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Marketing

Top 10 Social Media Accounts

If you’re still not sure what exactly your company should be posting on social media, you’re in good company. Creating a cohesive, cross-platform social media strategy is one of the trickiest parts of social media marketing. Last week, we gave you the beginner’s guide to social media marketing. But sometimes it’s easier to learn by example. So, we looked at multiple different brands with vastly different marketing strategies, to pick out the best-of-the-best on social media. Each of them has an interesting and different strategy and provides an example of what your company should be doing on social media. Here are the best social media accounts for you to learn from:

  1. Coca-Cola—branding is all about storytelling and no one is better at that than Coke. They are one of the best companies at cross-platform storytelling and creating a cohesive brand message across different campaigns and platforms. They consistently chose characters and brand ambassadors (think polar bears, Taylor Swift) that convey the same uplifting, inclusive message from one campaign to the next.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Vine, Pinterest, Instagram
  2. Oreo—One of the most creative and innovative brands on social media right now, Oreo has one of the most talented graphics team of any major retailer. But just because you don’t have their budget doesn’t mean you can’t follow their example. They were masters of Vine before their competition had even made the jump from Twitter to Facebook. They have also been great with seasonal advertising. Example: Halloween 2013, they reenacted famous horror movies scenes with Oreos and milk.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Vine, Pinterest, Instagram
  3. Starbucks—as one of the most popular and influential brands in the world, you should be watching them anyway. Instead of barraging their followers with tons of posts, they post just a few, really clever posts a day with high-quality photos or graphics. By shifting their focus to beautiful, creative images, they’re able to drive interaction with their followers and get lots of likes, comments, shares, repins, etc. The Starbucks lesson: quality of posts over quantity of posts.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram
  4.  Newcastle Brown Ale—not the most well-known brand, but one of the cleverest. They have managed to launch some incredibly successful campaigns without breaking the bank by utilizing social media more than traditional paid advertising. Their “Independence Eve” campaign—directed at getting Americans to buy British beer for 4th of July celebrations was hilarious and original.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram
  5. Charmin—hands down, one of the funniest brands on social media. This is a great example of how you can take a product that’s not as exciting as Coca-Cola or beer and turn it into a social media all-star. They popularized #tweetfromtheseat, which encourages followers to send tweets from their toilet seat. Believe it or not, the hashtag is wildly successful and widely used. Charmin drives huge follower interaction.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Vine
  6. Mars Curiosity Rover—we know what you’re thinking, how can an account run by NASA be so awesome? But until your Twitter has over 2.2 million followers, you’ve got a few things to learn from the crew in Houston. The account is informative and funny and often hosts live chats with NASA astronauts. The Mars Rover also posts selfies…from Mars. Which is pretty hard to top.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
  7. Pizza Hut—Pizza Hut doesn’t have the greatest reputation these days, which makes its efforts on social media doubly important. Their social media team responds to every Facebook and Twitter comment, positive or negative. That’s impressive. They also post delicious looking pictures of pizza that make you want to order some despite the bad reviews. Also impressive.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram
  8. Zendesk—we won’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of this startup, but you should definitely check out their social media game. It’s full of great examples of how to balance professionalism and humor. They use clever rhymes to tweet out links to open jobs in their company and haikus to make you click on links to their blog content.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram
  9. Quik Trip—like Pizza Hut, watch the way they handle customer service. They respond to almost every customer question or complaint which has provided them with impressive customer loyalty. They also post exclusive giveaways on social media, like the “12 days of QuikTrip” promotion they ran around Christmas. The promotion prompted customers to download the free QuikTrip app and take it into a store each day for a free giveaway, like a pack of Sour Patch Kids or a free fountain drink. Using social media to get customers to download your app AND visit your store? That’s the dream.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram
  10. Always—while this company, which produces feminine hygiene products, might not be on everyone’s radar, it did shift to a unique social media strategy a year or two ago. Always decided to take a stand on an issue important to them—girl’s empowerment and gender equality—and built their marketing around that issue. They launched the #LikeAGirl campaign, which involved young girls talking about traditional gender stereotypes they felt were untrue. If your company has certain values that you feel are important to your business and you want customers to know about them, build a campaign around it. Whether it’s gender equality, religious views, animal rights or anything else you’re passionate about, you can make it a part of your marketing.
    Where to find them: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube

We hope these examples help you begin to hone in on the best social media marketing strategy for your company. In the meantime, you can always call the experts at Skynet Solutions for all of your social media and marketing needs. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2016 your business’s best year yet. You can fill out our online contact form on our website. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Marketing

Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Marketing Deciding to get your business on social media is a great first step as an owner or manager, but deciding where to go from there can be confusing. Social media is one of the fastest growing and rapidly changing fields in business right now. That makes it very exciting, but also hard to understand if you don’t have a lot of hands-on experience. Social media accounts are kind of like trees. A tree starts out as a tiny seed, but over time and with the right conditions, can grow into a huge plant that can be seen from miles away. That tree might even grow to bear fruit and seeds which go on to produce more trees. In a similar sense, all social media accounts start out small, with no followers or friends, no likes or shares. But with a well thought out social media strategy, and diligent tending, you can grow your social media accounts into a vast online presence which establishes a brand identity, builds relationships with customers and draws them to your company. As you start doing research and setting up your social media accounts, here are seven tips to keep in mind to make your business a social media success story:

  1. Know your product: certain products and services work better on certain platforms. If you make beautiful food or create other gorgeous products you want to show off to the world, get an Instagram or a Pinterest. Service companies do well on longer form, business-oriented platforms like Facebook and Google+, which give you more space to write and talk about your company and the services you provide.
  2. Know your audience: the most important thing is to be where your customers are. If your customers are all over 50, you probably don’t need a snapchat, but you do want a Facebook. If your target demographic is in their 20s, focus more on Instagram and Snapchat, and any other new platforms that pop up. Also, see where your competition is. If all of them are on Twitter, you definitely want to be on Twitter, too. But if none of them are on Twitter, don’t write it off—it could be a great opening to reach out to new customers your competitors haven’t been able to connect with yet.
  3. Know your brand’s personality: every business is unique and has its own personality reflective of its values, services and employees. A huge part of marketing is displaying that personality and using it to connect with your customers—but some social networks work better for certain personalities than others. If your business is fun, hip and outside the box, play that up! Stick with social media outlets like Snapchat and Pinterest that encourage interaction and draw in younger audiences. If you want to send a more buttoned-up, professional vibe, Google+ LinkedIn are great choices. They have large networks of professionals from various industries. You can join groups of like-minded professionals to discuss industry topics, as well as reaching out to potential customers.
  4. Make a strategy: before you sign up for an account or send a single post, outline a social media strategy. Discuss it with and make it accessible to everyone on your team who will be posting to or managing the social media accounts and make sure everyone understands the strategy and how to implement it. In it, define your audience, the message you want to send to new and returning customers and what networks this will work best on.
  5. Pick a few networks: unless you have a huge staff and an unlimited budget, you can’t be on every social media network. So you’re going to have to narrow it down. How many you pick depends on how big your social media team and budget are and how much time you have to dedicate to social media on a daily and weekly basis. You don’t want to try to take on too many accounts then get overwhelmed and stop posting. Then you’re back where you started—with no social media presence! If you’re working with a small team, start with two accounts. If you find you can easily manage them and still have time in the workday, add in more!
  6. Get a publishing platform: especially if you have more than two accounts. If you’re going all-in on Twitter, Tweetdeck is great tool which allows you to organize you twitter feed into different lists so you can see what your competitors, competition and other community businesses are talking about without switching feeds. You can also schedule Tweets to post in advance on Tweetdeck. If you’re setting up more than one social media account, consider social media marketing software like Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprinklr or Send Social Media. You can draft and schedule posts to multiple social media networks at once, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest and more. You can schedule the posts as far in advance as you want—so you never have to worry about forgetting to post over the weekend or holiday. Each comes at a different price point and has different additional features, including: how many accounts you can attach; how many different users you can have for each account; whether or not the software compiles social media analytics for you; and additional email marketing options. This handy chart from Capterra helps you weigh the pros and cons based on what you’re looking for from your social media marketing software.
  7. Remember what this is about: which is marketing. It’s good to have fun with social media and posting the occasional cat video never hurt anybody—sometimes it even helps—but remember this is a business strategy. Your goal is to direct people to your website and your products or services. Posting silly videos and funny GIFs is okay in moderation, but it shouldn’t be the meat and potatoes of your social media strategy. If you have a blog (and you should have a blog), push your blog posts out on your social accounts. This not only gives potential customers interesting and useful information, but shows them you’re the expert when it comes to your field. Not every single one of your posts needs to be an advertisement, but if the majority of them serve to highlight a product or service your business provides, then you’re on the right track.

We hope this is helpful as you start to navigate the world of social media marketing. In the meantime, you can always call the experts at Skynet Solutions for all of your social media marketing needs. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2016 your business’s best year yet. To get in touch with us, you can fill out the online contact form on our website. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

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Marketing

The Business Benefits of Being On the Map

We’ve told you a little about our partnership with Google and all the awesome stuff that enables us to do in the community before. But a few weeks ago we co-hosted one of the best “GYBO” events we’ve ever had and it really instilled a new sense of gratitude and excitement in us for all the awesome people and local business owners we get to work with everyday right here in Oklahoma and beyond. Recently, we hosted a GYBO event in Tahlequah and were able to help lots of local business owners claim their listing online and take the next step towards creating a more robust online identity. One of our most successful events yet, the participants came away saying they had learned new information—like the benefits of blogging and how to lay out a website—they didn’t even know they could be using to help boost their business.   As Google partners and with our friends at REI Oklahoma and the local chambers of commerce, we’ve hosted various GYBO workshops focusing on many different important digital literacy topics. Previous events have focused on using Google Analytics and how your business can optimize S.E.O. principles to boost your web presence. However, some of our most successful and frequent workshops have been about helping local businesses get listed on Google Maps, Apple Maps and Bing Maps. With Skynet Solutions there to help, you can quickly and easily start your map listing and get your business a huge boost online. Here at Skynet Solutions, we’ve found that maps listings are one of the most successful strategies for online business growth for local businesses, regardless of size. Having a robust online presence isn’t just about “keeping up with the Joneses” anymore. It’s about making sure you’re where your customers are and that your business information is easily accessible where your customers and potential customers are looking for it. Did you know that 50 percent of all mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results? And 61 percent of those searches result in a purchase, according to Search Engine Watch. In addition to that, more than half of all mobile searches are users looking for information about local businesses including hours, addresses and locations—which can be found on a maps listing. Having a maps listing for your business is critical because it puts your business’s website higher in search results—which leads to more traffic—and easily gives customers the information they are seeking. If they can’t easily find that information about your business online, they’re likely to look elsewhere for the products or services they need. We are hosting more of these events in the coming months, so keep an eye out for more information! You can check the events section of REI Oklahoma’s website for dates, times, locations and registration information, as well as other event information like topics covered and important statistics about why your business should be online. In the meantime, you can always call the experts at Skynet Solutions for all of your marketing needs. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2016 your business’s best year yet. You can fill out our online contact form on our website. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

No Matter Your Product, We Can Do the Label

Not too long ago, a new client approached us about designing a label for a brand new, innovative dietary supplement they were putting out on the market. Having worked closely with supplement companies like Muscle Research—including designing their website and product labels—for years, our designers were used to cranking out attractive, high-quality supplement labels. However, this was something entirely different. This request, from the group “We Have Parkinson’s,” was for a dietary supplement intended to help reduce the effects of Parkinson’s disease. “We Have Parkinson’s” is a group made up of people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and wanted to come together and create a community where they could share information about improving their quality of life while living with Parkinson’s. They have a blog where they share information about supplements, new research, diet tips and other topics. They also have a section explaining the science behind the ingredients in the supplements some of the community members take—which we designed the labels for. Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder that is characterized by depression, anxiety, cognitive decline, clumsiness and shaking or a tremor. The disease became well-known in the United States and around the world after actor Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Some of the most frequently used treatments for the disease create side-effects which increase the rate at which the disease progresses. We created labels for two products, RESTORE Silver and RESTORE Gold. Both are different formulations of a dietary supplement designed to help people with Parkinson’s disease. As opposed to many of the other more hardcore fitness supplements our design team has created labels for in the past, we were trying to appeal to a different, older generation with this particular product label. We wanted to create a clean, appealing design that would showcase the product without and frills or distractions. As this was completely different from other supplement labels our design team has done in the past, it gave them a chance to be creative and really dive headfirst into a completely new topic. And as we’ve said before, they always love the opportunity to try new things and flex their creative muscles! It was a fun challenge for our entire team to come together and create something that would appeal to a completely different demographic than we’ve ever tried to market to before. And we’re proud of how the design team rose to the challenge. You can check out all their hard work above and on the We Have Parkinson’s website. If you or your company needs an expert label design for one or all of your products, call the professional design team at Skynet Solutions. We have experience designing labels for a variety of different products for companies with radically different target demographics and have been successful and satisfied our clients with all of them. You can fill out our online contact form, call us at (918) 895-1982 or find us on social media. We are on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.