At Carnsight Communications we’re very excited to share that this January we’re celebrating five years of business and having worked with over 50 happy clients!
Founded by Jessica Morgan in 2016, Carnsight is built upon 20 years’ of industry experience in London and now Bath and has a strong grounding in media relations.
We’ve been through so much change in the last five months, let alone the last five years, so it’s brilliant to pause and look back on what’s been achieved. We’re sending a big thank you to every one of the 53 clients we’ve worked alongside, to the media we work with day to day and our partners and mostly, to our amazing team.
2020 marked the expansion of the permanent team at Carnsight. Jessica and Account Executive Leigh-Ann welcomed new Account Manager, Georgia, to the business in September. We were also joined by Intern, Megan in November and have continued to work alongside trusted freelancers throughout the year.
2020 also saw Jessica featured on Insider’s South West 42 under 42 list upon which the publication profiles 42 young entrepreneurs and business leaders who should be on your radar.
We will be celebrating this 5-year milestone through a series of five different charity fundraising challenges determined throughout the year and have chosen two charities that mean a great deal to us personally: Target Ovarian Cancer and the British Heart Foundation. Due to some of these challenges involving getting active outdoors, we have put things on hold for a short while during lockdown, but have committed to carrying out all five challenges by the end of 2021.
We never could have predicted the challenges and successes of the past year or so but we are incredibly proud of what we and our clients have been able to achieve. We’re very excited to see what the future holds for Carnsight Communications.
The premise of influencer marketing is pretty simple. Choose someone with clout in your target market – someone trusted, admired or looked-up to – and associate them with your brand, product or service. Awareness goes through the roof, positive perception is sent soaring, and you achieve cut through that’s otherwise hard to find.
Although not a new strategy, influencer marketing is growing and has been proven to be effective: a survey by Mediakixs revealed that 80% of practitioners have found influencer marketing to be an effective tool. And it’s a real money-spinner – according to Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2020 Benchmark report, Influencer marketing is estimated to be worth $9.7 billion, with the market growing by 50% each year since 2016.
The same report reported that brands are recognising this growth, with 66% of respondents saying they will increase their Influencer marketing budgets next year. Although most commonly used for B2C markets, we’ve all clicked on a social post or read an article simply because we recognise the face in the thumbnail, so why shouldn’t it work in a B2B environment too?
We had the opportunity to put this theory to the test last year. Our clients at Panasonic TOUGHBOOK (the world leader in rugged computing) wanted some means of elevating their brand beyond its already-lofty position, and we believed an influencer strategy could be the way to go.
As we were approaching a B2B market, it was clear from the start that this wasn’t a campaign to be built around the audience reach an influencer has. What was more important was finding somebody who was a perfect fit for the TOUGHBOOK brand, and someone we could build a credible, engaging story around.
We needed someone who matched the ruggedness and strength of the TOUGHBOOK devices, someone who could match the brand status of TOUGHBOOK as world leader in rugged IT, but also someone that could offer more than just audience reach. Luckily, we were able to secure the services of global rugby icon, former Wales and British and Lions captain and absolute giant of a man, Sam Warburton.
We used the formidable (but endlessly friendly) presence of Sam to create a multi-channel campaign, incorporating the more traditional B2B marketing channels, such as LinkedIn and display ads, but also exploring newer territory, such as YouTube ads. Using a combination of campaign keywords and razor-sharp targeting, we ensured that our ads would capture the attention of a new audience for TOUGHBOOK, as well as engaging with the more typical audiences in a different way.
Despite a month or two of delay due to the pandemic and national lockdown, we figured out a way to finally come together for some socially-distanced filming days. This allowed us to capture some amazing footage of Sam doing his thing on the rugby pitch, but also displaying his well-honed studio skills, discussing leadership and parallels between sport and business leadership with Panasonic TOUGHBOOK MD, Kevin Jones.
In five short weeks, following the film shoots, we were ready to go live with a whole range of assets; a mini-series on Leadership, seven videos for YouTube pre-roll ads, a campaign specific landing page, blog content, downloadable digital guide, a selection of display and LinkedIn ads, and social material for Sam to share on his Instagram and Twitter feeds.
As with most things Sam Warburton touches, the end results have been pretty impressive. We set ourselves a simple goal of raising awareness of the TOUGHBOOK brand, which we achieved very quickly. The landing page is the fourth-best performing landing page Panasonic have ever created, with over 18,000 visits in the seven weeks that the campaign has been live. Over the first three weeks, we were even outperforming the main TOUGHBOOK site in terms of website sessions.
This was an experimental campaign, with the simple goal of gaining increased brand exposure in a niche market, made possible by the courage of a client who was willing to push boundaries and try something different. And from such a positive start, we’re looking forward to more of the same in 2021, building on the high levels of awareness we’ve established and turning that into a raft of bottom-line boosting sales leads.
Let’s just hope Sam keeps his boots clean for us…
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help your business reach its potential, get in touch with us today at [email protected].
It’s almost five years since Carnsight Communications opened its doors, over ten years since I switched to PR and almost twenty years since I started in marketing. It’s a time for reflections, so here’s one of mine. Looking back, working in marketing was a fantastic grounding for great PR. It continues to be as the two roles move ever closer.
One of the things we regularly get asked is ‘what is the difference between PR and marketing?’ In simple terms, PR is about earned media – earning your place in publications. Whereas marketing is generally about paid-for placement – such as adverts, sponsored pieces or what we used to call advertorials.
But the lines are continuing to blur. It’s no secret that the media sector has struggled this year, with publications closing their doors and a number of job losses. There are far fewer staff roles (permanent positions) and many more freelancers. We try and do our part as a PR agency by subscribing to many of the publications we pitch to. We’ve also given support by donating and contributing this year, as well as working with journalists as freelance consultants.
We pride ourselves on pitching in quality editorial content and products to relevant titles. But we also know that alone is not enough to keep publications up and running. So, we also encourage clients to get involved by subscribing, considering sponsored opportunities if the opportunity is right, and getting involved with events and awards.
We also work closely with marketing and media teams to see if they’re planning to run ads and where they might be placing them. This is particularly pertinent for local press and smaller publications where editorial and commercial are more closely aligned. We wouldn’t ever expect editorial placement purely because of advertising, but it’s important to understand how it all fits together. And that’s not to mention the rise in influencers which takes this to a different place again.
Starting out in marketing gave me a great grounding for understanding commercials. Managing budgets and managing spend comes in a lot earlier – especially if you’re in client services. In my experience, commerciality isn’t a big part of PR training, but I think it should be – especially now.
Understanding messaging and brand and campaign propositions has also been key. Advertising campaigns start with a brief and key message: a line or two that everything can be boiled down to. What’s the essence of the product or service? That is something that’s at the very heart of PR, which is why we often start with a Three Lens Messaging Session in our client work.
A journalist once asked me to give my pitch to him in 10 seconds during a phone call. Scary, but actually a really excellent idea. If you can’t get across what you’re trying to say in that time, how can you expect it to be an idea they can buy into? We spend a long time crafting press releases and accompanying emails to make sure the essence can be communicated quickly and simply. We use that approach over the phone or in person, too (or we used to!)
Working closely with marketing agencies such as Sharp Thinking Marketing and Rapport Digital makes for a really effective, joined up process. For example, PR and marketing often work to different timelines, and while messages could be led by advertising, they’re likely to be interrogated more in the PR process.
So, being able to understand marketing’s role and approach and ensure it fits alongside ours makes for the most successful campaigns. We can also share resources, such as information on the target audience, tone of voice and good, high res photography.
PR is very much about relationships. Relationships with your team, your clients, journalists and influencers. It’s about building trust, being respectful, delivering and helping each other out. The power of building relationships was definitely something I first learnt in the world of advertising. It’s relationships and connections which make for the best results.
We work with a range of creative and strategic marketing agencies, helping to promote their work and profile their key people. I still have a very special place in my heart for the advertising world. And having worked with the sector press for over 10 years, it’s a landscape I know very well.
Advertising is something I’ve loved since I was little – I actually used to fast forward programmes on my VCR to get to the adverts! I remember the great campaigns from Levi’s, Guinness and even the Green Cross Code (!) word-for-word to this day. I hope I’ve passed that on to the wider team. As we’ve seen this year, good advertising can be pivotal to creating movements and changing lives.
So, starting in marketing and advertising has been invaluable for me, and continues to be as we move into a brand new year. I can echo everyone’s thoughts in saying I’m hoping for much better things for us all in 2021.
AMBITIOUS has recently delivered a national campaign for PillTime, working with Dr Hilary – securing 11 TV and radio interviews, with the total reach of the campaign over five million.
About the campaign
PillTime is an NHS certified online pharmacy and their mission is to make life more manageable for people who take multiple prescriptions every day.
They do this by providing pills in a pouch with the time of day stamped on the packet. This prevents people from taking the wrong medication and most importantly not taking too much.
The aims of the campaign were to raise awareness of the added pressures on non-professional carers as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and inform the public about the tools offered by PillTime to make caring for loved ones easier.
Our activity started by commissioning a piece of research amongst unpaid or non-professional carers to see how they were feeling – and if they felt they were getting enough support. We set about creating a news story to primarily secure broadcast coverage because we wanted to get people talking about unpaid carers on International Carers Rights Day – a key awareness day we had identified as an platform to secure media coverage, an opportunity for newsjacking and a PR platform to use these findings to create newsworthy earned media content.
PillTime already had a working relationship with the nation’s favourite GP – ITV’s Dr Hilary Jones – and AMBITIOUS were able to offer interview time with him to radio and TV stations. With his medical background, Dr Hilary was able to articulate the stressors on unpaid carers and highlight how people who are worried about a loved one taking the right medication might be able to get some peace of mind.
AMBITIOUS launched the campaign on International Carers Rights Day to further highlight the worry, stress and anxiety carers in the UK are facing. PillTime also wanted to show support of the awareness day in a meaningful and genuine way and offer people who are worried about taking the right prescriptions a solution.
Campaign results with national reach
AMBITIOUS introduced PillTime to a range of regional and national media platforms and were able to secure some fantastic interviews with Dr Hilary talking about the research on a day of significance for the brand.
Quality earned media coverage was achieved across 11 TV and radio interviews, with the total reach of the campaign over 5 million. The flagship coverage on International Carers Rights Day was ITV Borders who used the interview in their early evening bulletin which reaches close to 100,000 viewers per week.
Paul Stonuary, Head of Marketing, PillTime, added: “AMBITIOUS are not only a team of great minds and fantastically creative thinkers, they are also an endearing group of people to work with. They took the time to really understand my business and what I hoped to achieve. The results were far beyond what I might have expected.”
For more information about this campaign or our PR, content, social media or digital marketing services, please contact AMBITIOUS via our website or at [email protected].
Welcome to the third and final blog in our series on Augmented Reality (AR).
In case you missed it, our first segment introduced AR technology and its impact on markets across the globe, while our second blog explored AR’s potential when it comes to marketing, today. Today’s final instalment delves deeper into the practical use-cases for AR today, along with some of the loftier examples of where its tech could take us.
If you had one, you were of course, lucky enough to be able to afford an extortionately expensive high-end smartphone. You were also probably unlucky enough to be pestered by people who wanted to ‘have a go’ for themselves.
Arthur C. Clarke said, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ And touchscreens certainly had enough magic to magnetise the masses. Now, AR is taking a similar step from the realm of the mystic, into reality. And the timing couldn’t be better.
From the everyday, to the extraordinary: there are opportunities for the world’s biggest brands, most digital-savvy marketers and forward-thinking businesses.
In the age of the smartphone, you could be forgiven for thinking business cards have largely become redundant. But if the line ‘Are you on LinkedIn?’ doesn’t set you on fire, an AR business card could be a stronger opener when encountering potential business contacts in the wild.
Upon scanning your business card, the recipient could be greeted by a showreel video of your products, a short introduction to your business, a tour of your office locations or even live and up-to-date special offers – in fact, there’s limitless potential.
And best of all, creating an AR business card could be a lot simpler than you think. Prototypes already exist which simply work by the recipient scanning a QR code on the card with the camera on their smartphone – no special apps or software necessary!
It goes without saying: this tech doesn’t need to be contained to your business card. Product catalogues, service leaflets and even your quarterly reports can all be brought to life with some clever AR, making your brand not only more appealing – but more engaging, too.
For those of us who treat clothes shopping like a competitive sport, aiming for a new P.B. each time we hit the rails, life could become simpler with the introduction of augmented reality.
One option, which many of us will already be aware of, is ‘virtual try on’ – both online, with the assistance of your laptop or smartphone camera, and in-store through specially-AR-activated mirrors.
L’Oreal was one of the first businesses to introduce AR ‘smart’ mirrors at beauty counters, offering consumers the option to try on cosmetics with ease – and my guess is this will only become more prevalent after the hands-OFF-your-face impact of the pandemic.
Virtual try-ons aren’t just for people, either.
If you’ve visited the Ikea website recently (who hasn’t during lockdown?) you can now ‘try on’ furniture, wallpaper, tiles and more to visualise products in your home. And the same principles can be applied to commercial premises, too.
So if you’re selling high-end office furnishings, commercial signage, or even an air conditioning unit, you can easily make your products more impactful by introducing them directly into your customers’ lives – even if it’s virtually.
This doesn’t need to be just about chasing Pokemon. You can create a treasure hunt for adults which introduces a new level of interactivity between your brand and your customers anywhere you have a physical presence.
For example, if you’re attending an expo, you can place AR locators around your exhibition stand to deliver information about your individual products and services. You’ll stand out from the other exhibitors at the event, and be able to engage your visitors more effectively, keeping them attentive for longer so your employees can follow up the conversation too. And, again, it’s a great conversation starter.
If your business has a retail presence, you can replicate this experience in your showrooms – or even choose to implement an AR window display which could be used to great effect on social media, too.
So imagine this. You hear the clunk of your letterbox and head to collect the post. There’s a small, shallow cardboard box with a bold message printed on top.
GRAB YOUR PHONE AND GET READY.
You open the box, and a leaflet drops out: SCAN ME. Opening your phone’s camera app, and capturing the QR code, you’re taken straight to a video, introducing a teaser on an Amazing New Productᵗᵐ.
Upon further inspection, the leaflet introduces you to the brand behind the ANPᵗᵐ – you even watch a video about the team and see they’re local. In fact, their interactive office location map shows they’re just a mile away, where you can pop into their showroom for even more information.
It might sound otherworldly. But at Proctors, we’re making virtual, reality today. We can help you to create an irresistible campaign, whether it’s wowing shareholders with your next quarterly report or enticing new customers with clever interactive artwork in a viral social campaign.
Talk to us, and let’s discuss your possibilities at [email protected].
Welcome back to the second blog in our three-part series on Augmented Reality (AR). In our first segment, we introduced AR technology and explored its potential impact on our lives over the coming years.
But the technology already exists. And so, this poses an opportunity today.
Any brand who considers themselves a true tech pioneer, who is looking to distinguish themselves from their industry competitors, or is ready to forge an unrivalled relationship with millennial and Gen-Z customers, should consider grasping the opportunity AR presents for marketing and customer engagement, today.
When it comes to experiential marketing, there’s no better vehicle for delivering an unforgettable brand experience than AR. As mentioned in our previous blog, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination – but there is one decision you’ll need to make early on: how you’ll deliver the experience to your viewers.
For those looking to get started today, there are two methods of AR access to choose from: by building an app, or using WebAR.
For many, apps are the option of choice. In-app augmented reality enables you to control the entire experience from end-to-end, maximising elements such as branding.
Take Pokémon Go, for example. The combination of technology, art and culture to form a real-life treasure hunt was arguably one of the most successful experiential campaigns to date.
During its peak, as many as 20% of Pokémon Go players were using the app every day, and by March 2019 it had been downloaded more than 1 billion times. Those are some vast numbers.
The ease of use was a key factor in the app’s success – and it’s worth noting, there’s no doubt that downloads would have been significantly lower had the app required specialist technology, i.e. had it required additional headwear like ‘Snapchat Spectacles’-type tech to play. But every one of us has a smartphone in our pocket at all times, leaving a near-zero barrier to taking part.
The other option for creating an AR experience is to use WebAR.
Sometimes referred to as WebXR due to its ability to support AR, VR and MXR (Mixed Reality) functionality, WebAR allows you to use an AR experience directly within your browser – without having to download an app.
Most smartphones are WebAR-enabled, making it arguably even easier to access than downloading an app. However, you may have less control over some elements of the design.
So how do you choose the right platform for your audience? At P+S, we believe it comes down to your intent.
If you’re looking to integrate an AR experience into your website, maximise the ‘wow factor’ of your marketing materials or offer an AR experience in real-world locations, WebAR is a great choice. It removes barriers and offers instant access for anyone using a compatible device – without the need for having to stop and download an app.
However, if you’re looking to run a more complex experience – a game, or a more developed user interface like map overlays – then launching an app offers an excellent self-contained, immersive experience with unlimited customisation options. And you’ll have the added benefit of being able to update and push new content without disruption to your other content and materials.
Apart from creating the next gaming sensation, how can augmented reality actually be applied for brand marketing purposes?
For those businesses promoting a product, it could be as simple as creating the ability for customers to ‘see’ a 3D visualisation of your merchandise face-to-face – all from the comfort of their own sofa. IKEA have recently begun offering just this, enabling customers to view furniture in their homes before ever making a purchase. And with COVID-19 set to disrupt the store experience the foreseeable future, now has never been a better time to offer virtual product experiences.
For those businesses who offer a service rather than a physical product, this is an opportunity to think laterally about marketing.
Let’s take an airline, for example. While enabling customers to view a Boeing 747 in their own living room isn’t necessarily offering value, they could offer an augmented ‘map’ of airline routes across the sky instead.
Or, they could look closer at the in-airport experience. In larger international airports, offering an augmented map that leads customers from the security gates to the airline’s private lounge, or straight to their flight gate, would be a breath of fresh air.
Architectural firms can use AR to show their projects to a client in real-time. Financial services can demonstrate abstract concepts in a more tangible visualised form. And what’s more, the data shows that AR visualisations improve B2B buyer confidence, and help to speed up sales cycles.
From marketing, to product visualisation, to making invisible concepts visible, the AR experience creates higher levels of engagement, increases conversions, and offers a powerful branding opportunity. When done well, it’s inherently social media friendly, shareable and creates a powerful lasting impact.
But that’s not the limit of what AR will bring to brands.
Our next blog, and final instalment of our AR series, is coming soon – stay tuned.
Why not contact us today at [email protected] to discuss your goals with our team.
The creation and publication of high-quality content is an essential aspect of any digital marketing strategy. If crafted and broadcasted effectively, digital content can help you achieve a wide range of goals for your business, including increasing your website traffic, reaching new prospects, bettering your brand’s reputation, and improving your online presence.
However, creating new, fresh and strong digital content on a regular basis can be both time-consuming and expensive – luxuries which many of us can’t afford right now.
In this blog, we outline how to simplify things, extend your subject matter’s lifecycle and make the most out of your available resources, through content planning, repurposing and promotion.
One way to simplify the process of content creation is to repurpose what you’ve previously published. This recycling of pre-existing content saves you the time and expense of coming up with new ideas and developing original content from scratch, by breathing new life into what you’ve already developed.
The first step is to catalogue all of your existing content and highlight the most relevant to share as quickly as possible. The types of content you could catalogue include blog articles, reports, case studies, thought-leadership pieces, white papers, magazines, videos and podcasts.
Your online audience grows and changes over time – be it blog readers, social media followers or email/newsletter subscribers. Some of them will not have been aware of content you published 18 months ago, so repurposing this increases its exposure to new audiences.
Additionally, a topic that struck the right chord with your audience once is more likely to gain traction than a completely new one, so outlining your best-performing content pieces is vital. High-performing content has a much higher ROI potential than that which didn’t perform well the first time around, as well as being likely to include nuggets of useful information, which you can use as a basis and expand on, when repurposing.
Additionally, republishing existing content on specific topics establishes your expertise in these areas, and your audience will start perceiving you as an authority figure in your industry. This, in turn, strengthens your brand’s reputation and credibility, and can even improve your search engine ranking.
Search engines have a preference for websites that deliver valuable and meaningful content to their users. Repurposing content allows you to target the same keywords over and over again without the risk of duplication, and – if the content is of a high perceived quality – search engines will recognise your expertise in these areas, and reward it by ranking you more highly, increasing your brand’s exposure and reputation.
Once you have catalogued your content, it’s time to consider how exactly you’re going to share it, and who you want it to resonate with.
In the planning stage, specific audience segments should be identified and targeted, based on your existing followers, prospects, customers and business objectives. Content is often used as a tool for traditional lead generation, particularly in B2B marketing; through the use of collateral such as white papers, reports and webinars; so, ensuring your content strategy aligns with your new business objectives is essential.
Then, to amplify the reach and exposure of your content, the best channels and times to reach your selected target audiences should be considered and combined into a post schedule. You should also consider whether the content could be adapted into new and different mediums than it was previously. For example, a webinar could be turned into a series of explainer videos for distribution on social.
And always remember to check the content in the context of today’s unique environment. If it contains an overtly selling message, it either needs to be repackaged or discarded. It is important to strike the right tone with your messaging, which should remain sensitive and thoughtful.
Promoting through paid advertising allows you to amplify your content to reach more people, and, if done effectively, can grow your brand’s online following and drive sustained levels of relevant and engaged traffic through to your website.
Typically, social media is the best channel to use for the promotion of content, with the specific channel mixture depending on your budget, your target audience and the type of content that’s being promoted. LinkedIn and Facebook advertising can be particularly effective, and you can see some example creatives from a social media advertising campaign we ran for Epson recently here.
Advertising using retargeting can also be used to show content to previous website visitors, to encourage them to return to your site and keep your brand at the front of your customer’s mind.
With any digital content strategy, it’s crucial to measure the effectiveness of the content to allow you to see what material and placement are performing best, so you can refine and optimise your activities, to receive the highest possible levels of engagement.
For performance analysis on social media, key metrics to track include reach, impressions, click-through-rate (CTR), number of followers, likes, shares, comments and engagement rates. Most social media platforms offer some kind of analytics which you can access through your profile. There are, however, a variety of tools which offer more in-depth analysis of your performance, including Hootsuite, Fanpage Karma, Keyhole and AgoraPulse.
To gain valuable insights into your content performance on your website, Google Analytics is a fantastic tool to identify the most popular pages on your website, and provide detailed information on metrics such as page views, sessions, time-on-site, bounce rates, and landing and exit pages.
Once you have identified what content is receiving the highest levels of engagement, the most successful posts can then be boosted through targeted advertising to reach new relevant users in your target audiences.
When it comes to digital content, our in-house team can take care of everything: from determining the strategy and executing lead generation campaigns, to designing, copywriting and animating your content. And it’s all tied together by our expert strategists, who’ll work with you to ensure we meet– and exceed – your expectations.
If you’d like to find out more about what type of content strategy would best suit your business, and how we can help you deliver it, get in touch today, by emailing [email protected].
With an estimated 3.6 billion people using social media worldwide, by now you’re probably aware that maintaining your brand’s presence on social media is critical if you want to compete in this ever-progressing digital landscape.
A strong social media presence not only offers new opportunities for leads and sales, but also strengthens customer loyalty, enhances your networking, and opens the door for more partnerships and customer feedback – all the while driving traffic to your website and raising awareness of your brand.
However, the steps needed to assert or improve your presence on socials may feel unclear. Many businesses assume that social media management is easy to take on at first, due to the deceptively simple user experience on most platforms. But in actual fact, it’s a very different, more intricate experience than managing a personal account, and if handled incorrectly, it can even have a detrimental impact on your brand.
So here are seven steps that any modern business can take to ensure their brand is making the most out of social media in the digital age.
By monitoring the performance data of your competitors, you can gain insights into what works and what doesn’t, for smarter decision-making and a better strategy. Researching and analysing competitor behaviour means you can stay one step ahead, and be inspired by new ideas while avoiding their mistakes – and you can outline any threats to your business and identify gaps in your strategy.
After all, why reinvent when you can circumvent?
There are a number of social competitor analysis tools you can use to do this, including FanPage Karma, Awario, Unmetric, and Iconosquare. You then need to decide which audience, engagement, and content metrics are useful to you.
Some of those metrics might be percentage of engagement per media, followers gained, follower growth, comments, likes, the most used hashtags, average posts per day and so on – it’s what’s important to your business.
If you don’t know who your audience is, how can you give them what they want? It’s important to learn your audience’s needs and motivations, as well as their behaviours. What social media platforms do they use? When do they use them? And what are they looking for? With the answers, you can tailor your content to ensure you are serving the right message, at the right time, in the right place.
Different audience demographics behave differently online. So knowing who’s on what platform aids your researching, advertising and marketing decisions, and ensures you’re providing the most relevant content to achieve your business goals.
Once you have an understanding of your audience’s needs and preferences, as well as those of your competitors, it’s time to select which social media channels are most suited to your audience and products/services.
Each social network provides unique delivery opportunities for you to entice your audience. For example, Instagram is a highly visual, creative platform. It can be a great place to showcase your products and services in a more imaginative or artistic manner. It’s also considered to be less formal than other platforms – perfect for showing off your brand personality and company culture.
Twitter, on the other hand, is most often used for consumer care. It’s an effective platform for engaging with your audience, ripe for quick feedback and offering speedy responses. Whereas, LinkedIn is arguably the most useful platform for B2B marketing or targeting a professional demographic.
Consider your channel selection carefully to ensure your messaging is broadcast in the most effective way, reaching the right prospects and generating leads.
It’s common for marketers to spread themselves too thin, so bear in mind your staff resources as part of the selection process. If you have only one team member, attempting to establish a brand presence across six different social media channels may be unrealistic.
Your presence on social media is an extension of your brand, and should, therefore, align with your other forms of brand messaging. Maintaining a consistent voice helps your brand strengthening its trust and reliability, creating a distinct personality among your competitors.
To help you adhere to this, developing brand guidelines can be a helpful tool when maintaining consistency in your Tone of Voice. Consider why your brand exists, what its values are, and how you want customers to feel when interacting with your brand.
The overuse of internet terms or trendy slang can actually damage your reputation, making you seen out of touch or ‘cheap’, and subsequently hurting engagement. In your guidelines, you may consider outlining limitations for hashtag use to avoid being penalised by certain platforms and creating an emoji palette to regulate your messaging. Without such consistency, there’s a lot of room for errors in communication between your brand and your customers.
Arguably the most important social media best practise is your willingness to engage with your audience.
Posting regularly and capitalising on customer interest is a necessity in today’s social climate if you want to keep your followers invested in your brand – and it’s crucial for the growth of your business.
No one wants to receive an automated message or talk to a robot. So, interacting with customers and responding to them quickly is essential if you want to humanise your brand, nurture relationships and increase customer loyalty.
Ensure your account looks active with real-time updates, through Instagram stories or live tweeting for example. Avoid cheesy iStock imagery, and instead opt for authentic, original content that reinforces your brand personality and culture.
In order to remain active and engage, you’ll need to monitor your channels as often as possible, at least daily, and post regularly. There are plenty of social media management tools that can help you do just this. Pre-scheduling social posts is a huge time-saver, rescuing you from posting manually at all hours of the day.
It’s also good practise to keep your ear to the ground, through social listening. Social listening is the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, product, competitors, and more, providing the opportunity to track, analyse and respond to conversations. Understanding how people feel about your brand helps you keep your marketing and product/service development efforts on track.
Without social listening, you might be missing out on a big piece of insight about your brand or industry that people are talking about. It also allows you to outline pain points, and better your crisis management tactics by responding right away to negative posts (should there be any!). It can also help you identify social influencers, providing opportunities for partnerships and advertising.
The final step in any digital marketing campaign is measurement. As with your initial data-gathering exercises, measuring the effectiveness of your social media marketing activity will help you to optimise your approach and guarantee ongoing success. And luckily, there are a range of analytics tools you can use to gain these insights.
Social media is a vital tool that all businesses should take advantage of in order to maintain optimum brand loyalty, reach, and engagement.
If you would like to fine-tune your business’s social media activity, boost your reach and get noticed, get in touch with us today at [email protected].
Lawless and Inspired have combined to bring together the UK’s best emerging street-artists and their influencer networks, allowing agencies and brands to tap into visual culture. Artists include Jody Thomas who created the 15m high Greta Thunberg wall mura, which highlighted issues of climate change and was featured on the BBC, across national press and went viral on social media.
The Lawless Inspired partnership aims to harness the power of today’s creative pioneers, to deliver physical/digital projects that excite and inspire. Alex Kopfli, Director at Inspired notes ‘by joining forces, we essentially offer agencies and brands a turn key solution, delivering creativity through artistic talent, brought to life by impactful real-life productions merged with digital creativity. The concepts are then distributed to an authentic and sizable audience online through our network.’
Since Lawless launched during the Covid Pandemic, the niche influencer agency has started working with brands to deliver artist-led creative solutions, adding a stamp of cool and credibility to brand campaigns and executions. Lawless Studio has already built up an impressive roster of artists, with the likes of Jody Thomas, Jack Watts, Nerone, Bond Truluv and Shay Casanova, reaching a significantly growing audience of 760k followers as a combined network, quality audiences loyal to each artist they follow, and trend setters in their own right.
Josh Moore of Lawless Studio calls out Inspired’s ‘exceptional track record in delivering first-class brand experiences for the likes of Wavemaker, Mediacom, M&C Saatchi and Fuse’ is the missing piece to the puzzle of delivering stand out creative solutions.
‘We now have the production capacity and logistical know-how to give brands access to creative pioneers and allow them to create amazing content, to give credibility and authenticity to brands through their output, and also reach huge dedicated followings through their social channels.’
Softech firm Amdaris have won the Great British Entrepreneur Award just 6-months after securing a £6m investment from BGF.
The Bristol company has offices in the UK, Dubai, Moldova and Romania, providing software development teams in high profile industries from Oil and Gas to finance and logistics.
In 2017 the board appointed AgencyUK to help develop a brand and marketing strategy fit for global expansion. Scale has been rapid, with new offices in Dubai and Romania in 2019.
AgencyUK have continued to support Amdaris with their external advertising, internal communications and PR strategy. This award win follows a string of new customer appointments.
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