5 Strategies To Use Customer Testimonials To Gain Leads

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We all look for and act on social proof, otherwise known as reviews or recommendations from any community. These recommendations can come in many forms. Word-of-mouth, third-party reviews, as well as what I’m focusing on in this article – testimonials. Customer testimonials influence us all of the time, even subconsciously, on how we behave and also our purchasing decisions.

It doesn’t really matter anymore who the review or recommendation is coming from. What matters is that we see evidence from our peers about services or products that either worked or didn’t. What matters is that we’re seeing evidence from our peers – in this context, other consumers – that the decision we’re about to make to purchase is the right one.

Design Great Testimonials

A great testimonial should include specific product or service details, but what does it all entail? Vague statements such as “great product” or “loved it” don’t usually persuade a customer.  Instead, your testimonials should describe what is so great about your product or service and how it benefited your customers. Include elements such as a name, date, and photographs of the customer or brand that you worked with. This information all serves to help legitimize the testimonial.

Improving Customer Experience

This goal is relatively straightforward. If you improve customer experience, you’ll satisfy more people and generate more testimonials. Consistent engagement is very important because only 28% of positive customer experiences end with leaving a review. If you’re putting effort in to enhance the customer experience, make sure you are also including feedback collection features. It is important to give your consumers the opportunity to provide a customer testimonial.

Understand Customer Journeys

Customer service teams often focus on negative feedback, but we want to remind you that there is a lot to learn from positive reviews as well. They tell you what your company is doing right and what you shouldn’t change. Understanding your customer journeys will help you replicate customer success and generate future testimonials.

Use Visual Content

What’s even better than a text box talking about your amazing products or services? Video content.

For a few of your most enthusiastic and dedicated customers, invest in video production of their testimonials to bring their stories to life. The video will tell your story across different media — on your website, YouTube, and social media — in a unique and engaging way.

Feature Content Anywhere Possible

If you have any compelling case studies, make sure to feature them anywhere you can on your site. Other creative ways to feature them are putting a link to the case studies on your blog, in your email signature, and in all of your social media profiles. The more places potential customers can see the results of your work across different media, the better.

More From Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Tips to Grow your Small Business Through Social Media

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The value of social media for businesses continues to grow, especially in light of COVID-19 pandemic. Social media allows for businesses to maintain connections with existing customers and extend their reach to new audiences. With over 2 billion worldwide users, everyone knows social media has now become a crucial part of an overall business strategy. But as a small business, joining social media effectively can be easier said than done. Let’s take a look at 5 ways you can start using social media to grow your small business. 

1. If you can’t create, curate. 

Posting consistent content is one of the most important factors that goes into increasing engagement. If you can’t create new content on your own, curate other’s content. Tools such as Pocket, Flipboard and Feedly allow you to curate useful, relevant content from other sources and share due credits. We recommend posting a minimum of twice per week and a maximum of 5, depending on your content type and industry. 

2. Use video to keep your audience engaged and growing. 

Nowadays, visual content is key. Algorithms have changed and evolved to actually preferring video content over all other forms. Going even further, 72% of consumers prefer videos over manuals to decide on a buy. There are numerous types of video content you can create to keep your audience engaged and growing. Consider sharing behind-the-scenes looks at your business, product launches, how-to’s, service examples, etc. 

3. Involve your followers. 

Finding ways to directly involve your followers in your content is another way to maximize engagement. Consider making quizzes, polls, giveaways and contests.  Many brands will create giveaways and contests and require those that enter to like, comment or share their posts with their friends. This is a simple and effective way to drastically increase your awareness among your followers and a larger audience. 

4. Utilize hashtags. 

Hashtags are one of the best ways to improve your searchability,  gain more awareness and expand the reach of your content. This goes beyond just creating your own hashtags. Find trending hashtags that are pertinent for your business: 

  • For your subject matter: #HowTo’s, #Hacks, #DIYS 
  • For your industry: #Food, #Fashion, #Auto 
  • For your audience: #StartUp, #WannaBeChef, #FitnessFreaks 

Research what’s trending among your audience and find a relevant way to involve yourself into the conversation. 

5. Reach out to influencers. 

Influencer marketing is a great way for new and small businesses to gain traction amongst a large audience. Influencers are now seen as more trusted, relatable and popular than celebrities. Consumers turn to them more for advice on what products to buy, services to use, brands to trust, etc. There are a number of tools that can help you research who the best influencers are in your industry and make it easier for you to reach out and connect with them. 

Final Thoughts

To be successful on social media it’s ultimately about giving value to your audience, whether that be through educating or entertaining. Users are constantly being bombarded with massive amounts of content and ads everyday. Meaning you have to find ways to bring value to them and differentiate yourself from the competition. Strategies will differ based on your industry and audience, but these 5 tactics are a great way for anyone to get started. If you need further assistance in social media marketing, or any other area of digital marketing, contact us today! 

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here.

Tips on Managing Negative Social Media Comments

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Social media is a unique public environment that has its own culture and expectations. And at some point in social media managing, you’ll have to deal with negative comments on your brand’s page or posts. While some of these comments may be from blatant trolls, others will be clear criticism of your product or service. It’s important to know how to effectively deal with these comments. Here are 5 tips on how to manage negative comments on your social media. 

Don’t ignore or delete. 

The worst thing a brand can do is ignore their negative comments. This can aggravate the commenter even further and may lead them to continue to leave negative comments in more places. This can also look bad to other users and existing customers. You want to remain transparent with your audience. Deleting messages rather than addressing them head-on conveys that you might have something to hide. 

It’s important to note that this doesn’t remain true for all negative comments. If a comment is inappropriate, offensive or derogatory, it should be deleted. To make this decision, exercise your own judgement or refer to your organization’s code of conduct. 

If it’s your fault, apologize sincerely. 

The saying goes, “the customer is always right.” Even if you disagree with their point of view, it’s still best to apologize. This is the first step in resolving a conflict. Keep a calm, cool and sincere tone throughout the conversation. When someone is bashing something you’re passionate about, this can be difficult, but it’s crucial to not let your emotions get in front of professionalism. 

On the other hand, you don’t want to admit fault for something you had no control over. If that’s the case of the complaint, lead with something like, “We’re sorry to hear you weren’t satisfied with your experience.” This shows you still care, but doesn’t recognize that you or a team member did anything wrong. 

Take offline if necessary. 

It’s best practice to resolve the conflict privately. Try to shift the conversation off of social media to another place. Whether this be through direct messenger, email, over the phone, etc. After you apologize, close the response by asking the customer to contact you through one of the mentioned forms of private communication. You never want to get in a further argument in the comments for others to see. Depending on the issue, the customer may write dozens more negative replies, which can reflect poorly on your brand. 

Be personable. 

No one likes their frustrations to be met with automated replies. This also looks bad to anyone else that reads the conversation on social. It’s beneficial to have a plan for negative comments, but you want to personalize the message as much as possible. This shows real empathy, authenticity and sincerity. You want to show that you really do care about your customers. See the following conversation between Delta and a customer. 

source:https://www.socialpilot.co/

It’s evident that these messages were written by a real person and are not automations. They effectively communicate with the customer and show that they genuinely want to help. 

Be timely. 

Timeliness is key with negative comments. Most users expect a response within 2 hours. If necessary, follow up with the relevant departments to give your customer a satisfactory answer. Word travels fast on social media, which is also why it’s so important to respond quickly. A slow response can make it seem like you don’t care or are ignoring the complaint, both which can quickly damage a company’s reputation. 

Be sure to consistently monitor your reputation throughout the day, whether it be through Google Alerts or other social listening tools. This will help to ensure no negative messages go unnoticed. 

Final Thoughts

Negative comments are unavoidable, but if managed the right way they can actually do more for your brand than positive ones. Responding to positive comments is easy. Dealing with negative comments is how you show company integrity, sincerity and personability. This is where long-term customer loyalty stems from. So if you want your company to succeed, watch what people are saying about your brand on social media. React to all the comments you get and be attentive to the problems of your customers.

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

4 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Choosing Content Topics

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When choosing content topics, most digital marketers try to write about things they believe is relevant to their audience. While relevance is important, alone it’s not enough. Furthermore, some seemingly relevant content topics may not be a good fit for your brand. 

So, how do you determine which topics are a good fit for your brand and engaging for your audience? Here are 4 questions to ask yourself when choosing the right content topics for you.

1. Is there a need? 

A topic should address an audience’s pain points and provide a solution. One way to identify your audience’s needs are through creating a buyer persona, or your ideal customer. This may require some research, but you want to identify the following: 

Source: https://buffer.com/resources/discover-content-ideas/

Your buyer persona will give you a better sense of challenges and goals your audience has. Knowing your audience’s problems will allow you to come up with content topics that solve those problems. 

You can also use search engines and social platforms for discovering users’ needs. Utilize Google trends to gauge if a topic is growing or on the decline. You can use social the same way. Most platforms have analytical tools to show you how popular a certain keyword or set of keywords are. If you have a social listening tool, this would be the perfect way to incorporate that as well. Once you have a good grasp on what your audience is talking about, you can insert yourself in the conversation where appropriate. 

2. Do you have the credibility? 

If you publish content you don’t have the authority to speak on, you risk ruining the credibility of your brand. You want to use content marketing to strengthen your trust and credibility, not weaken it. So, how can you determine if you’re equipped to speak on a matter? There are generally two main criteria for credibility. Ask yourself: 

  • Am I an expert? Can you or someone else from your company confidently create and cite original sources? Or is the information based strictly on opinion? 
  • Is there data to back it up? If there is data, is it outdated? If there isn’t any recent data, you further risk losing your credibility. 

Find topics where you have genuine interest, as well as a good knowledge base. Content is about taking data and incorporating your own voice into it. But if you’re writing about something you aren’t very knowledgeable on, you won’t have the expertise to go deeper and differentiate your own opinions. 

3. What is the goal of the piece of content?  

You want each piece of content you create to have an end goal for your audience, but you also want it to align with your overall organizational goals. Content marketing is really about producing an action from a potential customer. Do your topic ideas connect with that overall marketing objective? Do they move your reader further along the customer journey? For each content topic you decide on, evaluate it and see how it aligns with your organizational goals.

Doing this will also help you when selecting KPIs (key performance indicators). If your current goal is to generate leads, your content should be focused on moving customers further through the sales funnel. If your current goal is to produce more sales, your content should be aimed at moving the sales needle. This means content isn’t just informative, it also builds trust.

It can be easy to rely on viral topics and expect that to carry your content to success. But if those topics don’t align with your overall business strategy, it’s a waste.

4. Can the message be shared across multiple mediums?  

Content should communicate how and why your perspectives, products and services stand apart from others in your industry. Content marketing takes a good balance of storytelling, educating, convincing and should include a call-to-action. Once you’ve landed on a strong topic, it’s equally important to ensure you’re able to create multi-purpose content out of it. You want to choose topics that you’re an expert on, but you don’t want it to be too niche. This may cause a shortage of material and of those actually interested in reading it. Not only that, but it might also be difficult to share that content across multiple mediums and platforms. 

You want to find the sweet spot between broad and niche. Ideally, you will find content pieces that can be featured in a number of ways. For example how-to content could be created as: 

  • A YouTube video 
  • An infographic 
  • A blog post

You want to be able to then share these pieces of content across social platforms. Having flexible content ensures that all members of your audience will be able to find something they best relate to and be able to find it in multiple places. This also creates less work for you, as you can successfully reuse and share topics. 

Final Thoughts 

Mapping out and choosing the right topics for content marketing takes strategic planning. Learning what content performs best among your audience takes time and experimenting. Continually measure and track your strategy and make changes when necessary. Choosing the right topics is essential to developing and driving an effective coverall content marketing strategy. 

More From Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. If you’re looking for assistance with your content marketing or any other areas of digital marketing, contact us today! 

Tips to Increase Your Brand’s Engagement on Social Media

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Promoting your brand through social media has become vital for overall business success. But just being on social channels isn’t enough anymore. The key to real success is through user engagement. This can help increase your brand awareness, customer relationships, and conversions, ultimately improving profits. 

Something that often gets lost to marketers is this: engagement is much more than just likes. Engagement is also comments, shares, follows, re-tweets, clicks, private messages, etc. And these types of engagements are often more valuable than likes. That sounds great, but how can brands accomplish all this? We’re here to help. Here are 5 tips for boosting your brand’s engagement across all social platforms.  

1. Talk about interesting topics, not just your brand. 

It’s common for businesses to frequently or exclusively post about their products or services. That’s not really not what social media is for, or what users want to see. The best content is exciting and informative. Ask yourself if it’s something you’d want to see or would share. It’s also important to ask yourself how it makes you feel. What getting people to engage, click, and convert comes down to is emotion. You should constantly be evaluating if your content is making you feel something and if that is worth sharing. If it’s not, editing and reevaluating may be needed. Most importantly, the content you’re creating and putting out to your audience should have value. The value is either making your audience happy, gives steps on how to get there, or anything else that’s beneficial. 

2. Join and hold Q&A’s and surveys. 

Joining Q&A sessions is a great way to provide your audience with value and get more brand awareness. You can spark discussions with prospective customers, all before competitors, you can become the go-to seller. Consumers are more impatient than ever and don’t want to wait for answers. That’s why, if it’s possible, you should have a dedicated response management person/team. While answering questions quickly is important, it’s also important to answer them accurately and clearly. We advise you to complete ongoing research for the most commonly asked questions and develop sample answers that can be customized for each question/situation. 

3. Share other people’s content. 

Constantly creating interesting, high quality, and engaging content is not easy. If there’s someone else providing quality answers to a query or other relevant content, make use of it. Your audience will see that you are there to give them what they need, no matter where it comes from. If your feed provides relevant and valuable information, whether it’s yours or not, people will be more attracted to your brand and be more encouraged to follow you. Keeping your feed diverse and from different contributors keeps audiences interested.

4. Make your customers feel engaged. 

To boost engagement, you need to be social. This means directly responding to all messages, comments, etc. Whether it be negative or positive, responding is essential. Show appreciation for the positive comments and suggest solutions for negative ones. It’s also important to respond to posts that aren’t addressing you directly, but indirectly or through hashtags. When responding you should present yourself as personable and approachable, ultimately humanizing your brand. Addressing comments with the person’s name is a great way to do this. It shows that the comment wasn’t computer generated and that someone really is listening to them. You should also try to match the person’s tone/emotion. If their comment was lighthearted and included emojis, feel free to use them back. This is a great way to generate a longer conversation and may even get other audience members involved. 

When it comes to negative comments, it’s smart to have a plan on how you’re going to deal with them. You want to be able to respond quickly to stop the issue from growing. You want to respond to show others that you’re not just ignoring the problem, but it’s also best to take the conversation offline and solve the problem privately. 

5. Post frequently and at optimal times. 

Posting frequently across all channels is vital for overall social media success. This shows your audience you’re relevant and up-to-date on the latest trends. This also helps your audience members stay up-to-date with you. Loyal customers want to know what’s happening with your brand the moment it occurs. Whether it’s a promotion, a new product/service, expansion, etc. This helps your audience stay connected and strengthens your relationship with them. 

A large part of engagement is posting at optimal times (when your audience is online and active). Most people are online during lunch hours or later at night, but it’s important to do research on your audience specifically. A/B testing may be necessary. Experiment with posting times to see which performs best and generates the most engagement amongst your audience. 

Social media moves quickly. If users think your page is inactive, they will unfollow you. Which is why it’s important to be posting as frequently as you can. Everyday isn’t necessary, but a few times a week is best practice. 

Final Thoughts

No matter what industry you’re in, social media is beneficial. It only continues to grow in value as times change in 2020. Brands that are focusing on growing their social media engagement are benefiting from better marketing reach, ROI and higher brand awareness. All which makes it easier to reach prospects and customers. Boosting and sustaining engagement is difficult and does take time, but it’s not impossible. It takes knowing your audience, a strong strategy and ongoing effort. In the end, it will be worth it. 

More from Onimod Global

As experts in social media marketing, our team knows where and when your customers need you most. We help create visibility for brands where their customers are searching, interacting and engaging. If you’re struggling in social media or any area of digital marketing, contact us today.

Social Media Marketing: Should Your Business be on TikTok?

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TikTok is the fastest growing social media network in the world right now, with the app having been downloaded over 1.5 billion times in the App Store and Google Play. If you’re not already there, you’re probably wondering, should my business be on TikTok? We’re going to help you answer that question. Let’s discuss the app, its audience, and what kind of business can benefit from adding TikTok to their social media marketing strategy. 

What is TikTok? 

For those unfamiliar, TikTok is an app that allows users to create and post videos within a news feed. Users are allowed to create clips 3-15 seconds long and compile clips into a video up to a minute in length. Users can add music or sounds to the videos that are available within the app. Most of the content is comedic or dance oriented, but the variety of content is growing. For example, we are starting to see videos featuring creators using or reviewing their favorite products. 

Who is on TikTok?

Just a few years ago, the majority of TikTok users were around the age of 13. Today, 60% of the app’s monthly active users in the U.S. are 16-24 year old. Another notable demographic is that 55.6% of users are male and 44.4% are female. This is an appreciable difference compared to other social platforms that show a female-favorable user base, such as Instagram with a 65%-35% sway. It’s also worth noting that 43% of users are in India. No one is certain why this is, but 40% of new downloads are based out of India. All in all, the largest number of users come out of the U.S, India, and Douyin, China. 

How Can Brands Use TikTok? 

There are four main ways brands can utilize TikTok:

  1. Directly: You can create your own channel and upload relevant videos through the channel.
  2. Influencers: Influencer marketing is growing in popularity on TikTok. Major brands like Google, Coca-Cola, Universal Pictures, and Sony have worked with popular users to raise brand awareness and extend reach of their recent promotions. 
  3. Paid Advertisements: There are three main types of paid ads brands have to choose from on TikTok as of now: 
    1. Launch Screen Ads: These appear when a user initially opens the app. Users can tap on the ad to get sent to an external webpage or participate in a hashtag challenge. 
    2. Video Ads: In-feed videos are also offered as a native way to advertise content on the app. You can pay to have your content promoted on the “For You” page.  
    3. Branded AR: Brands also have the ability to create branded lenses, filters, and stickers, which are similar to Snapchat. 
  4. Hashtag Challenge Plus: While this is still a paid feature, it is strictly e-commerce focused. Brands can sponsor a hashtag or a theme that creates a challenge for users to create videos participating in the challenge. Users can then browse products associated with the brand. 

Is it Right for Your Business? 

To answer this question, you need to ask yourself as a marketer or business owner a number of other questions. Will you be able to create original content that promotes your brand? Do you understand the style of content on TikTok? And most importantly, what is your target audience? If you’re looking to target Gen Z or Millennials, TikTok is a great way to gain mass exposure. Additionally, it’s a great way for brands that have a corporate tone to create a more youthful and fun feel for themselves. If your brand strictly targets an older demographic, it may not be worth the investment just yet, but it may be in the near future. 

More from Onimod Global 

At Onimod Global we are experts in social media marketing. We know which platforms are best for brands, and create visibility for brands where customers are searching, interacting, and ultimately converting. Find out more about what we do, or contact us today!

 

Social Media Strategy: Where You Should Start

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Has the current pandemic catapulted your small business into the world of social media advertising and e-commerce? In what is already an overwhelming time, starting from scratch on how you’re advertising your small business may seem like too much to take on. Onimod Global is here to help with a guide of where is the best place to start from scratch with a social media strategy.

Audit your current social presence.

Before you are in too deep strategizing about where you need to go, take some time to evaluate where you currently are.

  • Which networks are you currently active on?
  • Are your current platforms optimized (images, URL, bio, etc.)?
  • Which are the most successful for you?

Onimod Global offers a free digital audit that measures your online success in terms of SEO, social media influence, local business optimization, SEM breakdown, and more. Check it out further and get your very own custom digital score.

Define your type of business and ideal customer.

Are you service or product based? Are you primarily B2B or B2C? These are very important questions to determine which socials you need to be focused on creating content and advertisement campaigns for. Every business is unique, but there are industries that perform well on certain social channels versus others. For example, B2B businesses can focus more efforts on social media channels such as LinkedIn and YouTube versus Facebook. These platforms will give you the opportunity to reach your target market in a more direct way. For example, if your company is selling a type of consultancy service, your content is a better match to a professional networking channel such as LinkedIn. B2C businesses, where you’re selling a product or service to anyone and everyone, this can be very successful on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. On these channels, you are able to show your product and service to a target audience that is more likely to convert into sales.

Even the best marketers will fail if they are marketing to the wrong audience. Use the following criteria to help you come up with a highly focused persona of a potential customer:

  • Age
  • Job Title
  • Location
  • Pain points (where your business offers their solution)
  • Most used social network

Create useful and engaging content.

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet.” – Bill Gates

This is arguably the most attractive step of creating your social media strategy. From this post, you now know there are several steps that take place before getting to this point. Your social media content needs to always have a purpose behind it. Decide in your team what your mission is for social media. For example, it could be informing and educating your customers on the respective industry and its services. This ensures the content you curate will be attractive and engaging to your audience.

Here are a few examples of content that you can create:

  • Images
  • Videos
  • Interviews
  • Company News
  • Infographics

Remember that quality content is far more important than the quantity of what you post. However, it is crucial that you consider creating high quality, engaging content as a top priority. Experts at Onimod Global strongly recommend creating a content calendar with specific topics and types of content. This will also serve of great use when looking back on the month and reviewing the performance of your content.

Track and analyze.

This is the most important step, a lot of content creation is about trial and error. Let all of your decisions, both in content and in your business in general, be data driven. Social media strategies are never set in stone, make sure you are always evolving.

Are you in need of more assistance with your social media strategy? Onimod Global is here to help with a custom social media strategy and content plan.  Check out the dozens of case studies on our site by clicking here!

More from Onimod Global

Make sure to stay tuned to Onimod Global news for part 2 of this week’s series and learn all about e-commerce and online marketplaces going live Thursday. To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

 

 

Updates To Social Media Advertising With COVID-19

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Social media platforms were quick to ban people from creating advertisements in reference to COVID-19. Several industries eager to educate the public about and promote their efforts to fight the coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease it causes were blocked by Twitter and Google. The decision to ban ads that mention the virus came after executives decided that they did not want to appear to be profiting from the crisis. Twitter has now officially revised their stance in order to allow advertisers to mention the virus in select promotions.

Twitter’s official stance:

“In response to the shifting advertising landscape, and in order to support helpful causes during this time, we’re now allowing managed clients and partners to advertise content containing implicit or explicit reference to COVID-19 in certain use cases, with restrictions.”

Those specific use cases will be:

  • Adjustments to business practices and/or models in response to COVID-19
  • Support for customers and employees related to COVID-19

This enables brands that are approved to advertise changes to their business operations and their assistance measures. However, Twitter will still be enforcing restrictions on using content with mention of the virus that goes against the public good.

For example, Twitter states specifically that it will not allow ads that include:

  • Distasteful references to COVID-19 (or variations)
  • Content that may be sensational or likely to incite panic
  • Inflated prices on products related to COVID-19

This is great news for business to be able to communicate to their customers via social media any changes as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown. Other social media platforms are joining in on enabling their platforms to be more useful for business advertising. Facebook has also recently launched a new set of Page tools to help businesses update their operating hours and service delivery options to help them stay connected, and operational, amid the global lockdowns.

One of the newest measures to assist businesses dealing with the impacts of the COVID-19 shutdowns is rolling out grants for small businesses.

Facebook official statement:

“In the US, we are committing $40 million to support 10,000 small businesses in 34 locations where our employees live and work. Those local businesses can go to facebook.com/grantsforbusiness to see the eligibility for applications, which will start in the US next week.”

In addition to grants, Facebook is adding a gift card listing tool so customers can order digital gift cards for their favorite restaurants and businesses. This is currently being rolled out in the US and will soon be available internationally.  Facebook is also adding some new Page options which will enable impacted businesses to list temporary changes to their operations as a result of COVID-19.

Final Thoughts

These are logical moves from both social media platforms, and moves which will provide benefit to many. To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

How to Develop a Social Media Content Calendar

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Many marketers swear by the use of monthly content calendars. While there are real benefits of using content calendars, they still have their pitfalls. They require a lot of time and effort, and sometimes those things can’t easily be spared. Not only that, but working strictly off a set calendar isn’t always the solution for everyone. 

Whether or not you need a content calendar depends on a variety of factors, but if you discover a way to develop one that allows for flexibility and creativity, the benefits can be endless. 

The Pros of Using Content Calendars

Consisting Posting 

Planning your posts ahead of time ensures new content gets pushed out regularly. Having your topics picked out ahead of time saves time and allows for more than one person to manage social platforms. Regular content dispersion is important because it means you avoid the typical ups and downs in traffic and audience that come from inconsistent posting. Through a content schedule, you spread out your content throughout the month, setting yourself up as a resource to be trusted.

Diverse Content 

When you come up with content topics everyday, it’s only a matter of time before they get repetitive. You’ll most likely revert to the same topics and posting style when you’re struggling to come up with something. When you lay all content out for a month, you’ll be able to better spread out certain topics, preventing you from becoming predictable and boring. 

Better Teamwork 

If more than one person works on a blog or controls a social media account, having a content schedule is key. Assigning topics will become much easier, and you’ll be able to do it much further in advance. It will also prevent any overlap in content and make sure everyone’s on the same page. 

The Cons of Using Content Calendars

Can Restrict Creativity and Flexibility

While careful planning and deadlines are what makes content calendars work, too many restrictions can stifle creativity and eliminate flexibility. Sometimes planning your blog content ahead of time can turn out to be counterproductive when your company’s goals change, roles shift, or strategies get re-imagined. It can discourage your team to think outside of the box. It may also prevent from responding to timely or relevant topics, which can make your brand seem out-of-the-loop. 

Can Seem Disingenuous 

Along with the inability to respond to relevant topics, scheduled content may also come across as disingenuous. For example, you might have scheduled a tweet about nice weather, just as a natural disaster hits your community. So while automated posts save time, they can come across as stale because they’re written days or weeks before it’s actually published. 

More Demanding 

Content calendars are only successful if the whole marketing team is on board and uses it. All the time you spend carefully planning out when, where and what to post ends up being a waste of time, if no one is actually sticking to the schedule. A way to combat this is by making sure that the calendar is easily accessible to all team members and easy to use. Also make adhering to the calendar a priority for your marketing team and hold people accountable for the content they are responsible for.

As we said before, content calendars are not for everyone. If you have a small team or don’t publish content that often, they may be more work than they’re worth. However, they can be very beneficial to many marketing teams. 

Creating content calendars can seem daunting, but they don’t have to be. If you’ve established that this is something that would be helpful for your business, here is a process that allows you to quickly and effectively produce weekly content, that allows for flexibility and creativity. 

How to Develop a Content Calendar that Allows for Creativity

(via Marketing Land)

Identify Key Audiences 

Think of four different customers that serve as examples of types of customers that serve as examples of the types of customers you’d like to land for your company moving forward. Pinpoint each customer’s unique challenges, emotions and values, as you’ll want the content to speak to those needs.

Identify Solutions

After identifying four key audiences, think of three solutions your business can offer to these four audiences. This could include different services, products, or value propositions. Then match up each of your three solutions with each of your four audiences. 

  • Solution A for Audience 1
  • Solution B for Audience 1
  • Solution C for Audience 1
  • Solution A for Audience 2
  • And so on until you have twelve broad topics to explore

Identify Categories 

The final step is to come up with a list of four content strategies that will allow you to approach each solution/customer pairing from a variety of perspectives. Some examples include:

  • Expert Q&As
  • Step-by-step Guides
  • Industry News
  • Listicles
  • Case Studies

Combine this list of categories with your 12 solutions pairings to generate 48 unique topics for a full year of content. The first example could be: Expert Q&A that addresses Audience 1’s challenges from the perspective of what Solution A offers. Try to address each audience in one post per month. That way, each month, you will address and provide content for all four audiences. 

Marketing Land advises to keep in mind that content isn’t just supposed to be brand promotions. Your content is supposed to provide value to readers. 

Final Thoughts 

Today, almost all businesses release some form of digital content. While calendars may not be worth it for everyone, they can be very beneficial for those that need them. If you think your company could benefit from a content calendar, but don’t know where to start, consider outsourcing a digital marketing company.

At Onimod Global we create monthly content calendars for our clients. As experts in social media marketing we know how to create visibility for companies in places their customers are searching, interacting, and engaging. . Take a look at how we’ve helped others, and learn more about what we can do for you.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s New Features to Reduce Time Spent on Non-Selling Activities

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LinkedIn rolled out new updates to its Sales Navigator platform that attempt to cut down on the day-to-day administrative tasks to build stronger relationships with customers and prospects, and close more deals. 

The update includes an easier way to tie in CRMS, a better way to package and share content within the platform, and enhancements to search and usage reporting metrics. These features could prove to be extremely valuable to marketers, as they are designed to streamline sales tasks and create more efficient workflow processes for sales teams using LinkedIn for identifying and prospecting new customers. 

New Process for Adding Leads to Salesforce 

The first update eliminates the need to switch back and forth between two platforms when adding contacts to Salesforce accounts. 

“With the click-of-a-button in your Sales Navigator lead page or lead list, you can now write-back publicly available information about your lead into your Salesforce CRM (and soon-to-come for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales) quickly and easily without leaving Sales Navigator.” LinkedIn explained in their update announcement. 

Salesforce also ensures there are no duplicate leads by checking the contacts in your database and flagging any issues, ensuring CRM cleanliness. 

Features to Increase Workflow 

  • Smart Links: Allow you to quickly and easily package and share content within your Sales Navigator workflow, track viewing behavior, and gain insights on who is engaging with your content. 
  • Company Growth Alerts: An alert in Sales Navigator that notifies you if a company on your saved accounts list has added multiple job postings: “Indicating that the company is growing — a signal that there may be new opportunities that the sales organization could pursue.”

Features to Reduce Search Time 

  • Save Account Searches: Once you find an account search that works, you can easily save it and avoid having to repopulate the account queries every time you log into Sales Navigator.  You will be automatically updated any time a new Account meets your search criteria. 
  • Share Lead Searches: Once you identify the perfect lead search query, you can now share that search with other teammates with a Sales Navigator contract.

Greater Customization Capabilities

LinkedIn goes on to say “no one knows what you need more than you.” Because of that they have updated Usage Reporting and Mobile Experience to have more customizable properties. Users can now opt-out of LinkedIn.com activity in their personal Sales Navigator settings — removing any of their own LinkedIn.com activities from metrics like days active, searches performed and profile views in Usage Reporting. Along with these latest updates, Sales Navigator “Team” customers are getting the refreshed usage reporting features announced last quarter that include new navigation, metrics and data filters. Lastly, in addition to making the mobile app available to all product supported languages, users are now able to customize their mobile experience by filtering the alerts they want to receive. 

Final Thoughts 

LinkedIn has been rolling out a number of updates over the past year that have continued to increase its marketing capabilities. It has become a strong contender in the paid social space, and is an extremely valuable tool for many brands. These new features to Sales Navigator help to streamline sales tasks and create more efficient workflow processes for sales teams. 

If you’re new to LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator platform or having difficulties with any paid social, Onimod Global can help. At Onimod Global we’re experts in SEM and social media marketing. We’ve recently been rolling out brand new LinkedIn campaigns for a few of our clients, and have started producing a few results. We understand that LinkedIn is not an appropriate advertising platform for all brands or all campaigns. Having the correct brand positioning is essential, and with our expertise we know exactly where you and your ads need to be. Learn more about what we do, or become a client today!