Analytics

Dear Snapchat,

You’re losing influencers.

Fostering long-lasting relationships is an important aspect of any brand or business’ long-term success. This is especially true for mobile apps, which rely on consumers to keep using their product.

When it comes to social media, many brands and businesses have turned to leveraging ‘influencers’ for their marketing, rather than traditional ads. They’ve also turned to social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram to reward their top influencers with special features and assistance to further their careers. These popular platforms thoroughly understand that interesting individuals with large followings and content creation skills can attract more consumers and keep them on the network longer.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Snapchat.

When Instagram released their stories feature, the social media realm was filled with memes and articles ridiculing the fact that the platform had copied Snapchat. Yet, according to TechCrunch, Snapchat Story views dipped by 15-40% after Instagram Stories launched.

To add to the fire, Snapchat did nothing to foster relationships with their influencers. In fact, many influencers expressed feeling like they had received a cold shoulder when attempting to reach out. Instagram on the other hand, invited influencers in with open arms and enthusiastically helped them out with whatever they needed.

Snapchat’s disregard of influencers may stem from a business decision that aims to maintain control over advertising by having companies pay them directly, rather than paying influencers. Unfortunately, this technique may not be doing Snapchat a favour. It’s no surprise that influencers began moving their audiences to other platforms like YouTube and Instagram. And where influencers go, brands may follow.

In fact, MediaKix, an influencer agency, tracked Snapchat’s top 12 influencers (all of whom have close to 100 million followers), for 30 days, to see how often they posted on various platforms. The agency found that the top Snapchat influencers posted 25% more on Instagram Stories than on Snapchat, an intriguing result.

So why are influencers leaving Snapchat?

1. An influencer’s primary goal is to grow their audience. This requires them to be able to be found. Unfortunately, Snapchat’s search function makes it much harder to find and follow someone when compared with Instagram.
2. Another advantage that Instagram has over Snapchat is the ability to share links, use searchable hashtags, and tag people in their stories. The ability to link viewers to their YouTube channel, website, or store is a MUST for influencers!
3. With more than 700 million monthly active Instagram users, the potential reach on Instagram is much higher than on Snapchat, which only has around 300 million monthly active users. Snapchat also lacks the robust analytics features that Instagram and other networks offer, which has proved to be an incredibly useful tool for influencer marketing.

So, the question is:

Will we see Snapchat wither away like Vine?

Or will we see them make a comeback in the tech world with new and exciting products?

Only time will tell.

What if I told you that there is a social networking website that could potentially get you 20x the reach of Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter? It sounds too good to be true, right? Wrong! The website I’m talking about is called Reddit.

So what is Reddit?

By definition, Reddit is an “American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website” where members can submit content such as text posts, photos, videos, or direct links into sub-categories of Reddit with specific themes and topics (these are called subreddits). The content posted to these subreddits by members is then voted up (up-votes) or down (down-votes) by other members, determining the position of the post. Posts with more up-votes stay at the top of the subreddit, while posts with less up-votes, or posts with lots of down-votes are pushed down towards the bottom of the subreddit. Essentially, just like any social networking and discussion website, posting high quality content will result in more shares, likes, comments, and maybe even conversions.

Numbers Don’t Lie

So far in 2017, Reddit has been bringing in approximately 542 million monthly visitors, 234 million of them being unique visitors, making it the 7th most visited website in America, and 22nd in the world. If that wasn’t enough, in 2015 Reddit reached 82.54 billion pageviews, 73.15 million submissions, and consisted of 853,824 subreddits.

Now that we know what Reddit is, and why it has such great potential from a marketer’s point of view, I am going to share with you my favourite tactics for leveraging Reddit for organic and paid advertising.

Paying For Targeted Ads

Although I don’t have actual experience with targeted ads on Reddit, I’ve seen them in action and I know they work. Reddit offers advertising options where you can actually advertise in specific subreddits, giving the advertiser an opportunity to target specific users with a super relevant ad. This is great because when a user sees a relevant ad in a relevant place, they are more likely to click through and convert. For example, when I was on the /r/adops/ subreddit earlier today, I found two paid ads that would be very relevant to the /r/adops/ community.

The first is a native looking ad at the top of the subreddit, disguising itself as a normal post:

The second ad, featured on the right side of the webpage is not a native ad. It is still however a high quality ad that is very relevant to just about anyone visiting the /r/adops/ subreddit:

How Much Does It Cost?

In order to advertise on Reddit, advertisers must be willing to spend a minimum of $5 per campaign, and a $0.75 charge per thousand pageviews. Currently, Reddit only offers CPM (cost per thousand impressions) as a cost model, and like Adwords, the CPM price you pay depends on a variety of factors, like targeting, bid, and competing ads. Reddit also allows advertisers to purchase up to 3 months prior to a campaign, so plan ahead!

Organic Marketing

Another form of advertising that I like on Reddit, and one that I have personal experience with, is organic marketing. One tactic that is arguably the easiest is to position yourself as a thought leader within the subreddit you are trying to advertise on. Let’s say that you are working for a landing page optimization company, and come across a user in the ad operations subreddit looking for information on landing page optimization. You could answer the user’s question and also provide a backlink to the company you work for. Doing this (well) would provide you with authority within the subreddit, which will benefit you should you decide to keep posting, and will drive traffic back to the website you have just linked to.

Organic marketing is trickier to pull off successfully than paid advertising, because like most people on social networking websites, people on Reddit hate ads, even more so when the ads are low quality, intrusive, aren’t relevant, or are ads disguised as regular posts. Failing to follow the rules, or “reddiquette”, you may find your content getting downvoted, and you getting banned. Having said that, there are a number of ways to organically market on Reddit without pissing off all of the people who could be potentially clicking on your ad.

Things To Avoid

As I mentioned above, Reddit users hate ads and being deceived into clicking on them. There are some things that every company should avoid doing, whether you’re marketing for Starbucks or a local coffee shop.

The big no-no is posting memes. Just don’t do it. If this is the only take away you have from this article, you’ll have still learned something valuable. It’s a risky move that few brands (if any) have managed to pull off without looking incredibly desperate.

One cringe-worthy example that demands a discussion is when Pilot posted a series of memes to various social networking sites in an effort to try to promote their new line of pens. The memes featured slogans like “The only pen that matters” and “I will not lose any of these” that make you want to put your head in your hands. Once they found their way to Reddit, users weren’t happy, and felt betrayed by the user who originally posted the memes, and maybe even by Reddit as a whole. One user even went on to say “Even if he’s [the poster] not paid by the company or an advertising agency, I don’t really want people who are just fans of some brand making accounts just to post about that product. What would Reddit be then?”

I’ve managed to track down a few of the original memes, and have attached my personal favourites. I truly hope you find them as horrible as I did.

In conclusion, marketing on Reddit is not easy or for the faint at heart. It’s a lively community that offers a huge potential for marketing. If you aren’t afraid of criticism, and are targeting certain niches – there’s really no better place to be. If done correctly, you could be on your way to tapping into a valuable goldmine of targeted traffic directly to your website, while increasing brand awareness at the same time.

Resources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit
• https://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette
• https://redditblog.com/2015/12/31/reddit-in-2015
• http://adage.com/article/special-report-sxsw/reddit-hates-marketing-market/292068/

Content is arguably one of the most valuable marketing tools for any company. When you produce relevant and shareable content, you engage readers, build trust for our brand, products, and services while informing and inspiring people to new ways of thinking.

Investing in content marketing creates an opportunity to directly and articulately connect with customers and show them why they should choose to work with you over your competitors.

Once you’ve created that content, you need to get it out into the world. That’s where social media comes into play.

Sure, your product or mission may be cool and trendy, innovative and progressive, but what do you have to say as a company or organization? Why should people “like” your Facebook page or follow you on Instagram and Twitter? What makes engaging with your online presence worth their time?

Why Great Social Content Matters

1. Establishing Target Markets Drives Profitability

A good social marketing team will work with you to pinpoint your target market. When it comes to content, it is important to understand the difference between, “who would be interested in this?” and “who do I want to be interested in this?”. When your desired market doesn’t match with the content you are creating, innovation is key.

With an ever-changing marketing landscape, companies must actively look for new ways to reach their demographic. Establishing a true target market, along with collecting data on what those potential clients are drawn to drive profitability and ensures your content is reaching the people who are most likely to use your service or product and creating a connection with them.

2. A Concise Message Is A Message Well Received

Imagine you enter an elevator with the CEO of a potential investor in your start-up business. This is your shot! You’ve got two minutes to explain why your product or business is valuable and worth their interest. What do you say?

This exercise is understandably difficult. It is not an easy task to rein in all of your many creative ideas into one neat package.  However, in the realm of social media, this practice is important. When creating a company biography for Facebook, or writing an “About Us” section on your website, your message needs to be clear and accurate. When these sections are too long, or too vague, people get bored and stop reading! This practice is especially important for use on social media sites like Twitter – where your post-able word count is limited.

Filling your Tweets and Facebook ads with either unimportant or data-intense information can make customers hesitant and less likely to engage. Articulating a healthy balance of informative and interesting content is no easy task, but it is key to your social media success.

3. When Your Clients Feel Important, They Return

Do your content ideas consider the perceptions of your customers? As an owner or manager it can become difficult to detach yourself, seeing your product or business from the outside looking in. It is important to seek a new set of eyes, playing devil’s advocate with any points of disconnect between your company’s mission and what is really being conveyed to potential customers.

It is also important to consider how you can become not only a product provider, but a “friend” to your users. People are more likely to use a product or consult with a company (and people) that makes them feel happy, valued, and secure.

A great way to do this through retweeting or replying to user questions and concerns on your social media pages. Instead of just stating dry information, ask them questions, add some personality to your messages, and show your appreciation for their business. Clients are more likely to engage and be returning customers if they feel important and recognized.

“People want to do business with you because you help them get what they want. They don’t do business with you to help you get what you want.”
– DON CROWTHER (@DON_CROWTHER)

4. Keywords Make A Difference.

Social content cannot rely on creative ideas alone. It is necessary to also compile search engine research data – identifying rich and attractive keywords that will set your business’ content above the rest.

For example, popular hashtags help to link your specific postings to all other posts made under that same hashtag umbrella. If someone is looking for #GreenSocks and you happen to be a company that specifically sells #GreenSocks, you can locate this customer and reach out to them.

Identifying these keywords is essential to your success as they help to increase your online presence, allow users to more effortlessly locate you through search engines like Google, and it helps your customers to see the true value you bring to their specific needs!

5. Advertising Is Changing. It’s Time To Adapt.

Every day we are bombarded by billboards, commercials, and print advertising messages. Due to this over-sell, these types of advertising methods have become less and less effective. This is because customers have become bitter and annoyed by the repetition, and have therefore found ways to avoid them (such as recording their favourite show and fast forwarding over the commercials or by using ad blockers). It is then necessary that companies work towards developing new and intriguing ways to reach customers without unsettling or bothering them, and instead interacting and connecting with them.

One of the ways companies can draw business, without a forward in-your-face sell, is through (you guessed it) – social content marketing! People are more likely to read and share a blog article that they find value in and believe others will as well.

For example: Instead of reading why she should buy shampoo from XYZ company, Sally is more interested to read about,  “The 7 Benefits of Shampoos that contain Coconut Oil” – something that XYZ company specifically includes in their product! Then, when XYZ company shares this blog article, customers read about the benefits of this same shampoo, without feeling like they’re reading a direct advertisement.

“Think like a publisher, not a marketer.”
David Meerman Scott (@dmscott)

6. Consistency & Tone Create A Lasting Effect

Setting the tone for your social media plan is critical. If your brand is funky and hipster, then the lingo you use in your online posts need to mesh with this pre-established foundation. However, if your company is of a more serious or traditional nature, don’t be timid about fostering new ideas that will change up those potentially “dry” stereotypes people may have about you. Yes, your website may be full of important data and statistics, but your social media accounts allow for you to communicate important things with a bit more flare and edge – that’s what they’re there for.

Let’s dive deeper. Static website content is not always great social media content because readers often look past it as “boring”. This is because website and social content often speak to different audiences and have different goals – information vs. engagement. Social media is built to encourage and sustain interaction (and get new leads!), so be mindful of how these helpful tools need to be approached in different ways.

What exactly makes social media content different, you ask? Its tone is consistently creative, often fun, “digestible” (straightforward and not jargon-heavy), and can include an image, infographic, video, or other media component. This type of engaging and creative work takes time, but this is time very well spent. When people see this type of interesting content being produced regularly, they are more likely to engage with the posts and return to see more because they enjoy keeping up to date with a brand that speaks to them.

7. Monitoring Results Increases Customer Satisfaction.

So, here’s where things get tricky. More important than having people engage with your social media accounts, you need to drive referral traffic back to your website – the centre of your digital presence.

Through website analytics you will be able to track how many new people have found your website, as well as how long they have stayed on the page, reading more detailed content and navigating the site to additional pages. Effective social media convinces the engager that you are a company worthy of their time and money and helps to lead them to your website in order to learn more.

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”
– JEFF BEZOS

It is important to monitor your social media engagement results, both the good and the bad. When your company receives a great review on social media, this information can be shared and celebrated across your different sites. When your company receives a bad review, social media gives you a voice to be able to communicate with the unhappy customer and to try to repair the relationship. Opening the dialogue and ensuring that a customers care is of the utmost importance shows great initiative and ownership to other potential clients. This response also tells the client that their opinion matters and that issue will be rectified in some way.

Engaging content is the foundation of any social media engagement strategy. “This is all great knowledge”, you say. “But I don’t have time to write it and I don’t know where to start!”. That’s where we come in. We can help source, write, and curate your content for social media sharing. If you are in need of new content for your websites and social media platforms, contact us today.

“Content is fire, social media is gasoline”
– Ryan Kahn