Just recently, Tracx came out with their authoritative 2017 social media infographic – and it’s an internet marketing nerd’s dream. The graphic shows some of the most important data points about social media users and adds some fascinating trivia to drive home those points. For example, did you know that YouTube reaches more 18-49 year olds than any cable network in the United States?
This is the type of infographic that becomes a conversation-changer. While many small businesses use arbitrary decision-making to decide how to access their audience, these statistics provide better insight for well-informed marketing tactics. If your target demographic is under the age of 35, for instance, you have a strong argument for being on Instagram, where 90% of users are in your target and 53% choose to follow brand accounts.
But enough of my introduction. Below is the 2017 State of Social infographic from Tracx.com.
To learn more about what this means for your marketing efforts, send us an email today. Or check out our small business packages for social media marketing and insights.
Today, we are announcing the launch of a new mobile-responsive website for The Cellar, a restaurant and wine bar in Corning, NY. This project was fun to sync up with recent renovations to the Market Street restaurant, and the new website provides a better all-around experience for visitors looking to peruse the menu, connect on social media, and make dinner reservations online.
Below is a screen shot of the old website:
Creagent Marketing designed the original website for The Cellar almost 5 years prior, and it was time to not only update the aesthetic, but also to make it more mobile friendly. The new website features much of the same content while highlighting some of the great photography by Lee Speary and making it easier to navigate and read on all devices.
Below is a screen shot of the new website with mobile optimization:
In early January, Creagent Marketing launched a new “interim” website for the Seneca Lake Wine Trail. The organization’s old website could no longer be updated and its content was out of date.
Below is a screen shot of the old website:
Without the proper amount of time to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) and incorporate every piece of desired functionality, the Seneca Lake Wine Trail turned to Creagent for a quick overhaul that would incorporate all of the most essential content within a beautiful, responsive layout. Our team dug into the organization’s library of photography, featuring shots that provide the range of experiences one should expect when visiting the Wine Trail. We quickly organized the written content to match the old website while executing some changes to improve navigation and flow.
Social media began in chat rooms and email chains. In most households, it started with dial-up access to services like AOL, each with its own built-in community. The idea that an individual could connect with someone else on the other side of the country, or the world, was not altogether foreign. But the idea that those connections could happen between strangers – and that one person could communicate with hundreds or thousands of others at once… that was a privilege once reserved only for businesses who could pay for air time on traditional media.
Today, we take it for granted that a single individual with something interesting to say can immediately transmit their message to millions of internet users around the world. With a lot less money than before, businesses can still pay for more exposure, but it took some time to figure out how to deal with the “social” part of social media.
We now understand that social media is a platform for engagement, conversation, and connection. Businesses small and large have learned how to leverage social media with transparency and humility. They’ve learned the differences between traditional advertising and social media marketing; that listening is just as important as sharing.
But as much as businesses have learned over the years, it seems like our government is just starting to crawl. We currently have a president who still seems used to the days of propaganda, when newspaper and television reporters could be easily swayed by media advertisers and stakeholders. The POTUS uses social media quite infamously, but his use resembles traditional advertising where the message used to be one-sided. However, now that he and his administration are seeing how easily other social media accounts can respond – or simply share their own information – there’s a mad scramble to shut it down or discredit anything that isn’t theirs.
The problem is, they’re late to the game. Businesses and individuals have established credibility for over a decade now. Authors, artists, scientists, restaurants, clothing brands, and home-grown photographers have built an audience of rabid fans from all over the world. In every small circle, the influencers who have earned their keep control the message. Social media is already so intricately and tightly bound that even the richest, most powerful person in the world couldn’t infiltrate all of it.
That is, not without playing by the rules.
Take Reddit, for example, a community of anonymous users posting content: the only way for content to rise to the top is for other users to “upvote” it. No one there cares who you are, what you’ve posted in the past, or how much money you have. What matters is that your content is relevant and interesting; and if so, it could be the foundation of a whole new internet trend or movement. (Except r/me_irl – they’ll upvote anything)
These rules aren’t quite so strict on sites like Facebook or Twitter, but in order to be a true influencer, the same concept still applies: your content has to be worthy of a virtual “upvote.” In other words, Donald Trump can say whatever he wants on Twitter, but even he is not immune to immediate feedback, fact-checking, and simply being ignored. In fact, he’s only the 57th most followed user on Twitter, behind several musicians, athletes, news sources he’s deemed as “fake,” and yes, Barack Obama (number 3 on the list).
So as we all sit around and wonder what’s happening to social media, it’s important to remember that there aren’t any real secrets to it… Every individual has a voice, every user can choose who to follow, and every influencer has to earn her or his own audience. That’s always been the case, and it was a hard lesson to learn for businesses. Now we get to watch while our government learns the same lesson.
Love it or hate it, it looks like Pokémon GO‘s here to stay. The augmented reality game has become a viral sensation – dominating social media conversations, surpassing Twitter in daily users and sending Nintendo stock through the roof (at the cool tune of about $7 billion).
It’s also providing increased exposure to some businesses, which are listed as Gyms or Pokestops on the game’s mapping features, granting them an opportunity to convert the extra foot traffic into potential sales.
If you’re a business owner, it’d definitely behoove you to download the app; even if just to check in and see if your physical location has been listed as a Gym or Pokestop. If it has, embrace it: throw a sign in the window or a clever sandwich board out front. Players will appreciate that, rather than turning them away, you’ve invited them into your establishment. This sense of appreciation goes a long way in helping a visitor to feel like a valued customer, potential or otherwise.
If your business is not currently listed as a gaming location, don’t fret. The game’s developer, a software company called Niantic, announced today that businesses will soon be able to pay a fee to be included as a “sponsored” location. By paying to be included on the map, your location could not only lure rare Pokémon and additional gaming features, but lure dozens, if not hundreds, of eager gamers to your doorstep. Imagine a coffee shop or bar moving some marketing dollars away from television commercials and other media to free up investment opportunites with Pokémon GO. Instead of having the occasional new walk-in, there’s the potential to fill seats with countless people sipping lattes, drinking beers and catching Pikachu. Pretty nifty, right?
But, as gamer Jason Evangelho explains, in addition to inviting more people to a particular business or public area, these sponsored locations could also result in opportunities for collaboration and increase the gaming experience altogether:
Local establishments that aren’t currently listed in the game as Gyms or Pokestops could potentially be added — and this is crucial right now for the player base and the sustainability of the game in rural areas where these locations are sorely lacking. It could also mean the chance for retail stores to partner up with Niantic to get volume discounts on “Lure Modules” (which attract both players and Pokemon to your location) or other promotional activities based on events, time of day, the weather, or even relevant to the type of product the store is serving up.
Basically, the game’s developers have recognized the rollout of sponsored locations as an opportunity for an additional revenue stream, and that working with the business community should result in a win/win scenario – for the game’s players, for local establishments, for Niantic, for everyone.
As with most things, it’s easy to say that the game’s a fad. That it’ll be replaced in the next few weeks with another craze. Personally, I don’t think so. I can’t even check my email while walking down the street or pop over to the park on a lunch break without someone asking if, “I saw that Rattata.”
In every way imaginable, Pokémon GO is a social and cultural phenomenon. It’s achieved more milestones in a week than Facebook did in three years. It’s wiped virtual reality, something that was being lauded not more than two months ago as the next tech boom, completely off the map. It’s teaching us things about the future of media that we never could have imagined for ourselves.
The power of Pokémon GO is real. We don’t all have to play it, but should all pay attention to it – especially those of us in the marketing and business worlds.
Transitioning from a college atmosphere to a steady career feels like being blindfolded and thrown off a cliff. You aren’t really sure where you’re going, but you’re going. You don’t have a choice and you don’t usually have a plan. It just happens.
Most people would believe that four years of college is the exact amount of time needed to earn a degree and kickstart one’s professional life. However, The New York Times states that, “At most public universities, only 19 percent of full-time students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years. Even at state flagship universities — selective, research-intensive institutions — only 36 percent of full-time students complete their bachelor’s degree on time”. To me, it seems as if students spend more time trying to figure out their future than completing the course work that will actually get them there. Then, after students do choose the field of study they’d like to make a profession, they’re thrown into an even harder task; finding a job.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 20.2 million students attended an American college or university in the 2015 fall semester. That means, at least 4 million students will graduate this year and try to enter the workforce. Of those 4 million, only 14% of those students will obtain a steady, career-like job immediately after graduation.
Finding a job post-graduation is difficult, but moving from one environment to the next can be the real struggle. One of the tallest hurdles tends to be adapting to a new schedule. Many students are able to create their own class schedule, picking and choosing the times that lend to becoming their most productive selfs. While it can certainly be helpful, this practice also creates the bad habit of going by your own schedule only, and avoiding early hours. As a result, jumping from the life a night owl into a 9-5 job can be a challenge. The Huffington Post suggests that soon-to-be-graduates wean out partying in the week, to help begin to adjust to more appropriate hours, and improve overall health. My suggestion: skip the twisted Tuesday and only go to thirsty Thursday every other week. By slowing down a bit, you’ll create a sense of consistency focus on future goals.
Personally, I think a major problem that college students face when entering postgrad life is the separation anxiety of leaving friends. When you start college, it’s your first step into any legitimate responsibility. Therefore, over the duration of time you spend in school, your peers become a kind of support system to depend on. When that support system is taken away, it can be difficult to figure out what to do in stressful moments, especially when you feel that you’re on your own again. When a new job becomes demanding or asks a difficult task, it can be hard to figure out what to do by yourself. I suggest you put the phone down and log off social media sites for a bit. Start spending a little time with yourself and create a sense of personal confidence. If you have confidence in yourself, you’re much more likely to be able to face any situation thrown your way, instead of just panicking. I’m not saying to abandon all of your relationships; just cherish them while learning to walk on your own.
When it does come to landing that first job after graduation, students should stop putting so much emphasis on the idea that the only job for a recent graduate is “entry level.” While it is indeed entry level, truthfully, the connotation can feel quite negative. But why? All soon-to-be-graduates are seniors, and naturally they have a sense of seniority. They’ve spent the last four or five years working up from the ground level of freshman status, and there’s a lot of self gratitude that comes from that. It can be difficult to accept the fact that you’ll be starting from the bottom once again. So remember, as you approach your graduation date, no job offer is beneath you; it’s just a new starting place.
Time matters, your appearance matters and your behavior is crucial! I think it’s fair to assume that almost every student has walked into class while wearing sweats or fighting last night’s hangover. The professor will usually give an awkward smile and that’s that. But, that can’t happen in the real world. Understanding how to conduct yourself in front of fellow employees or managers is essential to keeping your job. Unfortunately, a lot students can’t bridge the ideology that they’re the ones paying to be in school, while in the workforce, the business pays you. It’s simple. If they like you, they pay you. If they don’t, you’re gone. Understanding that there will be new responsibilities and added expectations once you leave college is absolutely necessary for success.
Sure, college can be extremely stressful, but pushing yourself to make the most of your years in preparation for the next chapter of your life can be incredibly rewarding. For example:
In 2013, median earnings for full-time year-round working young adults, aged 25–34 with a bachelor’s degree, were $48,500, while the median was $23,900 for those without a high school diploma or its equivalent, $30,000 for those with a high school diploma or its equivalent, and $37,500 for those with an associate’s degree. In other words, young adults with a bachelor’s degree earned more than twice as much as those without a high school diploma or its equivalent (103 percent more) and 62 percent more than young adult high school graduates (NCES).
Transitioning into any new environment is difficult. But, when you can expect specific changes to take place, you can start to prepare for the future. Starting from the bottom once again can be all that’s needed to initiate the momentum to carry you to top of your industry. Understanding the stress of moving from college to a career, and finding ways to over come that stress, can be the perfect start to kickstart a successful future.
Last month, CreAgent Marketing launched a new mobile-responsive website for John G. Ullman & Associates, a wealth management firm in Corning, NY. The project required a complete overhaul of the existing site as we incorporated new colors, fresh images, and even an enhanced logo at the request of the client.
Below is a screen shot of the old website:
After several months working with the team at John G. Ullman & Associates, we were able to meet their needs with a more contemporary look that is compatible across all devices and feels accessible for all audiences.
Instagram is a great tool for businesses. As today’s consumers become more and more visually minded, it’s a social media channel that could take a brand to the next level. Part of its influence stems from the sheer number of active users: more than 1 billion people worldwide and roughly 120 million monthly users in the US, alone. Unlike Facebook, which uses obscure and ever-changing algorithms to determine who will and will not see your posts, if someone follows you on Instagram, the chance of that person seeing your content is significantly higher. Instagram’s Search & Explore feature makes it easier for people to find interesting content from all over the world—by location, tag, photographer or subject matter. Posting the right kind of content could increase your engagement and brand influence tenfold.
But that’s just it: you need to post the right content. Instagram success could be yours, if you take the initiative to avoid the missteps and shortcomings in the following list that often prevent brands from reaching their fullest potential.
Post Your Website Link In Your Bio
This is the one thing that should be stressed over and over again. Your profile’s bio is the only place, on all of Instagram, where you can add a clickable link to your website. Unfortunately, many accounts still neglect to do so, missing huge opportunities to build brand awareness and engage a potential customer base further.
Post High-Quality Images
This one’s simple, really. Instagram is a visual tool, so posting unattractive or boring photos will not create the kind of engagement that really drives brand success. In fact, doing so is more likely to deter new followers and scare away the ones that you do have. Now, that doesn’t mean that every photo you upload needs to be taken with a DSLR. As Instagram is primarily a mobile tool, it’s understood (and encouraged!) that the majority of photos will be taken and uploaded with a smartphone. However, some simple photography principles and the countless editing/photography apps available for most iOS and Android devices mean there’s no excuse for lackluster images. We recommend using VSCOcam to elevate your mobile photography.
Don’t Misuse Hashtags
Over 91% of all images posted on Instagram contain one or more hashtags. The main function of a hashtag is to open content up for discovery, by allowing others to find images and other users of interest, via relevant keywords. If you fail to use a hashtag or two that could be relevant to your brand’s content, you miss an opportunity to be discovered and engaged with. But on the flip side, if you spam your posts with too many irrelevant hashtags, you devalue your account and run the risk of losing brand credibility.
It can all be a little confusing, so check out this great Hootsuite post if you still need help understanding hashtags.
Engage With Others
Instagram is a great social media platform and it’s cultivated a fiercely loyal community of users who want to interact with relevant content. To get the most out of this interaction, you can’t just treat your account as some kind of “set it and forget it” tool. If you want to become a leader in your brand’s industry, follow other relevant users within that industry and engage with them. Don’t go on liking sprees, which can come off as desperate, but definitely like and comment on their photos when appropriate. Doing this, and doing it authentically, will associate your brand with theirs and do more to position your brand as an industry influencer. Likewise, if somebody leaves a comment on one of your photos, take the time to respond. It takes five seconds. Building a successful brand has a lot to do with building meaningful relationships with your consumers, so it would make the most sense to actually take part in conversations with your Instagram community.
You purchase a pair of shoes for yourself and a pair of shoes goes to a child in need. A pair of tortoise shell sunglasses could provide sight-saving surgery for the visually impaired. You purchase a product that you want, and by doing so you may give something so needed that it changes the life of its recipient forever.
Blake Mycoskie and his socially good company TOMS are no strangers to giving. Founded in 2006, TOMS has been devoted to helping the global community by providing much desired footwear to children in need. Aware that many children in developing countries lack the proper footwear for healthy living, the company personally delivers a pair of shoes to a less fortunate child for every pair of TOMS shoes purchased. One for One.
Consumers, especially young, socially conscious consumers, are drawn to the idea that TOMS is providing a quality product as well as a service that helps those in need. The One for One movement allows customers to feel that they themselves are making a difference. Rather than donating a percentage of sales, like many “socially responsible” brands, TOMS goes the extra mile. Putting a foot ahead of the others (see what I did there), TOMS is giving the very same thing that you are buying.
For every purchase you make, you are providing a brand new pair of shoes to a child in Guatemala, or outfitting an orphanage in Haiti. The giving aspect of TOMS has become such an essential part of their brand that the company often holds a contest for their supporters to take part in Giving Trips.
TOMS founder, Blake Mycoskie.
When it comes to branding the One for One movement, TOMS marketing clearly targets forward thinking customers. Specialty fashion shows, clubs on university campuses, social media campaigns and global events like One Day Without Shoes (a day set aside where TOMS supporters go shoeless in an attempt to better connect with, and bring light to the problem they’re addressing) attract a kind of young audience that fuels corporate and social responsibility and lives to make a change. To meet the needs of their consumers, TOMS products have even been created to fit different environmental ideals and adhere to vegan restrictions. This, however, never outshines the brand’s true mission: One for One.
The brand’s strong marketing of One for One has gained the attention of millions of devoted followers. Since 2006, TOMS has sold over 35 million pairs of shoes and, as promised, delivered 35 million pairs to 70 countries across the globe.
The impressive sales figures show that the success of TOMS has increased exponentially as more and more socially responsible consumers join the One for One movement. To shed some light, the company sold over 1 million shoes in 2012, 140,000 shoes sold in 2009 and just 50,000 in 2007. Fashionable products and a knack for helping out are earning TOMS the corporate image gold medal that it deserves. Who doesn’t want to support an awesome brand and make a difference too?
Having gone strong for nearly nine years, TOMS is showing no signs of slowing down their efforts to leave the world a better place than before. Joining the success of TOMS shoes, the brand has introduced a line of summer eyewear, coffee, bags, etc. In typical TOMS fashion, each purchase of these products improves the lives of people in need.
The success of TOMS has also opened the door for an array of other One for One oriented businesses. Companies along the lines of FIGS, a recent startup that prides itself on providing clean scrubs to international medical providers for every set of FIGS scrubs purchased; and KUTOA Health Bars, a brand of granola bars giving vital nutrition packs to children in third world countries. TOMS has painstakingly carved a market niche for these, and future, givers to enjoy.
Whether you’re an avid outdoorsman, corporate exec, young professional or an emerging twenty-something like me trying to find your way; chances are pretty good that you’ve heard about NYC’s bike sharing program: Citi Bike. Media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and HuffPo, and audiences on Facebook and Twitter, have been validating and scrutinizing Citi Bike’s arrival to the Big Apple.
New Yorkers won’t accept Citi Bike… Citi Bike’s here to stay. Citi Bike won’t have enough riders to make the program worthwhile… early Citi Bike passes have already sold out. Citi Bike’s saving the planet… it’s leading to New York’s demise. Citi Bike, Citi Bike, Citi Bike. And when you hear Citi Bike, you’re hearing Citibank, the program’s key financial sponsor.
That’s right. When New Yorkers and tourists hop on the blue two-wheelers and head down Broadway, they’re doing more than riding a bike; they’re actively strengthening a brand by becoming a mobile advertisement.
In today’s society, where sustainable activities are becoming increasingly popular, bike shares allow residents and visitors in urban areas to access alternative, eco-friendly, quick and easy transportation. Likewise, these same programs are becoming an increasingly popular way for forward-thinking brands to generate more attention.
More and more of you see banks, corporations, universities and non-profits sponsoring bike sharing programs in developed urban areas throughout the country. Even hotels, such as Starwood’s Element Hotels, are offering bikes to their guests as a part of their Bikes-to-Borrow campaign. The hotel is not only providing a quick and easy mode of alternative transportation to their eco-loving patrons, but also introducing a fleet of mobile advertisements that allow the hotel’s name to reach all corners of an urban area.
So, the decision to sponsor a bike share should be pretty simple, right?
Businesses are given the opportunity, for a fee of course, to purchase a fleet of bikes, develop specialized “bike parking depots,” and then advertise that they are offering such a service. Though the preliminary expenses may appear daunting to a fledgling brand trying to market itself in an urban area full of distractions, the benefits can greatly outweigh the cost.
Citi Bike riders took nearly 8 million trips in 2015.
Recent studies have shown that the majority of bike share participants are millennials. You know, the young people who are willing to pay a fee to ride a bike during their commute before they support buses and taxi services that add to congested city traffic while emitting who-knows-what into our air supply. They, along with their trendsetting, early-adopting friends and co-workers, are riding these bikes to bars, restaurants, parks, concerts and the office with ease. The more people that see the bikes, the more people ride the bikes. And the more people that ride the bikes, the more people introduced to your brand.
In addition to getting their brands out to a large audience, the sponsors who choose to support bike shares enjoy particular financial benefits in the end. For example, Citi Bike, despite its mixed reviews at start, has sold 10,000 memberships, put its corporate logo on over five hundred Citi Bike depots and generated countless hours of earned media mentions and exposure.
Recent studies show that a brand sponsoring even the smallest of bike share programs in a metropolitan area could equate the sponsorship opportunities to a total of $2.8 million in annual media value. Some may say that those numbers alone make sponsoring a bike share a no-brainer, and we tend to agree.
Andrea Learned, an urban bike enthusiast, marketing professional and sustainability communications strategist, sums it up best.
Learned says, “Branding your corporation through bike share (or sponsoring bike events) these days is a powerful way to reflect awareness of what is hip and what is smart, without having to put out a press release about how hip and smart your brand is.”
