How to Develop Creative Social Media Content for Businesses

Shaking hands in a content creation agency

It’s common to see businesses marketing products and services for consumers, but there’s also another kind of marketing known as B2B marketing or business-to-business marketing. B2B marketing strives to capture the attention of other businesses in hopes of working together. There is one challenge though—creating innovative content that pushes your business to the top of the algorithm.

Advertisements currently flood the internet. It seems like nowadays anytime you access a website, some form of advertising will also pop up on your screen. This is typically B2C marketing or business-to-consumer marketing. This type of marketing tends to be very creative and even humorous at times, while B2B marketing has a reputation of being more straightforward.

As a leading content creation agency, Bright Age understands just how important it is to create the most eye-catching content, no matter the target audience. We specialize in understanding the audience your business wants to reach, and we create content to help you reach your business goals. If your business is specifically looking for a few tips to maximize your B2B marketing presence, then keep reading because you came to the right place!

People sitting with computers at a content creation agency

Maintain a Consistent Social Media Aesthetic

One of the best ways to stand out among the competition is to maintain a consistent social media aesthetic. Often times, many business pages on Instagram and Facebook post random content without thinking about how jumbled it looks when viewing these pages as a whole. When posting new content online, it’s helpful to think of each post as a piece in a puzzle. If one piece doesn’t fit correctly, the whole puzzle is off. The same goes for social media—consistency is attractive.

Businesses are visually attracted to other businesses that have a neat and professional feeling about them. Why would a business want to partner with a company that appears to be messy and unorganized? Small details like this are essential in grabbing attention in B2B marketing to ultimately build successful brand partnerships.

Emphasize Company Achievements

Workers in office at a content creation agency

Brands only want to partner with other brands they know will benefit them—it’s simple business. One of the best ways to get a better understanding of the services a business offers is by evaluating their achievements. Many brands like to use testimonials that help to show customer opinions and product demonstrations. You’ve probably seen some kind of testimonial as a commercial or even by manually searching for product reviews on a brand website. Even though most people are familiar with being on the consumer end of this form of marketing, testimonials are just as important in B2B marketing.

Although testimonials are useful in B2B marketing, many brands have now turned to creating case studies to provide a detailed analysis of the work they did for a particular client. Case studies allow other businesses to become familiar with their work as they highlight achievements and provide detailed analysis on solutions and results. For example, here at Bright Age we found that creating case studies was the best way to market our successes in a visually appealing format for clients such as Galaxy Theatres and Parex USA.

Bright Age content creation agency case studies

B2B marketing is just as important as marketing to an audience of consumers. B2B marketing allows other businesses to recognize the kinds of companies they want to partner with in order to maximize their successes. As a leading content creation agency, Bright Age specializes in creating eye-catching, yet informative marketing campaigns to set your business apart from the rest. By maintaining a consistent social media aesthetic, your business will appear organized and professional to other brands viewing your content. It’s also important to emphasize company achievements in B2B marketing because it informs other businesses that you are a leader in your industry. Improve your B2B marketing today and contact us here at Bright Age!

Improve Customer Relationships with Professional Community Management

Social media feedback banner in community management agency

Happy customers are the reason why companies become successful. If there are no customers, there’s no way for the business to continue operating. As customers keep businesses running, businesses need to continue meeting the demands of their customers by understanding the products they want to buy—it goes both ways. Why would someone want to give their hard-earned money to a business that doesn’t care about the opinion of the people who keep it above water? That’s why voice of the customer (VoC) programs are essential for a community management agency to understand customer satisfaction.

Most businesses have some kind of VoC program, and most likely you’ve encountered one. Surveys on the back of receipts and emails asking you to rate your experience are some of the common ways companies go about collecting feedback from their customers. In this case, any feedback is positive feedback. It’s important for a business to understand exactly what their customers either loved or hated about their experience purchasing a product or service. This feedback helps the business to understand what they need to do more of or change in order to remain successful in their industry.

As a leading community management agency, we understand just how important it is to listen to our own clients. We want to please them because if we aren’t providing them with the services they desire, they will choose to go elsewhere for business.

Here at Bright Age, we recognize just how important it is to build strong relationships with our clients. To help any businesses looking for some advice, we’ve outlined a few key tips to help you understand the customer satisfaction process.

Collecting Feedback

People working at a community management agency

One of the best ways to collect feedback from your customers is by offering surveys. Surveys are helpful because the business can ask a variety of questions about the customer’s experience and then use this data to help strengthen the business. These surveys can be emailed, linked at the bottom of a receipt, or even conducted over the phone. Businesses can also offer incentives such as gift cards or free products to entice customers to take the surveys.

Another great way of collecting data is by asking customers to leave ratings online. Ratings are often the deciding factor in helping potential customers decide if they want to purchase a product or service from a particular business. Since these ratings are visible to both the customers and the business, they definitely motivate the business to stay on track in providing the best quality service.

Analyzing the Data

Working on social media at community management agency

After gathering the feedback, the next step is to analyze the data for any common themes. If a lot of customers are mentioning the same issue about a product or service, it becomes evident to the business to quickly take any needed action.

This part of the voice of the customer (VoC) process can be very time-consuming because there is going to be a lot of data to get through. As a community management agency, we understand just how important it is to meet the needs of each of our valued clients. We recognize that our clients have many other agencies they could have decided on, so we want to use their feedback to continue strengthening our agency to meet their demands.

Implementing Necessary Changes

Workers on computers at community management agency

Once all the customer feedback has been thoroughly collected and analyzed, the business then needs to decide if they should make any changes. If there was a certain issue that was continuously brought up in the surveys or ratings, it’s pretty obvious the business needs to take action to fix the situation. If the ratings are flooded with five-star reviews about a certain product or service, it helps the business to know they are on the right track with keeping their customers happy. Overall, it is essential for businesses to have voice of the customer (VoC) programs to create an organized way of interpreting customer feedback. Starting with collecting the feedback, many businesses choose to send out surveys and ask customers to leave reviews either on Google or on the personal business website. Once the business feels like they have a good amount of feedback to sort through, they need to start analyzing the data. They should look out for commonly mentioned issues or product ratings that have glowing reviews. After all the data has been analyzed, the business can then implement any necessary changes according to the feedback left by the customers. The VoC program will help your business remain a leader in your industry by understanding the opinions of the ones who keep it running—your customers.

The Benefits of Mobile-Friendly Websites

The Benefits of a Digital Marketing Agency Developing Mobile-Friendly Websites:

Mobile-friendly websites are a critical factor for a business’s success in today’s growing world of mobile users. For instance, data gathered from emarketer shows that in 2021 approximately 81.5% of the U.S. population are mobile users.

Digital-Marketing-Agency Mobile Device For Mobile-Friendly Websites

Not entirely sure what a mobile-friendly website is? That’s okay, as a digital marketing agency, Bright Age can help you better understand. A mobile-friendly website is essentially your business’s main website adjusted to be visibly pleasing and easily accessible across a variety of mobile devices such as smartphones, like the iPhone, and other handheld devices, such as on tablets, like the iPad. An example of a business with a mobile-friendly App and website that we at Bright Age assist with is Galaxy Theatres, pictured below.

Digital Marketing Agency screenshot of  Ux design Mobile-Friendly Website example

The growing population of mobile users is a critical behavior of consumers that businesses need to adapt their online presence to. If you are not entirely sure that a mobile-friendly website is essential to your business then here are three major benefits to having a mobile-friendly website that will most likely change your mind.

Digital Marketing Agency Mobile-Friendly Website Example

1.Enhances your SEO :

As a digital marketing agency that is a qualified Google partner, we cannot stress enough the importance of utilizing SEO for your business’s website.

Google has dominated the search engine market as it is the number one search engine used by consumers. With that being said, Google has a set list of factors that are used to determine the ranking of your website when products or services that are similar to what your business offers are being searched for by potential customers. If you want to optimize your website’s visibility on search engines like Google then you need to adopt the factors used by Google to better rank your site! Having a mobile-friendly website is indeed one of Google’s ranking factors. Ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly will improve your SEO which in turn will increase your website’s visibility, site traffic, and sales. 

Mobile-friendly website UI design Example

If you would like to learn more about SEO and its benefits, be sure to check out our article and SEO case studies and learn how we at Bright Age can assist your business in maximizing SEO to reap its benefits.

2.Improves Users’ Experience and Your Brand image : 

Nothing will turn potential customers and sales away quicker than a terrible user experience. Having a mobile-friendly website with a pleasing UX and UI design will result in satisfied customers who have a positive image of your business. UX, as explained by Sprout Social, refers to the interaction a customer has with the design of your brand’s physical products and or, as this article focuses on, the design of your website. For reference let’s say you have a website that when accessed on mobile devices lags and is hard for customers to maneuver through. This inherently will have customers leaving your site quickly with frustration and with a negative image of your business. UI design on the other hand is the look of your website. For instance, are the tabs on your website located in a way that is aesthetically pleasing, does the look of your site make users want to stay and engage? It is incredibly important to keep UX and UI design in mind when designing your mobile-friendly website because it ultimately will impact your business’s image amongst users. Once you master a mobile-friendly website that is aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate through, you will have satisfied customers who trust and respect your business, which in the end leads to our final benefit.

3. Increased Conversion Rates

Statista estimated that in 2021 there are 17.3 million Mobile buyers in the U.S. This means if your business does not have a mobile-friendly website, then you are missing out on reaching a significant amount of customers and potential sales.

mobile-friendly UI and UX design online shopping example

Creating a well-developed mobile-friendly website ultimately will extend your reach, increase your site visibility and traffic through optimizing SEO, and will build positive customer relations and a positive brand image, which in all will lead to an increase in conversion rates.

The Importance of Brand Monitoring on Social Media

Brand Monitoring on social media is one of the easiest ways to grow and manage your digital presence. By giving your audience the ability to share, like, comment, and react to certain products or services, you have a direct line of feedback from your customers. This way, you can easily have your own social media brand management from the platforms you are posting on. 

What is brand monitoring?

Brand monitoring is understanding and viewing the way your brand is perceived and accepted by your customers. It is tracking how your brand does when you post a product or launch a new campaign. It is an important part of understanding and growing your brand. It really boils down to seeing how your audience reacts to your posts, products, and services. Knowing this information is crucial to every brand. 

Why is this important?

Your brand is only as good as your customers see it. Being a business, your company depends on customers that will buy your product or service. Without seeing how they perceive your brand, you are left without direction on how to change or improve your brand to better fit your audience. There is no way to successfully grow your business without understanding how your brand stands with your audience. 

Working on brand work online

Integration of Social Media

Social media is a great tool to use for brand monitoring because of the access you have to your audience. When you put your business on social media, especially on platforms that customers can openly communicate with you on (Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter), you are more likely to see immediate feedback when posting new content or even new products. Social media brand management is simple and effective. For example, if you upgrade your Instagram or Facebook account to a business account, you can unlock specific insights on your post information. This will include how many likes, comments, shares, and saves your post gets. It will also show the demographic of your audience, the best times to post, how many people saw/engaged with your post that were not following you, and so much more. 

 

Brand monitoring is not just tracking your audience. It is also finding out ways to further engage and grow your audience. By getting the information from your social media, you are now able to take that knowledge and input it into your brand. This does not mean a total makeover of your brand, but just constantly fine tuning it so that your brand fits your audience. The more you monitor your brand, the better information you have to improve your brand, products, or services. 

people working together to build a successful online

Brand Elements to Monitor

There are certain parts of your brand that should be carefully looked at when gathering information. These parts include: channels, name variations, competitors, trends, and public figures. Channels are ways that your brand is seen by your audience. This can include social media, news, review sites, and the list goes on. Specifically on social media, you want to make sure that people can easily find your page and that page looks professional and intriguing. Name variations are how people refer to your brand. These can be nicknames, abbreviations for your brand or other words that your brand might be associated with. If you do not recognize a different name variation for your brand, you could be missing out on important information that could be used to improve your brand. Competitors of your brand are extremely important to be aware of. Your customers may be split between a competitor and your brand and to make sure your customers are engaged and stay engaged, it is important to know how your audience reacts to certain posts, products or services. Overseeing trends is important in order to keep your brand up to date with what is happening in the world. The absence of trends in brands could result in a negative connotation of the brand which would lead to poor engagement or even product sales. By incorporating trends, you are not only engaging your audience but demonstrating that you care what is happening in the world. Public figures come into play when they are mentioning, using or influencing people to use your product or buy your service. Monitoring the figures that do represent your brand is important because you want to make sure their actions and words correspond with the values and intentions of your brand. 

 

Social media brand management is extremely important and useful when creating and expanding your brand. Monitoring your audience can only give you more information on your engagement and activity. If you are having trouble with this crucial part of brand monitoring, Bright Age Digital Creative Agency is here to help. 

working together to better their brand through online applications

 

What Happened on Social Media in 2020

2020 was a challenging year. There were many unexpected events that changed how the entire world operated. Despite all the bad that happened this year, 2020 was a huge year for social media. With the rise of the use of technology, due to everyone being stuck in their homes, this was a great opportunity for social media to expand their normal uses and make some change. 

online systems communicating and updating

January

In January of this year, no one was in lockdown and everything was almost normal. People were interacting with others in person and going about their lives without a pandemic. 

Meanwhile, Facebook was putting together some new tools to increase privacy settings and efficiency. Facebook created new privacy tools in order to increase the control that third parties have of a user’s data. This will give you the ability to have an “off-facebook” activity and will alert you when third parties are trying to take your information. This also connects to Facebook making ads more controllable for users. This addition will give the user the option to be in a targeted market hence either keep their information to themselves or let brands use their information. You now have an “active status” option for Facebook, meaning you can say whether you are online or not and who can see that status. 

Instagram was busy as well. IGTV had an upload update, now you can upload IGTV videos from your central button. Instagram was testing the ability to check your direct messages on a desktop instead of a phone which would make it more accessible. They also added some features to their Stories which includes new stickers and new boomerang modes. 

Twitter made strides to reduce harassment on the platform by adding restrictions in replies to tweets. Twitter was also testing the ability to pay users for viral or popular tweets or accounts. Twitter promoted Trend Spotlight ads which would let brands place their ads in the explore section to boost engagement. These ads could be videos, GIFs, or static images. Sadly, Twitter’s audience insight tab is now gone. 

LinkedIn has a new feature where you can invite your first degree potential connections to follow your page, thus gaining connections easier. This is optional to avoid spamming. There is a function to stop the invites at 50 per day, but even then it might be spam-like. LinkedIn has also started to roll out a streaming feature where you can stream from third party websites such as Restream, Wirecast, and Socialive. This would make it easier for those to expand their connections which may lead to more job opportunities. This would also help businesses who are looking to expand their network. 

TikTok had an explosion of popularity in the fall of 2019. Since then, they have quickly adapted to the standards of Facebook and Instagram. During January, they created a new search page which will give you more control over your feed. These pages include beauty, gaming, and pop culture. They also created a dark mode. 

Some new social media networks that emerged in January were Byte, somewhat like TikTok but only includes 6-second video uploads, and YourStand, a social media platform that is centered around products and sharing people’s passions about products. 

February

During the month of February, the pandemic had not quite hit the US. People were still going about their normal lives. 

Facebook had a huge February with many changes to the platform. They created a Creator Studio App which makes life easier for those that manage business pages on multiple platforms. Using this app will allow you to: manage multiple pages at once, view/edit posts, respond to fans, receive notifications, and see insights on their posts. This will be life-changing for those that post similar content on different social media platforms. For example, if you managed two different companies on Facebook, Creator Studio would allow you to view both pages easily without having to have one login. This is more efficient especially for those who manage more than a couple pages on Facebook. They also created a one-time notification API. This will make it easier for businesses to send a one-time notification to their customers when they want to be notified. This will limit spamming. In efforts to better protect a user’s privacy, Facebook partnered with Reuters to identify misinformation in posts. This will give Reuters the ability to fact-check posts on both Facebook and Instagram. Therefore, more data will be given to other parties but there will be more regulation for posting, especially political posting. There is also a new stories discovery page, new color highlight for tags, and new feed sorting options. 

Instagram also took on many changes to their platform. They added a new way to manage followers by adding a most and least interacted with when going through followers. They also added a new option for simpler communication for business accounts. There is a button on your profile that is labeled “Messages”. By clicking on this, users can be directed to messenger, WhatsApp, or direct messages. 

Twitter introduced two new exciting features. First is Chroma Labs, which enables you to edit your stories with templates and frames. In addition to this, they created labels for manipulated videos and pictures. This label which will read, “manipulated media” on a post will show you whether the picture or video is real or not. 

TikTok decided to add direct website links on profiles in the biography section and created a profile that is similar to Instagram.

Snapchat had a unique addition in February which was a swipe up feature for their ads. This means that if you saw an ad, by swiping up on the ad you would be directly taken to a website or an information center about what the ad was for. For example, if you see an advertisement for sunglasses, when you swipe up on the ad it will take you right to the product. This will help customers find the products they are looking for and help companies sell the products they are advertising.

March

The pandemic hit the US in March of this year. Almost every social media created a response to Coronavirus in their own way.

Starting off with Facebook, they had an information take on their COVID response. They increased their fact-checking function on posts regarding the pandemic and also banned ads that were exploiting the pandemic as well. They also made a COVID information panel at the top of all users’ feeds in order to efficiently spread reliable information. They gave the World Health Organization free ads to increase awareness on the platform. In addition to changes on the Facebook page, Facebook announced a $100 million grant program that would be used to support 30,000 small businesses that were affected by the virus. New features in Facebook that were not centered around COVID included Facebook Live tool, an updated dashboard for managing live broadcasts that includes new settings for efficiency, and mood mode for stories. 

Instagram made their app COVID friendly as well. They added informational prompts at the top of the feed section as well as launched new stickers promoting users to stay at home. When these stickers were clicked on, the user would be taken to informational pages like the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control. Another feature that was influenced by COVID was the new co-watching feature to bring people together when they were quarantined in isolation. This would let a group of people watch content with each other even if they were miles away. 

Twitter contributed to the COVID response by supporting and verifying informed voices, such as health experts, on the app. This way, users could see who was verified to give out information regarding the pandemic. Twitter announced a $1 million pledge to two organizations, the Committee to Protect Journalists and International Women’s Media, during COVID. Twitter is one of the last of the big social media platforms to add some sort of stories function to a profile.

LinkedIn created free Working From Home courses to continue educating those that needed jobs. They also created a news section that featured news from reliable sources about the pandemic. 

TikTok was becoming a very popular app when people were forced to quarantine. Since they had this booming platform, TikTok did everything they could to inform people about the pandemic. They created an informational page about the pandemic. They also united with the World Health Organization (WHO) to make this page and do livestreams with experts from WHO that answered user’s questions and gave advice. TikTok then donated $10 million to the WHO’s response fund. In addition to this, TikTok created a new analytics tool that would measure engagement statistics for creators. 

staying at home and communicating

April

During April, people were quarantined and in many parts of the world. Platforms had to start to think of how to keep users interested and engaged.

Facebook created the Facebook Gaming App for users to play, stream and engage with others playing a game. They also included a function called Quiet Mode, made to help people control their time online. Quiet mode gives you a break from your technology. It mutes your notifications and will not let you back into the app before your time limit goes away. 

Instagram shifted their accessibility to a desktop with livestreams and direct messages now accessible through those devices. IGTV was also updated with new features such as a section on the explore page for popular IGTV creators, ability to share an IGTV on your story, and the ability to record IGTV using a new hands-free mode. 

Twitter updated their explore section to be based more on location rather than popularity. For example, instead of seeing generic advertisements for events or services that are not close to you, you will see advertisements that will be more centered around where you are. They also updated their data sharing policy by limiting the data Twitter uses to only ads that you have seen on the app or on your device. This data will be shared with other platforms in order to see what ads are being looked at and how to improve them. 

TikTok also extended their device accessibility by making it possible to log into the platform via desktop. They also created a donation sticker that is being used to boost or donate to TikTok creators. 

Snapchat made a new ad format as well as a new story sharing integration between multiple platforms. This will let those exchange photos or videos between Snapchat and other platforms. A new addition to Snapchat is it’s vertical video conversion tool which will let you change a horizontal video into a vertical one. 

May

Facebook was very busy in May. A new AR studio was released, Sparks AR studio with more tools. This studio gives anyone with the skills necessary to create effects for their own stories. These effects could be saved and used by other users. There was also a music section of the studio that will allow you to make effects that change depending on the music you were using in your stories. Facebook also released 15 new Blueprint courses, which are educational courses for social media marketers, which will continue to teach people about marketing. Facebook also released ‘Shops’ that will give businesses the opportunity to create an online store through Facebook. 

Instagram has now incorporated IGTV advertisements up to 15 seconds long. They also have included a new way to tip during live streams. Viewers can now simply press the newly added badge icons to tip the creators they are watching. The platform also added a messenger room for group chats which will allow you to start video chats with people as well. Additionally, Instagram expanded on their features by adding a ‘Guides’ tab to certain profiles which highlight recommendations or tips toward more business related content. 

Twitter did not incorporate new features but was in the spotlight when Trump attacked Twitter. In simple terms, Twitter started flagging some of Trump’s tweets and he accused Twitter of being against conservative speech. This was a legal battle regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This act protects social media platforms from their users. Trump wanted to remove this act but its removal would negatively impact social media networks. As of now, nothing has been removed. 

LinkedIn launched a polls feature for posts and merged live streams with events pages in order to host events through the platform to keep people safe yet engaged online. For example, instead of having to be invited to a livestream, you can enter the livestream through the homepage. This will make it easier for bigger businesses to host live events.

TikTok has now launched music rules and now can only use royalty-free commercial music for videos.

June

June was a slow month for social media with only new updates from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. 

Facebook launched the ability to switch between personal and business accounts on messenger. This will make it easier for business owners to switch between their professional and informal lives. In preparation for the upcoming election, they also launched a voting information center and the option to opt out of political ads. 

Instagram now has ads that are not connected with Facebook. This will reach different audiences more effectively. For example, a company can create specific advertisements that will be more suitable for their different audiences on different platforms. Instagram also created pride month effects for Stories.

Twitter launched audio tweets which will change the way tweets are received and given. 

July

Facebook created a new algorithm that will make original content, this meaning posts from friends, be prioritized in your feed. They also created a Touch ID and Face ID security feature for messenger that makes your chats more private.

Instagram created brand deals for TikTok creators for their launch of Reels, which launched in August. Instagram also created a feature that lets you pin a comment on a post. 

Twitter launched the ability to have direct messages on a desktop. This will increase accessibility to your messages. 

LinkedIn created a new career opportunities hub that was centered around the pandemic. This would give free access to skills training to help those get a job. For example, LinkedIn offers skills and educational tests that add to your profile that give you badges. When you go into the hub to find a possible new job, these free skills training badges will stand out to employers that are hiring. 

TikTok was under consideration for being banned in the USA due to low privacy features.

Pinterest created a new feed algorithm that would highlight videos, new features, and content from diverse backgrounds.

online communication via the computer

August

Facebook released a whole new look for their homepage. This was a Horizon Virtual platform that gave people that ability to have an avatar and create new experiences while online. Facebook also expanded their analytics to group administrators. This would give those users the information about their posts within the group.

Instagram launched Reels, a 15 second video that is a new section of content on Instagram. This is similar to TikTok. Instagram also added suggested posts to your feed, these posts are of people that are similar to the accounts that you follow. There was another addition that gave users the ability to merge messenger and direct messenger. 

Snapchat has new sharing options that would let the user share snapchats with those that are not on the platform via a shareable link. 

TikTok worked this month to not be banned. They also had Microsoft and Oracle interested in buying the app which would save it from being banned.

September

Facebook launched a Facebook Business Suite which will combine your business profiles from Facebook and Instagram into one space that is available on desktop or through an app. This tool will increase efficiency when you manage an account on multiple platforms. For example, a company that has pages on Facebook and Instagram will be able to work both profiles in one studio so that it is easier to monitor the activity as well as interact with clients.

Instagram created a Rights Manager which helps find copyright infringement on both Facebook and Instagram posts. This will alert sensity content to users and creators.

TikTok made an official deal to sell to Oracle, but Oracle must develop a new feed algorithm in order to seal the deal. 

LinkedIn now has a Stories feature that is globally used. This is one of the last platforms that has added a Stories feature to their platform.

learning online

October

Facebook created a new messenger look to change it up. It is more customizable and gives the users backdrops and themes to choose from. For the Facebook Groups section, new features were added to the page. This includes an administrator assistant, group topics, groups added to brand collaboration manager, realtime chats, Q&A tools, and public group discussions in the feed. This will change how the Groups page is used. 

Instagram created new resources for small businesses in a site called ‘The Season for Shops’ in order to showcase smaller businesses that need help during the crisis. 

TikTok became unbanned in the US and launched a partnership with Shopify, a tool to help users shop on the app. 

November

Since we have just exited November, there have not been too many updates about social media apps from this month. 

Facebook created a vanish mode for messenger that would imitate the ability to delete messages like Snapchat. This would be set by the user and messages would automatically vanish after the message is seen and the chat is closed. 

Instagram redesigned their Homepage and gave easier access to Reels and Shop sections by creating their own tabs on the explore page.

Twitter officially launched Reels, similar to an Instagram story, where users can add content on their profile page for a limited amount of time. 

This year was a very eventful time for social media. Although our world was turned upside down from this pandemic, social media platforms took it upon themselves to make the internet more accessible and user friendly. 

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https://www.socialmediatoday.com/topic/social-media-updates/

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The Engagement Between Social Media and Sports

Due to what is happening in the world, many in-person activities have been suspended. Some activities, such as going to the store, museums, and going to school have all been able to be moved online. Although it is not the same, people have still been able to get the experiences of seeing art or learning a lesson via their computers. However, one essential part of American lifestyle has been compromised: sports. Being in an arena for a sports game is just not able to happen. Although people understand the severity of the situation, they still miss seeing their favorite sports teams play live. Not having sports in general has caused a disruption in the amount of ads usually spent on sports games. Due to the increased use of social media for entertainment, popular platforms such as Twitter and Youtube have been used to stream these games so that fans are still connected. 

This is a depiction of people chatting while on the Twitter platform

While the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB are up and running, a great percentage of their ads are not running. AdWeek says, “…only $100 million has been spent on sports advertising as of August 2020. But by this time last year, advertisers had already spent $1 billion.” Although their ad spending is way down, page views have been extremely high. It seems as though people have been turning toward the internet to get their sports updates instead of watching television. According to AdWeek, sports fans are the types of people advertisers should be targeting. Sports fans seem to also look at finance, technology, and automobiles, specifically luxury cars. Using this information, those that advertise in those 3 sections should pay more attention to sports fans. Since sports are not dishing out ads for their events, they are an open target for advertising markets. 

Devices all connected showing what is going on in the world

Although fans are not able to be there in the stands, they have found a new way to connect with their favorite sports. Twitter has become the place to go for sports updates, sports conversations and even sports clips. Maybe it is because of the pandemic, but AdAge says that, “70 percent of the general population say they would engage with sports that they never would have followed before COVID-19. This number jumps to 83 percent of people on Twitter, giving brands even more of a reason to connect to the sports conversation where it’s happening.” The number of fans have jumped an incredible amount possibly due to the convenience of just having to open an app on their phone or because of all this spare time they have due to the pandemic. Because there are more fans joining the fanbase, and different fans for that matter, brands have some pressure to learn how to connect everyone together. People have found a new sports home on Twitter. Almost 75% of surveyed Twitter users admit that being on Twitter has been able to be that social connection that they have been missing watching sports online. Using Twitter during games keeps fans connected as well as informed.

This was a screenshot of a famous athelte's twitter page

With Twitter heading the campaign for connection online for sports fans, brands have to understand that they need a new game plan for connecting their new fanbase and old fanbase. Using social media for entertainment is an opportunity for brands to show their support of sports fans during this crazy time and join the fans in their new technological movement of the sports community. Branding and advertising is not always the easiest thing. Bright Age Digital Creative Agency can not only assist your company in marketing your brand, but can pave the way for your brand to be an essential part of the online entertainment and sports community

a screenshot of twitter app on iPhone

How to Create a Consistent Brand Using Social Media

Branding helps to give companies a personality, as well as an identity. Having a consistent brand can give your company a leg up over the millions of other businesses that exist. Consumers want a brand they can trust and what better way to build trust than being consistent? To achieve brand loyalty from the most devoted of customers, a company must obtain certain attributes in order to build a brand that is different from the rest.  Using these tips, social media branding agencies can create reliable and identifiable brands, just by being consistent with their content.

 

The Audience

Understanding who your brand is targeting is one osocial media branding agenciesf the keys to success. Identifying the audience will drive higher engagement because those who are interested in the content are more likely to participate in the conversation. For example, if you are a young women’s clothing brand, you aren’t going to have much luck running Facebook or Instagram ads to elderly men.  However, if you have identified your audience as women, ages 18-30, your ad campaigns will reach a much more appropriate audience. Additionally, identifying the audience will help social media branding agencies save money because it greatly narrows the pool of uninterested consumers.  It is also important to identify the audience when following users from each social media platform. Follow those users who identify with and embody your brand because those people are more likely to follow back and engage with your content.

 

The Design

Consistency can be achieved through the design of a page. By keeping colors, logos, and themes the same across all platforms, it gives the viewer of the page a feeling of unity. In addition, consistency can be very visually appealing to the consumer. It minimizes confusion of what the product or service is because all the visual elements fall under the same design. An example of a company who utilizes design to their advantage is Target. Target has capitalized on its use of everything red, the bull’s-eye logo, and the white dog. Because they are consistent across all of their social pages, customers are able to easily recognize a Target product or advertisement because they have built up an identity for themselves. Target is a brand name that you know and trust, partially accredited to their consistent designs.

 

The Message

In addition to consistent visual images, having consistent message content is vital in creating a brand. Having a distinct voice in your posts will keep the audience engaged. Conflicting messages can negatively hurt a brand because it strips away at the credibility of the company. Whsocial media branding agenciesatever your goal is, there is a voice that can achieve the message. Coca-Cola executes their message in every post they release. Their goal is to create a feeling of nostalgia and for the customer to equate happiness with Coca-Cola products. Through the use of an upbeat tone and references to positive memories from the past, Coca-Cola’s message is clear and consistent. Social media branding agencies should set a goal for each brand’s identity to create a consistent message that the audience can believe and connect with.

5 Ways Facebook Is Improving This June

In order to sustain its place as the top social media platform, Facebook is constantly creating new innovations in order to keep users engaged. This month, Facebook has released several updates to try to improve the various features of the platform. These updates will allow social media companies, like Bright Age, and Facebook marketing agencies to better monitor activity and create higher quality social media posts. Here are the five newest Facebook updates and news you may be seeing in the month of June.

Saves
Prior to this update, Facebook provided the capability to save an article, video, etc., but lacked a means for users to track how many people were saving their content. In the same way you are able to view the total likes or shares, users can now see the total number of saves a post has received. If approved, this will allow social media agencies to have a better understanding of what types of posts are memorable or influential enough for a user to want to save and revisit later.

Active Admins
In order to increase personalized interactions between brands and users, Facebook is testing a system of notifications that tells a user viewing a page when that page administrator is online. It then presents the option to send a direct message via Facebook Messenger to the admin when they are active on the page. Facebook has yet to confirm if this update will go into effect due to concerns of overwhelming companies with an abundance of messages. However, the goal is to increase engagement levels and personalization to assist companies in forming relationships with clients.

Adding More Than Photos to Albums
Traditionally, Facebook albums have been used only to group together photos from a particular event. With this new update, Facebook will allow users to add check-ins and written posts from yourself and other users to your albums. For example, if a company had a birthday party for an employee, they could create a Facebook album of photos from the event. In addition to the photos, they now can check-in at the location of the party and have multiple employees’ add posts wishing a happy birthday all within the same album. Similarly to the active admin addition, the goal of the album update is to encourage engagement and collaboration between users.

group of friends on social media

Community Section
Facebook will replace the “likes” tab on a page with “community.” This is due to the fact that it has become more vital for Facebook marketing agencies to learn the demographics of those interacting with the page and how often they are doing so, rather than simply seeing how many likes the page receives. This will better monitor growth and activity of pages to help companies’ better target the proper audiences.

Success Stories
Through the use of advertisements and the mere connection to millions of users, Facebook has helped numerous companies increase their reach and revenues this month. Spanish hotel chain, Melia Hotels, was able to increase its’ return on ad spend by 6.7 times through the use of advertisements on Facebook. Fashion label, Ted Baker, was able to reach 7.2 million users in only five days through their Facebook ads promoting a sale. Lastly, Philips vacuum cleaners created a Facebook video campaign that produced a 15% rise in men’s awareness of the company. For social media companies and Facebook marketing agencies, these statistics are incredibly motivating and prove that marketing via Facebook can result in a successful payoff. At Bright Age, we seek these kinds of results for our clients and are doing so by utilizing social media platforms like Facebook to increase growth.

Woman Shopping

How to Utilize Social Media Demographics

Marketing today is harder than it has ever been. We are straying away from traditional television advertising and heading towards complete digital interaction. Social media and social media demographics has become the epicenter for marketing specialists and the main platform for marketing strategies.

As always, businesses must identify their target audience and create the right segmentation. Sounds easy right? Actually, it isn’t when you consider the different types of social media websites and their demographics. Different websites require different content and creativity, and depending on your product, some websites will be better/worse for your product. For example, your target audience can be on Facebook and Instagram but require different approaches since they both have different demographics.

An easy way to solve this is to look at a website’s demographics and create a strategy from there. A social media marketing agency like Bright Age is perfect for creating your social media campaign. Here are the main social media demographics and how your business can take advantage of them!

Social Media in General

Needless to say, social media is full of endless marketing opportunities. Here are the general social media demographics that you should be aware of.

  • 8 billion social media users worldwide
  • 37% global penetration
  • 22% increase in last year

Facebook

As of today, Facebook contains the highest number of users at an astonishing 1.9 billion monthly inhabitants. These users are predominately female, yielding at 83% online female users while 75% online male users. As for reach, Facebook is the best place to reach Millennials and Generation X (ages 18 – 49).

LENDELEDE, BELGIUM - MAY 24TH 2016: hand holding iphone6 mobile phone which displays the Facebook app on the touch screen

Facebook is a great place to have a detailed and aesthetic digital representation of your brand. Here, you can provide the fine details on why your business is so great while providing attractive picture/text content. Think of this as your business page, but with the ability to reach millions of people at any given time. Once you drive traffic to your Facebook page; make sure your business location, product details, and general info are appealing and easy to spot. And of course, take into careful consideration of the social media demographics we provided above!

YouTube

YouTube is a pretty popular site and has been around for quite a while. Coming in at 1 billion users, it just might be better than TV with more opportunities of exposure. YouTube is predominately male, with 55% of users being male with respect to its 45% female users. Per minute, there are about 2 million videos watched a day!

This site has been around for a long time and doesn’t really hold a grab on a specific demographic. Young to old and from culture to culture, when looking for a video YouTube is the world’s first choice. With that, YouTube is perfect for anytime you want a create a timeless video on your product. It’s a good way for consumers to learn about your product/business in even greater detail. And if you get really big, you can even generate some ad revenue from YouTube!

Instagram

Instagram is quite impressive in its own right, they’ve grown exponentially and at a rate higher than any other social media site.  They currently hold 600 million monthly users with 90% of them being under 35.

insta-demographics

Obviously, Instagram appeals more to the younger generation. It is incredibly important to keep this in mind when creating a post and text content. Include relevant trends, fads, and make sure your hashtags are catchy! Also, it is important to note that 53% of users follow brands. This a great opportunity to keep your followers updated and engaged.

Twitter

Twitter is an in-the-moment and live way to keep followers engaged and informed about your brand. It has 317 Million monthly users being predominately male around the ages of 18-29. Only 47% of users post updates and spend an average of 2.7 minutes daily on Twitter.

bright-age-social-media-demographics-twitter

Since twitter predominately holds a younger audience content must be create that caters towards this demographic. When you effectively engage, you are creating the opportunity to gain more followers, more engagement, and more traffic towards your website.

Pinterest

To date, this is the most evergreen social media site around. It has 317 million monthly users, which consists of around 75% female. As for the age demographic, they are evenly distributed between 18-64.

What is important to note, is that 10% people referred to Pinterest are more likely to purchase on e-commerce. Use this opportunity to showcase your product as aesthetically as possible to make it more visually appealing. Text content is not as important on Pinterest, but be sure to provide links that will showcase your product in more detail.

Even though all of these sites have different demographics and require different content. The main goal is to combine the necessary platforms for your brand so that you can create an effective social media campaign. Having the right combination and content between all these social media sites will create the interaction and exposure your brand needs to stay relevant in the market. Our social media marketing agency will help you to create the right combination for your social media campaign!

7 Tips for Marketing Your Business This Spring

Whether you’re starting a social media campaign or doing some spring cleaning, your business can always use some useful social media marketing tips. A Los Angeles social media agency such as Bright Age is perfect for getting your business on the right track. With our social media marketing tips, your campaign will reach your target market, move in the right direction, and create a presence that will solidify you from your competitors. Here are our 7 social media marketing tips for getting your business going this Spring!

Choose and Build the Right Campaign

This first step is the most crucial in starting or maintaining your campaign. Set reasonable goals and establish the tools necessary to reach them.

Different campaigns give different results – Choose a social media platform that will get you to your goals. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn all have different capabilities and reach. Creating the right combination and content between these platforms is an essential first step.

Choose an SEO and Social Media Analytics Service

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a deciding factor on whether your business will make it or break it. No matter how great your product is, without your market being properly informed it is practically useless. Having an SEO engine will assist you in getting your brand some good exposure.

Use a social media analytics service – Services such as Sprout Social and Hootsuite will let you know how effective your social media posts are. You’ll see which posts created the most buzz, which demographic it appealed to, how many impressions it made, and ultimately if it was successful or not.

Reply/Engage with Your Fans

Do your best to build a lasting relationship with your fans on a personal level. Like and comment on their photos to build favorable attitudes towards your brand. Additionally, do the same on potential customers posts for brand exposure. Doing this helps humanizes your brand and increases your social prescence.

Look at Your Top Three Competitors

Take a look at who you’re competing against, especially the top 3 competitors in the market. Compare your strategy with theirs and see what puts them at the top of the market. See what flaws they have in their strategy and build upon your own. Our Los Angeles social media agency are experts in identifying and analyzing competitors for you!

Do a Quick Brand Check

At this point, you’ve established yourself and are almost at your goals. Brand consistency is key and a good cleanup task for this Spring.

Build trust, credibility, and awareness by answering yes to these 3 questions.

  • Is your profile or avatar the same on every photo?
  • Is your header or cover image consistent?
  • Are your bios, descriptions, and URL identical?

Measure and Analyze Your Campaigns Success

As you begin to wrap up your campaign, assess the progress made on your original goals. Measure both quantitative and qualitative results. By analyzing your campaign, you may discover some new information – such as how customers are using your products post-purchase, etc. You’ll see which tactics provided the most reward and which ones were unsuccessful. This is where your social media analytics service will come into play.

Create New Goals

As this campaign comes to an end, it is time to look onto the next season and establish new goals. If you met your goals with these last 6 steps, take those strategies and translate them into monthly, quarterly, and annual goals.

See where you want to be in a year, 5 years, and even 10 years. Having goals and metrics appear on paper creates accountability and the drive to complete them. Our Los Angeles social media Agency is perfect for reaching your short-term and long-term goals!