Social Media

How to find the best social media agency for your business

You’ve allocated the budget for your social media marketing strategy.

You’ve convinced the CEO that it is essential for growth.

You’ve set key metrics for success.

Now what?

From signposting potential customers to your website, amplifying your brand’s messaging and raising awareness of your products and services, social media has become more than ever before an essential part of any brand’s marketing strategy.

So how do you choose the social media agency that’s right for you?

We’ve been driving brands to reach their desired audience for nearly a decade, and in doing so have come up with a recipe of successful ingredients when appointing the perfect social media agency.

Find a specialist senior leadership team that cares

Social media requires time and experience to plan and grow. You don’t want a team that’s inexperienced, new to the industry, or not up on the latest trends.

Our Senior Leadership team knows our brands and their business inside out.

We’ve been agents of growth from when we were a small team in 2012 to now, when we are proudly one of the fastest growing ad-tech companies in Europe.

Each of our Senior Leaders specialises in one of our four divisions; Community Management, Creative, Paid Social and our specialist ATOM technology.

We’re always here to talk to our clients, whether it’s over the phone, via email and of course face-to-face; establishing a rapport provides a good foundation for any agency/client relationship.

Culture is key

A happy, motivated team means great work and satisfied clients. You want to make sure to find a team that loves what they do, demands the highest standards from themselves and lives and breathes social media.

Our company culture is a big part of why we’re as successful as we are.  As we’ve grown as a business, replicating our highly dynamic start-up culture on a larger scale has meant maintaining our original traditions.

We recognise birthdays, anniversaries and significant milestones in our team members’ lives. We also prioritise get-togethers, team events, away days and team building activities.

Industry leaders

Social media is fast paced, reactive and provokes strong reactions. Finding an agency that understands this is essential to cutting through the noise and a crowded marketplace.

How do we stay ahead?

We regularly attend industry events and host workshops to share, educate and put the agency:2 stance on everything we do.

From live television interviews, to hosting talks at Social Media Week, we deliver thoughtful experiences with confidence, making us leaders in the social sphere.

Our comprehensive blog is up on all the trends and a great source of information within the industry.

The secret sauce to our success

It’s simple. We are committed to our clients. Finding an agency that cares is the first step towards success.

Delivering results is at the heart of everything we do and, ultimately, what we’re judged on. As a leading social media agency, we are experts at creating highly effective campaigns which deliver ROI.

Client testimonials, case studies and awards are good indicators as to whether an agency can deliver what they promise. We thrive on hearing feedback and implementing learnings to optimise future campaigns and build on what we know. This is why we’ve won the FT 1000 Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2019 award.

If you want to find out how to take your social offering to the next level, contact us at agency:2 on 0203 598 9194.

Running winning influencer campaigns

Influencer marketing has gotten bigger than ever, with an estimated value of around $5 billion worldwide as well as gaining a fundamental role in defining the power of social media, especially in terms of conversion and PPC.

Brands and companies of any size are choosing to invest more and more budget towards influencer campaigns, as they recognise the quality of the customers they attract and the actual results in terms of ROI. Research indicates that around 54% of marketers plan on spending more than $250,000 per year on influencer marketing – astounding figures that show huge growth and huge potential.

With its rapid and constant growth, influencer marketing is an opportunity you can’t miss; however it can be extremely daunting to navigate. Here’s our list of factors to consider before implementing a successful campaign.

Fix your objectives 

It is important to set your campaign objectives prior to starting. Influencer campaigns can seem very promising but they’re not always the right strategy for a brand, as they depend on what product is being promoted and what audience you are planning to reach.

First, have a discussion with your client to set realistic goals and see what can be achieved. Involve them in the project and pay attention to what they are looking for. This will help you not only define the limits of the campaign itself (and to understand what’s in your power) but also understand what type of content you are looking for, from the influencers and the platforms that are best for your campaign.

 

Don’t compromise authenticity over complete control

It’s true, paid partnerships with high-quality influencers can guarantee control over influencers’ content as well as gain higher reach and engagement but…reaching larger communities doesn’t necessarily mean that they will all be interested in your products.

Micro-influencers are a great alternative if you are aiming for high levels of engagement and if you want to connect with users that could turn into buyers. Their communities are smaller but tend to have similar interests to your buyers, so there’s a higher chance that the message you are trying to get across will be received by more people.

Micro-influencers generally are considered to be more genuine and authentic, and brands should embrace their great potential for a real edge over the competition.

 

Verify the audience

Fake followers are one of the biggest issues for an influencer campaign, because they lead to poor results and bad ROI. Before starting your collaboration with influencers, analyse their audience. At the same time, you will get many essential insights about engagement rate, their audience age range and locations (useful if your campaigns are location-sensitive), and are more likely to avoid poor results.

Purchased followers is another big problem to look out for: they present themselves as normal followers and generate just as much engagement as the real ones, with the main problem being they don’t actually convert into buyers.

Influencers use fake or purchased followers to increase their communities and therefore obtain more paid collaborations, but this vicious circle can be stopped using the right influencer platforms that help you analyse their audiences and find the best fit for your campaigns.

 

Follow the rules

Remember that a paid partnership still needs to be considered as a type of advertisement and therefore is ruled by specific requirements that can differ depending on the country. Make sure you build disclosure guidelines into your agreements with the influencers and obtain legal advice for your agreements.

 

Our winning influencer campaigns

Here at agency:2 we’re influencer marketing enthusiasts! Our collaborations with  Moroccanoil for example, and many other global brands have helped us build customised workflow processes that start with research and analysis and end with great results!

Our influencer campaigns are paired with our award-winning ATOM technology, which collects engaged audiences and maximises further drive impact and ROI via a second phase media activation.

If you’re interested in our influencer marketing services or you want to know more about our campaigns

Nail your event social media coverage in 4 easy steps

So you’ve spent months planning your brand’s attendance at a trade or consumer show or your festival might be in its inaugural year and failure is not an option. All the key parts are in place, hotels are booked, travel is organised, staff are briefed and ready to go, excitement is in the air and you can’t wait to get started.

But have you thought about how you will promote your event whilst it’s happening? A wise line manager of mine once said regarding event planning that “the coverage you get from the event is as, if not MORE important than the event itself.”

Social media, in this day and age provides you with the perfect opportunity to spread your message from the event, promote your brand and show how your business is interacting with the public or other brands.

It opens up possibilities to break down the fourth wall between you and the end user even further, adding a candid and extremely engaging look behind the scenes – providing of course you have a solid plan in place.

In this blog I will aim to give you four simple steps to absolutely nail your event coverage on social.

Steps

PLANNING

Of course, nothing can replicate the type of content that just happens spontaneously, you’ll always want to be ready and waiting ready to capture the perfect moment when a celebrity turns up to your stand or the completely unexpected happens. But nothing is more important for a successful social event calendar than planning. Consider these points, weeks, if not right at the beginning of the planning stages: • What type of event is it your attending? Are the public going? If so, should you think about talking to them directly to get feedback that you can share on social? Is it a B2B event that you’re using to show off a new product or service? If so, how are you showcasing it? How can your social content benefit from your display?

• Promote your attendance on social way ahead of time. You can create Facebook event pages for this or simply use your main feed.

• Establish some KPIs for the event. What does success look like? Knowing this beforehand will enable you to tailor your content towards specific goals.

CONTENT

• Establish an event hashtag for yourself. The show you’re attending should have their own which you’ll want to use of course, but establishing a hashtag for your brand at the event will add consistency to your posts as well as make it easy to track content and analyse it later.

• Ask your fans what they want to see in your introduction post from the event. This way you can ensure all future content is tailored to suit your audience.

• Photography – if you are not in a position to hire a professional photographer, plan to have someone there whose sole job it is to take photos. An iPhone or other smartphones capture superb images these days and having somebody who’s main responsibility it is to capture all the events will ensure you will have enough content to share on your channels and takes the stress away from yourself or anyone else that is just too busy with other things.

• Video – nothing is more engaging on social media at the moment than video. If at all possible hire a videographer for your event to produce a highlight video at the end of each day to show your fans what you’ve been up to. Or if this isn’t possible, again, an iPhone or other smartphones are fantastic at this, and even have simple easy to use apps meaning you can edit content and upload directly to your social channels.

• A rough content calendar. Live events are, by their very nature spontaneous, you won’t be able to plan every single post. There are however lots you can plan to capture well in advance. For example, a photo of your team at the event, standing in front of your stand, or simply a photo of the stand itself. Think about your copy at this point and perhaps pre-write it meaning you can simply copy and paste it into Instagram later. “Hello and welcome to [INSERT EVENT NAME] here. Join us over the coming days for all the action from!” Other content could include a product reveal – again writing copy ahead of time will cut down on the amount of work later. Or why not plan a little further and broadcast over Facebook or Instagram LIVE? Create a shot list of photos you’ll want to share and tick them off one by one.

• Encourage your visitors to your event to engage with you on social. This could be a photo competition to win one of your products? Or simply uploading a post with your hashtag for a chance to be picked at random to win a prize. Litter your stand with your hashtag and Social Media handles and make sure everyone working the stand is aware of them and pushes people towards your pages.

EXECUTION

• Will you have an office space at the event to act as a base from which you can schedule your social content and respond to fans who are engaging with you? Our experience has shown that often (depending on the style of event) enough visual assets can be gathered on day 1, meaning that you can curate this and schedule posts for the rest of the duration, leaving you free to focus your energy on other things.

• Frequency. Twitter and Instagram stories enable you to communicate with your fans on a very regular basis. You can essentially upload as much content as you wish, in a very candid and engaging fashion. We would recommend however no more than 2-3 posts per day on Facebook and no more that 4-5 posts on your main Instagram feed.

• Moderation and community interaction. With any luck your fans will be engaging with your content, they may be asking for more information about the event’s location etc so it’s important to be on hand to answer their questions. Analysis

ANALYSIS

• Once the dust has settled, it’s often the case that a wash up meeting will take place to discuss what worked and what didn’t. From a social point of view, you can come armed with insights on the content ready to share. This could be total engagement numbers and impressions numbers. This could be URL clicks to your newly announced product page or how many people entered your competition. Year on year analysis (if this isn’t the first time you attended or held the event) will enable to assess the successes.

• Analysing your content and establishing key learnings will greatly help the planning for the next one.

Obviously the type of social media content you put out will very much depend on the event you’re attending of holding. Everything from the post frequency, to the tone of voice of the posts are impacted. However these steps should make the process a little less daunting and are steps we follow each time we produce social media content for clients from events.

At agency:2 our team of community managers can help take the stress of worrying about the social media side of your event before, during and afterwards.

As well as the above, the benefits of having an agency covering an event are numerous. When we work with our clients on events coverage we:

● Ask them to let us know the key VIPs beforehand so that we never miss a photo opportunity

● Provide a briefing document for their teams on the day – so everyone knows what's happening

● Create twitter moments – to create a long lasting shareable content

● Tag key influencers and encourage them to engage with our posts – increasing reach for our clients

● Handle everything from the planning of content, to the uploading and scheduling, moderation and analysis

● Use intelligent audience targeting to ensure the right people are seeing paid for content from the event

● Give them peace of mind that everything is taken care of and under control in terms of the social media coverage, leaving them free to concentrate on running the event

 

By Alistair Reid, Social Media Account Manager, agency:2

FT Award Winner: Fastest Growing Social Media Specialist

We’re thrilled to announce the Financial Times has ranked us in the prestigious FT 1000: Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies 2019. What an exciting start to the year! First, we won the Red Herring Award for the second year in a row and now we’ve been ranked as the UK’s Fastest Growing Social Media Specialist.

The FT 1000 recognises innovative and fast-growing companies as the driving force of the European economy in the 21st century, and focuses on their achievements. We are proud to be ranked amongst such illustrious businesses.

We’d like to thank our clients and teams for their help in driving our incredible company growth.

 

Maximise Instagram trends for your social media campaigns

How to maximise Instagram trends for your social media campaigns

It’s been a great year for Instagram with some exciting new features and updates which not only help to make the platform even more exciting for users, but offer huge opportunity for digital marketers.

Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to reach your audience on Instagram as we start planning 2019.

Insta Stories

Insta Stories has been a huge success for Instagram, and as its daily user-base has grown by 150 million in the last year, it should definitely form part of your Instagram marketing strategy.

 

Why is using Instagram Stories beneficial?

• Increases engagement and your brand’s profile
• Generates buzz around campaigns
• Drives traffic to your websites as links can be added to the Instagram story by using “see more” or “swipe up” (available for business accounts with 10k+ followers)
• Using stories on Instagram is an actionable way to step away from the “on brand” feed and add personality to your profile

 

Insta Stories Highlights

Another great feature to concentrate on in the months ahead is Insta Stories Highlights, which allows users to create a permanent home to show off their ephemeral content without posting to the main feed.

It’s easy to create and edit a highlight, so it can be easily accessed by followers.

You can add up to 100 photos or videos to a story highlight. It makes the process of seeing what a brand has to offer much easier as all your content can be compartmentalised into the different services you offer as a whole.

 

How to make the most out of Insta Stories Highlights

Here’s some things you can do:

• List services/products you offer
• Highlight behind the scene type exclusives
• Share your achievements
• Announce events
• Collect user generated content to gain customers’ trust

 

With Stories Highlights, content is more organised, simpler and faster to navigate through.

 

Insta Stories Ads

With 400 million people watching Instagram Stories every single day, and the cost of Facebook advertising increasing, Instagram Story ads are the cheaper, more innovative way of advertising your products to a larger reach as we move into 2019.

With its full-screen, vertical format, businesses can share photos and videos that submerse followers in their content.

With the ability to target your ads by reach, video views, traffic, conversions, app installs and brand awareness, there’s real potential to drive business results.

 

Insta Stories Shoppable Stickers

The new shoppable stickers for Instagram Stories mean businesses can tag physical products from their e-commerce platform.

When users click on an item in a post, they’re able to view the item name, price, and description.

Shoppable Instagram Stories stickers can be placed on both images and videos, so it’s a great way to offer product information without coming across like you are constantly trying to push a product on your followers.

The great news is that you don’t need to be verified or have 10,000 followers to use them!

 

Micro Influencers

Influencer marketing continues to boom as brands collaborate with opinion leaders to enter an already-established community to promote their product. Micro-influencers have become a new trend on Instagram.

It’s proven that micro-influencers, who have a media following of anywhere between 1,000 and 30,000, drive more significant engagement than influencers with a larger following.

 

Why collaborating with micro-influencers is beneficial

Collaborating with micro-influencers allows you to save on promotion as their rates are lower.

You can expect a higher average engagement rate and also establish contact with them in order develop a longer term relationship and collaborate in the future.

 

Instagram TV

IGTV is a new Instagram feature and app for sharing and viewing video in a vertical and full screen format. It offers the potential to create hour-long episodes of a long-term series, or to use Instagram TV as an extension of your standard Instagram profile.

Play-Doh has used IGTV to great effect with its series, “The Play-Doh Show”, which brings creative, colourful fun to life. While the series likely has kids fighting over their parents’ phones, it’s fun for all ages and you can do it too! Instagram provides a wealth of opportunity to reach current and new audiences in exciting and engaging ways. Definitely not a platform to be ignored when planning your 2019 marketing strategy!

 

If you want to find out how to take your social media offering to the next level, contact us at agency:2 on 0203 598 9194.

How to maximise your influencer marketing activity

Why do you need to work with influencers?

For brands, influencers are key to building brand awareness and credibility, and earned media – the content which is created by the influencers, not by the brand or promoted by the brand – is one of the most powerful assets for a business.

Done right, influencer marketing quickly builds trust and enriches your content strategy, effectively reaching your target audience and driving engagement and sales.

The figures speak for themselves.

92% of consumers trust recommendations from others and 49% of consumers rely on influencers for purchase recommendations.

Earned media generates powerful and valuable conversations that can really benefit brands.

 

Know your audience

You need to find the right influencers to work with according to your audience. This shouldn’t just be based on the influencers themselves or your marketing strategy, but on your audience insights and demographics.

The knowledge you have about each person in your audience is crucial in picking the right influencers to work with.

The capacity we at agency:2 have to target the right audience and the right influencers is a real benefit and our recruitment process balances these two areas.

Our Campaign Audience Insight Reports allow us to understand the most valued audience segments with our audience builder technology, the ATOM, which collects insights from your audience’s most valuable interactions.

These rich insights allow us to build ongoing relationships with the influencers and track campaign effectiveness. Our extensive reports mean you can measure business impact and ROI through key performance metrics.

 

Choose the right level of influencer for your audience

 Rather than simply relying on the word of mouth effect, in the last few years brands have begun to qualify their consumers, viewing them as influencers and trying to work with the micro and ‘magic middle’ influencers instead of the A list.

Brands have recognised the power consumers themselves have to influence other consumers on social media. Their mission is to turn their consumers into brand advocates.

 

Engage with your influencers regularly

Focus on getting to know your influencers and pay attention to their work and to the content they create.

The best way to build long-term relationships with influencers is to work with them on an ongoing basis. This demonstrates the brand’s commitment to them.

Ideally, move from a 6 week campaign to a 12 month programme to drive quality content and recommendations and make sure that in-between campaigns you maintain contact with the influencer. Nurturing relationships with your chosen influencers is key.

 

Take a long-term view

Many companies that invest in influencer marketing campaigns do so on a ‘per campaign’ basis rather than working with influencers on a monthly or retainer basis.

However, we advise working with influencers on a longer-term basis.

For example, we may work with 250 mums with children between 2 and 5 years of age with specific criteria to promote a cereal. We’ll work with them to create perhaps thousands of posts, videos and recommendations, but when the campaign finishes we don’t stop the relationship there, as we realise to do so would be to stifle the impact of all that earned media.

If you’re working with a micro influencer without a paid relationship, it makes sense to continue working with them in the long term because their advocacy is very powerful. Understandably though, when working with paid influencers it may make more financial sense for you work with them per campaign.

We tend to focus on the micro and middle magic influencers – normal people that have power to influence others, this is where trust factor lies.

Our technology allows us to work with a lot of micro and magic middle influencers at the same time in order to reach more people.

Don’t be sucked in to the allure of working with the A List – you may get higher reach but engagement will be lower. The opposite is true when working with micro and magic middle influencers. They’re perceived to be more genuine and authentic, which makes all the difference when you’re presenting a new product or trying to convert sales.

 

Repurposing your earned media content

 Repurposing is key to maximising your earned media content.

At a minimum you can re-post influencer content on your social media channels but why not go a step further and create a section of your website to house the content influencers have created for you?

Many brands use their earned media content for TV, print, or social media ads too.

The opportunities are endless.

 

Taking the best approach for your brand- integrated versus specialist agency

There are a lot of influencer marketing agencies in the market today.

Many purely offer brands the opportunity to search for influencers, usually on Instagram.

Other agencies have their own influencer networks and manage their own campaigns, right through from recruitment to managing KPIs, and so on.

Many are not social media agencies or lack the right technology, so they are unable to integrate to achieve the best results.

Some brands work with an influencer marketing agency and a social media agency separately to work on their campaigns but it’s worth considering an agency that is both integrated and specialist when it comes to social media.

By integrating the influencer marketing strategy, social media strategy and your paid media strategy, you can boost your earned media content as you combine the teams and goals.

Here at agency:2, we combine all three and run influencer marketing campaigns globally, taking control of the full process to maximise and promote brands’ earned media content.

Our unique technology, the ATOM, collects data from the audience that interacts with the content created by the influencers. We are able to collect demographics and data from all the people that interacted with influencer posts and, in this way, we can truly be the sole provider of a brand’s influencer marketing, right from recruitment to creating the right storytelling to engagement and measuring.

If you’re interested in working with influencers to build your brand our award-winning influencer performance technology and team of social media specialists can provide you with a fully managed influencer service. Find out more here.

 

The ultimate social media news roundup

A week is a long time in social media. So now that we’re in July, a lot has happened already in 2018.

Social media remains more popular than ever, although it’s been a bumpy ride for some – as you’d expect in any industry.

 

LinkedIn introduces native video uploading to users

LinkedIn is clearly listening to its users and has responded to a desire for native video advertising and video for company pages.

This makes sense.

In 2017, 90% of all content shared by users on social media was video.

Last August, the platform introduced native video uploading to users, and it quickly became popular.

LinkedIn stated that more than 700 advertisers have trialled Video for Sponsored Content since October.

Abhishek Shrivastava, Director of Product for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions said that, during that time, LinkedIn users spent almost three times longer watching video ads than static ads.

In addition, company page videos were five times more likely than other types of content to spark conversation amongst users.

Looks like listening has worked well for LinkedIn.

 

Facebook has dominated the news

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, some predicted a mass exodus from users of the social media platform.

Facebook faced criticism over data breaches, from politicians and commentators alike.

Did that mass exodus from Facebook actually happen?

Well… Facebook is now more popular than ever – the average number of monthly active Facebook users for March rose by 13%.

While we all want to retain our privacy and want greater transparency from the tech giants, we remain attached to Facebook and the part it plays in our lives.

It’s been around too long and is too embedded with how we communicate with the world.

People accept targeted advertising as the price to be paid for what is a free means of staying in touch with family and friends. Targeted advertising that is relevant and interesting is better than boring advertising that has no value or relevance to us and our lives.

Facebook remains a commercial space and those marketers who understand this thrive on the platform. It remains the ideal space to foster a relationship with present and future customers. It’s too big an opportunity for marketers to ignore. Its reach is too great.

 

WhatsApp raises age limit

It’s good news that the industry is taking greater responsibility for the young and vulnerable.

Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp, which has over 1.5 billion users, raised their minimum age limit from 13 to 16, in part to comply with the EU’s new data protection rules.

 

Instagram announces hashtag and profile links in bios

The capability to follow hashtags makes the platform even more user friendly.

Instagram says this will give users ‘new ways to stay connected with the interests, hobbies, passions, and communities you care about’.

They’ve updated their algorithms too.

Two years ago they moved away from a chronological algorithm but now they want to ensure that newer posts are more likely to appear first in feed.

Looks like Instagram is listening too.

 

Twitter bans bulk tweeting

This is in a bid to combat spam and political propaganda bots, with 50,000 accounts being linked to Russian propaganda efforts.

Twitter’s own TweetDeck app once allowed users to post similar content from multiple accounts, while also automating liking, retweeting and following.

Twitter says these actions are ‘an important step in ensuring we stay ahead of malicious activity targeting the crucial conversations taking place on Twitter – including elections in the United States and around the world’.

 

Twitter introduces Timestamps

Previously, to highlight relevant times during live and replayed videos, users had to send a tweet.

Timestamps make those tweets unnecessary. It’s now possible to tweet live or replayed videos at the relevant moment rather than having to show the entire video.

After all, as Twitter Product Manager, Mike Folgner says,‘Brevity is the soul of Twitter’.

 

The launch of IGTV

A very exciting development for Instagram users who’ll soon have access to IGTV – a long-form video feature which will allow users to post hour-long clips. This is a huge leap forward given that up until now, the maximum video length has been 60 seconds.

The new IGTV platform will exist as a standalone app as well as on users’ homepage.

Instagram founder Kevin Systrom said he felt a “responsibility” to make these changes to the platform given data that shows people are spending less and less time watching TV and more and more time on their phones.

As each user will have their own channel where they can upload and store videos, it’ll be interesting to see how IGTV compares and competes with YouTube.

 

The Roundup

All in all it’s been a fast-moving and exciting year for social media, with two emerging themes so far: the continuing popularity and success of video on social media platforms and the developers of those platforms listening to and then following feedback.

That is what social media is all about after all: open and immediate interaction between participants.

Social media is an ever evolving and changing landscape and 2018 so far has been no exception. It is, after all, why we all love it!

If you want to find out how to take your social offering to the next level, contact us at agency:2 on 0203 598 9194.

Instagram updates: a welcome game-changer for digital marketers!

Instagram has been growing at a phenomenal rate over the past two years. At the end of 2017 it hit more than 800 million monthly active users, more than double that of Twitter and Snapchat combined. And 72 percent of users say they have purchased a product after they’ve seen it on Instagram.

This growth is largely due to a raft of new features introduced in 2016, notably business profiles and analytics. Then, in August of that year, Instagram took on Snapchat with the launch of Stories. A year after it launched, Instagram Stories surpassed its rival with 250 million daily active users.

These changes have seen Instagram move from photo-sharing app to serious social media marketing contender. We round-up all the recent updates and the impact they will have on digital marketing in 2018.

 

1. Organic post scheduling

 

In one of the biggest shake-ups since the launch of Stories, Instagram announced that it would now allow third-party apps to post organically to business profiles.

This is a game-changer for marketers, who until now have had to either restrict posting to business hours, or remember to log-in during their downtime to post content.

 

2. Stories archive and highlights

 

When Stories first launched they were designed to be ephemeral, disappearing after 24 hours. This proved something of a headache for marketers, who spent hours creating the perfect Story only to have it disappear into the ether.

Now Stories are automatically archived, allowing users to add old Stories to the new highlights reel, which appears at the top of a user’s feed. This is a golden opportunity for businesses to showcase their brand and tell more of their story.

 

3. Follow hashtags

 

Since the end of 2017, users have the ability to follow hashtags they are interested in to ensure that content appears in their feed.

For marketers, this makes it easy to keep an eye on industry trends and competitors (for example, they might want to follow #SocialMediaMarketing or #MarketingTrends), as well as track user-generated content via a branded hashtag.

Asking users to follow branded hashtags is another way marketers can get their own content seen, as well as the user-generated content their fans are creating.  

 

4. Carousel Ads in Stories

 

Until now, businesses were limited to one photo or video in their Stories adverts. Ads in Stories are set to triple in length, with Instagram allowing adverts to be made up of three separate pieces of content.

Users still have the ability to swipe away, however, so marketers will have to work hard to create engaging ads that their audience will want to click through.    

 

5. All-new Stories options

 

Instagram are constantly adding new features to Stories. Last year saw additional filters, stickers, a poll option and superzoom introduced. Now, gifs and Type Mode, which allows users to upload Stories with no images, just text, offer marketers further ways to engage their audience.

 

Two predictions to watch out for

 

1. Regram button

 

Instagram has been testing a regram button to make sharing content natively a possibility. Users reported seeing a regram button at the same time as they started seeing gifs in Stories and Stories Archive being tested, so speculation is rife that a regram option is not far off.

This holds a whole host of possibilities for marketers, who will be able to encourage their followers to easily share their branded content.

 

2. Shop Now button

 

Until the end of last year, the ability to shop directly from Instagram was only available to a handful of retailers in the US. But as 2017 came to a close, Shopping for Instagram was rolled out to thousands more merchants.

At the time of writing it is only available in the US, but we predict it’s only a matter of time before UK merchants get this feature, too.

These new features, along with ‘paid partnership’ tags, recommended posts and direct messaging changes, saw a huge shake-up of Instagram as a marketing platform last year.

Coupled with Facebook’s momentous news feed changes, marketers must now invest in Instagram as part of their digital marketing strategy and get ahead of the curve when it comes to thinking of innovative ways to use the constantly evolving platform.

LinkedIn: Maximising ROI on The World’s Most Important B2B Marketing Channel

 

 

For senior B2B marketers, social media has the potential to be the most valuable tool in their marketing toolkit. It has become a complete game-changer and has hugely transformed the way we do marketing. Social media is increasingly allowing us to present our messages to the right audience at the right time in new and exciting ways.

With its changeable nature and fast-paced growth, there has never been a better time to be on social – it’s the ideal opportunity to embrace the opportunities social media advertising offers.

Here, we’ll be focusing our attention on LinkedIn – a 400 million+ members’ social media site that has transformed the professional networking landscape, and importantly to us, how we market to an audience of professionals. An astounding 80% of B2B marketing leads come through LinkedIn.

So why don’t more B2B marketers embrace this platform and take advantage of all the benefits it offers?

LinkedIn is frequently overlooked as a social channel because it is often thought of one of the least user-friendly and engaging, for example compared against Facebook or Snapchat. However, despite its reputation, LinkedIn in fact offers a wealth of opportunities for social media advertising by allowing advertisers to connect with a specific audience that differs to those on other networks – one with a higher proportion of professionals, influencers, business executives and key prospects.

With exciting updates to the platform being introduced all the time, we have created an infographic to show just how far the platform has come since its launch in 2002. We truly think it has had an impressive history, don’t you?

Social media advertising, especially B2B, is such an important tool for today’s marketers

Research reveals these impressive statistics that highlight the utility of LinkedIn:

• 80% of B2B marketing leads from social media come through LinkedIn
• 92% of B2B marketers use this platform over all others
• Marketers say they see a 28% lower cost per lead with LinkedIn Sponsored Content than with Google AdWords

At agency:2, we recommend LinkedIn advertising because it can deliver significant marketing ROI. Here’s how:

• LinkedIn is one of the few social media marketing platforms that allows marketers to target professional people. In addition, it offers very accurate targeting data which is updated by actual users; therefore, it’s in a user’s best interests to keep their data current so they can use LinkedIn as a professional marketing tool. We recently compared targeting criteria amongst networks (see here)and rated LinkedIn very highly based on our experience from working with global brands such as JLL and Worldpay.
• The LinkedIn ad manager dashboard offers a wealth of data to measure and refine advertising campaigns. Feedback on audience engagement is much more detailed than what is offered on other platforms.
• Pixels can be added to websites which allows tracking of conversion rates, for example how many people have purchased a product online, added a product to their shopping basket or requested additional information about a service. When marketers are under pressure to demonstrate ROI, this is a beneficial tool to prove social media results.
• Sponsored updates (LinkedIn’s most popular advertising method) shown in users’ newsfeeds are relatively expensive compared to advertising on Twitter and Facebook; however, they perform very well, with high engagement rates as a result.
• The actions taken in response to advertising on LinkedIn are also more valuable compared to actions taken in response to advertising on other platforms. This is because people are in a business frame of mind when on the network, thinking of work-related challenges and service needs. Therefore, if they click on something they are more likely to be truly interested, rather than just browsing for distraction, as is so common on other platforms.
• Sponsored updates can attract new additional followers to a company page, offering wider organic reach for company updates. Yes, it takes a long time to build a following for a company page and significant internal resources to make it work well (e.g. employees sharing and interacting with content and thought leadership type content by senior colleagues) – but it’s worth the time investment due to the quality of the audience.

What is next for LinkedIn?

In the near future, LinkedIn will be rolling out new video features for all users, allowing them to natively upload videos onto the channel via the mobile app. Currently, only LinkedIn influencers have been given the ability to create video content; over 500 Influencers have been invited to create video content sharing their insights on professional topics and news.

LinkedIn does not currently serve video ads on the platform, and perhaps the next step following the development of native video content sharing is the ability for advertisers to promote their own video content. This will likely attract new and different brands across various industries to advertise on the channel. Audience analytics will also allow brands as well as the platform to cleverly and accurately target users with relevant video content, and with the use of algorithms such as those on Facebook, prioritise videos within its feed.

As with any technology updates, it is the users who will decide what works for them and what doesn’t. Knowing that LinkedIn has access to Microsoft resources means that it’s likely that more updates will follow. We believe the future looks bright for LinkedIn!

Our top tips for digital marketers

1. Accept there are no quick wins: Invest in advertising on LinkedIn if your audience is B2B in focus, but recognise that building a truly engaged audience on LinkedIn takes time.
2. Have a dedicated company-wide social media strategy in place for LinkedIn – enabling strategic content creation will truly boost social media marketing reach.
3. Engage with Likes/Comments on Company Page, and add a variety of media e.g. slide show feature to increase the appeal for your target market.
4. Participate in niche groups for your audience.
5. Add valuable information and provide thought leadership – secure true buy-in to this from your senior manager, as you will need their support for content creation and driving engagement via their personal profile page.

 

We deliver LinkedIn social media advertising campaigns for the world’s leading brands. Contact us on +44 203 598 9194 to explore how we can boost your social media marketing.

Follow our company page on LinkedIn to be the first to read our social media updates and tips for marketers. We look forward to meeting you there! https://www.linkedin.com/company/agency2

 

Best use of Facebook at the global Shorty Awards

 

We are delighted to announce some exciting awards news today. We are a Shorty Awards winner: Best use of Facebook.

A couple of months ago we entered one of our Facebook advertising campaigns for the prestigious Shorty Awards. The award honours the best in social media across the globe, with a glitzy ceremony held in New York on 23 April 2017.

We delivered a ground-breaking Facebook campaign for our client Showcase Cinemas which was fuelled by our unique audience insights technology – the Social Insight Engine. By tapping into the audience’s passions and interests on social, we achieved outstanding social media marketing results for our client. Our team of paid social media experts and the creative team here at agency:2 are very proud of the campaign results.

Today we received the fantastic news that agency:2 is a winner of this highly competitive category which saw some of the world’s leading digital agencies enter their Facebook campaigns. We would like to thank our client Showcase Cinemas and our team here. Together we truly pushed the boundaries of what excellent Facebook marketing can deliver and we proved its ability as a highly cost-effective acquisition channel for businesses.

http://shortyawards.com/9th/thomas-friends-the-great-race-cinema-launch

 

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