THE BLOG

With 2021 drawing to a close, it’s really interesting to look back on the past year and reflect on how far the world of digital marketing has come.

Nowadays, marketers put a lot of emphasis on webinars, video campaigns, and other new opportunities to reach their customers.

But your contemporary communication methods shouldn’t distract you from one of the oldest and yet most effective messaging channels — email.

You might be wondering if email is still a worthwhile marketing strategy. Well, it is.

Did you know that there are 4 billion daily email users and that 64% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers?

Email marketing allows you to build relationships with leads, customers and past customers. It’s your opportunity to speak directly to them in their inbox, at a time that is convenient for them. With the right messaging, email can become one of your most impactful marketing channels.

Make the best of your email marketing by staying in contact with your ‘audience’ and reaching your customers in real time.

By doing this, you are using an affordable way to create targeted messages or campaigns and increase your brand awareness!

So what are you waiting for? Start sending those emails.

Still need help creating a unique and creative email marketing campaign? Contact Lisa from Anago Marekting to sign for the Anago Brand Strength Plan to start your business’ marketing journey today.

The holiday season is just around the corner – and now is the time to start planning a brilliant social media campaign.

With more e-commerce features than ever, platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, are perfect for taking customers from gifting inspiration to final sale in a matter of clicks.

If you want to take your holiday campaign to the next level on social media, keep reading

Set the Creative Concept

For most businesses, the holiday season presents a huge opportunity to connect with your digital community, reach new customers, and drive online sales.

The first step to running a successful social media campaign? A rock-solid concept.

Take a moment to answer these questions:

What are your overall goals?

Which social media platforms would be most appropriate to reach your audience?

What type of content will help you achieve your goals?

What products or services do you want to focus on?

Do you have an additional budget for a holiday-specific campaign?

Remember, holiday campaigns don’t have to revolve purely around selling.

You can choose to give back to your audience or celebrate your community instead.

Create an Easy Route to Shop on Social

The next step to a great holiday marketing campaign is to make it as easy as possible to shop your products or services.

Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest have all introduced major e-commerce integrations over the last year, making it easier than ever to sell on social.

On Instagram, you can now tag products (listed in your Instagram Shop catalog) directly in feed posts, Instagram Stories, IGTV videos, Reels, Guides, and Live broadcasts.

Plan, Create, and Collect Assets

At this stage, it’s a good idea to plan out all the social media assets you’ll need to bring your holiday campaign to life.

This will help you understand how much time and budget you’ll need to spend creating content, versus how much time and budget you’ll need to spend finding user-generated content.

With a rough plan in place, you can start to collect and create your campaign assets.

If you’re working with photographers, videographers, or creators, you may want to put together a moodboard that captures the desired aesthetic of your campaign.

This will serve as a valuable reference to keep all your content visually aligned.

Partner With Influencers or Creators

Influencer marketing is a proven strategy for reaching new audiences and driving sales, especially when it comes to the holiday season.

Partnering with the right influencers lets you tap into a relevant community of shoppers – while also providing high-quality content that you can share on your own social channels.

An effective influencer marketing holiday campaign’s cost varies – it all depends on who you partner with and how much content you want.

As a general rule, it’s best to find a creator who genuinely loves your products, and believes their community will too. This way, you’ll be able to gain authentic customers who are the right fit for your brand.

Schedule Social Media Content

Once your content is ready to go, you can plan and schedule your posts in advance.

Taking the time to schedule your posts will make your life less stressful during the holiday season, and leave more time for you to engage with your community.

You can even schedule posts to go live at your best time to post for maximum engagement (which is typically between 5am and 6am for most accounts!).

There you have it, the perfect strategy to help you plan your holiday content.

Still need help creating a strategy that suits your brand this holiday?

Get in touch with Lisa from Anago Marketing to sign up for the Anago Brand Strength Plan.

LinkedIn is not just for job seekers or recruiters. Businesses can and do benefit from LinkedIn marketing solutions. The platform empowers you to establish yourself in your industry and target your content and advertisements to those who would be most interested.

Creating a LinkedIn marketing strategy might seem confusing for those unfamiliar with the platform.

Here’s the good news:

Anyone can learn how to use LinkedIn for business, and here’s how.

How To Use LinkedIn for Business

With LinkedIn’s growing audience and trustworthiness, businesses should take advantage of the platform and establish a presence. But you’ll need a different approach for your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

The Linkedin algorithm prioritizes relevancy and engagement. It wants to match users to the content they want to read, and it gives pages the tools to do that.

You can target your content and updates based user’s:

Skills
Job title
Education
Industry
Company size

LinkedIn has a different atmosphere than other social media. Instead of trying to reach a big audience, it’s better to appeal to niche communities. Other tactics, such as recency or quantity of posts, don’t matter as much as your content’s relevance and quality.

Learning how to use LinkedIn for business includes finding the balance between promoting your company and spamming your followers.

LinkedIn’s Senior Director of Product Management Pete Davies says the motto at LinkedIn is, “People you know, talking about the things you care about.” Use that philosophy when deciding which LinkedIn marketing solutions will work best for your business.

LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

Plan your objective
Identify your target audience
Create a comprehensive company profile
Post and create relevant content
Take advantage of all LinkedIn’s tools
Build your network and be strategically active
Get your employees involved
Know Your LinkedIn Marketing Objective
Your objective will inform your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

Ask yourself – what do you want LinkedIn to do for your business?

Figure out what you want, then strategize how you’ll get it. If you’re looking for new contacts, then make building connections your priority. If you want to be an influential voice, then write engaging content.

LinkedIn is a great platform to grow your business and engage with potential clients.

Want to learn more about how to create a great LinkedIn profile for your business? Get in touch with Lisa to sign up for the Anago Brand Strength Plan

Nowadays, marketers put a lot of emphasis on webinars, video campaigns, and other new opportunities to reach their customers. But  contemporary communication methods shouldn’t distract you from one of the oldest and yet most effective messaging channels — email.

You might be wondering if email is still a worthwhile marketing strategy. Well, it is.

Did you know that there are 4 billion daily email users and that 64% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers?

Email marketing allows you to build relationships with leads, customers and past customers.

It’s your opportunity to speak directly to them in their inbox, at a time that is convenient for them. With the right messaging, email can become one of your most impactful marketing channels.

Make the best of your email marketing by staying in contact with your ‘audience’ and reaching your customers in real time. By doing this, you are using an affordable way to create targeted messages or campaigns and increase your brand awareness.

Email marketing allows you to segment your customers into different lists based on their preferences to send highly personalized content. From crafting the perfect subject line to images that resonate with your customer, and valuable content that helps your audience, email is the perfect channel to drive engagement.

Want to learn how to create the perfect mailer to appeal to your customers?

Get in touch with Lisa from Anago Marketing to sign up for the Anago Brand Strengh Plan.

Earlier this year, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram’s Adam Mosseri shared during an Instagram Live their plans to “help creators make a living over the long run.”

Similar to TikTok’s Creator Marketplace, it would position Instagram as a one-stop shop for influencers to find brands to work with, and vice versa.

Here are some of the key features of this update.

Partnership messages

Brands and creators will be able to easily find priority messages, connect with each other, and collaborate on future campaigns.

A folder in your Direct Messages has been created exclusively for partnership/business related messages.

Brands will also be able to filter through the creator’s details (using Instagram data), like their follower count, location, gender, and age range.

This way, brands and creators will be able to easily find priority messages, connect with each other, and collaborate on future campaigns.

Data-driven Influencer Search

Brands will be able to use data and unique filters to discover and select the best creators for their campaigns.

They can then “organize shortlists to easily manage multiple campaigns.”

This is a major advantage for brands as they’ll be able to review verified data for a huge pool of potential creators – all directly in Instagram.

Instagram has not officially confirmed what filters will be available, but reports suggest they will include follower count, age, gender, and location.

Instagram will also provide categories such as suggested creators.

Essentially, You’ll be able to see every important metric, directly pulled from their Instagram account.

Preferred Brand Partners List

This new feature puts creators in the driver’s seat: they can add brands they’re interested in working with to a “preferred brands list.”

This way, they’ll be given priority when participating brands are searching for potential collaborators.

Think of it as putting your name at the top of the VIP list, and telling a brand right away that you want to work with them.

With the introduction of these new features, Instagram is making a statement to creators, brands, and influencer marketing agencies alike.

Working with influencers is a great way to market your brand to not only a large audience, but a niche audience.

Want to learn more about how to connect with influencers and find out who your niche audience is?

Get in touch with Lisa and sign up for the Anago Brand Strength Plan today.

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri has just announced a halt in the production of “Instagram Kids”, a separate Instagram platform designed specifically for young children and teens. 

The project was started to combat the high numbers of young children having access to social media.

With this in mind, The Instagram team felt the need to create a safe social media platform with a child-friendly experience, and give parents the option to monitor their child’s social media use and meaningfully shape their child’s social media experience.

Examples of this include anti-bullying work such as Restrict, Hidden Words, and Limits, and recent changes to make Instagram accounts private by default for those under 16.

Issues surrounding negative body image are also tackled within this new app.

However, the project has been paused to allow the Instagram team to communicate with parents, experts, policymakers and regulators, to listen to their concerns, and to demonstrate the value and importance of this project for younger teens online today.

The project was put in motion because:

To focus on building more parental supervision tools

To continue to focus on teen safety

More and more kids are active on social media

With this ever-changing world of social media, it is so important to focus on the health and safety of the most vulnerable minds affected by it. What are your thoughts on a social media platform strictly for kids and teens? 

Want to learn more about how to create a social media presence that is friendly for people of all ages?

Contact Lisa from Anago Marketing to sign up for your Brand Strength Plan

Thanks to the Covid19 Pandemic, the whole concept of work has changed.

For any team to survive and thrive, there needs to be a culture of inclusion, collaboration, and respect. As the manager of a remote team, developing and promoting this type of culture is an especially important task.

When co-workers aren’t physically in the same place, there may be fewer opportunities for interpersonal interaction and connection, so it’s important to be proactive and creative. Really, an effective remote team should feel pretty similar to a team with a physical office.

Humans are social creatures who want to feel safe and have a sense of belonging—the key here is relationship building.

Creating a positive social vibe will help your team members build relationships with each other. Building strong relationships across your team can increase psychological safety, strengthen attachment to the team and organization, and elevate performance.

You may be asking yourself, “how do I create an inclusive and productive work-from-home culture?”

Keep reading to find out how.

Be open and available for your remote direct reports.

When you work remotely, especially if your team is new to remote work, your direct reports might not know how to ask an impromptu question when they can’t swivel their chair around to do so.

Seek out ways to open up virtual channels for spontaneous communication—it shouldn’t feel any more interruptive to ask for a Zoom than it does to have an on-the-fly meeting in the office.

Let your team know you’re around and accessible—even though they can’t see you.

Make time for informal bonding in your remote meeting schedules

It takes longer to get to know one another when you don’t sit together. And getting to know each other is essential to building trust.

So it’s really important to make time for conversations that aren’t all grounded in work projects. These conversations probably won’t happen as organically as they would inside an office, so you have to be a bit more intentional about making them happen.

As a manager, you should be proactive and diligent to carve out time for both individual and team bonding.

Plan for virtual team activities.

Distributed teams come in different flavours: Chances are that your team could be made up of some remote workers and some people working in an office—all of which could be in different time zones. Your team’s specific makeup will factor into the best solution here, and the key is to be really thoughtful of each person’s circumstances.

Make an effort to have additional virtual team gatherings over Zoom—don’t just wait for the rare occasion when you’ll all be in the same place.

And be creative! These can be kind of awkward if you don’t have a plan. But it doesn’t take much effort to put some structure behind them. And you can always recruit volunteers who are particularly social or creative to take the lead.

Be thoughtful and show gratitude to your remote team.

Any manager should do this, remote or not. It’s just extra important when you’re remote to make sure you are deliberate about thanking your team members for a job well done or going above and beyond what they’re asked to do.

There’s a danger that an employee will feel that their efforts are going unnoticed when you’re not there to see them putting in extra hours or getting recognition from their stakeholders, so make an effort to let them know that you virtually see and are grateful for it.

Create a culture of over-communication.

The first tip was about making sure you seem open and available to your team. The last tip is about making sure your whole team operating model is really built on a culture of transparency.

Making an effort to over-communicate is the best way to make sure everyone feels like they are in the loop and therefore equally included.

In the beginning, people might feel like they are over-communicating, but I think they’ll soon find that everyone around them appreciates the messages and they’ll be encouraged to continue.

Make sure you have technology in place that makes it easy for your team to communicate with each other. If you’re looking for some remote communication tools, below is a list that offer a free option that you can trial:

Teamwork for project management
HubSpot’s CRM for managing customer relationships
Slack for instant messaging
Zoom for video conferencing
Vidyard for video messaging
Google Drive for file storage and collaborative documents

Remember that it takes time to become an effective remote leader. Equip yourself with remote work resources that you can use to guide you through new situations.

You’ll have to learn a lot through trial and error. These recommendations are meant to give you a starting point. You’ll want to collect feedback from your team over time to see how you can improve your own virtual office.

Learn how to manage remote teams and more by signing up for the Anago Brand Strength Plan

For a small business, having a social media strategy is essential for increasing brand awareness, reaching your target audience, and driving sales.

With a strong social media strategy, you’ll never run out of ideas on what to post — and you’ll soon have an engaged community at your fingertips.

A social media strategy encapsulates everything you want to do and achieve on social media. It details what you’ll post, the platforms you’ll use, and defines measurable goals that will support your specific business needs.

Smart social media strategies for small businesses can increase brand awareness, build your audience, and increase revenue.

However, this growth won’t happen overnight. It requires a consistent and strategic approach.

For a small business, having a social media strategy is essential for increasing brand awareness, reaching your target audience, and driving sales.

With a strong social media strategy, you’ll never run out of ideas on what to post — and you’ll soon have an engaged community at your fingertips.

Ready to learn how-to create a social media strategy for small business? Let’s get started.

Define Your Social Media Strategy — and Set Your Goals 

Creating a social media strategy from scratch may seem intimidating, but setting SMART goals keeps the process realistic and achievable.

A SMART goal is:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Timely

Apply this method to your social media marketing plan by basing the goals on metrics that are specific to your business.

For example, you might want to track how many people follow your social media account month over month.

If this is your first time creating a social media strategy, it’s a good idea to start with a handful of important goals — so you can really hone in on them. 

This way, you’ll be able to track progress over time and use them as a baseline to build upon in the future.

Identify the Right Social Media Platforms for Your Business 

Every social media platform has a unique set of pros and cons — which means you can be selective with your approach.

Starting off with platforms that make the most sense for your business will help you save time and avoid becoming overwhelmed by your content calendar.

Not sure which platform is best for your business? Here’s a basic rundown:

Instagram

As a visual platform, Instagram is the perfect platform for showcasing your products or services in action. It’s also a great place to grow a community who loves your brand.

Plus, Instagram now has a ton of e-commerce features — making it easier than ever to convert your followers into customers.

Facebook 

Facebook, the most widely-used social media site, is an all-purpose platform where you can share photos, company updates and information, videos, and other informative content to build brand awareness and trust.

Much like Instagram, Facebook is jam-packed with e-commerce features — and has some of the most sophisticated targeted advertising tools in the business.

TikTok 

If you think TikTok is just for teenagers, think again.

TikTok is a video-driven platform full of informative, entertaining, and creative content — and businesses are using the platform to show how their products work, share behind-the-scenes, give tips, and join trending challenges.

YouTube

Unlike most social platforms, YouTube allows you to share longer form videos, with a huge maximum upload file size of 128GB (or 12 hours!). 

This makes it the perfect platform for more in-depth, educational content — such as styling tips, interviews, tutorials, and transformations.

Now that you know what each platform offers, choose the ones most relevant to your business. Don’t be afraid to start with only 1 or 2 — it’s better to focus your energy where it will be most effective.

Define Your Brand Voice

Your brand voice is like your company’s personality — it’s how you speak to your audience. And it might slightly differ from platform to platform.

If you’re struggling to pinpoint your tone, consider your brand’s values and mission. Are you formal and serious, or more relatable and friendly?

Consider how you would talk about your business, products, or services to a friend as you refine your brand’s tone of voice!

Create and Manage Your Social Media Posts 

After you define your goals, choose the platforms you’ll use, and develop your brand voice, it’s time to start creating and posting content.

As a busy small business owner, a helpful way to avoid becoming overwhelmed when creating content is to practice content batching.

It’s a helpful productivity technique where you create multiple captions, photos, and videos during a set period of time.

Track and Measure Your Social Media Goals 

Now that you’ve nailed your content strategy, well done! You’ve done the hardest part.

But don’t forget, the key to a successful social media strategy for small business is consistency.

Monitoring your analytics to see how many people you’re reaching and how they’re interacting with your posts is vital to your strategy as they show you what’s working — and what isn’t.

There you have it — a quick how-to guide for creating a social media strategy for small business.

Take the time to develop SMART goals, define your brand voice, and choose platforms that align with what you’re trying to achieve. If you create consistent content and analyse your metrics, you’ll be one step closer to creating a successful long-term strategy.

Want to learn more about what strategy works best for your brand? Contact sign up for the Anago Brand Strength Plan to get started.

Micro influencer marketing is great for businesses who don’t have the budget to work with ‘Macro’ influencers, and want to reach a more niche audience.

But what is Micro influencer marketing, how much does it cost, and why should it be part of your social strategy?

For starters, what is a Micro influencer? 

While they don’t have a massive following, Micro influencers have a significant social media presence, typically between 10K and 100K followers. 

On this platform, influencers have grown dedicated communities who trust them and the products they recommend.

Why? Because it feels like it’s coming from a friend — not a celebrity endorsement.

Connection is the name of the game when it comes to Micro influencers. And due to their authenticity, they receive a steady stream of comments, likes, and clicks.

Influencer marketing has become an effective way to drive sales and grow your brand on Instagram. 

In other words, the selling power of influencers is here to stay.

And though Macro influencers have a larger following, there are three key benefits to working with Micro influencers:

Micro Influencers Are Typically More Cost Effective 

For many small businesses, your budget may be too small to work with influencers who have 500K+ followers.

Enter the Micro (and even Nano) influencer — they’re more cost effective, and in some cases, may be open to working with you on an ongoing basis.

Micro Influencers Have Niche Communities on Instagram 

Compared to Macro influencers, Micro influencers have a smaller, yet more targeted audience.

Many Micro influencers only talk about one or two topics — a niche — which allows them to organically grow on social media.

Micro Influencers Have High Engagement Rates 

Micro influencers have an average engagement rate of 2% across feed and sponsored posts:

In comparison, Macro and Mega Macro influencers have engagement rates fluctuating between 0.8% – 1.3%.

The takeaway? With steady engagement rates, supportive communities, and fees that better align with small business budgets, partnering with Micro influencers is a great way to optimize your marketing strategy.

And there you have it — a quick guide to Micro influencer marketing!

With a smaller, more concentrated subset of followers, the power of Micro influencer marketing can boost your brand’s visibility, and drive traffic to your site.

When are you going to start connecting with Micro influencers? Get in touch with Anago Marketing to help source the best people for your brand.

Incorporating social media into a marketing strategy is one of the magic ingredients that make for a good campaign. While some marketing techniques can be a little expensive – this one is easy, efficient, and can be lots of fun.

I’ve often spoken about the benefits of optimizing your Instagram platform for business and engagement, but let’s not forget the business opportunities surrounding other social media apps. Facebook, for example, has over three million businesses using the platform for advertising. It’s important to have your Facebook Business Page correctly optimized with quality Search Engine Optimization in order to maximize conversions.

First of all, there is a link between a well-developed social presence and your search rankings and in the end, a Facebook Business Page becomes a “second home page” for your online business. Since there are many rumours about Facebook Business Page Optimization on the Web, let’s put this straight.

In this post, you will learn some essential rules that will leverage your Facebook page.

Choose the right name

When it comes to optimization, it is fundamental to find the right name for your Facebook Business Page because once you choose it, it is permanent. It’s important to remember that the first word of your Facebook page title is the most significant in the eyes of Google.

This is why stuffing your page title with generic keywords won’t work. Doing so might make it look spam-like and discourage people from getting engaged, let alone sharing your updates. You need a brandable name that represents your business and shows its personality. This is the real intent behind any Facebook Business Page.

Customize your vanity URL

Never settle for the dynamic URL which is automatically generated when you sign up. On Facebook, you can easily personalize your address and unify it with your brand name. Make it unique and easy to remember.

If you match your Facebook vanity URL with the page’s title you are going to strengthen your brand recognition. Moreover, personalization will hugely improve the findability of your page both in Facebook search and in search engines.

Fill out your profile

Make sure that your avatar, cover photo, bio and profile info are complete and contain up-to-date information. A complete profile reveals your professional attitude and is a clear signal to your audience that you are engaged. You want to aim for consistency across all of your social media channels, and make sure that the main visuals match.

Build your marketing personas and improve the communication with your targeted audience by using the appropriate voice and tone.

Pay special attention to the “About us” section

The truth is, your visitors want to know all of the details about your business: where your office is located, what service you offer, what your working hours are etc. With this in mind, you want to provide them with complete information.

The “About us” section is a good place to emphasize values and benefits your products or service may bring to the customers. You need a suitable description short enough (you get 155 characters) to be correctly displayed in the search engine snippet, both on desktop and mobile.

Sprinkle your business page with keywords strategically

Making use of keywords is crucial, even when it comes to social media. Place your preferred ones in the most important, strategic parts of your page. Include them in the URL, page title and “About us” section because they will be visible on the front page and will appear in search results.

Remember that the name of your page corresponds with the title tag and your short description works as the meta description tag.

However, make sure that you do not overuse keywords: stick to a top six and mention them naturally in the proper context.

Include the phone number and address in your Facebook page

The current Facebook design shows your business category, location, phone number and business hours straight away, on the front page. Therefore, make sure to fill out your street address, city, state, zip, and local phone number.

Adding the address helps with indexing your brand for local search results and increases page following. Google simply pays more attention to pages that give specific contact information.

There you have it folks, my top tips for optimizing your Facebook Business Page. Remember that Facebook is constantly introducing new useful tools that are going to make running your business easier. To keep your page well-optimized, make sure that you keep an eye on any new features that come out and implement them as you go.

Not sure what features to focus on for your brand? Get in touch with us at Anago Marketing to find out what social media tools work best for your brand.