Social Media Marketing- What? Why? How?
[bctt tweet=”Social media marketing has gone been perceived as a fad to a must-have for brands today” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Let’s start with 2 definitions to answer the What: social media noun websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking Source: Oxford Dictionary social media marketing noun the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites Source: Searchengineland Simple right? Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s dive right into the Why! Social media marketing has gone from what was perceived as a fad in the early 2000s to a must-have for brands today. Every brand, business, and entity wants to have a presence on every social media platform. Why should YOU think about social media marketing? Well, it starts with you as a brand. Social media is an opportunity for you to build your personal brand, and grow your authority on your subject. Your social media profiles are the first thing to show up in a Google search for your name. These are the best places to start with establishing you as a brand. Twitter is a great place to weigh in with your opinions. LinkedIn is the best place to detail your professional experience and showcase your expertise. Facebook allows you to keep in touch, and share your views. Instagram provides a place to chronicle your life’s journey. When it comes to your business, social media lets you reach a staggering number of people at a fraction of the cost of traditional media. Take Facebook, for example. There are more than 15 million Nigerians on Facebook. For $10/day, you can reach up to 40,000 people. That’s a staggering amount of people and dirt cheap when you compare it to the cost to reach those people through traditional media channels. The best part is you don’t always have to pay to reach them. It’s all about how you communicate with them. The variety of social media channels means you can showcase your business and its personality in different ways. Social media allows you to get in front of your consumer where they are. And believe me, they are everywhere! Social media is becoming an integral part of the marketing funnel. With the advent of messenger bots, live video, and VR, it is now possible to sell a product and an experience without any physical process. That is huge in itself and signals a drastic shift in how consumers’ purchasing activity. [bctt tweet=”Social media is becoming an integral part of the marketing funnel” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] So how do you start? For starters, do not go and create an account on every social media platform for your business. Yes, that’s right, do NOT. It starts with listening. You understand your business and your target audience. The next thing is to see where your target audience is and what they’re saying. When you’re armed with that knowledge, you can then think about which platforms your business needs and how your business is going to join in the conversation on them. Remember each platform has its own nuances, and it’s best to understand them before jumping on them. Take the time to study each platform. Some tips for your content: Keep it relevant and informative. Statistics show that consumers engage most with relevant and engaging content. Use an 80:20 approach. 20% of your content should be sales focused. The 80% should educate, showcase, inform and entertain your consumers. Always be ready to adapt. What works today might not work tomorrow, and the landscape is always changing. Be ready to change with it. Be conversational. Integrate. Your social media sales communication should not be in isolation of any other marketing activity you’re running. Social media marketing is not a thing of tomorrow, it is a thing of now. And every passing day, it’s evolving. All aboard? – This article was written by Prashant Kirpalani. Prashant is the Social Media Manager at Wild Fusion, Wild Fusion is Africa’s leading Digital Marketing Agency. When he’s not working, he likes to game, DJ, and tweet about Chelsea and fantasy football.
The super-basic practical introduction to digital marketing
[bctt tweet=”Digital marketing works, if you’re ready to make it work for you start here @Wildfusion” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Digital marketing is such a catchphrase today that it parades the Internets with a long line of acronyms: ROI, CAC, SEM, SEO, CPC, and so on. It gets overwhelming. But beyond all these acronyms, there is real value to it. According to a 2016 independent research [PDF] by Wild Fusion Digital Center and Pan-Atlantic University School of Media and Communication, 17% of surveyed Nigerian marketing executives will spend over 40% of their marketing budget on digital marketing in the next five years. And the prominence of digital marketing isn’t limited to Nigeria or letting off. The Content Marketing Insitute and MarketingProf’s 2016 survey [PDF] shows that 51% of marketers expect to see digital marketing budget increase in 2017. [bctt tweet=”51% of marketers expect a digital marketing budget increase in 2017, are you one of them?” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] People are jumping on this bandwagon … The very obvious deduction is that digital marketing works. But what is it, really? To understand it, a breakdown of its component parts is in order. At the core of digital marketing is “marketing.” And at the heart of marketing is “promotion”. Digital is simply about connected electronic devices. With an eye on this, digital marketing happens every time you use connected electronic devices to reach people with your content, product, business or something else. So, is your business on social media? Yes? Then you are doing digital marketing. That’s basic. So what’s all the fuss about? Social media presence, though, doesn’t begin to touch the tip of digital marketing iceberg. It is a new type of marketing, but it expresses itself in sophisticated ways. This is a big, winding, fantastical rabbit hole and later in this series, we’ll tell you how far that hole goes. For now, what’s the fuss about it? This is no easy question to answer, but one way to understand why businesses have caught on to the idea is to inspect the benefits of digital marketing (compared to legacy marketing). Digital Marketing Vs. Legacy Marketing Top on the list is that digital marketing is much easier to start. It used to be that to market your business for the largest impact, you needed to sign an agency or have a contract with a big media corporation. Now, all you need is a functioning AdWords account and you are well on your way to maximum visibility. With the tracking capability (called analytics) baked into digital marketing, it’s easier to measure your success across different stages of your marketing. Marketing is a cumulative process and not every marketing campaign immediately leads to sales. Digital marketing lets you see what progress you are making. This is not possible with legacy marketing and you’ll often give up your marketing effort in the face of what you regard as a failure. You can make your promotion more targeted with digital marketing. If you are selling to millennial males earning N100,000 per month with interest in travel and photography, you can speak directly to them. Using search engine marketing (a type of digital marketing), you can speak to them when they are ready to interact with you -when they are searching for services like yours. It’s almost like magic. With legacy marketing, all you have to go on are blurry guesses of audience delineation. Then there is the fact that digital marketing is non-linear. Instead, it’s a two-way conversation, which leads to more authentic dialogues between you and your audience. There are more benefits of digital marketing than we can exhaust in a basic guide. So, let’s get to see how far that rabbit hole goes like we promised. [bctt tweet=”If your business is on social media, you’re already doing digital marketing but there’s more” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Digital marketing channels Digital marketing is more sophisticated than social media presence and the many expression of this marketing movement proves it. Here are some of them: SEO – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is when you improve the visibility of your business, product or website in search engine results. This process involves finding and using the right keywords in your content and copy. Email marketing – This happens when you use emails to keep your customers engaged with your brand. For instance, sending new offers or useful content. Content marketing – Creating and publishing content that stimulates interest in your product. Pay per click – Pay per click (PPC) involves paying search engines (such as Google, Bing and Yahoo) to generate direct traffic to your business or product. PPC serves up your product or business when people search for keywords related to your business. Social media marketing – Social media marketing is an extension of content marketing with an organic always-on social dialogue as seen on social media. Getting social media right requires investment in the right engagement strategy. The starting point is a social media calendar. Download a customizable free social media calendar for Nigeria here. Other channels are display ads, affiliate marketing and mobile advertising (including SMS, Ringback Tune and Lockscreen Ads) There are many more sides to this. Alas, this article is a basic guide. The purpose of this piece is to be a jump off point for your interest in digital marketing. What next? The great thing about digital marketing is that anyone can do it. All you need is the skill. And all the skills you need already exist online in one form or another. You can start now. — This article was written by Gbenga Onalaja. Gbenga is a Content Strategist at Wild Fusion, Wild Fusion is Africa’s leading Digital Marketing Agency.
Emma Maame Efua Tandoh: Our business only exists because of those we serve
The coolest startups are those that offer services particularly targeted to other startups. Emma Maame Efua Tandoh started Outspoken Edge in 2015 to offer digital marketing services for entrepreneurs looking to scale up their businesses. It gets even better, Outspoken Edge focuses on women-led businesses. Say yes to girl power! Since it’s inception, Emma has guided Outspoken Edge to new heights which she credits to what she learned at SheHive Accra earlier this year. Outspoken Edge has also been part of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme. We learned about digital marketing in Ghana and what proud moments feel like when you’ve achieved a lot. What’s the digital marketing scene like in Ghana? How does Outspoken Edge fit in (or not)? The digital marketing scene has undergone a transformation in Ghana. Over the years, it’s seeing a lot of new players, including Outspoken Edge, which I founded in May 2015. What differentiates us from the others is our focus on startups and SMEs. We realized that a lot of our competitors were focused on providing services for big businesses and multi-nationals. There was an opportunity for us to make an impact because there are a growing number of burgeoning entrepreneurs who had great ideas and would need help scaling their business. As a entrepreneur myself, I had a first-hand experience of how hard it is to want to stay lean but also market and scale your business as quickly as possible. So, its always easy to understand the peculiar needs of the brands and businesses we manage. Why did you decide to focus on providing services for women-led businesses? Let’s face it, over the last year, we’re hearing a lot about women in agriculture, women in tech, women in business. Clearly, a lot more women have taken up the challenge and are ready to lead in their respective fields and charter their own courses through entrepreneurship. Over the last few years, economists and academics have trumpeted and continue to agree that women entrepreneurs are an under-tapped force that can rekindle economic expansion. So, the question is, why not women-led businesses? At Outspoken Edge, we simply saw a gap in the market and seized an opportunity to make impact. We (women) are the future of business, we’re the future of our respective economies. We believe if we can help one woman effectively scale their business online using digital tools, then that’s progress. If we can help more, that’s success. Why do you think you were chosen to be part of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme? The 2016 cohort of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme is made up of men and women from diverse backgrounds in Africa. These are entrepreneurs who are challenging the status-quo and with their exploits, products and services. They are leading a new generation of Africans who have the grit, tenacity and attitude to transform their continent. Outspoken Edge is no different from these businesses. What helps us stand tall is our passion and commitment to our work. Also, our resolve to leave a legacy and inspire others on the same journey to be great and make an impact in our communities and in the world. You mentioned that SheHive Accra helped grow your business. Tell us how SheHive Accra was really a turning point in my career, I must say. I had Outspoken Edge registered in May of 2015 but for several months, I was afraid to take the plunge into full-time entrepreneurship. I knew this was definitely what I wanted to dedicate my life to but there were questions and concerns, lots of them. In January, when I heard She Leads Africa was going to be in Accra, I quickly applied. Over a week, armed myself with so much practical and useful business development, financial and marketing knowledge. It was exhilarating. I met other women entrepreneurs from Ghana and other countries and we shared our experiences and challenges. One of my biggest takeaways was a session on marketing where we were taught how to put together a marketing research survey. We worked in groups and were asked to put our questions to the test by going out individually to speak to potential businesses and clients. This wasn’t just a great way to test the knowledge that had been imparted but also to reach out and speak to real people and with my survey questions. I was able to sign up a new client for Outspoken Edge after just 40 minutes of interviewing a shop manager in one of the malls in Accra. SheHive Accra was that jolt I need to get my business off the ground. The experience was one of my best this year and I’m most grateful for the new opportunities and partnerships. Having achieved quite a lot already, what would you say you’re most proud of when it comes to your work? Proud moments for me are when I get great feedback from clients. Our business only exists because of those we serve. So, it’s always great to receive great testimonials and feedback from the brands we work with. If you’d like to share your story with She Leads Africa, let us know more about you and your story here.
4 simple ways to keep up on the digital inbound marketing trend
Are you interrupting your customers this year or are they on the hunt for you like a daily vitamin? As you are trying to peacefully creep through the pages of Bella Naija, I mean do important research on the latest happenings around your entrepreneurial purists, the last thing you need are those pesky ads interrupting your research. There are a few alternatives to those google ads and they call under the umbrella of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing practices have been taking over how we interact with users digitally. Inbound marketing is the ability to draw your customers to your site and products by creating highly engaging content. I emphasize to my clients – instead of interrupting users through traditional marketing methods, find other organic ways to flow into users’ day. . Inbound practices are not only friendly to the user but they are economically friendly to entrepreneurs as well. It allows you to connect naturally to your users without spending a fortune on ads. Below are 4 effective ways to bring customers in. 1. Opt-in Emails The lists built with care. Your users visit your site and sign up to be apart of the greatness you have brewing. It’s an opt-in because they chose and verified that they wanted to receive that information from you. It can be as simple as a “Sign up for our newsletter” box to the right or generously offering a free give away for signing up for your emailing list. For example, if you’re a branding extraordinaire you may offer a quick and easy digital workbook in exchange for their information. Positive: Anyone that signed up for this emailing list is looking to have you there. Difficulty: It takes time and strategic positioning to gather theses lists. You may have to form multiple partnerships with other entrepreneurs / businesses/ orgs to create visibility for yourself. 2. Thought Leadership Are you an expert in your field? Do you have a niche area that you can speak about better than anyone else? Are you the new technology expert that’s going to tell me how solar powered refrigerators are going to change my life? Thought leadership has become the ultimate trend for entrepreneurs willing to share the best and most up to date information about their field. Positive: Thought leadership opens doors for more speaking engagements and business opportunities because of your expertise. Difficulty: You. Must. Be. Consistent. To whom much is given, much is required. Taking the step to being a thought leader, especially in a very in-demand field, requires consistency to remain relevant. If those refrigerators can suddenly teleport, I’m looking to you first to tell me why. 3. Blogs A form of expressing the thought leadership are blogs! Start-ups to larger companies such as Price Water Coopers are utilizing the buzz. Potential customers, competitors and collaborators want to what you’re up to and where your interests lie. Fill them in. Positive: It’s a quick and easy way to get the information to people that are already following your work. Difficulty: There is a fine line between too little information and too much. People want to be engaged, educated and/ or entertained in a matter of a few minutes. One platform that I absolutely promote the utilization of is: Medium.com. A quick and easy platform that allows you to connect to fellow bloggers, business owners and politicians. 4. Community Building My favorite building trend. Yes, I am shamelessly biased to this form of marketing. When you create a community, you create a space for your customers/ readers to feel engaged,included and connected. This is the first market to sample that great item you have on display. As your continuously building that tribe of people who are invested in your product and expertise, they give you the right to infiltrate their inbox. What will you do with that power? Community building is also a great leverage when forming future partnerships. This community is your direct audience; this is a selling point when meeting with potential sponsors. Who can they really reach by working with you? In sum, goal setting and discipline are a few keys to success! Pick one that you haven’t started yet and add it to your already bubbling list of New Year resolutions. All of these items build on each other, but choosing one to focus on first will allow you to measure impact and what is and isn’t going well with how you engage your users.