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Genius INSIGHTS | Digital marketing news

Social Media is now a big part of SEO, just as Blogging is part of your content strategy.
Here are my thoughts for rest of the year.

The Social Media News Feed

This is now where everyone is hanging out (and on Mobile). If one of your guests has 500 friends who each have 500 friends, then you have access to 250,000 leads who will take more notice if a post is recommended by someone they know and trust.
The news feed is where people go to for latest news in their community, their interests and their friends.
Social Media shows you what you want before you think to ask (i.e. use Google Search).

Tone of Voice

Professional and corporate accounts are not going to dominate news feeds – you need to ensure you develop representative personalities for your brands.
Users trust the people providing information in their feeds, especially if they can interact and feel they know the face behind the logo.

Google

Google Search will not be the platform to deliver quality viewers in the future. Quality viewers will come to your website via social media news feeds and online word of mouth as people scan theirs feeds and friends.
When people find you via Google you still have to prove you are the best choice. A popular social media post with good interaction and shares can tell people immediately that you are worth it.

Content is King (Not Anymore)

Information is no longer valuable and we have to accept that unless you are a scientist on the verge of a major discovery that what we say on our website is being said in a similar way by others in our field. So your focus has to be on context and how we position ourselves.

Be Authentic and Build Trust

Social Media posts should not just be about your offers or brand, you should also;

• Talk about your passions – location – food – people etc.
• Talk about other things that your fans might like
• Promote other people / businesses in your area
• Post tips and advice
• Know who your posts are for
• Start with the benefits – (endless scrolling does not work)
• Let your fans share their photos and experiences

Facebook Ads

Now a key part of any marketing strategy. The targeting on Facebook is fantastic and Ads can be shown to separate audiences as you experiment with different posts. So if you want to target women living within 40km of Truro on their mobiles who like eating out, you can.
Facebook Ads work better than promoted posts.

Google Ads

If you want to be on the 1st page on Google on a mobile, then these are essential as the 1st page of results are now all Ads. People still tend to avoid ads on a desktop but on mobile they just want the fastest results.

Video Marketing

As I have mentioned many times, video is the best way to gain trust and get shares and interaction. What is also happening this year is that people are watching more video on their mobiles with the sound off. So adding sub-titles or text is now very important. Facebook make it easy to add a link.

Hashtags / Links in Facebook

All social media platforms have a search facility and Facebook search is certainly improving. I would recommend adding a maximum number of three hashtags and always a link back to a Blog post or the main website.
Should you use your own Hashtags? Unless it’s a household name or you are a TV program I would say not. Use Hashtags that people are actually searching for. The whole point of any hashtag is to get discovered.

If you need any help or advice for your business please get in touch.

Phil Aston

Social Media Tips : Twitter Update

You can now upload up to 140 seconds of video direct to Twitter. This is up from the previous limit of 30 seconds.

It is very easy to edit your clip within Twitter if you want to make it shorter. You can do this via your desktop or the mobile App. Videos play automatically and this is a much better option than sharing from YouTube.

In other news you can now also Re-Tweet you own tweets. This is also a good move, especially if you have an offer running and you want to promote it again the following week.

If you need any help with your social media strategy then please get in touch

Phil Aston
Genius Loci Media

Social media is now an every day part of any business’ marketing strategy and most people still don’t know how to to use it properly.

This period of time reminds me of the early days of SEO with agencies popping up everywhere making promises which are not only unsustainable but offer very little ROI.

There is a misconception that social media is free – it is not.  Even if you do it yourself, your time is your most important asset so are you achieving your goals and getting a return on your social media activities? I see many businesses delegating Social Media tasks to the younger member of the team (because they get it), or automating their social media and cross posting thinking that will work!

It is after many people have watched with dismay their follower counts stagnate or get little interaction with their posts that they either pull back their social media activities (big mistake) or look for a way or outsourcing their social media marketing to an agency.

Choosing an agency for your social media marketing is a very good idea.  However, in a world where everyone is now a social expert or pivoting from the old world of marketing there are some things to look out for:

The Agency you don’t want can fall into the following camps:

1. The over complicated approach – This agency will put 10 people in a meeting room to discuss brand voice and then ask for 30 days to compose a tweet for your approval.
2. The Social Media Experts Agency – This agency possibly started less than a year ago, has a few hundred followers and posts once a month.
3. The Cheap Seats – This agency will offer to send 15 + tweets a day for £20 per month.
4. The offer of 5000 new followers for £10…..just walk away from this and don’t look back.
5. Delegate the task to their junior staff or cross post to several platforms at once.

As a general rule ‘never take advice from someone who has fewer followers than you’.

The Agency you do want will do this:

1. Target your audience on the platforms where your customers hang out.
2. Build a following with people interested in your product / service.
3. Target keywords, users and brands.
4. Share your content with their own network (Look for how much interaction their own posts get).
5. Grow your audience with real followers.
6. Set up and manage targeted Ads as required.
7. Bring more traffic to your website and increase enquiries (verified via analytics).
8. Design graphical posts using images and video as required.
9. Have a background in SEO as Social Media is a key part of Search.
10. Offer advice on new Social Media tools such as live streaming and use them themselves.

Here is a snapshot of our Twitter activity for the first 7 days of July 2016.

If you would like help with your social media strategy please get in touch.

Our achieved Social Media reach is over 165,000 (May 2016)

Putting together your ‘To Do List’ at the end of everyday is a good way of keeping on track of your projects and seeing how you are progressing against your targets.  Here at Genius Loci we call them ‘To Help Lists’.  We have always done this to ensure that it never become just a list of tasks that need to be ticked off.

Each item we commit to our ‘To Help List’ is an opportunity to help our clients become more successful. This puts meaning and empathy behind each activity as we look for ways of adding value to our clients.  In the fast changing world of Digital marketing and SEO this has proven to be essential.

Phil Aston

Another new website project launched this month

This was a large project for Self Catering Agency Lindford House.

The brief for this site was that the client wanted to be able to update the website themselves if required, add online availability and be mobile friendly.  The client also wanted to enter the world of social media so we also set up Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus Accounts.

We were also asked to set up a full marketing and SEO package to help the company expand and grow.  They have already seen their portfolio grow in the short time the new website has been live.

www.lindfordhouse.com 

The website services we provided were:

• Website Design and build in WordPress
• Hosting
• Video Editing
• Setting up Social Media accounts
• Photography and Editing
• Graphic Design
• Online Calendars and booking
• Full SEO and Digital Marketing Package

Website Design Cornwall

Tel 01736 719342

I get many enquiries from people asking for help with their SEO.  My first question I ask is ‘What is your social media strategy?’ This is usually followed with, we don’t have one or we have a junior member of staff who does that for us.

When I ask ‘How did you find me?’ the answer is more often than not, that they saw a video on Facebook, or a post on Twitter, Google Plus etc.

I help my clients get found online, and social media is a key way I now do this. Look at people in restaurants, train stations, airports or just anywhere – what are they doing?  They are looking at their smart phones and they are not searching google, they are on social media. If that is where they are looking then that is where you need to be as well.

If you want help bringing together your internet marketing then get in touch.

Phil Aston

 

 

Video Marketing is now very important and on social media people watch more than they read.

500M People Are Watching Facebook Videos Every Day

This video was shot entirely on an iPhone. No tripod was used and all the footage and interview was captured handheld by myself.  Filming took about 8mins.  The idea here is to show what can be achieved when telling a story on video. 

There is still an important place for corporate client videos, but this video was put together to show you that video shot in this way is idea for social media, and your Blog

We are now in the age of attention and trust.  Video will help you build your brand and gain attention more quicker than simply text based posts and content.

But what about editing?

You can do this yourself but we are helping more and more clients with this part of the process.

Simply send your clips via dropbox and we will:

• Add branding
• Edit your film clips
• Super impose any interviews on a background (like this example)
• Add titles / transitions
• Export and render your video for use on YouTube & Facebook

We can also send you special edits for Twitter and Instagram. 

To find out more please get in touch – contact – Phil Aston

Social Media News  

You can now self-moderate how visible your Facebook Business page content is to your fans

The brand-new Audience Optimisation tool is an organic targeting tool set to help pages ensure that posts are seen by the users who are most likely to engage with them.

How to switch this option on and use it:

1. Go to your Facebook Page
2. Click on ‘Settings’ – top right
3. Click on ‘General’ – top left
4. Select News Feed Audience and Visibility for Posts and save changes
5. When you next compose a post select the targeting option – this will bring up the screen below.

Clicking the above option will then activate the targeting option below.

Save your options and post!

This is the news we have been waiting for.

With Apple naming Periscope as one of its top Apps of 2015 and Blab stealing the thunder from Hangouts  (although we still love them), It was inevitable that Facebook would roll in with their own live streaming product…and here it is…

Video Marketing will be huge in 2016. We started our own journey in 2014 with our live Marketing Hangouts which attracted audiences from around the world. This year we added Periscope and Blab to our tool box and we also expect to replace most of our Blog activity with video posts as well.

So does this mean you don’t need to bother about the other platforms?  

It depends where your customers and audience are.

• Facebook Live Streaming  – It you are B2C and have a large audience on Facebook then this is great news for you.
• Periscope  – Still the best way to reach your Twitter audience, also now available on Apple TV and you can download the video afterwards.
• Blab – This also targets your Twitter audience and is great for conversations and interviews – The video can also be downloaded.
• Google Hangouts – Still our favourite because of the video and sound quality – a great way to have client meetings and reach a global audience based on your interests. You can also embed broadcasts into your website.

What we have learned is that you cannot expect each audience to follow you to the platform you might prefer.  It might seem more simple for you to concentrate on one platform and tell everyone to watch from there, but from our experience people don’t do that.  If you do want to point people to one location then I would recommend your website which is where you want most people to go eventually.

What you need to do is think creatively, so you can do this by broadcasting on Facebook, having a discussion on Blab afterwards or inviting others to a private hangout.  The elephant in the room is YouTube which is still the 2nd largest search engine on Earth and is owned by Google.  Your Youtube channel should be where you try and collate all your video content as video is appearing more and more in search results.

All this sounds like a lot more work, it is, and you also need to think about branding and editing.  If you need any help with video marketing or have questions about equipment or set up or post production please get in touch.

Email contact.us@geniusloci.co.uk

Phil Aston

Video Marketing gives you the chance to sell the sizzle first and then the steak. 1.5 mins of video is far more powerful than 1,500 words on a blog.

Be aware that many people are accessing your content on a smart phone and it is easier to press play than read.
You can film on your iPhone (like I did here) and show off your location and then upload to social media and your website. I would recommend that you upload separately to Facebook so you can take advantage of the auto play feature. You can also edit the the clip in Twitter to do the same on that platform.

If you would like any help with branding or editing please get in touch

Thanks, Phil