Top 7 Tips For Tackling Social Media In 2020

Top 7 Tips For Tackling Social Media In 2020

by | Dec 30, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Top 7 Tips For Tackling Social Media In 2020

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2019 brought no shortage of changes to our favorite social media platforms along with the surprising rise of some new players. Our social media experts have combed through all of the major updates, studied, the trends, and analyzed what’s coming in the new year. Here are our top 7 tips for tackling social media across B2B and B2C in 2020. Plus, don’t miss our complete &Marketing 2020 Social Media Playbook so you can set your growing business up for success on social.

1. Join the Huddle

Leverage Facebook Groups 

As Facebook continues to experience a plateau in growth and an exodus of younger generations from the platform, they must rediscover their purpose in people’s lives. By putting Groups at the forefront of the user experience, Facebook believes community will be re-established on a platform that has begun to function as an advertising hub. Unlike Facebook Pages, where your audience may be there simply for promotions and discounts, Facebook Groups are genuinely interested and more engaged in a specific topic. This presents an opportunity for businesses to join conversations within your niche— staying relevant with existing fans and reaching new ones. Taking part in these discussions can also prove your status as an expert in your field.

2. Try New Plays

A/B test with Facebook’s New Ad Platform

You’ve likely been using Facebook’s existing ad platform for your business, but now they’re taking a page out of Google’s responsible ad playbook. Facebook’s new responsible ad feature is officially dubbed “Multiple Text Optimization,” and it’s essentially an upgrade to the A/B testing tool you are already familiar with. The new feature should make it easier to create and optimize different options for headlines, ad copy, and product descriptions so you can make the best choices for your campaigns.

3. Get Your First Draft Pick Ready

Reach Gen Z with New Platforms like TikTok

Facebook began as a social media website only college students could use to connect with roommates, classmates, and others using only a college email address to sign up. WIth the demographics of Facebook changing, Gen Z consumers are looking for a new social media space they can claim as their own. That space is shaping up to be TikTok. Ad opportunities are still relatively limited, but you would be wise to be an early adopter of this platform before the algorithm rears its ugly head here too.

4. Get to Know Your Fans 

Make Insights Work for You

Facebook for Business has a resource center called Blueprint that offers tons of free eCourses and certificates you can earn to help grow your digital marketing abilities through Facebook and Instagram. Over the summer, Facebook added nearly 30 courses that cover everything from growing a business Page to editing the copy in your Facebook ad and how to select the best visuals. When Facebook tells you what works on their platforms, you should probably listen.

5. Recruit Top Players with Personalization 

Slide into Someone’s DMs in 2020

Private and direct messaging continue to grow in popularity on social media. DMs are taking the place of calling a customer service representative, so potential and existing customers expect their questions and requests to be responded to personally and in a timely manner. As a result of this, chatbots are growing and more people feel comfortable reaching out to strangers on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

6. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Partner-up with Key Players in Your Arena

Collaboration over competition is going to continue to be the theme in 2020. Team up with an influencer on Instagram. Invite bloggers to contribute to your group boards on Pinterest. Do a Facebook Live interview with an expert on your Business Page. Increase your exposure and your network through valuable partnerships and engagement from both audience and theirs.

7. Give Back with Donate Buttons

Give Your Customers a Cause to Care About

If you run a nonprofit, or if you simply partner up with a charity or cause that your consumers would care to get involved with, Facebook and Instagram have made it easier to donate. Instagram stories already offered “donate” stickers in Stories, but Facebook has jumped on the sticker bandwagon too. Additionally, Instagram now makes it possible for nonprofit organizations to add a “donate” button to their business profile.

These are just the highlights of the major changes of 2019 and how you can use them to execute a stellar social media game plan for 2020. For a full highlight reel of all the biggest 2019 changes per social platform and our complete playbook on where to spend your social media time and energy and how, download the &Marketing 2020 Social Media Playbook for FREE below.

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE PLAYBOOK
About the Authors

Beth McDonough

As Content Manager at &Marketing, Beth McDonough helps brands identify their unique voice, develop their engaging story, and execute compelling copy and thoughtful content that increase engagement and generate leads. Beth tailors a thoughtful and innovative approach to hone each brand partner’s strengths and articulate them to attract and retain customers. Beth holds a Master of Arts degree in English from Gannon University.

Savannah Kleiner

As a Marketing Manager at &Marketing, Savannah Kleiner develops and implements influencer marketing solutions that increase engagement and drive results. With an innovative and unique approach to each client, Savannah tailors custom strategies to effectively reach clients’ desired audiences and goals. Savannah graduated from the Lacy School of Business at Butler University with a major in Marketing.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Your 2020 Marketing Planning And Execution Guide

Your 2020 Marketing Planning And Execution Guide

by | Dec 12, 2019 | Insights, Marketing Planning & Execution

Your 2020 Marketing Planning And Execution Guide

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Most growing businesses are asking themselves the same question: Are we ready for 2020? The answer to the question depends on what your unique organization is hoping to accomplish next year. How will you plan your goals and set up a strategy to execute them?

Marketing planning and execution can be a challenge for companies of any size, but it can often be particularly daunting for growing businesses. Chances are, you might be struggling to strategize and map out what the coming year or even the next quarter should look like. If you do have an awesome plan in place, maybe you’re not quite sure what the execution part looks like. Why is this? More often than not, it all comes down to resources. Modern marketing departments often need up to 10 distinct roles, so having the bodies to staff a full marketing team is not always feasible. But, do not be discouraged. By taking it one step a time, and having the right tool, you’ll be on your way to setting yourself up for success in 2020. Let’s start by going back to the basics.

What Does Success Look Like For You?

 

When it comes to marketing no one size fits all approach should be taken because there’s something about every growing business that’s truly unique. However, the first step you should always consider is developing your marketing framework. Start by zeroing in on what your long-term success vision is. A success vision will help you narrow your focus. In his Inc.com article “Creating a Company Vision,” Ari Weinzweig, founder of Zimmerman’s, explains it well:

“It’s not as mystical or out there as it sounds. A vision, quite simply, is a picture of what success will be at a particular time in the future. It encompasses answers to an array of questions: What does our organization look like? How big is it? What are we famous for? Why does anyone care about what we do? How do people who work here feel about their jobs? How do I, as the founder, feel about the business? What’s my role in it? Complete the visioning process, and you’ll have a clearly articulated end for your organization— something that won’t change every time the market or your mood shifts.”

So carve out some time to spend on your vision, because that is what you’re going to plan your entire tactical calendar around for the next year.

Once you’ve done that, it’s time to dig deeper. Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Who are my target prospects?

  • What are my prospects’ biggest challenges? (What problems are they looking to solve?)

  • What makes me unique as the solution to these challenges? (Go ahead and brag a little bit!)

  • What marketing tactics can I use to attract my consumer’s attention? (Sometimes it helps to think about what other companies have done that you’ve noticed and responded to)

Don’t Boil the Ocean

Once you decide what tactics you want to use to attract your prospects’ attention, take a look at who on your team can take ownership of marketing management. Try mapping out all the things you aspire to execute in a given period of time, but be realistic. Make your goals reasonable, measurable, and choose a finite number of tactics on which to focus monthly for the next six months.

When it comes to planning and executing those tactics for the next six months, the importance of having a marketing calendar can’t be emphasized enough. The calendar should have the dates, themes, tactics, success metrics, links to relevant documents, and arguably, the most important piece: one single owner. Since you may have multiple employees, management, outside contractors or agencies working with your company, having “everything in one place” increases focus and allows you to quickly spot errors, bottlenecks, and opportunities.

Let this calendar be your guide. Here are a few suggestions for creating this calendar.

Execution Tips

  1. Assign one person to ‘own’ the execution calendar – it needs to be an accessible, working document where everyone goes to make updates at least once every two weeks (if not multiple times per week!).

  2. Make sure that the cross-functional team uses this document as a single source of planning so that everything stays in one place.

  3. Decide what success is and how it will be measured.

  4. Pick tactics that meet the success vision, and select success metrics before execution.

  5. After each phase of execution, document the results and determine if they met expectations.

  6. Adjust your strategy as you go! If it’s working, keep it up. If it’s not, make some adjustments.

  7. Check-in often, track your progress and celebrate the wins.

If you follow these steps. 2020 has the potential to be the best year yet for your business. Ready to get a jumpstart on your 2020 marketing planning and execution? Need some examples and a guide?

Download our FREE Marketing Planning Workbook for a guide to planning your marketing like a pro!

 

DOWNLOAD WORKBOOK
About the Authors

As the founder and Managing Director of &Marketing, Rajat “Raj” Kapur strives to provide growing businesses of all sizes unparalleled marketing strategy and execution services. Raj brings nearly two decades of professional experience in marketing, sales, and strategy development experience spanning B2B and B2C Fortune 50, mid-sized, and startups.

Marketing Director Tracey Colla focuses on ensuring each client’s needs are being met in a timely, productive, and creative way. She is a well-rounded marketer, with a talent for identifying uncovered opportunities, and go-to-market strategies and launches. Marketing planning is one of her favorite things to work on!

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

How NPS Can Collect Valuable Insight For Businesses Of All Sizes

How NPS Can Collect Valuable Insight For Businesses Of All Sizes

by | Dec 4, 2019 | Business Intelligence & Analytics, Insights

How NPS Can Collect Valuable Insight For Businesses Of All Sizes

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What is NPS, and why is it important? 

NPS. It’s an acronym you’ve likely heard tossed around before, but it may be something you’ve associated with larger companies, like Netflix, Starbucks, or Amazon. The reality is, though, that NPS can be just as effective for growing businesses of all sizes – and it’s something we at &Marketing often recommend.

Net Promoter Score (or NPS), measures customer experience and brand perception and helps predict a business’s growth. In other words, it’s a quick way to gather customer insights for your business. The calculation is based on the answer to a simple question where respondents answer “How likely are you to recommend company/brand/product X to a friend, colleague, or relative?” using a scale of 0 – 10.  0 represents “not likely at all” and 10 represents “extremely likely.

Respondents are then grouped into the following categories:

  • Promoters = respondents giving a 9 or 10 score

  • Passives = respondents giving a 7 or 8 score

  • Detractors = respondents giving a 0 to 6 score

The Qualitative Component

Just as important as the numeric component described above collected through quantitative questions, qualitative feedback can also be gathered from your customers through NPS. You can complete the qualitative portion either as part of your survey, or as a 1:1 interview. 

At &Marketing, we find that this is where you unlock the greatest value, as open-ended questions allow you to dig deeper and get more detailed insights from the people consuming your brand. These responses tend to be more actionable to a small or medium-sized business than the actual numeric calculation. If you’re interested in incorporating more qualitative components to your NPS framework, we’re happy to help.

The Pros and Cons

Let’s break down the pros and cons of NPS to determine whether these components might be able to contribute to the growth of your brand.

Pros

  1. It’s quick. NPS allows you to efficiently gauge areas for improvement, versus traditional surveys, which take a long time to fill out and can focus on areas that the customer doesn’t actually care about. It’s also quick for respondents. With a short survey, you’re likely to get more people to actually take it as opposed to a more time-intensive one. 

  2. It’s focused. You can hone in on the areas that drive customer satisfaction and referrals, in customer terms. Instead of asking several questions about super specific encounters with your brand (which might frustrate customers), you keep it high-level and focus on the bigger story. 

  3. It’s measurable. You can calculate a ‘score’ so you can understand if you’re doing well (high number) or have significant room for improvement (low or negative). 

  4. It’s easy and inexpensive. It’s a simple process to execute and comes at a low cost for smaller budgets.

  5. It’s almost immediately actionable. Are you looking to take your business to new heights in the new year? The data from NPS is a great place to start to put that plan into place. 

Cons

  1. It’s not scientific. Despite being numeric, NPS is not based on a legitimate scientific formula or statistical significance.

  2. All customers are seen as equal. The reality is, each of your customers is different — they might be different sizes, come from different backgrounds, and may have varying needs—  you’re not always comparing apples to apples with NPS. 

As you can see, the pros typically outweigh the cons unless you feel strongly about a scientific formula or a specific weighted structure to your results.

Now, let’s touch on a few quick reasons NPS is beneficial for growing businesses by focusing on three specific areas: change, growth, and results. 

You can monitor changes over time

Because NPS is a quick and effective way to take the pulse of customer satisfaction, you can use it to measure changes based on any important benchmark (business cycle, management change, new branding, new product, change in product, etc). 

You can recognize room for growth

You can use the insight from Detractors as an opportunity to learn about potential areas for improvement, which is critical when you’re looking to grow your business. 

You can get simple and direct results

Formal NPS methodology only requires one direction question, with a 1-10 answer. However, depending on your business challenges, we recommend implementing a few additional open-ended questions to gather more extensive feedback.

Are you convinced of its value yet? &Marketing can help implement NPS for your current or former customers to help discover what’s most important to them, and what makes your company unique.

Ready to get started implementing NPS into your business growth strategy? For more background on NPS and help with determining how to get the most value from it, please contact us. &Marketing prepares, conducts, and helps analyze NPS surveys both for ourselves and our clients 

About the Authors

As the founder and Managing Director of &Marketing, Rajat “Raj” Kapur strives to provide growing businesses of all sizes unparalleled marketing strategy and execution services. Raj brings nearly two decades of professional experience in marketing, sales, and strategy development experience spanning B2B and B2C Fortune 50, mid-sized, and startups. 

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.