Our Favourite Workday Hacks
We all have days at work where we feel like it’s never going end, where we feel super unproductive, unmotivated and frankly, distracted. Even if you love your job, work can be draining, but to avoid feeling down on your workday we’d like to offer you some of our wonderful workday hacks!
Organise your morning
Let’s start at the very beginning; give yourself as much time as possible in the morning to avoid bringing that rushed stress with you to work. Waking up late, skipping breakfast and other disorganised behaviours won’t benefit your workday, the stress of rushing around, being tired, will have a negative impact and set the tone for your entire day. Get organised and start your day stress free!
Go from worst to best
Starting off with your most dreaded task gets them out of the way and means your day can only go up from there. By doing the tasks you like the least you can look forward to the more rewarding work and know that you’ve got better things to come throughout the day!
Stay hydrated!
Now, not only is this a great life hack, but also it’s a really important workday hack as well. This may seem obvious, but it’s something many of us overlook and forget about throughout the workday. Staying hydrated helps eliminate the risk of headaches, fatigue and distraction throughout your workday, so bring a water bottle with you and keep your fluids up!
Don’t sweat the small stuff
We’re all perfectionist when it comes to our work, but it’s important not to dwell on the things we can’t control. Keep things moving throughout your workday and remind yourself not to sweat the small stuff, this will ensure your work doesn’t come to a standstill and you’re being as productive as possible.
Love what you do!
Everyone has heard the saying ‘If you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life’ and we couldn’t agree with that more. If you enjoy your work, have a passion for it and truly love what you do then that is the biggest workday hack of them all!
Do you agree with our workday hacks? Let us know on Facebook.
Want to find out more about working with our team? Visit our careers page!
The importance of customer service on social media
It is so important in the digital landscape to understand the importance of social media customer service and its impact on brand reputation. When a brand’s social media interaction with fans and customers is less than ideal, it significantly impacts their ability to build and maintain their brand.
The importance of customer service on social media
In 2018, social media is one of the main ways current and potential customers/clients interact with businesses. Why? Because it's easy! And with more and more people taking to social media to engage with a brand or business, the expectations for timely responses is also increasing. Customers are looking for brands that place high importance on communication and are proactive in their approach to social media customer service.
In terms of responsiveness, if brands actively engage with customers/users and respond to their audience in a timely manner, it will in turn help improve brand value and reputation. Customers feel a level of satisfaction when a brand publicly and directly acknowledges them, and this is in many cases followed by increased brand loyalty.
Customer service and responsiveness on social media shouldn’t be seen as a hassle, rather, as a valuable chance to improve and build brand value and reputation. No response is the worst kind of response there is, this advice is so important when dealing with customer communication on social media. The longer a brand waits to address a customer, the more time there is for the initial issue or query to blow up into something bigger and harder to control. Leaving your audience unanswered can have major consequences for your brands' overall reputation.
To put it simply, the more time you choose to dedicate to engaging with your audience, the better your social media endeavours and overall brand reputation will be.
Need Help?
Need help managing your social media communities in a timely manner? Our local team of highly experienced community managers understand the importance of communicating on behalf of your brand. We get it, your social media manager is essentially the voice of your brand, and you don’t feel comfortable handing that off to just anybody.
Here at Melbourne Social Co, we treat your brand as if it’s our own, and handle every customer service scenario with care, even after hours.
Want to know more? Get in touch with our team today.
Teamwork makes for dream work
Our team here at Melbourne Social Co is made up of a group of amazing, supportive women (and a few men) all with unique skills. Anyone who’s been a part of a great team knows that it’s refreshing to be part of a fun, supportive group where it’s easy to get work done. Below we are detailing some reasons why teamwork makes dream work!
A team that gets along well is the ultimate dream team! There’s nothing worse than working in an environment where no one gets along – this extends to the work itself. If motivation and morale is low, the work done won’t be of the highest possible quality. Holding team building days and catch ups outside of work hours is a great way to build team spirit and foster friendships that transcend to the workplace.
If working as a team is one thing, it should be this – fun! It’s no surprise that having a laugh and sipping a couple of coffees with wonderful colleagues makes the work day that much better. Taking breaks throughout the day to have a quick chat or grab some lunch makes for a much productive day in the end. However, although being able to joke around and have fun is great, it’s important to remember to remain professional in the workplace.
Working together is easy peasy when the team is full of hard working, talented individuals with a mutual goal of creating amazing work! Teamwork really does make for dream work because ideas are bounced off one another and visions are supported, giving each team member the confidence to try new things and do incredible work!
A team with a diverse set of skills and strengths is a team like no other. Teams that work efficiently and effectively will be the best in the biz as they will deliver results on time and in line with expectations.
Want to know how our team of talented strategists, content creators, community mangers and social media experts could help your business get to the next level? Get in touch with us today for a consultation!
Thinking about hiring a digital agency? Read more about the benefits of working with a boutique digital marketing agency.
Should you make your Instagram feed shoppable?
Consumers have shorter attention spans than ever, so discovering a way to streamline the shopping experience from inspiration through to purchase was crucial. Without further ado, it’s time to introduce the shoppable Instagram feed!
Have you seen those posts on Instagram with a little shopping bag logo in the corner? Those posts are what we call ‘shoppable’ posts, meaning if someone taps the image, a product name and price will pop up, allowing the user to purchase the product.
Originally, shopping on Instagram was only available to businesses in the United States, but it has since expanded internationally with businesses in over 44 countries now being able to utilise the feature.
Many big-name brands have made their Instagram feeds shoppable, in order to connect with customers in a fresh, more immersive way. The shopping on Instagram feature encourages customers to follow through with their intended purchase. Many shoppers will abandon the shopping pursuit if it’s too difficult. For example, a customer sees a pair of pants on an Instagram feed and heads to the link in bio to shop it. They’re taken to the main website and have to sort through hundreds of pairs of pants. Unless they’ve fallen head over heels for the pants, they’ll most likely abandon the shop and look elsewhere. Sad face.
So, a shoppable Instagram essentials tries to prevent this from happening by making the shopping experience seamless. By tagging products in posts, you’re allowing consumers to complete the entire buyer journey from discovery to checkout, without ever leaving the Instagram app!Talk about a one stop shop!
If you have quite a large inventory with an extensive range of products, we’d strongly recommend creating a shoppable feed. This way, consumers can simply shop the look they love straight from Instagram rather than having to look through a website.
If you have a smaller stock offering, it’s completely up to you whether you want to adopt a shoppable feed or not. We definitely wouldn’t discourage the idea but go with whatever you feel comfortable with!
Still not sure whether a shoppable feed is a good fit for you and your business? Why not pencil in a chat with our team to discuss your Instagram strategy.
Want help creating the visuals for your Instagram feed? Read more here.
The Importance of a Digital Strategy
Being a digital marketing agency, it’s no secret we place great importance on digital strategy and planning. This week we're chatting with our Senior Creative Strategist, Michaela Skilney, who gives some insight into her approach to digital strategy and its significance.
- What challenges do you face when developing a digital strategy?
One of the biggest challenges I face when developing digital strategies for clients is reconciling what’s a reasonable and realistic outcome for a campaign, and what the client expects to achieve. It’s essential to set goals and aspire to reach particular objectives, however social media isn’t an exact science.
More often than not, clients are under the false illusion that an agency can guarantee what content will go viral and how many followers they can attract. The truth is, if an agency can guarantee those types of outcomes, they’ll be employing the likes of automated bots, which are completely at odds with all platform’s T&Cs (and I would be running in the opposite direction!)
What a digital strategy can guarantee is that your social media presence is the greatest reflection of your brand, your offering and what appeals to your audience.
- Does your approach differ client to client?
Every client, regardless of how similar their product, service or audience is, will have a unique set of goals, a unique promotional calendar and to be successful, unique selling points. It’s therefore impossible to adopt a one-size-fits-all-approach from client to client. It may be less efficient on paper this way, to view client’s in isolation, but that’s the difference between what you get with a boutique agency like ours versus a strategy template you can download online!
- In your opinion, is having a digital strategy as significant as a traditional marketing plan?
Regardless of what medium you’re working in – traditional or digital marketing – a strategy is essential to give your efforts a sense of purpose. Without strategic thought and planning prior to the commencement of a campaign, you’re essentially setting yourself up to fail. Without the right preparation, you find you’ll always be in reactive mode and constantly behind the 8-ball!
- When developing a digital strategy, what research is involved?
There’s a ton of research involved when developing a digital strategy, predominantly around target audiences and their digital user habits. Most of the time, clients know their brands intimately and can share the history of their business off the top of their heads. What they mightn’t know, where I come in, is who their current digital audience is, and whether that marries with who they want it to be. The purpose – and outcome – of any digital content, whether that be a social media post, a blog or an EDM (electronic direct mail), is that it will reach someone and be consumed. Research at the digital strategy phase allows for your content to be targeted and seen by those you want to engage.
- Where’s the best place to start when constructing a digital strategy?
In order to create a digital strategy – a plan of attack for a brand that truly speaks to who they are and who they want to be – I need to fully immerse myself in what they do so that the end result feels as though it’s been crafted in-house. This usually begins by meeting with key business stakeholders for a complete brain dump on their part (their offering, their customer, their strengths, their weaknesses, their current digital output, their digital likes and dislikes, their projected sales etc.) as well as understanding what pre-planned promotions, product launches and events are in place for the next 3-6 months. These steps are the foundation on which I build my strategies, so you could say they’re non-negotiable!
- Do you believe every business should have some sort of a digital plan?
Embracing all things digital can be overwhelming for some brands and business owners, but it’s unavoidable. Consumer habits have changed from bricks and mortar stores to online shopping, and information gathering shifting from magazines and catalogues to social media and blogs. If you want your brand to thrive, let alone be relevant, you need to have a digital presence – and what kind of presence you have all depends on a solid digital strategy.
Want to chat to Michaela and our team about putting together a bespoke digital strategy for your brand? Contact us: [email protected] to find out more.
Common Social Media Marketing Terms Decoded
If you’re involved in digital marketing, chances are you’ve heard terms like ‘SEO’, ‘engagement' and ‘analytics’ thrown around, often with no explanations or convoluted descriptions. We’ve put together the complete guide of need-to-know social media marketing terms and what they mean for you and your brand. You’ll be bragging about your EDM strategies, your cost per click and conversion rates in no time with our quick guide of digital marketing definitions!
Common Social Media Marketing Terms
A/B testing
A/B split testing refers to testing multiple ads on your target market, where the social media platform (e.g. Facebook) records your best performing ads, and refines your creative as a result. To undergo split testing, you’ll need multiple creative executions of the same ad (variations in copy, different imagery, differing hashtags), and you can run as many of these variations as you like. The platform you’re advertising on records your audience responses such as reactions, comments, shares, or whether people hide or complain about the ad. Split testing is highly recommended, as it means the ads being shown to your target market are the ads which are most likely to succeed.
Analytics
Social media analytics refer to the statistics gathered from your ad sets, which tell you more about your target market and their social media habits. Your digital analytics will tell you who is engaging with your content, how they’re engaging with it (e.g. are they sharing the content? clicking through to your website? are certain times more popular than others?), and from this data you can make more informed decisions regarding your advertising. Analytics are one of the most valuable resources in forming your marketing strategy, and is a major part of the rise of social media advertising over traditional medias (such as billboards or magazine ads).
Clickbait
‘Clickbait’ headlines or tags are a marketing strategy which aims to drive an audience to a site or external link, through creating intentionally vague & dramatic, sometimes misleading headlines. Examples include: “You’ll never guess what Kim wore!” or “Oprah’s live interview: We’re SHOCKED by what she does next!”.
While clickbait headlines can be effective in encouraging people to click through to the next page, headlines like this can also drive consumer distrust or frustration.
Content creation
Content creation simply refers to the creation of images, text, videos, audio files, or any other content to be shared on social media. A lot of advertising or marketing agencies may offer content creation services, which is done by writers, photographers, videographers, editors, animators and stylists, and is posted strategically to engage an audience with a brand.
Conversion rate
The definition of your ‘conversion rate’ will vary depending on your marketing strategies. For example, if you’re running an ad set to encourage people to sign up for your newsletter, your ‘conversion rate’ will refer to how many people fill out the sign-up form. However if your ad set is designed to redirect people to your website, your ‘conversion rate’ will be a record of how many people have visited your site as a result of your ad. Your conversion rates will usually take into account how many people your ad was shown to, and is used to develop your ‘cost per click’.
Cost per click
Your ‘cost per click’ is a summary of how much your ad’s are costing you for every ‘converstion’. Ideally, you would like your cost per click as low as possible, because this means you are getting a higher ROI. Part of what A/B split testing takes into account is your ‘cost per click’, so the ads which are ultimately run are the most cost effective ads for your page.
EDM’s (Email Direct Marketing)
Email direct marketing is advertising in the form of direct emails to your client base. A common use of EDM’s is to promote an upcoming sale or special offer, inform customers of new products and releases, or simply to create a positive brand image by sending out relevant content. EDM’s usually record how many people click-through on your email, which contribute to your marketing analytics.
Engagement & Reach
‘Engagement’ and ‘Reach’ are two of the most common terms in digital marketing, and are both measures of the success of your ads. Engagement refers to how people respond to your ad, so ‘healthy’ engagement means having a high amount of reactions/comments/reposts for the amount of people who’ve seen your ad, and is usually calculated as a percentage. Reach on the other hand refers to the amount of people who’ve seen your ad. Effective advertising usually means striking the right balance between having lots of people see your ads, but also having those people respond positively to it. Social media marketers will focus on generating engagement or reach depending on your campaign; if you’re launching a new product you might focus on achieving a high ad reach, whereas if you’re encouraging people to attend a local event, your ads may focus on driving engagement.
Impressions
Your ‘impressions’ amongst your target audience are similar to your ad frequency. Impressions simply refers to how often your ads are shown to your target market, which is used to develop your engagement rates & cost per click.
Influencer
An ‘influencer’ is refers to a social media account with a significant amount of followers or likes, usually due to the quality or unique value of their content. Generally, an influencer has a minimum of 10k followers, while a ‘mega-influencer’ usually has at least 100k followers. Some brands use influencers as a highly targeted way of advertising to their particular audiences. Influencer marketing can yield a high ROI (return on investment) and has a good track record of fostering consumer trust. We’ve written another piece about digital influencers, which you can find here.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
SEO (Search engine optimisation) is a popular digital marketing technique, and is usually completed by a digital marketer with specific experience or training in writing for SEO. By choosing specific words or phrases over others, and careful decisions about where these words appear on your site or page, your website may appear before others when consumers are searching for a particular product or service, via a search engine such as Google or Bing. Investing in SEO allows can increase the likelihood of consumers choosing your brand over competitors, however this service can sometimes be expensive, so make sure you review all your analytics if you take this path!
Want to pencil in some time to chat to our team about your marketing strategy in 2018? Contact us at [email protected] or visit our Consulting Sessions page to make a booking.
Instagram Aesthetics - The Importance of a Cohesive Theme
If you’re an Instagram addict like all of us at Melbourne Social Co., you may have noticed that many of the app’s most popular accounts have more in common with each other than just a high follower count.
Successful Instagram feeds are, above all, aesthetically pleasing, but in a cohesive way that accurately reflects the aesthetics, vision and message of the person or brand.
One of the main ways to achieve such a visually consistent and impactful feed is by implementing an Instagram ‘theme’. What this means is that there is a visual common thread between all of your posts, so that when someone views your feed it will look cohesive and organised. All your posts will in some way look like they go together.
But what's the right approach for your brand? We discuss a few different ways to implement an Instagram theme below.
Pick a colour
There’s an infinite number of themes to choose from for your feed, but you’ll want to pick one that suits your content and aesthetic. For example, you could have a colour coordinated theme, where a certain colour (or colours) appear in every post. These colours should reflect your aesthetic, and perhaps the design of your brand’s product or logo. The repeating colours will help make your feed look visually stimulating and organised, as well as creating an association between you/your brand and those specific colours.
A common subject
Alternatively, your theme may govern the content of the images you post. For example, your theme could be based around a specific object that appears in every post, such as coffee, plants, water or food; whatever you like! This type of theme tends to be best suited to Instagram accounts that function to promote a specific type of product.
Post & repeat
Another popular theme that guides the content you post creates a repeating pattern of two or three different types of images. For example, this could be set out with two photos of people or scenery for every text post. The text post is usually positioned in between the two photos so that when the feed is viewed as a whole the text posts create a line down the middle. This theme allows for some diversity of content, while also maintaining an organised and symmetrical look to your feed.
A theme for your Instagram page is important for more reasons than just creating a uniform feed and guiding the content you post. Remember that the follow button is located at the top of your main feed, so people are viewing your account and most recent posts as one entity that represents your brand as a whole when they are deciding whether or not to follow you. For that reason, you want to put your best foot forward with the type of cohesive, visually pleasing and professional feed that a theme can help you achieve.
Improve your engagement
One of the other key reasons an Instagram theme is so important is because it can help improve engagement and your connection with your audience. A consistent theme will help your posts stand out to your followers in their feeds littered with hundreds of other accounts’ posts. The element of repetition in your theme will also mean your audience will know what to expect from your posts, allowing them to easily understand the messages you are trying to communicate relating to your brand.
Because Instagram is one of the most powerful platforms available to you to promote yourself and your brand, it is important that your feed reflects who you are and effectively communicates the messages you are trying to get across to your audience. A theme allows you to achieve this in the most aesthetically pleasing way possible, while still appearing professional and creating interesting content for your audience. So, if you haven’t started planning a gorgeous new theme for your feed already – what are you waiting for?!
Do you need help developing a theme for your Instagram account, or creating gorgeous content to fill your feed? Get in touch with us here at Melbourne Social Co!
Contact us today: [email protected]
The real cost of buying likes and followers
If you’ve ever been frustrated or disappointed by a lack of followers or likes on your page, chances are you’ve considered purchasing followers on your Facebook or Instagram platforms. At first, this may seem like a simple solution: it’s a small cost and you now have a heap of followers! If users see your online popularity that’ll attract genuine customers, right?
This is the logic that platforms selling followers would promote. The reality is, purchasing likes and followers is not only wasted money, but is detrimental to your analytics, and can create distrust amongst your target audience.
One of the reasons social media is such a powerful platform for advertisers is not only the opportunity to reach consumers, but the analytics it provides. If you run your own Facebook or Instagram business page, the reports you can access on who’s engaging with your page are vital for planning any campaign.
In the age of widespread digital advertising, the way to engage with potential customers is tailoring ads to their interests and social media habits. If your reports and analytics are cluttered with disingenuous likes and follows, not only will you be missing out on the analytics of your potential customers, but your advertising dollars will be wasted on wide reach ads (which thanks to the algorithm changes, are less likely for anyone to see).
Another major disadvantage of buying followers is that it can damage consumer trust. If you’re advertising via social media, chances are your target audience includes some tech savvy, regular users, who know what organic brand engagement looks like. If your page has a heap of followers which doesn’t equate to likes and comments, consumers will suspect your followers aren’t genuine, and may deter the users that could have turned into customers.
Ultimately, the main reason your brand is advertising is to attract genuine customers. Having likes and followers is a great measure of how your audience is responding to your content, but the only value behind these likes is to tailor engaging content, which will attract users to your brand. The money spent on buying followers could be spent better on literally anything else: buying props for your flatlays, boosting a Facebook post, even an extra coffee will be better for your brand than followers that have to be bought.
If you’d like to know more about creating great content and reaching your audience, contact us at [email protected]
Instagram algorithm changes – a return to form?
In March, Instagram launched a fresh series of algorithm changes that aim to organise user feeds more chronologically. This change addresses criticism by users that feeds are regularly clogged up by old photos viewed hours ago, with new posts seemingly lost.
The shift will be a welcome change to users, who can now feel more confident that their posts will be seen by their followers in a timely fashion. However, these ‘changes’ aren’t really a huge shift, if anything they’re a return to form for the platform, who until 2016 arranged user feeds entirely chronologically.
If we had to organise social media platforms in terms of their user feeds, you could quite neatly divide most platforms into two camps. In one camp are platforms such as Facebook, who rely very heavily on algorithms to predict and arrange a user’s feed according to their activity and habits. In the other camp, real time platforms such as Twitter, who arrange their user feeds predominately chronologically and encourage news-based interaction and live tweeting.
Increasingly, Instagram isn’t very easily distinguishable into either camp. While the platform was founded on the principle of showing you and your friends’ personal snaps as they happen, the major shift in 2016 to an algorithm based feed mirrors its parent company Facebook. This latest ‘change’, best described as a ‘revision’ will hopefully strike an equilibrium by controlling what a user sees while keeping feeds fresh and timely.
The main takeaway from this latest round of changes? Expect to see more up to the minute posts, less photos from 2 days ago but a feed that is still arranged around your user habits. This minor tweaking of the Instagram feed is a timely reminder for businesses to evaluate their own social media strategies, and to explore the growing list of features Instagram now offer. At the top of the list is Instagram stories. Stories are a great way to reach users up to the minute, encouraging a series of posts throughout the day and lessening the dependence on the traditional feed to reach users.
Would you like to review your social media strategy or content plan? Get in touch today.
Why social media content must be engaging in 2018
Why creating and sharing engaging social media content is more important than ever
We are living in a day and age where our train ride to work, lunch time smoothie and evening workout are projected into the digital world. And brands have moved into the world of Instagram and Facebook as a means to further their influence and increase engagement. So much so, that our social media feeds are now flooded with ads and promotions, frustrating users to the point where there has been a decline in usage, particularly on Facebook.
In retaliation, both Facebook and Instagram have changed their algorithm. The algorithm affects where your posts appear on the feed, who sees your content, and therefore your reach and organic engagement.
Through the altered algorithm, the social platforms intend to show content that will encourage meaningful interactions between users. The posts appearing on our social media accounts are now arranged according to the content you are most likely to interact with. This change in the algorithm penalises brands that come across as overly promotional, therefore pushing them to work harder on gaining customers and potential clients attention. Many aspects of user’s online interactions are taken into consideration within the algorithm, but ultimately, content needs to be engaging to further reach and gain followers.
So, what makes a social media post engaging? How can you influence your followers and encourage them to interact with your content? And hence, how can you grow your following and further your reach?
Know your target audience.
And work hard on providing them with content they will take an interest in.
Ensure images, captions and comments are all “thoughtful”. This is vital in maintaining an identifiable persona. “Thoughtful” content is the kind where followers can see the authenticity, value and quality within each online interaction. Your account is a reflection of your brand, consequently, your online interaction must echo your accounts personality.
Encourage interactions on your account. The more interactions occurring on a post and the longer users engage with it, the more people who will see it. Prompting users to comment on your post, through questions or content they can relate to, will encourage conversation within your account.
Utilise your social platforms. Facebook and Instagram will reward you for this and it will also add dimension to your digital identity. Create stories, send messages and comment on other account’s posts. Videos gain more engagement than images and live videos gain 6x more interactions than regular videos on Facebook.
Social media is constantly changing and evolving. Staying informed of the latest changes will help in maintaining a strong digital presence. But, perhaps most importantly, ensure your online interactions reflect the essence of your brand.
“Social media is a way that businesses can humanise their brand. By creating and sharing really engaging content, both internally and externally with your customers, you put a face to your brand which helps develop trust – be it among your team or with your customers." says our Director Shelley, in a recent article.
Make sure every post, comment and like is made with intent and speaks to who you are as a business. Genuine interaction and engagement will always follow.
Want help creating engaging content for your brand? Find out more about our content creation services by getting in touch today.
