Social Media

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Digital Marketing

Providing Good Customer Service on Social Media

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Social media sites have become popular platforms for brands looking to communicate with their customers, and they provide an opportunity to deliver stellar customer service experiences. Social media is useful for improving people’s impressions of brands compared to traditional means of communication because when you solve problems for your customers online, thousands of others may also see your great response.

That being said, the risk still exists for things to go wrong. We’ve outlined a few best practices for providing exceptional customer service on social media that will make sure you kill it, and not your brand image.

Find Your Customers

Providing exceptional customer service takes time and resources, and you should allocate these wisely by determining which social media sites your customers use the most. For most companies, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are popular but depending on your industry, your audience might be more engaged through Instagram or YouTube.

The social media sites where you are having the most success (most shares, likes, and other engagements) should be the platforms you invest in since they are where:

  1. Your target audience is most active.
  2. Your customers are more likely to contact you if they have a concern.

Once you have identified your audiences watering holes for information, reviews and engagement. It’s important to have a strategy for engagement.

Listen, Listen, Listen!

Social media has changed the way customers interact with brands and vise versa. Marketing is no longer placing ads in front of people that communicate your brand message, product and telling what the end-user should feel or think about your brand. Social Media has created two-way communication between your customers, potential customers and you. It’s now an outlet to directly respond to you and express their thoughts about your product or services. Therefore, you must pay attention to what people are saying to you and about you, and respond accordingly.

Doing this involves more than just checking your direct messages or having an auto-responder set to reply when you can not. You need to have a plan in place for ongoing checks for negative (and positive) comments left on your posts and also check for posts outside your accounts where people may comment about you. By using tools like Hootsuite, you can be notified whenever someone mentions your brand, regardless of whether or not they mention you or contact you directly.

People don’t just message brands, they Tweet at them – which is out there for the world to see.

Respond, Always!

No one likes being ignored, and making sure you respond to people who communicate with your brand is crucial. Negative comments that go unanswered remain there for the world to see and make your brand look careless and cold.

Also, never delete negative comments. People who are willing to go to the effort of posting a negative comment are more than willing to point out when their comments have been deleted, and this can spell social suicide for you. Instead, own how you take their criticism (it will make you look good) and try to turn the negative situation into a positive one, turning the relationship around.

Responding to positive feedback is also a good idea as it builds profitable relationships with people and makes your brand appear positive and proactive to others – especially if these conversations happen in public places like comments.

Tim Horton’s constantly monitors comments on its Facebook posts, and responds promptly to frustrated customers.

Make things Efficient

Optimize your social media profiles so that communicating with your brand is as easy as possible for consumers. This is important if you receive or expect to receive a high volume of messages. Below are just some tips for accomplishing this goal:

  1. For Facebook pages, enable instant replies or initial messages to let customers know you’ll be responding and addressing their concerns as soon as possible.
  2. Add a “message” button directly to your Facebook page as well as various contact buttons onto your Instagram page – increasing accessibility for those looking to contact you.
  3. It’s a good habit to have your social profiles downloaded and accessible on your phone so that you can respond at all times (rocking social media means living on it!).
  4. If quick response time isn’t possible, you can set your Facebook messenger status to ‘away’ so that people at least know when you’re not available.
  5. Keep in mind: Facebook calculates your average response time to messages and will display this to everyone who visits your page. Replying quickly is therefore crucial.

Facebook replies can be automated to let people know you will be with them shortly.

Monitoring social media to reply to customer service issues can be impossible if you don’t have the time. At Treefrog, our social media team specialises in reputation management and can keep up with what’s being said about your brand 24/7 – so that you maintain a positive brand image online.

Facebook replies can be automated to let people know you will be with them shortly.

Social media isn’t a question of if, but how. Before engaging, think about what, when and how. Having a strong strategy of which channels you are going to communicate what message and the level of activity are all factors in your success. Especially when it comes to providing exceptional customer service through one of the fast-growing communication mechanisms.

Don’t have the time?

At Treefrog, our social media team specializes in branding, account security, strategy, calendering, content curation and reputation management. Whether you are just starting out or have been on the road of social media for some time now, we can help get you set up and tracking with a social media plan that meets your time and interest or better yet, your customers’ appetite on social.

Let’s chat. Call or email today for a free quote at 905-836-4442 today!

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Branding & Design, Digital Marketing, Web Design & Development

Why Invest In A Co-op Student?

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Over the years, we’ve had several co-op students at Treefrog. They’ve worked with a variety of pods from social and content to programming and project management. This year, we asked our content co-op student, Madeline, to share her thoughts on her internship and what the co-op experience meant to her.

Discovering The World Of Digital Marketing

At the start of grade 11, I had no idea what my passion was or how to uncover it. This was really scary since I only have two years left to figure out what’s next in this journey called life. After completing and finding interest in my marketing course, I talked to my school guidance counsellor who suggested I take a cooperative education course to help me get a sense of how the field really works. I decide to take her advice and began my research for a company in Newmarket that could fill this need.

Through my research, I found Treefrog and decided to reach out to see if they would be interested in a co-op student. Luckily, they responded and invited me for an interview. At first, I was very nervous, as I’ve never had a job before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I interviewed with Kellie, Dylan and Laurie, and they were welcoming and easy to talk to. I was overjoyed when they offered me a placement, which I value greatly to this day.

My Co-op Experience At Treefrog

On my first day at Treefrog, I was very shy, as I didn’t know anyone or much about how Treefrog worked. It was like going into a new class with all new class mates, only these people were the real deal. Everyone was so kind and instantly made me feel accepted.

The relaxed atmosphere made coming to Treefrog every day fun. Everyone made jokes, listened to music or just talked about current events happening in the world around us. I didn’t feel like I was working even though we were accomplishing a lot every day.

My first couple of projects were pretty simple, with the team being extremely supportive if I needed guidance. I’ve always thought of my writing skills as one of my strengths, but when I was asked to write a blog article, I was pretty nervous about what the outcome would be. After writing a draft and getting it edited by my supervisor I was surprised that I had just wrote my very own article! And it got posted, check it out here.

I’ve always had a love for social media and sharing my opinions online, so being able to write about topics that interested me was so much fun. After five months of writing blogs for different clients on topics ranging from personality to environmental issues and mental heath to professional services, I’ve discovered a passion for writing that I never knew I had and gained confidence in my writing skills.

During my time at Treefrog, I often got invited into meetings with clients, mostly for the purpose of taking notes. While this might seem boring, it was really interesting and helped me learn about the wide variety of clients and their different needs. This expanded my knowledge on things such as search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing.

As I was the youngest in the office, I was often asked for my opinion as a high school student. This made me feel valued as often my ideas and input would be considered and put into action.

“Having such a supportive and inclusive team helped me step out of my comfort zone to voice my own opinions and not worry about if my opinion was right or wrong.”

MADELINE

Going into my co-op, I had very little experience, but during my time at Treefrog I was able to learn about Facebook analytics, website tracking, SEO, content creation and social media as more than just “posts” online. I learned how to cater to different companies and how all the different Treefrog pods fit together. While being immersed in the workplace, I was exposed to a variety of different roles, from sales, to programming, to design.

After an amazing 5 months, I know I will always value and be grateful for this co-op experience. I’ve met so many talented people who have helped me learn about Treefrog and the workplace. I’ve learned so much about digital marketing, SEO and social media that I’ve developed a love for this and hope to continue my studies in this field for post secondary.

Interested in a high school coop placement with Treefrog? Please email us for availabilities.

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Digital Marketing

What is SEO or Social Without Content Marketing?

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It would be cliché to suggest that the digital marketing landscape is becoming increasingly complex. Marketing and advertising have always been faced with the often-complex problem of knowing what will resonate with potential customers. Digital marketers face the same problem but unlike “traditional” marketing we have access to unprecedented levels of data about our intended audience. Learning as we go, we’re often able to craft content (blogs, articles, images, graphics) that users find valuable. Understanding that value is a nuanced and completely subjective concept, we try to gather and analyse multiple data sets before we ever put pen to paper.

What is contemporary content marketing?

Traditional marketing—think of a television commercial, for example—is based on the concept of interruption. A commercial diverts the viewer’s attention and interrupts them from viewing the “valuable” television program they were watching. Content marketing, in contrast, is based on the idea that trust is garnered through a genuine attempt to offer something that the reader or viewer will want to read, view, watch, or best yet—share.  Content marketing talks “to” them rather than “at” audience.  Depending on the product or service, thoughtful content marketing will help move a potential prospect through the digital funnel towards purchase and beyond towards becoming an advocate.

Unlike traditional advertising, content marketing is a persuasive soft sell and seeks to help the buyer make an informed decision. Sometimes, as digital marketers we attempt to create social proof of a product or service’s benefit through relying on the endorsement of key opinion leaders, or “influencers” in a particular industry. Think about it, it is far more effective if someone you trust endorses that new widget or gadget. This type of content, a kind of digital word-of-mouth, is as traditional as traditional gets—it’s just been given a new lease via content marketing.

The photo was taken indoors in a domestic room by photographing over the model's shoulder.

Traditional Marketing vs Content Marketing

Let’s explore an example: If you’re in the floral business, getting a certain amount of walk-in traffic to your business would be expected if your business is centrally located in town. If you want to reach more customers, you might take out an ad in the local paper and maybe send out some direct mail postcards. Perhaps you decide to exhibit in the annual bridal show and home show. But how do you attract customers outside of these moments?  How do you provide value for the user, even when they are not looking for your services? How will you keep them engaged and your business top-of-mind between purchases?

This could take a variety of forms:

  1. Beautiful images on your social media of recent work
  2. A bi-weekly blog with articles on relevant content such as “Best Flower Arrangements for a Winter Wedding” or “Easy, DIY Flower Arrangements for Your Next Dinner Party.”
  3. A weekly newsletter with a DIY home décor activity
  4. A monthly contest to encourage social media engagement
  5. A monthly donation of flowers to an important local cause

Content like this provides your audience with something they see value in and ensures you’re in front of them long before they are at the point of purchase. And, importantly, it provides an opportunity to build a connection to your brand.

You can’t go wrong creating content of various kinds that your customers see value in. If they see value, likely so will Google. If your content can be the answer to a searched question, you will likely rank higher in search results. Again, it’s about creating something that your customers see value in before you ever ask for the sale.

The beauty of it all?

Your content will sell for you while you’re asleep. It works even when you’re not.

Getting started!

When it comes to producing content, it can be a daunting task. You might have no idea where or how to get started. Remember: quality content, produced frequently will have the greatest effect on your business. To start, explore the topics that resonate with your prospective audience, consider why your audience works with you, what pain points to address or problems you solve, be creative, take a different approach, and have fun.

Today, we are more connected and more engaged than ever with digital media. Creating a space for your customer (and potential customer) to interact with your brand and develop trust at their own pace, will have lasting effects on your business. It is critical to continue to provide this opportunity, even after the sale is complete. Creating opportunity to further the dialogue with your customers will help lead to long-lasting brand loyalty and repeat business.

And if you are to take one thing away from this article…remember: providing something of value takes time and effort but can yield huge returns!

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Digital Marketing

How Facebook’s Newsfeed Change Will Affect Your Marketing Efforts

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Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, recently announced changes to Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm – specifically how it decides what posts to show people. With these changes, posts from personal profiles will now be shown more, and content from brands and news outlets less. Therefore, users should expect to see less passive reading material in their newsfeed and more posts about their friend’s vacation or what they ate for lunch.

Why is this happening?

Zuckerberg is trying to put the “social” back in social media. That is, he wants Facebook to foster relationships between people rather than act as a content source. The logic behind this, as Zuckerberg put it, is that, “time spent connecting with people leads to overall feeling of decreased loneliness and overall wellbeing”. He went on to also state that, on the other hand, “passively reading articles or watching videos — even if they’re entertaining or informative — may not be as good”.

So, how will this affect you and shape your efforts to connect with your audience on Facebook? Here are a few things to expect:

1. Your Organic Reach Will Probably Decline

Organic reach is the number of unique Facebook users that see a social media post without the publisher having paid for an ad. For brands, this has actually been declining over the last few years as they have become more competitive and newsfeeds have become overcrowded with brand content, prompting Facebook to respond by decreasing the visibility of this content. With this new algorithm change, you can expect your organic reach to decline even more.

How can you soften this blow for your brand? Read on…

2. The Quality of Your Content Will Become More Important

If your brand shares curated content that you think your audience will enjoy, you’re going to have to rethink your content strategy. According to Zuckerberg, public content posted by brands will be held to the same standard as private content and should “encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

What does this content look like? Well, live videos tend to spark the most amount of conversation on Facebook compared to blog articles, which are generally consumed passively without generating many comments, likes, or shares.

Our advice is to try creating live videos or to encourage comments on your posts by posing questions. The more engagement your post gets, the more likely it is to show up in someone’s newsfeed.

3. Influencer Marketing May be the Key to Staying Relevant on Facebook

Influencer marketing has long been a popular tactic for brands to get in front of a larger audience by leveraging people that their followers love. Although Facebook is penalizing content distributed by brands, they haven’t announced any intention of doing the same to content posted by influencers.

With this in mind, now might be a good time to start creating a killer influencer marketing strategy

4. Your Ads are Going to Need to be Really, Really Good

These Facebook newsfeed changes mean that users are likely to spend less time on Facebook since there will be less passive content for them to consume. This then suggests that brands will have less screen time to get in front of their target audience with ads, which means that industries that rely on Facebook ads may need to spend more to be seen.

How can brands get around this? The best way to be seen without spending too much is to make sure that your ads are interesting to your target market and are only shown to people who would click on them. The more optimized the ad, the better ‘bang for your buck’ you can expect.

5. You’re Actually Going to Need to Engage on Facebook

While Facebook will be making posts distributed by brands less visible, this won’t affect comments that brands make on other people’s posts. Therefore, if brands engage more in real time with their audience (commenting on posts, posting in groups), they will foster relationships with users and give themselves a new way to become visible on Facebook – regardless of these changes.

For more tips and tricks on how to improve your social strategy, check out our blog, “Don’t Do Social, Be Social”.

Not sure where to begin? Our Social Media team is made up of experts that keep up to date with these changes as they happen. Contact us today to learn more about Facebook and all of the other platforms you should be leveraging!

Request a free quote or give us a call at 905.836.4442 today!

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Digital Marketing

How To Leverage A Digital Presence Analysis – Part 3

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Part Three: Creating A Content Campaign

Successfully navigating the world of digital marketing requires a strategy, a map if you will. You need to know where you are (point A) and where you want to go (point B, and possibly points C, D, and E too). These points on the map are your goals – the reasons you’re taking this journey and the places you want to go.

And once you know where you are and where you want to go, a content campaign that involves content development, search engine optimization, and social dissemination, will plot your best route to get there.

In part one and part two of our series on digital presence analyses, we explored how to perform a SWOT analysis on your brand and how to develop consumer personas. In part three, we’ll explore how to use both tools to develop and execute a content campaign that will raise your brand awareness and revitalize your business.

So, how do you create a content campaign? 

Creating A Content Campaign

A content campaign combines social media, content, and SEO to create a unified digital strategy that will leverage identified personas, as well as the information collected in a DPA, to outline actionable items that will support a common goal.

Often underrated, content is the backbone of every marketing strategy as it provides material that can be shared through social, and that will be crawled and ranked by search engines like Google – positioning your company in front of your audience.

But what does a content plan look like?

The answer? It’s different for every company, as a content campaign should be completely unique to each brand – assessing needs and providing creative branded solutions to achieve those goals.

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Let’s explore an example:

Should a footwear company wish to market a new shoe each month, monthly content campaign’s could be created to reach the audience who is most likely to be interested in that specific ‘shoe of the month.’

This could include targeted:

  • Blog posts about the features of the shoe
  • Email broadcasts promoting the shoe of the month
  • Social posts to share blog content about the shoe
  • Video teasers that showcase the shoe
  • Keyword optimization for the shoe name and features
  • Targeted PPC and SPPC ads for the shoe
  • Print materials that show imagery of the shoe, and more.

And as each of these marketing materials would adapt each month, as the target market shifts, new content would be developed with the audience in mind.

Example:

January Featured Shoe: Women’s Pink Breast Cancer Running Shoe – Brand X 

Target Audience: Women who support breast cancer research and women’s charities, are athletic, like the colour pink, like yoga and exercising, are between the ages of 18-38, etc.

VS. 

February Featured Shoe: Water Resistant Hiking Shoe – Brand Y

Target Audience: Men and women, ages 25-59, who are athletic and enjoy exercising, hiking, rock climbing, swimming, camping, etc.

While some characteristics, such as athleticism and a love of exercising are constant, the other characteristics may shift each month, demanding that the advertising and content campaign remain agile and follow a strategy that can speak to those unique and more specific niche audiences.

Therefore, the content campaign, in this case, would need to project a plan that runs months into the future, including what materials will be developed and shared on the month-to-month basis.

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Content Development & Social Sharing

Content should tell a story, explain a concept, and persuade readers to take action. In other words, content should always aim to educate, inspire, entertain, and convince. However, without the right strategy and tools, content can fall flat and cause potential customers to look elsewhere for information.

Content campaigns require consistency between the content being created and the content being shared, and it is always best to create content that you can own and have control over. Owning quality content will increase your SEO, position your brand as a Key Opinion Leader in your industry, and help you to connect with your audience in a more authentic way.

However, in addition to sharing content that is branded and unique, you can also share content that has been curated by other sources.

For example, if you own a boutique that sells accessories, and you’ve recently begun selling a new line of scarves that you want to create a campaign around, you could share articles, published by other writers, which discuss:

  • How to wear a scarf
  • What to wear a scarf with
  • Why scarves are the best accessories
  • The specific brand you’re selling, and more.

Though this content is not native to your brand, curated content can fill in the gaps between the unique content you’ve crafted and will keep your audience engaged on a more regular basis. Leveraging programs like HootSuite, you’ll be able to schedule these posts months in advance, saving you time and the stress of having to remember to post frequently.

For tips on social media success, check out our article “Why Social Media Works”.

Search Engine Optimization

Your SEO ranking and performance is dependent on the content that exists on your website. To improve your ranking, it is important to analyze the following items before embarking on a content campaign:

  • Is your current content relevant and valuable?
  • Is your current website user-friendly?
  • Do you create content that is sharable (Ex: blog)?
  • Has your content been optimized using proper keywords, meta descriptions, etc.?

Within a content campaign, it is critical to consider the rules of SEO, as well as to optimize content so that your material will impact your visibility to potential customers. Through Google Analytics, you may also track the success of your campaign, monitoring increases in views, time spent on page, conversions, and other measurable results.

For more insights into the value of SEO, check out our blog ‘Conversion Rate Optimization & What It Can Do For You.’

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Leveraging A Digital Presence Analysis: A Checklist

So, while this all may seem overwhelming, we’ve compiled a checklist, in the most simplified way we could, to remind you of the steps covered in our three-part series:

  • Perform a SWOT analysis
  • Develop personas
  • Brainstorm
  • Create a content calendar
  • Write content
  • Optimize content
  • Create a social sharing promotional plan
  • Publish the content
  • Share the content
  • Measure your campaign success

Should you require support in navigating your digital presence analysis or content campaign, be sure to reach out to us at 905-836-4442. 

Our professional team of content, social media, and SEO specialists can provide you with solutions that will increase your brand recognition and overall marketing success.

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Digital Marketing

Don’t Do Social, Be Social!

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Social interaction is the bedrock of social media marketing. In fact, it is the fundamental principle on which it was created. Therefore, being heard on social media requires having conversations with other people and not just posting content.

And unless you already have a large and engaged social media following, posting without interacting is like shouting into a void.

Sure, you can use things such as hashtags to get your posts seen, but inspiring others to take action requires you to have ongoing conversations that actually engage and inspire users.

Comments, likes, and shares are examples of these interactions, but let’s look at a few other things you can do to make sure you are being social rather than just doing social:

Listen

Get social by listening

Before you can interact with your audience, you need to conduct some ‘social listening’ – the process of finding people who are talking about your brand or your industry in general. As people don’t always @ mention your brand when they talk about it, social listening will help you find and respond to posts that may need your attention.

Social listening tools like Hootsuite track brand mentions, and high-end social listening tools such as Sprout Social can provide a deeper analysis. However, if your budget is too small to adopt these tools, you can always search your brand name (or other relevant search terms) on social media platforms directly – to find posts that you may want to respond to.

Insert Yourself into Relevant Conversations

People talk, and you better be there when they do

‘Hilton Suggests’ is a Twitter account run by Hilton Hotels that responds to people looking for travel suggestions.

By listening for and responding to travel posts on Twitter, Hilton Suggests positions itself as a ‘helpful friend’ that is willing to provide answer seekers with useful, travel-related information – whether a person’s inquiry has to do with Hilton Hotels or not.


Hilton Suggests randomly inserts itself into conversations with travellers to keep the brand top of mind for them the next time they need a hotel. 
Taking after Hilton Suggests, try joining Facebook and LinkedIn groups that exist around a topic relevant to your brand. The most important interactions happen in these groups because they consist of people who you know are already interested in your type of product or service.

Start Conversations

If you’re having trouble joining a conversation, start one

Several companies have started Facebook groups that relate to their brand or industry. These platforms are beneficial for the host company, as members will always have these brands top-of-mind when they interact within these groups.

If done correctly, a group can create a loyal community for your brand – keeping users coming back for more.

Skincare brand “The Ordinary” created a Facebook group for people to share skincare tips and see new products. The brand constantly posts in the group and speaks with users, which increases sales without having to spend time trying to engage new users:

You don’t have to use groups, though. Fast food chain Tim Horton’s is notorious for using social media to ask people what they think about their new menu items. These posts are riddled with lengthy conversations where customers debate what they think about them.

Show Love

“Treat others how you want to be treated” is also the golden rule in social media. If you want people to like, comment on, or share your social media content, you better do the same for them.

Sharing third-party content on social media is great because it fills up your newsfeed and it entices others to share your content in return (make sure you mention them so they know that you shared it, and talk about how great it is).

Our tip? Try searching Twitter for accounts that are relevant to your industry (but who are not competitors) and retweet them so that they feel more inclined to do the same for you.

Being Social with Treefrog Inc.

People love to talk, and brands who engage with consumers in real-time are the ones who are winning at leveraging social media to meet their goals.

At Treefrog, we aren’t satisfied with cookie-cutter social media solutions that only consist of posting. Instead, our social media team engages with the audiences of our clients in real time – so that their message gets heard and people are inspired to take action.

Request a free quote or give us a call at 905.836.4442 today!

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Digital Marketing

The 5 Most Exciting Social Media Trends to Watch in 2018

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Last year, we sat down to analyze the top trends that we think will dominate social media in 2018. With these insights gathered, and with the new year finally here, we’re excited to announce our picks for media trends that we’re most looking forward to seeing in 2018!

Facebook Spaces: To Adopt or Not to Adopt?

Facebook Spaces is a virtual reality version of the Facebook app that will allow users to access 360-degree photos and videos, and interact with other Facebook users by using avatars. It’s like chatting in a Facebook group message with your friends except you are “there” (virtually) and can visit different locations.

 This version of Facebook was announced very recently and is still in beta mode. Currently, you can access Facebook Spaces using the HTC VIVE or Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets.

We can’t wait to see how Facebook users react to Facebook Spaces, and we’re already brainstorming how companies can use them to connect with their target audience.

The Plight of Twitter

If social media platforms aren’t growing, they’re shrinking. Between the first and second quarter of 2017, the total number of users on Twitter remained the same, and in the US, the number of users fell, which is bad news as the US generates the most Twitter ad revenue compared to any other country.

Why are we excited about the plight of Twitter, you ask? Because we love Twitter and have had some major wins using it for clients in 2017! Because of this news, we can expect Twitter to regroup and release something new to reengage audiences (new features? A redesign, maybe?). Recently, Twitter increased the character limit for Tweets from 140 to 280 and launched their Tweetstorm feature which allows people to publish multiple Tweets at once. We can’t wait to see what they come up with in 2018!

Facebook Will Test Pre-Roll Ads

If you’ve watched a YouTube video since 2008, you are undoubtedly familiar with pre-roll ads, which are ads that play before you watch a video. And while Facebook stated that they would not use pre-roll ads because they thought users would react negatively to them, they just announced that they will be testing them in 2018.

This is great news as us Frogs are obsessed with video marketing and we can’t wait to see how users will react to this type of ad on Facebook and how we can use it for clients.

Growing Popularity of Video Marketing

Video marketing will soon be the norm! According to Insivia, almost 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store, and 48% of marketers had planned to add video marketing to their strategies by the end of 2017. Whether this happened or not, the interest in video marketing for consumers and marketers is growing!

This year, Treefrog created more videos for clients than in any other year, and we even launched our digital marketing video series, Treefrog TV, on YouTube! We can’t wait to use video marketing even more in 2018 to make our clients win!

Hello, Generation Z!

For years, companies have stressed about keeping a close eye on millennials, specifically how they use social media. However, in doing so, businesses have overlooked the entire generation born between 1995 and 2000 – who are now old enough to purchase things and who are pioneering new ways of using social media. We’re talking about Generation Z.

Generation Z adopted technology at a younger age than millennials. As social media is such a large part of their lives, companies without sophisticated social media strategies are setting themselves up for failure if they plan to try to connect with this cohort.

Our social media team includes researchers with backgrounds in sociology and social anthropology, who closely watch and study how different age demographics behave online – and they are super excited to continue researching Generation Z!

There is a lot to be excited about in 2018 on social media. To learn more about these emerging trends and how to put them into action for your business, request a free quote or give us a call at 905.836.4442 today!

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Digital Marketing

How to Create a Killer Influencer Marketing Strategy

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Influencer marketing is a smart way to increase exposure for your brand.

Why tweet something for your two followers when you could get someone with 5,000 followers to tweet it for you?

However, getting influencers to promote you is easier said than done. It takes brainpower, patience, and a little bit of luck to build a network of influencers willing to do this – which is especially useful for relatively unknown business who need the exposure.

Below are four things companies should consider when establishing an influencer marketing strategy:

1. Offer Value to Influencers

Influencers don’t promote things simply out of the kindness of their hearts, so have something to offer them in return. A common way to connect with influencers is to offer them relevant content for their blogs or social media newsfeeds. People value content from others because it fills up their feeds, and if someone shares a link to your company’s blog, it will increase the number of people who will read it and ultimately visit your website.

The easiest way to do this is by guest blogging. However, you can also mention bloggers on social media (Ex. “check out my blog!”) to get retweets or shares.

Zomato shares tons of blog content to its Facebook page. Imagine what would happen if your blog was featured on their website, and was shared to their Facebook page?

It’s ideal to offer a physical product or service to influencers because if they use it and promote it in a video or post, your company has the potential to get directly in front of a trusting audience. However, this is difficult in industries like the beauty industry, as beauty bloggers are sent countless products and standing out amongst the crowd is difficult without paying for fake, inauthentic, reviews.

Live Nation offers value to artists by promoting their concerts and mentioning them on Twitter. In return, if an artist retweets Live Nation, the Live Nation link (which is where their service exists) will be positioned in front of more people – which will increase the likelihood of people visiting the event page and purchasing tickets from their site. It’s a win-win for both sides.

2. Target Influencers that are Relevant and Influential

Do some homework and research influencers before you reach out to them. Make sure that they have enough of a following that a retweet, mention, share, or post to their blog site will make enough of a difference to drive results for you.

Try using Foller, which gives a breakdown of Twitter users (followers, retweet ratio, reply ratio). If you use YouTube for your influencer marketing strategy (perfect for product reviews), use FameBit, which not only breaks down metrics that matter (like subscribers and average views), it actually lets you message influencers directly.

Also, make sure that the influencers you reach out to are relevant to your industry or niche. By using tools like Hashtagify, you can search for the top influencers in your subject area – ranked based on their sphere of influence.

Remember: Getting in front of someone else’s audience is useless if those people aren’t interested in your product or service, so make sure the influencer’s audience aligns with your goals.

Hashtagify ranks the top Twitter influencers in the subject area that you search for. 

3. Build Relationships

If an influencer engages with you, why stop there?

Instead of putting effort into looking for new influencers, sparingly engage with an influencer you’ve already engaged with, again. Influencers who find you valuable (and don’t feel overwhelmed by ‘spammy’ frequent requests from you) will continue to engage with you and want to promote you.

If you continually get retweets or shares from the same person, you will keep increasing your reach with ease, as engaging with someone who already knows you is easier than finding someone new to partner with.

If an influencer engages you, continue offering them value to build an ongoing relationship.

4. Don’t Expect Immediate Results

Building a network of influencers to promote you, like all organic social media, is a slow build. It takes time to find people who will interact with you and even more time to build a relationship with them. However, if you are able to build several of these relationships, and take the time to develop trust and loyalty with the influencer, you will have a stronger and more motivated network of promoters who can do wonders for your brand.

Influencer marketing takes time, but once you build a few profitable relationships your online reach can skyrocket!

Influencer marketing is the future of social media. Contact Treefrog today to learn more about our out-of-the-box social media solutions.

Request a free quote or give us a call at 905.836.4442 today!

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Digital Marketing

5 “Boring” Companies That Are Rocking It On Social Media

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Most people tend to think that social media only works for companies in industries that have a target audience of social media-motivated Millennials and Gen X-ers. It’s often believed that only “fun” and “young” industries, like Go Pro or Red Bull, can really rock social media… but this just an assumption.

While it’s true that some industries do lend themselves better to social media, there are some “boring” companies who have dared to show what makes them unique and are connecting with users as a result.

Struggling to figure out how you can make your industry, product, or service seem exciting on social media? Check out how and why these seemingly “boring” companies are truly killing it when it comes to making their content more appealing to their audience.

1. Magna International

Some companies are at a natural disadvantage when trying to leverage their products as visually appealing social media content. However, Magna International, a massive ‘behind-the-scenes’ automotive supplier, has spiced up their Instagram content by choosing to focus on the finished product they helped to make.

Why?

There’s no denying that a cherry red Lykan HyperSports car is going to get much more attention and likes than a photo of a high-pressure vacuum casting. By focusing on the beautiful cars designed using their mechanical parts, Magna’s social content becomes more visually pleasing and yet remains relevant to what they do.

2. MailChimp

Email automation platforms are exciting, right? Uh, not so much.

However, while creating quality visuals for MailChimp might seem like a challenge, the company expertly leverages social media for something other than advertising their software.

How?

MailChimp uses Instagram to show off their lighthearted company culture and to attract young talent to their team. MailChimp uses the image-based platform to meet their hiring and recruitment goals, even though an email marketing social page might not seem glamourous or “worth the follow” to most users.

3. SAS Software

Software analytics company SAS is smart about the content that they post on Facebook. Rather than strictly posting about things related to their niche market, they branch out into other topics that are fun but not entirely off base.

How?

In their Thanksgiving-themed Facebook post (see below), SAS managed to relate the hugely popular American holiday with data analytics; giving a regional breakdown of where popular holiday foods are sourced. A very clever connection!

4. Mr. Clean

Cleaning products probably don’t get you excited, but Mr. Clean is trying to change that by posting hilarious GIFS and memes on Twitter.

Why?

Mr. Clean has chosen to add a “sexy” and humourous flare to their line of cleaning products to attach some fun and youthfulness to their “tough” cleaning image. As a result of their use of funny GIFS and memes, they are able to connect with the next generation of cleaners and have earned nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter to date. Wow!

5. General Electric

General Electric has managed to breathe life into their social media content, not just for their consumer products, but for their business-to-business products as well.

How?

To make their Facebook content more engaging, General Electric avoids tech jargon in favor of staggering facts about the capabilities of their products (which acts as an attention grabber). Compliment this with edgy visuals, and you’ve got a business-to-business company that is finding success on multiple social platforms, not just LinkedIn.

Struggling to figure out how to make your social media content engaging? At Treefrog, our social media team specializes in providing out-of-the-box digital marketing solutions for companies of all types and in all industries. Leave it to us. We’ll take your social media presence from “meh” to “that’s amazing!”.

Request a free quote or give us a call at 905.836.4442 today!

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Digital Marketing, Web Design & Development

How To Leverage A Digital Presence Analysis – Part 1

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Part One: Using SWOT Analysis to Review Your Digital Presence

Having a digital presence once upon a time meant that you had a website. Today, digital presence covers so much more than just a website; it includes your brand’s targeted keywords, strategized content, analytics about your online visitors, e-commerce and lead conversions, engagement on social media, and beyond. The lines are continually blurring between what defines “marketing”, and what defines “digital marketing”. Soon enough, these will be considered the same thing, because any business who is not considering digital as part of their overall marketing mix is missing the boat.

When it comes to understanding your digital presence, it’s important to first evaluate your goals over time by asking a few questions:

  • How do customers research your product?
  • Where can customers buy your product? 
  • What do people think about when they see your brand?
  • What target market are you trying to reach?
  • How does your digital presence measure up against your competitors?

These are just some of the questions you need to be asking. Once we’ve started to establish a clearer understanding of our digital presence, it’s helpful to conduct an assessment of a “where are we now” overview. This can be effectively done by conducting a tried-and-true method: a SWOT analysis.

Let’s dig in: 

SWOT Digital Presence Analysis

There are a number of ways to approach an assessment of your digital presence, and one insightful approach is to apply SWOT to your digital presence. SWOT stands for:

  • Strengths
  • Weaknesses
  • Opportunities
  • Threats

By leveraging the SWOT analysis method, you’ll be able to take a deeper look into what your brand is doing right online and what your brand is doing wrong. Below we examine some of the items you should consider when analyzing your online presence.

Strengths

What is your digital presence doing well

Odds are your digital presence isn’t completely terrible – unless it simply doesn’t exist or you haven’t touched it in months. To identify your strengths, it’s important to leverage available tools that can help you understand how people are currently using your website, such as Google Analytics. You should also be leveraging your social media account analytics to get a sense of how people perceive your brand. Make an effort to ask both your clients and those who have never interacted with your brand for feedback. It is best to remove your personal bias when examining what works and what doesn’t.

Strength Examples:

  • You have a social media posting schedule and you are engaging your audience.
  • You have a clear budget to make some improvements.
  • You have a marketing resource that can dedicate time to improving your digital presence, whether in-house or a third-party provider.

Weaknesses

What is your digital presence lacking?

Much like your strengths, you’ll be able to gain insight into your weaknesses by reviewing data and asking for external feedback. After years of attachment to your brand, you can become too narrow-minded when it comes to truly understanding the pain points of your presence. By asking outsiders to review your brand for the first time, you’ll have a much clearer understanding of the first impression your company is giving, and also the information that is not being articulated well.

Weakness Examples:

  • Your website is outdated, difficult to navigate, and possibly boring.
  • You can’t remember the last time you added new content to your site. Existing content has poor grammar, broken links, references to events that are years old… in other words, digital cobwebs.
  • You haven’t posted anything on social media in months (or years).
  • You don’t rank well on search engines where you should (yet your competitors do).

Opportunities

What opportunities would have a positive impact on your digital presence?

When it comes to your digital presence, there is always room for improvement. Now that we’ve looked at your weaknesses, we can use them to create a list of opportunities. Companies should never quit looking for new possibilities, even if they think things are just fine. Why be great when you can be innovative and set the bar as high as you can for all other companies in your industry? Not to mention you want to remain top of mind to your customers and be a bright, shining beacon to new prospects. Keep in mind also that digital changes quickly—what works today may just not work tomorrow.

Opportunity Examples:

  • Optimize calls to action on your website will create clear pathways from users to the information they need, and ultimately to you (a.k.a. leads!).
  • Leverage the content you have to connect with clients on social media to build long-lasting relationships and referrals (more leads!).
  • Create new content that answers the questions you hear from clients – let your website and social media be your 24-hour-a-day salesperson (did we mention leads?).
  • Technology is advancing all the time, and there are new channels and features to leverage.

Threats

What factors could threaten the success of your digital presence?

With change comes risk. However, never changing can pose even greater risks. By neglecting your digital presence, you face the threat of becoming irrelevant, stagnant, and forgotten. It is important always to stay ahead of the curve and to take risks and expand capabilities and knowledge to reduce threats.

Threat Examples

  •  Competitors have a better online presence with better brand recognition, more followers, and higher rankings.
  • Your budget for improvement is limited.
  • Your internal team doesn’t have the time or marketing knowledge to build your online presence.
  • You don’t have any metrics to tell you what’s working and what isn’t.

Leveraging SWOT

Once you have identified your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, you should then be able to outline appropriate objectives to reach your goals. In other words, you need to know where you are and where you want to go before you can start determining a plan of how to get there.

To learn more about Digital Presence Analysis’ and how to leverage your SWOT findings to achieve your goal, check out ‘Part Two’ of our DPA coverage on Persona’s.

To get your SWOT Analysis started, contact Treefrog Inc. today. By identifying your brand strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, we’ll help you to identify the areas of your business that require the most attention. Once you have a clear understanding of where you’d like your digital presence to go, we can also help to design and implement a roadmap that will help you to achieve your goals.

Call us at 905-836-4442 to learn more. 

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