Instagram: The New Hub For Marketing
As many know, the evolution of social media has completely reshaped marketing by providing businesses with the tools that allow them to build loyal followings, create brand awareness and, most of all, generate more sales. What started out as a platform for people to connect with people, social media has quickly become the most effective form of marketing, connecting people with brands.
While Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are still among the most popular platforms leveraged by businesses, Instagram is on the rise and more and more companies are shifting their ad spend towards this channel. Which is a smart move, considering the expected user growth projections. “Instagram is predicted to add 26.9 million users in the U.S. by 2020. That’s far more than Facebook, Twitter or any other social platform.” (Entrepreneur.com ) At Linx, we make sure that our clients are aware of trends like this and help them Think Ahead to take advantage of new and growing channels, always keeping an eye on where their target customers are spending their time.
What makes Instagram a hub businesses and customers is that it offers a combination of popular features from Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, making it an all-inclusive social media platform. Recently, Instagram has also been one step ahead of its competitors, last week releasing a new video tie-in that goes head-to-head with YouTube and Snapchat. With this feature, influencers can distribute videos within Instagram, that they would otherwise place on other platforms. And, as Instagram is staying ahead of the curve, so should your business. Whether it be implementing story ads, newsfeed ads or partnering with an influencer, there are a multitude of opportunities to reach your customers through Instagram you may be missing out on… and many successful companies are increasing their ROI this way.
If you’re unsure of how to start an Instagram strategy or are struggling to produce an ROI on your current efforts, here are some ways to immediately increase your effectiveness.
Remarket in a new way and get more followers:
Tons of people are engaging with your ads and posts, but none of these people seem to be following your account. How can you change that?
Engaging with the likes, shares and comments you receive, you can convert these non-followers into followers, and eventually into customers. By re-engaging with those consumers who made the first move on your company’s post, it gives you the opportunity to market to them for a second time, and provides them with a unique and personal experience Resulting in a new follow. This approach adds more value and demonstrates your loyalty and care for your “new customers”.
Track every influencer marketing post:
If you are leveraging Instagram influencers, it is important to know that when working with multiple sources, sending them the same standard link will not benefit your company. Each influencer, should be given a unique link, so you are able to track your exact ROI from each of them. These links will help you determine which influencer is driving more traffic and sales to your website or product/services, as well as track each visitors’ behavior. With this information, you are able to shift your spend to the influencers producing the most the most ROI for your company.
Optimize your funnels with custom audiences:
As many of you know, Facebook feeds into Instagram, allowing marketers to run Facebook Ads and Instagram ads simultaneously. And, when creating an campaign on Facebook, you are able to create unique audiences based on any targeting parameters, as well as retarget visitors or purchasers. They key is not to run general ads, but rather various ads with unique messaging that speaks directly to your different segments at each stage of the sales funnel. Tracking every interaction and optimizing every element will extract maximum value at every opportunity.
Instagram is moving at a fast rate and it doesn’t seem to have a plan of slowing down anytime soon, that means businesses have to react to all these opportunities that instagram has to offer.That’s why our client rely on us to… Think Ahead! Contact us today and let us help you build a true brand value and increase your business ROI on Instagram and react faster new instagram features.
New Client: Taking the success of Madison’s Niche Brick & Mortar Locations to the Web
This month, Linx began working with a new client, Madison’s Niche, a lifestyle boutique with four locations in the heart of Long Island’s most popular towns. The client turned to Linx for help in bringing the growing success of their store locations to the web. With no current website, the opportunity to open a new channel for sales – “a fifth storefront” – is a sure strategy to take the brand’s success to the next level.
Linx’s key team members began the process by visiting the newest Madison’s Niche location in Stony Brook Village. It was important for us to get a feel for the ambiance of the store and the brand. Immediately upon entering, it was clear to us that the vibe was high-end, fashion-forward, unique and elegant. This was the feeling we needed to capture for the e-commerce website.
After our location visit, our design team worked to develop a mood board, which outlined the color palettes, imagery presentations, competitive analysis, typography, and overall look and feel for the brand that will serve as the foundation for all design elements, including the website, moving forward. Reviewing this with the client, we discovered that we were on track with what Madison’s Niche had envisioned their physical space might look like on the web.
Next, our customer experience experts got to work on mapping out the user experience and interface (UX/UI) functionality for an optimal shopping experience for users. This requires a deep-dive into the stores’ products and how they are presented and categorized, as well as various online shopping behaviors, to ensure navigating the site and finding products is simple and easy for users.
Linx is just getting into the planning phase of the website project, working closely with the client to develop the design and infrastructure foundation for the new e-commerce website. We expect the website to launch for Fall 2018 and are excited for Madison’s Niche to grow their customer base and bring their unique shopping experience to the web and shoppers nationwide. Check back for more updates on the online store launch and, in the meantime, visit the temporary splash page we created for the brand here.
How Influencers Can Make Your Brand: The Importance of Influencers in the Age of Social Media
The traditional means of attaining a loyal customer base by “buying” them through previous, time-tested means—such as broadcast media and PPC— is becoming less and less effective—and harder to monetize. The truth is that growing your audience takes time and money.
That is why Linx is helping our clients build relationships with B2B and B2C influencers to optimize their budgets and make greater impacts. Linx has long emphasized the importance of social media as a primary means of outreach—and the importance of Influencers within that medium.
The Importance of Modern Influencers
Unlike the traditional means of building reach and frequency through earned or bought media, the digital age has completely democratized both the means of customer outreach—and the strategies with which marketers can successfully reach their target audiences Today, generating reach to build a quality audience through recognizing Influencers can actually improve brand trust and value.
Today, the top TV shows get an audience of about 15 million—a drastic drop in historic highs just a decade ago. These days, a new flock of media stars are creating their own online channels with millions of followers and viewers, establishing for themselves the crucial status of effective Influencer. Through social media platforms, today’s top Influencers are capturing an audience upwards of 25 million.
In one incredible example, this year marked a crucial recognition of the growing importance of self-made Influencers. At New York Fashion Week this past September, social media fashion Influencers were given front-row seats next to some of the industry’s most established names—finding previously unknown Influencers ring-side with such fashion powerhouses as famed Vogue editor, Anna Wintour.
This request was made by the brands themselves who are now paying individuals millions a year to help market their wares.
How Can You Utilize Social Media-Driven Influencers To Your Brand?
It all begins with the by building the right relationships with the right influencers. Here are some fast-track ideas to get you started.
• Finding the Right Influencer
As the importance of Influencers has become more and more apparent to marketers, specialized databases have been created to cater to the needs of every industry. If you want to save on the time and effort that a broad search engine method represents, there are now many options to help you better-target your search. New platforms like Traackr and inPowered can quickly match you with some of the best Influencers for your brand.
• Get Your Influencer Involved From the Ground Up
When you’re launching a new product/service, you need to introduce it in a way that would turn heads and appeal to the target audience at the same time. This is where involving an Influencer early-on is crucial. Get influencers involved in designing your new product from the beginning. Your Influencer will then promote this partnership with their loyal followers—which will not only educate them about the product but also build hype around it.
• The Give and Take of Social Media Promotions
Even something as simple as a tweet or an Instagram post can make a huge difference for your product launch if you happen to choose the right influencers. You will need to approach the influencer first, build a connection with them, send some samples, and request for a mention on social media. When someone with significant influence on your target audience says something positive about the product, it’s going to build hype and establish trust among the audience.
• The Influencer Marketplace
If searching for the best Influencer to meet your branding needs one your own isn’t quite turning up the results you’d hoped, there is now the option of utilizing an Influencer Marketplace to help both marketers and Influencers find each other. New websites like TapInfluence bridges that gap by bringing the two together. Here, potential Influencers agree to be part of the branding campaign and list the types of activities in which they’d be interested. In return, the brands themselves can then match up Influencers with their needs, crafting a symbiotic relationship where both benefit—as well as the customer.
Staying Ahead of the Curve
With each of these concepts in mind, the most important lesson to be learned is that social media, coupled with the proven value of trusted Influencers, can benefit those organizations who learn to monitor online digital trends within their industry. Monitoring creates the knowledge of who is leading the conversation and how to participate in it. Today, Linx specializes in monitoring those trends. But more importantly, we creatively put them to use for our clients.
With the pace of information moving at an ever-increasing rate, marketers have to be true to a brands values and react faster to opportunities that present themselves. Planning can only take you so far! That’s why our client relies on us to… Think Ahead!
Contact us today and let us help you use every element of today’s modern technologies to reach your demographic.
Facebook’s New Advertising Policy Forces Companies to Improve Customer Service
Facebook’s New Advertising Policy Forces Companies to Improve Customer Service
Facebook has put a new policy in motion to fight against yet another form of advertising abuse in an effort to prevent “bad shopping experiences,” and to avoid consumer frustrations with the Facebook platform. Users will now be surveyed on their experience if, after clicking on a Facebook Ad, they purchase something. If a business continues to receive poor reviews, Facebook could potentially limit or even ban that company from advertising on their platform in the future.
What Does This Mean For Advertisers?
Well, some businesses may see this new policy as a negative, but in reality, this can be an opportunity for companies to improve their customer service and operations. Many organizations may think they are currently serving their customers well, from their perspective, but fail to really analyze their internal processes from their customers’ point of view. That’s why it’s so important that marketing extends from the first customer touchpoint through the entire customer journey and relationship with your brand.
Think Ahead: Marketing Beyond the Ad
At Linx, our Strategic Advisory services approach marketing in a holistic way that includes a deep-dive into every client’s operations and processes – the root of the customer experience. By analyzing and restructuring organizations for optimal marketing success, we are building the foundation for memorable and enjoyable brand experiences that lead to customer retention and brand loyalty. And, your operations and processes must change and evolve as your business grows, and as new and changing marketing trends, and customer needs, develop.
So, Will The New Policy Affect Your Brand Negatively Or Positively?
The answer is… it’s up to you! Companies who have adopted an agile culture in today’s ever-changing world are primed to continuously improve their customer experience and grow their business. These are the brands who are listening to and communicating with their customers, personalizing their experiences and engaging them in more than just their products or services. Companies that are not doing this are risking the retention of customers to those who are!
New Television Audience Data Can Help Marketers Fine-Tune Targeted Ads
Recent research has identified market trends regarding target audiences and the television shows they watch. This information can be leveraged by marketers to help determine where they should place digital campaign ads, while providing the opportunity for marketers to now target and engage with audiences they had not previously targeted.
Marketers can now evaluate data and see if there is a discrepancy between audience search demographics and who is actually tuning into specific television shows. Brands can take this data and fine-tune their targeting with television ads ensuring that they target consumers by advertising to specific interests. Conversely, television show producers will be able to use this information to convert audience that is ready for engagement into viewers.
Here is a sampling of the insights that initial research revealed:
- Home improvement shows tend to draw a 45 and over female audience with an income over $50k. The HGTV show Flip or Flop attracts a 45 and over female audience, with an income of $50-150k who have an interest in celebrity news, restaurants and home furnishings.
- Dramas attracted females primarily in the age range of 18-34. Specifically the NBC show This Is US attracted females ages 18-34, with an income over $100k who have an interested in television, face and body care and travel. Meanwhile the Fox show Empire attracted females, ages 18-34 who made less than$50k and had an interest in shopping, television, and face and body care.
- Late-night television attracts male viewers ages 18-44 with an average income of over $50k. Research confirms that Conan O’Brien’s show has an 18-44 male audience, with an income of $50k-150k, who have an interest in sports, colleges and television.
- Comedies are indexed to 18-34 year old viewers with less than $50k income yearly. Research indicates that The Big Bang Theory of CBS has an 18-24 and 55+ male and female audience, with an income of less than $50k and an interest in television, humor and physics. The ABC show Black-ish draws an primarily female, 18-34 audience who have an income of less than $50k, and an interest in television, face and body care and colleges.
- Crime shows attract more males than females, ages 18-44 with a higher income, typically over $100k. Research indicates that the CBS show NCIS has a male and female audience, ages 18-44, with an income over $100k, and an interest in travel, face and body care and colleges.
- Research indicates that reality television shows tend to attract an 18-34 year old, female audience with an income of less than $50k. The popular ABC show The Bachelor has a female audience ages 25-34 and 45-64 with an income of $100-150k, with an interest in television, celebrity news and restaurants.
Marketers that has access to this sort of research can see where discrepancies lie in initial demographics when placing ads and can adjust their marketing plans to place ads where they will be more likely to reach their target audience. These insights will subsequently help marketers create better content, design the ads to best sell their product and convert potential buyers into customers.
Marketers that has access to this sort of research can see where discrepancies lie in initial demographics when placing ads and can adjust their marketing plans to place ads where they will be more likely to reach their target audience. These insights will subsequently help marketers create better content, design the ads to best sell their product and convert potential buyers into customers.
Think Ahead™ 50 Years
Inspiration Appears in the Most Unusual Places
Have you ever been struck with a genius thought while in the shower? Maybe for you, it’s while you’re taking a leisurely walk, or playing with your kids or grandkids. Perhaps you came up with your newest product or service while doing something that had nothing to do with work at all?
Harvard psychologist Shelley H. Carson, author of “Your Creative Brain,” says that little distractions can actually be a good thing when it comes to creativity. She explains that interruptions and diversions can lead to a creative “incubation period.”
While visiting a client on a recent business trip to California, I experienced what Carson would describe as a creative “incubation period”. While walking through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco with my son, I began to notice artwork and other exhibits promoting the Summer of Love Experience in celebration of its 50th anniversary.
As I walked, I noticed street signs comparing 1967 to 2017. This caused me to pause and reflect back, thinking about the original Summer of Love and the changes the world has seen over the course of 50 years. As I continued to read the street signs I started to notice a trend – though the specific group, community or cause changed over the years, the root of each of these causes remained the same. Social justice, equality, health care, connectivity, personal identity – all of these causes are just as important today as they were 50 years ago – they’re just known by new name. Or from a marketing perspective – they’ve been rebranded.
Which upon reflection brought me back to where the company I founded, Linx, finds ourselves right now – in the middle of a rebranding of our own. We’re giving ourselves a facelift after 22 years in business, as the third generation of our family business begins to lead the company. Because of this and the timing of the Summer of Love experience, my creative incubation period shifted into hyper-drive. Re-branding your image forces you to really evaluate your brand and tests you to make sure you truly know what your company’s core values are and if they can stand the test of time.
During our rebranding our core values will remain the same as they have for the last 22 years. Some of our core values at Linx are:
- We are trusted advisors to our clients
- We adapt faster than the speed of change
- We are accountable to each other’s success and personal growth
- We simplify complexities to maximize communications
- Our financial and personal success are inextricably linked to the results we achieve for our clients
Think Ahead™
Companies with a strong foundation are the ones who last through generations because they recognize that while times change, the root of what your company stands for won’t. Before you even consider re-branding, the first thing you need to do is stop and evaluate your brand as it stands right now.
As I mentioned, the foundational elements of your brand should never change. Look at companies that have stood the test of time – Pepsi, Apple, Target and Burberry for example – and take note of the fact that their core messaging never changes.
For example, over the years Pepsi has acquired various additional brands, expanding their product line and changed their look – but their mission has remained the same. Pepsi purposed themselves to remain relevant with each upcoming generation with advertising campaigns that have evolved throughout the years – first with their Pepsi Generation campaign in 1963 followed by the sub-sequential “The Choice of the Next Generation” and “GenerationNext” campaigns.
A successful brand stands for something fundamental – this bedrock principle must show up at every turn and with every product and service offered. Without strong emotional connections your brand won’t have any traction. Successful brand positioning rejects following the masses and conformity and stands out from the crowd. It stays the same while simultaneously evolving with the changing cultural tide over time.
So how is this accomplished?
At Linx, we’ve been changing the way organizations see the world… and how the world sees them for the past 20 years. But today we’re simplifying our value by helping companies… “Think Ahead™ ”. We recognize that change is guaranteed, which means we need to help our clients stay ahead of it. Typically, a new technology or product is introduced and people are forced to waste valuable time playing catch up to learn how to optimize that change within their company. By default they follow a formula where change drives learning. We have discovered however, that learning must be done at a pace equal to or greater than the rate of change. In other words L≥C. This allows for faster adoption of change and accelerated growth opportunities.
50 Years from Now?
Back to Haight Ashbury. As we are processing through our own rebranding, encountering the Summer of Love Experience forced me to ask myself what the world was going to look like 50 years from now?
Surely social justice, equality, affordable health care, connectivity and personal identity would be just as relevant as it is today, but by what parameters? What challenges will we be facing regarding healthcare or social justice? Who or what will be the new hipster? Is it a word that we’ve even created yet? What about equality or civil rights? With the rise of AI technology, will we find ourselves petitioning for equal rights for them, or will it be for someone or something entirely different?
We may not know these answers yet, but I feel it is our responsibility to begin considering them. Many companies put their trust in us to recognize the upcoming shifts in the market and anticipate new trends before they happen. Which means as a strategic marketing agency – our team must be ready to usher in these changes.
What’s Your Take?
So we decided to ask the question. What will these signs say 50 years from now? We want to hear from the masses. So this summer in honor of the Summer of Love, we will be surveying people across the country asking them this very question.
Please participate in our survey… pass it around and share it and we’ll report back out on the top choices society envisions the world will look like in 2067.
The Future of Your Brand Starts Here
As you and your team begin to ponder how to ensure the relevance of your brand in the near and distant future, remember that the team that stays ahead of change is most able to help you see the future as it will most likely occur, giving you and your company new and significant grow strategies to meet the needs of your customers today… and tomorrow!
Take our survey here.
A Summer of Linx – Our Summer Interns are Hard at Work!
This summer we are pleased to welcome three new faces to our office. Duad, Miles and Zoe have joined our Linx team as a part of our summer internship program!
The interns will spend the summer months working with our marketing, production and design teams to help develop new campaigns and work on existing campaigns as well. Each intern has been placed within our existing teams, and already they are making impactful contributions to our projects. As they continue to work with our teams, they are gaining real-time, real-world experience, while being mentored by some of the industry’s best talent.
Our clients benefit from our internship program with the added value of having a fresh set of eyes looking at their projects from an outsider’s perspective. As with anything, a fresh outlook can often bring exciting, new insight to a project. Our interns bring with them their fresh viewpoints, skill-sets and at times, new technologies they are learning about in school. They keep us young and “hip” and help us take our clients even further than before. We are excited to see what they will bring to the table this summer!
The Future of Video Advertising
The future of video advertising is upon us, with the emergence of a shorter, more concise video format.
The Six Second Video is Upon Us.
Back in January at a six-second hackathon at Sundance hosted by Google, the new format of utilizing the six-second video in advertising has picked up. Both Fox and Facebook have announced their decision to get on board with this format and YouTube has seen brands begin to feature these mini clips calling them “bumper ads”.
Google recently tested over 300 bumper ads, with results indicating that 9 out of 10 drove a significant lift in ad recall and 61% raised brand awareness. These short ads are being used to drive upper-funnel goals like ad recall and awareness. This cost effective approach ensure you can reach your target audience and ensure your message is heard.
These ads can be shown on their own, or paired with a campaign to increase deliverable reach and frequency. Larger companies like Michelin are getting on board with the six-second ad, and testing this new format to measure its success.
Michelin is able to utilize this video format to continue their goal to reach younger demographics – chasing after the elusive Millennials and Generation Z age groups who are known for having shorter attention spans.
For marketers, the six-second ads forces brands to be more specific and focused, there’s no room for excess information and only the most important information. Stories are told in a successive format or through a series, driving customers to come back for more. Facebook also announced in June that they were going to work on their own six-second ad game during their second-quarter earnings call.
Overall, these ads are short on time, but not short on impact.
With technology constantly changing our team has to be ready to take on new challenges for our clients. We recognize that we have to be ahead of the curve, which is why we are always Thinking Ahead. At Linx, we know that learning must be done at a rate greater than or equal to change so when the market shifts and the six-second video emerges, we’re ready for it. We are driving our clients not only understand new marketing approaches like the six-second video, but work with them to utilize these approaches to make their brand thrive.
As we move into the fourth quarter of the year, it’s time to consider your marketing strategy for the coming year and what will be a part of it. Should your business incorporate the six-second video in your marketing plan? Is this format right for your business? These are questions we can help answer as you build your 2018 strategy. Give us a call today.
Summer of Love Press Release Featured on PR Web
We are pleased to announce that our press release discussing our celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love and our own rebranding at Linx has been featured on PR Web.
It’s been 50 years since the original Summer of Love, and to celebrate we are asking people to let us know what they believe America will look like in 50 years. We are looking to have 1 million people respond to our survey and join us in Thinking Ahead to 2067!
If you haven’t already, you can take our survey by visiting www.linx.com/thinkaheadsurvey. Please share this link with you family, friends and colleagues and don’t miss out on this opportunity to be a part of history.
The full press release can be viewed here.
To read the full story behind the survey you can visit our CEO’s blog and read his post here.
Linx Helps Client Celebrate 30 Years of Innovation and Thought Leadership
Linx was excited and honored to help our client, VJ Group, a global leader in x-ray inspection solutions, celebrate 30 years of innovation and thought leadership by planning, producing, managing and promoting “The Future of NDT Symposium” that took place near their headquarters in New York, USA, October 12th – 14th.
The symposium provided the opportunity for the company’s leaders, employees, partners, and customers to come together to look at how technology will impact the NDT industry and the world in the next 30 years and beyond.
Linx worked with VJ Group to create a theme around the event that captured the thought leadership and forward-thinking essence of the brand, complete with imagery and messaging around their newest cutting edge technologies. Planning and managing everything from the email invites to the registration process, and the day-of production to the PR, we were able to witness the event transform from an idea into a milestone for the company and its partners and friends.
Over the length of the 3-Day event – including a networking social, technical presentations from worldwide industry leaders, facility tours, a celebration dinner, and even entertainment and NYC activities – we heard stories from the past 30 years about how VJ Group was started, the heritage of the brand and the vision for the future. It is this emotion that sparks our interest and fuels our passion as we work with our clients to help them communicate their brand’s story to their clients and the world. And, as our clients share with us their visions of the future, we Think Ahead to help them make that vision a reality.
After the event, we developed and presented an analysis document that allowed us to understand the areas of improvement for the next event and we sent a post-event survey to all the attendees to gauge their feedback and ratings. Overall, the event was a huge success!
