What do consumers want to see on social media? Bottom line, people, not just products, matter to consumers.
We’re going to share why it’s so important that your brand produces content consumers want to see and show you some trending content ideas to help you win over consumers.
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Glyna: Good morning!
Sarah: Good morning.! We’re going to talk about some fun stuff today. People are always asking us, what should we be posting on social media? So we’re going to take that guesswork out today, aren’t we?
Sarah: Yeah! I’m so excited about this one. I know I always say that, but this one I’m really like “we got a real winner today!” We really do. I get excited about all of them, but this one I do, because I just feel like, “Oh, this is something that it’s going to be again, so, so helpful.”
Glyna: Yeah.
Sarah: So I’m going to do a quote from Sprout Social, which is really great, great business. And they say that when it comes to social media, “connection is the new currency”. I think that’s so true because our newsfeed, I mean, we’re bombarded with stuff all the time. And so I always wonder what do people stop on or what matters to them? And the bottom line is consumers overwhelmingly feel that if you want them to stay loyal to your product or service, it has to be more than just transactional. And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. It’s going to be all about why your brand needs to produce content that the consumers want to see. Not that what you think consumers want to see. And some really good trending content ideas to try that are going to be super helpful.
Glyna: Alright! It is a beautiful day in the Fusion One Lounge today. We have some beautiful sunshine and it just makes you happy. We want to welcome you to Marketing Mix. Every week, Sarah and I will be here to talk about digital marketing topics. We just try to mix it up. That’s where the Marketing “Mix” comes in. So let’s go ahead and show everybody where they can find our broadcasts.
Sarah: You’ve got it. All right. Every week we go live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and you can catch the replay on Instagram, on IGTV. And we play a short version of this on LinkedIn. And don’t forget about our podcast, Marketing and a Mic. And as I said last week, if you don’t want to see our beautiful faces, you can listen to our beautiful voices. We’ve got options. It’s all about options. And real quickly, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, Fusion One Marketing. It’s another outlet, a free resource to give you great tools to help with your business. So, why should we care about consumer’s feelings? This cracks me up because truly in our minds, we’re just thinking I’ve got a product, I’ve got service. I need to push it out. Just get people aware of it. But it’s interesting how the trend has changed so much in that, the connection is what’s breeding brand loyalty and impacts your bottom line. If people don’t feel connected to your business, well, they’re not going to be loyal to you. So, we’re going to talk about why that matters to consumers and what they want to see. This has really been eye-opening and I think this is a good one.
Glyna: Yeah. What do you think? Do you think that the COVID stuff and everybody being so disconnected for so long has brought about this more feel-good, I want to be involved?
Sarah: Yes. I do. And I think that it’s also kind of these younger generations coming into play and what they hold valuable is, it’s a lot more about what do you bring to the table more than your product?
Glyna: Yeah. That’s exactly right. Some of these stats are really interesting. I mean, customers want to see the face behind the brand. I mean, here we are, you and I, they see us every week. I hope people like seeing us. I’m pretty sure they do. But get this, 72% of consumers want to hear directly from employees of a brand or even the business owner. They trust what employees say. I mean, employees are there every day, day in and day out and they trust that more than even just the regular branding. And people like to learn about the people of the business and of the brand. So I think you get to know Sarah and me probably more than you want sometimes.
Sarah: You’ve seen our face every week! Yeah. So it’s wild but so true that they want to see the faces behind the company and it matters to them. It makes them feel more real, more personable. It’s actually even seeing an employee that is eager to share something or that is behind the company because you look at it as, “Well, how much skin in the game does an employee have?”. Well, if they’re out there and they’re showing what’s going on and they’re sharing content from their business, it’s such a good way for people to get even more trust towards that brand. And as a business, one thing to consider is incorporating different strategies where you’re getting your employees involved and participating and being sort of brand ambassadors, and sharing some of your content from social media.
Glyna: Ooh, I like that. Yeah. Brand ambassadors. Especially if you have a lot of employees, those employees can help you really spread your brand across social media. It’s amazing what they can do with your reach. And people are like, “That sounds like a drag. Just one more thing I have to figure out. One more thing I have to worry about.” But really, once you get into it, doing stuff like this and fun things, it kind of makes it more fun in your business. So anyway, I think it does when we were able to do some extra special things. Here are some ideas or some examples of things that you can do. You can highlight interests among consumers, things that you know that people like. Create interactive social content. I know we’ve had some really fun things lately that people have really got into. Encourage people to use specific hashtags and even promote events. If you don’t even have an event yourself, you can help promote other events.
Sarah: Those are all really good ideas. So, number two, we’re going to talk about kind of three main things. The second point is that consumers want brands to listen and create conversations. What does that really mean? Consumers prefer brands that put the brand’s own people front and center, meaning the people that are buying it. So, one simple thing is 55% of customers believe that if they see somebody liking or commenting on their own content on social media, it builds their trust. We talked last week about the importance of interacting. So they like to see when the company itself is responding, if you make a comment and they respond back to it just kind of shows that they’re not tone deaf. And it’s amazing how much – if you just listen to see what’s going on out there with your customers – how much information you can pick up to develop your own content.
Glyna: Yeah. And who better than you to tell consumers about what sets you apart. I mean, consumers, really prefer content that helps them understand what makes your business unique. And since you and your employees understand that more than anybody that should be an easy, no-brainer way to put information out there. So interactive content for the purpose of an open discussion about the brand’s product itself can gain a deeper insight into what consumers expect from them and what they’re really wanting to see.
Sarah: Yeah. And a great idea, a great concept behind this is that when you create private groups, it helps bring consumers and products together and get a deeper insight about what the feedback is, what the conversation is. And I’ve seen so many brands do this where they’ll create little groups and it’s sort of a nice platform where people can talk about what they think, get ideas, and then you can insert yourself in the conversation and gather a lot of information.
Glyna: Exactly. Besides all of that, you’re putting yourself out there and everything and people want you to be involved in the community that you’re in. That’s another thing that lately people are really wanting to see. They want to see that you are community builders. How are you engaging in the community around you? So for brands, the challenge isn’t whether to be really thorny and kind of controversial. That’s not what it’s all about. You want to get out there and talk about things that unite and not divide customers, things that people can get on board with.
Sarah: Yeah, that’s so true because it can be a slippery slope if you’re not careful. And so you really do have to know how to insert your brand into these types of things, but they’re really important. They want to know that you want to bring awareness to things. So, listen to this, 56% of customers want brands to highlight awareness days or months on social media. So again, this isn’t something where it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to take a stand for everything, or I’m going to be super vocal.” It’s really just if there are certain things that your business is passionate about and it could even just be locally. It doesn’t have to be some nationwide thing. It really resonates with customers. And it’s amazing. So, when you think about things like social crises or natural disasters, I mean, we just had a tornado back in March, come blowing through here. To at least acknowledge it and bring awareness matters so much to customers. It just shows that you care.
Glyna: Yeah, that’s exactly right. The consumers want to know that you believe in an ongoing cause and you can create your campaigns around that. What are some examples? Let’s talk about examples. You already mentioned awareness days or awareness months so you can highlight those. Participate in issue-specific campaigns. You can share content from influencers. That’s a great way to do it. And if they notice you, like we talked about in the last Marketing Mix, that may help you get some further reach as well. You can raise donations and fun things, share content from employees. It’s kind of fun. What are they doing? What is your company made up of? What kind of people? I think that’s pretty cool.
Sarah: Yeah. So really all this comes down to is they want to see a connection. They to connect with brands. And so that’s where you kind of got to find how can I find ways along with all the social media stuff that’s out there. So we’ve got some really good ideas to help you and just get a little bit ahead of the game on some of these trends that seem to be working. So the first thing we want to talk about is Instagram Stickers. Instagram Stickers are so fun. And they’re so easy and they have such a cool way of tagging certain things. So, it’s a great way to boost engagement. We talked about last week how Stories and Reels and all that stuff are booming and stickers, you can do locations, you can do mentions, you can do hashtags. And it’s just such a great way to help really boost engagement. We talked about this last week. This is the one that is Support Small Businesses.
Glyna: Yeah. It’s Support Small Business tags and they are stickers. Aren’t those the coolest things? You can give shout-outs to businesses that you love, you can showcase their posts and it’s a great way to collaborate with others in your community or industry. And they also have what they call DM Me stickers. This is a new sticker as well. DM Me, direct message me. You can use that as a tag, which opens a direct conversation when it’s clicked on. So those are a couple of cool ways on Instagram to really involve people.
Sarah: Yeah. I got to hand it to Instagram for the fact that they have so many options for that interacting and that commenting and that engagement. They’re really mastering it. Along with that, we’re going to talk about Instagram. Text-focused Instagram. So, I’m sure you’ve seen this and Stories have skyrocketed, but they’re really simple. Canva actually has these templates where it looks like a Twitter post or something like that. And it’s an image but in the form of just a comment. And it’s actually been spreading like a wildfire.
Glyna: That’s crazy. It’s like, okay, let’s decide. Are we going back to basics or are we going to include everything? Let’s infuse everything and add more and more and more and more, but no, let’s stop. Let’s go back to basics. But like you said, the templates are really cool. I mean, that makes a nice, neat, clean post. So you can use those different layouts as you said. They’re really pretty. I mean, you can really make it impact. And again, as you said, it’s more like a tweet. So you can kind of use a Twitter post format or even a Google search graphic. Either one of those, again, it’s kind of back to basics, but it can still make a big impact. Okay, going to TikTok.
Sarah: We’re going to TikTok. With those texts-focused Stories, putting them on, they’re really, really popular. So think about that. Adding to think about sharing it. So something like this, if somebody did a story where it was just a text and then sharing it, that’s actually becoming really popular too. So yeah. Cross-posting on TikTok. So, I know it’s so funny, we were like, “Wait, are we really into TikTok? Are we really talking about TikTok?” But again, TikTok it’s stepping up its game. And what I love about TikTok is that they don’t care if you cross-post. I mean, you could share the stuff that they make it so easy to share on other platforms. So it makes just your content creation go a step further. And that’s what it’s really all about.
Glyna: Yeah. It’s not just for dancers anymore. It offers a lot of functionality. I mean, it’s a great way to create really snappy short-form videos that you really can’t find on any other social media platforms. I mean, it forces you to do that pretty much, but it’s also a great way to diversify your content and spread a wider net with your content. As you said, they don’t care if you share or cross-promote on other platforms, which is really cool.
Sarah: Yeah. They make it super easy. And you see that little TikTok emblem at the bottom. So they’re still getting their branding. They don’t care and it’s a really unique way. Again, all this is if you’re going to make content, find ways to spread it, and reuse it. Okay, you’ve seen this, this is the terminology for it, but gamified/interactive content. So this is something again that Instagram has really stepped up and done a lot with it. But this is whether it’s quizzes, whether it’s bingo, whether it asks me anything, whether it takes a poll, whatever it is, it’s a fun way to encourage interaction and people just respond to them. I mean, that’s the end of it. So it’s just a nice, clever way to generate more engagement, to get people interacting with your stuff. So here’s an example. This is an example from Canva. And yeah. And this is just something it’s an easy template. People would interact with it. And there you go, boost your engagement, boost your visibility.
Glyna: It’s a great idea. People love games. It’s fun. Again, you’re trying to take them from the boring, same old content so let’s have a little fun. Let’s be interactive. Let’s do stuff that they like. So, all right. So we have games. All that interactive stuff is really fun, but let’s talk about IGTV. We don’t really talk about that a whole bunch, but now there’s long-form IGTV content. In fact, Instagram recently made a lot of upgrades to where they’ve redesigned the home page so that you have a creator at the top of it. So you can create more long-form video series from the app.
Sarah: And this is long-form videos, so this is something that has been out for a bit, but they’ve really stepped it up and made it a more friendly platform for businesses. So this feature can be tailored to each user based on whom they follow, whose content the app thinks might be interesting to them. And again, it’s really cool because it’ll give you a preview of the video. And then you could go up to an hour on your IGTV video so that’s really cool. But something to think about with Instagram and IGTV, they prefer the vertical layout. So, if you’re recording a video on a phone then keep it vertical, or if you are doing a video for any other platform, you’re going to have to convert it for IGTV so it’ll flip. So again, they’ve got so many features, but they like to make it a little tricky for you sometimes.
Glyna: Yes, they like to be tricky and vertical drives me nuts. But it has its place. That’s I guess the way we should look at it. And that is a perfect example of vertical versus what I prefer, which is horizontal, but they didn’t ask me. All right Lives, let’s talk about Lives. They are everywhere. And I think this is so fun because a lot of people that you would never have thought, are going Live and it just adds such a great thing! I mean, for a business, you get to know them so much better. In fact, Lives are up 70%. I mean, there’s a 70% increase in Live streaming across all the different platforms, and the thing we’d like to talk about – because we’re dreaming of getting our LinkedIn live one day. Even LinkedIn who’s supposedly the business networking platform even rolled out Lives. It’s a feature that they rolled out for an application last year, but the catch is you can only get on it by invitation only. And we’re not really sure what they’re looking for, except we do know you need to have really good original video content uploaded to your profile over and over and over so they can deem you qualified for their LinkedIn Live.
Sarah: Yeah, so these LinkedIn Lives, you have to use a third-party application. And so that’s one of the things and that’s why I have to have that invitation to do it. And yeah, their whole thing is, well, you can’t just be coming on here with one follower and be like, “Oh, I’m doing Live.” You kind of prove yourself a little bit, but don’t we love Lives? Here we are!
Sarah: Anyway, they also started doing virtual events. It’s kind of a way of merging events and the Live feature. And this is really cool too because you can live stream different events within their event page and you can broadcast like virtual webinars, workshops, all that kind of stuff. And all that does is to help reach a wider audience. So they’re definitely stepping up their game, LinkedIn more and more. But again, you got to get that invitation-only in our tip is actually they’ll show preference when you use your personal page versus your company page. So, if you’re thinking about applying to get on LinkedIn Live, try first with your personal page.
Glyna: Yeah. Shout-out to Kristine Sizemore for that tip! Alright, Facebook Groups. People might say, well, Facebook Groups aren’t new. That’s something that’s been around a long time. That’s true. But Facebook announced a new feature on their app, or they’re really going to prioritize Facebook Groups and how businesses can use these. Companies can use Facebook Groups to set up private digital communities for their brand. And it’s a great place to communicate with people who love what you do.
Sarah: Yes. And this is the whole point that we were making earlier about either inserting yourself in the conversation that’s going on with your customers or create that conversation. But you could do this by creating your own private groups. But I mean, if you see the members, I mean, you see just as just an example of say, if you’re into skiing or whatever, and you put it in here, all of these clubs and forums that are on there. And it’s just a great way to get brands to get your content in front of people to actually want to see it who actually are going to be talking about it. And it’s far more likely to show up on their timeline when they’re part of these groups. So definitely something that I think to consider.
Glyna: Yeah, it is. And I’m going to give a shout-out to Lisa Phillips with Mary Kay. She uses groups to the max and to the hilt every week. She does a fantastic job of creating great content and getting the community involved in what she’s doing. So anyway, wanted to get with that shout-out.
Sarah: Yeah, and this is a great example of making it work of finding those ways that her customers what they want to connect to and what they want to see. She’s done a beautiful job at it.
Glyna: Exactly. The next thing is called AR Story Filters. What the heck does that mean? It means augmented reality. We’ve all seen these filters I would imagine. You’ve probably seen them maybe didn’t know what they were called. So they allow companies to put a layer of interactive design and visual elements on their post or their photos and videos in the Stories mode. So it was just a way to kind of soup it up and kind of make it a little bit more fun. Yeah. That’s a perfect example. So AR filters make people want to stop and look at what you’re doing a little bit more and it’s so much more engaging. I think there’s a lot to look at there. So if you really create some eye-catching ones, it means it’s going to be a lot of fun for your consumers.
Sarah: Yeah. Again, this is something that’s not super new, but the way that brands are using it is what’s really cool. I mean, I’m going to bring up Lisa again. You could create your own AR filter and upload them, not only to your own profile but also to the broader filter library. And this allows a lot of users to use that filter and with your brand’s name on it, which is really cool. So, you could do something with a lipstick floating or something like that, try to put the moving lipstick or something. But again, you’d have to do a little bit of work on your end, but you could create these AR filters and use them for your own brand and come up with little games for people to do. It’s all about engagement and connecting and all these things that you’re showing kind of the face behind your brand.
Glyna: Yes, exactly. And again, it’s all about the connection, all about the community, everybody getting involved. All right. So the resurrection of Pinterest. Pinterest didn’t die. It didn’t really go anywhere, but because of everybody being at home and having nothing to do for the last however long, it really hit a record high of people going to Pinterest. It’s skyrocketed during self-isolation. Pinterest has introduced what they call a Today Tab, which is going to make it even easier for users to find the stuff that they’re searching for and that is relevant for them.
Sarah: Yes. And we’ve talked about this again before where Pinterest really operates less as a social media platform, but as more as a search engine. So it doesn’t have that interaction element as much as if Facebook or Instagram or even LinkedIn. But the cool thing about it is users are going there to search for specific topics and they are open to discovering new brands that provide them with solutions. So when you use Pinterest, you should use it as my brand is going to only put just resources, solution-driven content stuff that people are looking for, kind of those how-tos, all that sort of stuff. And boy, it has skyrocketed. We really need to think about putting stuff on Pinterest.
Glyna: Yes. And there’s a lot of junk on Pinterest. If you’re creating really cool stuff, it’s going to catch people’s attention. In fact, video is really just starting to take off on Pinterest. So it’s something that you could definitely take advantage of to make yourself stand out because not a lot of people are using it. What you use video for, I mean, that’s easy. Tutorials. I mean, talk about your products, give people a tour of your products or just make that eye-catching pin. I mean, something moving is going to catch people’s attention a lot more than just a still image.
Sarah: So true. And this is another tip too, as always as much as you can connect the content from Pinterest to your website. So if you post some blogs or whatever you’re posting and whatever how-tos, go to where when they click on it, it’s taking them to your website because SEO, you always have to think about your SEO. So, let’s do a final takeaway. If you hear anything, hear this. People, not products are what are winning over consumers. Employees are brands’ best advocates. Think about putting your whole team front and center a little bit more. And even the business owner up there on your social media a lot more. Listen to what people are saying about your industry, really important that way you know the kind of conversations to create and use your platform to unite and build awareness for any good causes that you feel strongly about.
Glyna: Yes, exactly. That’s perfect. Perfectly put. So that’s all we had, but that should give you an idea of what kind of things you can post on social media to get, I guess the best bang for your buck and get people to really be paying attention to you. So, that’s a wrap! As always, we will be back again next Friday at eight o’clock for a different digital marketing topic for Marketing Mix. And if you need anything just contact us. We love helping people out and we give free consultations. So I really am happy that you all joined us today. And I hope you’ll come back next week and until then have a great week.