Social Media Archives

March 20, 2020

Social Media Listening: Understanding What Consumers Are Saying About Your Brand

Brand awareness is a core factor in any brand’s social media strategy. Every brand wants to be a household name. However, this could work against a brand if the conversations going on about it on social media are negative. This is where social media listening comes in.

Social media listening involves monitoring various social media platforms for; mentions of your brand or products, discussions containing specific keywords that are relevant to your brand and even mentions of your competitors and other closely related brands. The next and most important step in social media listening is analyzing the data you’ve collected, drawing reasonable conclusions from the data and acting on them to improve your social media strategy.

How Will Social Media Listening Benefit Your Brand?

Consumer Engagement

Social media opens your brand to an ocean of potential customers. A lot of times, this can make it tempting to want to do all the talking – you want to present your brand to the world and show everyone what you have to offer. It is, however, important to remember that it is called social media for a reason, there are people at the other end and these people will engage your content. Social media listening helps you to not only respond to consumers but to respond appropriately so you can add value to your brand and increase customer loyalty.

Making Adjustments

If your brand is on any social media platform, this should mean you already have a social media strategy. Social media listening is key to improving your strategy. It will help you to figure out what works and what doesn’t work so you can streamline your efforts in the right direction and avoid wasting your time and resources. Social media listening can even result in you changing your target audience entirely.

Opportunities for Growth

Easy access to customer feedback is an invaluable advantage of social media.

Customers are bound to provide their opinions and you can find ways to improve your brand and customer service just by listening to these opinions. For instance, if you offer several products, customer feedback can point you in several directions such as the addition of a new product, an improvement on a particular product or even specialization whereby you focus on producing just one of the products and improving on it as much as possible.

Also, if there’s a lot of positive conversation going on about your brand, you can look for the reason behind this and build on it. If the conversation or general sentiment about your brand is negative, you can find the root of the problem and try to make amends. Doing this can nip potential disasters in the bud and ensure things don’t get out of hand.

Social media is a constantly changing playing field and social media listening is very important in making sure your brand remains relevant.

March 13, 2020

Developing a Social Media Strategy

By Ricky Ahuja Marketing, Social Media

A social media strategy is arguably the most essential factor required for any business or brand that wants to take up social media marketing. Without a social media strategy, you have no way of assessing the effectiveness of your social media posts, mostly because you don’t have an idea of what exactly you want these posts to achieve. A social media strategy helps to focus your efforts and overall, increases the value of your brand’s social media presence.

So what is a social media strategy?

Put simply, a social media strategy is a layout of what you want to achieve using social media. You’re definitely going to be posting a considerable amount of content and, basically, your social media strategy answers the question “why?”.

To develop a strong social media strategy. There are a few things need to put in place.

Firstly, you have to specifically define your business objectives. Your business objectives could be to increase awareness of your brand, to attract traffic to your website, or anything else. It could be one specific objective or it could be two or three of them. It all depends on the overall goal that you want your brand’s social media presence to achieve.

Without defined business objectives, it will be difficult, if not impossible for you to precisely estimate the progress your brand is making by being on social media.

Another important thing you have to do is define your target audience. On social media, you can’t get everybody’s attention and really, you don’t need to because it’s very unlikely that everybody is going to be interested in what your brand is offering. When you know the attributes of your ideal consumer, you can avoid creating unnecessary content in a futile effort to please everyone. Your target audience will have a couple of things in common. This may be their age, location, jobs, income, etc.

Precisely defining your target audience will go a long way in determining a lot of things such as the content you post, the form your content is going to take (e.g. videos, pictures), the voice or tone of your posts (and brand), even the choice of social media platforms you are going to use should depend largely on the audience you want to reach.

Finally, constantly assess and improve your social media strategy as much as possible. This is where Social Media Analysis comes in. This involves gathering and analyzing data about your previous social media activities. It will also be helpful for you to analyze the social media data of that your competitors, especially if you are just about to begin using social media for your brand marketing. It isn’t the easiest of tasks but is crucial because it helps you to know what works, so you can focus your efforts in that direction, and what doesn’t work, so you can avoid these things. There are a lot of social media analysis tools available online and some are free so you don’t have to worry about the cost.

Implementing these things will go a long way in improving your social media strategy and by extension, your brand’s value.

March 6, 2020

Getting Attention on Social Media through Helpful Content

By Ricky Ahuja Social Media

Social media is rapidly growing. Every single second, the internet is being flooded by new content via several different social media platforms. It’s the perfect condition for your content to get drowned. This, however, doesn’t have to be the case. Despite the overwhelming amount of information that is struggling for the finite attention of social media users, it is still very possible for you to attract the attention your brand needs.

To achieve this, the first thing you need to do is realize that you can’t get everybody’s attention. Trying to do so would be an effort in futility. Instead, define the attributes of your ideal audience. This is an indispensable step.

Defining your target audience will go a long way in helping you to create content that is helpful as well as relevant to said audience. It will also be the key to determining your choice of social media platforms, considering the fact it is impractical for you or your brand to be active on every single social media site.

To effectively define your ideal audience, you must pinpoint your core values as a brand. What is your market position? What makes you unique as a brand?

So now you know the audience you want to reach. The next thing you have to do is tailor your content to suit their taste.

Content is, arguably, the most important factor in any social media strategy, so you must get it right.

In the words of advertising innovator, Howard Gossage; “Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.” This quote can be useful to you when putting in the context of content creation. Your aim should be to interest your audience and keep them interested. Content created to achieve the aim of attracting the attention of your audience should be unique. Think out of the box. You know the audience you want, so put yourself in their place. What type of content would attract you if you were in their shoes?

However, apart from your content being catchy, it also has to be helpful. Helpful content will not only serve to get people’s attention; it will go a long way in making sure they stay interested.

To develop helpful content, you must connect with your audience emotionally. Empathy is key. Communicate directly with your audience. Don’t just speak, listen. Engage them. Ask for, be genuinely interested in, and respond appropriately to their feedback. While doing this, you learn more about your audience; You discover the things they react to positive and the ones they don’t; You learn what to do more of and what to do less of, or not at all. With this knowledge, you can move from the point of creating content based on generalizations to creating relevant, helpful content that will resonate with your audience on a deeper and more personal level. This will help you stand out to your audience and give them a reason to remember you.

March 4, 2020

Engagement as a Core Social Media Strategy

By Ricky Ahuja Marketing, Social Media

The advent of social media has presented a huge turn around in the way businesses communicate with their audience. There is a vast amount of information fighting for the attention of the average social media user today. Advertising tactics that may have been efficient with mass media (e.g. radio, television) simply won’t get you anywhere with social media.

When mass media was predominant, all a company had to do was buy time or space and they could get the attention of the public. Now, however, things have changed. Even though you can still buy space on social media, this doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get any attention at all, mainly because of all the distractions available on the internet.

So what is the way forward?

To attract the attention of your target audience on social media, engagement should be a key consideration. Your audience should feel involved. Even if you choose to go the way of interruptive advertising, make sure your adverts have value and the capacity to appeal to your target audience and also incite a response from them. For instance, on Snapchat, you want to create filters that your followers can use. By letting your audience interact with your brand, they feel involved.

It is important to note, however, that although you can start the conversation about your brand, with social media, you can’t control it. You have very limited power over the information that is generated about your brand. Most times, a large amount of the conversation going on about your brand is generated by the consumers. Feedback about your brand products/services constitutes a considerable part of these conversations. To some, this may sound like a disadvantage, but consumer-generated information can serve as a powerful tool in making your ads more effective. Research has proven beyond a doubt that people’s decisions are influenced strongly by consumer feedback. And you can in turn influence this feedback simply by listening and responding.

Listening is key to the success of any social media strategy. One mistake brands commonly make is that they talk too much. You want to get information about your brand out there; you want your audience to know why you are the preferred choice. But while all this important, it is also key that you listen to what is being said about your brand and respond appropriately. As much as possible, reply to feedback and if you feel you’re not getting enough feedback, ask for it. Let your customers know that they are important to you and that you care about their opinions. Listening gives you an idea of what works and what doesn’t and helps you fine-tune your social media strategy so you can get the most out of it. This way, you can ensure your ads elicit a more positive response from your customers who are in turn more likely to generate positive conversation around your brand which more people will respond to. This way your customers will feel involved.

February 13, 2020

You Can Buy Ads, You Can’t Buy Attention

By Ricky Ahuja Social Media

The biggest problem used to be limited information. Ads were run on several mass media channels with the hope of gaining as much reach as possible. Even with the millions of dollars invested in advertising accounts, there was a glass ceiling to mass media reach.

With the internet and social media came to an entirely different problem. A solution to the old problem of reach, but a seeming overdose of it. This problem is an information explosion or as a social media consultant and author, Michael Schaefer, calls it “content shock”.

It is estimated that every minute, there are 448,800 tweets, 3.3 million Facebook posts, 65,972 Instagram posts, and 500 hours of YouTube content added to the internet. This is much more information than the human mind can absorb in a day. Expectedly, a considerable percentage of the information uploaded to the internet is marketing information. Brands, affiliate marketers, advertising agencies, and digital marketers are constantly putting out content to target audiences on social media.

In 2014, Facebook reported that the average user saw more than 1500 stories in their news feed whenever they logged into the account. This was way too much and Facebook had to cut the amount of content available to an average user. This was reduced to 300 stories and this dropped the organic reach of business pages to about 3%. With this, paid ads became a necessity for businesses and brands to boost reach. Still, the average social media user gets a lot of ads in news feeds. It is estimated that the average social media user gets about 5000 ads a day!

If an ad does not get the attention of the social media user, it is more or less an interruption. And interruptions get ignored. You should consider these two factors to get ahead in social media marketing.

Focus on the Solution: research has revealed that the most effective Superbowl ads are those who tell a complete story with about 4 to 5 acts. These ads feature exposition, rising action, climax, and the solution brought by the product (which is the resolution). But every ad can’t be in a movie form. Tell a story that highlights the solution your product brings. Following the “More is Less” rule, your motive is primarily not entertainment, it is to provide a solution to a problem.

Be Interactive: social media was made for social interaction. Users want to be engaged. Run quizzes, reply comments, show empathy, and let users know that the person on the other end is human and not another computer. Since the announcement by Facebook in January 2018 that they would emphasize meaningful interactions, posts with more engagement in the form of comments, likes, and shares from Facebook friends now get more reach.

Ads are very useful but can be interruptions. Focus more on getting attention and the effectiveness in your reach will increase.

May 3, 2017

TOP 5 OBSTACLES TO OVERCOME WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

By Ricky Ahuja Social Media

[fullwidth background_color=”” background_image=”” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_webm=”” video_mp4=”” video_ogv=”” video_preview_image=”” overlay_color=”” overlay_opacity=”0.5″ video_mute=”yes” video_loop=”yes” fade=”no” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding_top=”20″ padding_bottom=”20″ padding_left=”” padding_right=”” hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” menu_anchor=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_text]For many, social media marketing seems like a daunting task. This is mainly due to the fact that they don’t truly understand how easy it can be. It’s not something that takes a rocket scientist to figure it out. In fact, here are 5 different ways that you can get the most out of social media marketing.

PLAN FOR SUCCESS, YOU WON’T REGRET IT

Take the time to understand what your goals are with social media marketing. Learn how to create a social media marketing strategy and how to engage with your network. By doing this, you’ll be able to have a solid plan to follow while ensuring that your intentions are to create the best presence possible on social media for your brand/company.

DON’T JUST COUNT ON AN ORGANIC REACH

It would be great if we could immediately get our desired results on organic efforts alone. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. There comes a time when you have to seek out paid social media marketing efforts to see the results that you crave.

All of the major social media networks have embraced paid advertising, which opens up quite the avenue when it comes to promotion. Take some time (and money) to explore the options available on your preferred social network(s). You never know, it may help the size of your audience grow tremendously.

SOCIAL MEDIA POSTING DOESN’T HAVE TO BE TIME-CONSUMING

Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and other social media tools allow you to stop wasting time on crafting/posting just the right posts. Not only do they provide you with a deeper understanding of your audience and your presence, but they allow you to schedule your posts ahead of time.

This is where you want to sit down and craft several posts to schedule. By doing this, you’ll be able to fill your time with other actions needed to enhance the growth of your business.

CONTENT ANALYSIS WORKS WONDERS

The content that you publish on social media is what’s going to determine whether or not you see the right results. From using the information provided with your social media tool of choice to seeing which content has received the highest level of attention, analyzing the content you publish on social media will help paint the roadmap to social media success.

NETWORKING IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS

In order to be successful at social media, you have to understand it. In order to understand it, you need to use it regularly. Make sure that your social network is one that provides you with value. This means following industry leaders and cutting-edge brands. Don’t be afraid to share their content either as this could grab their attention and produce even more results from your social media efforts.

What is the biggest social media obstacle you’ve had to overcome?[/fusion_text][/fullwidth][fullwidth background_color=”” background_image=”” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_webm=”” video_mp4=”” video_ogv=”” video_preview_image=”” overlay_color=”” overlay_opacity=”0.5″ video_mute=”yes” video_loop=”yes” fade=”no” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding_top=”20″ padding_bottom=”20″ padding_left=”” padding_right=”” hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” menu_anchor=”” class=”” id=””][one_full last=”yes” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_tabs design=”classic” layout=”horizontal” justified=”yes” backgroundcolor=”” inactivecolor=”#ffffff” bordercolor=”” class=”posto-tabo” id=””][fusion_tab title=”BIO” icon=”fa-user”]

Ricky Ahuja

Founder at rickyahuja.com

A serial entrepreneur, Ricky Ahuja has been known and well respected for his strong acumen as an online marketer and social media expert since 1998.
His affiliate networks have been ranked in the Top 10 from 2012 – 2016 by the mThink Blue Book Survey and Perform Insider.
He is easily one of the most accessible and approachable individuals in the industry. Be sure to catch him at the next industry event or trade show.

[/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”LATEST POST” icon=”fa-file-o”][fusion_widget_area name=”avada-custom-sidebar-pagewidget1″ background_color=”” padding=”” class=”” id=””][/fusion_widget_area][/fusion_tab][/fusion_tabs][/one_full][/fullwidth]

It's not about making a buck, it's about making a difference.

ricky@rickyahuja.com

+1 571-577-7363

Category Archives: Social Media