In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, agility is key, and Amazon Business has proven itself a frontrunner by seamlessly incorporating a popular social media trend into its advertising strategy. This post explores how Amazon Business successfully leveraged the viral Roman Empire trend, creatively adapting it to communicate the benefits of its services.

Let’s dive into the details of this innovative campaign and dissect the factors that contributed to its success. Exploring how the company seamlessly integrated the trend into its creative approach and executed a compelling narrative that resonated with its target audience.

The Social Media Roman Empire Trend

In September 2023, the Roman Empire trend gained widespread popularity, sparked by women worldwide posing a seemingly innocuous question to the men in their lives: “How frequently do you contemplate the Roman Empire?” Participants recorded and shared the responses, resulting in a plethora of amusing videos circulating on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. The prevailing sentiment from these interactions suggests that men often ponder the topic, with some even admitting to daily reflections, leaving women intrigued and somewhat perplexed. Notably, on TikTok alone, Brandwatch reported that the trend garnered an impressive 1.8 billion views.

Amazon’s Approach to the Roman Empire Trend

Amazon’s marketing team identified the budding Roman Empire trend in early September 2023. Recognizing its potential resonance with a broad audience. Understanding the virality of social media challenges and trends, Amazon swiftly seized the opportunity to align its message with this cultural phenomenon. From there Amazon integrated this theme into its creative process. Amazon was able to craft a narrative that seamlessly blended historical curiosity with the modern convenience of Amazon  Business.

Why it worked:

• Timeliness
• Creative execution
• Proper alignment

The hero film of the campaign unfolds with an ancient Roman, pondering his day, struck with the inspiration to build a new city, Rome. Amazon Business takes center stage in this historical narrative, showcasing its role in streamlining the procurement process. The use of a smartphone to access Amazon Business, secure discounted bulk orders, consult purchasing guides, and analyze expenses vividly portrays the platform’s practicality, even in the context of ancient Rome.

Timely Execution and Multi-Channel Approach:

Amazon Business didn’t stop at the hero film; it strategically extended the campaign across various channels. An online social campaign provided a behind-the-scenes look at the city-building process, adding depth to the narrative. The integration of a national out-of-home campaign, alongside a robust suite of social and digital assets, ensured widespread visibility. A marquee placement in the Wall Street Journal further solidified Amazon Business’s commitment to reaching diverse audiences.

All this was executed and implemented while the trend was still going viral on social media. Their ability to swiftly adapt the creative concept to fit their brand was a huge part of Amazon’s campaign success.

Amazon Business’s incorporation of the Roman Empire trend showcases its adeptness at infusing cultural relevance into its marketing strategies. This campaign serves as a noteworthy example, highlighting the significance of creativity, collaboration, and timely execution in the digital marketing domain. As marketing professionals grapple with the challenges of capturing attention in a saturated landscape, staying attuned to trends, and mastering the art of adapting creative content appropriately and promptly, the Amazon Business campaign stands out as a stellar illustration of crafting compelling narratives.

Need help navigating social media trends? Contact us today!

How Brands Should Address Social Media Trends on Sensitive Topics

It is safe to say most of you reading this have seen the slap heard across the Internet. If you are not sure what I am referring to,  watch the Oscars’ clip here. This celebrity studded incident has made waves across the Internet and into news feeds across all platforms. 

As a social media marketing manager, you may have thought about sharing one of the many memes floating around on your brand’s socials. However, it also is possible (like us) you refrained from hopping on the Will Smith meme trend.

Social media trends are like candy for us social media marketers and content creators, but there can be serious consequences for your brand and society when you participate.

How Social Media Trends Impact Your brand

Frist: Depending on the celebrity involved, the context of the joke, and what it truly represents to your audience will all reflect on you. 

a. If they love Will Smith that could make them unhappy with your brand. 

b. If they are pro Chris Rock, they could reflect feelings of animosity for supporting a violent attack on their beloved comedian. 

Second: Something done in poor taste such as the Will Smith/Chris Rock incident can make your brand seem tonedeaf. 

a. Think about it. First there is promoting violence, then there is capitalizing on someone else’s mental instability. 

b. What does that say about your brand?

How a Meme and Social Media Trend Can Represent So Much More

Even though something is “trending,” that does not mean it is marketing or brand appropriate. The recent incident at the Oscars represents a few different things to many consumers such as:

• Violence
• Physical Abuse
• Mental Health 
• Substance Abuse or Alcoholism
• Abusive relationships
• Unstable marriages
• And more

To many users on social media, the silly meme you shared represents much more than a social media trend, meme or joke.

When is it okay to hop on a social media trend?

Well, this answer is different for every brand, company, and organization. It is important for everything you share and do on behalf of your brand to be thought through. When it comes to trends, we ask ourselves the following questions to help us decide:

• Who is involved, and how does our audience perceive them?
• What is involved? Beyond the content, what are you sharing? 
• Is there a social, political, religious, personal, or other sensitive subject represented?
  • If yes, are you in favor of how it is represented in the trend?
• Will it do harm? 
• Will it offend your audience? Trigger someone in or out of context?
• Does it represent your brand tone and feeling?

Depending on your answers, it will be clear as to if the trend is worth participating in or if it will possibly hurt your brand or society. For us, joking about violence and potential mental health issues is not something to which we want to contribute. 

Not participating in the Will Smith/Chris rock trend was the right choice, but that is for LHM Strategic and our brand. It is important to always do what is right for you (or your clients).

Social media is a reactive place, but as social media marketers, it is our job to Keep Calm (see what I did there) and represent our brands authentically at all times. Doing so will have a much greater return than one day of organic reach.

If you are a brand or business looking for some extra hands when it comes to creating social media content or managing your brand online, LHM Strategic would love to chat! Contact us today!

As social media marketing becomes part of the common thread in an organization’s marketing and communications efforts, it is important to understand that social media and digital marketing do not have an overnight return on investment (ROI). 

Just like any well-planned and targeted marketing strategy, it takes time to see your return. No matter how big your budget is. 

Yes, digital media often provides almost instant insights and data for tracking your success, giving marketers the ability to pivot if initial plans are not working as anticipated. However, it does not automatically guarantee seeing any results instantly. 

Common misconceptions of social media marketing: 

• It works for everyone
• Spending money makes you money
• It is easy
• Fast results/ROI
• If you have an audience, you can sell

In order to have a more in-depth understanding of how social and digital marketing works, you need to have a good understanding of the Buyer’s Journey. 

According to Hub Spot, the Buyer’s Journey is the process buyers go through before they are aware, consider, evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service. The Buyer’s Journey is the process or path consumers take before making a purchase. Meaning without them following the path, there likely will be no purchase decision. So, if you are a new brand, product or service, pushing a sale on social media before raising awareness or educating the consumer and promoting your product simply will not work.

How does the Buyer’s Journey relate to social and digital marketing?

Glad you asked.

A common misconception about social media marketing (and digital marketing) is that you have a direct connection to your target consumer and audience. This is true to a point, however it is not the only factor in successful marketing. What stage your target consumer is in on their Buyer’s Journey impacts their responses and potential purchase of your product or service. 

Here is a visual representation of the Buyer’s Journey and how it pertains to social media marketing tactics: 

If you are in the marketing phase of your business plan, it’s safe to say you have done your initial planning and research. By now you understand how your product or service fits into your consumer’s life. This helps you understand how your target consumer would come across your brand in their search for a potential solution to their problem.

Understanding how you fit into the Buyer’s Journey and how to position them to discover your brand through social media marketing is just one piece of the ROI puzzle for social media marketing. 

If you took Marketing 101 in college you might recall the 4Ps: Product, Price, Promotion and Placement. These are just as important as the Buyer’s Journey to the success of your digital and social media marketing efforts.

How do the 4Ps relate to your social and digital media marketing success?

Let’s start with product. Does your product (or service) meet the consumer’s desired requirements? Is it something they want or need? If the answer is yes, then ask yourself do they know they need the product yet? If not, you will need to focus your marketing efforts on awareness of the need and educate target consumers how your product or service fits. How it helps fix their problem or is a solution to a need they have.

Next, we have price. Is your product the right price? Depending on your industry, price can make a huge difference online. Items with a lower price tag sell better online. The decision to purchase is less extensive and impulse buys are more common at lower price points. Higher priced items have longer sales leads, meaning more research and consideration. It might take several interactions with the brand, website, ads and promotions before a purchase is made. 

Promotion is not just a sale or discount. It includes all stages of the Buyer’s Journey. The kind of promotional IMC campaign you develop for your brand will impact the return on your paid social media marketing campaigns. Sales promotions in the form of special offers and discount codes help take a buyer from consideration to purchase. 

Placement is where your item is available for purchase. In this case we focus on online or ecommerce sales. Considering things like payment options, shipping, and accessibility to purchase can influence the consumer’s purchase intention. 

Understanding your target audience and what influences and drives them to make purchases is vital.

Can you answer the following?

• Where will you be marketing online? 
• What social media platforms are your target audiences spending their time on? 
• Is your product or service visible and available where they already are online? 

The 4Ps also have some important overlap online you need to consider. Sometimes price and placement can impact the purchase decision for a consumer. If an item is high-end clothing, the consumer might want the luxury experience of visiting the store in person and trying things on before spending hundreds or thousands on a shirt. Same goes for items that might require trial before making a purchase decision. For example: Clothing sales online face a barrier due to uncertainty of fit.

Educating the consumer on sizing and fit, as well as your return and exchange policy, can help combat these barriers. However, overlooking these factors will result in your social media marketing and ROI falling flat. 

Maintaining your online community vs. content marketing

Another factor of successful social media marketing is the type of content you are sharing. Do you have a content strategy? Or are you just building your brand and community on social media? One hopes you are doing both.

Paid social vs. organic reach 

When discussing organic reach on social or digital, we are referring to the reach content gets when sharing it to your social platforms, website, email lists, etc. 

Ask yourself:

• How big is your online community and how many of them will actually see your content? 
• Organic reach is different across platforms and this needs to be taken into consideration. 

Paid social media is anything financially promoted to your target audience. This can be Social Media ads, Facebook or Instagram shop ads, remarketing ads, browse ads, or any boosting of posts, events or content shared on your social media profiles and pages. 

Budget will impact your paid reach and the conversion rate. However, you can have a $100 or a $100,000 budget and still get zero sales. 

The factors discussed above will determine whether your ads convert. If your target audience has no idea who you are, they are not going to buy from you on first impression. Make sure to include paid and organic social media content in your strategy. This helps take the buyer through their “journey,” guiding them to make a purchase decision with your brand.

Other social media marketing success factors:

• Creative concepts
• Headlines
• Content
• Timing

Moral of the story: social media marketing is not guaranteed to have a return on investment (ROI). As a marketer you need to do your research, make sure the product is right, make sure online selling is appropriate for your target demographics, and that you are using the right platforms to reach the consumer. 

Do all this while developing a strategic plan and content strategy that facilitates a consumer through the appropriate stages of their Buyer’s Journey. Once you have that in place, it will be a slam dunk. Your product or service can enter the virtual circle of social media marketing, benefitting from the ability to niche down and target exactly who you want, and where you want them online. 

Looking for some initial guidance with your social media marketing? Check out our social media retainers or connect with us for a consultation.

As marketing professionals, we are accustomed to gathering information and creating organic marketing content for the brands we serve, BUT at the same token, most of us are working with smaller than preferred teams and budgets at times. Working with a social media agency or hiring an internal social media employee will make a huge difference in your marketing program and bottom line. 

To help you with the process we created a checklist for hiring and contracting social media help! 

Social Media Manager Hiring Checklist

Are they organized?

How organized are they as a person? Are they able to be on time and complete tasks effectively, or are they often falling behind? Out of all of the items on this checklist, being organized is the most important. It doesn’t matter how great you are at social media, or with your writing skills — if you’re unorganized, the rest of your work will fall short.

Social and digital marketing is fast paced. Your social media team needs to stay up to date with deadlines, to keep daily, monthly and annual content organized and flowing. 

Are they flexible?

Flexibility also is an important part of the marketing and social media management world. Without flexibility, it is nearly impossible to work around busy schedules and last-minute projects and updating content because something changes at the last minute. Social media management requires working around the company’s needs and schedule. 

Are they a strong copywriter?

Social media copywriting is a huge responsibility and it falls on most social media managers. Strong writers can batch create captions and write quickly and effectively on short notice. Writing for social media marketing is more concise and conversational. Most PR professionals or business writers do not write in this manor.

Do they have social media experience?

Are they experienced in social media marketing, or are they just social media end users? Either way, you need someone with lots of experience in the field to be in charge of your social media. It is important to separate their use of social media platforms from their professional experience marketing on the platforms. Marketing on social media is a completely different ballgame then using social media, it requires a completely different set of skills. 

Do they seem observant? 

Social media marketing and management requires a strong ability to observe and listen to your community online. Identifying opportunities for engagement, collaboration and much more in a timely manner can separate a good SM manager from a great one. Hiring someone who can observe, listen and react in a timely manner is essential. 

Finding the right person, consultant, or agency for your team is crucial. Just like any other role, it can be challenging to find the perfect fit for the job description and team dynamics. When in doubt, trust your gut and take time to hire right. This will will save you time and money in the long run.

What are some of the qualities you would hope for in a social media manager? Let us know in the comments. 

Interested in partnering with LHM Strategic to assist in your social media marketing and management efforts take a look at our retainer options today.

Over a year has passed since the initial COVID-19 outbreak that left thousands of people adjusting to a new normal. For many, this new version of normal has meant working from the comfort of home. 

LHM Strategic employees have always worked remotely. Because of this, we are offering up some helpful tips for those still adjusting to the new working from home normal.

Working from home sounds pretty awesome right? Roll out of bed, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and sit on your couch or at your desk in your PJs without a care in the world what you look like because you don’t have to go into an office. However, if you’re new to the work-from-home lifestyle, don’t be surprised if you are having a harder time adjusting while juggling kids, implementing earlier morning routines, and even creating boundaries with other people in your household. 

We have compiled a list of tips to help your work-from-home transition become a more productive one. 

7 Tips for Working from Home

1. Create a morning routine – Do you have a morning routine, or do you wing it? Creating a routine getting you out of bed and wanting to work is no easy feat. Set up a routine you look forward to! Whether that’s a cup of your favorite coffee to start the day, a hearty breakfast or some morning yoga. Starting your day off with something you look forward to before getting to that lengthy to-do list makes for a better workday. 
2. Have a dedicated workspace – It might be easy staying organized in your office setting but a lot harder at home. Having a dedicated workspace is the key to success. Set up a place with good Wi-Fi reception and keep track of all your current and upcoming tasks on a calendar. An external keyboard and additional monitor also is useful when working on projects and communicating with colleagues regularly. 
3. Set reminders – Keep up with daily tasks and upcoming ZOOM calls by setting reminders on your phone or external device. You don’t want to miss a work meeting from home! This also works for things like remembering lunch breaks, or to get up and stretch your legs. Sometimes the lack of the usual office distractions results in working through the day nonstop. This might seem productive but it is not healthy on a long-term basis. Getting up and moving is better for your back, circulation, and eyes if you are on the computer all day.
4. Develop ground rules – Keeping your little ones from jumping into your lap, showing you the colorful picture they thoughtfully sketched out with crayons during an important business call can be a challenge. Having to shoo them away with your hand under the table, or mouthing “mommy’s working,” is never easy. But then again, neither is having ANYONE in the household bugging you during the workday. Establishing ground rules with your loved ones by posting a daily schedule somewhere visible will help keep them at bay during important times of the day. 
   
   For the youngest ones it may not be as simple, so incorporating electronic time or a fun activity may keep them busy just long enough to make it to lunch!
5. Cut yourself some slack – Just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you work 10 hours straight with no breaks. Give yourself time to take a lunch break! Make time to go outside for some fresh air, and take a few minutes for yourself.
6. Don’t let coworkers bug you 24/7 either. Set boundaries for them to maintain work/life balance as well. Remember, just because you are working from home, doesn’t mean it’s not stressful or 24/7.
7. Put notes on your door.- If you are on a call or need to focus put up a Do Not Disturb note. You can also put one on your front door! If the Amazon delivery guy or the neighborhood kids are ringing your doorbell and it is a distraction, leave them a note too!

Working from home can be a huge benefit!

These are just some work-from-home tips from LHM. Find what works best for you and implement them daily. No routine is perfect but having one can make a world of a difference. Don’t forget, you’re not the only one in wearing pajama pants and fuzzy slippers underneath that desk. 

Looking for tips on managing a remote team? Our Founder Laurie Michaelson compiled Tips for Managing a Remote Team., check it out!

When planning social media content, a best practice is calendaring out not only your promotional campaigns but your ongoing (monthly) brand storytelling content. This process helps social media marketers identify opportunities like Wendy’s did with #NationalRoastDay. This process will look strategically different for every brand or organization, but for our clients it looks a lot like this:

Step 1: Create a 6 or 12 month content Calendar document.

Step 2: Add any important promotions/campaigns, dates, celebrations, and holidays to each month. We also open up a holiday calendar online and identify anything that connects to the client’s brand, product, service or industry. We also look for fun filler content such as #nationalselfieday or #nationaleatcakeday

Step 3: Create a monthly document with the month overview calendar, and a weekly breakdown of your social and digital content. This includes each day we are sharing online and the actual content we will share.

Step 4: Prepare the final monthly content. We like to start with all the dates and the topics we identified to create content surrounding them. Then we write content copy for each day, while at the same time batch-create the graphics, or organize the media and make note of anything missing or needing further production.

It is through this process we identify unique ideas for engaging our digital and social media audiences. This content planning process allows us to expand our content and provide more useful and fun day-to-day content for our online community that is not all about the brand.

Aside from diversifying our social media content, this process does something even more important. It helps identify unique opportunities for capitalizing on recurring events, holidays or celebrations.

Why Celebrating the Small Stuff On Social Matters

As Wendy’s recently demonstrated, taking advantage of things like #NationalRoastDay can help increase brand awareness, and grow your audience online or on specific social media platforms.

What seems like a simple tweet was strategically planned and systematically executed on Wendy’s behalf. The Wendy’s twitter account has a reputation for being snarky so celebrating #NationalRoastDay is the perfect “holiday” for them to use in their Twitter content strategy.

How it Started:

It all started off with the above Tweet on #NationalRoastDay. What happened from there was in the hands of Twitter users. 

Wendy’s is a global brand that already has a fun, sarcastic reputation on the social media platform Twitter, making it the right platform to execute their content strategy. A mere 24 hours after the initial tweet they received just under 3,000 retweets, 1,624 Quote Tweets and 28.4K likes.

Not to mention all the conversations happening off Twitter and on other users’ accounts. Brands like UPS, Popeye’s, Gillette Venus, Xbox, Aflac, and many more participated in the Twitter Roasts from Wendy’s.

To take the content beyond just one day, Wendy’s utilized a new Twitter Threads feature and spotlighted the “Best of” Roast Tweets from the #NationalRoastDay.

The Business Impact of Wendy’s #NationalRoastDay Twitter Content Strategy

Okay, so they got a little reach on Twitter and some earned media, but how does this impact Wendy’s?  Since we do not have access to their revenue from yesterday or the overall impressions and reach, we can only provide our professional opinion. Based on what we see, it is obvious the business impact of this content strategy was twofold.

1. They got lots of digital publicity on Twitter and other social media platforms for the day.

But who cares? What does reaching the Twitter audience do for Wendy’s? Well, for starters it introduces them to a new audience of consumers. Based on Twitter platform demographics, fast food is not top of mind for most of their users. However, with the increase of Twitter activity between fast food chains like Wendy’s, Popeye’s and even Chick-fil-A, users have started taking notice and enjoying the fun, entertaining social media content being shared.

One would assume when Wendy’s executes campaigns like this successfully, they experience a spike in revenue. They also become more top of mind to the social media platform consumers.

2. They promoted their app and offered a reward for downloading it.

Another objective of this content was driving traffic to download the Wendy’s app. Throughout the day, they reminded individuals following their thread to download the app and get a free order of French fries as a reward. They even shared some promotional graphics throughout the day in between roasts. 

Without the app download metric from the day, we cannot speak to whether it worked or not. However, just like the spike in revenue we assume this Twitter content strategy did result in app downloads and usage. 

How Can You Use National Holidays and Celebrations to Increase Brand Awareness?

Just like Wendy’s, you also can capitalize on silly celebrations and national awareness days. Keep in mind Wendy’s has a reputation for being savage on Twitter so this was a perfect fit for them. If you are looking for ways to incorporate national holidays into your content strategy ask yourself some questions first:

• Why would my brand want to create/share this kind of content? Is it to promote a sale, grow community, raise awareness, or gain some organic reach?
• What platforms would this type of content work best on for my brand?
• Is it a one-off or is there opportunity for a more strategic content approach?
• What celebrations fit my brand image, tone of voice?  —Let’s face it, roasting people is not on brand for most of us, but world kindness might be.

Whether it is just for some fun, filler content or you are looking for constant strategy wins for growing your brand or increasing revenue, national holidays are great ways to mix things up with your social media content. Not to mention they are helpful as something that inspires and spawns quality content ideas.

Looking for help with your social media content creation and strategy? LHM Strategic would love to help you out! Take a look at our social media retainers today and see if working together is something we can do.

Social media has become a vital part of most businesses marketing efforts, but are you getting the most out of your social media plan? Budgeting for social media is key to a successful social marketing plan. Whether you’re a large or small business, anyone can benefit from setting a budget aimed to give a return on your investment (ROI).

Several components make up a social media budget, such as tracking costs, developing goals for your platforms, and determining what content to post. It’s best to have a specific budget in mind when considering these things.

Identifying Your Social Media Budget

Know what you are budgeting for. – What are your goals and objectives? Do you want to drive website traffic, generate leads, make sales? Setting your goals not only helps you track the success of your social media marketing efforts, it helps determine how to set your budget.

Determine how much you’re willing to spend. – What percentage of the budget will be devoted to social media? This is an extremely important part of planning for social media marketing. Time is money so how much “time” are you willing to invest in the efforts? Do you need to hire additional help? Who implement your social media marketing strategy? Will you use organic marketing tactics and paid social? This should help inform your budget.

Ask yourself:

• Do I need to hire additional help?

• Will there be production costs?

• Based on conversions (ROI) what percentage of each sale am I willing to invest in making the sale?

• What can I afford month to month?

According to WebStrategies, a company spends about 5-15% of annual revenue on marketing, and of the total marketing budget approximately 35-45% should be spent on digital marketing.

Keeping this is mind, your overall marketing goals should play a major factor in what is being put toward this budget. 

Determine what will resonate with your audience. – Static images are cheaper than video content. However, a business is more likely to reach their target audience more effectively with video content versus static images. Video content tends to be more expensive but can be used across several different platforms. 

When breaking down the overall cost of your social marketing strategy, try thinking in terms of what is really involved in getting the most out of your social media. Even if you do not outsource your content creation, you still will be coming up with strategy, writing the copy, managing the posting, and tracking process. 

Your Social Media budget should be broken down into a few different categories: 

• Planning and Strategy Development
• Content Creation
  • Copy writing and media
• Project Management 
• Software/System Costs
• Paid Advertising and Content Promotion
• Tracking and Monitoring

Once you have factored in the above and determined the budget, you are ready to start planning your social media marketing efforts.

Having a set budget helps keep you and your team organized, and your planning realistic. Having a clear understanding of your social budget helps guide marketing success. A common misconception of social media marketing is that it is free. Just like all other marketing and communications tactics it takes time and an intentional investment. Looking to get started on your plan? LHM Strategic can help. Contact us today for a free consultation.

As we enter 2022, we are on the cusp of a huge cultural digital transformation. What was once known as the “Information Superhighway,” the Internet as we know it has transformed from the basic Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 with the emergence of social media marketing in the early 2000s. It has evolved from being the intern’s responsibility to companies hiring entire teams and dedicating robust budgets for marketing online and through social media platforms. 

Just like the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, we are on the verge of another huge shift to the world of Web 3.0. The pandemic has catapulted this transition by forcing a digital connective and a change in lifestyle worldwide.

For the better part of the year, global citizens went “to the office” online from the comfort of their homes. Social distancing encouraged friends to meet online by using video conferencing (such as Zoom) and exposed us all to more virtual experiences together. These experiences will shape the future of the Internet and our social media marketing activities in 2022.

Five 2022 Trends in Social and Digital Marketing

One, Community is everything: Social media platforms are all about community and that hasn’t changed. However, the importance of building a community through authentic content and interactions is even more important as we move toward a more immersive Web 3.0 digital experience. 

Two, Digital collaborations: In the new year, brands should look for ways to do more than their influencer marketing strategies and truly approach them as collaborations. Think beyond content and payment, and start thinking about ways for creating together. This can be in the form of NFTs or other digital assets exclusive to the collaboration. 

Three Entertain and educate: Providing value through your content is the key to social media success in 2022. Algorithms on Instagram and Facebook prioritize this type of content, and for good reason. Creating content for your audiences’ needs will help grow your community more authentically and have a greater impact on KPIs and ROI when using social media marketing. 

Four, Brand immersion online: With the shift from Web 2.0 to 3.0 the key difference will be the immersion online. Think of ways to create these experiences for your consumers now. This can be done using AI filters, augmented reality, creating digital worlds of your own, or on popular gaming experiences like Roblox, etc. Utilize live events, audio chats, and all the new features most social media platforms rolled out last year.

Five, Short and sweet videos: Most social media platforms are prioritizing video content and users are craving it! The big difference now is it needs to be short and sweet. Get your point across in 15-30 seconds at most! Bite-sized value is key. 

Tell us what you think about 2022’s social media and digital marketing trends in the comments. Need help shifting your digital marketing strategy? Contact us today!

Key performance indicators, also known as KPIs, are essential to marketing online. If you are not sure what we are talking about, read more about what a KPI is HERE. There are lots of ways to set up and track digital and social KPIs. The KPIs you use will always be connected to what your overall goals are, and to the measures for tracking and evaluating their effectiveness. Here is a list of 10 KPIs to help you to get started.

As mentioned previously, you need to start identifying your KPIs with your end goal in mind. From there you will identify the measures for tracking your digital marketing success. There are several basic KPIs available to digital and social media marketers, but we have made it easy on you and listed off 10 to get you started.

10 Social Media Marketing KPIs

1. Website Traffic Growth

Calculate your monthly website traffic growth by subtracting the number of sessions last month (or year) from the number of sessions this month (or year). Do you see an increase or decrease? This is your performance measure. Make sure your digital marketing is linking to your website. If it isn’t, then this is not an appropriate measure. 

2. Specific Product or Page Views 

Narrow down your website tracking by designating a specific landing page or product page. Track how many visitors are visiting that page specifically from the digital or social media marketing effort. Make sure your call to action is linked directly to this page. Look at the traffic before launching your campaign. See if there is an increase or decrease in traffic after launching your campaign.

3. Search Engine Results

If you are using a content marketing strategy, use Google Search Console to track keywords and phrases your content is intending to rank for, and use those metrics as KPIs. How many impressions are you getting for the targeted phrases? When users click on your links are they staying on the site for long? This can give you a lot of insight into the effectiveness of your efforts and the content itself. 

You might need to adjust the content on that page if users are clicking and leaving the site. If you are getting lots of impressions and no clicks, you might want to consider changing the search engine and social media meta headings. 

4. Track Subscribers 

If your intent is to grow your email list, track the number of subscribers to your email list. Do you see an increase? 

5. Number of Forum Completions

When you are trying to generate leads, using the KPI of forum completion will tell you just that. How many forums are being completed from the campaign? 

6. Track Online Sales

Track your online sales for the duration of the campaign. If you see a spike it is likely because of your digital marketing efforts. 

7. Use a Promo Code

Create a promotional code for consumers to use when making a purchase online. This helps track the success of your efforts as well as assists in tracking any dark social impacts of your overall campaign. This is especially useful if you are working with influencers or executing a UGC campaign.

8. Track UGC

Speaking of User Generated Content (UGC), this also can be measured as a KPI. How many consumers are creating and sharing content with your brand’s presence? How many tags and mentions are you getting during the campaign? These are all KPI measures for digital and social media Marketing. 

9. Average Ticket/Support Resolution Time

Track how quickly your customers get assistance with their needs when connecting with you on social media. This is a great KPI for campaigns with customer service and perceptions improvement objectives.

To calculate your average ticket time, take the total time of all resolved conversations and then divide that number by the total number of resolved requests.

10. Track Engagement and Community Growth

If you are looking to engage consumers and build relationships with them online, tracking your engagement on social media can indicate an increase or decrease in online engagement. You also can simply track your social media platform growth by comparing it to the previous month, and month to month as the campaign proceeds.

These 10 social media KPIs will help you use performance indicators to measure the success of your digital and social media marketing efforts. As we mentioned in “What is a KPI,” digital marketing provides businesses with a unique opportunity—the ability to measure marketing success and make real-time adjustments where needed. Optimizing your digital marketing efforts saves you time and money in the long run.

In the digital marketing space, you are encouraged to learn from your successes and failures. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to always see a return on your investment.

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What is a KPI?

Just like every industry, marketing is filled with acronyms. In digital marketing, you may have come across the acronym “KPI” and thought to yourself, “What is a KPI?” 

No, it is not the next trendy social media slang. KPI is an acronym for Key Performance Indicator. KPIs are used for measuring and tracking your campaign or content performance in relation to your intended goal.

KPIs are marketing indicators of success and are used for measuring goals and objectives of a digital marketing tactic or strategy. KPIs’ relationship to Social and Digital Marketing is simple—ALL good marketing must be measurable. KPIs do just that. They provide quantitative and qualitative measures of your digital marketing efforts.

As defined by Dictionary.com a Key Performance Indicator is:

 “a quantifiable measure used to evaluate the success of an organization, employee, etc., in meeting objectives for performance.”

Like all marketing metrics and measures, KPIs should be used in all digital marketing campaigns. They should be approached the same way you would any marketing measure by using the SMART method.

There are several benefits of setting digital marketing KPIs and we have broken them down for you.

Benefits of using KPIs:

Gives an insider’s perspective: This is by far the most valuable benefit to KPIs. If you are tracking actions like link clicks, submissions, etc., you learn so much more from how consumers interact with the content when they get there. Do they take action? Do they leave your website right away? What are they doing and is it what you want them to do? If not, how can you adjust your content, user experience or copy in order to get them to make the desired actions (such as make a purchase).

KPIs can be simple to use: Often, marketing tools are difficult to comprehend and understand. But KPIs are simple, reliable, and aren’t too complicated to set up. Setting up a KPI can be as simple as tracking how many link clicks an ad or piece of content gets on a specific social media platform.

Identifies when things are NOT working: KPIs are used to measure the performance of your marketing tactics. You can identify if something is working or not, and make changes in real time. One of the benefits of digital marketing is the marketer’s ability to shift content, platform, budget or offers completely in real time, as opposed to a traditional advertising campaign. Once it goes to print, there is no going back.

Types of digital marketing KPIs

There are hundreds of digital KPIs to use and your decision should be based on your objective. However, there are several common KPIs any level of digital marketer can employ: 

• Link tracking – Website visits, page visits, product views
• Content engagement – likes, comments, shares and saves
• Forum completion – lead generation, email subscribers
• Online purchases – sales via a link, using a promo code, or direct form platform purchases
• App downloads
• Video views
• Social Media community growth

What KPIs you use depends on your overall objectives and goals set for the marketing effort. More often than not there can be several KPIs for a single campaign. For example, tracking link clicks and social media platform community growth. Need more KPI ideas?

These are only a few of the benefits of using KPIs in online marketing. Click here to subscribe to our emails to stay informed on all things marketing.