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Social Media

5 Simple Steps to Master Customer Relations on Social Media.

“You are in queue, please wait.”

“Aap qatar mein hain, kripya pratiksha kijiye.”

If this makes you feel angry and helpless all at once, then congratulations, you too have experienced the good ol’ customer service of the 80s and 90s. An era when customer service was king and all the customer could do was wait and wait and then wait some more to finally be heard and sometimes maybe served.

Contrast this with 2022.

Airline lost your luggage? Tweet at them.

Your favourite tea brand did not live up to your expectations? Slide into their DMs.

Had a great customer experience at your local coffee shop? Make a reel on Instagram with your favourite barista as collaborator doing his moves to the latest Harry Styles song and tag the coffee shop so they can reshare it too.

As you might know, building a successful brand is about consistency. Small steps performed regularly to bring brand reality closer to brand goals. In the digital world, these steps often involve marketing to new eyeballs on social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, Youtube etc, and search engines such as Google and Bing. But one of the most important steps to ensure that these new eyeballs and customers stay is to build and nurture a lasting relationship with them with genuine and helpful customer service.

For customers and businesses alike, social media has become an easy and effective way to connect and engage with each other. Whether it is feedback received in-the-moment of the customer’s experience, the launch of a new line of products, the brand’s stand on a social issue or even engaging with other brands. Social media has made it easier for brands to become more human. By standing out and staying connected. But you might be wondering: how does one begin treading these social media waters as a brand? How much is too much? And what tone should a brand adopt?

The digital marketing mavericks from Flora Fountain, the top social media marketing agency in Ahmedabad have come up with some simple steps for brands to follow on social media to build customer relationships that last. Let’s

Social listening

It is important for a brand to have its ear to the ground on the internet to know what people are talking about it online, what trends are being followed by its potential customers. This activity of monitoring various digital platforms, topics and keywords to identify important mentions of the brand and its related topics is called Social Listening.

promotional campaigns

Brands can modify and enhance their promotional campaigns and customer communications based on this information collated through social listening. While there are many paid online tools available to assist with this actively, the top digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad Flora Fountain does it the old school way, by regularly scouring through platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, etc. through targeted keywords, phrases and topics.

This way, the social media managers are able to assist their clients in resolving their issues by offering insightful responses to their inquiries, and make better educated selections.

Read more Marketing on Snapchat! Yeah..we’re not kidding.

Taking feedback & acting on it

Feedback helps brands understand what their customers like, what are their pain points, evaluate how their target audience perceives them. With social media making communication between customers and businesses all the more direct, the cycle of feedback has become quicker and hence brands have to be all the more quicker in responding to them.

Show the customers that their inputs are valued by putting their suggestions and requirements into visible action. From launching new products, services or any interesting and useful feature, implementation of customer feedback received through DMs, reviews and other avenues can help brands gain their trust and loyalty. It shows that you hear their concerns and needs and you’re willing to act on it for their benefit.

Be relatable

Another great way to maintain a great relationship with customers is to be relatable to them, their thoughts, conversations and ideas. Make social media a fun place to be for the customers by aligning the brand’s voice with that of the customers, is what every digital marketer working with the best digital agency in Ahmedabad or anywhere would say.

Kamaii, a homemade meals ordering app partnered with Flora Fountain, a social media marketing agency in Ahmedabad to tap into the local audience with some fun and puns. They share humorous content, jump on memes they can relate back to their brand, and they take any opportunity they can to champion the comfort of fresh, home cooked meals.

Read more Kamaii ki Kahani – Marketing a home-cooked food ordering & delivery app

Sharing User Generated Content

People love sharing pictures of the various products they use and tag brands on their respective social media handles. This is called user generated content, that can be utilised by brands on their social media pages to reinforce the love and trust the user has on them, and build a community of such loyal customers.

The best example for this can be found on the social media pages of Wagh Bakri Tea, India’s most trusted tea brand. Backed digitally by the top digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad, Wagh Bakri runs campaigns where users and creators can share pictures and clips of them enjoying a piping hot cup of their tea, and Wagh Bakri shares the best ones on their pages. It’s important though, that brands seek permission before reposting a users’ photograph onto their account.

Provide value and solve problems

Social media platforms are of course a great place to advertise products and service, but customers value a brand more when they do more than just selling. Solve problems of customers, answer their frequently asked questions, share their good reviews. This is another great way to build a strong relationship with the customers.

One of India’s top car detailing franchises, CarzSpa Detailing Studios have a great mix of posts on their official Instagram page. They showcase their products, visuals from the various detailing activities that take place at their studios and further share informative posts that busts myths, answer FAQs and some fun questions to engage with their audience while educating them.
Ensure there’s a good balance between your promotional content and the educational and free value you provide to your audience.

Feeling all set to build a thriving community of customers on your social media page too? Get the backing of the best digital agency in Ahmedabad to help you navigate your relationships online and add great value to your brand and business. Reach out to us on hello@flora.ffteam.in today.

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Digital Marketing Agency

How to use Pinterest in a brand’s digital marketing strategy

Just pin it! If you’ve come across this term through a friend, colleague, associate or even your mother, you know you’ve got a Pinner. This is a colloquial term used for people who use Pinterest on a regular basis and they have an evolved sense of exploring the internet.

Now, time for some facts! Around 433 million people use Pinterest every month to find ideas and inspire their next purchase. As of January 2022, Pinterest is the 14th largest social media platform in the world with over 60% of their audience being women, and have also witnessed a 30% year on year increase in Indian Pinners aged 25 to 34 years.

This is music to the ears of every top digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad or anywhere in the world. Wondering why? Read on to know how we use Pinterest in our brands’ marketing strategies.

Convert your Pinterest profile into a business page

Pinterest allows its users to create two types of accounts on its platform, i.e. Personal and Business. The business profiles are professional pages and provide the user with various additional tools like Pinterest Analytics, Visual Search Tool, and Pinterest Ads.

If a user already has an account with Pinterest, they can simply create a linked Business account with a completely separate name, bio, links and pins. Another way is to create a new business page from scratch.

Women's Health Magazine

A Pinterest Business Profile must have the official business name, the logo, a short bio introducing the business and a website, if there is one. To verify the website, Pinterest provides the user with a code snippet that they need to place on their site, with the help of a developer or through WordPress plugins.

Plan your content, build a visual story

The end goal of any business is to sell. So it goes without saying that the content that needs to go up on Pinterest should be in line with the services they provide or the products they sell.

People use Pinterest as a Visual Search Engine, specifically when they just have a vague idea of what they want. So, if a business is a retailer or an online store, they must be taking stunning product photos and turning them into pins.

Grapefruit Rosemary Smash Cocktail

Now, if a business is a service provider, then they can use infographics, visual data or attractive designs to firstly draw the attraction of the user and then make them click on the provided link to lead them to the website. Such a content strategy is also known as creating lead magnets.

Becomeme a part of the community

The bedrock of Pinterest’s success is the strong communities of like-minded people it fosters on its platform. There’s something for everyone on Pinterest. Engagement is the key to success on Pinterest.

By interacting with other users, followers and their accounts, a business can stimulate interest and loyalty towards the brand, and this holds potential to draw them back to the page for ideas, inspiration or even make a purchase.

Another great Pinterest marketing strategy, which helps get a brand’s content out there, is by being a part of and creating community or group boards. Create group boards, invite other users to come join the community and contribute with their content, join communities similar to the industry and contribute using your own pins which promote the brand and business.

Yeah, Pinterest SEO is a thing!

By using keywords throughout your profile, posts, Pins, and boards, you’ll be more likely to organically appear in users’ feeds and searches. Every leading SEO Company in Ahmedabad and all over the globe would suggest Pinterest as a tool to draw traffic to the website.

A business is more likely to feature on users’ feeds and searches when they use relevant keywords throughout the profile or page. These keywords can be peppered across in the bio and profile, pin descriptions, board titles and descriptions, and even the image alt text to improve the chances of organically ranking through search.

keywords on pinterest pin

Further, Pinterest ads also provide a keyword targeting tool to help businesses show their pins to the right audience through paid promotions and increase their conversion rates.

Drive the traffic to your site

One of the most untapped aspects of Pinterest is its ability to drive traffic to the business website. By regularly posting, creating pins and contributing to boards on Pinterest, a business generates interest among users who come across its content. As one of the top digital marketing agencies in Ahmedabad, we engage, educate and delight the followers of our businesses. We engage them with interesting pins, educate them about the products and services on offer, and delight them by drawing them towards the websites and online shops which offer them what they’re seeking for and more.

Start pinning, drive traffic to your website and attract interested people towards your business by ramping up your digital marketing strategy with Pinterest for business using these tips. And the best way to go about it is to get the experts to work, like the creative geniuses at Flora Fountain. Drop us a hi on hello@flora.ffteam.in

Categories
Social Media

The ultimate guide to LAUNCH a product on social media

Remember the last time you scrolled through your Instagram feed and thought “Hey, how did they know I was looking for this sneaker/hoodie/blender/fill in the blanks?” More and more people are discovering new products and services online through social media, over traditional methods of discovery like TV ads, newspaper ads, hoardings and billboards. And this is even more true after the pandemic, with an increasing population comfortable spending time and money online.

So it is imperative, when a brand has a new product ready for launch, to create a big buzz online. Brands have to get people curious about the product and the idea behind it. However, with over 3.6 billion people active on various social media platforms, spending an average of 2.5 hours every day scrolling and messaging, there are chances of a brand’s messaging getting lost in the din and noise made by almost everybody online.

So here’s the ultimate cheat sheet (or guide, if you will) created by India’s top social media marketing agency, Flora Fountain, to make some noise, stand out and attract the right eyeballs for a new product or brand launch online.

1. First thing first, Identify the audience

The first thing a brand must do before planning a new product or starting any form of marketing activity for its launch, is to understand “WHAT DOES THE MARKET WANT?” and “WHERE DO WE FIND THIS AUDIENCE”

It starts with market research, where the ideal customer is identified based on various demographic points like age, gender, interests, income, region, etc. It can start from something as simple as a Google search of a product similar to the one about to be launched by the brand. Simply going through the kind of people that the competition brands are addressing through their content, images, and the reviews on their shopping platforms can give a rough idea about the ideal customer.

If the product is targeted towards young people in their 20s who love following trends, then Instagram is the place to find them (well, isn’t everyone on Instagram now!). If the product is more service-based, priced higher and is targeted at a somewhat older audience, Facebook can be the place to target such an audience. If the target is business communities, or art lovers, or musicians, there is a platform for these too. But it all starts with knowing who the product, service, brand or idea is meant for: the OG TG.

2. Plan out the online content calendar

Ray Ethnic Fashion Brand

Having a launch timeline is very important for the brand to chart out every move, every post on the various digital platforms it is active on. While it may sound like a task as easy as taking a picture and posting it on Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest with a caption stating check out our newly launched collection, it is way more than that…

Think about it, the product pictures needs to be clicked, they have to be named (if not done), banners and creatives for website pages and posts are to be made, captions as per the platform (hashtag heavy for Instagram, long yet linked for Facebook and short and sweet for Pinterest)

are to be written, promotional email drafts have to be created, SEO work is to be done, special social media promotional content for boosts are to be made… Phew!

Yeah, that’s right… All that, apart from the regular, in-store or outdoor marketing campaigns. Here’s a look at how Ray Ethnic, an Ahmedabad-based ethnic fashion brand recently planned their product launch. Simple, minimalistic & to the point.

Plan out every piece of content that will go online, from the teaser to the launch to the product showcase. Yes, it takes time, but then actual work becomes a piece of cake.

3. Start creating a buzz

Social media is such a powerful tool, it is scalable, cost effective, provides great creative freedom to experiment, and the best part: The people are there, online!

And one of the best ways to get started with the promotions is by generating curiosity among the people online, on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and even LinkedIn (if the brand has an audience there).

Start with Coming Soon posts like these:

Give the viewers a sneak peek on how the product is going to look like, what it is for, why it is unique, etc. This is kind of teasing the customer, by showing parts or some element of the product as a preview and why they should look forward to it.

Coming Soon Posts

Next, you can create countdown posts that usually say, ‘2 Days to Go’, ‘1 Day to Go’, etc. These kinds of promotional content create a sense of anticipation among the followers and the customers and they stay tuned with the brand page on social media.

And finally, post the launch, a giveaway or a contest can be run through specially created posts to boost up the engagement on the page. Wondering why? Because when the page gets maximum engagement, the posts are visible on the Explore and Suggestion sections of non-following people online who may have similar tastes in the product.

4. Get creative with hashtags

Another great way to make waves around the social media about an impending launch is by creating a unique hashtag which gives a hint of the product and the brand, while leaving the users and followers guessing on what it could be.

While creating a launch hashtag, these three points should be kept in mind:

  • It should be precise
  • Don’t combine more than 3-4 words together
  • Try to write it in Title case, to make it easy to understand

By creating a hashtag, they instantly highlight the content that’s related to the launch and reinforces the brand identity. Further, it helps followers to tag, share and participate in the launch activities and post pictures of their own which are connected with the brand.

5. Make the splash: The launch

The launch has to be timed in such a manner that the product/s must get revealed on all social media platforms at the same time. This is where the advance content planning as mentioned in the first point, comes of great help.

Since Instagram and Facebook both fall under the same entity, it is easier to plan and schedule posts around a specific time, using custom content, hashtags, CTAs, etc. While Facebook has its own Creator Studio platform to manage Instagram and Facebook pages, there are other third party platforms like Later and Hootsuite for LinkedIn, Google Business and Tweetdeck for Twitter.

Creator Studio platform

Flora Fountain, one of the best social media agencies in Ahmedabad suggests that brands should ideally boost these launch posts for maximum visibility and opportunity to showcase their products to newer audiences. While it is simple to create an Ad Account using Facebook Business or AdSense for Google platforms, it is advised to get the top digital marketing agency on board to share the burden of tracking, analysing and strategising these paid promotions online.

OR

Plan a staggered launch
Unlike the one time big splash launch, a staggered launch is done by revealing the products one after the other or as batches, in stages. The rollout of the products can go on for weeks together instead of putting everything out for sale on the launch day.

Remember how smartphone giant Apple launched the iPhone 12 in two stages? While the original reason behind this exercise was the supply chain disruption due to the global smart-chip shortage, the marketing teams of the brand decided to launch the smaller versions of phone in the first stage, and the bigger and pricier versions along with its upgraded version of accessories just in time for pre-christmas sales.

This way, brands can not only keep the conversation going, but also tap into multiple points of high sales, like the festival and holiday seasons.

6. Have your analytics in place

Instagram Reach

The true success of a launch or really any digital activity lies in the data. A brand should have the tools to identify the right metrics, evaluate the various milestones during the launch at regular intervals and then do a comparative study with its goals.

Before the launch, set up a cross-channel social media analytics dashboard using tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot or Sprout Social and connect the various platforms where the launch will take place,

i.e. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. Of course, each tool also has the inbuilt insights or metrics for views, clicks, conversions for brands to identify which piece of content and strategy and worked and what didn’t.

It allows tracking of various metrics like hashtag performance, region-wise visitor activity, post reach and engagement, etc. This way, brands can make informed decisions in terms of allocating budgets to campaigns, tweaking the target audience to ensure a successful launch.

Google Analytics Report

7. Keep the conversation going

Post launch, the brand must keep the momentum going through various forms of audience engagement. Because all that buzz generated post the legwork done to get the product launched, must not fizzle out in a week’s time.

Continue publishing content related to the product, the salient features about it, it’s availability online or offline, and how the response is (only if it is positive). Encourage followers and customers to tag the brand with their product and reshare them on the pages, giving the users some free publicity too.
Ray Ethnic Hits

Something again Ray Ethnic hits the nail right on the head with its popular post launch campaign #RayOnYou. Thanks to some smartly planned celebrity endorsement, now even regular customers post regularly with outfits purchased from Ray.

Always keep a close eye on your mentions and customer questions on the comments, respond to them within 24 hours, negative or positive. This will not only give the brand image a boost, but organically push the posts on the explore feeds of social media timelines too.

Now that you have the ultimate guide to the perfect social media launch, get started right away. Or, how about you let the experts do the job for you. Drop us a line on hello@flora.ffteam.in or click here.