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Neha Likes - Everything Digital

Have you ever encountered this situation - you visit a website or an e-commerce shop, browse through some products and then the ads of those products are all over your Facebook feed.
I am sure, all of us experience this all the time. We can give the credit of 'stalking' to the brand and its effective re-targeting strategy by using Facebook Pixel. Without going in to technical details, I will share a common example that will help you understand the buzzwords like re-marketing, audience insight, social selling and sales funnel.

What-When-Why-Where-How of Facebook Pixel

  • Facebook Pixel is a small piece of code that is a generated by Facebook 
  • A brand places this code on their website 
  • Then they advertise on Facebook 
  • The Pixel code tracks the traffic coming from the ads
  • It also stores the data of people clicking the ad (All the data that the users have shared with Facebook - name, age, gender, work history, designation, interests and location)
  • Marketers access this data to understand and analyze their audience
  • Using this information, marketers devise more effective advertising strategy as they know their customer better




Let me take an example - You click on an ad on Facebook that says buy 5 Starbucks coffee vouchers and get 100 reward points in your app right-away. These are the steps that you take:
  • Click on the ad
  • Go onto the landing page
  • Fill in your information OR go back on Facebook
  • Go onto the payment page
  • Pay the amount and get a thank you screen OR just return without paying
Now, because Starbucks has installed this piece of code (Pixel) on each page, here is the data they have:
  • Number of people clicked and went onto the landing page 
  • Number of people filled the information
  • Number of people went on the landing page
  • Number of people paid and claimed the reward points
  • Number of people returned without paying
  • And, the biggest of all, at all these stages they have all the data (name, age, gender, work history, designation, interests and location)
The above is the sales funnel for Starbucks (i.e. they already have the data of people who are interested in their product). This reminds me so much of the song 'Every breath you take - every move you make, every step you take, every single day, I'll be watching you' :). 

Let us see the various content strategies and ads that they can make using the 'BIG DATA (Audience Insight)' at each stage. 
  • You were the one who went back from the landing page - You get an email next day saying we saw that you were interested in our coffee offer but we also saw you leaving. No problem, stay tuned for other offers. What did Starbucks do - 'created a brand recall'
  • You were the one who added the offer in the cart but did not purchase - You get an email or shown a customized ad 'Extra 20 reward points on top of 100 points if you buy within an hour'. Proven data shows that 75% of times it acts like a candy given to a child. What did Starbucks do - 'customer acquisition'
  • You were the one who claimed the offer - You see a customized ad or an email or an offer in the app 'Hey, you are our loyal customer. Extra 15% off on your next coffee if you pay via app'. What did Starbucks do - 'customer retention with a focus on app'.
Now, think the same way for your brand. Don't waste your money by simply advertising without any objectives. Plan to close the leads at each step avoiding the traditional 'cold calling' route. Even if you're not a product company, but a service organization, send people to your website, track people who follow your competition on Facebook, let them browse your website, analyse the content that they are consuming on your site, then target them with their topic of interest. 
Not only you are reaching your target audience at each step but reducing the time and effort that goes in creation of the sales funnel. I hope you understand the buzzwords by now!

If you want to get into technical details, there are many tutorials including Facebook Blueprint which provides free training on advertising. Or, if you need help in advertising your brand on Facebook, get in touch with me!


Facebook Pixel is powerful, make the most out of it





16:42 2 comments
Have you noticed a sudden increase in the number of micro-communities on Facebook? What is your brand's strategy on engagement and selling on these groups? Many brands are not even thinking at marketing their services or products in this segment, however I have seen some wonderful examples of social selling with word of mouth, partnerships and zero money involved on Facebook groups. The segment is not naive but is unexplored in the entire social media strategy.




What are micro-communities?
A group of any size on a social platform with it's members having something in common - it could be a hobby, location, nature of work or simply networking group.

Many examples include parenting groups, working women groups, mommy groups, book reading groups, fitness groups, selling groups, health groups, cause based groups, city based groups, marketing groups and many more are on the rise.

How are they different from Facebook brand pages?

  1. A page is managed by a brand where people engage with brand's content. A group/micro-community is created, people join it and become an active part in sharing their views, selling their products or services and discussing what's new.
  2. To make the content reach all its fans, brands have to invest in an ad. Micro-communities run completely on word of mouth and there is no requirement of Facebook advertising.
  3. The members are highly engaged in a group/micro-community whereas brands have to spend high amount of money to get the attention of their target customer group on their page.
  4. Audience is highly focused on an agenda of the group whereas brand's fan following is extremely diverse.
Many multilevel marketing brands like Avon, Oriflame, Tupperware, Herbalife, Shaklee, Mary Kay and Pampered Chef are already harnessing the power of micro communities because of their business model that involves chain of consultants. However, majority of the multinational brands are not focusing their attention towards these ready-made set of audience.

How can brands be active and yet subtle in selling on these groups?
  1. Engage with influencers: Stop making your hashtag trend on Twitter unnecessarily or even worse, stop paying a blogger or influencer for one post on social media. It is not going to yield result and last-long. Find an influencer who is active on these groups, who can participate in the discussions and market your brand.
  2. Motivate your employees to become brand ambassador: Employees should become a voice for their brands on these groups. Find out conversations where you as an employee can subtly talk about your product or service offering. What's the harm in talking about a brand which focuses on nutrition if the conversation is all about dieting fads. Best example of this is Richard Branson or Elon Musk - they market their brands on all social platforms like a king.
  3. Targeted marketing: I see perfect fit for brands to partner with these groups. The key is that the employees have to take the initiative in joining these groups and then marketing it like a pro. Let us look at the hypothetical examples here:
    • A fitness brand (say Nike, Fabletics or Fitbit) becomes a sponsor of 5K Women Run. The brand partners with a women group and encourages the participation. 
    •  A company like Khan Academy or Udemy arranges a talk especially for the members of a marketing group and then running a promotion on their courses for the attendees.
    • A furniture re-selling group can have a partner brand which is into home furnishings and can run regular promotions on that group
    • Nestle' conducts some great initiatives with mommy groups
If you ask me about the potential of investing in micro-communities, here are some of the biggest benefits that I can see -

  • Organic reach
  • Brand awareness
  • Conversations & engagement
  • Reaching the laser targeted audience 
  • Possible increase in sales
Well, much to a large extent, aren't these the objectives of advertising on Facebook? 
I am not concluding that all of the above would come for free but many marketing objectives will be guaranteed and achieved, it will create high brand recall and of course an opportunity to re-target and convert more customers, all of this at much lower cost!   


21:16 1 comments
Two weeks ago I was passing by the non-fiction section of the New York Public Library, when I noticed a book titled 'Work It - Secrets for Success from the Boldest Women in Business by Carrie Kerpen'. I asked myself 'should I go in for a motivational read or an autobiography'. My preference is usually an autobiography or a personal account but since the book I requested (Into Thin Air) was not available, I went back and read the short description of Work It. I immediately got it issued and read it within three days.
Before I get to the reasons of why I recommend this book, I would like you to answer to the following questions:
  1. Are you an introvert?
  2. Do you have hiccups in approaching people?
  3. Do you end up saying a yes when you feel like saying a no?
  4. Do you channelize and follow your instincts very closely?
  5. Are you too hard on yourself?
If the answer to three out of five questions is 'Yes', then I strongly suggest this book to you. You can also read if you are in need of some inspiration or encouragement from the women, who are highly successful and if you want to know the way they #WorkIt around their personal and professional lives. There are no secrets but simple anecdotes to give spark to your career.


Without going into much details of the book, I will share those practical advise that resonated with me. Each of them had a captivating story from women like Sheryl Sandberg, Barbara Corcoran, Randi Zuckerberg and many more.
  1. Build a network: Networking is extremely important and it has become very simple with social media. Take time-out and connect with people - online or in real life. It goes long way in your career, personal branding and recognition.
  2. Have a go-to list: Always have a list of people you can bank upon, be it in your personal or professional life. There is a beautiful storytelling in the book where the author shares the concept and importance of 'personal advisory board'.
  3. Trust your instincts: Your instinct never lets you down. When you abandon a path over a strong gut feeling, a whole new door of opportunity opens up. So, focus on your thoughts to trust your instincts.
  4. Assess the risks: Always calculate the risks in your each big step. This will help you to get in the habit of saying 'No' and prepare you with the worst case scenario, especially if you are a person who says a 'yes' lot more often.
  5.  Embrace opportunities: Keep pushing yourself to new opportunities, be adaptive and be open to explore at your work place. You would enjoy, learn and grow faster in your career.
  6. Attain work-life harmony: Prioritize your work and your personal life. In all great circumstances mixing the two would yield healthy relationships. Your close colleagues should know about big developments in your personal life. Similarly, your partner or few family members should know about your work pressure.
  7. Start outsourcing or delegating: Generally, people who don't practice delegation are often too hard upon themselves. Always remember one can't have it all.
  8. Never discount the culture: I loved the line quoted in the book 'Culture eats strategy for lunch'. If you don't see yourself fitting in the culture of the organisation, it is best to quit, it should not be overlooked or underestimated. The example used to explain this quote in the book is a must read. It shares a story of a top level executive, who was a misfit in the organisation and how she dealt with the crisis that came in her life.
  9. Embrace your accomplishments: Reason yourself on your low confidence when you are in the company of people who intimidate you and meet them next time with your niche and confidence. We often compare our's low with everyone's high. 
  10. Identify your style: Figure out what looks good on you because 'power dressing' is important. But more importantly, it should match with your personality.
Each story in the book was relatable but the above mentioned takeaways were stuck with me. The essence of the book remains the same as its title - Everyone has to #WorkIt in their life with hard work, dedication, persuasion and passion. It offers simple and practical tips to make life more productive and exciting.
Hope you enjoy reading the book!

21:07 No comments
A chatbot in the simplest of words can be explained as 'something' that is offering an opportunity to brands to engage with consumers directly on a personal level. And, that 'something' is from the world of AI (Artificial Intelligence). So, when we are interacting with a brand, the representative from the brand's side answering us is not a human but a chatbot. Training a bot is not so easy and brands are taking time and effort to invest in this technology.


Today, hundreds of brands have ventured into chatbots from various industries like food & alcohol, banking & finance, travel, entertainment, beauty &clothing, news & media, sports, social sector and health & fitness. I checked out many bots, read about few like CNN, NBC, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Whole Foods, Burger King, Burberry, Nordstorm, Armani, Nike, NBA, KLM, Ebay, Hotels.com, Unicef and the list goes on.

But what makes some brands and their chatbots stand-out is their 'creativity' and 'innovation' in their product offering to the end consumer. I have curated some really cool bots around us:
  1. Starbucks - Chatbot is inside the app which takes orders via voice ore text, tells you the time when the order will be ready and price of your order. It was launched in Jan this year. See how it works.
  2.  Sephora - It is on KiK (messenger app) which offers personal assistant for products reviews, makeup tutorials and in-shop buying assistance too. It is one of the smartest chatbots around. Watch for yourself. Also, they have launched couple of more bots this year to suit your requirement. I just loved how popular it has become over here in the US.
  3. Lyft - FB Messenger based chatbot which allows you to request a ride via your chat. In return, if the request is accepted, current location of the driver, car model and number plate's picture will be shared with you. Is it something different than the app, probably no, but it is just adding one more way to market itself and become accessible.
  4. Whole Foods - What I really liked about this chatbot was the simplicity yet a very new and cute way to interact. Simple because it only provides you the recipes and cute because you can put an emoji of the food and text your dietery restrictions and available choices at home.
  5. Whole Foods ChatBot
  6. Victoria Secret - This chatbot replies with lot of fun and not just mechanical bot answers. It is KiK based and it helps in finding the right size, various combinations, what is in these days and also helps in shopping as per your style 
    Victoria Secret Pink Bot
  7. Hotels.com - No, no, this is not just your regular service industry chatbot but a personal assistant who will challenge you to play a game and every win will be rewarded with a discount coupon or a hotel voucher. It is an FB messenger based bot and I found the concept really innovative. Extra brownie points for this one, do you agree with me? 
  8. Diageo - It offers a personal bartender which caters to all your home bar-tending needs (recipes of cocktails) with the available ingredients. It is FB messenger based app. 
  9. The Wall Street Journal - Again an FB messenger based app that provides you with top big news, analyses stock quotes, customizes the alerts at your given time, compare the quotes for you.
  10. Pizza Hut - It is FB messenger based app that takes the order, reorder basis your previous orders and provides you with current deals. Domino's also provides with all the above details and also provides the status of your order.
  11. HM - They are big on social media and also very popular with their KiK based bot. It provides you with personal stylist, helps you with outfits, shares with you current styles and inspirations for the outfits.
The other bots that I liked were Master Card, Harper Collins and Macy's. They came very early but have not innovated much in their offering.
In the above examples that I have listed, I have focused on innovation or creativity or popularity. I would like to repeat that it is not easy to train a bot because after a while queries become complicated. By bringing newness, fun and engagement in the chatbot, brands are investing a lot of time, money and resources in AI. 

I also read a beautiful statement which clearly defines and sums-up the need of chatbots in today's world - "We are living in the ‘expectation economy’ where consumers expect to have information at their fingertips, and we want to keep innovating to meet our customers where they are" Jeff Jenkins, global executive of digital strategy and marketing at Whole Foods Market.

I would love to hear your thoughts or suggestions!



18:01 2 comments
We have some fantastic updates coming from Twitter and Instagram this week, as the year is about to end. So, sharing with you, my top four picks on the 'updates that took place in 2017 in social media'.


  1. Facebook Messenger Chatbots / Other app based Chatbots: Customer's interaction with the brands has become very easy via chatbots. They are now used extensively and have been efficient in reducing the gap of timely human to human interaction. One of the example of my recent interaction was with the Starbucks chatbot, which is taking the order, informing when it is ready, the price and the payment options and then customizing the content according to preference for the next time. I don't know currently how chatbots will impact the employment rate in the future, because it does reduce the human intervention in all the processes. 
  2. Whatsapp for Businesses: Whatsapp rolled out 'Whatsapp for Businesses' this year which has now become a strong marketing tool for many organisations, especially in the service industry. Promotions, customer service, reservations/orders, direct communication with the individual customer, feedback management and many more tactics are being executed using the simple app.
  3. Twitter Threads: Twitter rolled out this feature to post bunch of connected tweets at one time. The person has to click on '+' after the first tweet to thread the second and more tweets together. It is being reffered as tweetstorm because people can now post longer tweets than Twitter’s already-extended 280-character limit. Only time will tell whether it will be easy for brands and users to communicate or will it add to more confusion?
  4. Instagram 'Follow Hashtags': As they say, save the best for the last, and this is one of the best updates from Instagram in 2017. It was very difficult to search the popular hashtags everyday, see the curated content and monitor it. With this feature, you get the content of a particular followed hashtag in your feed. With this, my trust in organic reach and engagement is restored otherwise the only way to succeed on social was the paid way! More likes, more comments but less follows on the account, is what, I foresee in future with this update. 
These features/updates/trends highlighted above really stood out for me because all of them spoke one marketing mantra - 'Keep it simple, stupid'. And, they definitely are making it very simple for brands and consumers to engage with each other.
19:47 1 comments
Do you face challenges in managing social media for your events or conferences? Is the digital marketing pie from the whole marketing mix giving you jitters during your product launch? If yes, then this blog can suggest you some pointers to make things easy.

All the marketing tactics that are used for an event is divided into three stages: pre-event, on-ground and post-event. We all are sailing in the evolved boat of marketing wherein PR, social media, digital marketing, media buying, creative & content have converged into Integrated Communications. 

These days leveraging social media for event marketing is like adding salt & pepper to your food. Therefore it is extremely important for all of us to have a ready checklist that will help us with the following: Engage - Generate Curiosity - Amplify - Promote - Convert - Monitor - Analyse




Promote your event with social media. Image source: IIP via Google Images

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein

Here is a list of things to be done & some questions to be answered before execution of the event. It will be handy for you to just check, tick and be sure that everything is under control:

Pre-Event 


  1. Mediums for outreach
    • Website - Will it be a website, landing page or a microsite
    • Social Media - What will be the platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram) 
    • App - Will my app help convert leads
    • PR - What will be the mix of traditional and online PR
  2. Content & Messaging
    • Hashtag - Is it small, easy to understand, associated with the main brand
    • Messages - What are my standard messages for promotions and consumer queries, is the press release following the same messaging
    • Creative - Are the creatives following a theme, are you resizing for all mediums,  
    • Content Type - What is the right mix of image, text and video content during promotions
  3. Partnerships
    • Sponsors & partners - Are your sponsors active on social media. Will they promote
    • Ticket booking platforms - Is your event listed out there for people to easily book
    • Bloggers & Influencers - What genre of blogger & influencer will you reach out? What is the klout
  4. Amplification
    • Have you started the online promotions
    • Is your content calendar meeting your agenda
    • Are bloggers promoting the event
    • Are sponsors supporting the promotions
    • If there is any ambassador/ celebrity associated, then is she/he promoting
    • Have you started with contests, teaser videos
    • Is your pre event coverage giving you mileage
On-ground

  1. Going Live
    • Are you doing Facebook Live
    • Are you on periscope
    • Is their a live tweeting team 
    • Are you putting up Instagram posts and stories
    • Are you putting up snapchat stories
  2. Engagement
    • Is there an on-ground contest or activation that you are promoting
    • Are you encouraging the audience so that you get UGC (user generated content)
  3. Monitoring 
    • Are you tracking your event regularly - Monitor responses, reply to audience tweets, tracking the reach and impressions, tracking the influencer tweets, traction of your tweets and influencer tweets, taking snapshots regularly
Post Event

  1. Albums, videos and coverage
    • Is the picture album uploaded on Facebook and promoted on other social channels
    • Are the videos uploaded on YouTube and promoted on all channels
    • Is your website updated with all the information of the event (pictures, videos, testimonials and next year dates if any)
    • Have you promoted the event coverage on all channels
    • Have you thanked all sponsors and attendees with specific pictures on social media
  2. Coverage
    • Are you following up with bloggers and online partners for post event coverage
    • Is your traditional coverage on track
  3. Reports
    • Detailed performance analysis - Number of posts, engagement (like, RT, share, replies), your responses, contest engagement, UGC, influencer-blogger performance and what's pending 

Also, it is essential to note down the learning from the past event so that it gets added to the checklist of your next event. 
I hope I have shared some great tips for maximizing your event marketing with social media. These are just a few ways to prepare for the next conference or an event. If you have more ideas, feel free to share the knowledge in the comments section.

06:28 8 comments
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About Me

I am a social media consultant with an experience of working with many international brands and agencies. I can help you grow your brand with social media strategies, campaign formulation and execution, content management and as I say, Everything Digital!
I love life and I document everything that life has to offer on my blog, be it travel, food, books, fragrance, movies and more. I also passionately write about digital marketing and brands.
To know more, follow me on social channels.

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