious on where to invest your money – you know that by investing online, you will have value for money. Just think about the ‘pay per click’ ads, you know you will be paying only when someone clicks and views your ad – no money wasted.

2. Easy to measure

You can see in real time what works and what doesn’t – which allows you to make changes straight away in order to always improve your brand. There are many different options which allow you to know how many people you are reaching, how many are engaging, which are the days and times that work best and so on. To everything you do online, you have a tool to measure its effectiveness.

3. Target exactly who you want

Targeting a specific audience is extremely easy online. Do you want to just target women between the age of 30 and 55 with kids? No problem, your advert or post will only be visible to those. Targeting has never been so easy!

4. More exposure

On traditional media, once you place an advert on a banner you know that whoever is passing by can see your ad, same goes to someone reading a magazine and seeing your advert in there. Through digital marketing this has changed, here’s how: when someone, for example, likes something you posted on your Facebook page or Instagram, that post will be recommended to the friends of that person, for free. Through digital marketing you get much more exposure simply through the interaction your followers have with your brand.

5. Great engagement

If there is one thing that a brand loves it’s engagement – you know you are doing a good job when your audience engages directly with you. Online marketing has made this possible and easy to do, as brands can build a relationship with people through direct messages, replying to comments, and also sharing the audience’s content. Brand interaction with the audience can make the difference between a company’s success and failure.
The digital era is here, don’t ignore it but use it – your brand will only gain from it.

The post Y is for Why: why digital marketing? appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.