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How to Develop a Digital Media Buying Strategy on Social Media

Regardless of the brand you represent, the size of your company, or the foundation you have built, developing a digital media buying strategy is essential for maintaining structure and growth for your brand. The fundamentals that make up your social media buying strategy include advertising, employees, the software you use, etc. There are many steps that need to be taken when developing a buying strategy for your business. Having a digital marketing agency such as Bright Age will help you through this systematic process.

digital marketing agency - media buying strategy - laptop

The first step in developing a digital media buying strategy is to determine goals and set a budget at the beginning of the year. These social media goals vary upon the company, but overall, they should be things that you plan on putting money into. For example, if one of your goals is to create more engaging advertisements, you may be putting a large sum of money into paid social media ads. This is something you would put in your budget, which is the next leap in developing a digital media buying strategy. It is a way to keep track of costs, determine your social ROI, and overall to make sure you are not using more than you have. It can be a traditional budget, where you start with a sum of money, allocating amounts of each category, a flexible budget, where if one category runs out of money and another one has some to spare, you would just move it over, or a zero budget, where you basically start every category with a budget of zero dollars, increasing the amounts per category while justifying the cost every time.

Social media is ever evolving, so it is important to determine exactly when it is a good idea to take a “leap of faith” and jump into something drastic. As the social world evolves, you must evolve with it, which may be overwhelming. With this said, new features on social media platforms are something that you may want to incorporate into your social media strategy. Unique content creation, paid advertisements, and creative promotions are all things that will help your audience identify your brand. These are also things to incorporate into your budget. Content creation takes time, money, and creativity, which is what a digital marketing agency will help maintain. Speaking strictly on advertising, this is one of the biggest budget areas. The best way to determine where to put most of the advertising money, would be to first determine which social media channel is most relevant to your brand. If your most engaging channel is Instagram, it would make the most sense to put more advertising money toward that specific network. Depending on what industry your brand falls under, the cost per click will vary.

The software your company is using is something to consider as well. Making sure you are using what is necessary for your brand is the key component when determining what subscriptions to be a part of, and what to renew on a monthly basis. Analytics tools are essential for many companies using social media for marketing. A social media agency will manage this for your brand when evaluating your social media report. This will track things such as live engagement, cost per click, follower rate, likes, etc., which in return will help you determine what category to spend more time in.

Influencer marketing is one of the biggest topics in the social media world today. A decade ago, that sentence would read differently. Because of brand deals, influencer marketing has been widely used especially in the past few years. This is a great tool to use if applicable to your brand. For example, clothing, wellness and beauty, and makeup brands use this tactic a lot. Influencer marketing tends to follow the more authentic, casual appeal when choosing what photos to post while representing your brand. The influencer marketing industry is huge. In fact, the industry is set to reach $10 billion in worth by 2020, which is why many companies are taking advantage of this opportunity if it fits their brand image.

Analyzing what, where, when, and how to incorporate specific segments into your brand’s budget for the following year can be overwhelming. While we have highlighted many things to consider in this decision-making process, incorporating a digital marketing agency into your brand will immensely help this process. The digital world as we know it is only projected to increase in size, which is why it is essential to know what to represent when developing a digital media buying strategy on social media.

How To Provide Great Customer Service Through Social Media

Social media has developed from a means of marketing and advertising to a means of providing customer service. Social media customer care and 24/7 social media customer service are emerging as brands work with customers to resolve issues over social media. Let’s see how you can become a social media customer service pro.

Social media customer care

Assess Where Your Customers Are

When it comes to providing customer service, you want to be on the social media platforms where your customers are interacting with your brand the most. Depending on your brand your biggest audiences may be on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or any other social media site. Make sure that you are checking all social media platforms, because neglecting where people are talking about your brand may have negative consequences on both your brand name and sales.

 

When it comes to providing customer service, you want to be on the social media platforms where your customers are interacting with your brand the most. Depending on your brand your biggest audiences may be on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or any other social media site. Make sure that you are checking all social media platforms, because neglecting where people are talking about your brand may have negative consequences on both your brand name and sales.

Your Customer’s Input Matters

According to the Institute of Customer Service, 33% of people use social media to communicate with a brand or business. It is critical that your company uses the customer’s posts on social media to analyze problems and look at major concerns being raised. When analyzing the posts all together, you can determine major problems, identify the brand’s strength and weaknesses, and check whether your website addresses their questions.

Track and Manage Volume

When it comes to using social media to provide customer service, you want to track how many posts you are getting and whether you are receiving these posts directly, or if they are hard to find. If the volume of posts and questions are becoming too large, it may be smart to consider a customer service platform which can help manage and organize all conversations into one place. Check out Caperra if you want to consider customer service platforms.

24/7 social media customer service, social media customer care

Customers are used to instant gratification and tend to expect responses in hours or even minutes. It may be impossible to fulfill their request if their post is written overnight, or no one is on the social media platform at that moment. For these cases, leave a boilerplate message to guarantee their post has been received and will be addressed. If you tend to have large volume of questions always, consider implementing 24/7 social media customer service via live chat or phone support.

Care for your Social Media Customers

Customers want to know that you care about their issues and concerns. Assure that your responses are timely, precise, sensitive, concise and pleasant. You can use your own judgment to determine how formally or informally you may respond. Make sure you identify their problem, provide them with additional resources for help, and add your own personal touch.

Consider Taking the Issue Offline

What you write on social media is what customer build their perspective of you and your brand on. If there is a post that has a complicated problem, or that may require too many responses, consider moving the conversation to direct message, email, or other offline form of communication. If you have 24/7 social media customer service, consider using the live chat. When the problem is resolved, go back to the post on social media and thank your customer again.

Turn Negatives into Positives

We all know that social media posts may contain negative responses, complaints, and reviews. Use social media customer care to respond appropriately to these posts.  Use these posts to build a relationship with your customer by acknowledging the problem, and going through the actions to fix the problem efficiently. Use their negative experience and turn it into a positive experience for both you and the customer.

Mind your Manners

Finally, we are going to close it with a list of things to never do when providing customer service through social media.

  • Do not neglect customers or hide their posts.
  • The customer is always right. Do not become defensive.
  • Do not overwhelm customers. Keep responses simple and short.
  • Do not engage if a customer is trying to undermine your brand.
  • If an issue seems to occur to many customers, do not respond to each directly with same answer. Write a public post addressing the issue and concern.

How Social Media Is Changing the Marketing Industry

In years past, meaning the 90’s and before, Marketing has been split up distinctly into 3 main sectors:  advertising, marketing and public relations. However, with the integration of the internet and social media in businesses, these types of marketing have merged together. The world of product and service promotion has become smarter, faster, and cheaper adjacent with the experience of utilizing a social media marketing agency. Many online tools are available to try and help entrepreneurs and small businesses gain that competitive edge. But then again, how advantageous is it to base your marketing off of a do it yourself YouTube video everyone has access to? In a society where DIY sometimes seems like the cheapest way to get fairly solid results, leaving the success and growth of your business up to automated sites is about as smart as leaving your toddler stranded at Coachella.

Why Big Agencies May Not Be the Best Option

Big agencies are big for a reason; their success is told in history books and retold in modern TV shows like MadMen. But these days of famous advertising giants may be over and the upper hand might belong to smaller, specialized marketing companies.

Why Is This?

Unlike the skyscraper advertising agencies employed by large companies, smaller and newer agencies are specialized in exactly what will boost your sales cheap and fast: internet marketing. Digital Advertising agencies have the ability to create your online content quickly and implement it with actual conversions even quicker. Furthermore, these agencies are there to help you walk through the process, cater to your specific needs, and teach you about their forward-thinking strategies if you don’t happen to be a tech specialist. Big agencies can help optimize your social media accounts and find your niche market online, for a pretty hefty price tag. But smaller agencies are there to maintain every detail, including taking on your brand persona personally and communicating directly with your consumers online. In other words, smaller firms specialize in consumer communication. They realize that with each client’s unique identity as a business, there is a unique language that comes with it. They specialize in communicating with all types of clients, and with that we are quick learners at learning how to communicate with different types.

While traditional media and advertising are still very much alive, there are new methods beyond the dreaded 30-second video or banner ad that many agencies aren’t aware of. Cutting edge methods that narrow your target demographic more precisely do a better job of generating trust, and converting that trust into sales, quicker than it takes complete the purchase of a 15-second commercial spot, and at a fraction of the cost, too. Want more information on the de-segregation of product and service promotion? Contact us for a specialized digital marketing plan designed just for your company.


Author: Hannah Prater

Hannah-profile-bright-age-marketing-agencyHannah is currently studying Advertising and Multimedia design at Pepperdine University, with an undying fascination for the creative side of advertising. Her experience with social media has only multiplied since she downloaded Instagram the very month it came out in 2010. In response to Beyonce’s famed question “Who run the world?”, Hannah also rejoins “Girls” but only secondary to “Facebook”. You can connect with Hannah on Twitter @hanprater.

Bright Age Honored for Digital Creative Work in 2015

Bright Age Digital Creative Agency understands the multi-platform nature of today’s digital advertising space. Their team of designers, writers, content creators and campaign strategists understands the difference between creating a compelling web page and leading an impactful social media campaign. Bright Age offers professional online marketing in Woodland Hills and beyond, and their success during the 2015 digital advertising awards season stands as evidence.

Hermes Creative Awards | Social Media Consumer Engagement, Platinum Winner
More than a traditional advertising agency, the team at Bright Age understands the complexities of reaching consumers who lean on social media. Bright Age provided dynamic social media management that helped make Dog Haus’s grand opening an enormous success.

Hermes Creative Awards | Overall Website/Medical, Gold Winner
The prestigious Hermes Creative Awards recognized Bright Age’s efforts for professional website design for the Advanced Interventional Pain Center in Indiana. The interactive site includes vibrant photography, crisp copywriting, and links to various patient-related resources such as a blog, media clips and patient testimonials.

The Hermes Creative Awards are an international competition for creative professionals involved in professional website design, including concept, writing and design of traditional materials and programs, and emerging technologies. The competition accepts entries from corporate marketing and communications departments, advertising agencies, public relations firms, graphic design shops, production companies, web creators and freelancers.

AVA Digital Awards | Social Media Campaign, Gold Winner
The grand opening social media management that propelled a successful launch for Dog Haus was also recognized by the AVA Digital Awards.

AVA Digital Awards is an international competition that recognizes excellence by creative professionals responsible for the planning, concept, direction, design and production of digital communication. Work ranges from digital engagement campaigns – to audio and video production – to website development – to social media interaction – to mobile marketing.

MarCom Awards | HomePage Website Design, Gold Winner
Creating a website homepage that reflects the new-age, healing persona of the Nova Center was the challenge. The design team at Bright Age demonstrated how online marketing in Woodland Hills is done right. The end product is a simple yet sophisticated page that lets visitors easily digest Nova Center’s full menu of services.

The MarCom Awards are an annual competition for creative outfits involved in the concept, writing and design of print, visual, audio and web materials and programs. Entries are wide-ranging, representing corporate marketing and communications departments, advertising agencies, public relations firms, design shops, production companies and freelancers.

Put the award-winning talents of Bright Age Digital Creative Agency on your side. A boutique agency offering online marketing in Woodland Hills, California, the variety of services offered at Bright Age includes professional website design, search engine optimization, social media management, graphic design, Facebook advertising, and much more.

Bright Age Digital Creative Agency Obtains Google Partner Status

We have some exciting news for you! Bright Age Digital Creative Agency has now qualified for Google Partner Status! What this means is that our company has met Google’s strict criteria on becoming an officially certified marketing professional.

What Is A Google-Certified Partner?

Becoming a Google-Certified Partner means that our firm has met Google’s strict proficiency standards in several key areas. To qualify for Google Partner status, a company must achieve the following:

Create a company profile – To be considered for Google Partner status, you must first create a company profile with pertinent information such as company name and description, address and telephone number. Google needs this information so they can list your company on the Google Partner search.

Obtain AdWords certification – You will need to demonstrate your proficiency with AdWords by passing an AdWords certification exam. Information on the AdWords examination process can be found here.

Meet a spend quota through managed accounts – In order to show that your company has a healthy profit margin, you will need an active AdWords manager account that has spent a minimum of US $10,000 (or the equivalent in your local currency) inside your company’s AdWords account over a 90-day period and can show sufficient financial activity over the past 60 days from the date of your application. This shows that your business will be in operation for a long time to come. NOTE: AdWords expenditure is measured as the amount of money spent since AdWords was added to your company’s manager account.

Implement AdWords best practices – You will also need to demonstrate that you have adequate knowledge of the AdWords best practices covered in the AdWords certification exams by implementing them in your Google AdWords account. Your company will be evaluated for such items as the frequency of any changes you’ve made to your AdWords account, providing excellent customer service, your ability to maintain clients, and maximizing your clients’ advertising budgets.

The Best Marketing and Advertising Services

Google-certified partners have an excellent track record for meeting strict guidelines in customer service, AdWords knowledge and cost-effective marketing. When you deal with a Google-certified partner, you can be sure that you are getting the best advertising and marketing services your money can buy.

Who Is Bright Age Digital Creative Agency

Bright Age Digital Creative Agency is an online marketing firm that specializes in Los Angeles social media management, online marketing and search engine optimization. They can help your company get discovered on top search engines, and will custom-tailor their marketing campaigns to suit your needs.

5 Reasons Why Your Business Should Be On Pinterest

 Since its launch onto the Internet in 2010, Pinterest has become a major source in showcasing various ideas from individuals, making this one of the most go-to social media apps on the market. From sharing their favorite outfits to planning an event, this virtual pin board is a great platform for users to creatively share their interests to a wide audience. Although this is mainly used by individuals, companies have also joined in on the social media craze, providing information on their most prized products and services.

While other sites have a huge following with companies, many have quickly jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon. With how the Internet has become a vast commodity with a company’s success, it’s no surprise that many are using this site to improve their business.

If reaching a huge audience is not a great reason for joining the site, there are five other excellent reasons to show off their company on this site.

 A Different Way to Advertise

By joining, businesses will be able to provide a unique spin on advertising their brand to the public. By providing images of their merchandise, individuals will become familiar with a particular product and will be able to have that image in mind when they go to the company’s website or store to learn more information or to purchase.

 Sharing to Potential Customers

Since this site is all about pinning images, companies can provide great pictures for people to share. If a potential customers love a certain picture, they will make sure to include it onto their boards. This will lead to their followers to see the product and will click on the pin to learn more information. It’s all about sharing, which will provide great exposure.

Boosting Web Traffic

Connecting your Pinterest page to other social media sites will also bring a boost in web traffic. By adding your web site or blog onto the description will help individuals go onto your site to learn more about the product and to even purchase the product.

Adding Catchy Videos & Photography To Showcase Your Company

Adding videos or catchy photography can help showcase your company. Many individuals love to pin or favorite a particular video or phrase to share to others. By doing this, it can help branch into an audience that you might not been able to reach in previous campaigns.

Sharing a New Project

Since this site is geared towards creating projects, this is a great way for companies to launch their own projects for their audience to witness and share. Being able to see the beginning and finish of a certain product can help connect with your target audience. It’s all about interaction and by posting a new project or service, it will help audience see that the company appreciate their customers and would want them to be the first to know about new products or services.

While some companies may be familiar with promoting themselves on social media, others may not have a clue on what to do or where to start. That is when Bright Age steps in. Bright Age is a Los Angeles social media management company that specialize in managing social media accounts, web design, and search engine optimization. They are the Los Angeles social media management company that can provide these great services to start-up companies as well as companies who just need a face-lift with their current marketing plan.

The Benefits of Using a Los Angeles Digital Marketing Agency

Power Up Your Business With A Digital Marketing Campaign By Working With A Los Angeles Digital Marketing Agency

Everybody has a web presence. Whether you’re a college student, have a great product idea, but lacking an audience or small business owner you can share what is happening in your world through Facebook, Twitter or even your own personal blog. For a business, a strong web presence can make or break a company’s prospects for success. As business owner you’ve probably got your hands full managing your staff, handling customer service and keeping your supply chains flowing. Do you really have time to engage in a full-court digital marketing campaign? That’s why you should be thinking about partnering up with a Los Angeles digital marketing agency to launch and maintain your online brand.

Consider these benefits of working with a Los Angeles Digital Marketing Firm:

All the Expertise

You’ve probably put a lot of effort into learning all aspects of your individual business. Did you think you needed to become a web wizard, too? Actually, you don’t have to when you hire an experienced digital marketing agency. They’ve already done the homework for you! The moment you partner up a Los Angeles digital marketing firm you’ll be getting expert advice about online marketing strategy. You won’t have to understand the various platforms you’ll need your campaign to adapt to or the frequency of SEO keywords in your content. They will also be on the cutting edge in terms of what new technologies can be adapted to your brand. Most importantly, an experienced digital marketing agency will stay ahead of the social networking trends. They’ll be 100{3257b6ea9729d50d0ff0b2d66dfbc71319303295fd3654295ddeccd44865dc00} plugged into what is trending 24/7. That means your business will be plugged in, too!

All the Time Benefits

There is a reason why you hire outside vendors to handle certain aspects of your business. That would be the time factor, as in you don’t have enough time in the day to do everything. Keeping up with digital marketing is a time intensive process. As a Los Angeles digital marketing agency will tell you, you’ve got to be aware of the best times of the day to launch a Facebook post or send out a Tweet. If your business is national or global then you have to adapt to all of those time zones. Do you want to be sending out an update at 2:00 a.m.? That’s what a Los Angeles digital marketing agency is for: to save you time but still provided you with all the power from a strong web presence.

All the Profits

Along with all that expert advice and more time to focus on your business, working with a Los Angeles digital marketing agency is going to set you up for greater success. You can’t run your business in a vacuum. You’ve got to get the word out. As of this writing, there are over a billion Facebook users and over 500 million Twitter uses. That doesn’t include all the LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, Digg and dozens of other social media networks. Wouldn’t you like to tap into just a fraction of all of that traffic? Working with a Los Angeles digital marketing agency can pull some of that traffic your way. All you’ll have to do then is stand back and watch your business grow.

Contact us to learn more about our customized digital marketing services.

 

What Is Guerilla Marketing? Discover The History And Approches

For marketing in Los Angeles or elsewhere, there are countless ways to get your name out there and get known by customers and potential clients alike. But if you don’t have a huge budget to make it happen and raise awareness of your products, talents, ability, and value, you may need to go underground and market with a guerilla style.

Guerilla marketing has been around for a couple decades and really has been used in a wide variety of ways, but what it all comes down to is the idea that it’s used for non-traditional, cheaper, and more effective methods of promotion.

Guerilla marketing is ideal for a small business or an entrepreneur, as its based on human psychology and measures the amount of profits your business does – not sales – which is critical for small business owners and more. More than that, though, guerilla marketing uses unconventional methods of promotion to promote and showcase products and services.

These methods can mean a wide variety of things, but it comes down to increasing the word of mouth a business may have about what it offers and how it works with other business owners and more in time. Guerilla marketers and agencies marketing in Los Angeles aim for more referrals to your business, and more transactions from their marketing services with existing customers and new comers alike.

Guerilla marketing can mean a lot of different things, and the approaches look wildly different depending on the marketing company and the client, but very broadly, these marketing approaches include: reverse graffiti (pavement advertisements designed to catch an eye), viral marketing trends (working with social networks and YouTube to create buzz), grassroots marketing (getting out there and getting it done on the street), forehead marketing (temporary tattoos to draw attention to people and brands), undercover marketing (subtle product placement in ads and other areas), astroturfing (disguising company messages as a grassroots movement), and tissue-pack marketing (hand-to-hand in the field marketing from one individual to another in close quarters).

Guerilla marketing was made for businesses that promote funky, unique, fun, or stylish products, as well as businesses that simply don’t have the budget to market themselves on billboards, in television commercials, and in other traditional ways that you would find from larger corporations who have the budget to market and more.

Guerilla marketing is a fun new way to approach advertising and sales, too, especially considering that more and more people today are hesitant about guerilla marketing and what it can do for a business since they see that marketers and advertisers must become more nuanced and more intelligent about customer behavior.

Here at Bright Age Digital Marketing Agency, we work around the clock to make guerilla marketing a reality for you and your needs, and we are excited and happy to work with you as your marketing company in Los Angeles to get the most out of your limited marketing budget and ensure that you have a great experience with guerilla marketing that, in turn, increases your sales and profits!