5 minute read

5 minute read: how to use Vine

17th April 2016 by Alan Leave a Comment

Vine is an app that allows you to create and share small bites of video. Many businesses are using ‘vines’ as a marketing vehicle. If you feel your marketing could do with a boost, why not take a look at creating and sharing vines?

Step 1: Download the app

On Apple you will need to download the app via the App Store or through Google Play for android. Once you have downloaded it you will need to create an account. Like all accounts set up for business, take care which email, password and mobile number you use.

If you have a Twitter account, you can create an account through this social media platform. In fact, this is where you may have come across some short, bite size vines as Twitter acquired the app in October 2012.

This move was greeted with much furore and thus, the use of short video clips have gathered pace in recent years as a result.

Step 2: Your profile

Don’t forget the old, old lesson that creating and completing your profile is essential. Add a few words about your business, using your tag line and logo if you can. Add your location (great for local businesses) and select a profile colour.

You can also use your Twitter contacts on fine to ‘find friends’ in the app.

Step 3: Explore trending vines

Before you go plunging in and create mini-Hollywood blockbusters, take a moment to surf around the app to see what us trending.

You will notice from clicking on ‘home’, and then ‘explore’ that there are different categories of posts and, you will also see that #hashtags can be used on Vine too – perfect for a #hashtag campaign.

Step 4: Communicate

Vine Messages is a way to have video conversation with friends and customers too. You can do this by pressing and holding the camera icon. Don’t forget that you only have a few seconds so it is worth planning on what you intending saying or communicating in a few short seconds.

Top tip – before plunging into online marketing, why not make a few test videos and shares with trusted friends or colleagues?

Step 5: Record and share your own vines!

This is the exciting bit! Bearing in mind #hashtags, and your campaign goals, start creating your vines. Look online for examples created by other companies and how they utilised them. Once complete, don’t forget to share them.

Step 6: Interact

Vine is a social app, just like all those other mediums we use in everyday life. Not only should you be looking to interact with customers and ‘fans’, but take time to interact with other like-minded Vine users too. This way, you build a presence on a great app.

Step 7: Review

You can see how well your Vines are performing by examining your loop count. You can also use other analytics programs online to see how well people interact with Tweets and posts when they do, and when they do not have Vines are part of them.

Step 8: Branch out

Vine can be used on the web too, where you can ‘explore the beautiful world of looping videos’.

Using graphics and visuals such as short pieces of video is proven to have a dramatic effect on engagement rates, as well as being a powerful marketing tool. Why not take a look?

Have you used video, whether through Vine or maybe via YouTube? How did the experience impact on your business?

5 minute read: how to create a #hashtag campaign

15th February 2016 by Alan Leave a Comment

Hashtags are a great way of connecting and engaging with an audience but, in order for them to become the marketing vehicle you want or need them to be, you need to take several steps.

Follow our 5 minute how to guide and your hashtag could become an almost too-hot-to-handle-social-media-campaign…

Step 1: Find out what YOUR audience is REALLY talking about

There are two key factors here: identifying your audience and what these people are really conversing and discussing. Just because everyone was talking about the recent leader’s debate here in the UK, doesn’t mean your global audience is.

If you sell holidays, why not find out where people are talking about and why… If you are in the food sector, what foodstuffs are people conversing about? What is the latest super food? And how can they get it or use it?

Step 2: Simplicity is key

Hashtags can be used across a variety of social media platforms but checking out massively successful hashtag campaigns and you will see that they use one channel appropriate to them, and kept the ‘how to enter the competition/campaign/exchange’ as low barrier as possible

For example:

Using Twitter

Follow @LocallyHQ
Tell us what you think the most important website ingredient is, using #creativeweb
Be part of the discussion!

No form filling; no subscribing to a newsletter; no navigating to website. Simple.

Step 3: Be social!

However, having a campaign landing page can work well as some customers will want to explore this campaign further. If you run a #hashtag competition, you will need this as there always have to be rules with these things.

But, the overall aim is to be social so why not have a smorgasbord of happy faces, amazing tweets and great ideas or discussion points to inspire others to contribute?

Step 4: Use traditional media too

If you are planning on running a #hashtag campaign, you need to know it is a long term exercise, not one that will instantly light up the world of social media – unless you are very fortunate.

Any offline or traditional marketing you do can be harnessed too, so keep that #hashtag rolling across your newspaper adverts, flyers, posters…

Step 5: Buy online promotion

Buying online promotion is one way to give you #hashtag campaign a bit of a kick start, should the uptake be slow. There is a paid ability on Twitter to promote a hashtag campaign BUT, like all marketing campaigns, going out on a limb will have far less reach than it being part of a strategic marketing plan.

Step 6: Harness real time opportunities

This is a posh way of saying leaping on the bandwagon of positive news. Hi-jacking is something that many other brands and businesses do but always take care that you are using this appropriately. Anything that plays on the misfortune of others is never a good idea – always be positive.

And finally, always measure the results, as well as reviewing was does work and what doesn’t. Why not build a #hashtag campaign in to your marketing plan?

5 minute read: 55% of visitors spend less than 15 seconds on your website

13th January 2016 by Alan Leave a Comment

What?!

Before you panic and run for the hills, we take a closer look at where and why this data was generated. And this is the focus of our first ‘5 minute read’.

The background

Generated by Chartbeat, an online software analytical application, it looked at media companies. On one hand, this is a broad business model but, every business is different. The headline actually refers to what visitors to your website are actually reading which, in this case, are articles; it does not include home pages, landing pages etc.

What is the research telling is?

However, before we discard this statistic as scaremongering tripe, we need to take a deeper look into what and why people are using or accessing information for.

There are several key points to the study:

Current or news worthy content is more engaging that ‘evergreen’ content

The online world is current and fleeting, with the bad stuff hanging around with a penchant for popping up when we least want or expect it – ‘the right to be forgotten‘.

News events that are current, or trends on social media platforms tends to be the type of content that draws in visitors, or according to this pieces of research it is. This study look at a chunk of websites – 2,000 in fact – and monitored 2 billion page views across these websites.

Although this statistic tells us that many visits are fleeting it doesn’t rule out evergreen content as being something we should ditch.

Evergreen content is very important

Evergreen content are the articles, blogs and posts that people write on a variety of subjects from the best way to unblock a drain, to the colours to use in marketing your products, services or brand to your customers.

‘Marathon not a sprint‘ is the motto here as evergreen content has proven to be a lead-generator. Newsworthy stuff is all well and good, especially for a quick read but, for the longer term, generating content that is both valuable and useful to the customer/visitor is essential.

Social media has little effect on ‘reading engagement’

The study that generated the ‘15 second’ statistic also found that of the 10,000 articles shared via social media there was no relationship between the amount a piece of content is shared and the amount of attention the average reader gives it.

Before we all throw our laptops out and rip up our content marketing plans, take note of the following:

Social media – the finding of your website by a visitor through the various social media platforms is ‘random’. In other words, they came across something and their interest was piqued. It might be the website is not of interest or value to them.
Search engine – visitors who find your site through a social engine search are in ‘search mode’, focused on finding an answer to a query, question or concern. In this sense, they are likely to stay longer on your website.

Banner ads are not working…

And here in lies a debate:

Move them – the authors of the ChartBeat study suggested moving the ads to a place where the eyeball falls as people are now suffering from ‘banner blindness’ i.e. regardless of what wonderful deal is on the banner, potential customers pay very little heed.
Quality content is key – another aspect is that people will often be searching for a specific fact, answer, product, service etc. and thus, banner ads are not always the best value spend for all businesses. Some pundit suggest that quality content on your pages, rather than ‘renting space on another website’ is a better, wiser move.

The 5 minute round up

The great thing about these kind of reports and studies is that, even though we may not be the same kind of business, we can still take away some great lessons.

Hijacking newsworthy stories and events can be useful IF your company, business, product, brand or service has a link to it e.g. the recent health news that there has been a rise in skin cancer amongst people over the age of 50, attributed in part to the rise of cheap package holidays in the 1960s could be something your healthy living company could tag on to.
Quality content with value and authority is still paramount
Social media can attract people to your website, but they may not always stay long – but, say experts, this is the nature of the social media ‘game’
Banner ads may no longer be a great marketing spend for your brand, especially if your content is not working hard.