Posts By: Geoff Braught
Tips On Utilizing the Holidays for Social Media
The holidays are just around the corner and it’s time to momentarily adjust your social media game. Let’s talk about how you can add a little thanksgiving, Christmas, or whateverfloatsyourboat spirit to your profile.
Tip #1 Headers
It’s a good idea to update your profile picture and profile header to reflect whatever holiday you want to show spirit for. Think of it as a full-fledged campaign without the ad spend 😉 For Thanksgiving, consider adding a turkey running across the bottom of your headers. For Christmas, maybe add a Santa hat to your logo. Most people enjoy getting into the holiday spirit. Use that positive association with your brand to attract new clients and reinforce your relationship with existing clients. You can create custom designs on Canva with ease.
Tip #2 Scheduling
Don’t make someone on your staff be responsible for posting on the day of a holiday. Schedule your holiday posts a few weeks in advance to make sure you don’t miss a beat and everyone gets to enjoy their holiday. We use services like Buffer and HeyOrca to schedule our posts. These services make posting social media content easier before with their easy-to-use design. Download their phone apps to make the process of scheduling social media posts a breeze!
Tip #3 Share Your Spirit
Does your business have an annual Christmas party? If so, consider sharing photos from the party with your social media followers to give them an inside look and make them feel more like part of the family! Toy drives and company outings are other great things to promote on your social media pages. The idea is to show your clients that your company is a family, not just a business trying to take your money ;).
Tip #4 There’s nothing more original than original
Ask your clients to submit original content to be posted on your page. For example, if I were Starbucks, I’d be asking customers to submit photos of our holiday cup in the snow or with Santa. This is a good opportunity to show your followers what your product or service looks like out in the real world instead of in a professional studio setting. Make sure the photos are high quality before you post and give photo credit in your caption. Forgetting to give photo credit goes against proper social media etiquette.
Tip #5 Stay active on engagements
Engaging on social media is essential to growing your social media pages. Engaging with hashtags like “#wishlist” is a good way to get your product or service into the minds of consumers during a time when people are spending more money. Be sure to pay attention to the latest trends and keep an eye out for popular hashtags. Growing your page takes work, use the holiday season to your advantage, and spread good vibes, you’d be surprised how far a funny or kind comment will go. Block of at least an hour to interact with people on social media. Experienced social media managers will know which locations, hashtags, and users to seek out when doing engagements.
Tip #6 Promote or host a charity event
Let’s dive into tip #5 some more. Consider hosting a charity event where customers or employees can make a difference in the community. There are families across the country that can’t afford the luxuries of holidays. A toy or food drive is a great way to make a positive impact in your community. Toy drives don’t require lots of money. You can set a couple of larger boxes outside your office and let people donate what they can afford. Before the holiday season ends, find a donation location in your city that will make sure the toys fall into good hands.
Tip #7 Run a poll
Polls are a great way to figure out what your audience wants! On Instagram, you can run polls on top of a photo. It’s a great way to spice up your content and obtain valuable insight into your followers. To run a poll, tap on the sticker icon and then select the poll sticker icon.
Tip #8 Don’t forget to post the day of
Make sure you’re scheduling a post the day of! Gift cards and cash are common holiday gifts, make sure you’re getting your brand out there as people are receiving these gifts!
Tip #9 The Power of the Discount Code
Discount codes are a great way to convert on-the-edge buyers into customers. Run a promotion that saves your customer a little money and watch the orders flow in!
Tip #10 Don’t Forget Stories!
On a recent quarterly earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg stated that stories were the future of social media. It’s important to utilize all of the tools made available to you on social media. If you can do something on social media that people will see, you need to be taking advantage of that to promote your business.
Tip #11 Create Festive Filters
Filters are another great way to get your brand out there. Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat all allow 3rd party filters. Here is an example of a Starbucks geofilter: Geofilters are a great way to target customers in your area or any specific area of your choosing.
Tip #12 Reach for action not likes
The goal is to turn followers into customers. Try creating a single piece of content that encourages customers to take action and engage with your brand. It should be eye-catching but also needs to fit into the overall theme of your social media page.
Tip #13 Create Urgency
Create limited-time offerings to snag the business of those customers that missed out on the discount code. Limited 2 for 1 offers are a great way to grab attention while the limited timeframe will encourage customers to take action immediately.
Tip #14 Hand Over The Keys
If you really want to try something new, consider handing over the keys to your social media page to a well-known influencer that fits with your core values. Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook have the features necessary to create a seamless transition into a social media event with a host. Follow these steps for a successful social media takeover event:
- Find an influencer that fits your brand and interests your followers/customers.
- Announce that they will be taking over your social media for a certain amount of time.
- Set guidelines for the influencer to follow while in control of your page.
- Have the influencer post stories and photos about their life and how your product or service affects them.
- After the takeover event, add the story posts to your highlights for free evergreen content!
For example: If Patagonia wanted to do a social media takeover event, they could hire an influencer in the rock climbing community to post throughout the day while using Patagonia products.
This provides Patagonia with credibility while also giving your potential customers an idea of what your product looks like in the real world.
Why do a social media takeover?
- Takeovers create urgency in the mind of your customers.
- Takeovers increase brand awareness.
- One in three social media users defers to social media making a purchasing decision.
- Forty percent of consumers purchase something after seeing an influencer use it.
- Social media takeovers get your products in front of an audience of your choosing.
Always make sure you’ve got branded images, clever captions, and a call to action ready to go. Just like any other time of year, you should be trying to stand out from the crowd.
Now is a good time to get creative and come up with content that drives action. People tend to be in a good mood during the holidays, use this to your advantage and promote a little holiday spirit on your social media page. If this blog has been helpful, check out our other blogs here. If you want to take your social media game to the next level, get in touch with our team here at LMH and see why we have over 90% client retention since the creation of our firm. It’s been a pleasure, happy holidays!
Google Ads: How It All Works
“Ads are the Cave Art of the Twentieth Century.” – Marshall Mcluhan.
Does anyone remember the days when we used yellow pages, encyclopedias, and books to search for information? With instant access to all the info we need, why would we do it the traditional way? Studies show that Google processes more than 40,000 searches per second, which averages to around 3.5 billion searches a day.
So here’s the real question, what is stopping you from using Google Ads for your business when your product/service is most likely being searched through the web?
Now before we completely sell you on this incredible and absolutely necessary marketing initiative, it’s important to understand Google Ads, why it’s vital that you promote your business through search engines.
What are Google Ads? Should I Google it?
Let’s start with the simple question running through your head right now: What exactly are Google Ads?
Google Ads is a paid advertising platform that uses a pay-per-click (PPC) in which you pay for each click or impression your ad receives. The more traffic you receive, the more $$ you’ll pay as an advertiser. The good news is these leads are well-qualified, good-fit customers who were served your ad most likely during the exact moment they were searching for information on your product or service. These ads are both desktop and mobile-friendly and can be displayed through the Google Search Network or through the Google Display Network. (we’ll talk about the two later.) The benefit of using Google Ads is simple. Google’s advanced technology allows you to serve ads to your ideal customer at the time they’re wanting to know more info… so you can avoid being that annoying person behind the ad that no one wanted to see come across their phone (We’ve all been there.)
Let’s Break It Down.
Bear with us…there’s more. To really understand the importance of using Google Ads for your business, you must understand all aspects of the platform and how to measure success with certain metrics.
So we already know that Google Ads displays your ad to your potential audience or customers who are interested in your product at the time. But what you might not have known, is that Advertisers actually bid on certain keywords or search terms, and the winners are placed at the top of search result pages.
“ Wait, so you’re telling me I have to compete with other ads to get ideal traffic.” – You when you read the paragraph above.
It should be no surprise that with business comes competition. But with the right tools, you can become a competitive player in your field. Now let’s open the toolbox:
AdRank and Quality Score.
AdRank, in a nutshell, is the determination of the order of competing ads on a Search Engine Results Page. (SERP) The ad with the highest rank gets the top position, the second ad gets the second-highest position, so on and so forth. It’s basically a popularity contest. The popular kids get noticed more, while the less popular kind of fly under the radar. (Damn, this one hit home.) To learn more about how to improve your AdRank, read this article.
Your Quality Score is one of the factors that determines your AdRank. This score is based on … you guessed it… the quality of your ad and how relevant it is to your target audience. Google measures this by how many people click on your ad. This is called a click-through rate or CTR. Essentially, the more relevant your ad is, the better it will perform. Although, having a high CTR does not necessarily mean that your ad is performing well on the back end. It’s also the user experience of the landing page your ad directs your audience to. For example, You can go on a date with someone because they’re good-looking, but if their personality is horrible you’ll most likely have an underwhelming experience.
Focusing on your Quality Score involves making sure your ad copy and CTA is exactly what the prospect expected.
Location
When creating your Ad, it’s important to use a location that is geographically strategic to ensure you’re reaching the correct audience. For example, If my product is golf clubs, I will most likely pick a radius around a popular golf course. For better results, it’s vital that you don’t serve ads in locations not relevant to your product. Google actually hates this, and your AdRank will absolutely suffer.
Keywords
Let’s pretend we’re still on this horrible date with the person who had a bad personality. Maybe it was their choice of words? If they had used the correct keywords, maybe you wouldn’t have left abruptly leaving them the bill due to a horrible match.
Keyword research is extremely vital to ensure that you’re matching your content with the searcher’s intent as much as possible. Google is basically the Bumble of ad platforms, meaning they will match your ad with your prospects’ search queries based on certain keywords you had selected for your ad.
If you’re still selling golf clubs, you probably don’t want to use the keywords “dog treats” when selecting a set of phrases. (We know this is a reach, but you get the point.)
Match Types
So how do I find the perfect match? Using match types when creating your ad gives you some room to pick either the most ideal candidate possible or the person who may not have all the qualities you need, but are still a good choice.
Match types tell Google whether you are looking for an exact match or anyone who has searched your keyword that’s a semi-related match. You can learn about the different match types here.
Ad Extensions
Looking for more bang for your buck? Ad Extensions are free and give prospects more reason to interact with your ad. These extensions include extra site links, a call button, maps, offers and promotions, and pricing. These give your prospects more reason to click on your ad compared to your competitors, who may not be utilizing extensions.
Now that we’ve emptied the toolbox, let’s move on to what you SHOULDN’T do.
Do not search your own ad…I repeat…
Of course, you’re going to want to see your beautiful ad, but doing so can actually hurt you.
Google ads use artificial intelligence that studies the behavior of the prospect and serves Ad at the most ideal time. So, what someone may see 1 minute, will not be what someone else would see 5 minutes later. Remember that advertisers are bidding against each other using the same keywords, so different ads may pop up in different rankings at any given time.
This is why it’s essential to look at reports on a monthly basis, allowing data to aggregate so you can look at trends, versus making decisions on small factors of your campaign.
Another reason you shouldn’t search your own ad is if you do happen to come across yours, the likelihood of you clicking on it is slim, and if you don’t, you’re telling Google that your ad isn’t relevant, which will impact your Quality Score. If you have a low Quality Score, it gets more expensive for you to run ads since your Cost Per Click will increase.
And lastly, if you repeatedly search your own ads without clicking, you’re eventually going to be ghosted by your own ad. Google will block your IP address in response to you desperately trying to find a way to look at your ad. Let Google do its magic and consult with your marketing experts at LMH, who can provide a report on how your campaign performs.
The Final Chapter
Whew… now that we’ve completed a few chapters of information, you should feel more comfortable about Google Ads and how it can benefit your business. It’s important to remember that we live in a world where you have to pay to play. However, if you play your cards right, you’ll be able to increase your business and make yourself a key competitor in your industry.
How to Take Eye-Catching Photos for Social Media
Whether it’s a portrait of your grandmother on mother’s day, your dog in a park, or a national park at sunset, every picture tells a story. However, not every picture tells an interesting story. But how do we differentiate between the pictures with interesting stories and the ones that are drab and boring? That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Just like understanding metaphors helps one understand what’s going on in a novel, understanding some basics of photo composition helps you to understand the story you’re trying to tell. The basics we’re going to go over today are the focus, lines, and rule of thirds.
Lets focus on focus.
The first thing we’re going to look at is focus. Explaining focus is pretty simple. Focus is just what in the photo is clear and what is unclear. The center of what is clear is the focal point and this is the part of your photo that is most legible and generally what people’s eye spot’s first. Some of the most eye-catching photos utilize focus in a way that clearly tells the audience (the people looking at the photo) what they’re supposed to be looking at.
This picture is a great example of focus making a picture catch your eye. You see and think “ooh what’s going on here?”. And that’s what focus does. The lack of focus around the lens of the camera directs your attention to the water and mountains that are quite literally in focus.
Next in line: Lines!
Now let’s talk about lines. Lines are created in photos when your eyes are led in a certain direction. It is easier shown than explained, however, so here you go.
In this photo what is the first thing you notice? It’s the lighthouse. This is because the seawall creates a line that points your eyes straight at it. Lines don’t automatically make a breathtaking photo but you would have a laborious time trying to find a photo that pops without lines. Even if you look at the alpine lake picture. The out-of-focus mountains in the background created lines that pointed right at the focal point. Lines make your pictures go from 0 to 100 real quick.
Thirdly: The Rule of Thirds
The third basic piece of photo composition is the rule of thirds. This is the idea that your subject should never be in the middle but instead should be resting on the intersection of lines dissecting your photo into vertical and horizontal thirds.
Simply putting your subject in the middle of a picture doesn’t do much to create intrigue. It doesn’t allow your eyes to flow to the subject, it just puts them in the middle and tells you to deal with it. By using the rule of thirds you have a much more pleasant photo but also it gives you more room to interpret the photo it asks “what is he looking at” or “what’s over there”. Creating questions builds interests.
There are lots of tricks you can use to curate a collection of eye-popping photos for your socials, but using these three can only help. An important thing to remember is no photo is perfect. But if you think a photo looks cool, it forces you to ask questions, and it follows at least one of these basics, it’s going to be interesting to others as well. Your social media is a reflection of you, these tips enhance the clarity of your reflection.
If this blog was helpful, check out some of our other blogs here. Until next time!
The LMH Guide to Knowing Your Social Media Audience
How well do you really know your audience? If your answer to the first sentence of this paragraph is “not well” then you’ve come to the right place! When it comes to targeting customers or creating the perfect post, knowing your social following is a crucial step in engaging the right people. Understanding your niche and targeting those people will allow you to dominate your social media platforms.
In today’s scenario, we’re going to talk about marketing cake. That’s because we just had lunch and now we want some dessert. But you can apply these philosophies to your business, so long as you follow the steps.
1. Find your niche social media audience.
What makes your business unique? List all of the things that interest you and find links between them. Do you own a bakery? Do you primarily sell wedding or birthday cakes? Targeting a specific category in your industry will allow you to be the “expert” in your field. A bakery that is known for really awesome birthday cakes will gain more internet traffic than just a regular bakery. Superman sprinkle birthday cakes? Now we’re talking!
2. Locate your optimal customers.
Using platforms such as Google Analytics will allow you to find which customers would personally connect with your business. Then you can target them. Factors such as location, age, and income level should determine who you go after. For a superhero cake business, it would be beneficial to find mothers with young children, or even better, mothers with young boys who like superheroes! Searching through hashtags is also a great way to connect with customers and find inspiration.
3. Keep in constant contact with your social audience.
Engaging your followers will allow you to understand how they think, what they like, and what they want to see. Post pics of your finished cakes! Make frosting taste test videos! Stories with polls or questions will allow your audience to speak directly to you (check out The LMH Guide to Engaging with Customers on Social Media for more on that). Posting videos or graphics will ensure that you don’t fall through the cracks of a cluttered Instagram feed. Your followers will tell you what they like if you give them the chance. As you post more content, learning about your followers will be a *cakewalk*!
4. Stay unique!
Stay true to your brand and good things will happen. The followers that benefit your business will stay with you, so don’t get crazy and follow the status quo! Create a feed with the best cakes in your town and the people will love you for it. Your prospective followers want to gain value from accounts that they follow. When you offer them extravagant birthday cakes, they become invested in your brand and will turn to you for their next purchase.
Don’t blow out the candles just yet!
Just because your product or service can be consumed by anyone does not mean you don’t have to shape your audience. The most important thing to remember about knowing your social media audience is that you create it. Once you find your audience, focus on catering towards them. Having a strong group of followers who stay engaged in the life of your account is a million times better than having hundreds of followers who don’t know who you are or what you stand for.
Follow these steps and you’ll be well on your way to baking up plenty of social media masterpieces. Happy baking!
