Social Media – Then and Now

Published July 28, 2022

It is hard to imagine that social media is roughly 25 years old. It has become such an everyday aspect of our lives that it is hard to believe that there was a time before social media, meaning there was a time before the Internet. The Internet came to a lot of our lives in the early 1990s, but it took some time before it hit the fingertips of users in homes. This is the same with social media. From 1997 to now, social media has changed drastically. From simple reasons like everyone having smartphones with social media networks on them, to businesses utilizing the networks to make money, social media has changed the way we communicate, live our lives and do work. Let’s take a look at how social media started and look at how it has changed over time.

A Time Before Mark Zuckerberg

If you ask the average person what the first social media network was, we can bet most would say Facebook. Some would say MySpace, and a couple would say Friendster. Take it a step back even further and you’ll find a website called Six Degrees. This was the first social media network that, you guessed it, aimed to connect people from six degrees of separation. A cool concept, but it didn’t last very long. After a short four years, the website was shut down (although still accessible when we checked it out!).

This concept proved to be something users enjoyed and wanted more of. A couple months after Six Degrees “shut down”, Friendster and LinkedIn appeared on the scene. And not long after those came MySpace – the network that really upped the social media game.

MySpace had everything a social network user desired – a way to share photos, videos, flies and connect with friends. Who remembers Tom? Everyone was friends with Tom! Do you remember your top 6 friends? That was always hard to pick. MySpace was great because it also gave many young people their first go at coding. What a program! Timing was perfect for MySpace since their target audience was either just entering high school or college, thus creating a niche for finding new friends, dating and networking. But we all know what came next.

Here comes Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook in 2004 and it really blew every other social network out of the water. It started as something only for Harvard students, but quickly expanded to other colleges and universities. And then, something that was only for young adults with a college email address, opened its virtual doors to anyone 13+. And now we all know how the story of Facebook went. But why did it succeed when others didn’t?

Advertising and Monetization

Besides being desired by everyone who didn’t have a .edu email address, Facebook’s success can be linked to its ability to profit from users. They really did think out a solid business model when it came to advertising and monetization of Facebook. By giving businesses a way to directly market to their target audience, Facebook started to really rake in the money. Other networks then started to copy. Pretty typical in this world. Copy and try to be better.

Big players in the social media game like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube followed with similar advertising and monetization success stories. It seemed like everyone would be a winner from the business to the social network to the user. But is the market too saturated now?

Being Different in Social Media

From a business perspective, it is important to look closely at your target audience, their likes, dislikes, desires, wants, needs, etc., and find out which social media networks they use on the reg. Even though new social media networks still tend to pop up, they don’t ever really seem to catch on like Facebook did because they are just duplicating the efforts and not doing anything extraordinarily new.

This is how a business should also approach social media when using it. Social media is all about breaking the mold and doing something outside the box. Social media can be a place where something new is tested on a market, where users connect and grow with a brand and where business comes full circle with stories from A to Z of how it has helped someone.

Social Media is Here to Stay

Love it or hate it, social media will be here to stay for the long haul. From just the United States to now the whole world, people can connect with each other and see, hear and literally do things together on the Internet, though miles apart. Of course social media will change and veer off onto different paths as all businesses do, but for the most part, the concepts will remain unchanged.

As a digital marketing agency, we highly recommend checking out all of the social media channels available to you and decide which one or two you’d like to focus on the most. We can also talk about advertising budgets and which options might work best for you and your target audience. Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, plus find us on Google My Business, and let’s talk social!

Decreasing Marketing Revenues is Dangerous During Current Inflation Trends

Published June 23, 2022

The increase of the cost of living is no secret. From the gas prices, to milk and bread, and even simple Dollar Stores now being $1.25 stores, the inflation rate is increasing everywhere. But even as prices soar, that doesn’t mean wages increase, which in turn means consumers are paying closer attention to where their money is spent and at what cost.

When Covid started, we told our clients to keep going full steam ahead. Don’t cut back as you will come out ahead when things turn back around. Now that we are slowly but surely coming out of the other end of the Covid tunnel, our clients are still on top of their marketing and advertising. Now we are being asked about the current times. It is hard for a business to make decisions on where budgets need to be cut. But we are here to tell you that marketing should not be one of those cutbacks.

Trust In The Brand

Your customers purchase your products/services/goods, whatever it is because they have a trust in the brand. It isn’t because people can be “brand snobs”. People buy particular brands because there is a level of trust in the goods. We know that it is hard to increase prices on a customer base, but as long as the brand trust is there, your clientele will find a way to pay for it. And to have brand trust means you need a strong brand presence to nurture the trust. That is why marketing should remain an essential part of your business and shouldn’t be decreased. Once a marketing budget gets decreased, it is inevitable that it will ever be increased. By marketing to your customer base the reasons why they should continue to trust you in times like these may help to ease the pain of a price increase. And along the way you will still be able to gain new customers since other brands may just fall into the pits of zero marketing, while others will just glide along by the seat of their pants, hoping their customers will stick with them for the ride.

Pay Attention to the Data

Paying closer attention to your marketing metrics will help when it comes to where to focus your budget and where to pull back. When data shows increased sales from a particular location, double down your efforts and move around some marketing budget to that sales stream. If something isn’t working, now really isn’t the time to do trial and error. Take the loss and move on to where you’re seeing success. And let’s not forget that success in marketing can be a myriad of different things. Talk with your marketing team to discuss what success is and then trickle down to how you get to that success. Doing this will help weed out anything underperforming and could even save you some money in the long run.

Know What Your Customers Want

It is sad to think that some consumers are buying just the bare minimum to get by in times like these. Now is a good time to reaffirm to your customer base that you value them and that your product or service makes their life better. And it is an opportune moment to really relate to how your customers may be feeling and show them that you care either way. The relationship of a customer is a two-way street. You need them and they need you. Don’t shy away from content that sparks an emotional connection. Pull on the heartstrings.

We know times are different now than they were when high inflation struck in the 1970s and 1980s because of the Internet and digital media, but those times were a goldmine for businesses, especially the ones that kept marketing. So many new businesses launched those years as audiences were ready for something that might be a little cheaper (since it was new) but were also open to trying new things. This is why brand trust is vital so that consumers don’t just switch in an instant to something else. Now in 2022, we have e-commerce at our fingertips, and this could be a great opportunity for new businesses to jump in and steal some thunder from other businesses. That is why we suggest staying on course and keep on going with your marketing efforts. You aren’t starting from scratch like new businesses and you already have a key customer base. Don’t decrease marketing budget now or you will be on a dangerous trend of always trying to build back up to where you once were.

What Content Dominates on Social Media?

Published September 27, 2021

2020 can be viewed as either a wonderful year for social media or a terrible year for social media depending on how you look at it. 2021 is following a similar experience, but things are hopefully on the upswing for those who thought last year was horrible. When looking back at 2020 and how social media played an important role in all of our lives, we have learned many important lessons from a business perspective. We have now rolled those lessons into 2021 and are watching what content dominates more on social media now because of people being at home and online more than ever before. So what content has been working best and how can you use it with your business?

Remixing Content

This is content that is not new, but just remixed, or re-created, in your own way. A trendy thing for when people were stuck inside was to give someone else’s video a try and share it with their friends. From social media challenges, to workout trends, remixing any video gives the user the ability to put their own spin on already existing content. You don’t always have to invent the wheel. Just reinvent it!

Businesses can join in on hot social media trends. Restaurants can add their spin to trending food posts, create their own remix of the recipe. DIY trends are also big and can be popular with any kind of business that deals with the home. From trendy fixer upper projects to upcycling, using your own products to showcase the remix is a way to get your brand out there more.

Nostalgia Marketing

Just like it says, it is looking back at a past time to reminisce about “the good ol’ days.” Hashtags like #TBT, #ThrowBackThursday, and #FlashBackFriday are still popular and bring in big numbers when searching it. When posting a nostalgic memory of something, it can bring back powerful emotions. This ties in nicely with brands, especially those who have been around for many years. Take a walk through the past with your brand and showcase old items, things that are old but still used to this day, things that your brand doesn’t have anymore, images of your location from back in the day, and so on. There are so many ideas that can come out of this trend because it allows people to just forget about the now.

Reveal the Human Side of Your Brand

If anything positive came out of the past year+, it is that consumers realized more about the people behind a brand. Everyone was affected differently by the situation at hand, but we all knew what was going on. Big businesses closed, little businesses closed, and brands struggled to survive. When brands struggle to survive, that means jobs are struggling to survive.

Revealing the human side of your business allows for brands to build better, more open and caring relationships with their customers. Connecting through conversational posts, engaging in social issues, and personalizing communication efforts helps to remind consumers that hey, there really are real people who work for your brand and they matter too.

Get more of your brand’s human side on social media to highlight your team. Showcase who they are, what they do, and so on. This may even help on the hiring front too when people realize that these people are happy doing what they do, potentially wanting others to feel the same way at your company.

What is Old Might Be New Again

Life was very busy for many prior to the sudden halt of everything. The slow down allowed people to really figure out what marketing efforts they appreciated most. Before, consumers may not have had time to read a newsletter, but now they do. Or they didn’t have time to listen to a podcast, but now they do.

As a business, now is a great time to see what is really working for you and what hasn’t worked in a long time and decide where to make changes or increase attention. Social media can help make these decisions, especially if you are connected to your audience. If your consumers are those who listen to podcasts more now than ever, it might be time to seek out advertising options on podcasts that resonate with your target audience. Share podcasts that you make or ones that inspire your brand on your channels. Or if they are reading your newsletters more, put more focus and effort into those, encouraging followers to sign up for them. If they don’t know you have one, you can’t blame them for not signing up. If something isn’t working, it is OK to let it go. It might be something that you come back to later and see if it will work at a better time.

Give New Things a Try

Social media is ever changing. It can be wonderful or terrible for brands, depending on the situation. Use social media to your benefit as much as you can and do your best to connect with your users, customers, and potential clients on a level that they haven’t connected with yet. Just because something works for one brand doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. Trial and error is the best method, as long as you give it your all.

Why You Should Add Social Media Advertising to Your Marketing Strategy

Published August 28, 2020

Do you feel ahead of the game with your business because you’re on social media and you post a couple of times a week? This is excellent and certainly a great start! We know that there is a lot to take in when it comes to Social Media Management. We also wrote a blog about posting frequency and how to create a Facebook marketing strategy.

While it’s great that you’re posting on social media, sometimes you need more for your business. When it comes to organic posts, they only reach about 6% of the people that already like your page. So, if you have 100 page likes, then only 6 of these 100 people will see these posts. What about the other 94 and what about people that don’t already like your page? With Social Media Advertising, your posts can be seen by many more people and can also be targeted to a certain demographic such as age or gender. If you’re a beauty company and mainly want to run a campaign that will reach 21-35 year old females, this is easy to do throughout social media advertising.

Depending on the demographics that you are targeting, you can advertise on Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Certain age groups are on different platforms and you can make sure that you are putting your ads in front of the places that they are on.

Another great part about Social Media Advertising is that you can set budgets for campaigns that work for you and your business. We recommend that you spend at least $35 on a social media boost and $100 on social media ads. Anything under this does not do as much, but we find that over $35 for a social boost can be a sweet spot.

Another campaign that you can run through Social Media Advertising is a like campaign for your business. This will show your page in people’s news feed with an easy way for them to like your page when they see it. This will help you to grow your following and also grow brand recognition. Growing this audience is a long term gain that will help your business grow in the future.

While 2020 has been a crazy year, we have learned that having great social media management and social media advertising campaigns has really helped businesses. While some businesses stopped everything that they were doing during the quarantine period, the ones who kept their posting regular has done very well even during limitations on certain businesses. But their efforts and money went far while all people had to do was scroll on their phones at home.

Once you have social media advertisements set-up, these will drive traffic to either your website or the landing page that you selected. This is also helpful because getting customers here is sometimes the hardest part. But if you are able to get them here with social media advertisements, then chances are that they could also look around more on your site.

Lastly, you can gain a lot of great insights into your customers with social media advertisements. You can see more of their interests, ages, and more.