A Practical Approach to ROI in Social Media

A Practical Approach to ROI in Social Media

The importance of text hierarchy

The importance of text hierarchy

Virtual Events

Virtual Events

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Author: Keely

03 Mar
2021

A Practical Approach to ROI in Social Media

by Keely | in Marketing | on 03 Mar 2021

A strong social media presence can be a good way of generating business, but is there a way to clearly track how our hours spent cultivating the perfect content translate into new leads? 

ROI means ‘return on investment’. Social media ROI represents the return on investment from your organisation’s social media activities. Historically it’s been a difficult thing to track and prove, especially since a lot of social media return is based on personal relationships and is long-term. Broadly speaking to calculate your ROI, you divide the overall value by the investment and times by 100.

Sounds easy enough, but how exactly can you figure out a total monetary figure for both your personal value and investment? Let’s take a look at what each of them can entail.

 

Value

What defines value will be different depending on your goals. These can include:

  • New followers
  • Link clicks
  • Online purchase
  • Contact form submission
  • Signups for newsletter
  • Downloads
  • Time spent on a particular webpage

 

Once you have a goal, there are a lot of tools you can use to track different forms of value:

  • Social Media Built-In Platform Analytics Tools
    • Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all have tools that you can use to track likes, retweets, shares, new page follows over time and overall reach.
  • Google Analytics
    • This is a free powerful source to get clear figures on form submissions, traffic, page views and conversion rates

 

These tools can help to give you additional metrics such as:

  • Average sale price
  • Lifetime value per customer
    • This can then be used with the data to establish a monetary value i.e. if you can see that 1 in 10 people that view your blog post becomes a customer and your average lifetime value per customer is £100, then the value of someone viewing the post is £10.

 

To take a full value example, if your goal is to get more online purchases, then your main value metric will come from the number of purchases made as a result of clicking on a post link. If you see that half of clicks result in a sale, and the average sale price per customer is £5, then each post view is worth £2.50 in value. BUT that doesn’t factor in the very human element of social media, that of making a personal connection. The blog post that you write may not directly convert into a sale, but someone may remember your name as a result and months later could act or recommend you to someone else.

So, it can easily become quite tricky to track an exact figure. This is why it’s important to always think long-term with social media ROI. ‘Untrackable’ data such as the previous example can be gathered through customer feedback surveys and social media polls. You can also use your previous experience to estimate a figure for a certain value.

Using a combination of all of these methods will allow you to capture whether you are hitting your goals and will also highlight any additional value that your social media efforts can bring.

 

Investment

Investment is an easier thing to quantify, simply tracking and adding hours spent on social media then multiplying them by an hourly rate to get a clear figure. Activities can include:

  • Cost of tools
  • Paid advertisements
  • Planning and content creation

Once you have your figures, you can divide the value by the investment to see a clear ROI figure. This may seem complicated, and it is! But by regularly tracking your social media strategy in this way you can tailor your approach to what works!

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26 Feb
2021

The importance of text hierarchy

by Keely | in Graphic Design, Marketing, Uncategorised | on 26 Feb 2021

Typographic hierarchy is a system for organising text, which allows the reader to immediately understand the order of importance of what’s to be read. This is important in any design, as the easier the piece is to read visually, the more likely it is to be read and to keep your audience engaged.

The text hierarchy system applies to near enough everything, from print assets – letterheads, business cards and flyers, to web design – where navigation and call to actions need to be as clear as possible for the best user experience.

3 steps to consider going about this

  1. To begin with, it’s essential to recognise what message the text is trying to convey. The branding and aesthetics will come after, but to start with it’s important to find the purpose and meaning.
  2. Content should be treated as a visual component – along with shapes, icons, colour, typography etc. If colour is used to differentiate rank, think about the psychology and the meaning of that colour – red for example portrays danger or caution, and similarly in terms of type, text that’s in bold all caps can sometimes give off that same message.
  3. Put yourself in the reader’s position and try to see things how they would at first glance. Are each of the sections clear and contrasting enough to show a hierarchy of importance? The article page from one of our newsletter designs below displays the 3 main levels:

Heading

The heading or title is the first thing the reader sees when glancing through content. This is of the highest importance as if it’s not engaging enough or not visually striking, the reader may flick past and never even get to the main content.

Subheading

Next down the hierarchy are the Subheadings, and these are used to separate the text into sections. This text should be less eyecatching than the header, but more visual than the text body, as this is a summary of the main content within it.

Body

Finally we come to the body text, this section is more content heavy and includes all the meaty information, so it’s crucial that it’s easy to read to ensure the reader continues all the way through to the end.

 

With and without a designed hierarchy

We love comedy here at PDC, myself in particular loves going to see stand-up comedians – although a bit difficult in these times! Using this sector as an example, I wanted to show how the way a listings page is displayed can impact the readability.

Eye-tracking research by the Missouri University of Science and Technology shows that when looking at a website, it takes users less than two-tenths of a second to form a first impression, spending around 2.6 seconds scanning a website before focusing on a specific area. This doesn’t surprise me at all, as personally if I don’t see what I want to see straight away I just won’t bother to look.

Imagine trying to find someone specific if this were a list of hundreds of comedians:

It’s a little extreme, but as you can see, without any system of hierarchy it’s actually quite painful to sift through the text to find what you’re looking for.

However as you can see below, by using colour and varying type size and weights, it’s easier to isolate certain sections to make it much more readable and scannable:

And to make it even clearer than that as well as being a bit more visual, the use of icons can also help:

Overall, there are many styling techniques that can be used to create a textual hierarchy; size, weight, colour, position, type contrast, and a lot of the time these techniques are used in combination with each other.

Understand the purpose of the text and what message it is trying to get across, decipher what is the most important content, and then present this content in the most organised way. Remove the clutter and design a clear and readable piece for your audience – less is more!

 

 

17 Feb
2021

Virtual Events

by Keely | in Digital, Industry | on 17 Feb 2021
The ongoing pandemic has thrown the entire events industry into uncertainty; we can no longer set dates for in-person events for the foreseeable future. This is why it is a great time and resource investment to start thinking about taking your events online.
Whilst hosting virtual events is not an ideal situation by any means for most of us, there are several unexpected benefits unique to moving online. Here we have looked at 9 ways that virtual events can positively impact your organisation, whether during the Coronavirus pandemic or long after.

1. Capture a new and potentially wider audience

  • Provided that someone has an internet connection, they can tune into your event no matter the geographical location. This exponentially expands your reach and could even generate a new in-person audience sometime in the future!
  • What’s more, it is easier for attendees to fit virtual events into their schedule, dipping in and out of the day as they choose whilst also getting their own work done. The convenience of this is sure to please the crowd.

2. In-depth analytics

  • It goes without saying that it is much easier to track online engagement than in-person. Whilst you cannot physically track your attendees’ attention span, it is possible to get continuous insights into session attendance, resource viewing and networking connections made.

 

3. Cost reduction

  • Venue hire can cost tens of thousands of pounds a day, and additionally you must factor in the cost of food and drink, accommodation for speakers, and venue insurance. Virtual events can offer potential cost savings depending on your platform, promotional activity, and support requirements.

 

4. Easy to manage

  • When running a physical event, you will often find yourself with the impossible task of being in several places at once. In contrast, simply having one or two laptops on hand will allow you to control every aspect of your virtual event. This is also reflected in greatly reduced number of people that you will need to employ for admin and management purposes.

 

 

5. Easy to collect feedback

  • You likely send your physical attendees a feedback survey after the event has passed. This has a less successful response rate than gathering this feedback right at the end of the session, which is what many virtual platforms offer when a participant leaves a session.

 

6. Environmentally friendly

  • Physical events incur thousands of miles travelling, which of course has an impact on the environment. Virtual events negate this completely, allowing your organisation to play their part in the fight against climate change.

 

7. Increased engagement

  • This may at first glance seem counter-intuitive, but research has shown that people are 30% more likely to initiate a chat with somebody virtually than in person.
  • Additionally, it is possible to gamify the experience online, with quiz features, challenges and a points-based leader board for attendance and engagement with resources throughout the day.

 

8. Scalable

  • While in-person events are limited to the venue size that you hire, virtual event hosting plans can expand and contract. This allows you to focus on your reach without maxing out capacity.

9. Reliability

  • Perhaps the most crucial point – whilst there is still potential for technical failure, virtual events do not have to be called off for adverse weather, venue issues or global pandemics…

 

So, you need not see virtual events as a hinderance by any means. Some of us may even find we make a more permanent switch to online thanks to these benefits! Of course, there are many obvious benefits to running your events in person. But a hybrid of the two may be a mainstay looking into the next decade.

Get in touch with us today to see how we can help bring your event to life!

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09 Feb
2021

Safer Internet Day

by Keely | in Industry | on 09 Feb 2021

The 9th February 2021 marks the eleventh globally celebrated Safer Internet Day, aimed at helping young people navigate online resources. The theme for this year is ‘an internet we trust: exploring reliability in the online world.’

There are lots of benefits for children and young people when using the internet, such as staying connected with friends and family, enabling innovative ways of learning and creating new ways for them to express themselves. But there are also risks that we need to make children aware of should they run into them.

 

Grooming

  • Children may be at risk of being groomed if they have an online profile on any platform. If children are posting personal information online, then perpetrators can use this to groom young people. In addition, contacting children and young people is easier than ever if they have an online presence. Anyone can make a fake profile in minutes.
  • This is why you need to make sure that you and they are able to apply sufficient privacy settings to their accounts, explaining that contact information and posts should only be visible to friends and family that are part of your real life. Children and young people should also be aware of what they are posting online in any case, making sure as much as possible to avoid using personal information. The best way to stay secure online is not to contribute life details at all.

Cyberbullying

  • Bullying is sadly still all-too commonplace in schools, and this can be intensified by bullies utilising the internet to continue their tirade 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In a recent study, 56% of young people said they have seen others be bullied online and 42% have felt unsafe online. Harassment, rumour-spreading, impersonation and exclusion can cause children and young people long-term depression and anxiety.
  • Children and young people need to know that they must talk to a parent, guardian, or a teacher who can then step in to mediate the matter or even contact the police. Cyberbullying should never be taken lightly; lockdown has only encouraged further online bullying in the past year, so young people need to know that they are not alone.

Upsetting or explicit content

  • Not everywhere online is filtered, and so there’s a chance that your child will come across content related to radicalisation, racism, sex or violence.
  • Many browsers and PCs have a child-safe mode built in that you can activate to be effective immediately.

Doctored images

  • In an age where any photo can be ‘beautified’ in seconds, it is crucial that young people understand that what they see may not be reality. Social media has increased both male and female eating disorders, feeling that they must conform to a particular body type that in reality is impossible for them to achieve. We are all able to look up fake content such as this in seconds, and it is very rare that an image will identify itself as being edited.
  • Children and young people need to be aware that these images are commonplace on Instagram in particular, and that every body is different and doesn’t have to conform to a fake ideal.

Email scams

  • To us it may be obvious when an email claiming we have won £1000 comes through. But children and young people may not be so aware. It is important that they know to always be cautious with these things, and show them to a parent or guardian before taking any action.
  • Take a look at our blog ‘8 ways to spot fake news’ for tips on what to look out for.

 

Just as not all people are bad, not all internet usage will be malicious; in fact, there’s a chance that children or young people won’t come into any of these issues. But it is crucial to make them aware of the risks and open up a dialogue moving forwards. The internet is a great tool, as long as we all use it responsibly.

 

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19 Jan
2021

PDC’s useful stretches while working from home

by Keely | in Marketing | on 19 Jan 2021

Studies show that regular stretching can help reduce neck and shoulder pain. Plus, regular breaks to stand and stretch increase productivity, allowing your eyes to rest and your entire body to feel more comfortable. With such big benefits, this should be something that all of us working from home should do. Here at PDC we’ve written a list of stretches that you can do with just the space behind your desk. Give them a go and let us know how you get on!

Ideally every hour of your working day, make a point to stop and hold each of these stretches for just 15 seconds each. You will soon notice that your muscles are less tight, and you are more productive when you do sit back down!

 

Neck

  1. Keep your head upright.
  2. Gently turn your head from side to side.
  3. As you turn your head, try to move it past your shoulder.

You should feel the muscles on the outside of your neck gradually stretching.

Forearms

  1. Extend one arm out with your elbow straight.
  2. Use the other hand to grasp it at the side of the thumb and bend the wrist downward.
  3. Repeat on the other side

 

Chest

  1. In a seated or standing position, take the arms behind you and try to lace your fingers together.
  2. Straighten the arms and gently lift your hands up a few inches until you feel a stretch in your chest.

Back

  1. Sit up straight and touch your fingertips to your shoulders with your elbows pointed out to the side.
  2. Keeping your fingers in place, exhale and slowly pull your elbows together in front of you until they touch.
  3. Breathe in and allow your arms to move to their original position.

 

Shoulders

  1. Bring your left arm across the front of your body at about chest height.
  2. Support your left arm with the elbow crease of your right arm or use your right hand to hold your left arm.
  3. Continue to face forwards, and apply gentle pressure on the left arm with your right until you feel a stretch.
  4. Repeat on the opposite side.

 

Ankles/Calves

  1. Keep your right leg forwards and foot flat on the floor while extending your left leg straight back, placing your heel flat on the floor.
  2. Keep the back leg straight, and lean forwards until you can feel a stretch in the calf of the straight leg
  3. Repeat on the other side

 

Hips/Glutes

  1. Sit with both legs planted on the floor.
  2. Raise one leg and rest the foot on the opposite knee
  3. Push your knee down gently and lean forwards until the stretch is felt along the crossed leg and glute

 

Give it a go, tag us and use the hashtag #stretchitout to be featured on our stories!

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06 Jan
2021

New Year, New Trends – What are the Key Internet Marketing Trends for 2021?

by Keely | in Digital, Industry, Marketing, Social Media | on 06 Jan 2021

2020 was the year that businesses, small and large, all over the world were forced to change their ways on how they operate, with many products and services moving to online platforms and employees continuing to work remotely as a result of the global pandemic.

In addition to this, lockdowns and isolation periods have also caused a change in customer behaviour, meaning all the necessary changes to digital marketing will continue to change and evolve throughout this year.

So, what are these changes to internet marketing and what is it that we need to look out for in order to engage new customers as well as to keep hold of existing ones? We’ve outlined 5 areas below:

1. Social Media Marketing

The pandemic has resulted in people spending more time online than ever before, so in order to keep earning a profit, it’s crucial that you commit to your social media marketing resources.

As we keep coming in and out of lockdowns, physically going to a shop to browse or buy is getting more difficult, especially when non-essential shops have to close. Many people don’t want to leave the house at all or unless absolutely necessary, resulting in the increased use of online platforms instead. This is where having a strong social media presence is necessary to reach your target audience, as well as ensuring that your company brand and products/services are getting noticed and then shared around by users and potential buyers.

2. Interactive Content

To get a higher rate of engagement in your social posts and/or website, you will need to increase the interactivity of your content. This is a good way to get your audience’s attention and engage with them, as well as showing that your business is up to date.

A few good ways to do this is by live sessions, surveys, asking questions and holding polls & quizzes. Another idea is to offer giveaways and create competitions to get people talking and sharing. A few prizes won’t break the bank, especially when it’s a great opportunity to build up the number of followers and potential customers.

3. Ensure your Business Information and Local SEO is Correct

One of the most essential things for small businesses is to ensure your company details and local listings are up to date and established across all platforms and search engines.

‘Google My Business’ listing is quite useful in giving valuable information about your company. Say you own a café for example, if someone is walking around a town and searches for café’s nearby, you will display on the search if your information is up to date – and obviously you would want the right contact details to be visible if they were to contact with any questions.

With this in mind, ensure that your local listings have a specific area to make sure your business is picked up and found in the ‘near me’ search, as well as keeping finer details up to date such as opening hours – you don’t want to be closed when you state to be open.

 

4. An increase in Voice Searching

Now that many people are using voice assistants like Siri and Alexa etc, it means that it’s not just text searches that your content needs to be optimised to.

With this in mind, you need to ensure that your content is available in both voice and textual cases, meaning a change in the types of keywords you use in your content. For example, when people speak to Alexa, they mainly use words like “why” and “how” in order to receive the answer they are looking for, so if your tone is more conversation-like, you are much more likely to be shown in voice searches.

 

5. Using Messaging Apps for Marketing

Messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are now two of the main platforms that this generation uses to engage with friends and family. However, with the ever-changing times there’s now huge potential for business as well, with Facebook continuously developing new features in this area, there’s a great opportunity to engage with a huge audience of where there is now over a billion users on both the above platforms alone.

Although Messaging apps are a huge part of communication, you still can’t be without the trusty email marketing platforms, which is also going to be a big part of 2021 as these instant messaging platforms are where people are most active day to day. And on the topic of instant messaging, live chat options are very popular for any questions from an extensive audience, so incorporating something similar using one of the common platforms could be a good option for your business.

All in all, digital marketing has no fixed approach or eternal rule book to abide by as it’s ever changing with the world around us, so all we can do is focus on our goals and follow the current trends where appropriate.

SEO and interactive content that gives informative and beneficial information to your market is crucial for engagement and maintaining your existing audience.

Dedication to your social media marketing resources and creating your own individual content by your distinctive brand will help to make a difference to your online presence.

We hope that 2021 is a better year for all!

(Images: undraw.co)

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18 Sep
2020

6 Benefits of Using Images, Flat Graphics and Infographics on Your Website and Social Media

by Keely | in Graphic Design, Marketing, Social Media | on 18 Sep 2020
  1. Why are images and graphics so important on websites, blogs and social media? One of the main reasons is readability.There’s nothing worse than landing on a page and there just being pages and pages of text, it puts people off as it’s too overwhelming to look at. However, adding visual assets to these types of pages allows it to be broken up into sections, making it so much easier for the reader to digest the information.

 

  1. An image can tell a thousand words. Sometimes an image can tell you about the information much quicker than reading a headline, as well as being much more interesting to look at. So, incorporating some of the text-heavy content into an infographic, is much more aesthetically pleasing for the reader, meaning they are more likely to read it and absorb what’s being said.

 

  1. Images can rank in Google search engines, as long as the images are significant, optimised and not a highly popular subject that’s being written about.
    A good example of this, is if you sell niche products on your website where there’s not much competition on the market, you should use the specific model/product name as a keyword, and this could become a good source of traffic.

 

  1. Stand out on social media. Everyone knows that images play a massive role on social platforms, not everyone searches for images on Google, but on social media you see things without even looking for them. When you come across a topic you’re interested in, or just a funny image you are likely to click on it, so depending on your topic, this can help you to get more views on your post content.

 

  1. Following on from the step above, these images that stand out to the reader are more likely to be shared, and therefore your content is spread out to be seen by a wider audience. Obviously presuming that the content is of value and is a topic people have interest in.

 

  1. Visual branding becomes your signature, this helps people to identify you easily, when they are used to seeing the same colours, graphics and styles repeated throughout your posts and content. As previously mentioned, an image sometimes does a better job of explaining something, so using things like character graphics is a good way to amplify your brand and make it much more visual and memorable.

  

 

With stock photos and free images sites (pexels.com, unsplash.com) now so available to us, creating blogs etc has never been easier.

The downside to this, is that because they are so freely available and easy to access, it means that a lot of people can be using the same images across their platforms – a bit like shopping at a high street store and then seeing everyone wearing the new top you just bought, it’s annoying!

 

This is why it’s important to be original and stand out amongst the rest. Using a mixture of imagery and graphics is a good option, as if you don’t have access to original photos like a lot of people don’t, you can bring out your identity and originality in graphics and infographics. Here at PDC, we can work with you to create your own brand and individuality that’s suited to your style of work. Contact us today to see how we can help you.

25 Mar
2020

PDC’s Lockdown-Friendly Workout

by Keely | in Industry | on 25 Mar 2020

This is a complete at home workout that can also be made low-impact or neighbour friendly by removing the jumps. Give it a go and let us know how you get on! See the pictures below for an explanation of some of exercises you may not have heard before.

Warm Up

· Hip circles
· Torso twists
· Arm cross swings
· Boxer shuffle
· Inch worms
· Jumping or stepping jacks

Bodyweight Circuit

– 3 – 5 rounds
– 1 minute each exercise
– 10 seconds rest between exercises
– 30 seconds rest between sets

· Squat – jumping or no jump
· Single Leg Balance / Good Mornings – if doing the single leg balance do 30 seconds per leg
· Press ups – full, on knees or in a box position
· Mountain climbers – jumping or stepping
· Superman lifts
· Leg raises
· Side plank thread throughs

Cool Down

· Boxer shuffle
· Torso twists
· Shoulder rolls
· Shoulder stretch
· Chest stretch
· Wide toe touch stretch
· Standing glute stretch
· Quad stretch

 

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