3 best small business marketing ideas so that you can fall in the small portion of startup businesses that don’t fail. Originally posted by Express Text
3 best small business marketing ideas so that you can fall in the small portion of startup businesses that don’t fail. Originally posted by Express Text
3 best small business marketing ideas so that you can fall in the small portion of startup businesses that don’t fail. Originally posted by Express Text
3 best small business marketing ideas so that you can fall in the small portion of startup businesses that don’t fail. Originally posted by Express Text
3 best small business marketing ideas so that you can fall in the small portion of startup businesses that don’t fail. Originally posted by Express Text
As our world transforms rapidly around us, the quote “culture trumps strategy” has become more relevant and more powerful than ever. The importance of building a strong strategy is impossible to deny — organizations must establish their goals and create plans of action to achieve them. However, the importance of culture exists as the manifestation of what those people are actually doing. While the gap between those two things can be wide, success in today’s market depends nearly equally on both.
In a time of rapid change and shortening reaction windows, solving the culture problem becomes even more essential to big corporations and their smaller counterparts. In order to excel, you must create a corporate strategy that responds to immediate disruptions without overlooking the importance of planning for future growth. And while innovation and digital transformation enable this dual strategy objective of seizing the upside of disruption, culture must deliver.
Success frequently complicates and hinders the objective of culture change. Years of success can hold many organizations back from moving forward when the need to innovate arises. Companies like these rely too heavily on what’s worked in the past and often miss opportunities for positive change.
Whether you’re an established company with a history of success or a newcomer to the market, urgency is more important than ever in today’s rapidly changing economy. Inspire your employees to act urgently and reward them for their commitment to team growth.
If your organizational perspective on failure is that of fear, then it’s time for a culture change that will improve the lives of your employees, clients, and leadership — look at failures as the natural outcome of experimentation that fosters agile product development, facilitates diverse thinking and encourages new idea generation.
While “celebrating failure” is by no means a new concept in business, giving your employees permission to experiment, fail, and make adjustments in their job can be challenging for both you and them. The best way to make your employees more comfortable in this department? Strong communication.
Communicate consistently throughout the organization in a way that recognizes that failure is an inevitable part of risk-taking. Communications should not only celebrate successes but also discuss why an idea or effort didn’t work and explore the lessons learned from them.
There are some things your company cannot do on its own — and overhauling your company culture is one of them. If you truly want to prime your organization for innovation, it’s important to outsource inspiration and provide a range of perspectives.
Leaders and teams must get out of their comfort zones and interact with outside innovators to recognize their company’s culture gaps and identify the new attributes that need to be cultivated inside the organization.
As the CEO of your company, you have likely led a number of initiatives for change at your company. However, when it comes to changing your corporate culture, nothing is more important than action. Looking for new ways to communicate your culture? Reach out to Digital Storyteller today!
As our world becomes more and more fragmented, the economic slowdown is having an unprecedented impact in nearly every country around the world. At the same time, many brands and employers are attempting to put their purpose at the center of everything they do — those with a clear purpose are prospering, while many corporate “dinosaurs” that refuse (or are unable) to adapt are dying off as the rate of change increases.
Organizations of the future need to embrace fully the concepts of empowerment, learning, and balancing technology with the individual if they are to succeed, by using the power of technology and automation to rehumanize — rather than dehumanize — the workplace.
These major changes are being driven by a few important factors in consumer behavior:
More generations are working together than ever before, with different expectations and attitudes. By 2025, experts expect millennials to make up nearly 75% of the active workforce. Outside of the workplace, life expectancy is continuing to rise and up to two-thirds of babies born in the last year could live to be 100. In the older generations, people are retiring later or not at all. All of these changes mean we now have an environment in which older workers already report facing prejudice at work and millennial executives struggle to gain acceptance from older colleagues.
By 2020, almost 20% of US workers — or 31 million people — will be “contingent” rather than permanent. If that sounds like bad news, consider that 80% of today’s contingent workers appreciate the flexibility. Most of Uber’s growth has come from drivers who use their own cars, and 75% of them have other jobs. (What happens when a job for life becomes a job for a day?)
New, innovative business models are springing up all over the world, many of them rooted digitally in the “sharing economy.” Nearly half of American business leaders think that their current business models will cease to exist within the next five years.
Artificially-intelligent supplementation devices could replace 33% of jobs by 2025, and Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England stated earlier this year that almost 15m UK jobs could be “hollowed out” with the workforce being replaced by robots: “Alongside its great benefits, every technological revolution mercilessly destroys jobs and livelihoods … well before the new ones emerge.”
While these trends will affect everyone, it is especially pertinent to keep up with these changes as the leader of an organization — this could be the wake-up call you’ve been waiting for.
To thrive in the new era, we must rethink the role that organizations and their workforce play in driving competitive advantage.
Thriving will mean adapting to the changes, facilitating the interconnections between humans, and investing in their uniquely human attributes. If you are struggling to take your company into the digital space, reach out to Digital Storyteller today!
There are a lot of reasons to start playing golf — whether you enjoy meeting new people or blowing off some steam, there is definitely something for everyone in this sport. However, there are some important business lessons to learn from the game that are often overlooked, including tenacity, constant learning, honesty, and achievement orientation. All these can be tapped to generate sound business acumen.
Our CEO, Andrew Marr is a PGA professional and a lifelong advocate for the sport of golf. His passion is firmly rooted in a love for the game, but his commitment to playing is fueled by golf’s positive influence on his business and leadership skills.
In business — like in golf — the tools you carry matter a lot, but they are often imperfect. We are often given misinformation or a lack of support and then asked to do things that seem impossible. However, as an entrepreneur, we understand the importance of getting things done, even if that requires some creativity.
To summarize the mental challenges of golf, Arnold Palmer famously said, “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening – and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.”
Being mentally strong is equally important in golf and business, as is having a certain level of discipline when practicing and competing. Golf is a unique sport since you are your own umpire and referee. Vaibhav Dayal, Co-founder and Managing Director, V Resorts, says, “In golf, a player keeps his own score, and there is no second eye to monitor moves. It is played with an immense level of integrity and personal honesty.”
Most golfers’ favorite aspect of the sport is the instant feedback received after each stroke — something successful players use carefully as they progress. The high-level of challenge and opportunity for course correction ensure the constant possibility for improvement. “Golf shows you that there is no perfect strategy, and all you can do is giving it your best shot. Then, you assess the result, figure out what you need to do to improve the execution, and then take another shot at greater success,” says Saurabh Saklani, Co-founder and Director, inme.
By far, the biggest lesson that can be taken out of golf is that of tenacity. “Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots, but you have to play where the ball lies,” said Bobby Jones in regards to the determination required to be successful in the sport.
While every sport teaches an important lesson in some way, Golf, by its very nature, provides a sustained learning experience with regular ups and downs. Playing two good holes of golf (read: two good quarters of business performance) is often followed by two terrible holes, where people start questioning their skills and abilities. In other words, someone who excels at golf would probably possess an innate desire to learn and re-learn.
In business, this lesson is taught through repeated failure, which can deter many great minds from entering the world of entrepreneurship. Despite our best efforts, the result of business-related decisions is not dependent on the decisions of one person — a humbling realization for many leaders and an important opportunity to practice open-mindedness and flexibility. Golf teaches one to shed baggage, re-think, re-invigorate, re-strategize, and execute with a hope of success.
Every great entrepreneur understands that business cannot solely exist within the confines of a boardroom or office and many opportunities are found in some unexpected places — like the golf course.
The following story is from a man named Stan Hanks who has been helping build the internet since 1981:
(A week after learning to golf) I’m sweating my way through 18 holes on the Pecan course at the Sweetwater Country Club with a VP from a Fortune 50 company, one of his technical leads, and my VP of Sales. It was an interesting experience — a huge learning experience for me. Pat, my VP of Sales, did this all the time. He managed the conversation in many ways, going from what do you think about brand X balls to how ’bout them Astros to why building a SAN in-house was a better solution given the parallel I/O requirements of the supercomputer cluster that the company was using.
It kept things casual but made room for getting in key points. It also gave us all a chance to meet in a no-ties, no-press-of-business environment. We literally got nearly four hours, un-interrupted, together. And then on to happy hour afterward for another couple of hours.
Nothing “happened” that day. No contracts were signed, no deals were made. But it was significant in a very large number of ways. The VP got to see me in action, got to hear me think on my feet (which frankly is my strongest suit), got to see me deal with frustration and things not exactly going my way. I got to spend time with him and see what he valued and prioritized, whether he was a “go for it” guy, or a “let’s keep this in the fairway” guy — which is really important to know, when you’re pitching a deal.
As you can see, the golf course can be an essential part of your business, especially when landing new clients or acquiring funding for a new project.
Beyond landing new clients, the golf course can be an essential part of your hiring process. If you want to be successful in today’s competitive market, you have to make investments in people. If it fits your company’s culture, try using the game of golf to demonstrate your skill and competency that will ultimately lead to associations. Finding the balance between treating golf as business and leisure is where one can find success.
No matter their skill level, playing golf with clients and colleagues gives you additional insights into their personalities. Similarly, playing the game will give you insights into your psyche, too. To become good at it requires time and patience. Golf can also become that common interest that creates the bonds that last a lifetime. If you haven’t already, pick up the sticks. It just may improve your business and your life.
As marketers, we often spend a huge amount of time creating content that is designed specifically for your customers, prospects, and leads. We are writing, analyzing, optimizing, and innovating every day. Sometimes, we’ll spend hours writing a single caption.
In fact, we usually spend so much time planning and executing the email strategy, we hardly ever connect with other marketers on our teams who manage our blogs and other content, including social and chat, website, video strategy, events, PR, and more. And this isn’t unusual.
Traditionally, marketers focus on the details — they sweat the small stuff and divide to conquer. One marketer may be in charge of improving conversion metrics, while another focuses on SEO and someone else optimizes product pages. You might even have an intern creating some Instagram stories.
But when marketers complete these tasks in isolation, prospects and customers are left with a disconnected experience.
If you want your business to succeed, you need to take a step back and see the bigger picture. How do all your marketing activities connect? What do your customers really experience? And how can you keep your team working towards the same goal? Let’s find out.
We like to believe that every customer takes a predictable, linear path from awareness to consideration to purchase. This process starts with an ad, a blog post, a call-to-action, an email newsletter, and then transitions smoothly into a purchase. Done and done.
Of course, some prospects will take this direct route through your marketing funnel, but most take several detours along the way.
By trying to force the customer journey into a linear, step-by-step mold, you risk losing prospects that don’t fit your design. Consumers want information before they buy, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all method for getting it.
The truth is, the customer journey is messy and can be difficult to predict — everyone’s is a little different. Some customers may look for information about your brand through search, while others may click on an ad, an email, or seek out reviews from friends.
And the journey doesn’t stop there. Marketers shouldn’t stop interacting with customers as soon as they click “buy” — if you want to maintain and nurture unique relationships, you need to continue to interact with customers after you make a sale. That’s why it’s important to build strong bridges between your marketing efforts to build one cohesive brand experience.
As a marketer, you’re probably used to using multiple tools and point solutions to connect with prospects and customers. Not only is this method inconvenient, but if all your marketing efforts aren’t connected by a customer management solution or CRM, it also creates a disjointed experience for customers. Marketers need to take a step back and see the bigger picture. If you want to build a complete customer experience, focus on connecting your marketing software with the tool that should be at the core of your marketing efforts: your company’s trusty CRM.
CRMs are traditionally considered a tool for sales teams to track leads, prospects, and customers. With them, reps can see every interaction a contact has had with a brand. Everything from calls with a sales rep to website visits is tracked and logged in a contact record.
While you may be familiar with a CRM, you probably aren’t using it to its full potential. Masters of email marketing, live chat, ads, and social media tools they may be, marketers rarely use a CRM for anything other than creating email lists, if at all. Think about it. You probably stress over the last-minute details of a campaign and track its success, but I’m guessing you rarely check to see how your campaigns are influencing individual contacts, or who’s consistently engaging with your marketing efforts.
By putting it at the center of your marketing strategy, you can truly personalize your messaging. You can use any data point or marketing engagement metric to segment contacts beyond lifecycle stages. This allows you to create more targeted, meaningful content and ads and expedite the sales process, helping your entire company grow better. Without a CRM, your personalization efforts are smoke and mirrors at best, and insufficient at worst.
If you’re curious about utilizing the HubSpot platform or setting up your own digital marketing strategy, contact us at Digital Storyteller today!
At Digital Storyteller, we’ve always got a new podcast in our ear, but lately, we’ve been listening to a few specific shows more than the rest. Whether you’re looking for some entrepreneurial inspiration or a heavenly combination of seedy language and insider sports knowledge, you’ll find something you like in this list of our favorite podcasts:
I’d listen to Guy Raz talk about anything — he’s perfectly calm in his demeanor, yet he’s got a voice that keeps you engaged for an entire hour-long episode (sometimes several.) However, it’s Guy’s guests that keep me coming back for more. Many are the founders of brands we interact with every day — Wikipedia, Bumble, Beyond Meat, to name a few — and all have stories that will leave a lasting impression. Be prepared to take your entrepreneurial spirit to a new level with this one.
As a former pro golfer, it only makes sense that CEO Andrew loves listening to Dave Portnoy talk about sports. Dave’s straight-forward (to say the least), somewhat crass, and completely informed on everything sports. Listen to this one when you’ve got headphones on — or your kids do — and get ready to laugh your way to the Fantasy Football championship.
Joe Polish and Dean Jackson have been having killer conversations about marketing for over 15 years, and now we get to share them. They use their podcast to talk about new marketing ideas, direct mail ideas, lead generation, lead conversion, getting referrals, stick strategies, email marketing, psychology, books, people, and overall productivity. As they say: “Every week is a new adventure…and it will always be fun.”
Planet Money comes from NPR (who also happens to be the creator How I Built This) which means you can guarantee three things: top-notch production quality, universally engaging guests, and informative content that you’ll actually listen to. Their podcast Planet Money is the economy explained. The format is this: Imagine you could call up a friend and say, ‘Meet me at the bar and tell me what’s going on with the economy.’ Now imagine that’s actually a fun evening.
30 for 30 is a unique podcast amongst the rest, as it is formatted differently depending on the season. In some seasons, each episode is dedicated to a different topic, while several seasons have deep-dived into specific moments in sports history in the fashion of a weekly series. While any sports fanatic will be dying to listen to them all, our favorites episodes include the entire “Sterling Affairs” series (season 5) and “Yankees Suck” (season 1, episode 2.)
Each week, Freakonomics Radio tells you things you always thought you knew (but didn’t) and things you never thought you wanted to know (but do) — from the economics of sleep to how to become great at just about anything. Dubner speaks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, and various other underachievers. Special features include series like “The Secret Life of a C.E.O.” as well as a live game show, “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know.” We like it because it makes us feel smarter every time we listen (or at least more interesting, anyway.)
Blogging, especially when combined with social media, is a powerful way to promote your business online. There are still many business owners that are hesitant to make the jump and start a business blog, but they’re missing out on a big opportunity.
There are several reasons why business owners don’t blog:
Here are 7 of the biggest reasons you should start a blog for your business:
Beyond your company website, a blog is a fantastic tool to keep your audience in the loop about your business. While a website might be more practical in content and straightforward in tone, a blog offers more flexibility to connect with customers, to share updates in a way that shows who you are, not just what you do.
Think of your blog as your direct communication channel. It’s a space to talk in-depth about your products and services, share timely content, and comment on relevant industry trends in a way that lets your brand personality shine.
A chief reason every company needs a blog is to increase its visibility. Put simply, the more blog content you create, the more opportunities you’ll have to show up in search engines and drive organic traffic to your website.
Blogs provide the perfect platform to strengthen your SEO strategy. By creating fresh and well-written articles that incorporate long-tail keywords, images, and videos, you’re boosting your chances of getting seen, generating traffic and converting leads.
Unlike inbound linking, internal linking is something that is completely within your control. This means there’s no reason not to use them within your blog posts. It can help visitors with site navigation, pointing them to the most important pages on your website.
Internally linking to other blog posts and pages on your website can also improve your SEO success. The more relevant links you have, the more likely it is you’ll rank better, which can lead to more traffic and potential leads.
Good business websites do a solid job of giving customers the information they need, but it is usually done so in a one-way manner. There’s often no room to ask questions, comment on content, or start a conversation.
This is why a blog is so powerful. It creates a two-way conversation with customers, leads, and industry peers. With a more relatable tone and an interactive platform, you can encourage feedback and discussion in the comment sections of your blogs.
Having in-depth conversations with your customers is a great way to build trust and authority in your brand. Plus, it allows you to examine your business from your audience’s point of view and make changes to improve your services.
Email marketing is a solid marketing strategy. But it’s not always easy to get people to sign up. This is where a blog can help. It ensures your business stays top of mind and helps reinforce your audience’s need to keep updated.
If people find your blog content informative, relevant, and engaging, chances are they’ll trust that your email newsletters are as well. To push them towards signing up, include internal links in both your blogs and newsletters. This makes it easier for them to read about promotions, new products, or business updates.
Blogs allow for in-depth explanations and teaching about what your products and services can really offer. For example, you could write customer case studies, explore specific benefits, or provide easy-to-read “how-to” guides on your most technical services.
The more your company produces content like this, the more it will be seen as an authority in the industry. This not only builds up your knowledge bank, but it also breeds innovation and creativity – the deeper and more complex your posts are, the more ideas you’re likely to generate.
Blogging is a simple way to get discovered via social media. Every time you write a blog post, you’re creating content that people can easily share on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and other channels. This helps expose your company to audiences you might not even know yet.
On the other hand, blog content helps fuel your social media output. Instead of trying to pull new social media content ideas out of a hat, you can simply promote and link recent and relevant blog posts. You’re simultaneously strengthening your social media presence and bringing in new visitors. It’s a win-win.
If you’re looking to reach new audiences, build your brand and stand out from the competition – take inspiration from the reasons above and get started on a business blog.
Having a blog not only provides a strong foundation for your marketing, but it’s also fun and inspiring – and a great way to share ideas, generate new ones, and build a community of like-minded and engaged people.
Content creation and blog management are just two of the many services we provide at Digital Storyteller. Contact us to learn more and schedule a FREE 2-hour brand storytelling session today.
At Digital Storyteller, we specialize in creating content for companies in the Finance Services Industry. While we’ve become experts during our time here, navigating financial terms and acronyms can be confusing for someone who is not familiar with the industry.
In our Brand Storytelling session, we narrow down exactly what the client wants to convey in their messaging and how to bring that message to a broader audience. We ask these types of questions: Who is your audience? Where do you want to focus your attention? How do you want your brand to be portrayed to your intended audience? How do you build an audience of value?
To begin, you have to consider the type of content you are sending out to your target audience. What is the brand you are trying to portray with your content? For our financial service companies, that often means everyday inspiration and relevant business information — a quote from a beloved thought leader or an information video on the current state of the economy.
Once you have defined the brand that is going to be portrayed, start aggregating content. Anyone can easily start a conversation around a financial topic, the struggle is keeping the conversation and audience captivated. Sending out content multiple times a week is key to keeping the conversation relevant and interesting. It doesn’t matter how many people are sharing your content, what matters is that it is getting to the right people.
A key part of implementing this content is creating a framework. Create a framework that implements various types of content to create one big brand story. So for some of our financial services companies, we focus on helping small businesses understand their financial statements and how to implement proper financial reporting. Be specific with your audience and how you can help them in both the future and the present.
Finally, in order to captivate audiences, you must add some creativity and personality to your content. Think about this: How do you portray your brand personality? What is going to make someone want to learn more about your company? And how do you simplify that for someone who may not be as educated on financial literacy? Finding ways to include simple language to describe complex ideas can be difficult but it is necessary to create high-quality content.In order to help our clients get specific about how they want to portray their brand to their audience, we conduct a Brand Storytelling Session. This session includes a 2-hour brainstorming meeting to discuss how the leaders of your company view your brand, how others view your company, and how we can bridge the gap between those two points of view. Contact us for more information and to schedule your Brand Storytelling Session!
Automating your social media can be useful for developing a content plan, so you’re always prepared. As a Hubspot partner, we use their unique automation software to optimize our content and schedule it out weeks in advance — so all you have to do is watch the engagement roll in.
These social media tools are meant to free up your time so you can engage and personally interact with your followers, have authentic conversations, and strategize about what you post and when. So, now that we know more about social media automation, let’s go over how you can use these tools to automate your posts.
1. Look at social listening tools.
Many social media automation tools can be used for social listening. Essentially, social listening is the process of monitoring what people are saying about your brand or industry online.
With automation tools, you can see brand mentions across all platforms in one place. Additionally, you can follow certain keywords, topics, or hashtags to see what’s going on in your industry. Moreover, social media automation tools can be used to follow your competitors. What’s the latest news? What are people talking about?
Ultimately, social listening tools can help you come up with ideas for social media posts or even product ideas.
2. Use chatbots.
Another way to use social media automation tools is to create chatbots. Chatbots can be used with sites like Facebook Messenger to streamline your marketing, provide customer support, and improve the customer experience.
For example, you can create automated replies or suggested replies to customer questions or comments. When a customer asks for your hours, for instance, your chatbot can automatically respond. Additionally, you can use a chatbot to let customers know that you’ll get back to them in a certain amount of time and provide resources.
Ultimately, a social media chatbot should help customers with small issues, but escalate larger issues to a human.
3. Gain valuable insights across several networks.
Most social media automation tools provide analytics that can be helpful to your social media strategy.
For example, after using and connecting these tools to your social platforms, you can use the analytics to determine the best time to post. You can answer questions like, “When does my audience interact more?” and “What’s my engagement rate?”
A large benefit to automation tools is that you can get analytics such as impressions, reach, and engagement on all your social media platforms in one place. These reports make it easier to compare the success of a campaign across different platforms.
4. Produce content curation ideas.
While not all automation tools provide content curation, some of them do. This means that you can choose industries or topics that you think your audience is interested in. Then, the software will curate content that you can share and post on your social media platforms.
Some automation tools might draft a social media post for you, however, those should just be used as a starting point. You should write all your own social media posts. Additionally, using the tactics mentioned above should help you get to know your audience better, facilitating more content ideas.
5. Engage with your audience.
One of the most important benefits of social media automation tools is that they can help you engage with your audience across several platforms in one place.
With this type of software, you can monitor brand mentions, replies, and messages. With all of these gathered in one place, it makes it easier to connect with your audience and helps your team respond in a timely manner.
6. Achieve consistent scheduling.
Consistency is one of the best ways to earn your follower’s trust and improve your online presence. With social media automation tools, you can keep a steady queue of posts. This can help you plan ahead and spend more time on creativity and less time on the tedious posting tasks.
Additionally, you can use this software to schedule posts in bulk. Many automation software can be used to input a spreadsheet of posts and schedule them.
These are just some of the top ways to use social media automation tools. However, a human should still be interacting with the community, and planning creative, exciting content. At Digital Storyteller, we have partnered with Hubspot to schedule, manage, and optimize the content we create in-house. Contact us today to learn what we can do to improve the way you tell your story online.
The world of social media metrics is evolving at a rapid pace, making it nearly impossible to understand without at least a little bit of background information. Whether you’re trying to get new followers or increase engagement, there are a few key metrics for social media performance that are more important to watch than others.
In this guide, we’ll go over what social media metrics are, why they’re important, how to find them, and which ones you should be paying closest attention to. Consider these basic KPIs to be the foundation of your digital marketing strategy — there is more to know, but mastering these will help you quickly make improvements across the board.
As a general rule, seek out rates and more nuanced metrics, avoid overemphasizing simple counts and totals. Here, we highlight five of the most important social media metrics you should be tracking – and they’re not just the usual suspects.
Why Do We Need to Measure Success?
Numbers are the universal language, especially for marketers. Every effort and activity we do has to be translated into tangible numbers. There is no way for marketers to measure the effectiveness of various campaigns unless the measurement of important metrics is in place.
Now that you have set goals for your social media marketing strategy, it’s time to think further — measure the performance. Don’t be misguided: Likes and shares aren’t the main numbers to monitor. There are more important metrics that you should rely on to assess the effectiveness and success of your social media activities.
These five metrics will focus on the first two layers of the marketing funnel. We will follow up with a post entirely dedicated to conversion metrics later. Here’s a look at awareness and engagement as they related to marketing:
Awareness Metrics to Measure Success
Awareness is the first stage of our marketing funnel. our main focus at this stage is to get attention from our audience and make them aware of our product or brand.
1. Brand awareness
This is the general attention on and understanding of your brand that you get from your audience. Measuring brand awareness may be challenging, especially if you’re just starting your social media game.
Our advice for startups is to create a social media posting schedule and stick to it. Try to gather some information before actually measuring it. Once you have a functioning social media space, you will be able to measure your brand awareness.
For us, one of the best indicators for measuring brand awareness is mentions of your brand name. You should aim to track the who, why, and when of mentions of your brand on social space. Sometimes, if you aren’t directly tagged in a post, it may be hard to track. I use “Mention” to get our daily updates on who mentioned our brand, on which platforms, and what they said. Give it a shot!
Also, you should monitor trends. This means to try and see what people are in fact searching for. A great tool for this is Google Trends.
2. Post reach
Post reach is a number of people who have seen your post since it was published. It’s an important metric as it will give you insights into your targetting — whether your target is too narrow or too broad.
If your reach seems low, try adjusting your audience settings. If you are using Instagram, try adding more diverse hashtags; if you’re using Facebook ads, try to adjust your audience settings.
You can easily calculate your post reach. Take any post, divide the number of people who have seen it by the total number of followers, and multiply by 100. For example, the number of people who’ve seen your post is 1,567 and you have 5,689 followers. This will translate into a 27.5% reach. We always try to have our content hit at least the 40% mark.
3. Audience growth
In simple terms, this metric measures how fast you’re gaining new followers during a certain period of time. You may set your own goals and develop campaigns to achieve the desired numbers.
To keep our team motivated and accountable to our social media work, we try to measure this weekly (every Monday). We simply compare this Monday’s numbers with the stats from last Monday.
Believe it or not, this is one of the most important metrics for any marketer as it’s easy to neglect the growth in followers. Seeing how many new followers you’ve gained in seven days will motivate you to do better next week.
You can calculate your growth rate by dividing the number of new followers by the number of total followers and multiplying it by 100. For example, if since last Monday, we have gotten 267 new followers, and our total number of followers now is 4,567, this means that our weekly growth rate is 5.8%.
You should set your own targets and decide how fast you want to grow.
Engagement Metrics to Measure Success
Engagement metrics are among the most interesting ones to analyze because they will give you an insight into how and with what kind of content your audience interacts the most. This is mainly about comments, shares, likes, reposts, etc.
4. Average engagement rate
Average engagement rate is a percentage of people who interact with your content. The higher the rate, the more engaged people are with your content, which is great as it should be your main objective.
It’s calculated by taking all engagement (usually likes, shares, and comments) within a period of time, dividing it by the total number of followers, and multiplying by 100. For example, someone gets 356 likes/shares/comments on their content this week. They currently have 1,098 followers. This translates into a 32% engagement rate.
The good news about measuring the engagement rate is that LinkedIn and Facebook have it automatically calculated for you. As for Instagram, you may rely on your own calculation or use Tanke to calculate for you.
(Off-topic: Tanke is a great tool to analyze the basic information for Instagram accounts and to spy on your competitors.)
5. Instagram saves
Likes and comments are dropping on Instagram. However, there is a new hot metric that you can start relying on to measure engagement. It’s how many people saved your post.
Tracking Key Metrics For Social Media Performance Is Crucial For Success
Tracking social media figures has never been easier as most of the platforms offer automated calculations. All you need to do is actually pay attention to these figures and make sense of them.
Tracking and analyzing should be a big part of your social media game. Knowing how your posts perform, you will be able to better adjust your campaigns, strategize, and eventually achieve better results.
It’s also exciting to actually know how your posts compare with each other. You will be able to discover patterns and see what works and what doesn’t. In the end, you want to give only what works to your audiences so that they engage more and convert more readily.
Which metrics do you use to measure the ROI of your marketing efforts?
As a team that works entirely from home, the Digital Storytellers have definitely had some time to adjust to this unique way of working and living, which has left us feeling more prepared than we’d like to admit for a crisis nobody saw coming. Here are our tips for surviving quarantine without giving up on your routine:
Build a master list of chores:
Go around your house with a notepad or your phone and make note of the tasks you’ve pushed aside before the excuse of being “too busy” was ripped out from underneath us all. My master chore list looked something like this:
After making your list, add a section to your daily power list that includes an hour or two of chores every day. It doesn’t have to be overly organized or scheduled — just set aside the time, consult your list, and start chipping away.
Work on creating a new habit
More time at home means more opportunities to focus our energy inward and develop ourselves in meaningful, internal ways. We also have more control over our environment when we are at home — as opposed to being at work or school — which means we can set ourselves up for success.
If you are trying to create new healthy habits in your diet, empty your fridge and pantry of anything that might derail you. If you are trying to spend more time outdoors, replace your daily commute with a solo walk around your neighborhood.
Make your home a sanctuary of self-love and self-development and none of this time will feel wasted, no matter the outcome. And remember — it takes 60 days to build a habit, so you’ll be able to challenge yourself to keep it up once you’ve returned to work too!
Find a yoga class or guided meditation
While the new habit you choose to start working on is entirely up to you, we would recommend that everyone incorporate either a daily yoga session or a daily meditation practice (or both!) into their daily routines.
However, despite having access to thousands of online resources, it can still be challenging to find an instructor or guide that makes you feel grounded or eager to show up each day. This is especially important if you are just beginning to practice yoga or meditation; like with every new habit, you must set yourself up for success at the beginning!
Here are a few of our favorite resources for online yoga and meditation practices:
Incorporate daily movement
Being trapped inside doesn’t have to mean being chained to your chair. Whether you are feeling lethargic or antsy, movement is probably the solution your body is begging you to provide.
If working out is something new for you, start with 20 minutes of walking or stretching every day and then slowly add more time and more challenging activities each week. If you are a newly trapped gym rat, it’s time to hit Amazon. You won’t need much but here’s what we’d recommend for maintaining your fitness at home:
There are dozens of workouts that can be done with these pieces of equipment and you should be able to buy it all for less than $100 (or for free if you can come up with some creative substitutes!) The lightweight dumbbells are ideal for online barre workouts, which you can find on Youtube.
Whether you are new to working from home or have been using your spare bedroom as an office since you moved in, Quarantine can be challenging for everyone. Our final (and most important) recommendation? Stay calm and take care of yourself and the people you care about. We’re going to get through this together — and you might even have a positive new habit by the time it’s over!