Tag: creative ideas

Creative Ideas to Improve Social Media Marketing

Social media has been around for a decade now, so it should be easy to figure out how to leverage it, right? Not so fast. New ideas? Definitely not that new, but they are very creative. There are recommendations on how to improve creative ideas everywhere you turn.

Social media works the way the grass grows. You rarely see it working, but every week you must mow the grass.

Before we start, let me ask you a question. What is your most creative idea to change social media marketing? We would love to hear it. Please share it in the comments at the end.

How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook? Like farming followers was the name of the game. Sad but true. The truth is that social media marketing tactics are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.

Related: Find your Content Marketing Creative Ideas

What is the importance of social media to your business?  Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? Marketing? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line goal is relationship building.

In the ever changing landscape of social networking, you might be wondering if you are getting the most out of your business’s social media marketing tactics?  Here we define social media community engagement as the process of gaining website customer traffic, attention, interaction, and ultimately relationships through social media sites.

In part it is true, but things get complicated by all the misinformation circulating about social media marketing. From leveraging tactics to tracking issues, you are bombarded with conflicting messages, including whether social media marketing is worth using at all.

Here are 10 ideas we use most often with our clients. We believe they are the ones most critical to the success of your social media marketing:

Define target customers

It all starts with knowing who your customers are and knowing as much about what makes them tick as you can. Without this step, most of the other steps become just a shot in the dark. So spent a lot of your time on this action. Keep in mind that you can’t be everything to everybody … not all customers are alike.

Choose best channels

Once you understand who your target customers are, you’ll need to study which social media sites they use most frequently and to what end. Social media takes a lot of time and energy, so you need to know where your time will be best spent’

Share unique content

Your content goal is simple … be as helpful as you can and/or be entertaining, or else be ignored. If you are going to put in the time and energy, you don’t want to be ignored.

Listen and engage

Listening comes first and foremost to understand what customers are saying about their needs and perhaps about you. Once you have heard, then engage in as near real time as you can.

Related post: Improve Telling Stories by Employing These Remarkable Examples

Your personality and voice

This one is pretty simple, but takes lots of practice in the beginning. Be YOU and be consistent. Remember customers deal with people and not businesses.

Don’t be a robot

As we said previously, social media marketing takes a lot of time and energy. There many goog tools in existence that will help in the workload. But keep this in mind … customers take note when it seems they are dealing with a robot. Don’t be that robot.

Be part of the community

Remember you are dealing with consumers that are part of a community not part of the audience. Pay special attention to adding value in that vein.

Commit to a plan

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there, as the saying goes. Know your objectives and establish the best plan to get them accomplished. Remember this plan needs constant iteration.

Emphasize social

One of your key business objectives is to build relationships with customers. That end game results in customer advocates and trust. This process takes constant attention to being social on a very consistent basis.

Measure results

This entire social media marketing process is a constant iteration. Establish a few key measurements and pay attention to how well you are doing.

Analyze, correct, iterate and learn

Analyze your measurement results, and continuously make corrections, iterate, and most importantly, learn.

The bottom line

There are a lot of misconceptions about social media marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true or true for you and your business.

Always do your  research, and continually try to improve. Social media marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.

There is more opportunity to fail in social media than to succeed if we treat it like any other marketing vehicle. Social media requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat our customers with special attention. Special attention to being social, building relationships, and creating trust.

Creative Ideas Are Adding to Whole Foods Social Media Marketing

Is your business doing very well, but you are still wondering whether you should be making changes for creative ideas for continuous improvement? Like improving Publix’s social media marketing? We are good customers and advocates of the Publix grocery chain. And since this is a frequent question we receive from clients, we decided to use Publix as a case study on this subject.

Publix online
Publix online.

Related: 12 Ways You Are Losing Brand Attention and the Action Needed

First, a word about Freshbooks. They are a cloud-based accounting software service designed for owners of the types of small client-service businesses that send invoices to clients and get paid for their time and expertise. From my research online, they appear to be doing incredibly well. And so I would conclude that their brand, branding, and brand marketing must be doing well also.

Let me point out that Freshbooks is not a client of ours. Grace simply asked me to take a look at their online presence and answer this question for them in the way a blog that I post on my consultancy’s website. This is what I agreed to do because I believe it is such a pertinent topic to many businesses. I will do this task by simply studying their online presence, with no further discussion with them.

Creative ideas

Educating customers

Customer engagement

customer engagement

Lots of experimentation

Continuous discrimination

Customer service and experience

New channels

Adaptation and innovation

Learning from trends

Takeaways

There can never be enough focus on the continuous improvement of brand marketing, independent of how well the business is doing. It seems Freshbooks is looking to take its success to a new level. This is an excellent time to make a statement with their brand marketing. Changing before you have to is always a good idea.

Would you like to participate in a free evaluation of your business marketing where our output is published in our blog like Freshbooks? If you are interested, please send us an email at Mike@digitalsparkmarketing.com.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your brand marketing design strategies?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. 

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Do you have a lesson about making your brand marketing better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.

More reading on continuous learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

My Favorite Brands and Why I Like Them So Much

12 Ways You Are Losing Brand Attention and the Action Needed

How Do You Continue to Improve a Memorable Brand?

Heard This Proven Design Innovation Paradox?

Do you sometimes wonder why there is less business design innovation than you might have expected?  We often hear from our clients that things are working; therefore they are reluctant to change.

design innovation
Design innovation abounds here.

Being right keeps us in place. Being wrong forces us to explore.
Steven Johnson
Check out our thoughts on building innovation.
In any successful organization, many things are working or it wouldn’t be a going concern. So it’s not surprising that people want to sustain that success.
Yet, that simple impulse to keep what’s working can produce decisions that can slow or halt creativity and innovation. 
A new idea that doesn’t quite fit with prior assumptions often is quickly set aside. Mistakes are seen as problems that must be fixed in order to restore the organization’s smooth functioning.
It’s all very logical and well-intended but the effect is to resist any substantial change, gradually eroding the capacity for creative ideas and innovation and even actively opposing them.

creative ideas
Use enough creative ideas?

Innovative companies understand this and take action to overcome these tendencies. They continually track their customers and competitors to quickly detect signals that may point to needed changes.
Thoughtful experimentation is encouraged, not only as a way to test new ideas but to maintain the organization’s proficiency at implementing new ideas.
There’s an awareness of the need to promote continual adaptation, rather than simply protect what’s working.
Related post: 10 Extraordinary Ways for Learning to Learn
That is the interesting paradox here. The more strenuously we strive to preserve our success, the more we do what we already know will work.
The more we look for confirmation and reinforcement of what we believe, the more momentum is created to avoid necessary change and adaptation.

business paradox
A true business paradox?

It’s by letting go of that need to be right and have certainty, by being willing to reexamine our assumption and beliefs, that we build momentum in favor of creativity and innovation.
The more we’re willing to explore new possibilities, the more actively we look for exceptions that might expose flaws.  The more we consider a variety of interpretations, the more we seek to discover new insights.
In the end, this is what builds the critical momentum in support of new ideas and adaptation necessary for creativity and innovation.
Remember, whoever tries the most stuff usually wins.
business_innovation_workshop
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff ’s teamwork, collaboration, and learning? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a teamwork or continuous learning workshop?
 
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
 
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
  
More reading on learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
The Nine Most Valuable Secrets of Writing Effective Copy
How Good Is your Learning from Failure?
10 Extraordinary Ways for Learning to Learn
Continuous Learning Holds the Keys to Your Future Success
Like this short blog? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn or add us to your circles for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.

Sensational KeyBank New Social Media Case Study

We love to focus on local small businesses in our area, as 60% or so of our business comes from this group. To accomplish this objective, every month or two we select one of our favorites to write about. We describe all the things we like about the business and select several things we might change if we were the owners. We hope the owners consider these new social media ideas on which to build their improvements. Today our selection is the KeyBank new social media marketing case study.

new social media
New social media.

Is your business doing very well, but you are still wondering whether you should be making changes for continuous improvement?
Like improving the KeyBank social media marketing? We are good customers and advocates of the KeyBank chain.
And since this is a frequent question we receive from clients, we decided to use KeyBank as a case study on the new social media subject.
To improve is to change; to perfect is to change often.
– Winston Churchill
 
Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.
Related: Is Employee Engagement the Backbone of the Publix Culture?
First, a word about Key Bank, for those of you not in the Key Bank market area.
Key’s Corporate Bank includes business units that operate from offices within and outside of Key’s 15-state branch network. Its reach extends across the U.S. and to more than 30 countries.
Key Corporate Bank includes
  • KeyBank Real Estate Capital: Provides commercial real estate finance, interim finance, permanent mortgages, commercial real estate loan servicing and cash management services
  • Corporate Banking Services: Provides treasury management, interest rate, and commodity derivatives, and international and foreign exchange services
  • KeyBanc Capital Markets: Provides a complete suite of corporate and investment banking services, including mergers and acquisition advisory, equity and debt underwriting, syndicated finance products, research and trading
  • Key Equipment Finance: Provides tailored equipment lease and finance solutions for small-to-large commercial and government clients
  • Institutional Asset Services: Provides trust, custody and administrative services for individuals, companies, organized labor, government agencies and nonprofit organizations
KeyBank has been recognized by Points of Light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service, as one of the most community-minded companies in the United States.
In addition to honoring KeyBank on the 2017 Civic 50 list, Points of Light also designated Key a 2017 Sector Leader in Financials.  The Civic 50 provides a national standard for superior corporate citizenship and showcases how companies can use their time, skills and other resources to improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business.
The Civic 50 winners were announced on June 20, 2017, at the Points of Light Conference on Volunteering and Service in Seattle, where leaders in volunteerism and civic engagement gathered to discuss social innovation, cross-
Let me point out that Key Bank is not a client of ours. We are simply taking a look at their online social media marketing and using it to recommend ideas for continuous improvement.
It is such a pertinent topic for many businesses, isn’t it? I will do this task by simply studying their online presence, with no discussion with them.
If you examine their current state of social media marketing and compare it to their competitors, you will probably conclude like we did, that they are doing a good job.
But the point is about how to achieve continuous improvement, which is very critical in this type of ever-changing marketing.
So let’s examine some ideas for Key Bank to consider:

social media sites like Facebook
Social media sites like Facebook.

New social media … creative ideas

 There are several ideas on the top of our creative ideas list. The first one we suggest is for Key Bank to go local with their social media marketing. Not every store mind you, but certainly several stores from a local area going together in the effort.
In this way, they can do a much better job of personalizing customer engagement.
The second idea for consideration is to pick an issue to stand for. For example, we have all read about the issue of business diversity and inclusion. Valuing diversity and fostering inclusion are part of their corporate fabric.
Their leadership and every Key employee contributions to our mission of authentically engaging our workforce, our workplace, and our marketplace.
Picking several employee examples for publicizing would be a good place to start. Certainly, but there is a chance they can create a local or maybe even a national movement.
  

Educating customers

 Key Bank is doing a very good job in this area already. But they can do more with special topics such as online apps, security, and be pointing out future banking trends, just to name three examples.

 

 Customer engagement

 Customer engagement is an area where most businesses could always use fresh ideas. One suggestion we have used with other clients is to have employees doing other jobs give an hour or two a day to participate in social media.

What Jack Welch Taught Me about Career Planning

Let customers know who they are and that way customers can engage with people they recognize from the store. Remember the recommendation to go local with their effort? Here is a great place for it to come in very handy.

 

 New social media … lots of experimentation

Most businesses take the conservative route on experimenting with new ideas. Not a good idea if you are looking to get ahead with customers.
The best innovative companies know that to do new things well, they must be good at trying new ideas in many areas as experiments. These experiments, they realize, will not all work as planned, and a high percentage will fail.
They know and accept this without worry. But they know that they learn a great deal from failures and small successes. And this often leads to great successes down the line.

 

free social networking sites
Free social networking sites.

  

Continuous discrimination

A business can never be done by finding ways to discriminate themselves with their customers. This is an area that absolutely must be done well.
A great way to find discriminating ideas, both big and small, is to pay attention to what customers are telling you. And remember, not all customer insights come from verbal inputs.
Get all employees involved in closely observing what customers are doing. What can you learn about improving your operations from these observations?
 

 Customer service and experience

One of the most rapidly growing areas of marketing these days is coming from customer service and strong customer experience. By going the extra mile in these two areas, customers take notice.
The more little things you can do, the stronger the customer advocacy becomes.
For example, when you save your customer time, deliver quality service, stand tall on customer issues, and always show your value, you build trust. And trust is the basis of great customer relationships and follow-on business.
A definite win-win. Lots of additional ways the KeyBank could improve their performance in this critical area.

  

New channels

KeyBank has a very well designed website and participates on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter social media platforms.
Well represented on these most important channels. Our recommendation is they add Youtube to their list of social media sites. This is a very fast growing social media channel that attracts shoppers looking for education on the many new Apps associated with online shopping and banking.

 

The bottom line

There can never be enough focus on continuous improvement in social media marketing, independent of how well the business is doing. If you are looking to take your success to a new level, this continuous improvement is required.
This is an excellent time to make a statement about social media marketing. Changing before you have to is always a good idea.
Would you like to participate in a free evaluation of your business marketing where our output is published on our blog like this KeyBank article? If you are interested, please send us an email to Mike@digitalsparkmarketing.com.
 customer_service_agency
 
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
 
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
 
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
  
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Case Studies to Evaluate New World Marketing Concepts
How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
Jaw Dropping Guerrilla Marketing Lessons and Examples 
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of a small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

7 Social Media Marketing Ideas for Publix Online

Is your business doing very well, but you are still wondering whether you should be making changes for continuous improvement? Like improving the Publix online social media marketing?

Publix online
Publix online.

We are good customers and advocates of the Publix grocery chain. And since this is a frequent question we receive from clients, we decided to use Publix online as a case study on this subject.
To improve is to change; to perfect is to change often.
Winston Churchill
Related: How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Before we continue, let me ask you a question. 
What social media design techniques work best for your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a conversation.
With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.
First, a word about Publix, for those of you not in the Publix market area.
Publix is the largest employee-owned company in America. For 83 years Publix has thrived by delivering top-rated service to its shoppers by turning thousands of its cashiers, baggers, butchers, and bakers into the company’s largest collective shareholders.
All staffers who have put in 1,000 work hours and a year of employment receive an additional 8.5% of their total pay in the form of Publix stock.
Let me point out that Publix is not a client of ours. We are simply taking a look at their online social media marketing and using it to recommend ideas for continuous improvement.
It is such a pertinent topic for many businesses, isn’t it? I will do this task by simply studying their online presence, with no discussion with them.
If you examine their current state of social media marketing, you will probably conclude like we did. That conclusion? They are doing a good job.
But the point is about how to achieve continuous improvement. This is very critical in this type of ever-changing marketing. So let’s examine some ideas for Publix to consider:

Publix online … creative social media ideas

There are several ideas on the top of our creative ideas list.
The first one we suggest is for Publix to go local with their social media marketing. Not every store mind you, but certainly several stores from a local area going together on the effort.
In this way, they can do a much better job of personalizing customer engagement.
The second idea for consideration is to pick an issue to stand for.
For example, we have all read about the extremely long life of plastic bags is the environment and the negative effect they have.
By announcing they will use paper bags and eliminate the use of plastic bags, they will draw a lot of positive attention to the brand.
Cost more for them? Certainly, but there is a chance they can create a local or maybe even a national movement. 

 Related post: Case Studies to Evaluate New World Marketing Concepts

 

Educating customers

Publix is doing a very good job in this area already. But they can do more with special topics.
As an example, such as pointing out healthy food alternatives, diet alternatives, and discussing gluten-free products. Just to name three cases.

  

customer engagement
Is customer engagement a focus?

Customer engagement 

Customer engagement is an area where most businesses could always use fresh ideas.
One suggestion we have used with other clients is to have employees doing other jobs. They could be given an hour or two a day to participate in social media.
Let customers know who they are and that way customers can engage with people they recognize from the store.
Remember the recommendation to go local with their effort? Here is a great place for it to come in very handy.

 

 Publix online ordering bakery … lots of experimentation

Most businesses take the conservative route on experimenting with new ideas. Not a good idea if you are looking to get ahead with customers.
The best innovative companies know that to do new things well, they must be good at trying new ideas in many areas as experiments. These experiments, they realize, will not all work as planned, and a high percentage will fail.
They know and accept this without worry. But they know that they learn a great deal from failures and small successes. And this often leads to great successes down the line.
  

Continuous discrimination

A business can never be done with finding ways to discriminate themselves with their customers. This is an area that absolutely must be done well.
A great way to find discriminating ideas, both big and small, is to pay attention to what customers are telling you.
And remember, not all customer insights come from verbal inputs. Get all employees involved in closely observing what customers are doing.
What can you learn about improving your operations from these observations?

 

 Customer service and experience

One of the most rapidly growing areas of marketing these days is coming from customer service and strong customer experience.
By going the extra mile in these two areas, customers take notice. The more little things you can do, the stronger the customer advocacy becomes.

   

new channels
Always many new channels.

New channels

Publix has a very well designed website and participates in Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter social media platforms.
Well represented on these most important channels.
Our recommendation is they add Pinterest to their list of social media sites. This is a very fast growing social media channel that attracts shoppers looking for things
Things such as recipes and recommendations on food choices and health.
Many of your competitors have a strong presence there already. Instagram is another channel worthy of consideration and both are excellent at customer engagement.

 

 The bottom line

 

There can never be enough focus on continuous improvement in social media marketing, independent of how well the business is doing. If you are looking to take your success to a new level, this continuous improvement is required.
This is an excellent time to make a statement about social media marketing. Changing before you have to is always a good idea.
Would you like to participate in a free evaluation of your business marketing where our output is published on our blog like this Publix article? If you are interested, please send us an email to Mike@digitalsparkmarketing.com.

Customer engagement
Customer engagement improvements are worth the effort.

 

Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
 
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
 
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
  
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Case Studies to Evaluate New World Marketing Concepts
How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
Jaw Dropping Guerrilla Marketing Lessons and Examples 
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.