Have you been stumped on how to grow your social media following and therefore grow your business? Maybe you’re posting regularly, highlighting your product or service with great photos, adding Stories, and yet still, your following doesn’t really seem to be growing and you don’t seem to be gaining any new customers from it.

So what gives? The most important question to ask yourself is…

Are You Someone Worth Following?

This can be a hard question to answer for yourself without any bias. So maybe grab a few trusted friends and talk through the following questions:

What value do you add to your followers’ feeds?
When looking through your feed, do you see that you just talk about and sell your products/services all the time?
Do you give away anything of value or any expertise?

Now that you’ve thought through these a bit, let’s get into what things we’ve seen followers value on Instagram.

What Makes Someone Valuable on Social Media?

The term “value” can mean something different to everyone. For some it may mean financial incentive for your social media following through exclusive deals or giveaway. For others it may mean valuable information or expertise in the form of helpful tips and tricks. While for others it’s a personal connection to another business owner through a behind-the-scenes look at you and your business.

While value can mean many different things to different people, we’ve put together a short list of some things that are considered universally valuable across a wide audience.

1. Get Personal

Owning a business can sometimes feel really lonely! No one ever truly prepares you for how much entrepreneurship takes over your whole life. So providing a behind the scenes look into your life and your business can be really valuable for other business owners. Share your wins, your losses, and the lessons learned, because chances are, someone who follows you has been through it or will go through it at some point! Social media really is about connection after all.

2. Answer Questions

A great idea is to keep track of the most frequently asked questions, then spotlight and respond to one at least weekly on your social media platforms. You can even make this interactive through Instagram Stories. Once a week or once a month (whatever you have time for), you can put up a Question Box in your Story and then do either a Live Q&A or answer each question in a separate Story.
Pro tip— Also add some of those to your main feed with a great photo!

3. Hold Contests & Give Special Discounts

It’s a great idea to host giveaways and contests exclusive to your social media followers. Offer a special discount every now and then in your Stories or create a contest in the comment section of a post. This gives your followers an incentive to make sure they check your content regularly and not just scroll past.

Pro Tip— Team up with other local businesses for your giveaways. This helps grow both of your followings. And local businesses supporting each other is just amazing on every level.

4. Involve Your Online Community

Your social media following can be really useful to you in helping you learn and grow professionally. Ask your community their opinion. Utilize Polls in your Stories. They’re essentially a free focus group. When you involve your audience in decision making, whether it be picking a new service, a new color, or a new scent (etc, etc), they feel like they’re really a part of something they love. And community is everything online. (Have we said that already?)

You can even encourage them to post about you on their own pages (AKA: User Generated Content) by sharing tagged posts on your own feed.

5. Give Away *Some* Knowledge

We’re not saying to give away all your hard-earned secrets or proprietary information, but it is important to give your followers some value through education or tips & tricks you’ve learned along the way. Pick some 3000-foot-level tips to share regularly. Get your audience wanting more! We’ve actually found the more you share, the more some people value your expertise enough to contact you and become a client!

A Few Don’ts Before You Go

Now that we’ve talked about what TO do, we feel the need to mention just a few things NOT to do.

1. Don’t just show your products— As we briefly mentioned earlier, followers come to social media to ENGAGE with you, not just to be sold to. If you’re only sharing product info and photos, people may get sick of it after a few months.

2. Don’t spam— If you post too much, especially in Stories, people will become numb to them, then annoyed by them, and then unfollow your account. So post regularly, but make sure those tick marks aren’t little dots day after day.

3. Don’t post “canned” captions— People want to engage with REAL people with actual personalities, not Instagram bots. So be sure to show them a real idea of who you actually are. Canned captions are not only basic, but they actually may trigger the algorithm as non-unique content, which the algorithm doesn’t like.

Conclusion

If you don’t have time to do a lot on social media, that’s okay. Something is better than nothing. The most important thing to remember is not to JUST sell. If you can only create 10 posts a month, make sure they have diverse content and provide something worth a follow. And as always, if reading this stresses you out more than it helps, we’re here to take this off your plate!

Content Marketing is something a lot of people talk about. It’s a buzz word in the marketing industry, but what does it actually mean?

Have you ever built a website? Did you write your own website content? If so, did you feel like you were just taking a stab in the dark? Or did you feel extremely confident in your content, only to find your website wasn’t getting traffic or converting leads?

We’ve found that in many cases, our clients have written a lot of content that never actually gets read or doesn’t convert, and they’ve been left feeling frustrated. So, we’ve come up with 3 steps to create content that actually gets seen AND actually sells.

1. Find Out What Are Your Customers Actually Searching For

Search is a great tool people use for finding products and services they need, and businesses have spent years trying to figure out how to easily be found on search engines.

Search is also a great channel for you, as a business owner, to figure out what your customers want and how they’re searching for it.

Do you know what terms your target audience is actually searching for when looking for someone in your field? Do you know what problem or pain point they are trying to solve? What is prompting their specific searches?

You can actually use Google Trends to discover what keyphrases and keywords people are using when they search for various topics. You can input a keyword or phrase, and Google will tell you how many people are searching for that phrase and will show you a list of related phrases.

One quick example: we worked with a Managed Service Partner who was looking to improve their website SEO. What we found when looking through their website analytics was that most people who were searching for what they provide didn’t actually know or use the terms “MSP” or “Managed Service Provider.” But people were actually searching for “Outsourced IT.” So we were able to help them adjust their content for their site (not to mention their Adwords) to be more tailored to what their audience was searching for. Suddenly, they saw a spike in website rankings, which significantly increased traffic!

2. Have The Information Your Potential Customers Need Once They Get To Your Site

Finding out what people are searching for so you can build your content around that is just the first, although arguably most important step in improving your website traffic and conversions. Once you’ve done the research on what keywords and topics are commonly searched in your field, you can begin to write out your website content based on that.

When writing your website copy, it’s important to write it from the perspective of what your target audience is actually searching for, especially for SEO purposes. It’s also a great opportunity to educate visitors about information they don’t know by answering their questions before they even think to ask them.

Lastly, and this is important— it’s really important for you to write your website content in a way that someone who knows nothing about your business will understand. Of course we understand that this can sometimes be hard to do, especially if you’re an expert in your industry. So, that’s why we’re here to help!

3. Write Your Website Content So That People Outside Your Field Will Connect With It

It’s extremely important that your website content answers questions your customers are actually asking, not just using high level jargon they may not even understand. When describing your business and what you offer, do it in a way your customers can understand rather than how you might talk about it to another expert in your field.

Have you ever sat down and thought about your business from the side of someone who knows absolutely nothing about your industry or the work you do? This can sometimes be a really challenging task. That’s why getting feedback from trusted colleagues and professionals outside of your field is a good practice when it comes to content for your website!

Conclusion

Once you’ve gotten to know your customers better and listened to what they need based on your website analytics data and key search phrases, you can adjust your content in a way that catches their attention, answers their questions, and drives conversions.

If this task seems daunting or you don’t know where to start, we’re always here to help.

A brand is so much more than a color palette and a memorable logo. But what exactly a “brand” is can be confusing to a lot of people, even business owners. We get it. It’s definitely an elusive topic.

We’ve talked a lot about branding on our blog in the past—topics ranging from choosing the right name for your brand and crafting a compelling brand story to making your existing brand more memorable. But maybe you’ve been around for a while and you’re feeling like it’s time for a refresh or rebrand. Rebranding is a common task many businesses have to take on, but knowing whether and when rebranding is right for your business can be critical to your success.

What is Rebranding?

But what exactly IS a rebrand? There are a couple of different levels of rebranding—partial rebranding and full rebranding. A partial rebrand is more common for companies, while a full rebrand is rare, costly, and should only be done if absolutely necessary.

Partial Rebrand – Partial rebrands usually mean updating the company’s logo, tag line, color palette, focus, etc. This can be relatively easy because it doesn’t change the core of the company. It simply alters the company’s appearance.

Full Rebrand – On the other hand, a full rebrand can sometimes feel like starting a completely new business. A full rebrand can include things like changing the company’s name and/or what the company offers. This is far more disruptive to customers and can endanger the progress you have made so far if you don’t get it right.

Do I Need to Rebrand?

There are many different scenarios where you might realize a rebrand is necessary, whether it be confusion about what you actually do, outdated or underwhelming style, offering a new service or product that doesn’t make sense with the original brand, or merging with another company (to name a few).

So whatever you’re going through that has you thinking about the possibility of a rebrand, we’re here to help. Sometimes a rebrand is definitely necessary, but sometimes maybe it isn’t worth the effort and cost. Here’s our two cents on when to and when NOT to rebrand. Shall we?

When to Rebrand

  1. Confusion About What You Do/Offer – If you consistently receive questions about the products and/or services you offer, you may want to rebrand. Ideally, your target audience should get a sense of what you do from your brand and be drawn to you before ever contacting you.
  2. New Service Or Product Offering – If you offer a new service or product that doesn’t make sense under the original brand umbrella, that’s a great time to rebrand.
  3. Recent Merge With Another Brand – When two companies merge, or one acquires another, there are many important decisions to make. It’s critical to assess both previous brands’ values to determine the best options.
  4. Outdated or Underwhelming Style – Style trends are always changing, so don’t feel like you need to change with every ebb and flow of trends. However, a style refresh is definitely recommended at certain increments along with the evolution of your audience, society, your company, and style.

When NOT to Rebrand

  1. To Copy Your Competition – Just don’t do it. It’s important to remember that it’s a GOOD thing to differentiate from your competition, not just follow everything they do. If you don’t have something truly unique to offer, your chances of success are going to be low. Elevate what makes your company unique and communicate that with your brand.
  2. Just For The Sake Of It – All companies, no matter how successful, need to find ways to be fresh and relevant to remain competitive. However, a rebrand can be costly and can cause confusion with your customers.
  3. Negative History – You’ll hear a LOT of marketing professionals say this IS a time to rebrand. But hear us out. If you are an ethical business owner who has a great product or service and you have a negative incident that happens, that’s an opportunity to build on your brand, not just start from scratch. Most often, the best thing you can do is own your mistakes, grow, and do better. To us, rebranding feels like hiding from your mistakes, and we’re not about that life.
  4. You are Overexposed – We run into this all the time with our clients and in our own business. We look at our brand collateral, website, social media, and logo all. the. time. so it’s easy to feel overexposed to it. But just because you’re overexposed to or even growing tired of your brand doesn’t mean everyone else is!

Conclusion

If you’ve thought it through and have a legitimate reason for a partial or full rebrand, it’s important to do it both slowly and intentionally. Developing a rebranding strategy will help you successfully recreate the way customers view your brand without risking your existing momentum and/or relationships. If you thrust change upon your customers, you run the risk of them becoming confused or even resentful. Some may be really excited, but the truth is most people don’t like change. So if you do want to make a change, make sure you have a valid reason and a plan.

As always, we’re happy to answer any questions you might have. We’d love to help you with your next steps.

Podcasting has been around since 2004 but has recently gained a lot more popularity, and with good reason. Podcasting is the new talk radio. It’s where many people go for news, entertainment, and education on a long drive, a slow morning, or even a walk.

For a while, making podcasts seemed to be reserved for the few and famous voices in certain fields, but over the last year or so we’ve seen a rise in local, micro-podcasters. (Is that a term? If not, we’re inventing it.) Think of it in a similar way to how famous influencers opened the door for local, micro-influencers working with brands.

All that said, have you thought about starting a podcast as an off-shoot of your business? Not only is it a good tool to increase your following & therefore your customer base, but it’s also a way to supplement your income.

Why You Should Podcast

For both small and large businesses, podcasts can be a great opportunity to tap into an untapped market and reach an even larger audience, one that seems to be constantly ready for fresh content.

So, why should you start a podcast?

1. It’s Another Way to Reach your Target Audience – If you have educational or even entertaining content related to your field of business that would be useful to people, podcasts are a good way to deliver that content. If you want to reach more of your target audience in addition to social media or on your own blog, tapping into the podcast market is a great way to do that.

2. It’s Cost Effective – There is of course the initial cost of some audio equipment and software, but after that, podcasts are pretty inexpensive to produce. The biggest factor is usually time. So, if you have the margin to add podcasting to your monthly or weekly to-do list, the low cost associated with recording them means they could definitely have a good return on investment.

3. It Increases Your Name Recognition – We tell our clients all the time, the more you can get your company’s name out into the community, the better. Name recognition is a great way to grow your business organically. The more of a following your podcast gains, the more people will know about you and your business. Even if people don’t listen to your podcast, maybe they’ll have heard about it and think of you if there comes a time they need someone in your industry.

4. It Can Increase Your Income – Your podcast most likely won’t make tons of money right away, so make sure at first you think of it as an investment or passion project. However, if you’re patient, you can eventually earn a side income from your podcast through avenues like Patreon or even sponsored ads during your episodes once you have a solid base of listeners.

Why You Shouldn’t Podcast

1. It Would Stress You Out – It’s no secret that business owners are busy. So, if you’re already working 60 hours a week and adding another thing to your plate would stress you out, it’s not worth it!

2. You Are Too Shy – Podcasting won’t be for everyone. It takes a certain personality and skill to deliver content verbally in an engaging way. Some business owners won’t feel comfortable making the switch, and that is completely okay!

Conclusion

If you feel comfortable with your blog as a means to educate and connect with your audience, by all means, keep that up!

However, if you have the margin and personality to take your business to the next level through podcasting, we think it could be a great avenue to grow your name recognition and ultimately your income.

The COVID-19 virus is something that clearly can not be ignored. As our small business clients have asked us how they should handle this situation, our team delved into research to come up with some time-proven strategies for how businesses can best weather an international health crisis. The result of our labor is the following plan.

1. Create An INTERNAL Plan

Whether you have one employee or one hundred, you know that the success of your business depends on your team! So start by simply talking with them. Ask about their needs and concerns; then figure out how you can address those challenges. For example, you may need to adjust schedules for those who have children, as schools are unexpectedly closed. Maybe your staff just needs encouragement during this worrisome time.

Also, no matter how stringent your cleaning standards normally are, your team should adopt additional measures to ensure your business remains sanitized and safe. This can include more frequent hand washing policies and wiping surfaces with bleach more often than health code would ever require. By addressing your employees’ needs and setting expectations, they will be better equipped to continue serving your customers during this pandemic.

2. Share Your Plan EXTERNALLY

By now, your inbox has likely been flooded with emails from every corporation you have ever visited. While you may have disregarded some of them, these emails do help customers feel more confident in continuing to shop at these businesses. As a small business, you should also communicate with your customers so they know what to expect from your business during this time. Are you changing your hours or closing additional days? If not, make sure customers know you will still be there to serve them!

Also, share the updated hygiene and cleaning standards that you and your staff decided upon. People want to support small businesses, so you need to let them know how. If people can’t continue to visit your business because of COVID-19, then consider offering another option; perhaps customers could buy $50 gift cards for only $40.

Finally, consider how your business can demonstrate its commitment to the community as a whole during this time. I have seen many restaurants, such as Tropical Grille and Biscuit Head, offering free meals for children, who typically have lunch provided at school. On the other hand, a wedding dress boutique, The Poinsett Bride, committed to donate $50 to local food banks for every wedding dress they sell over the next two weeks, as many people are expecting food shortages. What can your business do to show love for the community?

3. Stay Calm

Many small business owners are afraid right now. That is to be expected. Sales are down as people stay home more, and the stock market doesn’t seem to know which way is up or down. However, things will calm back down. As business owners, we need to keep a steady hand and a positive outlook on what is to come.

If you have ever studied economics, you know that the stock market is largely dependent on emotions, often called “consumer confidence.” On a micro level, small businesses can help balance the local economy by simply offering positivity to their customers and employees. In order to show that you have confidence in your small business and the others in our community, simply continue to share on social media and serve your clients the best you can.

Once this chaos settles, you will be glad that your processes are still in place and your business can jump back in to growing and serving!

As a brand operating in 2020, it can be really easy to get caught up in your social media follower count, but we’d like to propose that even more so than followers, engagement should be your main focus. Having a ton of followers on social media is meaningless if none of them are engaging with you, telling people about you, or buying from you.

Engagement is important because it indicates whether what you’re posting is of value to your audience. And it can even affect your ability to grow your audience. Let’s dive into it…

Why Is Engagement Important?

1. The Infamous Algorithms – Facebook and Instagram both use algorithms to determine what content to show users based on a range of factors, and the most significant one is engagement. If your followers aren’t engaging with your posts, this essentially tells the algorithm that your content doesn’t resonate with your audience. And vice versa. If you get a lot of engagement, the algorithm will reward you with even more reach.

When that happens, the algorithm may end up determining that your posts are not relevant and therefore reduce your reach, meaning it will actually hide your posts from your followers. And alas, this just perpetuates the cycle of low engagement. If people aren’t seeing your posts, how can they engage with them? (How do you get out of the cycle? We’ll get there…)

2. Engagement Builds Content Builds Sales – Engagement is important because it ultimately helps build relationships that are sustainable. And building sustainable relationships with your customers is critical to the success of your sales funnel.

If your audience is engaged, it means they like you! Congrats. And a lot of times when you have an engaged audience, a really, really cool thing starts to happen— they start creating user generated content. This is the dream, y’all! When users create content about your brand of their own volition, for free, and post it to their page…. it promotes your brand to their extended network. It’s essentially free word-of-mouth advertising.

So How Can You Boost Your Engagement?

1. Interactive Stories – Give your followers a reason to engage. Stories are a super easy way to do this. Create a poll. Open up a question box. Let them in on your processes. Ask them their opinion! People want to feel a part of something, especially brands they love.

2. Calls to Action – Give your followers a reason to engage in your captions. Give them a reason to comment. Ask a question. Ask them their favorite emoji, their favorite memory of your brand, or their favorite product! Ask what they want to see more of on your page.

3. Giveaways – This one is a great way to grow your following and your engagement at the same time. Plus your followers get free stuff. In the business we call that a win-win-win. (Get it? Someone will win…the giveaway…that’s the third win. ???? We’ll see ourselves out.) Pro tip: make it easy and fun. The more steps needed, the less likely your audience will join in.

Conclusion

If you have low engagement now, you really don’t need more followers, you need more engaged followers. Building engagement takes time, so don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t happen right away. Get to it. Stick with it. And have fun! Social media is a lot better when it’s fun.

It’s been a little while since we’ve rounded up the top trends in web design, so we were eager to see how much has changed since our 2019 Web Design Trends post went live. As with any trend, some fell by the wayside this past year, while a lot of them are here to stay. Let’s take a look and see the new trends that have popped up since this time last year and which trends survived into the new decade, shall we?

Oversized Type

It looks like the oversized type trend is here to stay for now. When this design trend first hit the scene, we LOVED it, and we still do. Give us a good font any day. We’re even thinking of coining the phrase The Bigger the Type, the Closer to God. ????

Custom Illustrations

Another favorite design trend with staying power. Illustration has been slowly and steadily replacing photography-only design for the past few years, and 2020 is no exception. One evolution of this trend we’re seeing is more and more animation over simple still illustrations.

Colorblocking

Minimalist design is in, but that doesn’t mean color is out. Although we’re seeing a shift in use of color from last year with less neon, fewer bright gradients, and moving towards more solid colorblocking. Colorblocking and oversized fonts are some of our favorite budget-friendly trends, if you don’t have the money for new professional photography or a custom illustration.

Color blocking is a great way to break up content on your website to not only make the content more visually engaging, but to also to give visual priority to the content you want your visitors’ eyes to go to first.

Accessibility

Probably our favorite trend that we HOPE isn’t just a trend, but truly a lasting shift in making the internet accessible to those with disabilities. Simply put, accessibility is making sure that your website or app works for the physically disabled, whether they’re blind, deaf, a paraplegic, an amputee, or they have some other physical impairment that makes it difficult or impossible for them to use a computer in the traditional way.

Designing with disabilities and limitations in mind isn’t the easy path, but it’s a rewarding one, for sure! We have a whole blog post on this subject, and you can read it here!

Exposed Grid & Windows

While “throwback” design isn’t new, exposed grids are a new, cheeky trend that doesn’t take design too seriously and gives a fun nod to the early days of the internet. We’re seeing a lot of rectangles and lines dividing up websites into sections. What do you guys think of this trend?

Conclusion

As you can see, this year’s trends are really easy to mix & match and a lot of the above website examples are rocking multiple trends at once. All in all 2020 trends don’t differ too greatly from last year’s, with the exception of the fun, throw-back 90’s style web design. That seems like one that may be a fast fad, but we love it nonetheless. However, one trend we hope is not only here to stay, but grows more and more traction— and that’s accessibility. We love that the internet is becoming more user friendly and accessible to everyone! Knowledge is power.

Gone are the days of pushy, hard-sell advertising focused purely on a transaction. Most people are put off by and will forget a traditional ad several hours later, if not sooner. In today’s market, consumer decisions are largely based on whether or not they feel personally invested in a company.

That’s why connecting with your audience through a brand story is so important. Your brand story opens the door to connect authentically and engage people on a deeper level. Connection— isn’t that what makes stories so powerful? And today’s consumers don’t just want a transaction. They want to feel like they are a part of a larger narrative even when shopping. (If that in and of itself is as interesting to you as it is to us, you can read a little bit about that in last month’s blog as well.)

So, if this brand story is so important, we should probably tell you what it is, right?

What is a Brand Story?

A brand story defines the purpose of your business to consumers. It’s a thoughtful narrative that shares both facts and feelings associated with your brand. Unlike traditional advertising, which is essentially just show and tell, your story is meant to inspire connection.

Your “story” is always unfolding, meaning that it’s not wrapped up into a 3-minute inspirational video or explained quickly in an Instagram caption. Instead, it should be told as part of your communication strategy. And every time you communicate with your customers (whether that be on social media, through email, or in video), pieces of your story are shared.

Okay, so now you know what it is. Let’s talk about some key elements of a good one.

It’s Not About You

We’re not about to bust out a chorus of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” or anything… But when it comes to your brand story, really it should be MORE about your customers than about you. That can seem confusing. So let’s break it down.

Even though your story is about your business’s purpose and values, its purpose is for those values to resonate with consumers in a way they not only associate with, but they also adopt as their own story.

You know you have a really compelling brand story when consumers start to proudly represent your brand and tell the story as if it’s their own, and even market it themselves via word-of-mouth, whether in person or via their own social media.

We know what you’re thinking. That sounds cool. So how do you craft such a compelling brand story?

How to Write a Brand Story

The most relatable brand stories address an origin, a struggle, a set of values, a fix, and a transformation. So, think back to your business’s beginnings to find a story that can resonate with your audience.

1. Take it Back to the Beginning – What made you get started? What is the purpose of your business?
2. Highlight the Conflict – What problem(s) did you find people had that needed solving via your product or service? Where was        the gap in the market?
3. Be the Hero – How did you solve their problem? What makes you different than your competition?
4. Share the Wins – How has your product or service transformed people’s lives or made them better? What are they saying about you?

Keep it Consistent

A strong brand story is consistent across every channel. No matter where a consumer is introduced to your brand, the story should be the same. A great way to know if your brand story is consistent is to remove your logo from all of your materials and channels. Would your audience still know it was from your brand? Don’t just rely on your logo; every piece of content you produce should contain the essence of your brand story.

Create Connection

Remember, a brand story is all about connection. A great way to connect is to share success stories and re-share anything your audience is saying/posting about you on their own channels. If a customer is sharing about your brand, they already feel connected to you, so that’s great! Re-sharing their content takes the connection even further. It makes them feel seen and heard, which is one of the best ways to create a loyal customer in today’s market.

A good product gets them in the door; genuine connection is what makes them stay.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, you can spend thousands of dollars on marketing, social media, and content creation, but all of that can fall flat without a solid brand story. By creating and implementing a compelling brand story, you can increase your engagement and earn the loyalty of your audience.

The very first thing we do with our clients is always to figure out their target demographic, AKA their ideal customer (which we talked about in this marketing blog, if you want a refresher). This is such an important step because, depending on who you want to reach, the way you go about it will be completely different. If 75% of your clients are Baby Boomers… odds are, SnapChat is a waste of time, but ads on search engines and targeted email campaigns are a great place to focus your marketing efforts. If your target audience is Millennials or Gen Z, you virtually HAVE to be on Instagram. But we’ll get to more of that later… Basically, before you do anything else, you need to figure out who you are currently selling to and also who you want to reach, then determine where those people are buying products or booking services: digitally or in-store? And if digitally, what platforms are they using?

Where Is Your Target Customer?

One thing is true across every generation—consumers are buying online. According to a recent study, 2/3 of Millennials prefer buying online vs. in-store. While Gen X is about 50/50, and Baby Boomers are 60/40 in favor of buying in-store over online.

So everyone is online, but where exactly are they? The term “online” is too vague for today’s world. Where are they buying? Social media? Amazon? Google? Email?

Social Media use is declining across the board with Millennials and Gen Z except on one platform: Instagram. Gen Z is also continually present on SnapChat. However, Gen X is the most active on Facebook, while Boomers are also active on Facebook but make many of their purchasing decisions from emails or results on search engines.

While numbers may be down, Millennials and Gen Z are still absolutely using social media, mainly Instagram, to purchase products. And Gen X and Baby Boomers are also on social media, but they’re less likely to use it as a tool for shopping decisions. So where are the older generations purchasing online?

Here’s a closer look at different statistics and strategies by generation:

Baby Boomers

Many people assume Baby Boomers don’t buy online, which couldn’t be further from the truth. They absolutely do. In fact, the top 3 ways to reach them are television, search engines, and email marketing. Baby Boomers are actually way more likely to purchase from search results on Google or Bing than from social media.

While print-based direct marketing is often used to target Baby Boomers, recent studies show that they aren’t engaging with direct mail and brochures/catalogs like they used to. Print materials and radio are no longer likely to get Baby Boomers to move online to learn more. However, television has still been found more effective in getting Baby Boomers to find out more information about what they saw, and then purchase online.

So, if your target audience is between the ages of 55 and 75, you should absolutely be upping your SEO and email marketing strategies and using your marketing budget there rather than on print collateral or social media ads.

Gen X

Generation X is a fancy name for people born between 1965 & 1980. This generation has way fewer people than Millennials or Baby Boomers… but don’t count them out. Even though they’re a smaller generation, they have huge purchasing power. On average, their income is higher than the national average as well as the averages of all the other generations.

Gen X-ers still have a fondness of traditional TV and newspapers, but they also research online. So, if you’re running TV commercials or even newspaper ads, you’ll still want to make sure your online presence is strong. If your online presence is weak, Gen X won’t buy.

Here are some recent Gen X statistics:

Since such a high percentage of Generation X-ers use Facebook, this is the social media platform to use to market to them.

One great thing about Gen X-ers is that they are extremely brand loyal. So, if you can get them in the door and give them a good experience, they will stay.

Here’s a tip—make sure to reward loyalty in some way, whether it’s a discount or fee item after a certain amount of purchases, or just with a nice thank you email. This will go a long way with Gen X.

Millennials

So, how do you get and keep the ever elusive Millennials?

Well, we can tell you for sure that sales isn’t it. Millennials are a tough crowd to please, and if you push too hard for a sale, they’re bound to pull away, because most Millennials are turned off by traditional sales and ads.

Millennials are definitely not going to be “sold to” easily. They need to believe in something to purchase it. And Millennials, more than any other generation, use multiple sources of information to form their opinions. For example, they’ll look to reviews, comments, friends’ opinions, and more to decide what products they can trust.

Millennials love to be involved and feel a part of a community with a brand. They often want to feel they are a part of co-creating something useful or relevant.

So find ways to include them…. Ask their advice via Instagram comments, engage in polls in your Instagram Stories. Maybe do a giveaway or contest for the best idea. Millennials will give you GREAT ideas, and they’ll also feel a part of a community. That’s a huge win for both of you.

So, whether you grab their attention via Instagram, Facebook, or email marketing, Millennials want to know your “why.” They want to hear your story because that’s largely what draws them in. Once you’ve drawn them in, they’ll stay if you continue to offer them great customer service and a great product.

Influencer Marketing is a great way to catch them because the influencer is often sharing your story with them as well as a personal note about why they love the product or service. Here’s a recent article on Influencer Marketing if you want to learn more about that. Influencer marketing is a new word of mouth tactic that has worked very well with Millennials and Gen Z. Additionally, brand ambassador programs are hugely effective if positioned correctly.

Gen Z

Speaking of Gen Z, AKA anyone born between 1996 and 2010, it is a BIG generation, outnumbering Millennials by about a million. Gen Z is also the first truly digital generation from birth. Gen Z-ers spend almost 75% of their leisure time online. Let. That. Sink. In. That’s a lot of time! They’re constantly bombarded by content and advertising and have been their whole lives, so a lot of it can easily become white noise.

Gen Z, more than any other generation, sees technology as a tool for social change. Unlike Millennials who have historically complained online, Gen Z makes moves.

Gen Z wants to change the world, and brands will need to take note. Social and environmental causes have been a big deal for Millennials, but they are almost necessary for Gen Z. Think sea turtles and plastic straws. Gen Z has made HUGE moves in changing brands, and we aren’t talking small companies. We’re talking Starbucks, American Airlines, and United to name a few.

All this to say, marketers must think about social causes when engaging with Gen Z-ers. They want to know you care about waste, fair wages, sustainability, and other causes. So show them that you do.

They’re not reading the paper or watching cable… but you can grab them on SnapChat, Tik Tok, and Instagram. And get some influencers on board with your team.

Conclusion

So again, where are your people? Go there. What works for one age can make another one run, so learn about them and meet them where they’re at. Here’s a recent article that highlights the amount of time each generation is spending on different platforms.

And as always, if you need help, you know where to find us. ????

“Influencer” is a huge buzz word lately. Some see it as a career, some as a joke, and others don’t really know what it means. Simply put, an influencer is someone who either gets paid to promote a product or service on their own social media channels, or someone who trades free goods/services for the same promotion. The bigger an influencer’s following, the more money they can potentially make. But what do influencers have to do with small business?

Using a micro-influencer—or in other words a niche influencer with fewer than 100,000 followers—could be a great marketing tool for your small business, depending on your industry. For example, we probably wouldn’t recommend anyone in professional services to use an influencer. However, a business selling physical products or services like estheticians, gyms, boutiques, and restaurants could greatly benefit from working with a micro-influencer.

It’s a newer marketing tactic, but one that seems to have a pretty good ROI, depending on the influencer you choose. Face it, word of mouth is the hands down best marketing there is with the best ROI (AKA: $Free.99). We happen to think that done correctly, working with an influencer could be a close second. After all, it is much like word of mouth, just with an added exchange of goods and/or money. Most people are more likely to use a product or service someone recommends over just simply seeing an ad. The combination of the two is also a great double exposure, but that’s a different blog for a different time. ????

Types of Micro-influencers

1. Media Companies – There are a few media companies that utilize Instagram here locally in Greenville that we absolutely love. Their Instagram pages have a large, extremely local audience. So they’re a great asset to small businesses. A feature of your product/service could get a ton of local exposure using one of these. These are usually paid for and priced by the amount and type of posts you get.

2. Industry-Specific Influencers – These are influencers who focus on a single niche and stick to promotions and sponsorships that fit with their brand image. Athletes and beauty bloggers are a great example of an industry specific influencer. These influencers usually have fewer followers, but because their reach is so targeted, they can be a great fit for companies in their industry.

3. General Influencers & Bloggers – These are people who have a more broad audience and a more broad type of post/content that they offer. Their following usually comes from their public status. Typically these influencers focus on a few industries or interest areas, as opposed to just one. Both general influencers and industry specific influencers can be paid per post, or offered a trade/free goods and/or services in exchange for a post (and that largely depends on the size of their following, no pun intended. ????)

So, how do you know which person/type of person to work with? Or should you even work with an influencer at all? We’re here to help! Picking the right influencers is all based on a few signs of how well they do their job.

How to Choose A Micro-Influencer

1. Engagement – Do the influencer’s followers seem legit? Are they local? Real people? Are they regularly engaged on their posts? Thankfully, Instagram has been cracking down on “bots” and bought followers, so that may be less common going forward, which is great for a company using an influencer! Still, it’s a good idea to make sure their following is genuine. There are a few ways to tell, but the best way is to take into account the size of their following compared to the amount of likes/comments they receive per post. If they have a ton of followers, but not many comments, chances are those followers may be purchased. And if they aren’t, they still aren’t engaged enough to take a recommendation from that person.

You want to make sure their following is engaging with their posts on a regular basis by liking and commenting, for two reasons. First, if the audience really values what this person adds to their feed enough to stop the scroll and hit like, or to take even more time to leave a comment. Now for the second reason— if the audience values that person’s content so much, that means they would also most likely value their opinion on a product/service they might be promoting. And that’s a huge plus when working with a micro-influencer!

2. Authenticity – Try not to work with someone who has bought followers, if they have more followers than engagement, they probably aren’t very authentic. Try to steer clear of someone who seems overly salesy, lacks a personal touch, and/or may be inclined to do the bare minimum for each sponsored post.

Look at their feed and stories to see if they have promoted a product or service before. Did they go above and beyond? Was it personable? Genuine? Or did it seem like they were just trying to get through it for a paycheck or free stuff?

Honestly for this one, you have to use your intuition. If you have a weird feeling about a person and think they may not uphold their end of the deal, chances are you’re right. Here’s one example of a famous influencer not really holding up their end of the trade and a company suing them for the price of the product they gave them. This obviously may not be the scale of a product/service you’d provide to a local micro-influencer, but it’s still a good lesson in choosing an influencer with integrity!

3. Potential Interest in Your Product/Service – A really easy way to find a micro-influencer who will genuinely promote your product or service is to choose one who may have a natural affinity for what you offer! If it’s a fashion blogger who wears the type of clothes you provide, she’ll probably love working with you. See a fun mommy blogger? She may really love your kid’s accessories and clothes and be so excited to trade some posts for products… after all, kids are expensive! If it’s an athlete, they may love promoting your relaxation and healing massages. And a local foodie would be perfect to snap a pic at your restaurant. Get creative!

Most people can tell if someone genuinely likes something they’re promoting, so finding someone who would naturally want what you’re selling is just a plain win-win for everyone.

Conclusion

We think using local micro-influencers could be a really good move for small businesses, but make sure you do your research and follow your gut. A big following (even a super local one) doesn’t AUTOMATICALLY mean you’ve struck gold. Make sure that person is hard working, has integrity, and is genuinely going to keep up their end of the bargain and promote your product or service to the best of their ability.

As always, if you have any questions or if you need help finding a local influencer to form a relationship with, we’d love to help! Happy influencing!