Pros and Cons of Pop Culture References

By | Brand marketing, content marketing, marketing, Millennials, public relations, Social Media | No Comments

Brands today have started to focus on ways that they can make their content more efficient. From blog posts to videos and social media posts, it’s important for companies to produce written work, videos, and graphics that will resonate with their audience; if you fail to make your content engaging, you’re not going to see results. When it comes to the type of content that reaches an audience more than any other piece, it really depends on the person, but all kinds of people today are watching more videos than ever.

Video production companies are going to be looking to capitalize on the opportunity they have to connect with audiences and start leading the world in digital marketing. However, how do video production companies do this? They have to find ways to incorporate current events and trends into their videos.

In recent years, video production companies, as well as marketing agencies, have begun to include pop culture references into their content to make it more appealing to audiences, but does this really work? When it comes to pop culture in the world of digital advertising, there are a few upsides and some downsides.

The Pros of Pop Culture References

Pop culture references in social media content are ideal because it produces some of the most eye-catching and tempting clickbait out there. Pop culture references make it hard for people to ignore pieces that include topics that are relevant to them. When a post is able to captivate the audience just on its title alone, the higher the chances of that company obtaining more traffic to their pages. From YouTube videos to blog posts, a crafty title with a pop culture reference and a keyword is sure to draw in an audience.

Another reason video production companies and marketing agencies choose to use pop culture references are because they provide easy explanations for complex issues. This is especially effective if you’re trying to reach and engage with a younger audience. If you use a current pop culture reference as a metaphor to a widely known tread, it will make that piece of content all the more easy to understand.

The Cons of Pop Culture References

Of course, using these references also has its downside. While pop culture references can, in fact, make a current world issue or trend simpler to understand, they can also distort reality and cause misinterpretation from certain groups. While a video production may have used the reference with no ill intent in mind, their audience can misinterpret the information, which can lead to dangerous outsiders stereotyping the company.

Another disadvantage that comes with using pop culture references in media is that they have a short shelf life. These references usually die out within a set amount of time, and you’ll soon have to look for the next reference to replace your current choice. This can get confusing for audiences and can even discredit your content as well. Pop culture is always changing, and it is near impossible to keep up with it 100 percent of the time. 

While using pop culture references may have its benefits, makes sure that you understand the consequences that may come with it so that you can avoid any media disaster.

Outsourcing Your Social Media

By | Facebook, Instagram, marketing, marketing agencies, Mobile marketing, Social Media | No Comments

Social media is one of the best ways to get traffic to your business today. In fact, social media is so huge right now that it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. 88% of businesses are using social media as a marketing technique. However, it can be a little overwhelming trying to figure out how to most effectively use social media as this marketing tool. This is why many businesses decide to outsource their social media to digital marketing companies.

Outsourcing social media is giving the responsibility of managing your social media accounts to a company or group of people that are experts when it comes to social media marketing. These groups are often times digital marketing companies that work on many different platforms, however, within the past few years, the social media aspect of marketing has become huge for these companies. So when exactly should you outsource your social media to a digital marketing company, and when should you just do it yourself?

The most important thing to keep in mind when using social media as a marketing tool is making sure your brand is showing. Though this sounds like a relatively easy task, a lot of businesses struggle with this. Outsourcing is a great way to help fix this problem. Again, digital marketing companies are experts at this kind of stuff. They know the best ways to present your business on social media while defining and presenting your brand in a natural way.

Another time outsourcing your social media might be a good idea is if you don’t know what kind of content you want to post. Figuring out your social media content can be tricky depending on the type of business you have. Considering digital marketing companies are great at creating content strategies, outsourcing can make this a lot easier. They know what kind of content gets viewed the most and what kinds get the most feedback and traffic to businesses.  

The last reason outsourcing social media is a good idea is because you are an expert of your business, but digital marketing companies are experts at marketing. You may be able to post visually pleasing pictures or grammatically correct blogs, but do you know the latest algorithm changes?…When you outsource your social media it is no longer your job to figure that stuff out—it’s ours.

Social media marketing is huge in today’s world. The effectiveness of your marketing on these sites can literally make or break your business’s success. There are a lot of reasons and benefits to outsourcing your social media to digital marketing companies. They know how to present your brand in the best ways, they have creative and unique content ideas, and they are experts at marketing. By outsourcing your social media, you will have less to worry about and more time to focus on making your business the best it can be while leaving the marketing up to us.

Four Tips to Successfully Manage Your Social Media

By | content marketing, Instagram, marketing, Mobile marketing, Social Media | No Comments

When it comes to digital marketing companies in today’s world, your life should revolve around social media. Social media is leading a revolution in marketing and advertising, and if you don’t keep up with it, you’ll be left of the side of the road. Social media gives you access to instant feedback and target audiences like never before and can come at a cheaper price than traditional marketing if done right. Since this is one of the most essential tools that digital marketing companies should know how to use, let’s talk about the top four tips for how to improve your social media!

  1. More Isn’t Always Better

It may seem like a no-brainer, but content is where it’s at! However, don’t disillusion yourself into thinking that if you have more content then you’ll be more successful. The quality of your content is by far more important than the number of times you post to your social media pages. Work on developing a brand guide, then stick to it! You want your social presence to be visually appealing, but also to always be on brand with your company.

  1. Utilize Social Media Analytics

Like we stated above, more posting isn’t always better. It’s important to constantly be looking at your social media analytics to see what your response is. Sometimes people visit your page less frequently when you post more, so those things are important to know. You’ll need to study the types of posts that your audience responds better to, and even the time of day it’s more effective for you to post. Digital marketing companies need to put in a lot of work to make their presence known, but it’s worth it.

  1. Use Scheduling Tools

As you begin to study your analytics as to what times are more beneficial for your company to post, you may find out that 6 a.m. is the time where your page has the highest traffic. And who wants to be up working at that time? Using a scheduling system for your social media posting is extremely beneficial in this aspect. You can schedule your posts out for a couple weeks before heading on a trip or schedule them the night before to have them automatically post when there is high traffic on your page. Either way, it makes your job much easier, and who doesn’t love that?

  1. Be a Real Person

Many people forget how important this point is. Now, we’re not saying that you should completely throw all sense of professionalism out the window. Rather, social media is an outlet for you to connect with real people as a real person; be a human! Express gratitude, share fun moments in your work life, and most of all make your followers love you for your posting, whether that be for humor, blunt reality, or whatever else you want to portray. Just be yourself in order to make your digital marketing company look like it’s made up of real people rather than robots. Let your personality shine, in the best way, of course!

When it comes down to running a digital marketing company or department, you’ll need to become familiar with social media. Follow these four tips and get going! Social media is learned through trial and error, so start working with your company’s account and see what works and what doesn’t. The large benefit of social media as a platform for digital marketing companies is that it has a quick turnover on data analytics. If you get stuck, contact us at Fusion 360 to see how we can help you!

Integrating Trends into Your Content

By | content marketing, digital marketing, marketing, Millenials, Mobile marketing, Social Media | No Comments

Integrating current trends into your content is the best way to get the most traffic to your website and company. Content marketing companies are experts on incorporating trends into content. If you aren’t staying on top of trends, your company is going to start losing clients. Simply put, if you don’t stay on top of current trends in the world, your company will quickly be left in the dust. So how exactly can you avoid this and incorporate trends into your content? And more importantly, how do you find what trends are current and best to use?  

Content marketing companies are very popular and useful right now as they work to increase company business and continue to push brands forward. They are experts on how to stay on top of current trends and how to incorporate them into content. Here are a few tips on how to stay on top of current trends.

Keep Your Information Up to Date

The easiest and maybe the most obvious way to stay on top of trends is to stay up to date on news and social media. In today’s world, there is no way you will be able to stay on top of current trends if you aren’t consistently checking the news. Potentially more important than the news even, checking all your social media accounts is crucial. Content marketing companies are constantly following social media trends and learning from them. This is the easiest way you can stay on top of trends.

Utilize SEO Tools

Another way content marketing companies stay up to date on trends is by using SEO tools. This is where you can enter keywords people are plugging into search engines like google and see rising trends. You can see if certain words or phrases have been picking up or slowing down in popularity. You can then incorporate the information you find with these SEO tools into your content.

Network

Networking is huge for staying on top of current trends. Going to local conferences and other activities are great for networking with other people looking for the same trends you are. It is a perfect time to share what trends you have found and hear what they think are the main trends. Whenever you can get out and network, you are benefitting your company in multiple ways.

After you find out what the current trends are, you need to work to incorporate them into your content. For example, if you find via SEO tools that a certain keyword is starting to gain some traction and popularity, use it a number of times in a blog post. It is also important to remember that trends are constantly changing.

Staying on top of trends isn’t lazy work, it takes dedication and persistence. Content marketing companies are built to stay on top of these trends. And though at first, it may seem challenging to do so, it doesn’t need to be. If you are staying up to date with news and social media, using SEO tools, networking and staying persistent, you will pretty easily be able to spot current trends and as a result, be able to integrate them into your content.

Sources:

https://squareup.com/townsquare/8-easy-ways-to-stay-on-top-of-industry-trends

Different Types of Digital Marketing

By | digital marketing, marketing, marketing agencies, Mobile marketing, Social Media, Technology | No Comments

Digital marketing agencies are the marketing agencies of the future. Digital marketing is simply electronic marketing that aims to promote products, services, brands, and companies. Within a digital marketing agency, there are a few different types of marketing strategies that are all intertwined. The umbrella of digital marketing covers online marketing, social media marketing, and mobile marketing. Let’s dive in and learn a little bit more about each of these marketing techniques and see how they together.

Online Marketing

The first type of marketing you can find at a digital marketing agency is online marketing. This type of marketing pretty much just promotes its product, services, or brand through any online platform. A big part of online marketing is creating and managing websites. Websites are great marketing tools because that is where potential customers or clients go to see what your brand is all about. Online marketers are in charge of getting traffic to their websites too. To do this, they participate in search engine marketing. This is when you get exposure from certain keywords you use within your website. This includes things like pay per click and search engine optimization. Online marketers also do email marketing and create online ads. To say online marketers have quite the job is an understatement.

Social Media Marketing

The next type of marketing you will find at a digital marketing agency is social media marketing. Social media marketers’ job is to promote their companies product, service or brand through social media sites. These include but are not limited to blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. They have to reply to costumers comments, develop hashtags for the company, and plan and post quality content. It is important for all digital marketers to keep an eye on the trends of the internet. They need to pay attention to things like what kinds of stuff get the most views and what type of content is most popular at the moment.

Mobile Marketing

The last role that you can find at a digital marketing agency is mobile marketing. This type of digital marketing is targeting consumers on their phones and tablets. These marketers use text messages, various ads, and mobile applications to promote their product, services, or brand. This is one of the fastest ways to build traffic for your company. Mobile marketing is an especially newer form of marketing in the world today. It is super important for companies to use it and benefit from it.

Overall, digital marketing is super prevalent in our world today. It is one of the fastest ways to get traffic to your company, and as a result get you more clients and customers. A digital marketing agency includes multiple different types of more specific marketing- online, social media, and mobile. All of these marketing techniques work together to get your brand out into the world and to get you the best results possible.

Sources:

https://usatodaytn.com/blog/what-is-online-marketing/

https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-social-media-marketing-and-digital-marketing.html

Gearing Your Content Toward Your Audience

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, marketing, Millenials, Mobile marketing, Social Media | No Comments

One of the most important things when it comes to digital storytelling is understanding your target audience. If you’re wanting your blogs to generate results, you can’t just go in writing blindly, you have to know who you’re trying to reach before your fingers even touch the keyboard to make sure your content is as engaging as possible. Digital marketing companies know this all too well, which is why they take the time to create guidelines for each of their clients.

If you’re struggling to pull in readers, you may want to consider taking a different approach to your style. Here are some of the ways you can tailor your content to your target audience.

 

Determining Who That Audience Is

 Of course, the first thing you’re going to want to do is pinpoint who your target audience is. Digital marketing companies often times produce content for multiple clients at a time, so it’s important for those companies to make sure they keep each of their client’s voices and brand styles separate. For example, if you’re writing for a technology manufacturer, you’re going to tailor your content to millennials, seeing as how this generation uses more advance technology than the previous one. Of course, you’ll still get an older demographic that consists of professional scientists, medical practitioners and engineers, so throwing in a few blogs for them may also benefit you.

The best way to determine who your target audience, is by sending out a survey on the your clients’ social media platforms. Digital marketing companies can’t succeed without the right research.

 

Creating Brand Guides

As we lightly touched on in the previous paragraph, you’re going to want to create brand guides for each one of your clients. Digital marketing companies benefit from this because it allows their employees to be able to know exactly what the content should look and sound like. If the marketing company is successful, the client they are working for is more likely to use their services further, and this is what separates great digital marketing companies, like Fusion 360, apart from the rest of the competition¾ it’s all about the quality of the content and how it will benefit the client in the long run.

Your brand guides should have things such as the clients writing style, target audience, color scheme, font style, vision, core values and their mission. This guide helps digital marketing companies produce content that is on brand and on voice, something that clients will appreciate more than you can imagine.

 

Find Out Where Your Core Demographic Spends Most of Their Time

 Along with determining who your target audience is and creating efficient brand guides, you should also determine where your target audience spends most of their time online. With all kinds of social media platforms out there, you don’t want to be focusing the wrong one, as this will lead to wasted time and poor results. For example, it is important to know that younger audiences are more inclined to use Twitter while Facebook has a much more mature audience. Instagram can have a healthy mix of the two, but it is not a bad idea to send out a survey to determine where most of your audience is at to make sure you’re targeting the right platforms.

In the end, gearing your content toward your audience is all about the research. Digital marketing companies are expected to keep their clients afloat, and bulletproof content is the best way to make sure your company stands out from the competition.

The Effectiveness of Snapchat Ads

By | Social Media | No Comments

When it comes to advertisements most are pretty boring and we usually just ignore them. Marketing firms have tried for decades to figure out the perfect strategy to advertise to everyone and get them involved. It wasn’t until 2015 when that strategy became a little more clear.

On Halloween that year Snapchat Inc. released sponsored lenses for companies to buy. These lenses allow companies to create filters for users to put over their face or decorate their snaps. The genius behind it is the fact users have to interact with them in order to use them. They share these sponsored snaps to friends or even save them for fun, but the company is still there. This allows users to become familiar with the company and remember them when they are needed.

Start Marketing on Instagram Now

By | Social Media | No Comments

Social media platform Instagram has 800 million followers and counting. Adding another 100 million from April–September, they are constantly making connections and gaining users. The seven-year-old app has made great strides as a social media platform and as a marketing platform, turning inexperienced young adults into photographers and food bloggers. While doubling as a free advertising agency, Instagram has helped start thousands of careers and grow thousands of industries.

Location

An advertising agency, whether in Utah or any other state, can invite users into their workspace or company shop with the location feature. This humanizes the company and makes customers feel part of the brand. Additionally, a company like Disneyland, that highlights different things during the year, can heavily promote their location to show Disney fans how the decorated the park for the season.

Hashtags

Marketing firms can develop an entire advertising campaign around a hashtag. By simply posting the hashtag or asking your consumers to use it will bring a company’s profile a lot of traffic. A hashtag can be the voice that shares your company’s stance on a matter and lets customers interact with the brand.

Price Tag

Free. $0.00. Nothing. Nada. Instagram is free! Anyone can use Instagram as much as they want with zero cost to them. Of course, users can choose to sponsor a post, but it’s free to use otherwise. Nothing is better than free marketing.

Live Stream and Stories

The media has newer features called Instagram Live and Instagram Story. When a user “goes live,” followers get a notification and can watch them as they make the video. Many users use the live feature to interact with their followers. Followers can ask questions directly to the company that can be answered on the spot. Instagram stories are clips or images that are posted for 24 hours. This is a non-committal way to promote an event or share your travels. Agencies often do a countdown to a sale, store opening or countdown to an expansion announcement.

Sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/how-many-users-does-instagram-have-now-800-million.html
http://mashable.com/2011/05/12/social-media-change-marketing/#33tv8eastmqd
http://time.com/4408374/instagram-anniversary/

The Power of Social Media During Hurricane Season

By | Social Media | No Comments

Hurricane Harvey hit on August 25th, 2017. Homes flooded and streets quickly turned into canals, which boats floated down to rescue people. The damage done to Texas is unspeakable, and was quickly followed by Hurricane Irma, which tore up Florida. In fact, Hurricane Maria is well on its way to cause similar damage. Social media has become a tool that saves lives in these situations.

Donate Now

Everyone that wants to help victims of these hurricanes but can’t physically get there to make things better now have the power at their fingertips. There are digital marketing companies, marketing firms, celebrities and social media influencers trying to raise money for hurricane relief to get families hit by devastation back on their feet. A simple text is all it takes to donate.

“Please Send Help”

Many victims turned towards Facebook and Twitter for help. As the water continued to rise, families searched for help on social media platforms. People that were stuck in their house and needed rescue got on social media platforms and used hashtags like #HelpHouston and #sosHarvey. People took their own personal boats to help rescue neighbors and strangers. Social media played a role in saving Texans lives.

Raising Funds

Here in Utah, there have been companies selling necklaces, shirts, and anything of the sort. All proceeds they make will be donated to the victims of these record breaking hurricanes. There are social media influencers gathering money and taking it to the damaged cities to be hand delivered to families who need it most. Celebrities have used social media to share how they have donated and encourage others to do the same.

As times get tough and hurricanes destroy the towns we love, the people of the United States of America continue to band together through any digital means to help. From website design to flying to Texas to volunteer, we show time and time again that money isn’t the only help we’re ready to provide.