AI in Marketing

AI in Marketing

22 years of PDC

22 years of PDC

Improving engagement with your LinkedIn content

Improving engagement with your LinkedIn content

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Category: Marketing

21 Apr
2021

AI in Marketing

by Keely | in Industry, Marketing | on 21 Apr 2021
Artificial Intelligence is transforming the world around us every day, with all industries developing new innovations to change the way they work. It has been a massive buzzword over the past few years, and it seems that nowadays we can’t be without it. But how is it changing the marketing industry in particular?

What is Artificial Intelligence?

First, we need to define what we mean by AI; by now everyone’s got their own definition, but IBM provides a comprehensive one:
“artificial intelligence refers to the ability of a computer or machine to mimic the capabilities of the human mind—learning from examples and experience, recognizing objects, understanding and responding to language, making decisions, solving problems—and combining these and other capabilities to perform functions a human might perform, such as greeting a hotel guest or driving a car.”
So, it’s easy to see why some people are terrified of AI ‘taking everyone’s jobs.’ AI does have the capability of automating all manner of tasks conventionally part of many roles, but this does not mean that people will be redundant. In fact, it will allow individual to focus on more intensive activities, while leaving the tedious tasks to an AI system. There is no doubt a lot of these in marketing. AI systems also have the capability of processing an incredible amount of data, producing tangible outputs that marketeers can then use to generate leads. So, what are the specific ways that AI is being used today in marketing?

Advertising

With the right data, AI-powered ad tools can detect patterns at scale in your advertising data, then predict what changes to campaigns will improve performance against a specific KPI. This can all happen in seconds, rather than the hours, days, or weeks it might take a human to analyse, test, and iterate across campaigns. This allows you to increase your return on ad spend and reduce the amount of money you spend on staff time and ineffective ad budget.

Copywriting

AI has the potential to both curate and generate content, then get the right people to see it on the right platforms. At the moment this is limited in range, but in the near future AI could develop initial drafts of content based on certain restraints

Personalised recommendations

Intelligent algorithms can help personalise a user’s website experience – By analysing hundreds of data points including location, demographics, device, interaction with the website, etc., AI can display the best-fitting offers and content
 

Chat bots

Compared with manual customer service, AI chatbots have many advantages, allowing businesses to go beyond the traditional “one- to-one” form of customer service to support to a number of customers at the same time and in different time zones. Of course, AI chatbots don’t need to rest, so they can answer customer queries around the clock and in real time. This makes them both highly efficient and able to provide support outside of office hours, improving customer experience.

It does have to be said though that just because a system uses AI doesn’t mean it’s accurate. AI outputs are only as good as the inputs into the system. If the data it is given is inaccurate, not fit for purpose or too sparse, the system cannot be expected to give good results. Nevertheless, it is an exciting field and worth the hype!
25 Mar
2021

Improving engagement with your LinkedIn content

by Keely | in Marketing, Social Media | on 25 Mar 2021

Your LinkedIn feed is probably packed full of insights from companies and people, and it can seem like a mystery as to how some content gets to appear at the top of your feed. Meanwhile your carefully crafted content never seems to get any engagement. While there is no silver bullet to perfect engagement, there are some methods you can use to increase the chances of your content getting seen:

Publish content within LinkedIn

  • The LinkedIn algorithm favours content that keeps users on the platform over content that sends them elsewhere. So, add videos using LinkedIn’s native video uploader rather than YouTube for example and publish articles within LinkedIn rather than linking out to an external blog.

Use captions

  • Most people will be watching videos with volume low or turned off, so it is important that they are able to still understand what is being said.

Publish both posts and articles

  • A post view can just be someone scrolling their feed and not looking at the post, whereas people have to physically click a link to view an article. This is a greater indicator of active engagement.

Track comments

  • Comments, rather than views, are a better indicator of the success of your content as this shows that people are actively engaging with your content rather than scrolling past it.

Utilise text-only posts

  • Text-only posts have been found to outperform every other content format, so it would be useful to prioritise these in your content plan. Also making text-only posts visually appealing – by adding emojis and bullet points, for example – increases engagement

Use hashtags

  • The more you use hashtags on a LinkedIn post, the better it categorises content and highlights relevant posts to each user. This will increase your reach and ensure that your posts are being seen by the right people
  • You can also pin hashtags related to your industry to see the latest updates on your newsfeed. This will allow you to connect and engage with others in the industry.

Encourage early engagement

  • If no one reacts to your posts within the 60 minutes of posting, then the chances are it won’t perform well. Try to get 20 reactions or comments in the first hour of a post’s life by encouraging employees to engage with the content as soon as it is published. You also need to make sure to reply to any comments on your post swiftly, as this engagement all contributes to the velocity of the post overall.

 

The best time to post

A bit of experimentation is always required to find the best engagement time as no one business will have exactly the same client base/demographic. Having said that, we can make an educated guess as to when there may be more traffic:

Working hours

As LinkedIn is a professional network, its users tend to browse their feeds during the prime working hours of 9am to 5pm. So, it’s best to post during these hours especially in the morning, as people are more likely to have time to log on before getting stuck into their daily tasks.

Commuting hours

In the same vein, another potential target is commuting time – 8am-9am and 5pm-6pm. As people are getting ready or winding down many will scroll their LinkedIn feed to stay on top of industry updates.

As you can probably imagine then, there tends to be less engagement with posts on the weekend and evenings. It is also probably better to avoid posting on a Monday too, as people tend to be too busy catching up from the weekend to have time to spare on social media.

Remember that these are only guidelines – depending on your business you may find that your post engagement bucks these trends entirely! But they are a good starting point to go from.

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!

 

 

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.

24 Jan
2020

8 Ways to Spot Fake News

by Charlie Jones | in Social Media | on 24 Jan 2020
8 Ways to Spot Fake News

Do you sometimes see a story on social media which you have to question to be true or fake news?

As you may have heard, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, are trying their best to combat fake news being shared across their social networks.

What is fake news and how can you tell if a post is real or fake?

Fake news is exactly what it says on the tin; a news story that is fake.

The posts/stories can be about anything; weather (We bet you’ve all seen the ‘Britain suffers the coldest winter ever’ story, every December for the past couple of years), celebrity deaths, world events, etc. Whatever the story may be, it can easily be mistaken to be a real story which is then shared across social media for others to see.

However, as easy as it is to believe one of these posts, it is just as easy to spot a fake news post by looking out for some key features:

8 Ways to Spot Fake News Infographic

Untrustworthy Source

Have you ever heard of the source which the article is posted on? Do a quick search and figure out if the source is trustworthy or not. Have a look at what information the site provides and do they have legitimate contact details.

Unrealistic Headlines

Seem too good to be true? That’s probably because it is! If you spot a headline which makes you think ‘is that true?’, type the headline into a search engine to see if any other sources have posted about the same subject.

Unusual URL Link

Similar to spam emails and checking the email address, the best way to recognise if a news story is true or fake, is to look at the URL. Sometimes fake news sources will use a URL that looks similar to a legitimate one, so check for mistakes or unusual formatting within the URL.

Out of Date

As mentioned before, we bet you’ve all seen the ‘Britain suffers the coldest winter ever’ right? Stories like this tend to be shared around the same time each year, but will always have the same date. Before reading a news article, just check the date before you read and share it.

Poor Formatting

Fake news reports are usually written in a poor format. They tend to have spelling mistakes, missing grammar and sometimes even the way the report is laid out can appear to look slightly strange.

Unverified Images

Think you’ve seen an image before but to a different news article? It’s more than likely that this is the case. Fake news stories don’t tend to have their own imagery, so they use images that already exist but use them in a different context. Some images may also be edited to fit the fake news article.

Unrecognised Author

If you’ve never heard of the author of the article, do a quick search to see if they have written anything else that is credible.

Hoax or Humour

Can’t tell if the story is a hoax or for humour? Again, do a quick search of the source and see whether or not it is known for publishing humorous articles.

As much as the social media networks are trying to limit the spread of fake news, we are the ones who share these articles, so it is our responsibility to double check an article before sharing it with our followers!

05 Oct
2017

Why does Transparency Marketing appeal to Generation Z?

by Charlie Jones | in Marketing | on 05 Oct 2017
Why does Transparency Marketing appeal to Generation Z?

I came across an article by Neil Patel the other day about Transparency marketing, and one bit really stood out to me about how younger people have greater importance to transparency marketing.

“They value transparency and honesty, and they want brands to be real.” – Niel Patel

Now if you don’t know already, Generation Z is anyone who was born between 1995 and 2012. What’s the difference between people born before 1995 you ask? Technology of course!

Generation Z are all about technology! With 96% of them owning a smartphone and 85% using social media to learn about products they like.

As I was reading the article and finding out about the different stats regarding Generation Z, in my head all I could think about was ‘Yep that sounds like my younger sister’ – born in 1997 and is ALWAYS scrolling through social media and saying how much she likes this person’s outfits or wants to get the same object as another person.

This then gave me an idea – Rather than searching through even more stats on Google, I wanted to find out directly from a “Generation Z’er” (aka my younger sister) on what they look for when considering buying a product or service, and whether or not transparency marketing really works.

Here’s what I found out:

What’s your favourite social media platform and why?

“I mainly use Instagram and Snapchat, because it’s all pictures and videos and I don’t have to do much reading. Plus, it’s easier to look at a product/service and get an idea about them rather than reading some text about it”.

Who do you follow on Instagram and Snapchat?

“The majority of people I follow are some kind of fashion or fitness influencers”.

When you say influencers, do you mean celebs?

“Some of them are celebs, but I mainly follow bloggers/influencers who have built a following of their own”.

Why do you follow them?

“I follow celebs for an entertainment purpose, whereas with bloggers and influencers, I like to see what the latest trends are in the fashion world, and a lot of the bloggers have discount codes they give out which is an added bonus! The fitness influencers also give me ideas about workout routines and what food or supplements to have”.

You mention discount codes, so would you buy what that influencer is posting about?

“Well yes. I can see what the product looks like and the influencer mentions what is good about it. You can’t always see what a product is like on a website because they are made to look good on a model or a celeb for their advertising but then when it arrives to your door it looks completely different! It’s the same with services, a lot of companies will use typical advertising images or use a celeb so you don’t know if their service is the real deal or not. I’d much prefer to go with a service that I have seen evidence of on a ‘real person’ who has used it themselves. It’s sort of like being recommended by a friend”.

What about promotional posts, would you buy something from them?

“Hmm I tend to just skip ads if I’m honest as they get on my nerves, especially before videos!

What about websites themselves, does the look of a website influence your choice on whether or not to buy from that site?

“Yes! If a website looks old then I won’t use it. It’s the same if a website doesn’t appear properly on my phone – if I have to constantly zoom in on stuff then I just come away and find a different site to go on”.

Why won’t you use a site that looks old?

“Well if their website is old or looks old then I tend to relate that to their products or services. It almost comes across that they ‘can’t be bothered’ so why should I be bothered about buying something from them? Not only that, but old sites do not feel trustworthy for some reason”.

So why does Transparency Marketing appeal to Generation Z…

It seems the Generation Z have a slightly different outlook on social media and the web as to what older generations do. With so many different companies now offering products and services, I guess you would like to know what you are buying beforehand by some sort of recommendation, and with so many influencers around who are giving their own opinions and photos of products or services, you can see why the younger generation follow these people to get an idea of what to buy.

However, this is our assumption based on just one person’s view…

Now we want to get you guys involved and help up conduct some more research into how transparency marketing works on you! Whether you are a “Generation Z’er” or not, we want to hear your thoughts! Leave your comment below.

07 Sep
2017

6 Ways to use Live Videos for Business

by Charlie Jones | in Marketing | on 07 Sep 2017
6 Ways to use Live Videos for Business

Live videos aren’t something that are completely new to social media but they are becoming more and more popular, not only with the general use of social media but they are now playing a major part in marketing for businesses too.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – three of the biggest social media platforms to use for marketing – all now have the live video feature.

By now, we know that video is one of the, if not THE biggest and most engaging trend on social media! So by having a video that is in ‘real-time’, it is the perfect function for an audience to engage with a business with an immediate reaction.

Ways to use Live Video for a Business

Events

Have an event your business may be attending? Or maybe your business is running an event itself. Whichever one it may be, events are the perfect way to use live video. From huge well-known events like London Fashion Week to small business insider events, keeping your audience involved is a great way of engagement. Show your audience what you’re up to or who you may be talking to.

Tutorials

Do you have a product or service in which you can offer a tutorial? Perhaps you’re a beauty business who are about to launch some new make-up, if so, why not stream a live video of how to use the make-up or show different ways in which the make-up can be used.
Work with food and have a new recipe to try out? Record a live video of making the dish.
Maybe you’re a personal trainer and people keep asking you about home workouts? Stream a live workout and get people at home to join in.

Q&A

Live videos are great for Q&As. Tell your social media audience in an earlier post that you will be running a Q&A, then state a time in which you will be going live for them to ask you questions. This is the perfect way to not only interact with your audience but to get an idea of what they want to see from your business (a good tactic to help with your marketing strategy too!).

Competitions

Everyone loves a giveaway! The moment someone sees the word ‘FREE’ it grabs their attention.
A lot of competitions on social media have some kind of time scale that you have to enter by and then wait for the outcome. However, a live competition will have a shorter time frame meaning more people may be interested in joining in with because the outcome of a winner is quicker.

Interviews

If you have an important and recognisable person within your niche that you are interviewing, ask if you may stream the interview live to your social media. Not only will this allow for your audience to watch the interview, but maybe your viewers will have some questions for the person too? The more ways you can engage with your audience and help them in any way you can, the better!

Special announcements

Does your business have something new that they want to ‘rave about’? Send out a pre-live video post to say your business has some exciting news and that you will explain all in a live video at a particular time. This will make people feel intrigued and think – what are they about to announce?? – and the only way to find out is to tune in to your live feed.

With live streaming being such a popular trend online and there being different ways to use it, why not try it within your business marketing strategy.