Canadian Small Business Women

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Marketing, PR, or Sales: Which comes first?

What comes first – the chicken or the egg? It’s a question that has sparked debate for a long time, and it will continue to spark debate for years to come. When it comes to your business and connecting with your customers, there is a similar question. Does marketing, PR, or sales come first?

At SongBird, we strongly believe that – no matter how much bravado you use to try to argue otherwise – your marketing strategy should come first. It will help you create the foundation to grow your business.

Let’s talk about why it’s important to see your strategy development this way.

Defining Marketing, PR, and Sales

The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” I would add that your marketing strategy will define any of your outreach through the foundational work that is done to develop your brand strategy. If you take the basics into account, marketing is about the four P’s – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

The Canadian Public Relations Society defines Public Relations as “the strategic management of relationships between an organization and its diverse publics, through the use of communication, to achieve mutual understanding, realize organizational goals and serve the public interest.” It really boils down to the fact that PR is meant as a way to manage your brand reputation whether you are a business, organization, or an individual expert.

The Business Dictionary defines sales as “The activity or business of selling products or services.” Some also describe it as the actual exchange of money for products or services.

What It All Means

If you look at the above definitions, marketing is the umbrella that covers everything, whereas PR and sales are methods or tools to use to connect with your target audience.

Modern Challenges

While the definitions show that each fits into a different box or silo, technology has made answering the overall question of which comes first harder because it has blurred the lines between marketing, PR, and sales. For example, social media has changed the game for all three things. It could actually be considered part of Marketing, PR, and Sales given what it is used for. Where PR is concerned, social media has allowed the media landscape to shift significantly (hello, influencers!), created opportunities for digital brand experiences, and connects brands directly to their audience in real time. In terms of Marketing, it is a way for a company to promote what they have to offer as well as develop a strong brand presence and general awareness. Where sales is concerned, most social media channels allow you to sell directly from posts, and act as a lead generation machine to funnel into your sales funnel.

For small businesses – and larger companies running lean – whose teams are also small, the lines become even more blurred because one person might wear multiple hats. The same person might be responsible for the overall marketing strategy, creating branded sales materials, social media, experiential events, influencer relations, and media relations. In a larger company 5 or 6 people – or more – might manage these things.

Marketing first

In spite of the fact that the lines are blurred, marketing should always come first. Your PR and Sales strategies should support your overall marketing strategy and goals, which should support your overall business strategy and goals.

To be clear, marketing, PR, and sales all need to work together to get you to where you need to be, but you should really explore your marketing strategy before launching into your PR and sales execution.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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Faking popularity on social media will hurt your brand

Hands up if you have ever wished your social media following would just grow wildly overnight. Almost every brand and influencer has wished this at some point (for some it’s an ongoing thought). Have you ever posted to Instagram only to check every 5 or 10 minutes to see if anyone has liked your photo?

Because everyone wants to “go viral”, social media has become a bunch of users and brands just trying to be the loudest in the room rather than thoughtfully engaging with the followers they do have. Of course, we throw statements like “fake it till you make it” into the mix and you end up with people buying followers and engagement to try to appear more popular than they actually are.

Whether you are partnering with influencers or other brands or you are just trying to build your own social media community, it’s time to take note of what’s really important.

You can tell if someone is faking it

It’s important to know if someone is faking it if you are doing any influencer marketing or brand partnerships, but it’s also good to remind yourself that people can tell if you are faking your popularity.

For any sort of partnership, you want to make sure that the parties you are working with can help you to reach your goals.

Here are the things that will help you figure out if someone is the real deal or not (and provide a good guideline for your own social media):

  • Genuine comments: Are the comments genuine or do they seem really generic and unrelated? A bunch of comments like “Great shot!”, “Cute!”, and “Nice pic!” are generally from automated bots that you either pay for or are spam. Also have a peek at the last 10 to 20 posts to see if it is the same group of people commenting over and over in the same ways.
  • Real likes: While Instagram removed total likes counts, you can still see who liked a post. A quick scroll through the list of names and profile pictures will give you a good sense of whether a profile is real or not.
  • Real followers: A fake follower will often have one or more of the following: random typos in the name, random numbers in their name, the generic egg profile image instead of an actual picture, low post count – we’re talking one random image on the feed, and often seems to have nothing in common with the person they are following. Most social platforms are starting to crack down on fake followers, but it’s definitely an uphill battle.

Keep in mind that your audience is also looking at you under the same microscope you are evaluating partners. It’s not worth it to fake your own brand popularity. There is no replacement for good strategy, great content, and meaningful engagement.

Why brands should keep it real

In a world where your customers and potential customers are armed with more information and the power to choose between an increasing number of options available to them, honesty is always the best policy. Also, with the increasing conversations and research studies about how social media is directly tied to mental health issues, you don’t want to be a part of the problem.

Knowing what we know about social media and what can happen if your target audience doesn’t trust you as a brand, here are some things to remember about keeping it real on social media.

  • Quality is way more important than quantity: You could have 10,000 followers and no customers or 100 followers and 50 customers. It doesn’t matter about how many people are in your community as long as they are engaged and loyal to your brand.
  • Prioritize meaningful connections above everything: Remember that social media should be social. The conversations you have with followers – whether they are customers, influencers, or other brands – should drive your overall strategy.
  • Don’t let social media become too commercialized: Social media isn’t about hard selling or telling influencers what they have to It always comes back to relationship building and dialogue.
  • Buying followers and likes will only hurt your credibility in the end: In short, people always find out and once they do, they will never forget.

There is no silver bullet or magic carpet that will carry you to successful growth on social media. You may be tempted to pay for followers and engagement because it’s so easy to do it, but if that opportunity ever tempts you, best to avoid it. Not only are you feeding into a toxic social media culture rather than fostering a positive channel for people to interact with your brand, but you could actually do more harm than good to your brand reputation.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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Does Brand Reputation Even Matter Anymore?

Brand reputation will matter in any year as long as businesses rely on customers to be successful (so… always).

Consumers are more opinionated than ever before and it’s because they are armed with so much more information (whether it’s true or not). Everyone is facing increasingly aggressive dialogue about discrimination and social ideologies, and the mob mentality that comes with empowered social media users. As a result, consumers are questioning every move that brands make. Really, people are looking for complete honesty and transparency and to support brands that share the same values and ethics that they do. Over 80% of consumers want to trust the brands that they buy from.

That is why your brand reputation matters more than ever in 2020.

What is brand reputation?

Brand reputation is a fancy term for how other people see your brand. It’s their opinion of you. Brands with a great reputation are generally seen as trustworthy, which leads to larger communities of loyal customers. On the other hand, a bad reputation will negatively affect your sales and you will find that your customers are always looking for the next best thing because they aren’t loyal to your brand at all.

What will negatively affect your brand reputation?

The biggest mistake you can make is thinking you can pull the wool over your target audience’s eyes. Here are six things that will hurt your brand reputation:

  1. Buying fake followers and/or fake engagement on social media – bots can also be the end of you.
  2. Creating a social responsibility program as a response to a rumor.
  3. Trying to cover up or “spin” a story so it just goes away rather than dealing with the issue at the core of your brand or business.
  4. Partnering with influencers or other brands that you haven’t vetted or that you know aren’t fully aligned with your own brand values.
  5. Not taking a stand against hatred and bigotry.
  6. Taking a sales-first or a me-first mentality.

How do you get a better brand reputation?

With all of the security breaches and secret data collection being reported what seems like almost daily, it is going to take more than a flashy marketing campaign to get your target audience to see your brand in a different light. There are five things that you need to do to make sure you have a great brand reputation:

  1. Continuously think of how you can offer more value to your target audience – whether it’s through great content, a better product, or a better customer experience.
  2. Build transparency into your core communication strategy – you never want to lie to your customers, and omitting information is also not great.
  3. Build a brand and stay true to yourself rather than changing to fit what you think others want to hear.
  4. Align yourself with a cause that is meaningful to both you as a brand, but also your target audience.
  5. Partner with influencers that your audience trusts – 63% of consumers trust them more than they do you as a brand.

Have you really looked at how your audience sees you versus how you see yourself as a brand?

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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5 ways to start 2020 off right with your customers

2020 is right around the corner. It’s a fresh start for some business owners who almost want to wipe the slate clean and a means to kick up existing strategies to the next level for others who think what they are doing is working well. Regardless, you should absolutely review your current strategy to make sure that what you are doing is working for you in the best way possible.

For 2020, think about your customer relationships and how you can start things off right with them in the new year. Here are 5 ways to do customer relationships right in 2020.

#1: Real talk

There is a reason why influencers are throwing out the carefully curated images they have worked so hard to cultivate… Your audience is looking for real interactions with real people. Just because you are using your brand voice doesn’t mean you can’t be genuine in your interactions with your audience. Show your human side – it’s ok to be flawed as long as you own up to it.

#2: Stand for something

We live in a really divided world and chances are your customers are not sitting on the fence. Find a cause that is meaningful to both you and your audience and take a stand. Cause marketing gives you many fun opportunities to integrate messaging that resonates with your audience into your own strategy. Your customers will appreciate you for taking their values into consideration.

#3: Match your customer, not industry trends

Be a trend setter – but do it because you have adjusted your approach to match your customers. Maybe your niche doesn’t really fit the mold, or perhaps YOU don’t fit the industry mold. Standing out among your competitors will only help you, not hurt you. Plus, your audience will appreciate that you are connecting with them in a way they understand. This could mean making changes to your product or service offerings, how you deliver value to your customers, the language you use, your brand’s tone of voice, the marketing channels you communicate with, etc.

#4: Thank your customers more often

A simple thank you goes a long way. Showing you appreciate your customers is important because you want to build relationships based on mutual loyalty. Your customers want to know they can rely on you for great products and services and you want to know you can rely on them to keep coming back. Beyond saying thank you to them in emails, social media, and other marketing, consider starting a loyalty program that rewards them for sticking by your side.

#5: See 2020 as a fresh start

Overhaul your customer experience by finding out what’s not working. You can do this in a number of different ways. Internally, identify all touch points (any time they interact with your brand passively or actively) with your customers from the time they first discover your brand, to their first purchase, to their tenth purchase. Are you missing out on any opportunities? Are there any ways you can increase the number of touch points with them without feeling like you are pressuring them too much? Consider tactics like grassroots, boots on the ground marketing like flyering and experiential events, getting your product into brick and mortar stores, creating more VALUABLE content, and so much more. The key is figuring out what will resonate most with your audience.

A new year means new challenges and new wins ahead of you. It all starts with your customers and that means you need to take special care how you are building your relationships with them.

 

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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7 Ways To Create A Memorable Brand

 

Think of some of your most memorable brand experiences… Were they experiential? Was it something the said? Something they did? Now think of your brand. Do you know how to leave a great brand impression? Are you connecting with your target audience in a way that will help you grow a community of loyal customers?

Here are 7 ways to create a memorable brand and help you connect with your customers in a meaningful way.

1: Develop a strong value proposition

Figuring out who you are targeting and exactly what you have to offer them will be key to figuring out how to create a memorable brand!

2: Put some effort into your brand name

There are a lot of different ways you can come up with a brand name. You can use an existing word, combine words together, come up with a new word altogether, or use an acronym. Regardless of your approach, make sure you think it through and consider these things:

  • Make it personal. Your brand should mean something to you.
  • Keep it simple. Making up new words might sound unique, but you need to educate people more to help them remember it and how to spell it, which takes more resources. Not everyone can come up with a new word and make it stick…

Key Consideration: Brainstorm among your team or with a group of friends or fellow entrepreneurs to help get you on the right track.

3: Think through your visual identity

Your brand is more than just your logo. Before creating any sort of visual identity, you need to figure out what your audience will respond to. Get to know what they like and dislike through market research, social listening, and competitor research. Then you can use your findings to select your brand colours, fonts, and create an impactful logo and wordmark. Once you have your basic brand identity in place, figure out how you want people to see your brand by identifying the types of imagery you want to use and your social media presets (filters, colours, etc).

Key Considerations: Try to step outside of what your competitors are doing when possible to help differentiate yourself.

4: Create your brand personality

Even though you are a company, there is still a person behind the brand – and you are marketing yourself to other people. So think of your brand as a person who has a personality. Your brand personality has everything to do with how you make people feel, how others see you, and the impact you have on your industry, community, and important causes. Are you fun-loving and care-free, using a flippant, conversational tone? Or are you more serious with a professional tone? Regardless of your answer, the only right answer is one that will help you to connect on a deeper level to your customers.

Key Considerations: Take this brand quiz to figure out your brand personality.

5: Consider how your target audience sees you and how you make them feel.

You really should listen when your customers give any sort of feedback related to your brand, customer experience, and overall business dealings. It’s one thing to have an idea of how you want to come across, but it’s a totally different thing when you talk about how you ACTUALLY come across to your target audience.

Key Consideration: Introduce audience listening into your overall strategy.

6: Get comfortable telling your story, not what you do

People relate to and remember stories, but there are likely hundreds or thousands of other businesses who offer the exact same product/service that you do. That is why you should answer “why” instead of “what” when you talk about what you do. Focus on the benefits of your product/service offering rather than the features of what you have to offer.

Key considerations: Figure out the difference between your features and benefits to make a difference in how you talk about your brand.

7: Talk about your brand… a lot

When it comes to marketing your brand, if you want to have a memorable brand you can’t be shy and just hope people discover you. You have to engage with your target audience regularly and consistently. Stay on brand message so you don’t try to be all things to all people. You invested in developing a memorable brand, now let people get to know who you are.

Creating a memorable brand doesn’t have to be difficult, but you do need to put the work in to make sure you have a great business and brand foundation set up.

 

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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4 ways you might be getting too personal with your business social media

In an age of “authentic” marketing, it can be easy to see where brands might accidentally blur the lines between business and personal – especially if you’re a smaller business with a smaller team. When it comes to social media, because it’s supposed to be social and you are interacting with other humans, a personal touch is nice – but you have to remember you are still interacting as your brand and not you. You need to stick to your brand voice and your brand personality.

 

Here are four ways that you might be getting too personal with your business social media and why it might not work in your favour.

 

#1: Your brand is on a particular social media platform because you like it, not because your audience does

When you launch your business – and all of the decisions leading up to that moment – everything has to be about your customer. Your business can’t thrive if it doesn’t have customers. All of your marketing choices should be made based on your audience behaviour. If you are too focused on doing things just because you want to rather than listening to what they want, then you are likely missing the mark. If you have selected your social media platforms because you personally like them but you haven’t taken into account where your audience likes to hang out on social media, then you might be finding it hard to connect with them.

Perhaps you know how to use one specific social media platform but not the one you should actually be on. In that case, make sure you educate yourself or hire someone to do it for you!

#2: Every other photo on your brand account is of you, your friends, your baby, or your dog

It’s great to show the human side behind your brand, but if the majority of our content is TOO personal, then your audience won’t really get to know your brand. They will only get to know you as a person. People want to hear about your brand and what you have to offer, not what you did with your family on the weekend. You can absolutely do some behind the scenes shots of the day-to-day of your business, but make sure they are carefully curated and inserted into your content strategy.

#3: You use your business accounts to regularly post political rants

We live in a very politically charged climate. Politics are one of those things that is extremely polarizing, and this can have a negative effect on your brand if you are too focused on your political views and not enough on your business and what you have to offer. Its ok to take a stand for something, but it’s not ok to position your brand as that crazy person no one wants to be locked in a room with.

#4: Not everyone will think you’re funny

It’s great to have a sense of humour as a brand, but it’s not great to use it when it alienates your audience. Make sure that before you launch into your next joke you won’t be offending the people who would buy from you. If you’re the only one laughing, it’s going to make it tough to successfully reach your potential customers.

While you should have fun with your business social media – and be social – you also need to make sure that you aren’t crossing the line and becoming too personal with your strategy. You need to step back every-so-often and remind yourself that your business social media strategy is there to help you market your business.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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9 Ways to Create a Beautiful Instagram Feed

Are you on Instagram for business? Part of your Instagram strategy is to determine the look and feel of your profile. You want to create a cohesive and consistent visual experience for your community that enhances your brand and what it has to offer. This can be challenging because it requires a keen eye and a little planning ahead on your part, but here are 9 tips to help you create the best possible Instagram feed for your brand.

  1. Set your Instagram goals: Why are you even on Instagram? Do you want to create a community of engaged followers? Do you want to sell products? Do you want to educate your followers? The reasons you are on Instagram will drive you to create certain aesthetics on your feed.
  2. Find inspiration from other brands and influencers: There are a number of brands who are killing it on Instagram. If others have found the magic formula, it’s ok to get inspired by them for your own account. If it isn’t brands, make sure you are connecting with and following some of your favourite influencers. Instagram influencers have such strong aesthetics that you can tell who they are immediately.
  3. Get inspired by your surroundings: You don’t want to be something you’re not. For example, if you don’t have a dedicated office and you choose to work in coffee shops, co-working spaces, and at home, you should create an aesthetic that mirrors that. Look out the window, check out the people around you, and try to convey the general feel of your everyday brand through the photos you post on Instagram. It’s easier to work with what you know.
  4. Define your look: Set guidelines for yourself related to the filters you use to edit your images, fonts used for overlays, your colour palette (also known as colour story), shooting perspective, etc. Like you put together your brand guidelines in the beginning to create consistency across channels, you create these guidelines (sometimes called presets) to create consistency on your Instagram feed.
  5. Be flexible: While it’s good to have guidelines to follow, make sure you aren’t being TOO rigid. Remember, there is a beauty to a little spontaneity. Social media is about being social and you need to be driven by feel as much as you are driven by the details.
  6. Plan ahead: Social media should feel spontaneous, but that doesn’t mean you have to sit down each day to think about what to post. You need to think about the bigger picture and create a content strategy that will drive your activity each day. If you plan at least a week ahead with your posts, you can focus on engaging directly with your followers more organically each day.
  7. Create a library of images: This is about more than just planning ahead, it’s about working smarter, not harder. You should consider creating a library of images you can choose from. Most people do this to get images to use in marketing materials and on their website. But you have to think beyond those channels and apply the same process to your social media. If you put together a month’s worth of images in one photo shoot, you can easily plan out your colour story by coordinating outfit changes, backgrounds, lighting, etc.
  8. Use Instagram stories for spontaneous moments: Instagram stories provide a unique opportunity to showcase the day-to-day life of your brand as well as live events and your product/service offerings. Be sure to create highlights of your best Instagram stories to keep that content living on your profile permanently.
  9. Invest in photography: Consider hiring a professional photographer to help you get the look and feel you want for your Instagram feed. Taking photos for social media might seem easy – your cousin’s son’s friend does it all the time! But when it comes to carefully curating your brand’s social media, you want to take extra care to present a cohesive look that helps to connect people to your brand in a meaningful way.

Creating the perfect Instagram feed for your brand profile can be challenging, but if you approach it in the right way you can have a lot of fun with it.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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8 Ways to Get More Instagram Followers

There is no short cut to getting more Instagram followers. While there are companies out there that say they can guarantee to get you your first 1,000 followers – or 10,000 or whatever the number is – chances are they are buying followers. While you might think it’s ok to boost your numbers in the beginning because it adds credibility, you need to give your target audience more credit. They will know your followers are fake. And what is the point in building a marketing strategy if you aren’t going to engage with real customers? You can have a million followers, but little to no engagement.

So how do you grow your Instagram following to connect with even a fraction of the over 500 million daily active Instagram users? And what should your goals be when it comes to getting Instagram followers?

Here are 8 tips to help you get more Instagram followers the right way.

USE HASHTAGS – IN THE RIGHT WAYS

Hashtags are an incredible tool to help you find and connect with your target audience – not to spam them with a long list of the same hashtags on each post. There are a few ways you can use hashtags to grow your Instagram following.

  1. Use popular hashtags to join in on existing dialogue. Your target audience likely already engages with specific hashtags from competitors and other general Instagram accounts. They also use the search function to seek out new content. Using hashtags that they are already using makes it easier to find your content.
  2. Create a dedicated hashtag for your brand so your audience can follow and track your content. Make sure you don’t just use it on Instagram because no one will know it’s there! Promote it across all of your marketing channels – digital and otherwise.

MAKE SURE PEOPLE RECOGNIZE YOU

Instagram allows you to play around with the visual identity of your brand. This goes beyond your logo and branding. You also need to think about how your Instagram profile looks. To create a recognizable visual identity on Instagram, you should consider your overall themes, colours, and fonts. Your profile should be carefully curated when it comes to both style and content. And don’t forget that you can and should also brand everything you create.

SET UP YOUR PROFILE PROPERLY

A well-set up social media profile can make the difference between success and failure. Two features worth mentioning are your Instagram bio and making sure you write a great one that will allow you to be found. The other thing you should consider is changing up your profile URL – give people a reason to go to your IG profile page – and your website. One way you can do this is to post blogs regularly and include a post with a call to action that send people to read your blog.

FOCUS ON CONTENT

Your Instagram content doesn’t have to be overly produced, but it does need to be quality content. This means producing visuals that aren’t pixelated, are on brand and branded, provide value, etc. Even more, to get more Instagram followers your content needs to appeal to your target audience – which means you need to figure out what they like. If they like your content, they will follow you to see more.

BE SOCIAL

Social media should be social. If you are looking to get more Instagram followers like and comment on other brand and user content and follow other people. Instagram users are more likely to follow you if you follow them – it’s been proven. Try to follow people that would be part of your target audience. You can do this by looking at the types of accounts they follow and checking out the engagement on other content.

GET TO KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

Post and engage when your audience is on Instagram. You can figure this out if you have a business profile by looking at your Instagram analytics. If you don’t have a business profile, it will take some trial and error, but you can also consider when your competitors post their content and how engaged their followers are. If that doesn’t work, then you can use good old trial and error, but make sure you track when and what you are posting.

If you already have followers on Instagram, don’t be afraid to ask them what they want to see from you.

Lastly, consider creating a strategy to reach your target audience that is hyper local by using geotagging on your posts. Your content will be more visible to those that are local to you.

COLLABORATE WITH INFLUENCERS

A great way to expand your reach on Instagram if you don’t yet have a lot of followers (of if you do have a good number of followers and you just want more) is to engage Influencers as part of your strategy. This allows you to amplify your reach through their community of followers.

INCLUDE CALLS TO ACTION

Calls to action are one of the most important things to include in any of your marketing tactics. If you want more followers, ask people to follow you! Ask them to visit your profile. Tell them what you want from them so it creates a path of least resistance.

It can sometimes feel like you are screaming into a giant content vacuum on social media. And when you spend the time to create great visuals on Instagram you want them to be found by an engaged audience who will become customers. Getting more Instagram followers isn’t necessarily easy – it takes hard work and dedication – but it is doable.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

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Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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10 Marketing tactics that aren’t worth the money…

A great marketing strategy is one of the most important investments you will make for your business. You won’t have customers or a growing loyal community unless people know who you are. Without customers, you won’t have a business at all. We have all heard the saying “you have to spend money to make money,” and this is true when it comes to your marketing strategy. But what should you spend your marketing budget on?

For tactics that are directly tied to sales, it is easier to figure out what your return on investment is, but there are tactics that bring you other benefits that aren’t tied directly to sales such as thought leadership, some forms of content marketing, social media community building, and others that lead to brand awareness and act as tools to help you achieve higher revenues when you use them correctly.

Marketing tactics to avoid

Regardless of what your marketing budget is, you want to make sure you spend your marketing dollars on the right tactics that will move your business in the right direction. There are so many things you could invest in, but here are ten marketing tactics that aren’t worth your money.

  1. A flashy, expensive website: A fancy website might seem like a good idea, but you should never sacrifice function for design. The most important thing on your website is that people can navigate through it properly and that you are providing enough valuable content and a way for them to get in touch with you.
  2. High volume content output: Quality is better than quantity. Blogging once per week with high value content is better than publishing a blog per day with boring content.
  3. Buying social media followers: Buying social media followers is never a good strategy. You would be spending money on something that would likely never turn into revenues. It is better to grow your audience organically, connecting with people who are potential customers and are highly engaged with your content.
  4. Social media ads… without a content strategy: As a marketing tactic, social media ads have become a necessity for certain platforms (we see you Facebook). However, there is no point in spending money on social media ads without making sure that when you send people to your page you have some great content on there for them to read. A content strategy will ensure that your social media ad spend will get you the results you want.
  5. Being on every social media platform: People think they need to be on as many platforms as possible so they can be found, but it doesn’t make sense to be on five social media platforms if you aren’t going to be active on all of them. It’s better to have a smaller digital footprint and be on one social media platform and do it really well than it is to be on many without success. Stick to whatever you can handle otherwise you won’t enjoy it and you just won’t do it.
  6. Having multiple accounts on one social media platform: For large corporations with multiple product lines and a marketing team, having multiple accounts on each social media platform could make sense. If you’re a small business, those multiple accounts cost you time and money. Chances are you won’t be able to maintain multiple accounts while providing any value for your audience. Consolidate into one account and create a solid content strategy that will help you get your message across.
  7. Print ads: Depending on your industry and target audience, print can be great. However, if you have a limited budget, print ads are the last thing you should be spending money on. They are expensive and it is harder for you to track their effectiveness. If you have a large marketing budget and you can allot a portion to print ads, then it is great – but make sure you have a way to track it.
  8. Untargeted paid digital ads: Ads are easy to get wrong without a strategy. If you are paying to reach people, take the time to target the right Otherwise you will waste your time and money. And if you don’t know who your target audience is, it’s time to step away from the paid ads and create your buyer personas to build a target audience that makes sense.
  9. Untargeted Direct Mailouts: It can be hard to make a case for direct mail these days in a digital world. While it might make sense in some industries depending on your target audience (maybe they’re just not that into social media!), most people just recycle those carefully designed materials when they show up in their mailbox or at the door. If you do choose to do a direct mail out, make sure you are targeting properly geographically and tactically. Only do it if it makes sense for your audience.
  10. Generic press releases: Press releases are a great way to keep track of official stakeholder announcements for corporate communications or general announcements. However, if you are looking to put together a media relations strategy, you should rely more on individualized pitches that are more story based so you can tailor your pitch to each media contact. Sending out a blanket press release won’t get you the coverage you are looking for.

Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive, but you should invest in a strategy that will allow you to grow your business successfully.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Sign up for our free 20-minute consultation and we’ll help you figure things out.

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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5 tips for getting more from your summer marketing

It’s almost here! Summer. It can be frustrating for small business owners as it often comes with a slow down in sales as people just start taking it easy.

While there are no magic solutions, there are things you can do to overcome the summer business slump. Here are 5 tips for getting more from your summer marketing strategy.

#1: Work with what you’ve got

If you had a summer marketing strategy last year, figure out what worked and what didn’t. As yourself questions like:

  • How engaged were your customers with your social media campaigns?
  • Did you have good follow through and brand recall after events and sponsorship opportunities?
  • What was general customer sentiment?

Make sure you’re building metrics into your strategies so you can track your successes. You can recycle strategies and tactics that worked well but find a creative way to keep it fresh for the upcoming summer. And you can avoid the things that just didn’t work.

#2: Try something new

If you didn’t have a summer marketing strategy last year, or perhaps it just didn’t work well overall, or maybe you are just adventurous, you might just want to try something new this year. Summer is a great time to step out of your comfort zone but remember that anything you choose to do should fit with what your audience would want. There is no reason to try something new unless you think it will bring positive results.

#3: Connect with the community

There is so much community activity in the summer you should really focus on building experiences rather than sales tactics. Whether you look at sponsorship opportunities for sports teams or community events, or even creating your own event, find ways to connect on a more personal level to build solid relationships that will continue throughout the rest of the year.

The idea is that you need to focus on brand recall through positive interactions rather than a hard sales technique. Just have fun with your marketing. Your target audience will respond will to it.

#4: Focus “snackable” content

People generally have less time to consume content in the summer, so you have to really grab their attention with quick and easy to digest content. A great way to do that is to focus more on visual content for your digital channels. Think snackable content with lots of images or even video or audio.

You can easily do this by doing things like:

  • Posting more images on social media with shorter captions, or even memes with no captions;
  • Doing vlogs (video blogs) instead of written blogs;
  • Do How To blogs that take you through step by step with images and less words;
  • Start a podcast; or
  • Create downloadable content so it can be consumed offline (at the cottage!).

#5: Pick a theme for your summer strategy

Get your audience invested in your summer marketing strategy by picking a theme that they can follow. If you pick a theme and tell a story around it using tactics that build on each other throughout the summer, you can create forward momentum even at a time of year that is normally slow.

Summer doesn’t have to be a tough time for your business, you just have to be proactive in creating a summer strategy that makes sense.

 

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Check out our Brand and Business Strategy Package to set you up for business success!

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications blog.

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5 Common Social Media Mistakes

While social media has become an important marketing tool, so many brands forget that it should be a social tool first and foremost. It’s a chance for brands to connect with their target audiences.

Low social media engagement can be frustrating. But, before you get too frustrated and throw in the towel, have a look at some of the most common mistakes brands make on social media to see if you can turn things around.

Here are 5 mistakes you might be making on social media.

#1: You’re too focused on the sale

If you are constantly talking about yourself through a continuous hard sell of your products/services, your target audience will quickly lose interest. It’s not very authentic – or interesting – if all you do is talk about yourself!

To avoid making this mistake, develop your content strategy with audience engagement in mind. If you set out to connect with people, you will find that your loyal brand community will grow. Two things to consider are:

  • User-generated content where you post content that your audience submits.
  • Curated content from third party sources acknowledges other viewpoints.

#2: Ignoring the comment section

In spite of the fact that studies show that 70% of people are more likely to stick with a brand if they respond on social media (and not with a copy and paste response!), brands ignore a staggering 89% of inquiries on social media. As a small business owner, you are probably trying to run your business and your marketing on your own. It can be easy to let things slip through the cracks, but you don’t want to lose customers.

Social media is all about connection and dialogue. Whether on purpose or not, you should never leave a comment unanswered. If you’re having trouble keeping on top of it, schedule 15 minutes every day to sit down with your online community and answer any questions or comments.

#3: Not providing value

If you are just posting for the sake of posting, you are likely just adding to the wall of noise that social media has become. It’s likely not going to attract the audience you had intended – if you attract anyone at all!

Remember, you are on social media for the benefit of your customers, which means you should be posting about things they want to hear about. Keep up on the trends within your industry and listen for questions that come up frequently about your products/services. You might even try asking your followers what they want to hear about.

#4: Focusing on size, not quality

The number of followers you have means nothing if they aren’t converting into customers and if your overall engagement is low. More isn’t always better. If your goal is merely to gain more followers on social media, you’re doing it wrong.

Instead, focus on building a community. If you have a highly engaged community on social media, it’s not going to matter as much if the number fluctuates a bit. You will notice an upward steady growth trend in your following, your engagement, and your revenues.

#5: Wrong place, wrong time

You set up your social media platforms based on their popularity and you are putting out content regularly, but the strategy just isn’t getting any traction… at all. Have you considered that your target audience doesn’t use the platforms you chose? If your target audience isn’t on a specific platform, why are you?

Do your research before starting any marketing strategy. In terms of your social media, figure out on which platforms your target audience uses.

As you are building or trouble-shooting your social media strategy, keep these common mistakes in the back of your mind. Remember that you should be having fun with your social media strategy because it is all about building a brand community of people.

 

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Check out our Social Media Starter Kit to help you get started on Social Media!

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6 Tips For Better Business Social Media Profiles

It’s kind of hard to connect with your target audience if you’re not on social media. While the case could be made that if you are hyper local you could get away with no social media strategy, most businesses need to have some sort of digital footprint. However, you need to make sure you are doing social media in a way that is going to help you reach your overall marketing and business goals.

To get your strategy started the right way, you need to make sure you have your profiles set up properly. They need to be user-friendly and memorable. But how do you do that?

Here are six ways you can make the most of your social media profiles on each platform.

Make it easy to find you

Instinctively, users will type in @[company name] to tag brands or to find specific profiles. Keep your handle (AKA user name) simple and use your brand name if it’s not already taken. If it is, find come up with something related and creative. Once you settle on a handle, use it across all of your profiles (where possible) to create consistency.

Avoid just adding on random numbers, symbols, or punctuation to differentiate yourself because your handle will become too obscure and hard to find. Also, it doesn’t look very professional if your handle is @Widgets1234.

Create a visual brand identity

While each social media platform uses visuals differently, you can still have a cohesive, consistent visual style on each. So while your content may differ, your audience has the same experience across platforms.

When selecting your profile image, find something that represents your brand well. If you are a company, use your logo, your product, or your mascot. If you are an individual expert, use your headshot or a professional lifestyle shot. Once you select an image, use the same one across platforms. This will help with brand recall and recognition.

Your cover photo can be different, but you want to make sure that it is in keeping with your visual brand style.

Be descriptive, but cut the extras

Don’t make people guess what you do when they read your profile. Use your brand and industry keywords when filling out your about and description fields to keep it simple and get to the point.

It’s not necessary to use hashtags in your profile set up unless it’s related to a specific campaign you are running and that you want to add extra visibility to – but use them for sure in your regular content on the right platforms!

Be thorough

You don’t want to fill your social media profiles with fluff content, but you do want to get as much detail in there as possible. So, make sure you don’t leave any relevant fields blank when setting up your social media profiles. Some social media platforms give you the opportunity to include much more information than others, so take the time to set up your content properly. And don’t be afraid to change up your profile content to keep it fresh. It could be as simple as putting a featured link on your Instagram profile to showcase new blog content.

Cross-promote your social media platforms

You can absolutely ask for followers on one social media platform to follow you on another. The key is that you need to make sure you are posting different and valuable content on each platform to give them incentive to follow you in more than one place.

In some cases, you can actually add your other social platforms to the profile content itself (ie. On Facebook), but in other cases, posting a simple link to your other profiles can get you more traffic.

Be reachable

While this might seem obvious, make sure all of your links and your emails work. Put in your website, email, phone number, etc. The easier it is to get a hold of you, the more likely your customers are to call.

Social media doesn’t have to be difficult, especially if you take the time to make sure your profiles are set up for success on each social media platform.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

Check out our Social Media Starter Kit to help you get started on Social Media!

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5 Tips For Creating Better Content in 2019

Content will always be royalty when it comes to marketing. (Even if you don’t like hearing “content is king” because it’s overused!) You can showcase your brand in the right way and maintain a certain amount of control over how you appear to your audience if you create content in the right ways. Now that we are officially into 2019, you should be looking for ways to boost your marketing efforts to have an even better year than last year.

It is beneficial to your business if you can make content work for you. You can have increased website traffic, search engine visibility, increased referral traffic, increased social media engagement, and establish yourself as the go-to expert in your field.

Here are five ways to make content work even better for you in 2019.

#1: Go visual

As the way we consume content shifts towards more video and easily digestible forms of content, the visual aspect of your content strategy is now more important than ever. You should look to incorporate more videos, infographics, imagery, and other visual forms into your strategy. If you write a regular blog (hint: you should!), consider incorporating accompanying graphics and video. This makes your content both easier to consume, but also to share on various platforms.

#2: Think evergreen

Evergreen content is content that is not time sensitive. It can be shared sometimes for years to come (often with minor tweaks!). To incorporate evergreen content into your strategy, create a list of potential evergreen topics that are relevant to your industry – and your audience. You can introduce these topics via your blog, your social channels, your website content, and any place you interact with your audience.

#3: Think across platforms

While you shouldn’t share identical content across all marketing channels, you can utilize certain content to enhance your overall strategy on each channel. For example, your latest blog post can be promoted across all of your channels, but you would utilize different content for each:

  • On Facebook, you could create an update that is designed to generate dialogue through its conversational tone and include a link preview.
  • On Instagram, you could create a series of images for a multi-image post that highlight the key takeaways and direct people to a link in your bio.
  • On Twitter, you could use those key takeaway images from Instagram, but spread them out over a few weeks.
  • On LinkedIn, you could include a call to action for business owners to share their frustrations regarding the topic.

People consume content differently on each platform and your strategy should reflect that.

#4: Focus on dialogue, not sales

Whether you are looking at developing a social media strategy or you are looking at other forms of marketing, remember that relationships and dialogue should be the cornerstone of your activities. If you are doing a good job communicating with your target audience, you should be able to easily funnel them through your sales channels without aiming for a hard sell every time.

#5: Listen to your audience

This one might seem obvious, but it can be easy to get stuck in the constant content churn – you know you should be putting out content, so you just keep putting it out blindly whether anyone is reading it or not. At this point, you are just creating noise and not really providing any value. It’s a waste of your time. You should make sure you are writing content that your audience will read and respond to in a way that is beneficial to your overall business goals. To ensure you are providing valuable content, take the time to ask what your audience wants to hear about from you. You can also look at conversations on social media to gain insights.

Content is an important part of your marketing and sales strategy. As you are getting ready to take on 2019, build yourself a content strategy that will give you the best chance at successful growth.

Candace Huntly is Founding Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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2019 Marketing Strategy Planning Checklist

It’s year end. While for many that means a bit of a holiday break between Christmas and New Year’s as well as an end to the fiscal year, not enough business owners think about what it means for their marketing strategy. Year end is a great time for you to figure out what worked and what didn’t so you can set yourself up for success in 2019.

Here is a planning checklist to help you get your marketing strategy in order for 2019:

  • Market analysis: Start by identifying any trends that are driving growth in your industry. This will ensure you are keeping up with how your industry is shifting. Once you have identified how the industry is shifting, figure out what your competitors are up to with their marketing strategies and how your audience is responding to them.
  • Audit your brand: While you don’t need to go through a rebrand every year, you do need to make sure that your brand message is still relevant to your audience. It could be that you have changed your focus since the beginning of last year to follow industry trends, or perhaps you shifted your focus to cater to your audience’s changing needs.
  • Define your marketing goals: Before setting your goals for 2019, you need to identify whether you achieved your goals from last year. It’s the idea that you need to look back before looking forward. If you didn’t achieve your goals, figure out why and set more achievable goals for the upcoming year. If you did achieve your goals, make sure you are pushing yourself to go further in 2019. And remember to make your goals measurable so you can figure out when you are successful.
  • Set metrics: Once you have defined your marketing goals, you need to figure out how you will measure your success. If your goals were measurable, it’s a matter of selecting the appropriate metrics to track along the way. You also need to figure out how often you will prepare reports to measure your progress. At the very least, you should track your metrics once per month. If you are running an important tactic or trying something new, it might be good to do weekly check-ins.
  • Choose your tactics: Figure out how you will reach your target audience in 2019. It could be through things that are already in place, but perhaps you want to try something new. At this stage, think beyond your budget. You can include things on here that might be out of your budget now, but could be considered as future options.
  • Set your budget: Were you on budget in 2018? Perhaps there were things that cost more than you thought they would? Now that you can figure out the answers to those questions you can set your budget for your 2019 marketing strategy. Knowing what your goals are you should be able to pinpoint if there are areas you want to increase your spending. It’s important to be realistic about your marketing budget so you don’t spread yourself too thin, but you also want to give yourself enough of a budget to invest so you can achieve results that will allow you to grow.
  • Set your timeline: Prioritize your chosen tactics and select those that you can both afford to do and have time to do this year. Then create a timeline for the year of when you will use your chosen tactics. Basically, this is a snapshot of your overall marketing plan for the year.
  • Set milestones: Now that you have your overall plan in place and the timing of your marketing tactics, set smaller checkpoints along the way. This will help to keep you on track throughout the year. It will also indicate the steps needed to help you achieve your marketing goals.
  • Create your content strategy: Before developing a content strategy, you need to figure out how much you can handle. The idea is that you want to be consistent with the content you are putting out there. Your audience will come to expect certain things from you. Create an editorial calendar for your blogging and set up scheduling for your social media content.
  • Update your website: Year end is a great time for a content refresh on your website, especially if you have tweaked your brand messaging at all. You can also review the design of your website to make sure it is not out of date. It might just be time for a redesign!

A new year is a chance for you to start fresh for your marketing strategy, but you want to make sure you are starting off on the right foot.

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take company and expert brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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As A Business Owner, Your Personal Profile Matters

As a business owner, your personal profile matters more than you might think. When it comes down to

it, as a small business owner, you are your brand. Like it or not, what you say even when you’re not speaking on behalf of your company will reflect on your business reputation.

You likely already have a presence online that you are building (hello,it’s 2018, this should be a no brainer!) or maybe you want to expand your current network through events and other face-to-face meetings. Regardless, here are a two things to take into account as you build your profile.

Always be aware of potential connections

You never know who knows who or the quality of their relationship if they are a mutual acquaintance. So, if you are thinking of badmouthing someone, one of three things could happen:

  1. The person you are speaking to actually likes this acquaintance and you have just offended them.

      2. The person you are speaking to really doesn’t like this acquaintance either and you have just bonded over                      something really negative.

      3. The person you are speaking to feels very uncomfortable and thinks,͞ “if you can so easily talk about them, are                 you badmouthing me as well to others?”

͟In all three cases, you have just opened your mouth (or let your fingers fly over the keyboard) without knowing what the response will be, and in all three cases you get a negative out come. Even though you bonded in #2, do you really want to get a reputation like that?

Your values should align with how you want others to see your business.

Put out what you want to get back

The way you interact with others says a lot about your personality. We have all heard about employers or clients who like to see how someone treats serving staff before making a final decision on whether to work together.

Consider also that having a politically charged, intelligent discussion is very different than ranting about our disgust of a specific political leader. It could make you seem like one of those conspiracy theorists who is a little unstable. Or how about that time when you unleashed your anger via a 10-tweet rant directed at a company because they treated you poorly?

If you focus on negativity, you’ll find that people will stop wanting to work with you because of it. When it comes to social media, customers have direct access to your online activity–and they will check you out before buying from you. This doesn’t mean you can’t be authentic when building your personal profile, but when it comes to  inappropriate messaging that could be seen as offensive or hurtful, think about whether it will give the right impression.

We all wish that our personal and professional lives could be kept separate. While it can be possible to do so, with the professional world increasingly moving digital, it makes it quite difficult. The solution is to be more self-aware and think twice about what you say before you say it.

Candace Huntly is Founder and Partner at SongBird Marketing Communications, an award-winning agency working to take organizational and individual brands to the next level. With a passion for all things related to creativity and strategy, she specializes in business intelligence, marketing & branding, content strategy & development, media & influencer relations, and social media. Basically, if you need to put your brand, product, or cause in the public eye, she will find a way to do it, while making the approach unique to you.

Connect with Candace

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