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?

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

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

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.

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.

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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.

9 Ways to Build Positive Social Media Community Engagement

Social media community engagement? What does it mean to your business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? We believe it is all of these things.

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.

– Edwin Schlosberg

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 community engagement? Here we define social media community engagement as the process of gaining website customer traffic, attention, and interaction from customers through social media sites.

Social media, like most marketing, is emotion-driven. People’s behavior (e.g., sharing your content or buying your product) is based on emotional responses. Your social media content should appeal to their hearts–not their heads. (You can—and should—appeal to their heads through quality content on your website or blog)

Have you ever thought about how to build positive social media community engagement?

This task starts with what customers want and need. Most people want to: feel needed, be valued, be appreciated, be fulfilled, share emotions, laugh and be happy, succeed, and be inspired. Make them feel something that feels unique to what other brands are blasting at them. To do this you must know who your community is. You must know how to catch and hold their attention.

So let’s examine our recommended game plan to build a positive social media community engagement:

Win the first impression battle

What are you doing to make their first 30 seconds on your platform useful and worth their attention? If you can’t answer this question, you need to start here. First impressions are everything.

Be human

Humanize your brand. Realize that your brand is everything about you from what you tweet to how you respond to comments on Facebook. Don’t hide your employees. Let them shine and be a living, breathing representation of your brand.

Be patient yet persistent

You aren’t going to capture your community overnight or on the first day you launch any social media site. Building and launching an integrated online community takes time. Give yourself and your team the time to do it right. Have patience and persistence. Slow down and do it right and at the end of the game, you’ll be the winner, guaranteed.

Social media community … connect emotionally

Make them feel. If you want to grab my attention on G+, make me laugh. Make me cry. Make me feel something, anything. When I have a super busy day and I am replying to posts I have no choice due to the amount of them and time constraints but to choose where and when I am going to respond. It is an easy choice for me. I respond to the people who grab my attention. The people who are nice, who make me feel good. The people who are genuine. The people who make me laugh, playing the emotional card.

Focus on relationships

The life of social media is people. People like you and me. People who laugh, cry, get mad, go crazy, get married, divorced, have kids, lose family members, win jobs, lose jobs, get promotions, win new clients, get new opportunities, have fun, play hard and work hard. Offer value to the people in your community with the goal of building real relationships. Offer value and knowledge.

Lots to learn from Brian Carter and The Carter Group.

Inspire them

Inspire your communities to connect with you with a foundational goal of achieving their objectives. Inspire … Connect …Achieve. To do this you must know their objectives and goals. You must know them. When you know your audience then you can know how you can help them be better. How can you help them learn? How can you help them go faster? Work smarter? Be smarter? Share more valuable information with their colleagues, clients, partners and friends? Figure these answers out and use them to help.

Teach them

What knowledge can you share with them that will make them smarter? How can your knowledge drive real efficiency in their life or business? Share your best stuff, not just the same old, same old you wrote two years ago that is overused and oversold, by everyone everywhere.

Make it easy

People want to connect. They don’t want to be spammed at every opportunity. Give them an opportunity to engage with you, your brand, and your team. Be available. Open up your comment stream on your blog. Listen and be relevant and responsive.

Listen well

The most important thing you can do to create a positive engagement is to listen carefully. Listen with a goal to understand. Bottom line, listen more than you talk. You’ll be amazed how much you can learn about your audience when you shut up and listen.

What’s next? How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement

In summary, building a positive social media community engagement is very similar to making friends. Keep it simple and be genuine.

Being social with a great positive engagement isn’t a new way of marketing; it’s a way of doing business. Follow these simple tips and you will be leading the way.

Do you have an experience on your team’s positive engagement to share with this community?

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 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.

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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 businesses. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Design Thinking … 19 Secrets to Think What No One Else Thinks

Does design thinking what no one else thinks mean you must be 100% original? Not in our minds. Do you ever wonder what makes those wacky, creative types tick?

How is it that some people seem to come up with all kinds of interesting, original work while the rest of us trudge along in our daily routines?

Check out our thoughts on building innovation.

Don’t believe you are creative? Creativity is often defined as the ability to connect ideas that are seemingly unconnectable. Connecting ideas are how new ideas originate … it is the basis for creativity.

Related: Secrets to Understanding the Genie in the Creativity Bottle

Contrary to what most people believe, creativity is not limited to the gifted ones of the population. It can be taught, nurtured, and enhanced.

Let’s examine these interesting questions.

Creative people are different because they operate a little differently.

Can you share an example of a way you operate a little different to help your creativity? We love to hear about it. Please share in the comments section below.

Here is the how:

What no one else thinks … build on others

One of the misunderstandings around creativity is that you have to be utterly original to do it. The truth is all creative people stand on the shoulders of those who came before.

Writers learn to write by reading; painting students are sent to museums to copy the masters, while great chefs learn the already tested basics of cooking to create some new dish.

Innovation stands on a platform that already exists. Yes, inspiration is involved, those flashes of insight, the ah…ha moments. You start with something that already exists and takes it to another level.

So relax. Let go of thinking you have to do something original. Take the pressure off. Celebrate that there is all this help available.

Question everything

Want to think what nobody has ever thought? Start by questioning all assumptions.

There comes a moment in time where everyone agrees with everybody about pretty much everything. For any sized organization that is focused on creating a culture of relentless innovation, hardened dogma is a change obstacle they must overcome.

And that starts best with questioning everything, assumptions included.

Design thinking … pay attention to patterns

Treat models as part of the problem. Recognizing a new pattern is very useful, but be careful not to become part of it.

Observe with all senses

Truly creative people have developed their ability to see and to use all of their senses, which can get dull over time. Take time to “sharpen the blade” and take everything in.

Incubate ideas

Let your ideas “incubate” by taking a break from them. For example, when I’m working on a big business project, one of the best things I can do to take a break from it is listening to music or watch TV for a while.

It shifts my brain into another place and helps me be more innovative and creative.

Continuous learning

Both creativity and innovation are based on knowledge. Therefore, you need to continually expand your knowledge base. Read things you don’t usually read as often as you can.

Design thinking empathy … defer judgment

Your perceptions may limit your reasoning. Be careful about how you perceive things. In other words, suspend judgment.

Widen your experiences

Experience as much as you can. Exposure puts more ideas into your subconscious. Actively seek out new and very different experiences to broaden your experience portfolio.

Reset problem definition

Redefine the problem completely. One of the lines I’ve been sharing for the past few decades is: “Your problem is not the problem; there is another issue. When you define the real problem, you can solve it and move on.”

After all, if you had correctly set the real problem, you would have solved it long ago because all problems have solutions.

Look for what is not easily seen

Look where others aren’t seeking to see what others aren’t seeing.

Design thinking steps … be curious

Ask lots of questions, but suspend first judgment on the answers. Try and connect the dots as you go.

Take challenges and risks

Be a risk taker and continually push your boundaries. Don’t worry about mistakes. Accept failures. Fearlessness is necessary for creative work, because of the possibility of rejection.

Anything new requires a bit of change, and most of us don’t care for change that much.

What no one else thinks … immerse yourself

Put yourself deep into the topic at hand. Focus with no multiplexing.

Be able to overlook rules

Rules, to the creative person, are indeed made to be broken. They are created for us by other people, generally to control a process; the creative person needs the freedom to work.

Ask “what if…”

Seeing new possibilities is a little risky because it means that something will change and some action will have to be taken. Curiosity is probably the single most important trait of creative people.

Push the boundaries of mistakes

A photographer doesn’t just take one shot, and a composer doesn’t just write down a fully realized symphony. Creation is a long process, involving lots of boo-boos along the way. A lot goes in the trash.

Collaborate

The hermit artist, alone in his garret, is a romantic notion but not always an accurate one. Comedians, musicians, painters, chefs all get a little better by sharing with others in their fields.

Try new paths

Stepping off the beaten path may be scary, but creative people do it. Children do this very well but are eventually trained to follow the crowd.

Experiment often

Combining things that don’t usually go together can result in brilliance or a giant mess. Trial and error are necessary to the creative process.

Key takeaways

As you can see, many of these skills / suggestions do not take much time and effort to make a difference. Just a lot of practice. Start from small and transform your skills.

Creating creative skills is a process that takes time, patience, and exercise.

If you are looking for additional resources in innovation, one of my favorite experts is Stephen Shapiro. You’ll find lots of good stories and examples to learn in his blog.

Need some help in improving the creativity of you and your staff? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your toughest competitors?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options for creativity workshops to get noticeable results.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

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

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

Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improve your creativity, innovation, and ideas?

Do you have a lesson about making your creativity 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.

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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.

Adapting to 4 Major Examples of Social Change

It is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised. And Frederick the Great knew this lesson, didn’t he? What examples of social change have you noted in the last couple of years? Does your business depend on social media for marketing or any other function? Are you noticing any impacts do these changes?

And pay attention to what Frederick the Great had to say, it is ok to be defeated, just not surprised. So take heed of trends ahead of you.

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.

If you own a company or are responsible for marketing or advertising in any way, shape, or form, you need to understand the way that today’s social media world works. What’s more, you also need to be in tune with future possibilities, and to be ready to adapt to changes in the digital realm.

This year is expected to be, and already has been to some degree, a volatile year for social media. And as someone responsible for anything to do with social media, learning new trends should always be at the top of your agenda.

Here are some ideas we suggest on how you should begin to adapt:

Examples of social change … be flexible or else

While plenty of talented marketing professionals have made predictions for how the social media marketing world will look in the coming year and the future, in general, no one knows which new sites will spring up and become the next Facebook or Twitter.

However, it is always wise to be constantly checking the current social media predictions as well as being aware of new trends, sites, and applications and anything and everything else that is continually arising on the web. Keeping a finger on the pulse of not just what’s appealing, but what large amounts of people are using, will ensure an audience for any future efforts of your own.

Causes of social change … keeping pace with the social and mobile web

We all know that the internet moves more quickly than any other communication medium, and this presents both unique challenges and opportunities for marketers. Making sure that you’re not only up to speed with the latest platforms, but innovating and figuring out how to take advantage of them is integral.

After all, you need to be where your audience is–whether that is Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, or newer mobile messaging platforms like Snapchat, Kik, or WhatsApp. That starts with actively participating yourself. If you don’t understand how a given platform works on a personal level, how can you actually use it to market your company or brand?

Content marketing, social signals, and search engine optimization

The value of social media marketing extends beyond the actual social media sites that you have a presence on. Having a popular and active presence on social media means much more than the size of your immediate fan base and how they connect with your content.

It can have a powerful effect on your search engine rankings.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing all use social media posts, reviews, and general sentiment as a ranking factor, so having a strong presence can help improve your position in the search engine results in pages for relevant keywords.

Therefore, it is important to keep in mind the fact that today’s social media climate is all-encompassing in the sense that people can not only view your content at any time or anywhere. Take note of Yahoo and Bing as well–new deals are making these sites viable competitors shortly.

Types of social change … going beyond the basics

Content marketing and social media, in general, isn’t really about just written text anymore. Images, video, Vines, and other assorted .gifs might be the most attractive options for brands this year and going forward.

What’s more, users are starting to expect multimedia content on various sites, and that trend will only continue. You can even consider offering services not found on most other sites to attract a new or unexpected user base.

Mark Schaefer is one of my favorite experts in social media. I highly recommend his work. Check out his work to keep up with popular topics.

Takeaways

To succeed in social media of the future, you need to think of your brand or company as a content curator or even as a publisher. You’re creating content that your customers will enjoy and share, regardless of where you post it.

That said, you need to make sure they see it, so the location or platform still matter, along with any associated advertising and making sure it all of the above are optimized for mobile.

We’d love to hear how you are planning on updating and improving your company or brand’s social media in the coming year in the comment section below.

This article was written by Owen Andrew, a journalist from Southern California.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your 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 innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your social media 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.

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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.

6 Fantastic Facts about the Changing Social Media Landscape

Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations. Yes indeed, Seth Godin. Is your business employing social media to engage customers and encourage the right sort of conversations? The changing social media landscape is surely making it difficult to keep up, isn’t it?

But keep up you must, to stay ahead of the constantly changing and moving parts.

In recent years, the sheer number of social media marketing channels and options has overwhelmed more than a few small business owners. Factor in the current mélange of tools, technologies, and operational requirements, and marketing has begun to resemble nothing less than a three-dimensional chessboard.

It’s critical to identify the sharp touch points that actually allow marketers to connect with consumers.

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.

Related: How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement

Defining a social media strategy to socially engage customers to build better customer relationships is particularly challenging these days because the rules are continuously changing. A decade ago or so, businesses mostly sought to create buzz and increase brand awareness. Now they need to build compelling customer experiences that keep them engaged.

However, the old ways have not entirely disappeared, they have just expanded in size and scope. Here are 5 new additions to the social media landscape that small businesses need to incorporate into their marketing strategies quickly.

Media landscape … social listening

Social media listening, also known as social media monitoring, is the process of identifying and assessing what is being said about a company, individual, product or brand on the Internet.

Both social media and person-to-person information-gathering have value, but social media listening is quickly becoming a valuable customer intelligence tool.

There are several ways to use social media to gain insight, including monitoring online customer support forums, using software tools to gather comments.

In an enterprise, social media monitoring tools can mine text for specific keywords on social networking websites and blogs and in discussion forums and other social media. Essentially, control software transposes particular words or phrases in unstructured data into numerical values which are linked to structured information in a database so the data can to be analyzed with traditional data mining techniques.

Here is an explosive example of social media listening where KLM used Twitter to add a flight to its roster.

It all started when a Dutch filmmaker tweeted his disappointment about the lack of a direct flight from Amsterdam to Miami. Specifically, he was looking for a hangover-reducing direct flight to/from the Ultra Music Festival taking place in Miami on March 21st, 2011.

A KLM rep rapidly responded with a wager – if the filmmaker could book an entire flight (351 seats) before December 6th, KLM would add the non-stop flight to its schedule.

Beyond all expectations, the resulting campaign Fly2Miami sold out the entire flight within 5 hours.

Media landscape changes … data-driven marketing

At its core, data-driven marketing centers on one thing and one thing only: creating value by engaging customers more effectively. That may sound straightforward at first, but the task is anything but simple, and it’s becoming more and more sophisticated every day.

New technology and digital disruption are throwing the physical world into disorder and on the flip side, customers are more demanding than ever before.

Most marketers already leverage data, of course: customer service data, customer satisfaction data, digital interaction data and demographic data. But the new era of data-driven marketing combines collecting and connecting larger amounts of data, rapidly analyzing it and gaining insights, and then bringing those insights to market via marketing interactions tailored to what’s relevant for each customer.

Small businesses need to combine the traditional data their companies have collected with communication data (like data pulled from social media), integrating both online and offline data sources to create a single view of their customer. They also need to glean and apply customer insights from this data.

Changing social media landscape … social commerce

Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce that involves using social media, online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist in the online buying and selling of products and services.

More succinctly, social commerce is the use of social network(s) in the context of e-commerce transactions.

The concept of social business was developed by David Beisel to denote user-generated advertorial content on e-commerce sites, and by Steve Rubel to include collaborative e-commerce tools that enable shoppers to get advice from trusted individuals, find goods and services and then purchase them.

Customers today engage with businesses in many different ways, leading to numerous touch points and tremendous opportunities for positively influencing their customer experience.

If one considers the hundreds of interactions each client has throughout his/her lifecycle with a company, how do you define a customer experience to focus their limited resources?

Here are some examples of ways to engage customers socially by talking about the positive aspects of business and work:

The pleasure of meeting and talking … with different people every day

Rewards … that come from helping staff take on new challenges and experiences

Fun and laughter … in a relaxed and healthy work environment

The fascination in work itself … and in the other people’s work and businesses

Great feeling … when you finish a job and do it to the best of your capabilities

New things … you learn every day – even without looking to do so

How is the media landscape changing … visual design

We could say that visual design in one of the new aspects of the new social media landscape, but that would be incorrect by a few miles. It has been expanded, however.

The visual design focuses on the aesthetics of social media and just about all elements of media. It is about strategically implementing images, colors, fonts, and other design elements. A successful visual design does not take away from the content on many media. Instead, it enhances it by engaging users and helping to build trust and interest in the brand.

A successful visual design applies these elements and effectively brings them together in a way that makes sense. When trying to figure out how to use the essential elements consider:

Unity has to do with all items on a page visually or conceptually appearing to belong together. The visual design must strike a balance between unity and variety to avoid a dull or overwhelming design.

Space is defined when something is placed in it, according to Alex White in his book, The Elements of Graphic Design. Make whitespace an important part of your layout design.

Hierarchy shows the difference in significance between items. Designers often create hierarchies through different font sizes, colors, and placement on the page. Usually, items at the top are perceived as most important.

Balance creates the perception that there is equal distribution. This should not always imply that there is symmetry.

Contrast focuses on making items stand out by emphasizing differences in size, color, direction, and other characteristics.

Scale identifies a range of sizes; it creates interest and depth by demonstrating how each item relates to each other based on size.

Dominance focuses on having one element as the focal point and others being subordinate. This is often done through scaling and contrasting based on size, color, position, shape, etc.

Visual design is not about what a piece is saying literally through words, but it is everything about what a piece is saying visually and emotionally–solely through appearance.

Here is a four-minute Samsung ad with 15-20 new features shown for their iPhone. No talking. And so simple that you quickly grasp the features and don’t lose interest. And the coordinated music has a way to keep you tied in. Creating customer interest doesn’t get any simpler than this, does it? A very simple, yet entertaining design, don’t you think?

This ad subtly grabs and holds attention based on a great music soundtrack, no speaking, and a total reliance on superb visuals. Letting the visuals totally carry the messages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LHv1FPd1Ec

Creating customer interest doesn’t get any simpler than this, does it? A very simple, yet entertaining design, don’t you think?

Social media channel integration

Social media channels should work seamlessly to promote your online brand.

The findings a new study from global analytics firm Frost & Sullivan, titled Analyzing Customers’ Social Voices, show that the most crucial trend in social media analytics is cross-channel integration.

Brendan Read, an ICT industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said social media analytics has the capacity to show most of the almost unobtainable information about consumer behavior and the more extensive market. And more companies will adopt it as they carry out multiple campaign strategies to offer a stable, valuable, profitable customer experience across all channels.

Related material: Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study

By integrating social and social media into your site you can: add relevance, amplify your ability to create word of mouth marketing, enhance your site’s ‘stickiness,’ and build better relationships with your customers.

Consider these social media marketing tips for the integration of social media channels:

Enable feedback … of all types, including reviews, comments, dialog. And of course, this takes lots of conversation on your part.

Employ games … an excellent means to amplify customer engagement. Many types of games to choose from and put to use.

Maintain … fresh, up to date material. It takes a lot of effort but the payoffs are significant.

Collaborate with customers … create, curate, exchange ideas and solicit their material. Their involvement can make a world of difference.

Employ … what you have learned from your insights. This will be a key component of your website refresh strategy.

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is entirely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of social media and word of mouth marketing. And put it to good use.

It’s up to you to keep improving your social media marketing efforts.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And this struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential clients?

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 this struggle 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 improve 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.

Case Studies to Evaluate New World Marketing Concepts

How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement

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.

Market Enabler … and Small Business Social Media Enablers

Social networking is not about farming followers, it’s a way of cultivating relationships. What does social networking mean to your business? Social media dialog with customers for sure. What about being a market enabler such as reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help?

We believe it is all of these things. And while a social media strategy is essential, so are small business social media enablers.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

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

Now:

Have you ever thought about how to build positive social media community engagement? Does it include the details of success enablers to your social media?

This task starts with what customers want and need. Most people want to: feel needed, be valued, be appreciated, be fulfilled, share emotions, laugh and be happy, succeed and be inspired. Make them feel something that feels unique to what other brands are blasting at them.

To do this you must know who your community is. You must know how to catch and hold their attention.

Related: Ways to Build Positive Social Media Community Engagement

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 good refreshers. There are recommendations on how to beef up social media marketing everywhere you turn. But which ones will make the grass growth the best?

Keep this in mind:

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.

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

Here is the bottom line:

These 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 and community engagement:

*Market enabler … be yourself***

Readers can easily see through marketing speak. Be passionate about what you do and let that show through your personality. Ensure people see you as a real person and not a mouthpiece.

Social media enablers … useful and/or entertaining

Try to add value with everything you post. Be useful or entertaining or you will be ignored. Share tips, tricks, and insights. People’s time is very valuable and they are looking to learn and enjoy new things from you. Make listening to you worth their time.

Engage people

Answer questions readers ask, ask questions of others and thank people even if it is just a few words. Communications is a two-way activity, isn’t it?

Market enabler 2016 … transparent

When you are communicating in the world of social media, say who you are and who you work for. Don’t be sneaky with your comments. Avoid ghostwriting. Be genuine and real.

What to study now: 6 KLM Airlines Marketing Examples for Winning Campaigns

Prepare

If you are going to participate in social media, be prepared and know generally what to expect. Be engaged with people. That really is the only way to understand the online culture, tone, best practices, and protocol. And remember, things are constantly changing, so be prepared to learn as you go.

Post consistently

Social media is a time-consuming effort. You must spend time in a consistent way. You cannot post and then depart for a week or more. And, oh, by the way, it takes persistence to achieve success. Readers expect new content regularly and if they don’t see it, they won’t be back.

Listen carefully

Pay attention to feedback from your audience. Appreciate suggestions; it will make what you do even better. Always acknowledge inputs.

Focus externally

Don’t be 100% internally focused. Collaborate with others. Link to other blogs, videos, and news articles. Share the best of what you discover.

Learn continuously

Be real and honest and always learn as you go. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes or change your opinion on things. Be quick to make changes when you do.

Enjoy yourself

People are easy to read, aren’t they? If you are not enjoying what you are doing, others will notice and won’t interact. So why try to participate in that mode?

What is 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.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your 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 innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising 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.

Are You Employing the Smashing Value of Creative Stories

How Small Businesses Win Social Media Marketing Wars

The Ultimate Guide to Creative Social Media Marketing

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.

Followers Twitter … 7 Ways to Get Followers without Following

Twitter has rapidly become the ‘go-to’ platform for sharing and exchanging information, including link content. For both bloggers and brands, Twitter, now in its eighth year, is rivaled by only Facebook as the most effective way to build website traffic for your marketing campaign. Is your business goal to get followers to twitter without following? If so, this blog post is for you.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

Keep reading: 6 Fantastic Facts about the Changing Social Media Landscape

So what are the best ways to build an engaged and relevant social media community using Twitter for your business marketing?

Related material: 11 Updates to Starbuck’s Creativity and Innovation

Consider these tips for customer engagement and marketing using Twitter (note I am currently doing some twitter work for a Finger Lakes Tourism client … so I will use some examples from this work):

Twitter followers check …. think like your target community.

Make your tweets relevant and interesting to this specific community. You should do minimal to no selling. For the Finger Lakes client, he is sharing facts on the history of the Finger Lakes, the most popular State Parks, and the regional wineries and wines.

Start conversations by asking insightful questions.

Participate in relevant conversations. In the case of the Finger Lakes client, he has prepared many questions on wine production, types of Finger Lakes grapes, and details on the Finger Lakes themselves.

Followers twitter … add value with every tweet.

Remember there is a very fine line between tweeting frequently and spamming. We recommend 1-2 new tweets (not counting responses) every other hour in non-peak times and 2-3 tweets every couple of hours in peak hours. Note that tweets and tweet subject material should be semi-prepared ahead of time.

Craft a distinct voice and personality for your brand.

Use it consistently. Show your emotion, enthusiasm, and passion.

Be a member of the community you are building.

Be an active listener and dialog participant. Don’t become a one-way broadcaster.

There are many aspects to your company

Use ideas from all of them. For example, use some of the social charities and issues that your business supports and highlight your efforts.

Be consistent

… in your value-add and dialog to discriminate your voice from the crowd.

The bottom line

In summary, find ways to have fun … and let it show in your tweets. People will certainly notice!

What is your business doing with its Twitter account that is especially effective that you would share with this community?

Lots of ideas here that can be easily replicated … which ones do you feel could benefit your business?

INTEGRATED_MARKETING_STRATEGY — Do you have an Integrated Marketing Strategy?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

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 innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising 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.

6 Ways Whole Foods Market Makes Social Media the Difference

When choosing to learn from others, it is always helpful to choose first-movers like Whole Foods Market. They have been successfully executing Whole Foods Market’s social media marketing campaigns for over 5 years, and their strategy has played a significant role in their growth.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

It is a simple concept. People don’t read ads, they read what interests them. So if you are going to generate content marketing campaign designs, you are going to have to create an interesting copy. And, oh, by the way, it must be more interesting than the millions of other advertisements out there. Now that is a daunting task, isn’t it?

If you’re not familiar with Whole Foods Market, it’s a leading natural and organic food store with nearly 300 locations in North America and the United Kingdom.

Their social media strategy is built around their company website and 6 additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, their blog, and recent additions of Foursquare and Pinterest.

Their Twitter accounts are used primarily as a customer service tool … responding to individual customer questions and requests. They have several niche Twitter accounts for such special topics as wine and cheese, as well as accounts for most of the local stores.

Related material: 13 Remarkable Visual Content Marketing Examples

Their Facebook and blog platforms allow them to promote more of their product information, health, recipes, and cooking tip content … engaging as well as educating their customers. They also use both platforms to build their brand image. An example of this is an upcoming special film series “Do Something Reel Film Festival”.

This extensive 6-month series was a celebration of people who understand that small ideas can create big change. The festival’s objectives are to connect the brand with food and environmental issues and to inspire people to make a difference.

Can you change? Of course, you can. Everybody changes every day. But how versatile, agile, and quickly can you adapt yourself and your organization to stay relevant in today’s society?

Organizations are always evolving. What’s different now, is that we set a new speed record of change on a daily basis. Technology gives us unprecedented possibilities. And this sea of opportunities is pushing the traditional bureaucratic, controlled and hierarchical organization into an identity crisis.

There are six key reasons Whole Foods change and social media strategy is a successful difference-maker for their marketing campaign:

Whole Foods, while a large, international company, puts priority on the local component of its strategy. There is a community manager assigned at every store, who manages their customer engagement through multiple platform accounts. They focus on being where the customers are.

They maintain very loose control from corporate headquarters. They assist and collaborate, but the local stores maintain lots of freedom of initiative.

All of the efforts are continually focused on improving relevancy of customer engagement. They are not afraid to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t.

Each social media platform has its primary objectives – with some flexibility and adaptability maintained.

The strategy sets a goal of linking and loose integration of all the platform efforts.

They believe in letting customer engagement and conversation occur as naturally as possible. They listen, observe and apply new ideas from what they learn.

The bottom line

Our world is in flux. There is no part of the consumer experience that is untouched. Digital technology is disrupting the marketplace, while changes in our understanding of the psychology of decision-making have overturned centuries of conventional wisdom. Even a brief summary such as this one can make the challenges seem overwhelming.

So what to do? First, start somewhere. It can be one place or the other, but at least start. The change will be unfolding for years and everyone else is as confused as you are.

There are many ideas that you can take away from Whole Foods Social Media Strategy.

Which ones can you apply to your business?

EMPLOY CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE — Employ customer experience, yes?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

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 innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising 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.

Starbucks Marketing … 9 Ways They Employ Social Media Innovation

When choosing to learn from others’ social media strategies, it is always helpful to choose one of the top dogs in social media. Like Starbucks marketing for example.

Marketing is often confused with promotion, but it’s more than that. As Peter Drucker put it, “the aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” In truth, marketing is about insights more than anything else.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

Meet Starbucks

They have been successfully executing their social media marketing plan since the first days of social media and social commerce. For over 5 years, and their strategies have played a significant role in their growth.

With more than 18,000 retail locations in 60 countries, the coffeehouse is the picture of success.

Starbucks rode the baby-boomer trend in the 1990s, the swelling ranks of mid- age professionals who could share and enjoy a cup of coffee with friends and colleagues, away from work and home.

In my opinion, the company has inserted itself into the American urban landscape more quickly and craftily than any retail company in history. It has forever changed the way companies market themselves to customers.

It is a simple concept. People don’t read ads, they read what interests them. So if you are going to generate content marketing campaign designs, you are going to have to create an interesting copy. And, oh, by the way, it must be more interesting than the millions of other advertisements out there. Now that is a daunting task, isn’t it?

Here is how we believe they have been so successful:

Related material: What Marketers Need to Know about Personalization Strategies

Market segmentation

The company has stayed with the upper-scale of the coffee market, competing on comfort rather than convenience, which are the case with its closest competitors, McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts.

Execution

The company continues to focus on its original product bundle that includes good coffee, quality service, and a nice environment to hang around. They keep their attention on paying attention to the details of great execution and service.

Starbucks marketing … Social Media

One of the earliest adopters of the use of social media for marketing and social commerce, Starbucks has certainly taken a leadership position. Their social media strategy is built around their company web site and 6 additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, G+, YouTube, and My Starbucks Ideas. We will review Starbuck’s social media strategy in detail below.

Adaptation and Innovation

Starbuck’s business crowdsourcing, via it’s My Starbucks Idea website, has been a huge success. Why you may ask? Because they have combined the concepts of change, experimentation, social media, customer engagement, and market research and made the results key components of both their brand as well as their marketing strategy. Have you given My Starbucks Idea a try? What did you think?

Starbucks has clearly embraced the digital realm. With a strong presence on multiple social networks, the brand has set a high bar when it comes to being social and engaging its customers.

They are at or near the top of nearly every major brand ranking in social media.

Starbucks’ ability to wear so many hats corporate success, “local” favorite, and Internet sensation warrants strategic examination.

Why is Starbucks such a social media marketing success story?

There are seven key reasons their social media strategy is a successful difference maker for their marketing campaign. Here is my take on why:

Customer relationships

Instead of solely focusing efforts on accumulating new customers, it cultivates its current relationships. This ensures more fans/followers in the long run, as well as the continued existence of brand advocates. This holds true across the board: In-store experiences are highly valued, along with online engagement, emphasizing the importance of customer service.

Going to its customers

When Starbucks takes a photo, it shares it on Instagram, posts it to Facebook, tweets it on Twitter, and pins it on Pinterest. It clearly goes to where all its customers like to hang out. Cross- promotion is more valuable as the world becomes more digitally focused.

Each network provides an opportunity to reach a new audience, and integrating your strategy on each is crucial to increasing visibility and promoting the brand.

Starbucks marketing … customer engagement

They believe in letting customer engagement and conversation occur as naturally as possible. They listen carefully, observe, and apply new ideas from what they learn.

My Starbucks Ideas

The My Starbucks Idea website, where Starbucks does its business crowdsourcing, has been actively engaging customers for over 6 years now. It encourages customers to submit ideas for better products, improving the customer experience, and defining new community involvement, among other categories. Clearly, Starbucks has seen and believes what Peter Drucker has to say about business adaptability.

Customers can submit, view, and discuss submitted ideas along with employees from various Starbucks departments. The company regularly polls its customers for their favorite products and has a leaderboard to track which customers are the most active in submitting ideas, comments, and poll participation.

The site is at once a crowdsourcing tool, a market research method that brings customer priorities to light, an on- line community, and an effective internet marketing tool.

More to discover: Facebook Stories … Have You Heard These Remarkable Ones?

Starbucks reflects a mission

Its mission is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit” one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” They believe lifting customers up will lead to more customer loyalty.

The bottom line

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it .”

Do you have an idea that will change the world? Well, it’s not worth anything unless you can turn that idea into a reality. So take the plunge and see just how far that idea can take you. Or, you can sit around trading advice over the internet.

Our world is in flux. There is no part of the consumer experience that is untouched. Digital technology is disrupting the marketplace, while changes in our understanding of the psychology of decision-making have overturned centuries of conventional wisdom. Even a brief summary such as this one can make the challenges seem overwhelming.

So what to do? First, start somewhere. It can be one place or the other, but at least start. The change will be unfolding for years and everyone else is as confused as you are.

Lots of ideas here that can be easily replicated … which ones do you feel could benefit your business?

How could you improve the Starbucks Coffee Social Media campaign concept for your business?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

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 innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising 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.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Social media community engagement? What does it mean to your business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? We believe it is all of these things.

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.

– Edwin Schlosberg

Have you ever thought about how to build positive social media community engagement?

So let’s examine our recommended game plan to build a positive social media community engagement:

Win the first impression battle

What are you doing to make their first 30 seconds on your platform useful and worth their attention? If you can’t answer this question, you need to start here. First impressions are everything.

Be human

Humanize your brand. Realize that your brand is everything about you from what you tweet to how you respond to comments on Facebook. Don’t hide your employees. Let them shine and be a living, breathing representation of your brand.

Related post: Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study

Be patient yet persistent

Social media community … connect emotionally

*Publix online ordering bakery … lots of experimentation***