by Elizabeth Hines | Apr 5, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Adidas and FIFA have found great success in using social media in supply chain management.
Sometimes, a success story can be a powerful motivator. FIFA and Adidas have been extremely successful in using social media in supply chain management. Here’s how it works for these organizations and why your business should consider it.
FIFA and Adidas
These two brands are a match made in heaven. In fact, their relationship spans the 48 years since 1970, when Adidas began supplying the official match ball for all FIFA World Cup matches. And clearly it’s been working for both brands, as they have recently extended their partnership until 2030.
With a global supply chain consisting of more than 1,000 independent factories around the world, Adidas is harnessing the power of social media as it relates to the supply chain.
How they used social media in supply chain management
In 2014, the brand launched the #allin campaign on Twitter, letting users follow the progress of the official 2014 World Cup soccer ball (nicknamed the Brazuca). The ball even had its own Twitter handle. Videos showed the Brazuca outfitted with cameras and sent on a journey around the world.
As you can imagine, this creative marketing was social media gold. Adidas was able to leverage its partnership with the FIFA World Cup and engage its audience in a meaningful and lasting way.
According to Waterloo blogger Jaime Salinas, “Adidas is using social media to improve their organization’s supply chain management globally by creating transparency, increased visibility, communications and quality control that leads to reduced operational and labor costs.”
For example, the Adidas SMS Worker Hotline allows direct communication with factory workers, bridging the gap that can exist between management and workers. The system allows the workers to have anonymity, ensures transparency in tracking complaints. It also allows correction efforts to happen in real time.
The takeaway
So what can your business learn from this duo’s successes with social media in supply chain management?
“Social media can improve [an] organization’s supplying chain management,” writes Salinas. “It can create more visibility, improve communication, increase control, and reduce operational and labor costs.” This creates a more efficient and steady supply chain, which in turn increases customer satisfaction.
Salinas concludes, “The ripple effect of using social media to improve supply chain management can expand outwardly across virtually internal and external organizations, which is great for business.”
Related posts:
by Elizabeth Hines | Apr 2, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
If you’re looking to increase your brand awareness, and quickly, here are 10 tricks to accelerate your efforts.
If you took Psychology 101 in school (or even if you didn’t), you know that people are more likely to buy from brand names they’re familiar with than those they don’t know. This goes for purchasing things like medicine, and for procuring components or parts as part of the supply chain.
That’s why so many of our clients come to us looking to build brand awareness as one of their main goals. They want to customers to know about them — and sooner rather than later.
Particularly if your business is new, you’re trying to change an existing market perception, or you have to make your marketing dollars work fast to meet a boss’ deadline, you need to grow brand awareness quickly. We’ve got some ideas to accelerate your efforts.
10 tricks to grow brand awareness quickly
1) Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories is an on-trend platform that delivers targeted content to B2B buyers and builds brand awareness with potential customers. This feature consists of sequences of content that a user posts over a 24-hour period. Besides photos, Stories can include video and Boomerangs, seconds-long motion clips that play forwards and backwards.
2) Partner with other brands
Creating a promotional partnership with a brand that is ancillary to your role in the supply chain can be a huge boost to your brand awareness, if you choose wisely in your partnership. You benefit from its image and reputation and build collegiality.
3) Start content partnerships
Again, this is all about leveraging other people’s audiences to spread the word about your brand. Reach out to the blogs or media sites your target buyers frequent to see if you can author a post for them. Invite them to guest author on your blog. Basically, create two-way content partnerships where you will ensure that your brand’s name will come across the screens of target buyers.
4) Make sharing easy
This is a great way to let your successes go to work for you. Make it easy for your audience and followers to share your content with their networks. Give them sharing options for email, social media — heck, put share links on anything and everything. Social media is a powerful tool in building your brand. Don’t underuse it.
5) Hold social media contests
Everybody loves to win a contest. Use your social media platforms to create contests in which followers submit a photo or video, and let other users vote for their favorites. Contestants will share the link with their networks, and your brand awareness grows exponentially.
6) Try paid social advertising
Facebook and Twitter ads are relatively cheap, and both platforms do a great job of making sure your content gets to your target audience. You can set metrics and customize your preferences for a targeted audience in a variety of ways. It’s one of the most effective ways to grow brand awareness quickly with a very particular audience, though you have to pay to play.
7) Infographics
These are eye-catching and colorful ways to display interesting data and statistics, and are often overlooked for the content powerhouses they are. They’re prime candidates to be shared far and wide on social media.
8) Personality
Having a memorable personality for your brand isn’t just for B2C companies. While you don’t need to hire the Old Spice Guy, letting your content have a voice and perspective is important. Buyers want to know they’re dealing with a human being.
9) Podcasts
Starting your own industry podcast, perhaps interviewing your own executives and other industry experts, is a great way to build your brand and simultaneously develop relationships with your supply chain peers.
10) Become a resource
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Your most important asset is your knowledge and expertise, not your products and services. Content marketing is all about being a trusted resource for your audience. Ditch the blatant sales pitch in your content and think about how you can help your target buyers instead.
How do you grow brand awareness quickly?
Related posts:
by Elizabeth Hines | Mar 27, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Current Events, Marketing, Social Media
Also in social media news March 2018: Snapchat allows branded content ads; Facebook is testing Messenger Broadcasts; and Twitter tests prioritizing news tweets.
With the increasing popularity of automation tools and chatbot technology, social media platforms are working to regulate how brands are reaching their target audiences. Trying to ensure that users aren’t being inundated with spam posts or fake news, Twitter, Facebook and many others are coming out with stricter rules and regulations. This could mean extra work for smaller brands trying to keep up with the latest changes to make sure their content is getting as much reach as possible.
But there are real benefits to using automation tools, especially when it comes to social media management. Facebook, for example, is testing a new Messenger Broadcast that would help smaller businesses, which don’t already utilize chatbots, blast messages to users that have started a conversation with their Pages. These small but helpful updates will allow companies to have a greater reach without extra work for their marketers.
Here’s your social media news for March 2018.
Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal furthers distrust
Facebook issued yet another apology to its users after news broke that a quiz app developed by a Cambridge University researcher leaked personal data from about 50 million people in 2014. Political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which was affiliated with President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign, allegedly used the data to create psychological profiles to influence voters. Users responded with a #deleteFacebook campaign, in which those angered by Facebook’s mishandling of the data are encouraging widespread removal of all Facebook-associated apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp. Fronetics is staying on top of this situation and will continue to provide social media recommendations in light of such reports.
Facebook ends Explore Feed
Adam Mosseri, head of Facebook News Feed, announced plans to discontinue the Explore Feed on the website in early March. Facebook introduced Explore Feed in October as, essentially, a second News Feed that acted as a dedicated place for Pages. User feedback showed that “Explore isn’t an effective way for people to discover new content on Facebook,” and actually made it harder for users in test areas to access important information.
Twitter cracks down on automation and bot usage
Twitter released a new set of rules and regulations that prohibits developers from using Twitter automation and bot programs to simultaneously post identical content from multiple accounts. It also bans users from performing actions — such as likes, retweets, or scheduling tweets — from multiple accounts. “One of the most common spam violations we see is the use of multiple accounts and the Twitter developer platform to attempt to artificially amplify or inflate the prominence of certain Tweets,” writes Yoel Roth on Twitter’s blog.
YouTube adds new live-streaming tools and features
YouTube introduced a new chat replay feature that unfolds exactly as it did when the video was streaming live. Users can now watch videos that originally aired live and follow the conversations that took place alongside of the video, even after the live stream is over. This new feature supports YouTube’s mission to add “ways to watch live videos and interact with your community in real time.”
Facebook tests messenger broadcasts
Facebook is testing a new messaging tool directed at small businesses that haven’t jumped on the chatbot bandwagon. TechCrunch reports that Messenger Broadcasts allow companies to blast a message to anyone who has already started a conversation with them in Messenger. The new tool is currently being tested among a small percentage of Pages in the U.S., Mexico, and Thailand. Facebook hopes to turn the messaging tool into a paid product for small businesses and limit the number of messages that can be broadcast to cut down on spam.
Twitter test makes news the first thing users see in the timeline
Twitter recently confirmed a test of a news reel that would put news highlights at the top of users’ feeds. According to BuzzFeed, Twitter will select news items to appear in boxes at the top of the timeline. Twitter says the test is designed to “highlight the platform’s bent towards current happenings” while making news easier to find. This test comes in the aftermath of Facebook also trying to prioritize news events over Pages, while also fighting increasing fake news.
Snapchat allows branded content ads
Snapchat will now allow publishers to share branded content among the articles and videos they post. “Starting now Discover publishers are allowed to distribute branded content within the Snap Ads that run in their Publisher Stories,” a Snapchat spokesman said in an emailed statement. Snapchat Discover generated more than $100 million in ad revenue for its media partners in 2017, and this latest update will hope to boost even more ad sales.
Related posts:
by Elizabeth Hines | Mar 26, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Social media scheduling tools can make social media management much easier while improving your bottom line.
Managing your business’ social media accounts might sound like a simple task — a fun one, even. But once it falls on your plate, it won’t take you long to realize: it’s a lot of work. That’s not to say that the work can’t be enjoyable. But the sheer volume can be overwhelming.
For example, Fronetics recommends posting to Twitter 40 times a day. Imagine your productivity levels if you needed to stop what you’re doing 40 times a day to craft and post a tweet. You get the picture.
The beauty of marketing automation
Here’s where marketing automation can help.
Social media scheduling tools can make your job much easier — and improve your bottom line. In fact, according to HubSpot, businesses using marketing automation to nurture leads increased qualified leads by 451%.
Essentially, social media scheduling tools let you plan and schedule content across your social networks. There are plenty of free and paid options for you to explore, though two of our favorites are HubSpot and Hootsuite.
HubSpot’s comprehensive CRM and marketing platform includes the ability to automatically post to social media when you publish content, as well as in-depth analytical tools for determining the best time to post to social media platforms. Monitor social mentions and link your social media activity with larger marketing campaigns to determine ROI.
One of the most widely used automation tools on the market, Hootsuite lets you keep track of various social media channels at once. It also helps you perform brand monitoring, letting you know when you brand is mentioned, and what your customers are saying.
3 tips for using social media scheduling tools
Hopefully, you’re starting to get excited about the possibilities of automating your social media marketing tasks. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you move forward.
1) Timing is everything
Good social media scheduling tools will also let you monitor the times of day when people read your content and interact with your brand on social media. Make use of these important metrics and schedule your content strategically for days and times of maximum exposure.
2) Diversify
Keep in mind that someone who follows you on Facebook is likely to also follow you on Instagram and Twitter. For the savvy social media marketer, this means that content should be optimized for each platform, rather than just repeated across multiple platforms, at the risk of boring your followers.
This doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel each time you schedule content, but play to the strengths of each network. For example, Facebook allows more text, while Instagram is great for eye-catching images or stories.
3) You’re not off the hook
Automation is a highly effective tool for social media management — but it’s just part of the picture. Used properly, it should act as a supplement to your social media activities, like reading and replying to audience comments and interacting with your community.
What social media scheduling tools do you like?
Related posts:
by Elizabeth Hines | Mar 21, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Use these 10 social media analytics tools to measure the success of your social media efforts.
Analyzing your social media performance is critical to a successful marketing effort, especially in light of recent changes to Facebook’s News Feed. You need the tools to determine what’s working and what isn’t, as well as the best time to post your content for your target audience.
At Fronetics, we use a variety of tools to measure social media success. Here are our 10 favorite social media analytics tools.
Our 10 favorite social media analytics tools
1) Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management tool that can do everything from scheduling social media posts to measuring your social media ROI. The AutoSchedule feature lets Hootsuite determine the best time to publish a post or tweet based on when similar content performed well in the past. It also considers the platform and can publish the same message at different times based on audience engagement on each particular network.
2) Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a robust analytical tool for determining how web users are interacting with your digital assets, including social media. Three custom reports (Best Days to Post on Social Media, Best Time to Post on Social Network by Hour, and the Social Media Traffic by Date and Hour) offer real-time, in-depth insight. Also, Google Analytics is free!
3) Tweriod
Tweriod, a free Twitter tool that helps you know the best time to tweet, is changing the way companies approach their marketing tweets. It will evaluate up to 1,000 of your followers and their tweeting patterns, including schedule, interests, and retweets. You then receive an analysis of when your tweets will receive the most exposure based on that data.
4) Snaplytics
If you’ve jumped on the Snapchat bandwagon, you probably know that Snapchat gives brands relatively little data on performance. Snaplytics gives you data on the performance of your snaps, audience growth, and more.
5) Iconosquare
This tool is specifically for Instagram. It stands out because, in addition to analysis of your normal photos and videos, it gives you insights into Instagram Stories. With higher level plans, you can also get influencer analytics as well.
6) Buzzsumo
Instead of analyzing your brand’s individual social media performance, Buzzsumo takes a different approach: It looks at how content from your website performs on social media.
7) Tailwind
Tailwind lets you track your performance on Pinterest. Although Instagram and Snapchat are getting a lot of buzz these days, users remain extremely active on Pinterest. With Tailwind, you can track trends in followers and engagement and analyze your audience.
8) SproutSocial
SproutSocial offers a customized dashboard with a quick overview of how your social media channels are performing. You also can gain deeper insight into your followers — like gender and age demographics. And you can assess your customer reach and what will work in your favor.
9) ShortStack
This social media contest app provides performance analytics, so you can determine if your efforts are working, or if you’re simply giving away free merchandise.
10) TapInfluence
Influencer marketing is becoming one of the most commonly used social media tactics. TapInfluence is a complete influencer marketing platform that researches potential influencers you want to work with, as well as tracks campaign performance.
What social media analytics tools do you use?
Related posts:
by Elizabeth Hines | Mar 12, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Supply Chain
Here’s how to quantify the impact of content marketing on brand awareness, a notoriously difficult benefit to measure.
A successful content marketing strategy strengthens the relationship between brands and their target audiences. And brand awareness is a key component to any successful content marketing strategy. Ultimately, the more aware audiences are of your brand, the more likely they are to buy your products or services.
To properly measure the impact of your content marketing, you must start at the beginning, with the overall goals for your content marketing strategy. What kind of content are you creating? Why are you creating this content? How will this increase sales or grow your business?
A lot of our customers include increasing brand awareness among their content strategy goals. But this is a very difficult objective to quantify. How can you measure how familiar people are with your brand?
Here are four metrics we recommend for tracking the impact of content marketing on brand awareness.
4 metrics to measure the impact of content marketing on brand awareness.
1. Social media reach
Tracking the reach of your social media content is a good gauge of the impact it’s having on your brand awareness. Companies can waste a lot of time trying to track down information on various social media accounts; don’t fall into this trap.
Use tools, like Shared Count, that show how many times a piece of content has been shared on social media. Shared Count accurately tracks the social reach of your content on the most popular social media sites — including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — to easily keep track of your social reach. In turn, you can discover the impact your social reach is having on your brand awareness.
2. Brand mentions
Not to state the obvious, but if people are talking about your brand online, it’s safe to assume they are aware of you. There’s a great deal of value in knowing what customers are saying about your company and your products/services. Monitoring brand mentions online can provide honest feedback and objective insight from current and potential customers.
There are several tools to help you track brand mentions online. Here at Fronetics, we prefer the ease of Google Alerts, which allows you to set up custom alerts when your brand is mentioned online. We also use Hootsuite, where you can track brand mentions, as well as keywords and phrases, across all of your social media platforms.
3. Media mentions
Media mentions differ from brand mentions in their origin. Media mentions come directly from publishers, instead of customers. These mentions include any media coverage — TV, print, social media, interviews — that include your brand. Remember, if publishers are talking about your brand online as a result of the content you’re creating, it’s impacting your brand awareness.
And let’s not forget about linkless mentions. As Google and other search engines continue to update their algorithms, it’s crucial to update your monitoring practices. Linkless backlinks are becoming increasingly popular and can have a huge impact on your brand awareness (and SEO!).
4. Branded searches
Knowing how many people are searching for your specific brand tells you a lot about how well known your brand is. Using online tools, such as Google Adwords or Moz, you can track the searches for your products, blogs, social media platforms, and any other variation that you find useful. These tools are free, easy to use, and perfect for determining if your company is popping up when customers are searching.
Using these tools to measure brand awareness offers clues that customers are finding your company in their search efforts. If the needle is not moving in a positive direction, always adjust your strategy to until you find what works for your business.
Drawing the public’s attention to — and heightening their knowledge of — your business ultimately generates leads. And some of those leads will turn into sales. But, let’s be honest: this doesn’t happen overnight. And it’s often difficult to quantify.
That’s not a reason to throw in the towel. There are ways to measure the work that you’re putting into your content marketing program. Using these metrics, you can start tracking the impact of content marketing on brand awareness.
Related posts:
