Our blog

Does it seem like social media marketing just clicks for some people? their content is perfect, they connect with the best people, there are “likes” aplenty—meanwhile your business or product of equal quality is straggling behind, trying to pick up a few modest likes and shares where it can.

Some people just can’t seem to grasp some of the most elementary concepts when it comes to Facebook, Twitter, and the other platforms. And that’s OK—you’re a business owner, not a social media expert. If these platforms could be mastered on their own, there wouldn’t be a need for digital marketing agencies. If anybody—even those who do claim to be social media gurus—say they’ve learned it all themselves, they’re lying.

The sad truth is that there isn’t an official “Social Media Marketing How-To Manual.” Any brand that’s succeeding at it has a marketing team or did at one point in the past. And as for marketers? We’ve all figured out what works and what doesn’t through trial, error, and a TON of hands-on experience.

But unfortunately, it isn’t in many brands or agencies best interest to share what they know. If you get as good at social media as your competitors, they face losing clients. And if you surpass the need for an agency then they’re SOL—it’s like in Terminator when the robots outgrew the humans. 

But, I’m going to do you a favor and loop you in—I’ll tell you why later. There are many unspoken rules of social media and how things work, but these are without a doubt the most essential. So let’s get started on everything you need to know.

1. Don’t “Like” your own content. It’s nice to pat yourself on the back every once in a while, but don’t do it on social media. If your only engagement is from yourself, well, that will look a tad pathetic, won’t it?
2. Respond to customers ASAP. Don’t forget, it’s SOCIAL media. That means these are channels of communications between you and your customers. Keep things positive, informative, and professional.
3. Be involved in the community. Apart from having good customer service, you need to be social in other ways such as sharing other businesses’ content (as long as they aren’t competitors). You should also be hosting engagement-heavy content like contests, polls, and Q&A sessions.
4. Abide by platform rules. Each social media platform connects people in different ways. LinkedIn is all about professional networking. Instagram is heavily focused on images. Twitter does best with news and current events. Make sure you “do as the Romans do” and shape your content to match what people flock to.
5. Keep it visual, baby. It’s been proven time and time again that social media updates do significantly better with some form of visual. Whether you want to use a picture, video, GIF, 360-video, live broadcast, or whatever is next in the world of marketing, you need something to compliment your copy.

So, while there isn’t any go-to manual, these rules are a great starting point for marketers who are trying to hit the ground running with social media. As you abide by these unspoken laws, take the time to plan, write, create, strategize, and revise your methods. Trust me, your efforts will go a long way.

Why am I telling you all this? Because digital marketing is a complex and time consuming art, and no matter how good you get at it, unless you can afford to do it internally you’ll need to hire a team—and, to be honest, it’s easier for everyone involved when a client isn’t starting from zero.

So get posting! And when it’s time to scale up your operations, we just hope you’ll remember the humble agency who brought you to the dance to begin with.

The use of influencers and content creators has become key in marketing campaigns. Due to their massive audiences or mastery of content, these people can be invaluable when it comes to producing quality work and getting it in front of a massive audience. However, they’re far from interchangeable.

First, it’ll probably be helpful to define a few key terms.

Who are content creators?

While the term content creator is most broadly applied to YouTubers, TikTokers, and other video creators and personalities, that is not the end-all, be-all of what a creator is.

A creator is…well, someone who creates something. When you refer to a content creator you could be talking about a video creator, but you could also be talking about a popular digital artist or designer, a popular writer, someone who does background music, or animates marketing collateral. 

Typically though, when you’re talking about a content creator you’re referring to someone who isn’t a part of your business—somebody that you’re bringing in to help accomplish a certain task not needed for most projects. Content creators work with brands by crafting assets from ideation all the way to delivery.

Hopefully, you can spin this relationship into a long-lasting one and make content creators want to keep working for your brand and producing great material. You can do this by working with them as a partner, not treating them as an employee, and knowing when it’s time to sit back and differ in their particular skill set. Creators have options, and if you micromanage they’ll take their talents elsewhere.

Who are influencers?

Although the terms often get conflated, influencers are on the opposite side of the coin from content creators.

While a content creator makes a product, an influencer is used to sell it. Kim Kardashian-West doesn’t edit her own Instagram posts or other videos, but there is still value to having her or someone of equivalent status onboard your campaign. Influencers have an audience and if you can get them to boost your product via a post, video, or blog, you can get your campaign in front of a lot people who likely wouldn’t know about it otherwise.

Something to clarify: an influencer is NOT a spokesperson. A spokesperson is an element of your campaign who will appear in promotional material. An influencer is usually a one time get who can put your product in front of their audience. Having an influencer promote your business is the equivalent of having your product on a nice display at the front of a store versus it being on the shelf with everything else.

Who do professionals listen to online? What influences them to act and buy the products or services that they do? It’s really no secret—it’s thought leaders, the power influencers of any given industry. But there is no ribbon or knighthood ceremony that grants a thought leader their position of power. Here’s the real secret: thought leader status is mostly self-branded.

If your online presence is one of humility and collectivism, being a thought leader ain’t the gig for you. It takes a forceful personality and, yes, more than a little bit of ego to become the go-to guy of your industry. You want to brand yourself as an expert so that people will want to listen to you, share your opinions, and engage with you online and a large part of doing that is leading the horses to water and making them drink.

The Steps to Online Attention

One of the fastest ways to become an expert in your field? Stop talking so much. As potentially toxic as it is, I think it will help to look at thought leadership in these terms: alpha and beta. 

A beta will never stop talking, for two reasons. First, they feel threatened by the lack of their own insight and need to make you feel like they’re the expert. Second, they figure that if they can B.S. for long enough and overload you with information, you won’t realize they’re using a lot of words to say very little.

The alpha knows they’re the expert and doesn’t feel an overwhelming need to convince everybody. They’re content laying their knowledge on the table and if you don’t use it, that’s your loss.

Who would you rather listen to?

Nothing seems more pathetic than some inexperienced web designer, writer, or online marketer who is self-branded as #1 in every marketing piece and on every web page. Achievements are proudly displayed with adjective-filled descriptions and sometimes even proof about achieving vast wealth. I certainly don’t believe it. Would you?

Instead of running around and telling everyone that you are fabulous, you need to pinpoint your expertise in terms of what you have to offer your target audience that engages them with your brand and message. True experts understand their subject deeply, and it’s likely they know how to work it better than anyone else.

There are people all over social media sites who have effectively branded themselves as experts or a specialist in their fields.  Let’s take me, for example. Personally, I don’t like the word “expert” used in my profession, as there is no such thing. The social media world is evolving at such a fast pace that no one can have all of the information. I prefer the term “specialist”, as I specialize in social media marketing.

With that said, I researched online marketing to see what people were discussing, what they needed, and how I could help them. Then I developed a myriad of interesting, engaging content that was centered around my target audience’s needs and concerns. I did this by pinpointing topics that I knew would create engagement, discussion, and comments.

Since I am a specialist, I share my insider knowledge, and I help others by answering questions whenever I am asked.  I try to focus on creating content that is original and helps people grow and expand their business. I anticipate needs and create engaging content that fills those needs.

By generating innovative ideas, helping peers, and engaging with your community members, you can achieve one or more of these goals:

• Lead the market conversation
• Build loyalty
• Stimulate passion
• Build and maintain a buzz
• Create excitement

So calling yourself an expert is an ineffective way to become an expert, but repeating someone else’s claim of your expert status is a phenomenal way to become an expert. Why?

Expert status doesn’t stem from what you think of yourself; it stems from what others think of you. When others deem you an expert, suddenly your reputation grows, your credibility increases, and your reach is enhanced. In other words, your fans are your very best source for branding yourself as an expert. This is beyond invaluable in the social media realm.

For example, in the copywriting industry, perhaps the most well-known expert is Bob Bly. Decades ago, publisher McGraw-Hill allegedly crowned Bob “America’s top copywriter.” The title stuck, and today it is difficult to read about Bob Bly without reading this accompanying fact. Whether he truly is America’s top copywriter or not has become of little importance. It is now considered an accepted fact, much like a royal title.

If you’re serious about building a strong business, let people notice your greatness, and they will tell others.  This is why so many of us count referrals as such a valuable source of income.

When you are considered an expert by others, you become sought after for many reasons:

• Experts offer distinctive services that others cannot.
• Experts provide valuable sound bites.
• Corporations seek out experts to certify risky business enterprises.
• Followers are attracted to expert knowledge. (As humans, we all want the assurance we’re doing the right thing and following the right advice.)
• Experts sell more products because people are more apt to buy from an expert who is credible and legitimate.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start developing your own expert status!

There is a lot to think about when you are executing a social media marketing strategy. The use of visuals, your content strategy, who will be executing the work, how will you measure your results, when the work will be done. All of these play an enormous factor in your success.

There is such an overwhelming amount of planning that goes into executing a social media marketing strategy and, inevitably, something will be left to the last minute. But one extremely vital point that gets left out in the cold during the social media strategy planning stage is when is the best time to post content to Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter?

Think of an email marketing campaign that you have previously executed.  If you have looked at the studies done on email marketing, you’ve no doubt noticed that by altering the time and date of your blasts, you can increase effectiveness.

This holds true also when finding the optimal posting time on social media. At the wrong time, a well-written post with wonderful content can languish at the bottom of the barrel. But once you know the optimal posting time and use it, you can garner exponentially more engagement by only changing the time and date it was shared!

Have you ever posted something to social media that you truly believed to be earth-shatteringly good and….crickets? This is a prime example of the importance of choosing the right time and date when posting your social media content. To help you along, here are some times that we have found to be helpful when posting content to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram respectively.

Below are a good starting point for posting times, and are just what we recommend—you will have to refine based on your own campaigns.

Facebook:

• Best Time to Post: Daily, between 1-4 pm
• Peak Time to Post: Wednesdays at 3 pm
• Worst Time to Post: Saturday and Sunday before 8 am and after 8 pm

Twitter:

• Best Time to Post: Monday through Thursday, 1-3 pm
• Peak Time to Post: Monday through Thursday, 8 am
• Worst Time to Post: Every day after 8 pm, Fridays after 3 pm

LinkedIn:

• Best Time to Post: Tuesday through Thursday
• Peak Time to Post: 9 am Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Worst Time to Post: Monday through Friday, 10 pm-6 am

Instagram:

• Best Time to Post: 11a11 am Wednesday
• Peak Time to Post: 11 am on Wednesday

These are simply guidelines for you to use which will effectively bring you closer to finding the optimal time to post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. This will not guarantee you success, but it will be an important factor that you should abide by when posting.

Try these out and monitor your success. You will need to massage these times and dates to find out what works best for you and your industry or target market. When it comes to your content, what should be the most important thing is that you plan to deliver it to the correct audience at the time when they are ready to receive it. This will create a social media home run not only for your content, but also your campaign!

In a time when there is more competition than ever across all industries, it’s important for brands to leverage the insights that a competitive analysis can bring. Along with giving you a valuable look into where your closest competitors are succeeding and failing, studying the competition will help you set goals for your own campaign.

These goals are called benchmarks. 

To form benchmarks, first, you have to complete a thorough competitive analysis of all of your closest industry competitors. Be realistic about this—if you’re a tech startup, Google and Amazon are NOT your competitors. Look for people who are punching in your weight class if you want tangible, usable results.

This is a lot to do for a brand that’s just starting out. The information that you can get from a well-done competitive analysis is very useful, but it’s also likely to be overwhelming if it’s your first time looking at this kind of data. How do you know where to start?

Unfortunately, a lot of brands don’t have a good idea for this—they’re more attracted to hopping on flash-in-the-pan trends than content with longevity, mostly out of a misguided desire to go viral. Here are the five benchmarks I recommend you start with. These were selected because they’re immediately actionable and easy for even newcomers to the concept of benchmarking to understand.

Five Easy Benchmarks to Start With

• • Content performance: Find out what’s considered top-performing content in your space. I suggest tracking three or four of your closest competitors and here’s why: one brand getting good reception on a specific kind of post is a coincidence, but four brands is a trend. Be sure to take note of all the factors that could be playing into how successful their content is—what type of stuff are they posting? Is it image-heavy, video-heavy, or mostly text? How often do they post? What are their key posting times? Producing quality content isn’t enough, you need to help it out a little and play by social media’s rules.
  • Content type: What type of content your posting is going to heavily rely on your audience—but the lucky part is that your competitors will likely have a close audience to you, so you can use their content strategy as a guide. Be willing to be malleable and invest in new methods of content like video if that’s what’s getting the best engagement.
  • Posting methods: Timing plays a huge role in whether or not a brand’s content is successful. You could hire Shakespeare and John Milton to head up your content creation team but if you’re posting at 22 am it’s not going to matter. Take notice of when your competitors are posting and what time slots get the best reaction.
  • Growth rate: Publishing fresh content, rolling out new campaigns, and interacting with your audience is a great way to grow the brand, but it isn’t a flawless method. You need the right combination of these things to attract and win a loyal audience. Invest in a growth analysis tool and see how quickly your closest competitors are gaining their social media following. Then, take their most successful methods and fine-tune them to fit your brand.
  • Popularity: Every brand wants mentions—to be able to participate in a conversation that somebody else started. It’s a sign that audiences are talking about you naturally without you having to solicit responses. Social listening is a critical tool to help you meet benchmarks for mentions—you can find out who’s talking about you and, more importantly for your goals, your competition. But, also take into account that not all conversations are positive for the brand that’s being talked about. You might see one week that your competitor’s mentions shot up 200%, but if your competitor just accidentally gave a bunch of customers food poisoning, those aren’t the kind of mentions they want. Performing a sentiment analysis will help you detect these kinds of nuances.

Once you’ve measured where all of your competitors are at with the above, you can start setting benchmarks for yourself. But remember this as you do: an unrealistic benchmark is just going to make you feel like a failure. Some success you have to work your way up to. Setting benchmarks month over month to get at the level of your competitors might be something you have to do, and there’s no shame in that.