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.

5 types of social media content that will perform perfectly

Posted On December 5, 2016 By l7copro In Content Marketing, Online Marketing Tips, Social Media, Strategy /

If you manage your own social media, you’ll surely run out of ideas at some point. Of course, if you check your insights you’ll find out some posts are performing better than others, and you’ll realize some types of content are better than others. But when it comes to really crack social media, you need to renew your content at every step.

Drivers to sales will not remain always the same, and innovative content will guarantee your engagement rate powers remain up.

So here are some ideas for you to try next time:

Snapchat stories. We’ve already talked about Snapchat tactics in a previous post. Your aim should be user generated content. And how could you start working towards that objective? Filters, stickers, and of course real-time video. If you’re not already working on Snapchat, take into account maybe you’ll have an advantage being one of the first in your field to get into. According to a New york-based research firm, L2, only 70% of businesses have Snapchats accounts. Just picture your strategy and start trying. Geo-targeted filters, drawings, behind the scenes content, the blend you like the most. It’s all matter of trying in a new social media network.

GIFs. They are a fun alternative to static content. Performing very well, they’ll allow you to easily tell a story, educate your clients about anything, and add some dynamic to your brand image. You can take a look at some of the brands that are already using a .gif strategy, like https://twitter.com/trello. If you want to create your own GIFs (and that’s our suggestion) you can do it using lots of web tools, like http://giphy.com/create/gifmaker.
Infographics. Less is more. If you want to publish lots of data, you’d better don’t post just text. You know the saying: “An image is worth a thousand words”. Sometimes an image is not enough either. But you can mix them together, and you’ll get more attention. Images + text = infographics! Try canva.com to build your own.

Cinemagraphs. If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find this kind of GIFs, that will show a static image with only some part of it moving. It’s a more artistic kind of media, that will require a more experimented designer, but it’s worth the effort.
Streaming. Everyone is streaming right now! At least many, many users are, so we are positive it will work for brands too. It’s a more intimate experience and people we’ll feel they are getting exclusive content. Also, people spend more than 3x more time watching a live video compared to a traditional uploaded video. And of course, Facebook is rewarding this by prioritizing streaming on their feed. So isn’t it worth trying? Streaming via Facebook or Instagram. Try it out!

Let us hear your experience when you give a chance to these 5 types of social media content. Try – measure – and retry with something else. You know this is an ever evolving context. It would be good if you follow the wind and evolve yourself, right? No more BS!

Small Businesses That Rocked Social Media (Examples)

Posted On January 23, 2015 By JavierR In Content Marketing, Social Media /

We’ve been saying for years now that having a social media marketing strategy is essential for any business that wishes to take full advantage of the benefits of the Web. Well, guess what? Having it is not enough anymore – and it hasn’t been for a while now. Since everyone got on that wagon, for your business to truly stand out among the hundreds of thousands that populate the Internet, you’ll have to squeeze your brains. In other words, get creative on your online marketing plan or get out.

Fortunately, anyone can have a bright idea to promote a business. Want proofs? Below you’ll find 5 examples of small businesses that had THE idea and knocked the ball out of the park with their content marketing strategies. See if they can inspire you to do the same!

Maes Beer

Selling beer isn’t as easy as you might think: there’s a lot of beer companies out there that live in the shadow of the big brands. That was happening to Maes Beer when they decided to go with a totally creative idea via Facebook. What did they do? They offered a free barrel of beer to any person with the last name Maes.

Of course, people wanting the barrels had to do a little thing for the company: they had to share it with 20 friends. Now, think about it: a company offers you and your closest friends a free barrel of beer. What would you say about them? The campaign was a total success and it even drove more than 7,000 people to change their last name to Maes just to claim a barrel. Besides, the company got over 75,000 likes on Facebook and more than 500,000 visits on its Facebook page in six weeks.

What can you learn from this: your product is your best promotion. Learn how to use it – and even give it away if it’s necessary!

Uniqlo

The casual wear designer Uniqlo had created a new line of Dry mesh T-shirts and were thinking about promoting it. Of course, they wanted to make an impact on social networks and especially on Pinterest, the social network of choice for clothing companies. They knew, however, that grabbing the pinners’ attention isn’t an easy feat: they jump from image to image almost aimlessly and without stopping.

So, Uniqlo marketers felt that they had to come up with an idea to increase the chances of pinners finding their new clothes. To do so, about 100 users started pinning images with the new line in a simultaneous fashion. Thus, users logged on at that time started seeing how their streams were hijacked by Uniqlo’s T-shirts and their wide variety of colors. When they scrolled, they saw a dance of tones that were really eye-catching. Pinners were fascinated and Uniqlo reached 55 million impressions and more than 6,000 mentions on Twitter without spending a single extra dime.

What can you learn from this: first and foremost, you should focus your main effort on the favorite social network of your target audience. Second, that knowing what to post and when to post it might prove enough to make a difference.

Airbnb

Many marketers still remember Airbnb’s short film “Hollywood and Vines” as an amazing hit by the rental company. Why? Because they took advantage of the recently-introduced Vine, a new social network that had a buzz of its own to make the company name go from mouth to mouth. How did they do it? By using Vine’s ability to share six second videos to create a full short film of about five minutes.

The company asked for help on Twitter to complete the project. Users had to submit their 6-second videos to the company following an strict list of pre given shots. Of all the submissions they got, Airnbnb picked 100 and their creators got $100 for their collaboration. The result wasn’t just interesting in and by itself: it garnered users and media attention for being the first short film directed via Twitter. Besides, it helped in demonstrating Vine’s creative capabilities and (more importantly) helped the company gain a wide recognition.

What can you learn from this: don’t close the door on the possibility to try new things. Just keep your eyes open to identify potential opportunities for your creative output. An interesting work can really go a long way – and take your business name with it.

Body Form

Body Form had it all worked out. It had the perfect social media marketing strategy and it was sticking to it. But when a disappointed Richard Neil commented on their Facebook page that he was angry at the company for lying to him about “that wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things like bike riding, rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, blue water’ and wings”, the strategy had to be slightly corrected.

Rather than feeling discouraged, Body Form seized the opportunity to use Richard’s joke to release a video response to the comment. Since Neil’s comment was being commented and discussed to begin with, the video went viral in a blink and got more than 5 million views – and the company earned some free publicity that came out of the blue skies.

What can you learn from this: it’s perfect to have a marketing plan but feel free to step out of your way to adjust it as you go. There will be some opportunities down the road you didn’t consider in the first place: be sure to stay focused to identify and take advantage of them.

SmartBear

Software company SmartBear wanted to do something different to advertise their development tools. Rather than just creating a video or ad, they started a little game called “Where’s Dain”, the company’s version of “Where’s Waldo” in which one of its developers took the role of Waldo. Then, they hid Dain in various spots throughout the company’s official site and invited visitors to find and click on him.

Once visitors did that, a Twitter prompt appeared inviting them to join a contest for a T-Shirt by tweeting a message with the company’s Twitter user and a special hashtag. Of course, this shoot SmartBear’s mentions through the roof and increased the site’s traffic by more than a 120%, making the campaign a clear success for its creators.

What can you learn from this: invite visitors to participate in new and fun activities and make sure to include some sort of message that can be viralized. If people are engaged with the activity you’re offering, they’ll likely share the message and your brand will see a significant recognition boost.

Have more stories about social marketing successes? Have you ever tried a campaign like this? Join us on Facebook and Twitter and tell us!