Instagram, is it for your business?

Is Instagram really the best business marketing platform?

I have been asked a lo

t of questions about Instagram recently.

I am assuming a lot of the noise comes from recent changes in the Facebook interface and algorithm, the organic reach disappearing and the fact that for businesses, Facebook has become an advertising platform where businesses and brands now have to pay to play.

Milleniums have been the most vocal in promoting Instagram as the newest and best marketing platform.

So, let’s dig into the numbers.

Pew Research is a well respected institution that has been tracking social media for several years so they are a pretty reliable reference

-80% of Instagram users are out of the US
-of the 800 millions active users, only 160 millions are in the US

-38% of users in the US are women, 26% men

-59% of users in the US are under 30

-95% of Instagram users in the US also use Facebook

-54% also use Pinterest
-63 percent of teenagers in the US use Instagram daily

Instagram is also a mostly mobile and visual platform

In the end, there is a lot more to marketing than fades and short term trends, not that I think Instagram is either.

The best marketing platform is the platform used by your clients and prospects. Before selecting a platform, look at the demographics and ask yourself the question, are the demographics my market or the market I want to reach.

If your market is young adults or teenagers, if your clients and prospects tend to be younger women, then definitely Instagram is a good platform for your business

May 4, 2016May 4, 2016

Marketing And Social Media Consultants too Expensive?

Marketing and social media consultants hear this a lot “Your services are expensive”, never mind when you are a consultant with extensive traditional and digital and social media marketing experience

When considering the quotes from marketing or social media consultants, a lot of factors come into play.

A Major part of every business (small or large) success is the ability to implement an effective marketing strategy.

That becomes even more important when you look at the constant and fast evolution of the digital/social media landscape.

Keep in mind that marketing, traditional or digital is not a magic wand, it does not work overnight, it requires perseverance and commitment.

Not all platforms will work every time or for every case, it takes know how, testing, measuring. Keeping up with the developments, especially in the social media field takes time, takes keeping up with trends with what is done, what has worked, what has not worked, not a time commitment most small businesses that takes time.

In my experience, most small business owners want to focus on the big picture, on their business, on what they are passionate about, not marketing. At the same time most small businesses cannot make the financial commitment for a full time marketing department. Continue reading “Marketing And Social Media Consultants too Expensive?”

May 3, 2016May 3, 2016

Social Customer Care

Social customer care or social care; when customer care goes social

Brands and companies have been slow embracing social customer care and even trail blazers have had mixed overall results, one of the main reason being that customer service and customer satisfaction is often times lip service rather than a core corporate value.

Did you know that :

80% of companies say they are good at customer service, but only 8% of their customers agree.
Only 5% of unhappy customers complain in a way brands can find it. The other 95% just disappear (often to competitors).
40% of customers who complain on social media expect a response within an hour, but the average response time of brands which respond at all is five hours.
Brands spend $500 billion on marketing every year, but only $9 billion on customer service!

Why is that?

Continue reading “Social Customer Care”

August 5, 2015

Porsche Social Media Backbone of its Digital Strategy

For Porsche social media is not just an additional tool in order to connect to online-savvy audiences, it’s the backbone of their online strategy

Porsche is mining the always-on sensibilities of social media to encourage fans to share and consume content from one integrated platform, which is www.porsche.com . Porsche is using content curation tool Storystream to steer this efforts, building microsites that give fans a holistic view of what’s being said about certain car launches of campaigns worldwide.

“We do not believe in a linear progression through a virtual funnel, but recognise that each customer chooses their individual path to form a purchase decision. We thus believe that Porsche must understand the specific needs of the customer in his individual situation and listen to signals he/she is sending in order to cater the right content at the right point in time. In order to work in this context, every bit of content needs to be responsive,” Porche’s digital marketing and dialogue manager and Deniz Keskin told The Drum.

To accelerate the plan, Porsche is encouraging its agencies and ad tech vendors to get tighter to companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter in order to create content that fuels business goals. It’s an approach the car maker tries to balance with what it hopes are more agile ways of working directly with its marketing partners so that it can respond to communication challenges.

“Social media is more than an efficient and speedy way of communicating to a (primarily) younger target group. As a luxury manufacturer, we see more and more of our actual customers in that space,” said Keskin. The discipline is used to hit three key goals; building additional awareness for Porsche’s communications, amplifying the conversation around through brand ambassadors and listening to conversations that could become early signals for business issues.

“This is why we regard Social Media not only as an additional tool in order to connect to online-savvy audiences, but as the backbone of our online strategy,” said Keskin.

July 24, 2015July 24, 2015

Hospitals Now Focus on Patient Experience and Reputation Management

Patient experience and reputation management now priorities for healthcare facilities

Laura Markowski used to worry every time a text alerted her that a patient had posted a negative review online of a doctor at her health-care system.

She’s in charge of “reputation management” at a group of hospitals and clinics in Virginia, and it’s her job to monitor complaints about rudeness, long waits, lack of face time with a doctor or something more serious.

But after several months of reviewing comments in real time on nearly a dozen Web sites, including Healthgrades.com, ZocDoc.com and Google Plus, as well as Facebook and Twitter, she’s calmer.

Most reviews have been “one-offs for different physicians,” she said, not focused on just one doctor or group practice that would raise a red flag.

Markowski is part of a new and urgent effort by hospitals and health systems to track and control their online reputations. As out-of-pocket costs for health care have risen, people are increasingly shopping for their medical care and comparing reviews. And younger consumers who have grown up on Yelp and Rate My Professors expect the same seamless, digital experience with health care that they have used in other aspects of their lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShILNHgnEjU

Patient satisfaction, long ignored by the health-care industry, is a strategic priority for another simple reason: It’s playing a more important role in determining how the federal government pays hospitals. In the last three years the government has been taking into account patient satisfaction data when determining how much to reimburse hospitals for Medicare patients.

But putting hospitals and doctors into the online rating world is fraught with possible problems. For one, patients and doctors have widely differing expectations.

When patients are asked to rate how doctor quality should be measured, clinical outcomes, such as getting cured of a disease, rarely come up, said Lisa Suennen, who advises health-care companies. Patients talk about whether a doctor or nurse was kind to them, or whether their experience was fast and convenient. It’s assumed that the doctor is going to treat their illness or condition.

Physicians, on the other hand, go straight to the clinical. The cancer is gone. Or the person can walk again. “They don’t even talk about the other stuff,” Suennen said. The two groups “are really disconnected.”

Physicians are not eager to be rated like restaurants. It’s hard for them to wrap their minds around the process, because taking care of patients is exceptionally complex, said Adrienne Boissy, the chief experience officer at the Cleveland Clinic.

“We don’t have consumers, we have patients,” she said. “Health care isn’t necessarily like shopping at Target.”

And some experts fear that the focus is more on burnishing the online reputations of doctors and hospitals than improving delivery of care.

Continue reading “Hospitals Now Focus on Patient Experience and Reputation Management”

The Demographics

Twitter Demographics

Facebook Demographics

Instagram Demographics

Important Content Marketing Statistics For 2021:

Is Instagram really the best business marketing platform?

Marketing and social media consultants hear this a lot “Your services are expensive”, never mind when you are a consultant with extensive traditional and digital and social media marketing experience

Social customer care or social care; when customer care goes social