Social Media
How to make a Brand Playbook for your Social Media Campaign
So, you’ve finally set up your own business. You got all the equipment and hired the right people for a start. You’ve also created an awesome logo with a witty name to get everybody’s attention. Not to mention, you also created a social media page to announce your brand’s online presence. Everything’s all set and good to go, except for one thing: your brand playbook. What’s a brand playbook, you ask? Here’s the thing, your brand is more than just your logo or your business name. It is generally a way of identifying your business and how you will be seen and heard. It is what will separate your business from your competitors and other brands. Do I really need one? Composing a brand playbook is all about cohesiveness. It ensures your presentation, whether visual (names, logos, creative assets) or communicational (language and tone), remains consistent throughout your social media campaign. Moreover, it may also contain other important guidelines, processes, and reminders about your social media strategy. Okay, I’m convinced. How do I make my brand playbook? While there is no specific list of what goes into your brand playbook and what does not, here are some general items to get you started. Summary of the Brand Your key message is a short tagline that best summarizes your brand or a particular social media campaign. Start with a brief description of your business, company values, what you do, and the services and products you offer. You may include your brand’s key message as well. Target audience Next up is your target audience. Set a specific demographic you think will be most interested in your social media page. The key to identifying your target audience is knowing and tapping your niche. Include details like their age, gender, location, and income level if needed. You may also specify situational audiences if you have a product or service that caters to a particular circumstance (i.e., specific diseases, occasions). Should you have multiple target audiences, be sure to provide a brief description of each in your brand playbook. Social Media Objectives What do you hope to achieve in your social media campaign? Is it to increase brand awareness? Promote a particular product? Or redirect audiences to inquire via Messenger? If you don’t have a goal yet, just remember to stay SMART: Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time-Bound This will help keep your branding focused and set up the right expectations. Social Media Caption and Image Guidelines In social media marketing, everyone’s aiming to be the next trending thing. It’s a competition over the most creative, the wittiest, and the funniest in an attempt to catch the audience’s attention. Admit it. You tried it too. Still, creativity should have its limits. Otherwise, your brand won’t have a distinct personality that sets it apart. Worse, you may not effectively appeal to your target audience in an attempt to please everyone. Having a brand playbook means setting guidelines for your social media content to follow. List down the Dos and Don’ts for the caption and materials and define the language, voice, and tone depending on your brand’s target audience. Top tip: Include other vital reminders such as keywords and necessary image elements. Brand Kit The brand kit is mostly used to create images, videos, GIFs, and other visual materials. This is where you put variations of your logo, brand colors, and fonts to use. Previous Social Media Campaigns If you’ve been hired as a social media manager, it would also be helpful to ask for previous posts to guide your next campaign. Conclusion No brand playbook is ever final. As trends come and go, so does the brand must adjust with the times. So never be stuck with your rules and always be willing to add to your playbook. Always remember that consistency matters. Creativity and innovation may catch the netizens’ attention, but the constant production of on-target, relevant, and engaging content will build brand loyalty. Find more ways we can help you and your brand grow the digital-first way. Get in touch with us today!
6 Social Media Trends Emerging in 2022
Want to succeed on social media this 2022? Then it would help if you were in the know on what trends will matter most. The last decade has seen social media grow into thriving, dynamic, and multifaceted communities where more than 3.2 billion people worldwide are active daily, especially in the Philippines. At the edge of 2021, two years in the pandemic that left most people away from physical interaction, we saw great value in upgrading online interaction and capitalizing on what many lost for the time being- a sense of experience and social connection. Experience is maximized, even pushed beyond its boundaries, forward to next year’s development of social media usage and features. With the success of Tiktok, Kumu, Facebook’s online fora, and Twitter’s digital spaces, social gatherings are resurrected in the digital sphere. Not to mention, Meta Platforms, Inc. or Meta (formerly Facebook, Inc.) released Metaverse last year, which proves a game-changer in the virtual community. Still, despite the cornucopia of platforms served and to be served on our plate. Experience won’t matter without an audience, and the usual dilemma arises. Is our presence felt online? Are we present at the right time, in suitable spaces? Same questions, but every year, with social media constantly changing, requires a change of answers. Here’s a quick guide of some of the biggest trends we’ll see evolving on social media in 2022. 6 Social Media Trends Emerging in 2022 #1 The Rise of Reels Instagram Reels is a quasi-new concept where we can share and discover engaging short videos on Instagram. Like TikTok, it allows you to edit 15-second multi-clip videos with various effects and audio for entertaining and creative outputs. Users are into video content that is well planned, innovative, creative, and entertaining. These stand out in today’s digital landscape. The only limitation is our imagination. This also means businesses must use this content shift to market digitally effectively. Video contents are imperative in marketing strategies. You may notice how food and beverage businesses like Jollibee and Pepsi open their own studio departments to cater to this new trend. The need for quick and new content has become more and more prevalent, as marketing strategy needs to align with that by leveraging short yet dynamic experiences through videos. #2 Long-Form Content is making a Comeback Short-form media dominated this year. The explosion of TikTok, the wide-scale adoption of Instagram Reels, and the introduction of YouTube Shorts had us all focusing on 15-second messages. However, there’s been a subtle change happening across social platforms. TikTok has expanded to 3 minutes in length. Reels went to 60 seconds. These minor changes are the beginning of a pendulum swing back towards longer-form content, which helps build digital experience to an almost reality. Meta released a guide for businesses on video requirements published via Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Check it out here. Easy enough, this comeback is made more effective with an exciting title, usually in a clickbait approach, plus stirring thumbnails- expect audiences to finish any video up to the very end no matter how long it is. #3 Streaming topples Broadcasted Content Streaming apps like Netflix and Hulu became prime movers of binge-watching culture, toppling down televised shows and broadcasting network-based content. The latter, like Disney and HBO, and in a more local scene- GMA Network and ABS-CBN, even ventured into creating their streaming mediums. This 2022, you’d expect even various forms of content would move on from video sharing sites to streaming platforms. Netflix already houses various vlogs and documentary channels which started as YouTube videos. Webinars and live-streamed events are not far behind. Influencers would go for more traffic and where their contents can as easily be as accessible and profitable at the same time. At the same time, businesses would be taking advantage of low-cost productions that streaming provides for company events. #4 Virtual Meetings to boost Huddle Experience We won’t be bidding farewells anytime soon for virtual conferences. The past years opened doors for online huddle calls and virtual meetings, enabling people to work from home and connect with employees. Zoom, a top-mark among video conferencing platforms, is developing its features to make the experience as accurate and as convenient as possible- transfer meetings between devices, chat sidebar enhancements, and easy access to rooms like your just walking on office corridors. However, newcomers are in the race and are offering game-changing cards on their own. Bluejeans by Verizon offers the same features but a more user-friendly interface– recorded meetings can be saved with meeting highlights and automated transcriptions, and simplified management with live meeting controls. It will also provide users with one-touch access to meetings regardless of the device, browser, online meeting platform, or room system used. Still, the latest paradigm shift on the social media sphere is with the introduction of Metaverse by Meta. This digital experience grounded on the internet is persistent, immersive, three-dimensional (3D), and virtual that many audiences are looking forward to this year, offering us the opportunity to play, work, connect, or yes, even buy and sell. Though a handful of businesses are already shaping the landscape, with entertainment and gaming companies leading the way, 2022 is long marked as the year when online shopping may become literal online shopping. #5 Win over Audiences with Personalized Content In 2022, we’ll say goodbye to third-party web cookies. According to Google, they’ll be removing the tool on Chrome browsers as part of their campaign to protect their users’ privacy. Moreover, the effect of the iOS 14 update on marketing for Apple users still looms in the corner. With the seemingly rise of a new wave this post-pandemic year, content creators must up the audience’s craving for a more creative, sincere, and unique approach to the content they consume. With the limited information due to the absence of third-party cookies and the limiting Apple update, we have to venture to other approaches for content personalization. As a result, more brands will embrace automation in their
An introduction to Facebook live marketing for Dummies
Thinking of new ways to have a great conversation with your followers and connect to them into a whole new level? How about doing this in real-time? Ever heard of Facebook Live Marketing? Facebook Live lets you connect with your fans, friends and followers by sharing real-time video of what you’re seeing and doing. In fact Cisco predicts that between 2017 and 2022 live video traffic will increase 15x, which is currently happening right now that people are locked in their houses and are bored to death. It made its debut August 5, 2015 in its early stages with selected accounts including Dunkin’ Donuts, Tastemade and The Young Turks news network. Here’s one of the first videos ever created in Facebook Live a day after its launch date by a comedian named Ricky Gervais. Fast forward to 2021, it’s now available to all users provided that you have a video camera, an Internet connection, and a Facebook account. So what is Facebook Live anyway? Facebook Live allows you to show your expertise in real time, take people behind the scenes, and much more. Facebook Live lets you livestream events, performances and gatherings on Facebook. Viewers can watch from a phone, computer or connected TV. Reactions, shares, comments, and other interactive features enable you to engage with your audience. Live streaming on Instagram is separate from live streaming on Facebook. -Facebook This is a good news for marketers and business owners because of high engagement and significant long term gains in social marketing. Simply put, engaging conversations with your followers can be capitalized. They can also share the video with their friends and family, potentially increasing its reach. So how exactly can a business incorporate Facebook Live Marketing in their tools to increase engagements? Here’s what you need to know. Provide a behind-the-scenes experience to customers “Customer experience is everyone’s business” is a mantra that I often hear from customer experience leaders. Of course, it’s true. Give your customers a peek behind the curtains of your business. By showing “behind the scenes” content, your prospective customers will be enticed to your products or services because they will know what you’re offering is a value for money. Show to your customers that your pair of shoes is handmade or your beer is “pure”. But giving customers a peek behind the curtain doesn’t have to end with physical products. The “behind the scenes” strategy is applicable in quite a variety of industries. Below is an example of a behind the scenes LIVE. Show sneak previews of new products or updates Product-oriented business can share sneak peeks of new products with their followers via Facebook Live. For example, if you just launched a new product, but it’s not yet available on your website, you could use a Live video to tease it to customers. As for the updates, this can be applied in service-oriented businesses where they can share daily updates, tips, and helpful hints. For example, if you are a real estate broker, you can some tips about real estate 101. In this way, you’re giving value and is positioning yourself as an expert in the field. Check out an example of an updates or tips LIVE by Benefit Cosmetics. Promote events Since Facebook Live lets you broadcast video in real-time to your followers, as well as directly to an event page or group, promoting an event via Facebook Live is definitely possible. For example, if you are a real estate developer, you can live-stream the “Open House” event. Chances are, you can still engage your followers who want to attend the event but can’t afford to. Answer questions Mark Zuckerberg did this during his first live public Q & A last year. He invited users to post questions in the comments, and for others to vote on them by “liking” the comments. Encourage further comments and questions to get more news feed activity and engagement. Protip: Compile all the Q & A and create a blog post version. Share it with your followers so they can still refer to it every now and then. Conclusion There you have it! We hope this has been a realization to you as a business owner or marketer that live video is worth a shot. As for Facebook, we’re curious to see how they develop their live video platform to help brands connect more deeply with fans and followers, and individuals connect more deeply with friends, family, and community. For more Facebook Live Marketing tips and tricks, check it out here.
Introducing New Messaging Experience on Facebook and Instagram
Instagram users can now message someone on Facebook right from the Instagram app and vice versa.
Facebook Business Page Admins: How to Prepare for iOS 14
Are you a business owner who relies most of your marketing efforts on Facebook? Do your fans and target market on Facebook, an iOS user? Then this update from Apple might interest you. Let’s start first with Tim Cooks’ tweet last month. Apple is making big changes to data tracking permissions in iOS 14 that could significantly impact Facebook advertisers, publishers, and app developers. These changes will dramatically affect app developers’ ability to measure and monetize advertising. You’ve surely heard of this news in sheer terms, that advertising will be less effective and businesses will suffer. In an official blog post Facebook stated the policies are harmful to the ‘free internet’ and make some forceful statements about how it will impact small businesses: “They’re creating a policy — enforced via iOS 14’s AppTrackingTransparency — that’s about profit, not privacy. It will force businesses to turn to subscriptions and other in-app payments for revenue, meaning Apple will profit and many free services will have to start charging or exit the market. They’re hurting small businesses and publishers who are already struggling in a pandemic. These changes will directly affect their ability to use their advertising budgets efficiently and effectively. Our studies show, without personalized ads powered by their own data, small businesses could see a cut of over 60% of website sales from ads. We don’t anticipate the proposed iOS 14 changes to cause a full loss of personalization but rather a move in that direction over the longer term. They’re not playing by their own rules. Apple’s own personalized ad platform isn’t subject to the new iOS 14 policy. We disagree with Apple’s approach, yet we have no choice but to show their prompt. If we don’t, we’ll face retaliation from Apple, which could only further harm the businesses we want to support. We can’t take that risk.” Is Facebook concerned with these changes? Yes, they are, and that concerns me. By far, this is the biggest battle for Facebook to conquer based on my experience and reactions of the Facebook advertiser community. If these changes do, in fact, make advertising less effective, advertisers will spend less. If advertisers spend less, Facebook takes a big hit to their revenue. In this update of Facebook for Business, iOS 14 updates have an impact on personalized ads. “These will affect your ability to understand performance, control who sees your ads, and make informed decisions about your advertising budgets. As these changes take effect, over time, you may see an overall decrease in ad performance and personalization and an increase in cost per action.” The point of this post is to help walk you prepare action plans to deal with this event. Ready for this monster topic? Let’s do it… iOS 14 Action Plan for Business Owners Collect first-party data As early as now, start collecting first-party data. This includes data you collect from your CRM, website, loyalty programs, mobile app, etc. If you aren’t already retargeting your customers on Facebook, now is the time to start. Invest in your brand Brands that you love today didn’t build their name overnight. They put money, effort and smart strategies to create attention from a huge number of people. Gone are the days you post an update to your Facebook page and forget it, then expect that people will still remember you. Diversify your marketing channel Relying on one marketing channel is not a good idea to achieve business growth. Start to think about email marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, and SMS marketing. Increase Facebook page’s organic growth Drive more engagements to your Facebook page so you can collect a sizable amount of retargeting audience. On the technical side of things, these are what you can do to prepare: Verify your domain ownership in Business Manager. This will allow you to have authority over which conversion events are eligible for your domain https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/domain-verification Adapt for 8 conversion events for Optimization & Reporting only (not Custom Audiences) Update Your SDK (if applicable) Install Facebook’s Conversion API Install Server Side Tag Management Wrapping Up There are a lot of discussions around these changes which is great because we are giving awareness to Facebook users, app developers, media buyers, and business owners. Facebook created a page for small business owners to “add your voice” in opposition to the iOS 14 updates and even created a toolkit to help you share posts, videos, and stories to #SpeakUpForSmall businesses. Here are other resources you can explore about the iOS 14 update.iOS14 Guidance for Facebook Advertisers – PublicHow Apple’s iOS 14 Release May Affect Your AdsUse Facebook Pixel to Reach iOS 14 Users
Ways to boost your business through Facebook – The Marketer’s Guide
The internet has become a real game-changer for the business industry. The rise of social media platforms where your potential customers are spending most of their time online led for businesses to turn into digital media to promote their brand, services, and products. Business owners can start and boost their business for just a few clicks while at the comfort of their homes. One of the most popular social media platforms is Facebook with 2.27 billion users worldwide. From a social media site meant for people to socialize virtually, it eventually grew into a platform for media, marketing, and technology. Here’s a quick guide on how to use Facebook to your business’ advantage. Who and where is your target audience? Before you jump into creating Facebook marketing strategies for your business, you first need to identify who is your target audience and where you can find them? Fortunately, regardless of the age, gender, and location of your target audience, almost all of them utilizes Facebook in their everyday life. How to get started in promoting your business through Facebook? There are various ways that you can use in promoting your business through Facebook: 1. Create a Facebook page. Definitely, the first thing you have to do is to create a Facebook page. Similar to your Facebook profile, your business’ Facebook page should serve as a place wherein prospect clients may find relevant information about your brand – from products and services to testimonials and a hub for responding to customer inquiries and concerns. Advantages of creating a Facebook page When a customer likes and follows your page, they’ll be automatically updated of any posts you’ll put in your page. Unlike in promoting your services and products to your personal profile, there’s no limit as to how many people can like and follow your page. While creating a Facebook page is free, you can also utilize Facebook paid ads to reach out to the target market who aren’t yet aware of the existence of your page and business. With Facebook Ads, you can customize your audience reach to make use of your budget effectively. How to create a Facebook page Visit facebook.com/pages/create and choose the type of your page. Fill out the required information then click Create Page. Upload your page’s profile photo and cover image. Add information about your business in the “About” section. How to effectively utilize your Facebook page. Post relevant information. While the main goal of your Facebook page is to post interesting articles, new products and services, announcements, and testimonials, it’s also important to post materials that are helpful to your audience. Study Facebook Insights. Insights shows you data results that you can utilize in maximizing your page – from identifying what time your users are most active to the type of posts your users find most interesting. 2. Utilize Facebook groups, the marketplace, and jobs. Facebook has recently added new features that should help business owners in boosting their brand – Facebook groups, the marketplace, and jobs. Facebook Groups – Groups aren’t new, but its brand-based groups are relatively new on the platform. To create a Facebook group, you first need to have a page and from there create a group for your brand. The good thing about this feature is that it allows you to directly reach out to prospect clients and at the same time network with relevant business industries that you think can help in boosting the brand and profit of your company. Facebook Jobs – Another feature of Facebook is the ability to post jobs. This should help you in looking for potential individuals to hire for your business – may it be for a full-time, part-time, or freelance job vacancies. Remember, Facebook is a platform where you may find a pool of talented individuals. Facebook Marketplace – This is like the e-commerce platform of Facebook where you can sell your products. You may see this as virtually setting up a shop on Facebook where you can list your products and it’ll be searchable on Facebook. How to use the Facebook marketplace Upon entering Facebook, click the Shop icon. After this, add a photo of the product you are selling. It’s ideal to add high-resolution images to gain the trust of your potential clients. Once photos are added, you may now add a title to your product. Make sure that it’s concise and it clearly states the product you are selling. After the title, you should now add relevant information such as size, color, and the like. Then you should also add the price of your product which you may change now and then. One more step before launching your product is adding the location and category for more precision and ease of reference to your prospect clients. Once you’ve filled out the necessary information, Facebook will make your product active and visible to the public. The Facebook marketplace will also allow you to communicate with your clients and edit information on the products you’ve previously posted. How to effectively utilize the Facebook marketplace. The marketplace is a good start to test the waters of your business – to assess if you’re in the right platform and prospect clients. Budget-friendly. Since there’s no cost in adding products, the marketplace is a good place for a start-up to promote products and services. It’s the fastest way to offer your clients with business deals, promotions, and new products. Once you’ve posted your products, it can be easily searched by anyone using Facebook. Conclusion Indeed, Facebook is a powerful social media platform for its flexibility to cater to the various needs of its users. You may find the platform intimidating as there are a lot of competitors – from small to large companies, but it could never hurt to try and utilize the advantages of the platform. And while it may take some time and effort to get used to its features, it’ll be a worthwhile path as it’s considered to be the
More than half of the people on earth now use social media
A special report published by We Are Social and Hootsuite revealed that more than half of the world total population now uses social media for the first time in history. The report showed 3.96 billion people use social media today, accounting for an estimated 51 percent of the population globally. “This milestone is all the more impressive when we consider that most social media companies restrict the use of their platforms to people aged 13 and above. In fact, the latest numbers indicate that nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of the world’s total ‘eligible’ population now use social media,” We are social writes on their special report blog post. “And adoption is still growing rapidly. Worldwide user numbers have surged by more than 10 percent over the past 12 months, with an average of more than 1 million people starting to use social media for the first time every single day since this time last year,” they added. Additionally, the report revealed the latest data on the state of digital around the globe and it will give you insights that will help you adjust your strategy on social media which grows at a pace unlike any before. In the report, you’ll learn what digital consumer habits are a product of the moment and which ones might be here to stay even after the pandemic ends. It also gives insights on rapidly changing consumer behavior that you can adapt to your strategy.