Refreshing your Social Media Strategy

Has your social media posts gone stale? Do you feel like you post the same stuff over and over again, but you don’t know what else to do? We understand and are here to help inspire you to refresh and strengthen your social media strategy in 2020.

Go Back to the Social Media Basics

Do not be afraid to stop and go back to the basics. There are many tried and true ways to get your self out of a social media rut.

One of the best ways to reset is by performing a social media audit. This allows you to really evaluate where you are at and where you are headed.

When performing an audit, it is important to identify what is and is not working in your current social media strategy. You should take a look at where you are meeting and where you are falling short of your goals. Do not be afraid to change!

For more tried and true ideas, check out our detailed post on how to get the most our of your social media marketing in five easy steps for more insights! Still stuck …. ?

Get Inspired, then.

If you are not following fellow business owners, industry brands and leaders, or your competitors, you should be. Look for ideas within other people’s content. But really, scroll through other people’s content and ask …

  • What are others doing on social media that really grabs your attention that you can emulate?
  • Which of their posts have the most engagement and why?
  • Is their audience the same audience as mine and is there a way we can collaborate?

It may seem like a simple idea, but everything starts as a simple idea. If you are having trouble getting inspired within your industry, look at other industries as well. Consider what business you follow on social media and ask these same questions. Inspiration can come from anywhere.

Try something new.

Try something you may even think is a bad idea and see what happens. You will never know until you try, and as much as we think we know our customers, we don’t always know as much as we think we do.

As advertisers, we are constantly trying new ways to get our audience’s attention. The worst thing you can do is no longer trying new things.

Form a hypothesis and test it. If you try something new and your social media audiences don’t respond, then you can comfortably decide that is a bad idea for the future. But maybe, just maybe, you will be surprised to see that your audience responds much better to the new content than you could have ever expected.

Finally, stay people-focused.

Social media is about being social. People engage with content that is people focused. When in doubt, share more content about people, especially your customers.

Do not be afraid to comment on your follower’s posts. Engage with their content! Repost or share positive reviews. Ask your followers what they want.

We hope these tips help you stir up some creativity for your social content. For more help refreshing your social strategy, contact us today or visit our blog for more fresh ideas.

Advertising during COVID-19

Advertising during COVID-19

The past few weeks have been a time of unprecedented disruption to almost every part of our daily lives. The current pandemic has upended our routines and changed the way businesses do business.

Many businesses have been required to close their physical doors and covert to fully online sales. Other “essential” businesses have been navigating how to keep their employees safe and healthy while still trying to meet their customers needs and heightened expectations. Still other businesses are facing the harsh reality of not being allowed to do business at all.

No matter the situation, Adventure Ad Agency is working with each and every one of our clients to help them succeed even under these strange and challenging circumstances. Regardless of what your current situation is as a business owner or employee, we are hear to remind you that life and business can still go on, and as we all adjust to new ways of communicating and doing business, we are here for you.

While it may be challenging to worry about advertising during a pandemic, there are numerous opportunities for businesses to continue to reach out to their customers, build brand awareness, and attract business.

Here are some of the ways adverting is more important than ever during COVID-19 and how you can do your best to help your business succeed:

Embrace Social Media

Social media was critical to any business before the current pandemic. However, with people stuck at home spending countless hours on their phone unable to interact normally with their peers in social settings, social media has become even more important.

Your customers are stuck at home on their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube account, and more. If you weren’t active on your social media before, get active! If you are, think of new ways to promote your business or simply stay in touch with your customers.

1. Post an update on how your business is effected by COVID-19.

If you are open for business, how are you protecting both your employees are customers? Have your hours of operation changed? How can customers get in touch with you? Let your social media family know what is going on. Keeping your customer base and potential new customers informed is important.

2. Share resources.

In times like these, communication is key. Along with posting updates about how your business is adapting to COVID-19, share resources to help your clients stay in touch. If you have a new online order system, share the link. Provide answers to FAQs and local government announcements pertaining to your business.

3. Try something new.

Do not be afraid to try something new. Many businesses are trying Facebook Live for the first time. Clothing stores have put on Facebook live fashion shows. Law offices have done live Q&As with customers. Restaurants have started contests asking customers to share images of the enjoying their food to win a gift card.

What do all of these business have in common? They are trying something new. Even if these ideas aren’t new to you, keep up the good work. Look at what other business are doing for inspiration. Just keep trying!

4. Stay in touch. Build community.

At the end of the day, just stay active on social media. It will build brand awareness and ensure your customers don’t forget about you in the meantime. Now is a great time to build community and support one another. Use your social media account to build community.

Focus on What Matters & Adapt

With the current pandemic, your advertising plan is going to have to change. What you thought would work a few months ago won’t work in the current landscape and that is okay. You may have to lower your advertising spend or switch from one medium to another. The key is knowing how to adapt and planning ahead.

1. Know your business.

At Adventure Ad Agency, we work with our clients to fully understand the business of each and every one of our clients .This is critical to creating and implementing a successful advertising strategy and campaign.

As a business owner or employee, you are likely hyper-focused on ensuring your company can brave the storm of COVID-19. You know best what you need and your advertising plan should be specifically designed to do just that.

2. Be adaptable.

Sometimes it feels like the current rules and regulations change everyday. As you are looking to adjust your advertising strategy during this pandemic, be sure to remain adaptable.

3. Try new ways of advertising.

Just like with social media you should try new things, now is the time to try new advertising strategies. These are new times with new needs. You may find that something you haven’t tried before because it didn’t make sense for your business needs at the time is now the perfect fit. Many businesses are still just starting to explore online advertising. However, with many people stuck at home, online is where your customers are.

Hopefully these tips have helped inspire new ideas and served as important reminders to help your business during COVID-19. Advertising is a powerful tool that can help businesses survive in challenging times and thrive in even better ones. No matter your current situation, the team at Adventure Ad Agency is here to help and hopes you are staying safe and healthy!

If you have questions about how Adventure Ad Agency can help , contact us today! For more advertising insights, explore our blog or call us at 1-864-400-9920.

Social Media Planning

Getting the Most from your Social Media Marketing in 5 Easy Steps

If you are a business owner or marketing manager, social media can often find itself becoming a low priority item on your busy day to day agenda. There is a misconception that it can be an ad-hock exercise when you have a few minutes of time to spare.

Unfortunately though, if this is your social media approach, you are likely not getting the most out of your marketing as you should be. More importantly, you are also missing out on the opportunity to build brand awareness and engage with customers.

While it can be tricky to know where to start to improve your social media, it is most important that you start some where. Just by being proactive in your planning and strategy, you will see improvement.

If you’re interested in taking your social media marketing to the next level and getting the most out of your efforts, follow our five easy steps to social media success.

1. Integrate your Social Media into your Marketing Plans

Stop thinking about social media as a separate effort from your main marketing mix. No matter how you advertise and market yourself, you need to be cohesive across all channels.

While your twitter brand persona may fun and quirky and your LinkedIn brand persona may be professional, the messages and organization values should be consistent across platform and across digital, social, and traditional advertising channels.

Your social media strategy should not be separate from your advertising or marketing strategy. Instead, your business marketing strategy should guide your social media planning. When you plan an advertising campaign, it should be a focus in traditional advertising as well as social.

2. Perform a Social Media Audit.

Once you’ve begun thinking about social media as a part of your larger business strategy, it is important to take a hard, honest look at your platforms. Ask yourself …

  1. How does reality compare to my expectations?
  2. Am I communicating the values of my business consistently, accurately, and to the best of my ability?
  3. Am I engaging with my audience in an informative and helpful manner (not just trying to sell products/services)?
  4. Are my brand messages consistent across platforms?
  5. Have I developed different personas for each platform? If yes, are these the correct personas?

While this is not an entire list of questions, it is a good starting point. The best way to get a thorough and accurate assessment of your social media platforms is to perform a social media audit.

Quite simply, this is a formal process where you document the status of each of your platforms. After the analysis, you can step back, see what is missing or doesn’t align, and then adjust from there. Hootsuite has a fantastic free guide and template you can use for your social media audit.

3. Understand your Audience

Your marketing messages should be directly informed by the audience on the platform you are using. For example, radio ads and television ads are extremely different. This is for obvious reasons as on television you can see the advertisement and on the radio you can only hear voices.

While the difference between social media platforms is not as extreme, it would still be wrong to assume your messaging should be the same on each platform. The platforms are different and so are the audiences.

Understanding your audience on each platform is key to success. The best way to do this – spend the time researching.

Check out these amazing resources from Hootsuite:

From this demographic information, you can make informed and educated decisions about content, timing, and more. This brings me to the question – does what I post actually matter?

4. Build an Editorial Calendar

Yes! What you post absolutely matters. Often, this is how you can tell an ad-hock social media plan from an informed planned one. While it is important to be timely and post relevant interesting content, it is also important to be prepared.

One of the best ways to stay on top of your social media planning is to build an editorial calendar. This is a tool to organize your content and plan out what, when, and how you will post to the various platforms you choose.

When we handle a client’s social media, we start with an editorial calendar. This allows us to plan out how often we want to post and ideal times to post, but it also ensures we take the time to think through what we are posting.

Not only does this allow for collaboration with the client, it also allows us to stay on top of sticking to consistent brand messaging. Because we aren’t rushed to post, we have time to think through different brand personas and communicate differently on different platforms to different audiences.

There are many different ways to build an editorial calendar, but yours should be design in a way that is best for your business. Here is one source that provides a free template as a starting point.

5. Measure it. Strive for Excellence.

Social media is both an art and a science. Because of the digital world we live in, marketing managers and business owners have access to lots and lots of data. We can see massive amounts of information. However, this can be a blessing or a curse.

It is easy to get overwhelmed with all of the information and not do anything with it. However, you are then missing out on useful information that can take your social media planning to the next level.

There is no one size fits all way to view your data and analytics, but finding what is best for you and your business is critical. Hootsuite provides tons of resources on how to look at your analytics, including this free guide.

Last but not least, if you make it through all five of these steps, keep going. Never stop evaluating through audits, staying up on the latest audience trends, utilizing an editorial calendar or planning system, and measuring your success. However, if you do only one think, start thinking about your social media as a part of your whole marketing strategy. You will start building more value from your efforts immediately.

For more information on how to drive value for your business through marketing and advertising, explore our blog, contact us here or call us at 1-864-400-9920.

LinkedIn Strategy

Boosting your Brand with LinkedIn: Debunking Common Myths

LinkedIn is an incredible tool for individuals to connect with other professionals, to hunt for a new job, or to stay tuned to the latest news in the industry. However, often people forget that LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for advertising and building your business’s brand. 

If LinkedIn isn’t at least a part of your marketing and social media strategy, you are likely missing a bid opportunity to reach potential clients in a brand safe social media channel.

You may have avoided focusing your social media strategy on LinkedIn for a number of valid reasons. It may make sense for your business to spend your resources and time on something else. You may flat out think LinkedIn isn’t important. 

On the other hand though, there are a number of times where businesses ignore LinkedIn for reasons that are wrong. As a result, we are taking a deeper look at some of the common myths we hear from clients about LinkedIn.

Myth 1: My customers aren’t on the platform.

For business-to-business sales, the benefits may seem obvious. LinkedIn is known as the number one social network for lead generation. According to Forbes, an “estimated 40 million business decision makers (i.e. the people who seal the deals and sign the contracts) spend their time on LinkedIn.” 

Additionally, Omnicore reports that … 

  • It is the #1 channel B2B marketers use to distribute content at 94%.
  • It makes up more than 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites & blogs.
  • 91% of marketing executives list LinkedIn as the top place to find quality content.
  • 92% of B2B marketers include the platform in their digital marketing mix.

However, if you aren’t a business-to-business focused company, you may be rolling your eyes at the idea of LinkedIn helping you reach your target audience. However, professionals are people too, and LinkedIn has a massive general consumer audience with money to spend.

In fact, more than half of LinkedIn’s audience has a college degree and forty-nine percent make more than $75,000 per year. To learn more about this platforms unique demographics, check out Omnicore’s full report or see the list below:

Myth 2: LinkedIn is just for career milestones and announcements.

LinkedIn has become a thriving community for professionals and businesses to share content including industry perspectives, blogs and more. This content is not just about celebrating a year at company ABC or announcing a new hire. 

In fact, “more than 100,000 organic articles are published weekly on LinkedIn, many of which are written by top-level executives at brands around the world,” according to Buffer. AdWeek even wrote a feature on how LinkedIn has become a hot social network.

If your business writes blogs posts, it is worth the extra effort to post these to your profile. Even that small thing is better than nothing and can bring users back to your website.

Myth 3: LinkedIn may build my brand, but it won’t lead to actual sales or profit.

Did you know that LinkedIn has three times better conversion rates than Facebook or Twitter? From that perspective, it is important to balance your social media strategy and not just stick to one platform.

One of the key benefits of the platform is that there is arguably less bombarding a user or potential customer or client when using the platform. The platform has been established as a brand safe and professional environment. This means that content viewed here will more likely be consumed by an attentive and engaged audience.

Start building your brand!

LinkedIn is a free, powerful tool you can start using right now to advertising and build your brand. You can explore the paid advertising options. However, simply building an active online presence for your business will have a big impact. There is a large audience of engaged consumers and business decision makers ready to spend money on your products and services. You just have to take the time to show them who you are.

If you’d like to learn more about Adventure Ad Agency social media strategies, contact us here or call us at 1-864-400-9920. To learn more about the latest advertising trends and strategies, check out more of our blog.

Is your Advertising Campaign Holiday Ready?

‘The Holiday Season’ is the most wonderful time of the year! Halloween is just around the corner. Subsequently, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays are following close behind. In fact, before you realize it, the busiest time of year will be here. Are you ready?

How is your holiday advertising campaign? Is your business prepared and ready for the holidays? As a matter of fact, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have been marked on the calendars as the official beginning of the holiday rush.

Do you want your business to ring with jingle bells and whistles? Keep reading this blog to see a list of tips on things to consider when jump starting your advertising campaign into this year’s holiday season. The following tips will give you an idea on how to promote your sales, and how to prepare for the best time of the year, for your business!

Tips on how to plan your Holiday Advertising Campaign

1. Start planning early
2. Research what your competition is doing
3. Offer specials and discounts
4. Stay focused on what works
5. Offer customer loyalty programs and specials
6. Keep your website and social media updated
7. Use a Geo Fencing strategy
8. Compete and drive customers to your business using TV, radio, and other media

Here is another article on some holiday tips to consider. If you would like more information on how to drive customers to your business, contact Adventure Ad Agency by clicking on this link.

Do you Know the Different Types of Local Advertising?

Most of us have reviewed an advertisement on TV, billboard, social media, or a local magazine and never thought about all of the different types of advertisers or the different types of local advertising. For one thing, most of us didn’t really know that there were various forms of local advertisers and local advertising. We just saw, read, or heard the message that was in front of us at the time.

What are the different forms of advertisements, types of local advertisers, and types of local advertising? In this blog we will go over all of the types of advertisements, local advertisers, and the different types of local advertising.
First, let’s go over the different forms of advertisements and latest trends….

What are the different forms of advertisements?

  • Television and Radio Advertisements are both traditional forms of media advertising
  • Brochures, magazines, and newspaper advertisement media are also a traditional form of advertising
  • Direct marketing, Geo fencing, guerrilla advertising, social media, and product placement are all modern forms of advertisements.

What are the different forms of local advertisers?

  • Dealers of local franchisees
  • Retailers who sell brand merchandise, such as grocery stores and department stores
  • Specialty business that sells services such as banks, insurance, florist, bakers, repair stores, music stores, and more
  • Government and nonprofit organizations

What are the different types of local advertising?

  • Product advertising that promotes a certain product or service
  • Classified advertising that is used in newspapers and buyer and seller publications
  • Institutional Advertising promotes an idea of the company that markets a product and service
  • Regular Price-line Advertising keeps the consumer informed about its service or merchandise
  • Sale advertising that places two or more items on sale
  • Clearance advertising a form of advertising used to clear out old inventory so that new inventory can be moved in its place

If you are considering advertising for your business read this article for more information about advertising, and contact our office today about how we can help you with your advertising needs.

Stay calm!

Is Your Presentation Ready for Your Public Speaking Event?

Did you know that public speaking dates as far back as the Egyptian days? The most popular forms of speaking date back to ancient Greece and Roman days, where a style of speaking called Rhetoric was formed. Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates were the three main players in those speaking days, but have developed a skill that would be taught in schools for centuries to come. None the less, public speaking is very important in today’s working world, which is why many universities require all students to take a public speaking class.

Most of us would rather pull a tooth than to stand in front of an audience and speak. Furthermore, in most business environments speaking during presentations is a normal everyday occurrence. In most cases, the average presentation requires a speaker, and a Powerpoint presentation.

When preparing for your speech and or presentation, here are some things that you will want to know…

What type of speech are you going to use for your public speaking event or presentation?

4 Types of Speeches

Ceremonial Speaking: Ceremonial speeches are common at weddings, funerals, office parties, and graduations. Ceremonial speakers typically have a personal connection with his or her audience and will often include a toast.

Informative Speaking: Informative speaking is the process of informing one’s audience on the topic and subject discussion. This type of speech is used to relay information to the audience, rather than to persuade or demonstrate to the listeners.

Demonstrative Speaking: These types of speech require the speaker to demonstrate and describe a process while speaking to the audience. While using action to explain a process, the speaker can educate his or her audience on how to cook, fish, or use a product.

Persuasive Speaking: Persuasive speaking is the most glamorous style of speaking because it is typically used by lawyers and presidents. The persuasive speech is to persuade the audience to believe or become emotionally involved about the speaker’s viewpoints. This type of speech is used in advertising as well, where the advertiser tries to persuade its audience to buy a product or service.

Now that we have learned about the four different types of public speaking, below are some tips on how to prepare for your presentation…

1. Learn about your audience
2. Choose your speech
3. Practice your speech, and know your subject
4. Create powerful Powerpoint slides using the 10/20/30 rule
5. Add visuals and audio to your slides if needed

For more information on preparing for your next presentation read this article. Contact us today on how we can help you succeed by clicking on this link.

Messages

Is your Brand Message sticking?

We all have listened to a song on the radio that has played over and over in our heads all day repeating the same message over and over again. When this occurs it is often called an ‘Ear worm’, also known as a ‘Brain worm’.

If you are a business owner, wouldn’t it be nice to have an ‘Ad worm’ stick into your target consumer’s brain for the day? To be exact, communicating the main takeaway of your business’s message is important, only you don’t want to lose your audience’s attention. Furthermore, changing up your brand message while sticking to the main ideas, is better than using repetitive messages.

Every business should learn the four sources of brand messaging, in order to create brand coherence to their target audience.

Let’s take a broader look into the four sources of brand messaging below…

What is the difference between Planned and Unplanned messages?

Planned

A planned message is usually delivered through mass media, and is one of the most traditional forms of brand messaging. Ideally, this form of brand messaging uses advertising, promotional materials, publicity releases, and more. Ironically, even though this form of messaging does not always have the greatest impact, it does allow a business to control how the message is placed.

Unplanned

A celebrity’s name and personality is their brand, and often celebrities feel as if bad publicity is good publicity. Despite the status, celebrities generally believe that any type of news keep their name in to the media. Unfortunately, gossip and bad word of mouth reviews are often uncontrollable. These types of messages are what we call unplanned.

What is the difference between a Service Message and a Product Message?

Service

The service message should include all details about your business’s services, and how a consumer will benefit from them. In a competitive business world, it is imperative that your service message explain the business’s core competency over its competition. Most important, explaining the service’s quality and how a consumer will benefit by using the service, will help give you a competitive edge.

Product

Understanding your target’s thoughts and needs are essential in planning your product message. Before launching your business product, you’ll want to explore target group sessions, and product testers. This will enable your business to gain feedback about how your product message engages with your target audience.

Listed below are five questions that every business should be able to answer before launching a new product…

1. Who is your ideal target market?
2. What problems and concerns do your consumers have?
3. How will you solve your customer’s problems?
4. What are the benefits offered by your product?
5. How is your product better than the competitor’s product?

For more information on Brand Messaging read this article, and check out his link. Our blog also has helpful tips on other ways to enhance your brand.

Facbook Ad

Secrets behind Effective Facebook Ads

These days it seems like the internet is oversaturated with content. From text to pictures to informational videos, information is every where, and Facebook is no exception.

Every time you go onto Facebook you are bombarded with information and advertisements. The problem for advertisers is with so much out there, how can we be sure that our Facebook ads are effective and actually reaching the attention of our viewer.

Step 1 – Use unique and engaging images for Facebook Ads

A simple Facebook text post with no images is not going to cut it in todays day-in-age. People respond best to images, especially images that show people. When people are in images, it is easier for people to relate and respond. These images will also show emotions which draw people in to your advertisement.

Next time you go to choose an image for your Facebook post consider adding people. Also, choose an image that actually demonstrates or shows your business’s or product’s value proposition. However, there are other ways to get peoples attention. People love to see bright, contrasting colors. Also, people love to laugh and be surprised, so an image that is “out of the ordinary” might just be perfect for catching your audiences attention. For more help creating and choose effective images for your Facebook advertisements, check out this article.

Step 2 – Create content you want to engage with

A simple rule of thumb is do not post content you would not want to see on your Facebook. One way to test this is to ask, “would you be willing to share this business post on your personal account?” If not, try something different. In fact, it benefits to actual ask this to yourself and other employees. From this collaboration, you can gain valuable feedback that may help improve it.

Another great ideas is that you should like your business’s Facebook ads and encourage other employees and friends to do so. In fact, when people in a business start liking their own ads, the posts engagement almost always increased.

Step 3 – Don’t be afraid to try different strategies

We have all heard the expression “stupid is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.” If you aren’t getting the results you want or need from your Facebook advertisement, change your settings! Change your budget. Change your target audience demographics. Just change.

You may actually think you have chosen the ideal settings, but unless you are a well-seasoned professional you may not know correctly what those settings are. If you check out this article by Hootsuite, you will see a number of tips for how to improve your Facebook advertisements and also how to play around with and change change change your settings to optimize your advertising campaign.

For more information on social media and advertising, check out our blog or contact Adventure Ad Agency.

The Augmented Reality in Augmented Advertising

Have you ever shopped online, and wondered how a pair of sunglasses would look with your face’s shape? Wonder no more, because Augmented Reality (AR) has bridged the gap between online shopping and the out-of-store shopper.

Want to know more about this new age method of advertising that is spreading like wild fire? Read below to learn more about the exciting new strategy named, Augmented Advertising.

Augmented Reality (AR) is ‘All the Buzz’ in the world of advertising.

Many of us have played Pokémon Go or have engaged in other types of virtual reality games before. In fact, if you have ever uploaded your picture onto Facebook and virtually tried on lipstick, then you too have participated in Augmented Reality (AR). Although this particular technology has been around for a while, Augmented Reality (AR) is now rapidly becoming a powerful tool for brands to engage with consumers.

Advertisers are now using Augmented Reality (AR) in full force!

Augmented Advertising is often used in many social media platforms, because consumers enjoy participating, along with sharing. Actually,the augmented advertisements are goofy, humorous, and hard to ignore. Furthermore, a lot of technology and sophisticated artificial intelligence was used while creating the ads.

Social media platforms use Augmented Advertisements.

Facebook has jumped on the Augmented Advertising bandwagon, and is now working with businesses to showcase their products on Facebook. By including Augmented Reality (AR) into social media advertisements, consumers can virtually try products with a touch of a button. According to an article written by Anthony Ha, Facebook plans to offer Augmented Advertising to businesses in both Messenger and Instagram.Finally as technology progresses, the average consumer will see more social media platforms that use Augmented Reality (AR) in their advertisements.

If you would like to learn more about Augmented Advertising, click on this  link for more information!