The Little Things About Digital Marketing
The perfect Digital Marketing strategy (there is no such thing, really) is continuous, relentless and slow, like life! At times the most absurd of things like the “world_record_egg” to some very thought-provoking and well-researched campaigns by giants like Gillette, Zomato, Amul, may break the internet. All these brands incorporated new and old marketing trends in their social media handles and amassed huge attention and brand recognition across the world. Yet there are companies still debating the pros and cons of social media.
A simple guide to social media and digital marketing ideologies.
Let’s say you are hosting a bachelor’s party for your friend. You have a great set of events lined up. The gossip about this party travels far and wide. That’s Search Engine Marketing. The more you talk about it, the more interesting it gets as a result of which your “party” will rank higher on Search Engine Result Pages. You decide to share all the party details and photos and incidents with everyone. That’s what we call Social Media. After the party, you talk to your friends about the next party that you are going to host…That’s Retargeting for you.
Some people believe that digital marketing is easily perceivable since it’s all about the numbers. No, it’s not! For example, Influencer Marketing – a new trend that has set foot in the world of Marketing.
Social Media Influencers
Social Media Influencer marketing is very tricky. It’s crucial to have a foolproof influencer marketing strategy before you invest your money on it. Brands often think when a person’s followers are high, the potential to reach a customer is higher. This is right and wrong. Not all the influencers are relevant to a said brand, so the keyword here is ‘relevance’ and the value an influencer adds to a brand. You analyze this by closely reviewing the content they create on their Social Media Handles. When you do that intelligently, you’ll find more about their personality, what they stand up for, what they enjoy and so on. And now you need to see if it aligns with your brand identity, if it does, you’ve hit gold, even if that person has 250 followers.
And then there are influencers that purchase Bots for followers, and thereby contaminating their Instagram and Facebook handles. These are as good as dead people, just inflated followers with no use and when you gain actual followers, your Followers vs Engagement ratio looks weird. And that’s an easy way to find a good influencer vs someone who has purchased Bot following. If the likes on a post are not between 8-15% of their following, you will need to relook at their profile for red alerts.
If your influencer is a celebrity, the engagement will be over 12% to 20%. And it’s always a good idea to check their profiles using portals such as Social Blade or Gramblast. As experts, catching accounts with fake followers can be done no time. Trust me the person however charming they are and however good their content is, just lose respect when someone figures that they have purchased fake followers.
Having been in this domain for over 3 years, there are people we track (read as stalk), one that is a very reputed jeweler. And I’ve always wanted to pitch our services to them because I believed that we could give that brand the visibility it deserves. Recently, I noticed that their followers went from 2K to 10.1K. So I looked at their post only to notice that in spite of having 10200 odd followers. They were averaging at 20 likes per post, and that was a clear give away that their followers were fake, now do you think I will ever buy a piece of jewelry from them? Would you…? I rest my case.
Personally, I think it is best to let your followers grow slowly, it’s important to grow your audience organically. It’s easier said than done, so let me list the things you should do to attract more followers :
Use hashtags
Engage with your audience
Remember – Content is King, people are going to judge you based on what you write and how you write it. Typos are an absolute no-no.
Engaging on posts of people you want to be followed by
Follow and engage with influencers and successful individuals from your line of business. For Eg, if you’re a designer, follow someone like a Sabyasachi and engage on their posts intelligently. Share your knowledge/Feedback and People will give you a second look. And as you continue this, you will see your followers increasing. But the most important thing to remember is to not overdo this
Now let me get to the climax, my pet peeve, things you DON’T do on social media. We are going to write DO NOT so many times, to make sure you understand our seriousness.
DONT’s In Social media
Buy fake followers or fake likes
I repeat, DO NOT rant on social media, if you want to complain about something or someone, make sure you don’t it too often.
Posting too many times a day (unless you’re a top celebrity)
Posting too many stories in a day (unless you have something very exciting going on that day)
If you’ve read this far, I am guessing you found this blog useful, which means I am going to leave you a tip. Please leave feedback about the places you visit, no matter how big or small the business is, if you liked the place. It really helps. 2 years from now when people will solely rely on Google Reviews and at that point, you’ll be a huge local expert. That’s a bonus for sharing your feedback and honestly speaking, it seems like we live in a very negative world, which isn’t true. The ones that are happy don’t make as much noise as someone who is spreading negative vibes
Thank you for reading! Cheers,
