If you are a milk tea lover, you will probably have come across most popular milk tea social media profiles or had seen their milk tea advertisement. Or you may have seen them on lamp posts - basically, they’re everywhere at the moment.

We think these milk tea companies are winning at social media content, and here are a few reasons why. Brands wanting to up their social media game, listen up:

Add some personality

All brands from milk tea companies to law firms need to think about their personality and how they want to be perceived. The key is to know your audience, own your brand identity, and maintaining the tone of all marketing and advertising surrounding the brand, as well as how they connect with their target audiences(s).

Coco Fresh Tea & Juice’s social media managers have got this down. Their brand personality is fresh, fun, straightforward and hits the Filipino nail on the head. They’re relatable.

Social media tip: Keep some personality, but not one-person-at-the-company’s personality. During any social media planning and strategy sessions, decide what kind of persona is right for you.

Get the creative juices flowing (now)

It almost goes without saying, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Visual content is obviously an enormous part of social media that we can’t deny. It’s usually the first thing that people notice about a brand. We feel mixed emotions —lowered stress levels, feelings of love, trust, empathy, and generosity—comes with people loving and connecting with a brand compared to being put off completely.

Dakasi has bright and sharp colors and its content is consistent. They didn’t focus on just their product but also the space around it.

(Even this picture has scattered yellow stuff is effective.)

Inject the pop culture

The term “pop culture” or popular culture is determined by the interactions between people in their everyday life activities. The most common categories of pop culture are entertainment (music, film, TV), sports, politics, fashion, and technology.

Popular culture and the latest trends move fast in the world of social media. Though, it’s not necessary to jump on every single social media trend or hashtag that you see, maximizing the ones that are relevant to your brand can make a difference in increasing your reach.

In this post of Tiger Sugar Philippines, they put the pop in popular culture by featuring Game of Thrones in their Milk Tea Advertisement.

Putting the spotlight to the customer

It’s been proven that people like photos of people. In EmergeLocal, we call them “candid photos”. Brands who focus on including people in their photos and updates or sneak peek tend to have higher engagement than those who purely promote products.

Below is an example of a post that focuses on people, Chatime showcase their people-centric post by featuring a curated post from one of their customers.

Cuddly Bear

Pardon us, we had to include this one. Who isn’t fascinated with teddy bears in offices, #bringyourteddybeartoworkschoolday, teddy bear in the kitchen...Okay, you get it.

Macao Imperial Tea takes an effort to have a giant teddy bear in one of their stores. Of course, a customer can’t help but hug it.

Do you need help formulating a social media strategy for your business? Get in touch with us – we’re a friendly bunch!

Are you wondering why you’re not closing leads on Facebook?

Or you are not getting any engagements at all?

It seems your ad is lost in the middle of the forest.

Maybe you’ve got the wrong people seeing your ads.

Worry not!

In today’s post, I will be sharing the four effective ways you can use to target the right audience so you can get great results.

Advertising on Facebook is one of the biggest, if not the greatest opportunities for business owners widely available today.

Unlike traditional marketing, you can target people on Facebook using a variety of factors that can narrow down its billions of users into small and specific audiences.

Nowadays, internet users are aware that if you use social media, you will be advertised to and all information that you’ve input into your profile gives these social media platforms an idea of what should they show to the user.

So how can you advertise on Facebook and generate sales with the right audience?

4 Surefire Ways to Target Your Ideal Customers on Facebook

Here are four surefire ways to target your ideal customers on Facebook:

Know your audience

Let’s start with the basics.

How well do you know your audience?

Do you already have your buyer persona?

If you don’t have one yet, let this buyer persona builder help you to create one for yourself.

I highly recommend making a buyer persona before you can get started on your ad.

Understanding who your ideal audiences give you an advantage of knowing the attributes of Facebook users that you’ll be advertising to.

Most Facebook users complete their profile details including age, gender, location, hobbies, music genre, and etc. Aside from the capability of Facebook to show ads based on your activities, your ads can be shown based on the former.

This helps advertisers a lot especially when it comes to targeting very specific users based on their age, gender, and even marital status.

Location targeting is also helpful if you only want to reach out to users within the radius of your physical store.

Tip: Put yourself in your customer's shoes. What problems that your product or service are trying to solve?

Remarketing

Are you familiar with the phrase “low hanging fruit”?

Let me explain what it is.

Low hanging fruit refers to those consumers who are easiest to attract to your business.

Imagine remarketing as your low hanging fruit strategy.

The best choice for targeting your ideal customers are those who've already visited your website and has background knowledge about what you offer.

By using Facebook pixels to track website visitors, you can track behaviors of people who visited your website, so you can use that data to optimize your ads.

The process is simply like this: Visitors come to your website and Facebook will show your ads based on what they browse within your website.

Tip: Your remarketing ads should focus on what you offer already, albeit the features and benefits should be seen. These audiences need a little more push to be convinced to make a purchase.

Lookalike audience

Custom audiences allow businesses to build a list of target audiences based on existing consumer information.

Simply put, Facebook will take a group of users and identify what they have in common. Those similar users will be targeted by your ads.

It’s powerful, right?

But let’s remember this.

If and only if you have a steady amount of leads already, only then you can extend your reach to lookalike audiences.

Interest targeting

We can all agree that as Facebook users, we tend to be fans of hundreds of brands and put self-described hobbies or favorite activities into our profiles.

Targeting based on interests will allow you to get inside the heads of Facebook users and be the perfect audience for your product and/or services.

The goal is to show your ads to specific people who have interests that match with your brand who will not only find the ad interesting but click on it.

Tip: Be as specific as possible when it comes to interest targeting. The more specific your target is, the smaller the audience you’ll have but are more likely to generate sales.

Conclusion

Finding the right audience for your ads is a tedious yet exciting process.

Think of it as finding that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

By targeting your ideal customers with a unique and actionable content that are geared specifically for them, you have a higher chance of increasing your leads or whatever output you want to achieve.

For all your digital marketing Pampanga needs, EmergeLocal has you covered. We help businesses get more traffic, more leads and higher conversions. Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help with your Facebook advertising campaigns.

How do online customer reviews affect my business?

Your brand will get noticed (and followed by!)

Opens plenty of opportunities

Your business will be deemed trustworthy

Boosts your sales

How to deal with negative reviews

Respond promptly

Write like a person, not a corporation

Be consistent

Escalate to resolving it personally

Conclusion

Are you not getting enough leads even when you have a lot of website visitors and you spent thousands of dollars on your landing page?

Maybe it’s the picture.

Or the headline.

There is a myriad of reasons why you’re not satisfied with your website or the campaigns you are running.

Let’s say you are running some Google ads and your social media efforts are fired up, yet the struggle is real to have a higher conversion rate.

According to Wordstream, the Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that complete a desired goal (a conversion) out of the total number of visitors.

What if I tell you that the reason you’re not getting any lead is that your landing page is boring and misleading?

Yes, your landing page may be the culprit to your low-performing ad campaign.

A landing page can help you:

• Increase conversions
• Grow your list of email subscribers
• Reduce bounce rates
• Generate the date and insights of your ad campaigns for future reference
• Improve brand awareness through interactions

If done correctly, your inviting landing page can transform into a lead capturing machine that will be a crucial contributor for your marketing success.

So what should you do, then?

What makes an appealing landing page?

A landing page has a single purpose - to prompt your audience to take action immediately with a strategically placed call to actions.

It makes an impression to the visitor; it serves to inform them to take the action that you want them to do.

These are what makes an appealing landing page:

Relevance

Firstly, it should have the basic qualities that make a visitor stay for a while. This includes fast loading speed, a great copy, and quality images to name a few.

More importantly, an appealing landing page should be relevant.

An irrelevant landing page makes a visitor bounce out of the process that’s why you’ll notice an increase in your bounce rate.

For instance, if you search on Google with the keywords “order flowers”, the ad you clicked should lead you to a relevant landing page complete with the selections of the flowers, their prices, and an order form.

Also, keep all information up-to-date. Put yourself in the shoes of your landing page visitors. Convey the relevant message to them.

Charismatic Copy of your Landing Page

Copywriting for a landing page is tricky because you need to be concise but not being too generic.

Let’s have a small exercise.

Try to strip off the fancy graphics of your landing page.

Let the copy (content) remains the same.

Does it deliver a strong and clear message?

Think about that.

If you have a landing page directed to a specific audience, it needs to directly affect the user and be personal to make them feel like we know their pain points.

Tip: Shy away from putting generics like “Buy now” on your buttons, align the call to action to your brand or campaign.

Declutter

Copy? Check.

Visuals? Check.

Sign up forms? Check

Yes, you may have everything you need for your landing page.

But what if there’s so much going on?

This can make the users more confused, not knowing where to look first. Eventually, your landing page will be abandoned as they feel overwhelmed with all the information they see.

Bottom line: Declutter!

Revise your copy if it needs to be shortened.

Check your graphics if they are placed properly.

Don’t worry about empty spaces.

Because landing page elements, like us, need a space to breathe and decluttering your landing page can boost your ad performance in the long run.

Very Human on the Visuals

Human faces elicit human responses, plain and simple.

It’s almost impossible to ignore a human face when it’s shown on a webpage. Text only comes in second priority to look at.

Alternatively, also consider what’s the best human perspective to show.

If you’re offering cosmetics, show only the above shoulders part while a watch company would often focus on the wrist and arms of the subject.

Use Motion Graphics and Video

Needless to say in this digital era, you will get a user’s attention when something is moving on their screen.

Ultimately, adding videos to your landing page increases the chance of generating conversions.

It can be an introduction video about your products and services, or much better, testimonials from your customer for social proof.

Making an impact thru motion graphics and video can do lots of wonders for your landing page.

Conclusion

Your audience is getting savvier than ever.

All they want right now is quality marketing.

Have the right tools and content for your landing page to close leads.

Ensure that you deliver them the value they are expecting, or have them bounce off your page.

The latter is the sad part.

Your choice.

If you’re unsure if your landing pages are working for you, why not talk to us at EmergeLocal for a free consultation? We’ll wait.

Is your Facebook business page not getting enough likes and engagements?

Have you tried a lot of tricks to grow your business page but are not getting enough results?

If you want to grow your online presence, you’ll need to invest in paid media.

Yes, you heard it right, that’s the hard truth on social media marketing.

As a social media manager at EmergeLocal, it’s my responsibility to grow the page of the Facebook business page that I handle.

I noticed that if you aim for organic growth, it takes time to gain engagements. The great thing about organic growth is you don’t have pay.

But what if you have a number of engagements or likes and a deadline to meet, are you going to wait for your organic efforts come to fruition?

If you haven’t tried paid ads, you’re falling behind. And with the risk of organic reach and referral traffic plummeting down, the need to invest for paid media has never been stronger.

First of all, what is Paid Media?

Maybe you're more adept at traditional advertising but not on paid media. These are billboards, magazines, newspapers, TV commercials, and radio ads.

On the other hand, paid media is digital advertising.

The sponsored ads you see on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook posts are paid media.

It’s a good way to promote content to drive organic reach and engagements, and direct traffic to your website or social media accounts.

This way you can get the ball rolling and create more exposure for your business.

Tapping micro-influencers to share your content with their audience, paying them in return, is another way of paid media. It’s one of the latest tactics to increase exposure that can provide a big impact on the reach and recognition your business will receive.

But organic media is free, why should I invest in paid media?

Like I said earlier, the organic reach in Facebook and other social media sites have plummeted down due to their change in algorithms, to show you posts from friends and family first in the news feed.

And I understand that you’re more drawn to organic media because it’s free and cost-effective. But what could cost your business more is the time and knowledge needed, if you do it on your own.

Using paid media allows you to find, target, and reach your audience as much as possible.

You can set your objectives according to your business goals. Here are some examples:

• Brand awareness
• Lead generation
• Drive website traffic
• Increase the number of downloads
• Engagements
• Subscriber list

You can even see how your ads are performing with tools like Facebook Insights and Google Analytics so you can optimize them.

So what are the benefits of Paid Media for my business?

I guess it’s safe to say you’re considering it already, eh? You need a little push I assume.

Well, let me tell you the benefits of using Paid Media for your business.

Reach escalation

Posts from your friends and family on Facebook is now a priority to show on your feed resulting in the declines of a brand’s organic reach.

However, using Paid Media on social media gives your business instant brand visibility.

With sponsored ads, it guarantees you a place in a social media user’s feed which can give you a direct opening to drive leads, website traffic, and sales.

But don’t sit back just yet, you have to be strategic here. For starters, you should know your audience’s behavior like when and where most of your fans are online.

Increased brand awareness

Probably, this is the most obvious benefit.

The use of paid media allows you to create better exposure for your brand.

When your content is constantly seen on your users’ feed, people will start to recognize your brand. Recognition then will lead to enhanced credibility, make them more engaged and affect their purchasing behavior.

The challenge here though is how you can hook your audience. Therefore, you should create ads that are both informative and memorable.

Visual contents and clever writing will start to come into play here so you can secure your users’ impressions and retain user attention for your next set of ads.

Enhanced targeting

Posting thru paid ads on social media lets you take control on who’s going to see your ad.

The most basic targeting would be demographics, you can set which gender or age can see your ad. In addition, there’s also the psychographic factors such as interests, hobbies, music, and movies they’ve liked that can help you narrow down your audience.

You can also retarget users who’ve already visited your website. These previous visitors will start seeing ads from your brand in their news feed when you install the Facebook retargeting pixel. Read more about that here.

No fixed budget required

Investing in paid media is a more cost-effective way to promote your business compared to traditional advertising.

The most notable example would be the pay-per-click (PPC) model where you pay only if the user takes the action that you want.

You don’t need to invest a lot in the first run, as a lot of audience testing and ad cycles must be done first. That’s why when determining your ad budget, you should start small and invest where there are better results.

You’ll get to know them better

What was the best performing post of the month?

Which demographics is the most engaging?

You can answer these questions with the help of Google Analytics and Facebook Insights. You can assess the performance and determine which performed well and those that didn’t work too.

Set your own Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as engagements (likes, comments, shares) reach, link clicks and others that you feel would be useful in assessing your ads’ performance.

My personal favorite is Facebook Insight as it gives you all the information it needs for a campaign review. You can see the actual number of fans from a particular area, age ratios, engagement rates, even the number of unlikes can be found here too.

Review your ads’ performance every month and you’ll get to know your audience better. Then when you’re equipped with enough information, you can identify your best targets and narrow down your audience to effectively drive impressions and reach - and finally conversions.

Conclusion

Don’t get me wrong, there is an absolute value in organic media across social media channels and SEO. Your fans can get to know more about your business, interacting and engaging more than they would with sponsored contents.

BUT, and it’s a big one, the only downfall is that you need a lot of time and be consistent or else you’ll fail.

Businesses of all sizes are reorganizing their strategies to go digital and invest in paid media.

You should too.

Don’t know where to start? Talk to us at EmergeLocal for a free consultation and start getting customers online.

Do you feel that your online marketing efforts are not getting results (obvious reason: not setting up conversion tracking)?

Do you think your investment is wasted?

You have no idea how to find out if you’re getting the return of your investment.

So, you feel lost.

Don't panic. We wrote this blog post because we want to help you figure something out.

We asked a lot of business owners about the reason why they have to be online --- most of the time, they got the right answer. Even most of them have websites, Facebook business pages, Instagram pages, and present to other social media sites.

The downside is they haven’t taken steps to implement a concrete plan about what they’re trying to achieve, and therefore, how they are going to get there when they introduce new online campaigns.

This is where setting up tracking campaigns comes. It can be a bit technical; hence it is so valuable to implement to your online campaign to ensure reliable results.

Why conversion tracking is important?

It’s true that digital marketing is all about data.

Everyone is online, people are buying online and engaging with each other, not just because they love spending time there but because that is where you get the most valuable data about your customer, which allows you to offer them better services.

Every engagement that happens between your business and your customers online is tracked -- or can be tracked -- and if you haven’t set up conversion tracking and analytics goal setup before starting digital campaigns, you are throwing away valuable data and money.

Let’s take Google Ads for example.

The Google Ads platform has its own conversion tracking pixel. It helps you have a clear and measurable goal for your campaign. It also helps you to learn what information is valuable and can thus be used to improve future campaigns, solutions, and services.

If there’s no conversion tracking, you’re unable to see what is working and what is not. You’re running at unclear goals and bleed money and valuable information in the process.

Is Google Analytics enough for conversion tracking?

Google Analytics is the most popular tracking tool.

It helps you to analyze all online campaigns and gather data about the campaign performance.

It’s a great start to have this tool integrated with your online campaign but there is more that can be done to gather more significant and specific data which are all the more valuable to your business.

What’s the fuss with Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager is a free tool that allows you to apply and manage marketing (snippets of code or tracking pixels) on your website (or mobile app) so that specific information can be extracted.

Each tag is able to track different things. This can determine how users fill in information on your landing page, and then this information goes to Google Analytics, Google Ads or another third party that you may use.

This specific information could include:

• What is the behavior of your website visitor?
• Form submissions
• How many calls you are tracking
• How a user arrived on your site
• What products were removed from their shopping cart

The great thing about Google Tag Manager (GTM) is its tagging process. If you're a digital marketer who doesn’t know how to code, that’s totally fine. GTM is made easy and it is more accessible to the less tech-savvy marketer. You embed code into your website just once and then, for future tags, Google Tag Manager will code and embed the tag for you.

Conclusion

Again, digital marketing is powered by data. Data can’t be measured without powerful tools like Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager.

Whatever tool you opt to use, conversion tracking and goal setting are essential to a successful online campaign. Remember that your website is giving you countless valuable data; your responsibility is to capture, utilize, and interpret it.

If you want to learn more about the tracking tools you need to put in place, please speak to our team. Contact us on +63 949 993 9045 today or get in touch via our contact page.

Ready to take a trip down memory lane?

I’m not being overly dramatic here.

2018 was the biggest year yet for digital marketers and Internet users. New features, updates, and releases overwhelmed us.

From Yahoo! Messenger shutting to the launch of Instagram TV (IGTV), it was a huge challenge to adapt to these changes and make better strategies.

But hey, we survived!

2018 Digital Highlights

So why don’t we look back on the highlights that occurred in the world of digital marketing last year?

Almost everyone has gone mobile

Do you still remember our parent’s rants that we “use our smartphones too much”? Well, it’s true. No one can’t deny that we are becoming glued to our smartphones.

According to Facebook, 94% of social media users access their social networking apps on mobile. In that case, digital marketers should consider creating mobile-first content. For example, square and vertical sizes images for Facebook mobile newsfeed

Plunging of organic reach and referral traffic

When Facebook announced the changes to its algorithm last year, the Page's organic reach plummeted down.

The new algorithm let us see what's most important to us which are posts from our family and friends.

And when the organic reach is getting lower, the referral traffic goes down too. This is the result when fewer people see social media posts from business pages.

It means that social media is an engagement channel, not referral traffic.

Marketing became vocal - literally

The voice-response technology has rapidly emerged as one of the most disruptive forces to hit the industry in 2018 with the rise of Alexa and other voice-activated assistants like Siri (Apple) and Cortana (Windows).

Marketers were fighting hard for their brands to be mentioned by these digital assistant devices as one of the suggestion when a user inquires because these assistants only deliver one search result per request. So it became a challenge when it comes to marketers optimizing their content for voice search.

AR and AI

In 2018, machines have risen.

AR stands for Augmented Reality mixes augmented elements to a real-world view, thus creating added value to the users seeing it.

Our smart devices are getting powerful time after time and social apps have integrated with AR. Big brands incorporate AR to better engage with consumers.

On the other hand, AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. It was widely used by marketers as they found that it can be useful to them.

According to Hootsuite, there are over 100 thousand Messenger bots active on Facebook. The tech giant released its predictive analysis to help marketers find insights faster making the chatbots effective when engaging with a user.

Increased demand in micro-influencers

Celebrity endorsements are effective.

Big brands agree with this.

But what about a business that's starting to build their following?

That’s where micro-influencer marketing comes in. With the power of a micro-influencer and a business/brand, they can form a tight-knit group of followers who are loyal to what they promote.

Plus, it's a cheap alternative to celebrities so brands can allocate their budget to other marketing strategies.

The Verdict: 2018 was a rollercoaster ride digital marketers and I enjoyed it.

What’s next for 2019?

As early as now, we’re already going to face some challenges that will require us to act fast and do things right!

Defining the fine line between real and AI

Depending too much on AI and Chatbots is a big NO NO.

People who get in touch with you on Facebook knows so much about customer service. They know when they are talking to an AI or a real human.

If you your chatbot can create a seamless conversation with a customer, that’s better. But when the AI keeps on saying the same thing over and over again without progress, that’s when the customer will doubt if the brand really pays attention. Bottom line: Be careful with AI.

Creating contents fit to all mediums of digital marketing

This is a constant struggle for digital marketers throughout the years. How are you going to transform your ideas into campaigns that can perfectly fit into social media, IGTV and Youtube videos, PPC (Pay-per-click) efforts, and voice-based search?

That’s a tough one, isn’t it? But you don’t have to be alone in this one. Careful planning, dynamically collaborating with your colleagues, or thunder brainstorming is the first step.

Videos worth of the user’s time

A person’s attention span is increasingly shrinking as we know it. In fact, the attention span of a goldfish is already much longer than a human being. But don’t worry, social media users spend most of their time watching videos so you won’t lose a single viewer.

What you need to keep in mind though is the rule of thumb which is grabbing a user’s attention within the first 3 seconds.

Be controversial, create a cliffhanger, pique their interest; do whatever it takes to make a user keep their fingers off from scrolling away from your video.

Wrap up

We also wrote an article about social media predictions which you can find here.

Whenever a cycle ends, we start anew. The same goes for our digital marketing strategies.

Indeed, 2019 is a digital marketing year to look forward to.

Stay ahead of the curve this year. If you want to know more, talk to us at EmergeLocal for a free consultation.

Photo courtesy: Rawpixel by Freepik

Are your social media strategies ready for 2019?

Just like the apps on our devices, the world of social media is at a constant update. Trending topics are always changing, the most tweeted topic last week may be mentioned lesser in the coming week or not at all. It’s the same case with the changes in social media platforms especially on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Changes that help users and marketers alike to interact and build their relationship with each other.

We marketers have to think in advance, riding the trend-train to stay ahead and be the first to know the latest in social media marketing trends including the anticipated changes so we can be ready to take advantage of all the great features that the future will bring us.

Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2019

Here are our predictions for social media marketing in 2019:

Video Content Domination

Users are more intrigued when they watch something that piques their interests and most of the time - their curiosities. Contents in video format have been evident on different social media platforms and will gradually dominate this 2019. The real challenge here is what you’re going to do to get your users to watch your content. People nowadays have minimal attention spans and they are bombarded with a ton of ads on a daily basis. So creating a strategy to capture the interest of your audience needs to amp up a bit.

We have seen different artists release a vertical version of their music videos uploaded on Youtube which changes the game for music videos. In addition, the launch of Instagram’s TV (IGTV) feature which is a lot like a TV feature that can be used in broadcasting long-form video content has brought uniqueness to brands that utilized this feature. With so many opportunities to create videos, make sure that you’ll bring the right content to the right audience.

Ephemeral Nature of Live Videos

The use of live videos was first introduced in Youtube where YouTubers can broadcast themselves and interact with fans who are leaving live comments on the video with a time stamp. After a short time, this feature has taken over Facebook and Instagram and is being utilized widely by media companies and news portals alike. Live videos give more authenticity to the audience as they’re watching real-time videos. The only downfall is that it won’t go under post-production anymore, it’s an as-is content that you’ll show to your audience so technical errors must be closely kept away.

Marketers in 2019 should focus on using live videos in showing the authenticity, relevance, and their trustworthiness by providing spontaneous contents while subtly promoting their brand to the users watching. With that being said, users will always look for live videos that show engaging and exciting content which attract them with their short attention spans.

Social Listening

People share everything on social media. From their ideas, recommendations up to their frustrations, you can find these on their social media posts. But how is this helpful for us marketers? Social listening is understanding your users on Facebook and other platforms by listening (or should we say monitoring) to their public posts to find all mentions of a brand or any other keywords relating to the brand. While social listening has been existing for a long time now, its real game in 2019 is that it will be used for lead generation and social selling.

Only a few marketers realize the importance of social listening as they only perceive this as a way of customer service and reputation management. But it’s more than that, you can find people that are actually seeking for your product and services with their public posts. So include social listening to your 2019 strategies now, or if you already have, review them and make sure that you’ll meet your goal through social listening.

Everything is Personalized

With users filling out every opportunity for brands to know them, getting insights have been easier than before. All our activities on the internet are being monitored, and marketers are taking advantage of it to show you their offers through advertisements that match your interest or what you were doing from the past few hours. A user’s browser history, clicked links, website visits, social media posts, and other activities give brands an insight into what content they can show to them.

Let’s say Netflix, for example, shows their suggested movies and series based on your taste or shows that you frequently watch. Then there’s Lazada and Shopee that show products similar to the ones that you’ve bought. Most importantly, Google and Facebook have algorithms that monitor our daily activities where they can insert ads based on posts that we recently liked or pages we recently visited. Marketers in 2019 should relate this also on social listening to increase the impact of personalization.

Timeliness

Social media never sleeps! This is what the future holds for social media marketing. The real-time communication approach to customer supports that are 24/7 and chatbots who replies in an instant is just one of the proofs that timeliness in brands is currently rising and will continue to grow in 2019. I’m not just talking about customer service here, but also the timeliness of brands in terms of their social media contents.

One remarkable example here is the day Catriona Gray won the Miss Universe 2018 pageant. Every brand was racing to the edge right after the coronation just to post in time to all social media platforms. It was a battle of wit and relevancy to what was the most trending topic that day. It all paid off though, as every user liked, commented, and shared those posts relating to Gray’s victory. This is the power of being timely and in 2019, it will be more challenging to stay relevant as brands are using different tools to be just in time as much as possible.

Micro-influencers going Macro

Who said there can be no celebrities inside Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube? Well, the rise of micro-influencers will be more evident this 2019. Most of these influencers have followers who get notified with their latest posts, tweet or even when they’re doing a live video.  Every marketing niche has a micro-influencer inside it and these influencers are more trusted by their followers than the actual experts. This is due to the fact that people tend to put their trust in their buying decisions to micro-influencers which they know and are deemed more down to earth.

If someone has a fan base of more than 10,000 followers and are interested in what this person has to say, he is considered a micro-influencer. But the real question in place will be “Who’s going to represent my brand?”. Having a brand ambassador gives your customers perception of what your brand really is. Let’s say if you’re selling cosmetics and you get a micro-influencer who is a mother of three and in her mid-30s, your customer will automatically realize that your product is dedicated to women in the older age bracket, especially to mothers. In return, a lot of users who are also women in their 30s, single or married, will see that your product was made for them.

And that’s it!

At this point, I can say that I’m ready to face 2019 head-on. I’m also looking forward to these predictions to happen and see their full effects. Every year is a constant struggle for us marketers because of the new things we need to be familiar with and making sure our strategies last year would be as effective for the next one. But I’m also excited to the new tools and techniques that can put the brands we are taking care here in EmergeLocal in the front of the screen of their target market.

If you’re looking for more in-depth strategies for your social media management and digital marketing solutions, talk to us at EmergeLocal and set an appointment for a free consultation.

Ready to go digital but figuring out if you develop full-time employees or do you need help from an agency?

As an established digital marketing agency in Pampanga, we often speak to clients about the benefits of working with an agency vs having an in-house marketing person or team. The state of digital media is changing so fast and the question of doing it or not is a common dilemma for businesses nowadays.

In this battle, of course, we’re a little bias because we’re on the pro agency side. The digital landscape converts not only Pampanga but the whole country to opt for agencies over in-house. In recent years, digital marketing has expanded where one person or a small team won’t be able to keep on top of all things digital. Tools have gone complicated and technical. And we are bound to hone skills all the time. If you are a business owner, how are you going to keep up?

Why Businesses Prefer Digital Agencies Over In-house Team

Marketing agency vs In-house marketing

Having an in-house person or team has its pros so to ensure we aren’t only taking a single perspective, let’s tackle that below.

Pro in-house

Fast communication
Put much more dedication and interest in their work
Familiar in product, philosophy, and culture
Gain significant insight into your target audience
Gives control to creative limitations and deadlines
Easily forecasts creative costs

If you have an in-house team or person, you expect your staff to communicate with you as soon as possible. The interest on your business goals is there.  In very simple words, you are totally in control of the staff or team.

Pro agency

All good things above, is that right?

It seems to hire an in-house person or team is the way to go, but the counter can be broken down into two powerful benefits:

Broader skillsets

With an agency, you’ll get access to creative ideas, and strategic direction without limits. You’ll not only have the necessary tools to achieve your vision for success but a suite of creative services at your fingertips, without having to pay the salaries of 5+ people. Each staff member has a niche and works every day in their fields.  They dedicate 100% of their working time in reading, learning, and improving their skills.

Cutting-edge knowledge and tools

Since agencies work with multiple brands, they are in many cases more likely to be up-to-speed with the latest industry developments and tools, latest technologies, and sending our people to the best conferences and workshops to ensure they are highly skilled and delivering best services to our clients.

If you are not still convinced, think about this:

We encountered businesses that have in-house tapped agencies for support. The role of the in-house marketer is in project management side rather than the jack of all trades that many businesses hired in the hope to save on agency costs.

My tip to business is to establish a trusted relationship with an agency. Engage with an agency you feel comfortable and intend to collaborate more.

If you want to jump into the digital agency-client relationship to see what benefit it can bring to your business, talk to us at EmergeLocal for a free digital marketing consultation.

Have you tried searching for your business on Google but ending up with unappealing results?

Your offline presence may be already established within the radius of your business location, but what about your online presence?

Google developed a tool called “Google My Business” - a local business listing platform that is super powerful but often left behind by business owners It offers everything you need for a potential customer to find your business online, particularly on Google’s search engine and Google Maps.

Let’s say when someone searches for a “skin care clinic in Pampanga”, you want your website to appear on Google search and Google Maps. With Google Maps location system, your customer will be able to see how far away you are and how to get to your clinic.

It’s inevitable that Google My Business (GMB) gives business owners the chance to stand out from the crowd and build trust. Normally, it takes less than one week to verify your business on Google My Business. Once you receive your verification code postcard from Google, simply verify your account using the enclosed code, then your business will be officially live. But in order to stand out, you have to put that extra effort to reach your goal.

8 Ways to Improve Your Google My Business Listing

Here are 8 ways to improve your Google My Business Listing:

Check your basic info

As obvious as it sounds when you have an established name for your business already, checking your business’ basic information is an essential step in improving your GMB listing. Make sure that the email address, phone numbers, and address are correct and up-to-date. If you’re going to update your contact information or moving to a new location, you should automatically update all of this info in your GMB dashboard.

Update Your Business Hours

Aside from the contact information and physical address, your business’ operating hours are also one of the essential information to have in your Google My Business listing. Secure the normal operating hours, then don’t forget to update them during holiday periods if you have any changes in your business hours. If so, make it on the top of your list so you won’t have grumpy customers not knowing that your closing time will be earlier during the holidays.

Make your categorization unique

Unless your business is a one-stop shop that caters for all, the selection of your business category is important in creating your GMB profile especially when you choose specific categories that represent what your business is and what you offer.

For example, when your primary category is “Hotel”, you can also choose secondary categories that are relevant and can bring you to the right customers like “Budget Hotel” or “Near Airport Hotels”. Then you can also add the amenities or the added value services that can make your offer unique from your competitors.

Include your Business’ Website Link, too!

Of course, if you have your own website for your business, you don’t want it left in the dark. Put the link of the website beside the contact info and address to make the listing a well-detailed one. When a customer searches for your business, they also want to know more about your business or they might share the word to others, so putting that handy link of your website to your GMB listing is a must.

Personalize your Description

GMB’s feature “Business Descriptions”, gives you a chance to make a personalized description of your business that customers will see when they find you on Google. Described as the blurb “from the business”, it allows you to write up to 750 characters (but we advise you to limit to 250 characters to be short and concise).

It is highly recommended to provide thoughtful content in a way that you can provide useful information when customers search for your business. So avoid using misleading words, emojis, promotions or putting your content in all CAPITAL letters. Keep it authentic.

Make it visually appealing

Your Google My Business listing should not only contain letters and numbers but also include pictures of your business! Adding photos is a great way to improve your listing. You can use pictures of the exterior and interior shots of the store, your products, and services, even your employees. This way, it can give your business an identity for the customers that will see them. With visually appealing images, it will make your customer visit that store immediately.

Check Reviews and deal with the Negatives

Google reviews boost your online search results, so getting a ton of comments and reviews can help you. But what if there negative comments and reviews on your GMB listing? Both positive and negative reviews should serve as a bridge with your customers and demonstrate your professionalism and how you really care for them.

You show value to your customers when you respond to their positive reviews. While responding to the negative ones allows you to turn the table, or even better, understand what went wrong so your customers won’t experience them again in the future. When responding to reviews, focus on being positive, appreciative and keep a friendly tone.

Include Frequently Asked Questions and their Answers

In the question and answer section, you can put all the questions that are being constantly asked and make sure to put the correct and accurate answer. Questions like “What’s your most popular item/service?” and other specified queries for your business should be in the question and answer section of your listing. It will help your customer to learn more and lessen their effort to ask. Putting yourself in the shoes of the customers can help you identify what questions they will always ask.

And there you have it!

We know that after reading these 8 ways can seem overwhelming, but it’s not. We encourage you to embrace the importance of Google My Business listing (mostly for local SEO) in order to further succeed and survive in this market full of fierce competitors. If you still want to learn more about improving your business in the digital platform, talk to us at Emergelocal for a FREE digital marketing consultation.