Tag Archive for: Social Media

podcast

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: 

How I Built This by Guy Raz

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. 

The Barstool Rundown with Dave Portnoy

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. 

I Love Marketing with Joe Polish

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

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.

ESPN 30 for 30

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.)

Freakonomics

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.)

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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:

  • It takes a commitment of time and resources that can be overwhelming.
  • They don’t know how to get started from a technical perspective.
  • It can be challenging to develop a loyal, engaged following on a business blog that focuses on one specific topic.
  • It can be difficult to consistently come up with interesting business-related post ideas.
  • But starting a business blog doesn’t have to be an intimidating or overwhelming experience. Once you get started, the benefits of a business blog can make the effort worthwhile.

Here are 7 of the biggest reasons you should start a blog for your business:

Easily update your entire audience at once.

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.

Build long-tail relationships and drive traffic.

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.

Improve internal linking.

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.

Get feedback from customers.

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.

Build your email database.

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.

Provide in-depth explanations of products and services.

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.

Easily increase brand exposure.

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.

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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!

man using stylus pen

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.

person holding blue pen

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 reflects the metrics that connect your audience (potential customers) with your brand
  • Engagement reflects the numbers on how your audiences interact with your content

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?

apple devices

Is investing in a marketing tool like HubSpot going to be worth it for your company? As digital marketers, there are many intelligent tools to navigate email marketing, website design, analytics, and more. With HubSpot, everything you need is in one place. It allows your processes to run more smoothly and provides a big picture analysis of how your company’s marketing is performing.

HubSpot is a software that combines marketing, sales, service, and analytics all in one place. Under each of those umbrellas, you are able to utilize the tools you need to be successful.  For example, in the marketing section, there is a place for web design, blogs, email marketing, live chat, web traffic analytics, and more!

As a digital marketing company, this simplifies all of our processes by creating a one-stop-shop for everything we need to know about our clients. Not only does it give us what we need to know, but it also provides the tools necessary to put that knowledge to work. In addition to making our lives a bit simpler, it streamlines processes for our clients, too.

In HubSpot, the “customer lifecycle” can be mimicked virtually. It begins with designing a site that will attract your target market. Once you attract customers, you build sales leads and turn those leads into customer relationships. After successfully connecting with your audience, you can provide excellent customer service and gather data to maximize your marketing efficiency. All of this happens in one place, so there is little room for error between steps. 

There are so many tools within HubSpot, that it can be difficult to navigate as you begin to use it. But if you take the time to learn the intricacies of the software, it will be a huge benefit to your company. It has made our lives simpler at Digital Storyteller as we continue to implement it with our clients.

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Despite the industry’s old school tendencies, the use of social media in financial services organizations is no longer an option. According to research from Medium, at least 98% of all Fortune 500 companies use at least one form of social media.

At the advisor level, Putnam Retail Management found 84% use social media for the finance industry business. Ninety-two percent of them said social media has helped them gain new clients.

The average asset gain for financial advisors using social media was $1.4 million in the 12 months before the Putnam survey. The most effective advisors using social media in financial services increased assets under management by 10% in just a year.

Is your financial services organization using social media effectively? If not, you’re losing business to your competitors.

Of course, finding new clients is not the only benefit of social media. And at the same time, there can be plenty of challenges to using social media in a regulated industry. Here’s everything you need to know about developing a social media strategy for financial services in 2020.

1. Focus on compliance

FINRA, FCA, FFIEC, IIROC, SEC, PCI, AMF, GDPR—all the compliance requirements can make your head spin. Many advisors and agents now work remotely. It’s critical to have compliance processes and tools to guide their use of social media.

Get your compliance team involved as you develop your social media strategy. They’ll have important guidance on the steps you need to take to protect your brand.

For example, they can explain separating personal and business use of social media. They should also weigh in on what kinds of links advisors share.

It’s also important to have the right chain of approvals in place for all social media posts. For example, FINRA states: “A registered principal must review prior to use any social media site that an associated person intends to use for business.”

2. Archive everything

This falls under compliance, but it’s important enough that it’s worth calling out on its own. According to FINRA, “firms and their registered representatives must retain records of communications related to their “‘business as such.’” Those records must be kept for at least three years.

3. Conduct a social media audit

In a social media audit, you document all your company’s social channels in one place. You also note any key information relevant to each. At the same time, you will hunt down any impostor or unofficial accounts so you can have those shut down.

Start by listing all the accounts your internal team uses regularly. But remember—this is just a starting point. You’ll need to look for old or abandoned accounts and department-specific accounts.

While you’re at it, make note of the social platforms where you don’t have any social accounts. It might be time to register profiles there. Even if you’re not ready to use those tools yet, you might want to reserve your brand handles for future use.

SIX is a Swiss finance company. When they conducted a social media audit, they discovered 80 unofficial social media accounts. Among them were dozens of fake accounts on Facebook. Fake accounts create a significant risk for financial companies and can erode public trust.

4. Implement a social media policy

A social media policy is a living document. It guides social media use within your organization. That includes accounts for your advisors and agents.

Your compliance, legal, IT, information security, human resources, public relations, and marketing teams should all have input into this document. It will help you maintain a consistent brand identity while reducing compliance challenges.

It will also define team roles and approval structures so everyone understands the workflow of a social post. This clarity upfront can help reduce frustrations that social media in financial services might not move as quickly as it does in other industries.

Using social media for finance industry purposes can also come with security risks. Be sure to include a section in your social media policy that outlines security protocols for the less-sexy aspects of social media. For example, prescribe how often to change passwords and how often software should be updated.

5. Commit to doing it right

The Putnam survey found that an active presence is a critical component of a social media marketing strategy for financial service accounts. Simply creating a social profile is not enough. Zero percent of the advisors who have only a passive presence on social media gained new assets through social channels.

Compare that to the highest achievers. They brought in average new assets under management of $15.3 million. Eighty percent of those high achievers pay for a premium level of service on a social network, rather than sticking only to free tools.

Training is also an important factor. The high-achieving advisors were much more likely to have received training. They learned from colleagues or a consultant, rather than figuring out how to use social tools by themselves.

Don’t you think you need training? Consider that 61% of those Putnam surveyed identified themselves as social media experts. However, Putnam found only 15% of them really were.

And when you’re ready to take your social strategy to the next level, we have the tools to help!