Social Media Marketing Archives - Page 4 of 5

26Aug 2017 by Bob Cargill

10 Boston Restaurants Crushing it on Twitter

Boston, Branding, Business, Marketing, Restaurants, Social Media

It’s one thing to be able to serve great food. It’s quite another to be able to show off those dishes in words and pictures on Twitter so well that your followers like your tweets almost as much as your eats. That’s the irony of marketing a restaurant in this day and age. As if it’s not enough to be considered one of the best places to go for a bite to eat in town. Now they have to have the popularity on social media to prove it. Okay. Maybe that’s a stretch, but the importance of displaying their menus everywhere people are congregating online today cannot be underestimated. More and more potential customers are stalking their every move not just on the grapevine, but on a bevy of newfangled…

15Jul 2017 by Bob Cargill

Five Ways to Crush It on Social Media

Marketing, Social Media

Despite everything you read and no matter what anyone else tells you, there’s really no secret to success for marketers on social media. Obviously, you can put the odds in your favor if you follow the industry’s best practices. But there are no shortcuts or tricks, no workarounds or hacks. Big advertising budget or not, if you’re not careful to adhere to some of the channels’ most fundamental principles, any wins you experience will be short-lived at best. Transparency counts for a lot on social media as do authenticity and immediacy. Emerging technologies and newfangled tactics play considerable roles as well. As if all that’s not enough, whether you’re talking about copy or design, still images or videos, memes or GIFs, you need to have an infinite supply of content…

20Jun 2017 by Bob Cargill

10 Ways Major League Baseball Teams Win on Social Media

Branding, Marketing, Social Media

There may still be a little chill in the air in some parts of the country, but spring has arrived and so has one of the biggest rites of this time of the year, the beginning of the Major League Baseball (MLB) season. And while MLB may be showing its age a little as the oldest of the four professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, having been around since 1876 (the National League) and 1901 (the American League), respectively, it is still very popular. Tickets are sold by the millions. Broadcast rights are valued in the billions. And social media is helping the sport to offset the fact that younger people today are less inclined to follow it than the generations before them. Teams are using Twitter,…

04Jun 2017 by Bob Cargill

How to Use Instagram Stories for Brand Storytelling

Branding, Business, Instagram, Marketing, Social Media

Now that social media is such a mainstay in business, those of us in the advertising, marketing and PR industries are realizing just how much time and talent it takes to succeed on these digital communication channels. We’re seeing for ourselves that there are no shortcuts to success in this space, not to mention that even a massive budget won’t be able to offset the deficits of a product or service that’s not up to par. For strategists and practitioners, agencies and clients, it’s certainly not an easy pill to swallow. Social media has leveled the playing field on which companies and consumers engage, making it easier than ever for a brand’s weaknesses to be exposed. It might be an understatement to say that audiences can be fickle on Twitter,…

16May 2017 by Bob Cargill

Seven B2B Marketers Rocking It On Social Media

Branding, Marketing, Social Media

The difference between B2C social media marketers and those on the B2B side of the fence is like the difference between hard rock and classical music. You might think of the B2C peeps as the cool kids, loud and proud. Members of the B2B crowd wear suits and speak softly, often stiltedly. While the former wouldn’t hesitate to experiment with Facebook Live or Periscope, the latter may be reluctant to share even pre-recorded video, never mind a live stream. Yup. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that businesses that use social media to market to other businesses are usually quite buttoned up, restrained and cautious. Those businesses that are marketing to consumers on these very same channels, not so much. That doesn’t mean all B2B marketers are afraid to…

30Apr 2017 by Bob Cargill

Five Ways President Trump Takes Advantage of Social Media

Branding, Marketing, Social Media

I didn’t vote for him last November. There was no way this registered Democrat from the blue state of Massachusetts would check that box. But I have to give him props for his tweets. How a 70-year-old-man who just so happens to be the President of the United States uses Twitter more effectively than many businesses, brands and marketing professionals, I’ll never understand. It’s true, though. Not that he isn’t sometimes impulsive and insulting on social media, but the President is using these channels – mainly Twitter, but also Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat – the way they’re supposed to be used. Yup. If nothing else, President Trump has got it all going on when it comes to social media. He’s conveying his honest feelings, like them or not, directly to…

10Apr 2017 by Bob Cargill

Five Great Storytellers on Social Media

Branding, Business, Marketing, Social Media

What would we do without social media? Seriously, do you know how little trust consumers have these days in advertising, marketing and PR? Not to be the bearer of bad news, but people really don’t believe many of our taglines, headlines, subject lines and claims to this, that and the other thing anymore. Especially millennials. But they do believe what we say on social media. Well, not everything we say there. To be fair, the writing has been on the wall about traditional media for a long time now. As authors Rick Levine, Chris Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger said in their landmark book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, around the turn of this century... “Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It’s going to cause real…

19Mar 2017 by Bob Cargill

Don’t Think Twice About Doing Video on Social Media

Branding, Business, Marketing, Social Media, YouTube

Andy Warhol was right when he said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” On second thought, maybe he was putting it too mildly. The future has arrived, and thanks to social media everyone now has the opportunity to be famous for an indefinite period of time, not just 15 minutes. Look at Casie Neistat. Or King Bach. Then there’s Amber Mac. Kim Garst. And Jay Baer. I could go on and on. Funny. Serious. Amusing. Smart. The list of people who have become famous thanks to the emergence of social media is as long as it is varied. Each of these people has done what every corporate brand and business should be doing on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the like. They’ve leveraged both written and visual…

26Feb 2017 by Bob Cargill

10 Mistakes Businesses and Brands Make with Social Media

Branding, Marketing, Social Media

With social media reach and engagement rates having dipped so precipitously over the last year or so, paying to play is almost not an option anymore. But what about businesses and brands that can’t afford to advertise on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like? Not everyone is willing, never mind able, to carve out the budget necessary to keep their content in front of a critical mass of relevant followers on a regular basis. Those organizations can be particularly creative or incredibly persistent, but the most effective strategy they can embrace may be to get all hands on deck in the form of an employee advocacy program. Of course, to go in this direction, every team member needs to be on board with their new tack, despite an abundance of…