Eloise on Storytelling: The Importance of Storytelling on Social Media to Boost Your Brand Personality.

Everyone loves a good story… That’s no secret!

Whether you’re reading a book or telling someone a story about something that has happened, storytelling is a way in which you can truly capture the mind and attention of others. Storytelling has always been an essential aspect of successful marketing way before the development of the digital landscape and social media technologies, and it should be no different when it comes to building your social media strategy and social presence. To put it simply, build your brand personality on social media, engage your target audience and make an impact on conversions and growth with the simple art of storytelling.

When it comes to your social media strategy, forget about solely selling, and start thinking about sharing your brand stories, journey and values that consumers will relate to and feel connected with. Not only are consumers spending an increased amount of time on social media, consumers are also increasingly using social media platforms as a search engine and a platform to follow their favourite brands.

According to Sprout Social, earlier this year, 73% of social media users now follow a brand. It’s important to showcase your brand personality and brand story to make consumers stop and pay attention to YOU - be memorable and be interesting. It could take just one influential person to buy into your brand and share your story to open up an array of avenues for growth, awareness and a surge in engagement.

The simple art of storytelling on social media will enable you to build and share your brand personality and create an emotional connection with your audience and leave a long lasting impression. In the highly cluttered social media landscape, brands are being thrown at consumers left, right and centre so it’s important to stop and think; are you giving consumers a reason to connect with and buy into your brand? Be aware that consumers are no longer solely buying into brand or product, but rather what your brand or product stands for and symbolises. So, whether it’s about your brand, product or to launch a Christmas campaign, remember to be intimate with your online audience and tell a story.

So, in a nutshell… Social media is an extremely powerful platform with millions of users.  Use it to tell stories, build your brand and engage your audience. After all, your brand is the personality and image of your business, so don’t forget to share your story and capture the mind and attention of online consumers.

With social media storytelling on your side, your brand can have a happily ever after ending.

'The 2018 Instagram trends YOUR brand should know about - Part 1'

Times change and I am HERE for it

Instagram - oh, how times have changed. From a humble, mobile photo-sharing app to a multi- million dollar generating, ubiquitous social network, Instagram has taken over. Many lives. Probably yours, too. How else would we stalk our ex-boyfriend’s cousin’s step-sister and what she wore to her graduation?

Why has Instagram amounted to such success? Ultimately, it comes down to one thing and one thing only: Instagram has power over us. And they know how to use it.
The app and its functions impact and influence everyday users in every possible way, allow for sharing (and showing off) and supply instant entertainment AND information. Who would not want to be part of that?!

In short, Instagram basically satisfies an ongoing and advanced state of 21st-century FOMO. It let’s you be part of what is happening. Easy as that!

Therefore, Instagram and its power to impact people on a daily basis have grown to be an indispensable business tool for many, especially smaller, companies. Raising awareness and promoting your products to a wider, more global audience is now possible. A much better way to generate and push sales than hoping someone will eventually stumble across your website for holistic skincare products and ACTUALLY buy something.

Please do. HOLLA.

And now that we know Instagram is important, we need to look towards how we can make some actual DOLLA from it. If you are a business or brand that is. Trends are coming in thick and fast and we need to make sure we are supplying our audience or future audience with content they actually want to see.

Look no further, I have rounded up the most important trends for 2018 for you here.

“Following a trend is more than about riding the wave of popularity and having good timing. Following a trend is a signal boost, making your brand relevant and visible. Done well, you can harness a trend to create real results for your business or brand.”

— Canva

Cath on 'The Future of Social Media : Augmented Reality'

We have seen a rise in the past couple of years in the use of augmented reality (AR) within the social media industry. To begin with, it is important to clarify the difference between VR and AR.

VR - virtual reality describes the use of 360-degree video to take you from your current world into a virtual world.
AR - augmented reality transforms the world you are currently in by adding digital information to your line of sight i.e it enhances your current reality rather than replacing it.

It is AR which appears to be growing at a faster rate, with 25% of brands (compared to 21% for VR) expressing interest in using this technology. Brands are using their social media channels to capitalise on this growth and use it as part of their daily communication/interaction with customers. One way brands are doing this is by using AR ads to bring the product to the user, allowing the consumers to test out the product before they buy. It is believed that this
opportunity to test the product before purchase will lead to increased sales and consumer loyalty as more people would add items to their shopping basket as they would be able to make a more informed decision.

Sephora's virtual try-on tutorials

In relation to the beauty industry, AR will allow customers to visualise make-up on their skin tone and face as well as hairstyles. This can be done through an AR-powered mirror and 3D facial tracking and colour rendering. In fact, Sephora has trialled their entire 3,000 shade lipstick collection using AR, each colour can be tried out without a customer even stepping into the store. We will eventually see this AR developed even further into bespoke beauty solutions based on customer’s DNA.

With AR users expected to hit 200 million by 2018 and with the rise in spending on AR ads brands should look to incorporating augmented reality into their marketing strategies. Currently, only the big businesses like Microsoft, Facebook and Apple are using AR to their advantage but more brands should be considering this and in return achieve leverage in what is currently a relatively small market.

Ellie on 'Buying personas: putting a face to data'

Buying Personas: Putting a face to data

We all like to put a face to a name, so why are brands not putting faces to their customer data? Recently, a client mentioned how the paid adverts he sees on Instagram stories are irrelevant and he swipes straight past. On the other hand, I frequently spend time viewing paid adverts and clicking through to websites from targeted advertising. I know full well that these adverts have been targeted to reach my exact personal profile - from my age, location, likes and interests and shopping habits - and yet I continue to engage with these adverts and often purchase products. The jury may be out on whether Facebook should be collecting and using data in such a manner, but I for one am willing to hold my hands up and admit that if the result is more personalised advertising which may interest me, I am on board.

This leaves open the question as to why paid social transforms awareness and traffic for some brands whilst fails dramatically for others. The answer? It is simple, really. As well as a well executed paid social strategy, brands must invest in ensuring that they have clear buyer personas, backed up by market research and competitor analysis.

This is the first major hurdle where marketeers entering into the world of paid social are falling down. Traditional marketing has looked to customer data to understand buying patterns and inform future campaigns, and the role of buying personas in the paid social sphere is no different.

Brands cannot expect to understand their target audience and predict how they will receive advertising without knowing who they are talking to. Buying personas help brands to streamline endless data and focus their social marketing strategies to get to know your customer better. After all, when you can spend your valuable marketing budget talking to an audience who may become your next loyal customers, why wait?

Catherine on 'Paid, earned and owned media'

C3 Cheat Sheet: Paid, owned and earned media

Every digital marketing strategy rests on three pillars, together enabling a brand to execute a successful digital strategy. These three pillars are paid media, owned media and earned media. Balancing these three distinctive media pillars is the challenge.

Owned media

A branded website, blog, Instagram page, Twitter feed (the list goes on) all make up owned media. Any outlet that a brand controls fits into this pillar. A variety of owned media will increase a brand’s online presence. The content a brand produces is valuable and it is important to promote this content on a variety of social media channels to increase the engagement you receive from your audience which ties back into earned media. Social media and the analytics you can view from the content you produce has allowed brands to gain even more insight into how well their content is received instantly. What works and what does not work can easily be discerned through analytical data from your owned media and amendments in your strategy can be made immediately.

Paid media
The final pillar is paid media which involves paying to promote content, which in turn drives earned media. In the past, paid for media consisted heavily of TV, radio and print advertising.. The rise of online has dramatically altered paid media to encapsulate PPC (Pay Per Click), banner adverts and Facebook advertising to name a few. Investment into paid media can increase web traffic, visibility, engagement and sales.

Paid social is an effective way to target your audience as you can zone in on your target audience with customer data. Paid social strategy, along with the right choice of content and targeted audience, helps to push brand paid content in front of target consumers through their social news feeds.

Earned media
For all brands, word of mouth to spread their message is essential and earned media is how this is carried out online. Any website or social media site is redundant if no one is seeing it or interacting with it. This interaction is carried out via mentions, shares, re-posts and reviews from your target audience. What is important here is that this interaction is organic, leading to strong rankings on search engines and thus driving traffic to your website.
Earned media is content created by somebody other than the brand. Earned media demonstrates how effective strategy within paid and owned media has been. If well executed, content will be shared and reviewed to amplify the brand message. With the rise of online and social media, earned media has become increasingly valuable. It is seen as a trusted information source amongst consumers. Audiences are increasingly likely to turn to social media for real life reviews and images, such as checking a venue location tag on Instagram. This has accelerated with the rising popularity of influencer brand collaborations.

When all three pillars work alongside each other, brands can gain a deep insight into how often your brand is talked about. Capitalising on this knowledge can be used to drive content and future campaigns more effectively towards a powerful marketing strategy.

Louise on 'Don't hate the influencer, hate the brand'

Last night, a good friend said to me “You know what? Let’s be honest – the influencer market is a total load of rubbish”. I must be honest – to an extent, I sort of agree, which is ironic seeing as I own a social communications agency that frequently discusses the value of influencer marketing as part of the service we offer. But it is true. It is an unashamedly messy, unstructured & haphazard market of hoping and praying. When brands aren’t sending out product left, right and centre in the hope that influencers will make them Insta-famous for free (doesn't happen), influencers are making the market with ludicrous pricing strategies and generic, product-centric posts. 

Having at one point been considered an 'influencer' myself, I feel that I am justified in writing this article, having been on both sides of the coin – the influencer and the agency that works for the brand. 

Having a ‘following’

In reality, having ‘followers’ means you have a channel that can grab the attention of other individuals online. I believe brands are finally starting to understand that if they want to tap into this attention these influencers have spent so much time and energy building, then they must pay for coverage (and in reality, unless your product or service is being gifted and is exorbitantly expensive, then so they should).

But one thing about attention: we must not pretend it is long-lived or something that hangs around. When you are scrolling down your Instagram, how long do you spend on each person? 1 second? 2 seconds? Answer: not long. And if you decide to stop, stare and low and behold READ? Well, god forbid that an influencer would use an #ad or #spon in their caption. Cue eyes rolling into the back of our heads Lucy Watson style the second we see any sponsorship. We just HATE it. All of us. Lets not pretend we don't.

And I've been thinking - why is this? And I think the answer is this: we so often feel cheated out of these valuable moments of attention that we so delicately choose to spend on that individual if they are selling or pushing a product and pushing it into your psyche when you didn't ask for it.

Does today's society hate #ad because they are jealous of the influencers? Jealous of their seemingly perfect lives, looking groomed to the heavens with their perfectly frothy flat white in their right hand, extortionately expensive camera in their left hand, 50 packages of free product on their doorsteps and blow dries and hotel stays on tap? Maybe.

Or does society hate influencers #spon because we as individuals hate being sold to, knowing that the influencer probably doesn’t really like that product at all and would never really use the product in real life (even though they swear they would only push products they would use)? Yes, almost certainly. And when the #spon is hidden amongst another 20 hashtags? Well, don’t get us started on that.

One thing however, is clear is this: influencer marketing and sponsored posts are on the increase. We are going to see more and more brands trying to work with influencers to sell their products. And so unless something changes, attitudes towards influencers AND brands are going to only become increasingly negative.

Don’t hate the influencer

Whilst perhaps generalising, I would like to say that generally, I do not think that the influencers are really the issue here.

Don't get me wrong, vast numbers of them make my blood boil with them sharing inappropriate moments that I believe should be kept private or pushing products that they clearly would never use on a day-to-day basis (TeaTox, I'm looking at you). But having been on the other side, I am the first to say that genuinely passionate and hard-working influencers deserve to be compensated and reimbursed for the time and energy they have spent, and spend every day, building their brands and nurturing their audiences.

In my eyes, influencers are, more often than not, content creators. This is what I call them, after all. They deserve to be paid for their creative brains, concepts, ideas, shooting skills and the time spent editing photos and videos.

Hate the brand

And so I am here to tell you what the problem really is. The problem is the brands and their influencer strategies. And of course, this is not all of them. But it is a lot of them.

Brands, realising that they desperately must get their foot in influencer doorway, send product left right and centre to influencers, in the hope of coverage. They shoot DMs off to influencers without even thinking about who these influencers are talking to. As an influencer myself, I am shocked by the number of brands that message me on a daily basis, asking to send me their product for free and for me to post about it. Totally off brand, totally misjudging my audience - so often they get it wrong, and so on 99.9% of occasions, I will say no. I will not waste the attention of my followers that I have so carefully tried to build, with consistent engagement and interaction.

And so, I think at least, that the problem is quite clear. Brands have a lack of understanding or a lack of willingness to commit to learning what might accelerate their brand's growth. They don't want to learn about back-end data. They don't want to understand influencer's audiences. They don't want to look at data to see how well that influencer did for their brand. They want to get quick hits and they want them now. And then they wonder why they don't last: why they aren't building their brand awareness, why their sales aren't building, why their clickthrough is stagnant. It is not until brands start to understand WHO the influencers are talking to, that they will reach the people they want. It is only then, that they will be thrilled with high click-throughs and conversions, rather than disappointed with low ones. Of course your click-throughs will be low if your influencers are talking to totally the wrong audience.

Brands must step up and start taking responsibility and start working with these influencers to tell their stories.

My takeaway?

It is no longer about the shoe. It is about the person choosing to wear the shoe.

Louise on 'Why brands must re-think their influencer strategies'

Brands must start to change the way they think about influencers. They must start to be innovative and exciting and educated in the way they approach influencers. Brands must not only work out what influencers they want to work with by analysing back-end data and audience demographics – but why and how they are going to (and note, this shouldn’t just be providing free product and never speaking to that influencer again).

Brands must story tell rather than product seed. Time is so valuable and attention spans so short that who are brands to waste it? Wasting a potential customers time is certainly one way to never convert them to a customer. That’s for sure.

Brands must focus on creating fun and authentic brand content. They must learn that 10 sponsored posts with 10 influencers (read: strangers) all ‘claiming’ to love their product (#ad) will not generate the click through or conversion they want.

Instead, brands should nurture and work those who truly believe in their products or truly can help them tell their story. Brands must create content about these individuals that is exciting, engaging, different and eye-catching. Content that is re-purposable, that makes the influencers look great AND that makes the brand look great.

Forget one #sponsored post that will disappear in 24 hours - brands must start to thinking about video series, personalised products, experiential experiences, getting to know the brand and the people who use it and sharing the brand and their story. We might roll our eyes at a #sponsored post, but we understand the time, effort and energy campaign behind any sort of influencer activity that goes over and above this generic post. We LOVE escapism - we want to see things we don't see in our day to day life. We want your brand to sponsor a video. We might not have been watching your product for 2 minutes, but we loved EVERY SECOND of those 2 minutes we did watch - and we know you created it. You are on our radar, in our minds - without selling to us. Think Jay Alvarrez - he knows whats up.

One of our experiential fire-breathing, champagne flowing, acrobat twirling, influencer-filled events for 1Rebel reached over 800,000 people on Instagram in 24 hours and had people talking about the brand for weeks to come. Did the brand have to spend the next few weeks shouting about themselves? Of course not, the influencers attending the event were doing it for them. It was a gym and we threw a party. We weren't shouting 'we are a gym, come and use our gym'. Instead, we let our client shout 'we are a gym but more importantly we are a community. Look at the fun we have! Come and join us'. It is these types of events and content that will be watched and shared time and time again and make far more an impact than one sponsored post.

And so what do we think? We need more open communication and discussion around influencer marketing, it's benefits and it's pitfalls. If it isn't working - maybe we should re-think how it might work better.

It's time for change.