Winning Content Ideas for Social Media

3m to read / 

It's not easy to come up fresh ideas for your social media posts every day. Here are seven easy to follow tips on types of winning content you can create easily.

1. Questions and Answers

Questions and Answers make up great stories. One easy way to create interesting posts is to pose interesting questions. Remember, your audience loves sharing experiences and opinions on social media – so provide a platform for their expression. Having a relevant and interesting image to go along with your question will get immediate attention, and more people will engage. You can ask your audience which of your products, for example, they really like.

But don't always post questions just about your brand. They should involve the audience's genuine interest and passion. You can also get a lot of interest by asking them to predict something. For some questions, you can provide two options as answers, rather than leaving them open ended.

Another way is to provide answers – again with relevant and useful visuals. These resolve the audience's problems, or answer queries. Many brands use this content bucket to respond to Frequently Asked Questions about their products. 'Answer' posts can be useful 'how-do' demos, instructional videos, simple solutions explained visually and more.

2. Fill in the Blanks and Poll Posts

Asking your audience to fill in the blanks actually engages them and gives them a sense of direction on how to express themselves. "My favorite player in Superbowl LI was ___________". Or get a sense of which social platform they are most engaged on "The social media platform I use most every day is __________". You get the drift.

3. Create a theme for days of the week

If you create bucket themes for days of the week, you can come up with content for those days easily. As well, people will know what to expect – it gives them a feel of consistency about your posts. Movie Mondays, Tuesday Tip of the Day, Wednesday Windows, Thursday Thanks, Friday Fun, Saturday Showtime etc. Often you can actually find day themes that are common hashtags, and you can get more mileage by using those hashtags.

4. Special Holidays, Unusual and Funny Name Days

There are names for almost every day of the year – and a lot of them have hashtags attached to them. You can create pretty cool content by building your posts around these day themes. You can ask them questions around the days theme – and perhaps have a quirky call to action. Be sure to use appropriately relevant visuals to make these posts interesting. Check out this site to get a list of days in the year you can build your posts on. Remember, it can be days, or weeks, or even occasions that you create.

5. Jump on the Local Events Bandwagon

There's usually a lot of interest on events around town – a concert, a special occasion, a gala or a big sporting event. You can use the buzz around these events to generate interesting content. Use hashtags when possible. Actually, these can be global events as well where a hashtag will get you a whole lot more interest than a normal post. You can plug the local event, provide tips, may be even a couple of free tickets...

6. Feature your customers

This works like magic. People want to be heard and seen on social media. You can feature customer testimonials, demos, unboxings or even a simple 'how-to' tip that they provided. Use their photos or videos – this adds visual value and authenticates the post as well.

7. Share resources

You really need to come across as their friend, as someone who provides useful content. Don't hesitate to provide information, tips and resources from third parties that will be of relevance to your audience.

These are simple tips to follow. And they make for interesting content buckets that go beyond the usual types you do on a regular basis. Create useful, interesting content and you'll engage your audience better. And that's That's Digital Marketing Strategies 101.

Please share this post with your friends, and please comment on this if you want to add something...

Now read more on social media and content:

• 6 Critical Steps to a Winning Social Media Strategy

• Winning Content Strategy: Always share something valuable and useful

• Content Marketing Strategy: What kind of content should you create?

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3 Kinds of Content that help you plan your content marketing strategy

2m to read / 

Content marketing is still quite the favorite marketing tool for most brands – so here are three types of content that you should be planning for. These content buckets really cover the kinds of content that you need to create and publish regularly to stay on top of the content game.

1/ Bursts or Topical content

Topical content is planned and created in a timely manner and built around events. It is usually short form content, and it has a short shelf life. It is very much the here and now content that attracts immediate attention. These 'bursts' generate quick traffic – and often lead to your longer form 'stock' or 'evergreen' content.

Topical content consist of every day posts, tweets, quick reminders, news caps, pointers to happenings around your brand or just something that your target audience is interested in. Tweets that lead to an article on your blog or web page are typical 'burst' content. The actual article is the 'evergreen' content.

2/ Evergreen or Stock content

Your brand's stock content – which is meant to have longer shelf life (thus 'Evergreen') is what your brand or product or your proposition is really all about. This kind of content provides real value to the consumer or customer. This is usually what your audience is after when they go and search for a solution. These can be how to articles, best practices, examples of product use, learnings, fixes, hacks etc.

Stock or evergreen content is meant to stay and be of continuing value. It doesn't have a sell by date – there's no real expiry. These always should provide some value which your audience is looking for and will appreciate. This is what makes your overall content sticky.

3/ Curated or aggregated content

This is a bucket for content that provides value to your audience – but you don't create. You aggregate and collect useful content, and curate and publish. Here your brand plays an useful role as a resource. When you regularly create good, useful curated content, your brand is recognized as a 'go-to' destination for information, references, learnings and knowledge. Curating isn't easy, it requires time spent on knowing what your audience is looking for, and then providing a collection of content that will resolve their needs.

Overall, you'll need to figure over time, what your typical target audience is really after, so knowing that ahead of time, as you plan your content calendar is very useful. Yes, you need to be flexible. You should not have a mathematical formula for the three content types, but instead go with a plan to deliver content that is balanced, useful and valuable.

Please share this with your friends and colleagues, and please comment below if you have something to add.

Now read these related posts:

• Content Marketing Strategy: What kind of content should you create?

• 6 Simple Steps to Win with Content Marketing

• Winning Content Strategy: Always share something valuable and useful

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5 Ways to get your Paid Social Strategy right

3m to read / 

Here are 5 ways to get on the right track for a solid paid social media strategy. As brands are being compelled to turn to paid social, with organic really being forced and downgraded by platforms, it becomes important to remember some basics to getting paid social strategy right as you go.

Paid social is becoming the go-to solution for most brands these days as organic posts are really being downgraded as a viable option by the platforms. Besides, paid social does have its benefits – it provides far better targeting, better optimization and much better tracking of performance overall. But to get it right, a social strategist should remember a few basic steps...

1. Get targeting right

Yes, paid social does offer a far better targeting opportunity, but with hugely increased paid social traffic and increased competition, the costs can really spiral out of control. Because more and more brands are targeting the same hearts and minds (and eyeballs) of consumers, campaigns can get derailed, and the cost per intended action get sometimes really get out of control.

What becomes important here is targeting strategy and getting it right. And, doing it different from what the competition is doing. If your competition is after a typical demographic, and that's how they target, it's wise for you to focus on some other way – maybe different interests amongst your audience, or different sets of behavior. 

2. Cut through with better creative

No matter how you target, getting your creative right is critical. You can only cut through all the noise that the competition is creating with stand out creative that appeals to the right audience, in the right context, and at the right time. Naturally, you'll need to do some serious A/B testing (or even multi variant testing) and optimize your creative according to the results – and this needs to be done in continuum – throughout your campaign's lifecycle, so your message stays on top.

3. Set goals, manage expectations

It's important to set clear goals for your campaign – particularly when you are putting money behind it. Make sure that every one involved, and/or every one that has a stake in the campaign across multiple departments knows what the expectations are – and that goals reflect overall strategy, not just what the sales department, or the PR department is after. Share what metrics you will be measuring success against ahead of time, so every one knows what the campaign is up against. Set clear KPIs and make sure that they cover what the overall goals are.

4. Influencers and their influence on your paid social

Influencer marketing – particularly when under the umbrella of paid social can get really tricky – specially because they can play havoc with budgets. Influencers most often have their own social strategies, and your brand has to work with the way they operate across multiple platforms – and usually not the other way around. And again, you need to define for every one how you look at the results of influencer via social – is that earned media, is that paid? At the end of the day, you and the entire team with you (including the ones making the budget decisions and the heavy marketing decisions) need to understand that influencers don't come free, and no matter how much they can do for your brands social results – you are paying for it. So, in that sense getting influencer strategy right in important for paid social.

5. Who's paying for paid social? Who owns it?

That's the final part of paid social strategy. Who is really paying for it and what are their goals?  Is it the overall marketing team that's responsible for the paid social budget? Is it PR? Is the sales team paying for a one-off campaign? And are the paying stakeholders aware of the pros and cons of paid social? Do they really know the potential power of it? Have you walked them through the strategy, the goals, the KPIs, the metrics of success measurement and the on-going optimization and performance improvement parameters? No matter who pays for it, someone in your organization needs to take ownership of paid social, and drive it to its best possible outcome.

Please share this post and feel free to add your comment.

Now read these related posts:

• 7 Easy Steps to Launching your Brand's Social Media Campaign

• 10 Essential Steps to Influencer Marketing Success for your Brand

Read more

6 Simple Steps to Win with Content Marketing

4m to read /

Content marketing is still, in some quarters of marketing, a darling of the industry. In fact, it morphs and gets better with time – as types of content change and evolve. Here are six ways to get your content marketing strategy to work harder for you.

1. Start with focus. Focus on the User.

Your clear focus should be the user. Your content should really be out there to benefit the user, and thereby endearing the user to your brand. Whether you get all other boxes ticked, and you have great content from a brand perspective, and it's created well, published in proper context, if you have lost your focus on the user, you've lost the plot from moment one. So make sure your content addresses where your target audiences are, what they are looking or searching online for, what will resolve problems or needs they have, how they behave online – and that your content is after all a rewarding experience for them.

2. How to focus on the user? 

Have clear content goals, research your content and plan ahead.
Content needs to be planned and not written or created on a whim. Have you done your Google keyword planner homework, or are you just hoping and praying your content will resonate? Content needs to focus on user needs, and you need to know those needs first. Does your content have a clear goal? What do you want to achieve? More sales? More awareness? Better engagement with loyal customers? All these questions have different answers, and need different pieces of content. Align internally with your departments and have a feel for what their goals are. Plan ahead and then brief your content creators properly. Properly, so that content is effective and efficient.

3. The content brief is critical.

Coming from an advertising background, I cannot stress the importance of a good brief enough. Be clear in your brief on what you want to achieve, who the content is aimed at, where (which channel) it will appear, the tone of voice it will adopt, guidelines to follow... The brief is a reflection of what you have planned for, what research you have done, and what you know about the target audience segment you want to address. Content for Gen Z audiences cannot be the same as one that young moms will like and share.

4. Great content? Grab attention with great headlines and subject lines.

I've seen great content on YouTube that has pathetic subject lines. I have stumbled upon blog posts that are mega useful, but the headline was all over the map, and had nothing to draw the user in. Content is a first go-to for the fashion and automotive industries, but sadly these scream of poor headlines. What does "For the Love of Mike" have to do with, say, a new model car review? Or a fantastic video on how to apply mascara titled "Good morning ladies"? Your headline or subject line should be standout quality – enough to draw the user in and make sense to search engines as well.

5. Select the right content channels and be consistent across them.

It is not, repeat, not important to be across every channel, every social medium. Again, focus on where your true target audience is going to be, and as well, where, as a brand you could or should be. Do you fit in on Snapchat? Is your message suited for the here and now of twitter? Should you experiment with tumblr? Get your channels to work keeping message, audience and your brand in mind.

And then be consistent. Your message, your content should be suited to both the medium and the audience that's on it. Your story should be the same, it may vary depending on channels, it may vary from a tone of voice perspective, but your content needs to be consistent in what it's saying. And, yes, consistency needs to keep the medium in mind – you cannot use the same tone on twitter that you would on a blog post.

6. Don't sell. Create great experiences.

Consistently selling is overselling when it comes to content. You can wrap an entire 600 word post around a single goal – sell your new product – but it won't work if it's all just a disguised buy me now message. Whatever medium you've selected, you need to create a rewarding experience for your audience there. Is your YouTube content too long to sit through. Does it stick beyond the five second click out? Is your blog suffering from poor typography and sheer bad design? Is your owned content (website) totally boring while you are trying so hard to be tragically hip on Facebook?

Check and pre-flight your content. Ensure it is error free. If it's video, it doesn't have to be shot in 4K, but it needs good lighting, clear audio, and the story told quickly and effectively. If it is written content, what's the user experience? Does it deliver on promise? Does the user feel that checking out your content was well worth it?

Good content, in closing is one that resonates, that answers to what the user is looking for, that is precise, that is sharable, and one that endears the user to your brand. It does not interrupt, it allows for participation and enjoyment. Remember, content is king. But apparently, getting the context right is God.

I'm sure there are many more ways to get content right. Please feel free to add your bit in comments...

Now read these related posts:

• 11 Amazingly Easy Ways to Skyrocket your Content Marketing Results

• Winning Content Strategy: Always share something valuable and useful

Read more

7 Easy Steps to Launching your Brand's Social Media Campaign

3m to read /

Follow these seven simple steps to launch a successful social media campaign for your brand. Whether you are a SME or a large business, a digital marketer or an agency, these easy to follow steps are essential for a social media campaign that will get you the results.

1/ Start with setting goals and budgets

Social media isn't a stand alone effort. Check with your colleagues and teams as to what their business goals are for the campaign you will launch. What are you building this campaign for? Awareness? Sales? Increasing customers or launching  new product. Clearly define your goals and have a sense of direction. With this in mind have a budget in mind. How much are you willing to spend? What are your conversion goals based on that budget. Work towards your campaign with these parameters in mind.

2/ Assign a team 

Once you have goals, you'll probably know who would be the best people around you – who have a decent amount of knowledge, and ideally both experience and expertise in social media marketing – to be on your campaign team. Remember, not every one will have the same enthusiasm for every campaign. Note that you'll need someone for strategic direction, for content creation and production, and someone who will manage the community and connect with your audience and track progress. Pick your best, before you begin.

3/ Define your channels based on your goals

Your campaign can't do everything for everybody. As set out in your goals, you have a specific task for the campaign. Based on this, select which channels or platforms you want to be on (or should be on). Every kind of content has one or two specific channels that are best to deliver that content on. What you can do on YouTube is very different from what you can do on Pinterest. Or Twitter. Do a proper bit of research on your target audience. and what goals you have defined, and then set a channel strategy for the campaign.

4/ Define the objective in detail and what value will the campaign bring?

The first step in this direction is to get solid customer insights. Once you know more about your target audience, and what value you can provide for them in your campaign, you need to set out these objectives in detail. What is exactly the one single purpose of the campaign? Are you offering a discount or a special offer? Is his a seasonal campaign? Are you trying to create better brand awareness? Is it a 'how to use our products better?' or a customer service oriented campaign? This wil help define the next step – content creation.

Read this: 

• Customer Insights is your First Step in Digital Marketing

• Win with Content for your Brand: Give away value and usefulness

5/ Develop your content

Do you have a content strategy? One that will resonate with your goals and your objectives? Is content going to be for long or short term? Does it provide value? Is it useful? Will your audience come back for more?

Ideally, any content you create as a brand should be able to attract your target audience. That's the opening position. You need to come across as someone who's there with the right information for what they're looking for, and that you are the authority on that information, that topic. Your content needs to engage and build a sense of 'need' – that's how you build affinity or loyalty to your content. Finally, a brand's content after all, isn't there for charity. You want your audience to take some sort of action – to buy your product, to share your content, to believe in your brand. You need to drive towards that end game.

Content usually responds to a need. Your content should be there as a solution, as a response to that need. Your content needs to be there in our search driven world.  Before you set out on developing a content calendar or create a content strategy, you need to have a grasp on what your audience expects from you as a brand. A good content plan is built around the customer.

• Content Marketing Strategy: What kind of content should you create?

6/ Have a distribution strategy and create a schedule

One important way to succeed with your brand's content marketing efforts is to get content distribution strategy right. You may be creating amazing content, but unless you add the value of 'context' to that content – meaning distribute them across relevant platforms and media, your content will remain distant and irrelevant to your target audience.

Once you know where and how you will engage with your audience, define when. Do you need to post once a day? Twice? Or does your campaign feel right for just once a week? And when also means on which platforms at which time of day.

• Plan your Distribution Strategy to succeed with Content Marketing

7/ Publish, engage, track and follow up

Once you launch your campaign – across the platforms and channels that you have defined as best suited for the purpose and detailed objectives, you need to track your performance, you need to continuously engage with your audience – following up, listening to what they say, answering back, and tracking your performance. And you then use what you are learning either to replenish your campaign, perhaps revise it, fine tune it, and keep at it.

• The importance of listening in social media, and how to get it right

• Setting Social Media Goals and Tracking Success Made Simple

Please share this with your friends and colleagues, and do feel free to add your comment. Thank you.

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Top jobs in Digital and Social Media at agencies and Brands for 2018

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The number of job titles and descriptions at agencies that deliver digital marketing solutions is an ever increasing list. What are the roles involved and where do they fit in in the digital product cycle? Ever day in this connected age of marketing, we see new points of engagement come to the foreground, and naturally new positions are created, or current roles are customized to address the new areas of focus. 

Here's a starting-point list of the most common job titles and roles at advertising, media, social media and specialized digital services agencies...

Brand

Channel Neutral Planners, Brand Managers, Strategic Planners (non digital specific)

Integration Director/Manager, Integrated Content Manager/Coordinator

Digital Strategy

Digital Strategists – define the role of the brand in digital specific channels 

Audience & Insight: Insight specialist, data analysts, Analytics Managers,
Content Strategy Managers/Directors, Engagement Strategy Managers, Campaign & Eco-system Planners, Social Voice Strategy Managers, Behavior Analysts, Trends Analyst,
Performance Marketing Director/Manager/Specialist, Usability Engineer/Strategist

CRO Specialist (Conversion Rate Optimization), CRO Director, CRO Analyst, CRO Data Specialist

Data Planner, Affiliate Marketing Manager/Specialist, 

Digital Creative

Creative Technologist

Digital Creative Director, Digital Art Director, Digital Production Artist, Graphic Designer, Digital Identity Development Art Director, 

Video Director, Videographer, Video Editor, Video Producer

Digital Content Director, Content Creation Manager, Copywriter, Content Editor

SEO-relevant writer, SEO specialist

UI/UX Designers, UI/UX analyst

Digital Programmatic Creative Specialist/Manager/Director

Pre flight manager, Traffic Manager, 

Project Manager

Social Media

Social Media Director, Social Media Manager, Social Media Account Handler/Associate

Social Media Strategists (Director/Manager), Social Media Planners, Social Calendar Developer

Community Manager

Social Media Data Analyst, Social Media Monitoring Manager/Director, 

Social Media Distribution Manager, Social Content Publisher

Social Specific Content Manager, Social Content Art Director, 

Paid Social Manager, Paid Social Planner

Customer Experience

Web & Mobile Experience Architect, Website Designer, Website Developer, Mobile Apps Strategist, Mobile App Designer, Customer Engagement Analyst, UI/UX specialist,  CMS specialist, 

Programmers, Specialist Programmers, Mobile Code specialists, Applications Designers, Loyalty Specialist Designers, CRM designers, Website Pre-flight Analyst, QA&QC Manager, 

Experience Strategy Director, Digital Activation Manager/Director, 

e-Commerce Director, e-Commerce Strategy Director, e-Commerce Designer, e-Commerce Creative Director/Art Director, e-Commerce Content Analyst, e-Commerce Code specialist, e-Commerce Product Analyst, e-Commerce Content Coordinator

eMail Marketing Specialist/Manager/ Creative Director, eMail Marketing Analyst

Innovation

Innovation Leads, Digital Product & Service Development Manager/Director, Innovation Lab Director, Innovation strategy Director, IOT Specialist, IOT interface designer, Wearables Strategist, Wearables interface designer

Media

Digital Media Director, Digital Media Strategy Director/Manager, Digital Media Engagement Director, Digital Media Data Analyst, 

Digital Media Associates, Media Planners, 

Digital Media Buying Manager/Director, Digital Media Buyer, 

Digital Media Dashboard Manager, Programmatic Director/Manager, Digital Media Content Analyst, Digital Media Pre Flight Manager/Associate, Digital Media Distribution Manager, 

Media Creative Director, Media Art Director, Media Engagement Manager/Director

Media Content Manager, Media Content Writer

RTB Director/Manager, RTB Specialist (Real Time Bidding)

Paid Social Planner, Paid Social Buyer

Search

SEO Analyst, SEO Specialist, SEO Consultant, SEO writer, SEO Coordinator, SEO tag specialist, SEO specialized Web Designer/Developer

SEM planner, SEM strategy director, SEM Buying specialist/Manager/Director, PPC Director, PPC Analyst, Keywords Analyst, Trends Analyst,  Growth Specialist, SEO Editor, Bidding Director, 

Demand Generation specialist, 

Account Management/ Client Interface / Agency Management

CEO – Digital, Digital Managing Director, Digital Group Director, Digital Account Manager, 

Client Services Director/Manager/Associate, Digital Services General Manager

Social Media Director/Manager/Associate, CRM Manager, Experience Director, 

I haven't even mentioned niche job titles like "Snapchat Content Strategist" or "Digital Culture Analyst" – those jobs are either super niche and fall into the "invented here" bracket, or are just ways of luring brands through the front door.

If you're a brand looking for an agency and have really specific needs, you need to figure out if they are equipped to handle what you want, or are they just going to get someone within their staff to just try and "talk the walk". The roles above cover a wide spectrum – some are highly specialized roles needing unique skill sets – the others simply evolve from current roles and job descriptions. Either way, that's how agencies and brands today are defining and rising to the needs of digital marketing. And just knowing about these roles is basic knowledge – its Digital Marketing Strategies 101. 

Please add your comment if I have missed a role or job title that you feel should be included in this list.

Here are some current openings across the region at the group of agencies where I work. A lot of these job openings are for digital roles.

Read this: How to get a job in Digital at an Agency

Here are some posts that address digital marketing needs and how they are best addressed by key people in the roles above:

Insights & Data/Analytics

• Intent is the new black in digital marketing. In-the-moment marketing is what's hot.

• Customer Insights is your First Step in Digital Marketing

• What do women want from brands online today

• Data made simple: What is first, second and third party data?

Customer Experience & Social

• 5 Simple Ways to get your Mobile Marketing Done Right

• The importance of listening in social media, and how to get it right

• 4 ways to build a cool Snapchat audience for brands

• 3 ways to improve your brand's online advertising

• Improve your social media engagement. Move from Selling to building Relationships

• 11 simple ways for brands to build better following on social media

and one transformative development that's redefining roles at agencies:

• Why media agencies are now doing creative: Programmatic and Data Driven Creative is a powerful combination

Read more

9 key Digital Marketing Trends for 2018 that you need to follow

3m to read / 

Just about a week into this new year, and we can see some clear trends emerging for digital marketing. Yes, 2018 will see quite a few new trends emerging, although some of them will really be reiterations of some trends we have seem emerge across the last couple of years. Here are some trends you need to follow and keep track of, to stay on top of your brand's digital marketing game.

1. Phygital marketing

This is my big one for 2018. Digital will no longer stand alone as a separate discipline. It really just cannot anymore. In order for 'digital' to work, it will need to be seamlessly integrated into real-life experiences – and this will really be this whole 'experiential' trend that everyone is talking about. In particular, at sporting events, at concerts, we are seeing the online and mobile experience leading into the actual physical – and, as well, blending the two, often with AR and VR playing a key role. This will become big.

2. AR (Augmented Reality) will be a lead in Social Media

Brands on social media will need to take a serious look at using AR. With our smartphones becoming increasingly powerful, social platforms will start to integrate AR technology, and this will enale brands to use AR and social in interesting new ways. Pokemon Go did this a couple of years back, and it's only now that we'll see wider scale adoption.

3. Data to drive most aspects of marketing

For brands, understanding their customers and their target audiences have never been as important as now. And, data – converted into intuitive marketing insights – will be at the core of this. Understanding the customer journey – across all aspects of the multi-channel marketing spectrum – will be key. And data science will become a key aspect of marketing. This will lead to better targeting, better and cleverer remarketing and, on to better loyalty.

4. Targeted ads with real power

The days of pray and spray marketing are done. This year, we will see a far more focused energy being driven into creating advertising that's resolution driven for the consumer and customer. Campaigns will be micro-targeted and hyper-personalized – speaking to individuals at their very moment of need – focusing on their need, their experience and with conversion in mind. 

5. Again, video. Video marketing has arrived and here to rule.

I said this last year, as did Cisco and many leading pundits: video marketing is going to be very, very big. Video is  the most popular and influential form of digital content for digital marketers today, and it holds the power to persuade better than any other content medium. With attention becoming an expensive commodity, what with multi-tasking, brands will need to re-focus energies on video content – to get better search ranking, better engagement and better content recall.

6. And, make that Live Video.

Every social platform now offers some form of live video – and most are trying to out-gun each other will various new features and ways of using live video. To really best utilize the power of live video, it will need to be high quality, delivering content that has value for the consumer, and be structured and organized – while still, of course with the reality of it being live. That's going to ba a challenge, but with advances in technology, and better pre-planning, I'm convinced good content creators will win this game.

7. Conversational experiences

Chatbots and their conversational use in marketing is becoming rather common. Watch out for more adoption of brand-customer or brand-audience conversations (see voice marketing, later) using platforms like Google Home, Amazon Alexam Microsoft Cortana and more. I'm beting that this aspect will become part and parcel of our lives – and speaking to a connected device in our moment of need (Google calls these micromoments) will be commonplace. As technology better grasps natural language processing, this will make it second nature for us.

8. Voice as marketing tool

With voice search increasingly taking over the the way we search, with our mobile phones now almost surgically attached to us, voice as a marketing tool should really come into its own this year. We are increasingly going to ask our phones, our cars, our smart fridges to do things for us, and brands have a huge opportunity to stand by, and become a handy resolution provider at that time of query or need. This will be a whole new kind of content marketing.

9. Humanize, personalize and win the game

I mentioned hyper targeting. But we really need to believe in, and adopt true personalization of our brand communications across all aspects of our marketing. From landing pages that are made-for-one – instantly, and on demand, to apps that are micro-developed in the instant using clever algorithms, to even digital OOH applications that speak to an individual, true personalization will change the game this year, and make brand communications genuine, interesting, engaging, and human.

That's just the top trends for 2018. And there are several other areas that will break out and become important to keep track of. Do share this, and comment below. Thanks. Have a wonderful and meaningful 2018.

Now read these relevant posts:

•  A phygital world: Our digital and physical experiences are becoming seamless

•  5 Ways for your Brand to be Always Customer Focused

Read more

6 Winning Social Media Post and Content Ideas that help engage audiences

3m to read /

Here are some ideas for social media posts that help your brand keep your audience engaged. You should not be posting content that's focused purely on your brand – that's boring. But even if you post on topics that are interesting, that somehow connect to your brand, you still need inspired content buckets to use to vary it up a bit. Here are a few content types that you can use to keep your audience interested and engaged:

Before you start, you really need to know your audience. Your customers, your targets are looking for content that helps them, content that is useful to them, in context of your brad or product. It is critical to realize that Customer Insights is your First Step in any Digital Marketing. Once you are armed with that insight, you can develop posts that serve to those areas of interest...

1. How-To 

'How-to' posts have immediate value for your audience. They are practical, it helps them with their daily lives or solves a particular problem they may face. 'How-to' posts also makes your brand look an authority on the topic – and you become a go-to source for information and inspiration. You'll need to think about your audience and not just interaction with your brand. What do they really need to know, versus what you want to tell them? Think of them first, not your brand. Think value.

2. Tips 

Tips are simple posts that could be quick lists or small nuggets of information for your audience. They should be readable quickly – one should be able to skim over them. Tips are tactical and different from How-To posts because they don't need to explain a whole process in detail. Tips are highly ever green and shareable, and have key word value as well. 

3. Lists

List posts are for quick, immediate consumption. They can be shared easily, and people consume these "listicles" far more readily and easily than any other type of posts. They are optimized for web and mobile consumption and get shared more often. Good list posts are not long. The points can be one liners and can easily be converted to visuals. List posts can be built around your brand or product, but should ideally, go beyond that in providing value.

4. Tools

Tool posts are like Tips and How-To posts, but these don't necessarily have to be your brand related directly. You can curate these from around the web if you need to. Grab hold of useful sites, plugins, and downloads that make your life easier and share them with your readers. Keep the content useful and relevant to your topic and your brand.

5. Influencer content

You can get relevant and insightful content from influencers in your domain. Influencer content adds credibility to your brand and also builds relationships with the right influencers you use. They in turn can help build audiences and engage them for your brand or product. You can simply curate influencer content and serve it up for your audiences on relevant topics, or get the influencers to participate and contribute to your content.

10 Essential Steps to Influencer Marketing Success for your Brand

6. Thought leadership

These are point-of-view posts that establish your brand as a knowledgeable authority on topics that your audiences find relevant. The purpose of these posts is to demonstrate understanding and command of the topics you want to lead on. These may not have tactical impact on your audience, but have larger corporate impact as a brand. They make your company look great and reliable. They should be transparent and open, and have consumer/customer value as an end goal, and should not be about corporate drum beating.

6. Interactive and participatory

You can have your audience participate and contribute to your posts and your content overall. User generated content and opinion goes a long way in convincing your audiences about your brand or product. It's so much better that just one-way posting from you. Mix it up with polls, ask for UGC (User Generated Content), request them to share their opinion, create quizzes, and ask your audience to develop content with tips, experiences and hacks.

Keeping your content types varied and interesting is key to engagement.  That's Digital Marketing Strategies 101.

Now read these related posts on content and social media:

8 Must Have Steps to Unleash the Power of Content Marketing for your Brand

Winning Content Strategy: Always share something valuable and useful

7 Useful Social Media Post Ideas for winning Content Marketing

Customer Insights is your First Step in Digital Marketing

Dump your social media content calendar and go with inspired content

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8 steps to building Awareness and Customer Loyalty with Social Media

3m to read /

The way social media has become an integrated part of marketing is built around the fact that it helps boost customer loyalty like never before. Here are eight ways to use social media to help build awareness and customer loyalty...

1. Start by listening

Customer Insights is your First Step in Digital Marketing. This is something you really need to keep in mind (and do read the linked post as well). You can't have insights if you don't listen. You need data – and data that's cleverly converted to valuable insight.

Social media listening is not just for monitoring social performance or sentiment. It provides a huge opportunity for customer loyalty building and retention.

Where are your customers on social media? Which platforms do they prefer – particularly in context of your brand or product.

Which particular products and services do they talk about the most. Which ones get no responses at all? What are the sentiments (positive or negative) when they mention these products? Do they recommend them?

Do they have consistent positive or negative comments on social that you should encourage or address quickly?

And, from a social media point of view, what kind of content are they truly engaging with – commenting, sharing, liking? Are they creating content on social platforms around your brand or product (User Generated Content)? Do they prefer photos or videos? Long form content and blog posts? How To's on YouTube? Unboxings?

These above listening points give you so much insight about your customer, that you cannot afford to ignore any of those signals. And, ideally, you should also key in your customer data from your mail or CRM programs.

The importance of listening in social media, and how to get it right

2. Provide value to engage your customers

Often brands forget the importance of socially driven customer retention. Social can be of huge help with after sales. Here's where you get feedback from your customers and you build better engagement by creating value for them. Have some sort of a plan – a content calendar – that locks in promotions, customer special offers, seasonal campaigns, and a few dedicated 'customer only' offers and promotions via social.

If you create he right value adds for your customers, it becomes easy to up-sell, cross sell across your product lines. This is where brand loyalty kicks in. Value is really key here – and make no mistake, value is not just about deals and offers. Value is perceived benefit as well. When you are there for them as a brand.

3. Customers get First in Line on Responses

Honor your customers by responding to their queries and feedback quickly and effectively. A whole lot of brands often don't bother responding to questions and feedback – which really fails their social efforts. No one wants to watch a new product video when they have a beef about a product they already own. Social media customers expect to hear back – almost within the hour. If you are able to maintain a good response rhythm, that in turn impresses the people following your brand who just aren't quite customers yet.

4. Seek out the super customers and advocates

Use your social listening tools to identify which of your customers are super fans and loyal, and beyond that, who are the real advocates for your brand. Find ways to reward them – and not just in tangible ways, but also via social recognition when possible.

You can create 'Super Customer' clubs on social and offer some value for members – your best customers and advocates. Again, use listening here to get feedback about what they feel about the rewards and recognitions. Which ones work better?

5. Create rewards programs

Offer a program which your social fans and community can clearly identify as rewarding and one that adds genuine value. It does not have to be limited to special offers. You can offer sneak previews of new launches, special user tips, How To Guides, Upgrades, Product Tips, posts on product benefits they may not know about, and so much more.

6. Get more than just your social team involved

Social media aimed at customer building and retention is beyond just the realm of community management teams. Get your customer support teams, your senior marketing teams, and even your top executives to contribute to your social efforts. Content that comes from top leadership helps establish a sense of rapport with your customers and builds a trust factor that a community manager just cannot muster.

7. Share their victories, feel their pain

You cannot build a community of loyal customers on your social platforms unless you are genuine and human. Your responses, posts, mentions have to be genuine. When a customer heaps praises, retweet and share it with an aded on comment that appreciates their effort. Address their product pain points with empathy – not "We'll get back to you asap".

8. Measure and learn. Then keep doing what works

Analyze your results regularly and accurately. What worked? What didn't? Which rewards worked? How quickly did the team respond to customer queries? What was feedback sentiment. And, of course, if you can track social to effects on sales and numbers, that's what really helps. So you need to track everything you do on social from a customer perspective and learn from the results you achieved. Then, keep doing what works and improve on it whenever possible by being creative and meaningful.

These are some simple points to remember when you use social media to attract and retain a good customer base. And, no social media strategy should be built without having that as an important reason to exist.

And that's the basics of digital marketing strategy. That's 101. Please share this post with your friends and colleagues today... And do comment if you feel you want to add to this.

Now read these related posts:

• How to Make your Social Media Rock Solid by Listening and Acting Quickly

• Improve your social media engagement. Move from Selling to building Relationships

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What's Trending in Digital Marketing in May 2017

2m to read / 

Here are some useful links to posts and articles which will help you stay on trend in the world of Digital Marketing for May 20017. Just click on the links below...

News and Trends

Digital media gets a chance to clean up their acts 

The Rise of Online Video on the TV Screen  

Facebook Is Working on Technology That Lets You Type and Control VR Devices With Your Mind 

Why beauty brands are betting on augmented reality 

UAE tops advertising spending in Gulf region

Which channels do marketers really use?

What do Facebook’s new VR and AR platforms mean for marketers? 

Google launches Optimize : Free A/B testing tool for all 

Reports, How To's & White Papers

5 Things Brands Need to Know About Marketing to Moms [Infographic] 

4 Tips to Keep Your Brand Coherent Across Platforms 

How to effectively bring science to marketing 

The five key steps towards understanding the customer journey  

Want to do content marketing in FMCG? Here’s four things you need to know 

Five keys to managing your online reputation in Google search 

Should marketers be able to prove the ROI of influencers? 

Can pharma companies effectively use influencer marketing? 

4 Key Teachable Moments for Marketers Who Create Mobile Content 

Social Media and Content

Marketers Talk Too Much, or Always Circle Before You Social 

Social commerce: Why basic bots and buy buttons are not enough 

4 Tools for Garnering More Social Media Engagement 

How to Create Effective Social Media Reports [Infographic] 

Is a second Facebook News Feed in the works? What you need to know 

Here Are the Changes Facebook Introduced for Video Metrics in Page Insights 

What do Facebook’s new VR and AR platforms mean for marketers? 

Search, SEO, PPC, Programmatic

3 predictions about the future of SEO (

With Brand Safety in Focus, Digital Advertisers Are Quickly Shifting Toward Direct Programmatic 

AdWords Expanded Text Ads could get even longer with second description line test

SEM Mistakes to Avoid 

Google’s location tracking is better now than ever before 

Mobile Marketing

Five essential mobile moments and how brands can take part in them 

10 mobile marketing trends to watch in 2017 

How Do People Use Virtual Assistants on Their Smartphones? 

Marketers Still Struggling With App-User Retention 

If Anyone Is Going to Buy Directly from a Chatbot, It’s Millennials 

Web Design & Development

Website design briefs: Be very careful what you ask for

What web designers can learn from web developers 

9 Best Responsive Web Design Frameworks 

Infographics

Exploring the effectiveness of native ads

What makes a good headline 

The Great Divide in Content Marketing 

5 Factors of Ad Viewability 

SEM Mistakes to Avoid 

Please share this with your friends and colleagues, and feel free to comment below...

Now read these related posts from this blog:

• Top Technology Trends in Marketing for 2017

• How Data will really drive Marketing in 2017

• How VR and 360 degree video is changing advertising and content marketing

• Here's how to Power up your Facebook engagement with Video

• 7 ways your brand can increase Facebook organic reach

• How to use Facebook Live video like a pro. The essentials of getting it right.

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