Facts about Instagram. What you should already know in 2017.

Posted On January 27, 2017 By l7copro In Content Marketing, Social Media /

When a brand contacts an advertising agency to start doing some work on social media, they almost always want to have a presence on Facebook and Instagram. Then, they’ll analyze if being on Snapchat is worth it or not. But Instagram is definitely on the scene, for sure. That’s because brands know it’s kind of a big deal due to its super high engagement rate. Of course, that level of engagement is only reserved for brands that actually know what they are doing. Aren’t sure you are one of them? Here’s a little piece of advice for you to crack it down.

Hacks to crack Instagram in 2017

Always keep in mind your brand identity and concept. As in any other social media platform, your brand spirit should be your bible. Based on your communication strategy, decide what concepts are you going to spread this month, and then work on your creativity and your pictures.

Instagram is not for crappy pictures. Bad ones won’t even stand a chance, they’ll be ignored. Work on your composition, on the structure, and on your color palette. Try innovative formats like triptychs.

Hashtags should be relevant. There are people who use tons of hashtags with no meaning or common sense at all. You can try several hashtags to see which of them are suggested by Instagram for achieving a higher reach.

As we said before, crappy pictures are not allowed if you want to succeed. So quality matters a lot. Trying to make your pictures more appealing by using filters or frames is easy if you use apps like Afterlight, that provides you with more options than Instagram.

Posts should be regular. It’s not going to be effective if you post just once in a while, or when you feel inspired enough. You should work on your calendar to cover at least 3 times a week.

Get out of your box. Forget about the old advertising way, when you just showed your products and models using them. Content should be relevant and likely to be shared by your followers. Quotes, drawings, videos, and gifs are more than welcome.

Follow your followers. If you want your followers to be engaged, you should be engaged too. Follow some of your followers, perform searches, like, comment and share what’s matching your brand identity and your followers’ interests.

Of course, inspiration and focused creativity are a must to Instagram. When you have a lack of those, just browse a little bit through your favorite brands and competitors, to open your mind and take note of some great successful ideas.

The different levels of online communication. Creating your own maze at a new Westworld.

Posted On January 24, 2017 By l7copro In Content Marketing, Online Marketing Tips, Social Media, Strategy /

Robert Ford creates this strange fictional world when people can do anything at all, with no judgments, and no law. Finding who we really are is the objective. And Westworld allows people to solve their maze in life. This also happens in the real world. It happens to you, to us, to everybody. We are all looking to find our path. But what happens when we live more in the online world than in the real one? At Lis7o, we think everybody starts walking through their online maze too. So creating different online mazes for different targets must be the key to making content relevant and engaging nowadays, right?

When the mysterious man dressed in black wants to find the maze, he tries to go deeper in the Westworld game. Well, in our world we don’t really have to because we are already swimming in the game. The game is all around us. It’s like a matrix, but a real one. And we are all blinded, searching the internet and the networks for our true meaning.

Just a few are searching for their way out, but they continue to fall in the same matrix all over again. Our lives pass by day after day navigating on social media, collecting likes, and giving away all of our personal data and our private moments, and so on. So, why won’t brands take advantage of it?

The new communications paraphernalia opens a lot of opportunities for creating mazes in different channels. A Facebook maze, an Instagram maze, a Snapchat maze, and so on. And of course, they should all be interconnected. Social media is substituting real life, so the digital experience should be that real. We need to become the masters of the game, we have to play our role of creative directors of this Westworld, like Anthony Hopkins’ character does.

So what does all of this mean? How do we become the masters of this game? There are at least two levels in online communications. If you just publish content but you don’t have a real strategy you’re playing on the first level. If you assign a more profound meaning to online communications, creating a “real life experience” for your clients, then you’ve solved your own maze.

You’ll have an army of content managers, online strategists, and marketers available to fight, but you’ll have to keep them up to date and trending, or the story will be old and nonsense and nobody will want to play with your brand anymore. They’ll just choose another story, another maze.

Create appealing and compelling stories that engage your customers like if they were in real life, get real life insights and work on them until you’ve turned them into an online experience. Sometimes, like Dolores, we’ll have some blanks, but nevermind, on the next day, we’ll continue to play again the same game, with a happy smile on our faces.

As William once said: “this world is exactly like the one outside. A game, one to be fought, taken, won.”

5 keys to success with content marketing: the power of a good story.

Posted On January 20, 2017 By l7copro In Content Marketing, Online Marketing Tips, SEO, Social Media, Strategy /

Surely you’d prefer to follow a story, rather than the same classic advertising email marketing or “call now” ad. At least, we do. That’s the main reason why content continuum is the key to acquiring some marketplace advantages. And what if that content is generated just by a regular user like you? The power of a good story is so much stronger than any other traditional content. Great content with which the reader can connect is even better than the generic one generated by brands. If you can achieve that, you’re all set up.

Compelling stories told by great brands serve both readers and marketing departments. If you read about content marketing you’ll find out that the 5 keys to success are the following ones.

The 5 keys to content marketing success

Relevant and useful content, easy to share and deploy across social channels, email marketing, blogs, etc. Your strategy should be 360°, a holistic way is required.
Customer-centric personalized content. Personalization will make your audience feel they’re being valued by your brand, and to get an experience that will not equal any other content at all, ever. At least if you do it well!
User-generated content. We talked about this previously. If you see a friend of yours, or a friend of a friend, or even someone to whom you will likely feel identified, you’ll be more impacted than with any other content.
Effective trending publishing techniques. That means you have to consider what’s positioning better for each channel in which you’re sharing your content. For instance, videos and streaming perform better on Facebook and Instagram. Same happens with a gif format. New innovative formats are also welcome, like triptychs on Instagram (content that is divided between three pictures and posted individually, getting as a result just one complex image).
Content should be continuous. We talked about a continuum because you have to build a relationship with your clients. If you stop talking to them, they’ll forget about you, or worse, they’ll feel betrayed.

A good content strategy will also help you in many other aspects, like performing better on SEO, in order to gain more traffic and better position on Google or to reach more new prospects. We’ve seen statistics that talk about content generation as the most successful strategy to improve SEO (57% of the brands that took the survey).
The goal is engaging your consumers so badly that they’ll be looking forward to hearing from your brand, not as much as from their friends, but at least more than from your competitors. It’s all about taking care of the digital experience they’ll get, that finally will be far more important than the product itself, or even its price.

Small Businesses That Rocked Content Marketing (Examples)

Posted On February 11, 2015 By JavierR In Content Marketing /

When content marketing made its appearance on the marketing world a few years back, many marketers were in disbelief. Dumping traditional ads for content? Just content? That didn’t seem right by marketing standards. Yet here we are, years later and with content marketing stronger than ever. Businesses started to realize that content was indeed a powerful way to lure some new customers and establish a relationship within the ever-changing scenery of the Internet.

In a few months, everyone got on board. And so should you, if you haven’t already. Having an online marketing plan with a proper content marketing strategy can really make a difference for you. It doesn’t matter if you just own a local business or are just starting with one: the perfect content marketing strategy can get results regardless of your size. Here are 5 examples to prove it and, while we’re at it, to inspire you with your own plan.

Tourism Australia

The goal of this organization is pretty straightforward: to get people to visit Australia. Its strategy to do so was to allow its fans to create their own content, more specifically images of beautiful Australia. The strategy really worked since people felt involved and engaged with the site’s purpose. Tourism Australia also had an explosive growth on all of its social media sites.

What can you learn from this: engage with your audience, give them spaces to express themselves. By providing them with the possibility to create their own content, they’ll suddenly become ambassadors of your brand.

Equinox

Equinox’s slogan reads “It’s not fitness, it’s life” and that’s pretty much the approach the fitness company got to content marketing. In other words, they don’t try to sell you the idea of fitness but rather promote it by showing the benefits it can have in your life. Thus, you can be inspired by their videos and articles to finally start exercising . When you do, the company will already be there for you. With this content marketing strategy, they seek to encourage people to live better lives.

What can you learn from this: help your target audience with what you know – what you’re offering. But don’t lecture them in the benefits of your products. Inspire them to make changes in their lives and instruct them in how to do so. Then, you’ll get loyal followers, which will be easier to turn into customers. Equinox’s is a lesson in subtle marketing.

Sweetgreen

Sweetgreen is a restaurant chain that focuses on organic cuisine. But what they do goes well beyond promotion – they market a way to live. Much like Equinox, what Sweetgreen does is promote certain values regarding healthy eating and living. And while doing so, they always maintain they brand identity. The company promotes that lifestyle through its own app, its community section and even through events in local communities. The idea behind this is to associate the brand with positive actions while, you know, making something good for the people.

What can you learn from this: Complete your online marketing efforts by going offline. A good content marketing strategy can prepare the terrain for you to reach out to your audience through other channels. Offline events like Sweetgreen’s allows the company to meet their target audience and learn more from them as well as getting new leads the old way – face to face.

Zady

Under the Zady name there’s a business that sells green-made apparel, accessories and home products. Since production is such an important part of the whole company’s appeal, Zady understood that it could benefit from making it more transparent. Thus, each product they offer is accompanied by the manufacturer’s background: location, production and eco-friendly processes involved. This serves a double purpose. First, to show customers that all the companies that work with Zady care about the environment. Second, that marketing like this adds a personal touch with which people can connect.

What can you learn from this: don’t hide yourself. Show your customers and potential clients that there’s real people behind your brand, persons with which they can relate since they share the same passion and interests. Social media is perfect to do that.

Man of the house

You can argue that Procter and Gamble isn’t really a small business and you’d be right. But this blog made it to this list since the company was able to build it from scratch and find the perfect audience for it. How did they do it? By addressing a very specific target audience: fathers. Sharing tailor-made content that helped them with their everyday challenges was key to the blog’s success. P&G, however, decided to take down the site after some time. The reason? They felt the blog didn’t do much to promote the brand.

What can you learn from this: two things. First, that there’s no target audience specific enough not to address it. The Internet is a big thing and there are lots of people competing for the same audiences. Make sure you identify yours in the most specific way and talk to it exclusively. Second, study your content marketing strategy in detail before putting your effort in it. You certainly don’t want to end up like P&G: having a successful content that doesn’t translate into new customers.

There are many other stories about small businesses that rocked the content marketing world and from which you can take some pages. But the lesson here isn’t that you should copy what other brands are doing. You should understand that your best strategy is to be creative with what you have and what you know. If you put that two together, you’ll certainly have a winning online marketing plan.

10 Low-Budget Marketing Ideas For Your Small Business

Posted On January 30, 2015 By JavierR In Content Marketing, Online Marketing Tips, Social Media, Strategy /

When talking about successful marketing strategies, many people believe that you have to go all-in to really make a difference for a business. Well, that might be the case for big companies competing with each other, but for small businesses with a tighter budget, that’s never an alternative. In fact, most of the times that’s not even necessary.

With the right content marketing strategy, any small business can certainly stand out without spending all of its money on online marketing. Wanna know how to do it? Read on for our 10 best ideas for your needs!

Online marketing for small businesses tips

1 – Create and share interesting content

Saying this in the golden age of content marketing might seem redundant but it’s always worth to remember it. Why? Because creating attractive blog posts, images, videos and infographic for your targeted audience works as the best advertising in the Internet age. People loving your content will always come back for more and will start acknowledging your brand as trustful, useful and – most importantly – as a referent in its field.

2 – Pay the right price for creative talent – or do it yourself!

Freelancers are a great asset – when their fees are reasonable for your budget. Don’t overpay for professionals or consultants to get the proper job done. Just research your area and find the creative talent that suits both your needs and your budget. You don’t have to hire the best photographer, writer or consultant to achieve the perfect work for your company.

Want a better alternative? Do it in-house! If you have some writing and photo skills or some marketing knowledge, then there are tons of tasks you can do yourself. The rule that you should apply here is: if you can do it, then do it and save the money to hire someone when you really need it.

3 – Turn yourself into a social networking expert

Having great content (AKA having something interesting to say) is just the first step in your low-budget online marketing scheme. After that, you have to get it out there to make some noise. And is there a noisier channel than social networks? Everyone uses at least one of them multiple times a day, so your business definitely has to be there in order to find its audience.

The positive side? Chances are you already know how to use most of them, so you won’t have a problem in developing a publication schedule. The downside? There are too many of them: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, Pinterest, Instagram, Vine and even Reddit are among the most popular. Which one should you choose? You’ll have to find out according to your specific needs and your targeted audience. One thing is sure: don’t divide your efforts but rather focus on two alternatives that suit you the most.

4 – Tempt your potential customers with contests and discounts

Hosting a contest with an appealing prize is one of the oldest tricks in the book but it still is as effective as ever. If you pick the proper prize, participants will start pouring in and it’ll be just a matter of time before you start getting new leads. Just select a digital contest platform and you’re ready to go! Discounts on some of your products are also amazing at generating leads, although it might attract people that will only stay for the discounts. Be that as it may, consider both options to get the word going around about your business.

5 – Don’t throw something away just because

Many companies often redo their images, marketing strategies and ads just to stay modern in the public’s eye. That’s not bad for huge companies but for small business like yours this is just not necessary – it can be really harmful for your budget. Hence the suggestion: you don’t have to abandon the things that have worked for you just to try something new. This applies to practically anything related to online marketing, from blog posts to digital ads. So, recycle the things that have worked in the past and only change or update them when people show clear signs of disinterest.

6 – Don’t forget about traditional marketing channels

And by that we mean e-mail campaigns. Many marketing gurus and experts love to refer to e-mail marketing as an outdated so-2000 kind of marketing. But reality shows that e-mails are as effective as they ever were. They can keep you in touch with your existing customers by updating them on your new offers, products and discounts.

Additionally, encourage new visitors to subscribe to your newsletter – offer them an exclusive content, for instance. In that way, you’ll open a door to potential clients. Just be sure to get in touch with them fairly regularly but not intrusively and with enough charm to interest them in what you have to offer. Make them feel interested in what you have to say and ultimately in what you’re selling.

The same we’ve said here can be applied to other forms of traditional marketing channels, such as print ads and brochures. Just be sure that the channel you decide to use for your business is the most appropriate and a perfect fit for your budget.

Local marketing ideas for small businesses

Although your business can thrive exclusively on the Web and forget about the offline world, combining the strategies mentioned above with an offline plan can certainly make a difference, especially for small businesses.

7 – Team up with other small businesses

We know that getting noticed is pretty hard, especially with big companies garnering all the attention with their huge ads and multimillionaire marketing campaigns. That’s why partnering with other businesses can be such a good option. Combining efforts can result in joint campaigns that can be beneficial for both businesses.

For instance, you can team up with other store and make its customers a special and exclusive offer. Thus, your partner has something extra to give to its clients while you’ll get free advertising among people that might haven’t heard from your company otherwise.

8 – Work on your business’ image

Another aspect you have to take care of is the image your business will show to its potential clients. This is very important so make sure you don’t overlook it. However, you don’t have to overdo it to get perfect results. To achieve that, you’ll have to use your creativity over the big bucks. This means that you won’t have to spend tons of cash in print ads or expensive business cards but rather go with a more affordable an creative choice.

The concept of guerrilla marketing can certainly help you out here. Use your city as your canvas and play with its public spaces to get a cheap ad in an unusual place that will make people turn their heads. If your campaign is innovative enough, you won’t have to pay much for it: your imagination will be the one that gets the attention, not your fancy pricey ads.

9 – Walk the less travelled road

Although studying your closest competitors to see what they’re up to and get new ideas is a great advise, remember that’s pretty important to differentiate yourself as well. So, although analyzing your competition might indicate that certain type of advertising is perfect for the business, you can always try the less travelled road. Once again, think in guerrilla marketing or even in online channels that haven’t been used by your competitors.

Since you know your business better than anyone, you’ll have to decide for yourself when it’s time to follow the herd and when it’s safe to walk alone. If you choose wisely, your potential clients will surely be seduced whenever you decide to break the mold and do something innovative. Of course, also keep in mind that innovation doesn’t mean expensive, so follow your wild ideas as long as they don’t break your business down.

10 – Host an event

Want people to learn where your store is located? Host an event! You can arrange a public class, a brief seminar or a small conference or talk. Just be sure to open your doors for anyone interested and to print enough flyers to hand out around the city. Additionally, dress the store up for the occasion with some charming decorations. Finally, you can give away some little inexpensive reminder with your business name on it, like a balloon.

The idea is for you to introduce your business to everyone that attends and to let them know you exist! Of course, we surely don’t have to remind you to display your products in the best possible manner, since you’re doing all this to show them to your potential clients.

These are just 10 of the many tips we here at L7sto can offer your business. Want to know more? Then make sure you like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to learn the latest on how to take your business to a whole new level!