4 questions to ask before your next influencer marketing campaign

Instagram Social Media Influence - DALL-E

The evolution of the influencer industry has transformed the marketing industry as we know it. Studies revealed that influencers have grown from being a small niche market to becoming a primary source of income for many South African businesses.

Influencer marketing is an effective method of marketing

We find that brands are generally happy with the results. Studies by Mediakix found that 80% of marketers found influencer marketing effective.

You can find influencers who specialise in all kinds of niches; from make-up artists to fitness gurus, and everything in-between. Influencer marketing is likely to stay for a while in South Africa and provides your brand with an avenue for increased reach. 

According to TheB2BHouse, US marketers are projected to spend $6.16 billion USD on influencer marketing in 2023. Growth is driven by increased spending from existing brands that already use influencer marketing, and new brands trying influencer marketing.

Recent studies show that we are moving into the ‘Era of the CIO (Chief Influence Officer). In the last 4 years, dedicated influencer functions have appeared in organisations and agencies, with increasingly experienced and specialised profiles. Influencer Marketing training and qualifications are also emerging in communication schools and on IM platforms. 

4 questions to ask yourself when planning your next influencer marketing campaign

1.  What is your goal/message? 

When it comes to marketing, it is imperative to know what you're trying to accomplish. Many brands don’t establish good Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and fail to measure the outcomes.

2.  What is your budget? 

Not only does setting a budget let you know how much you can expect to spend, it also dictates the tier of influencer you'll be able to partner with.

3.  Who is your audience? 

Often, creating an audience persona/s helps brands understand whom they want to reach. Thereafter, they create matching influencer personas to help make the right influencer choices. 

4.  Are you on the right platforms?

 When starting out, choose one platform to focus on first. Demographics vary on each platform, and the industry you’re in will also help determine the platform you use.

The influencer market can be tricky to navigate without the right guidance, but it's worthwhile 

We are partnered with Falcon.io under Brandwatch. This is a tool that offers an ‘influence’ option that helps you plan your influencer marketing campaign with specialised tools for; creator discovery, relationship management, and campaign execution. 

‘Social listening’ is also a tool that can be used to better strategise your influencer campaign. It gives you the power to monitor your audiences, track their sentiment, and more.  

Let us help you get the best results from your next campaign. Chat with us: hello@digitalrepublic.co.za 

Managing a Social Media Account

Managing your social media can be a stream of infuriation with regards to your brand management, posting and having a good overview. But, with the right tools one can grow their brand and promote it to the correct target market.

Which is why digital consulting companies take note of these few factors that could help you grow your brand and manage your social media better. 

GOOD QUALITY

This factor focuses on the quality of work that you present and how well people engage with it depending on how much of a good quality it is. This goes beyond the images you use but also includes the wording that is used and how you attract your clients. 

INTERACTING AND NETWORKING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE/CLIENTS

Another thing that brands don’t look out for is the importance of interacting and networking with your clients. This always leaves a good recognition for the brand image as the audience looks at how often the brand keep in conversation with their clients as this always guarantees that people’s needs and wants are met. As a social media manager, knowing what the conversation is about is very important and this is where social media monitoring comes in. Settings up alerts for keywords and phrases that present opportunities and participate in the conversations you find. 

As a social media manager, knowing what the conversation is about is very important and this is where social media monitoring comes in.

SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS

This one of the most important tools for your brand as it gives your feedback on how your brand is doing, and if it is growing, maintaining, or slacking. It also helps you focus on the target market that is most likely to give back a good response to your brand/product/service. Just as the importance of buzzwords diminishes over time, social data makes a lot of noise at first glance, and many brands lose the value of social media analytics. You don't have time to categorize results, including spam, bots, and trolls, and get to the right ones. Brands also often make the mistake of doing a social media analysis on a topic and calling it good. Because online is constantly moving, it is always relevant to data from social media analytics to explain the variability inherent in the media.

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/07/25/social-media-management-tips

https://www.webfx.com/social-media/glossary/what-is-social-media-management/

Canva vs Graphic Designers: when to use which

Let’s start off with a disclaimer: this is not an anti-Canva piece. What this online design tool has done for accessibility to design and other creative templates is simply what any other good tool has done before it. But therein lies its fallibility: it is simply a tool.

Canva was created with the objective of “democratising design” by giving anyone the tools to create professional designs for a fraction of the cost of design programmes (and hiring designers to work these programmes in the process). As we mentioned, this isn’t new. A slew of design templates have always been available online, and, although purists will fight you on it, the likes of Microsoft Word used correctly can be and have been used by non-professionals to create designs for years. Canva has simply streamlined and improved this process.

So that’s why it has a fanbase - it’s simple, cheap, and effective!

However, and this is important, Canva (and other free or cheap design tools) cannot replace the skills and expertise of graphic designers and agencies.

Firstly, the design output is homogenised which means your branding and business goals and ideals will be lost in the identical templates available across the web. Secondly, the art and study of design is complex and includes visual and cultural cues that cannot be created on an AI level.

Core brand assets and highly visible assets require the skilled input of a graphic designer. In this Canva vs Graphic Designer instance, paid graphic designers or agencies come up on top. Logos, brand assets, colour schemes; these are all integral to how your business is perceived and the impression it makes on others. Similarly to how you wouldn’t expect a free site to offer business advice, free sites cannot do the work for a graphic designer.

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“KNOW WHEN TO USE FREE TOOLS”

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There’s no need to abandon easily accessible tools altogether! It’s simply about discerning the value of the design. Once you’ve set up your brand CI with a graphic designer, you can absolutely use the tools to get quick and easy designs out when needed.

At Digital Republic Consulting, our ethos is to deliver big agency results at a small agency cost which means, when it comes to design, we’re here to provide professional assistance without breaking the bank.

This is what our Creative Director, Catherine Reimers, has to say on the Canva vs Graphic Designer debate:

“Canva is a great tool to use if you’re a small business or brand just starting out across social media platforms. However, as you grow your online presence needs to grow and for that you’d need a graphic designer. Someone who can create a cohesive look and feel that people can readily identify as you; to create a strategy to either gain followers, make sales or direct traffic to your website and give your brand that little extra flare that an online tool can’t.”

Contact us at hello@digitalrepublic.co.za to chat further about your design needs!

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Digital Marketing for the Holiday Season

The 2020 festive season was the biggest ever for digital sales, with $1.1 trillion (R15.5 trillion) in global sales, up 50% from the previous year. It is expected that this year’s festive season will follow the same trajectory – especially with the fourth wave approaching leaving online the best space for businesses to focus on.

This isn’t to say that only e-commerce businesses will benefit. Debadeep Bandyopadhyay, a Google research analyst overseeing Search trends across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, says, “People aren’t just going online to buy. They are browsing. There’s sustained interest in online window shopping and searches for inspirational shopping ideas.” This is something that any business/brand can leverage on.

““People aren’t just going online to buy. They are browsing. There’s sustained interest in online window shopping and searches for inspirational shopping ideas.””

— Debadeep Bandyopadhyay

In the US, Google has published its annual Holiday 100 list, which highlights product searches that are predicted to trend the most. Although these are trends that relate to the US specifically, if you have an international audience or want to get an idea of general products on people’s wishlists, it’s worth having a look here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-67nUuAq85Y0VE0ai6lrKmwwN_9TABoi/view?usp=sharing

The biggest takeaway is that home equipment, including coffee makers and fitness gear, make the list. We’re also seeing more items that suggest people are getting out more, like fragrances and beauty products. The 2021 trending categories span ages and interests and include tech, gaming, kitchen gear, sports and fitness, health and beauty, fragrances, and toys and games.

The added social dynamics of gaming will also play a role in the coming metaverse shift, with younger users now frequently engaging with friends in virtual environments, like Roblox and Fortnite, and via avatars that represent them in these spaces.

Speaking of the metaverse, Facebook spent November giving businesses some easy tips to keep up with the holiday season digital marketing rush. SocialMediaToday compiled these into an easy-to-understand infographic > > >

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stressed by the pressure online performance means for your business/brand. That’s what we’re here for. With actionable insights, a professional and knowledgeable team, and a determination to support you and your business online, Digital Republic Consulting can assist you with your holiday campaigns and beyond. Send us an email: hello@digitalrepublic.com.

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Sources:

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-shares-messaging-tips-for-businesses-ahead-of-the-holidays-infogr/609607/

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/google-shares-key-product-trends-for-the-holidays-based-on-google-search-v/609851/

https://blog.google/products/shopping/top-trending-gifts-2021/

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-ssa/consumer-insights/consumer-journey/retail-shopping-festive-season/

Doing digital marketing in the age of data privacy

At the end of September,

the IAB announced that digital ad spend in the UK had recovered to a 49% increase in 2021 after the dip at the start of the pandemic last year.

This is a clear indicator of brands’ investment and confidence in the power of digital in advertising and marketing.

This has been some positive news after some hard hits the industry saw last year, but recently the conversation surrounding digital poses a new challenge: data privacy.

Breaches in privacy and consumer security, both on an ethical and technological level, have left many unsure of how to approach digital marketing and what this means for our insights into audience data.

For years companies have learned about their customers by forming individual profiles from third-party cookies, social content, purchased demographics, and more. Apple’s privacy implementations in iOS 14.8 and iOS 15 show that users have opted to stop apps from tracking their activity for ad targeting. Google has also announced that it will no longer support third-party cookies and will stop tracking on an individual basis altogether through its Chrome browser.

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This leaves us with companies eager and willing to spend budget on digital but an unsure and changing ad-to-consumer digital landscape. So where to from here?

An article on TechCrunch titled, ‘The death of identity: Knowing your customer in the age of data privacy’, argues that this change is positive and offers businesses an opportunity to “overhaul their relationship with customer data to focus solely on first-party data and patterns of behavior”.

Real-time analysis

We are lucky to be living in a time where AI and ML (machine learning) have seen rapid advances in behavioural intelligence. Companies can leverage digital experience intelligence (DXI) from these behavioral patterns and context them across massive behavioral datasets. These DXI platforms can layer ML and AI onto complete, retroactive behavioral and session data to generate immediate, rich insights.

Companies/brands can then use these insights to cluster users who take similar types of actions and target them more intelligently, while also discovering patterns that can lead to new opportunities. We are understanding how customers engage, and why — all while protecting their privacy.

Email marketing

With the new iOS release, Mail Privacy Protection was offered as an opt-in feature in the Apple Mail app. But this doesn’t mean email marketing is no longer an option for digital campaigns.

In ‘IOS 15 Is Not The Death Of Email Marketing’, an article published in Forbes earlier this month, the argument for email marketing lies both in stats (not everyone uses an iPhone/iPad, or Mac; especially true in a majority Android South African market), as well as in, once again, realizing that the onus lies on campaign managers to ensure they are creating good, customer-specific content.

Relook at how you are approaching connecting with your customers. Consider using a two-fold text and email approach to get your mails read. Customers will read things that interest and appeal to them.

Doing digital

Progress happens and digital is constantly evolving. Keeping abreast of these changes is by far the best strategy. If you believe in your brand/business there is a digital campaign to help market it.

Contact Digital Republic Consulting to assist you with a new way forward.

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References:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2021/10/01/ios-15-is-not-the-death-of-email-marketing/?sh=25a892927486

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/digital-adspend-surges-42-compared-pre-pandemic-levels/1729020

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/29/the-death-of-identity-knowing-your-customer-in-the-age-of-data-privacy/

Being a Female Gamer

Being a female in the gaming community has its ups and downs.

As a young girl I was happy to be called a “gamer girl” but only recently started seeing this term as derogatory. Why is it that only us females are called gamer girls when you have never heard of a gamer boy? Is it because the gaming community is largely male dominated?

My very first memory of playing games was Worms Armageddon, Heroes of Might and Magic 3… Ahh and the classic Warcraft 3. Since then, a 6-year-old me was hooked. Growing up with two brothers in the gaming community I quickly picked up how “the guys” would behave towards each other and soon towards me. 

 “Just because I’m a girl does not mean that I can’t beat you… in fact I CHALLENGE you!”

There is that typical stereotype of female gamers not being good in games but rather just playing to impress the guys. This is untrue. There are a lot of toxic players online, and for some reason females just get treated differently, “go easy on her, she's just a girl”. It’s like they don’t respect the fact that you're good at gaming.

“Playing games these days it’s quite hectic because men have these ulterior views when it comes to women playing games … when guys see or hear that a woman is playing, they immediately believe that they aren’t going to be good.”

Melissa Spagna

Being a female in the gaming community is not easy, but if you have the right attitude, it’s fun when you can kick some ass. I always enjoy playing in silence, especially if it’s with a new group of people because they just assume being female would make me a bad player… and that’s the moment I enjoy the most … the element of surprise and taking the lead. Practice makes perfect! It’s all about what you enjoy and playing towards your strengths. You can master any type of game if you are willing to commit the hours.

On the bright side, if you’re female and you do enjoy playing a game or two, there is a whole gaming community and teams just made up by females who would love to support you! 

“I have seen girls are less competitive and thus nicer and more fun to play with because they don’t get as upset as the guys” - Mireille Havenga

Jessica Jordaan

“I was scared to compete online because I always had the indication that guys were better than girls. But in high school I started playing more, and with the help of friends I realized that I really loved gaming. If you make a stupid mistake everyone gets super mad and annoyed with you, but when they find out you’re a girl they switch their attitude completely, then it’s fine to have messed up. The “gamer girl” community is awesome because most of us aren’t toxic or petty and we actually go out of our way to help and support each other.”

Statista.com states that from 2006 to 2020 there was a gender split of which 41% was female gamers. The female population of gamers has increased over the past few years and we as female gamers should embrace our love for gaming.  

Just because I’m a female does not make me any less worthy of being a good gamer. Some of us actually enjoy playing because we love the artwork and story line. The gaming community is bigger than ever and we as female gamers should not be scared to stand tall and take our wins. We are still the minority in the male dominated industry but let’s stand together and support each other to make the gaming industry a gender equel industry. 

Social Media Highlights from 2020

When you hear the words ‘highlights’ and ‘2020’ mentioned in the same sentence, it might sound wrong. What is there really to look back on last year?

While most of us don’t even want to think about 2020 ever again, there are some things we can learn when it comes to social media. 

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Posting and interacting on social media required a lot more tact then normal during the pandemic, and with so many sensitive issues taking place, the ability to ‘read the room’ became more important than ever. During this time, there were also some big changes on the various social media platforms.  

We’re taking a look at some key social media highlights in 2020 below. 

Social E-commerce Boomed

With lockdowns in place, people weren’t able to or didn’t feel as comfortable shopping in stores or visiting shopping malls and opted to shop online and on social media instead. The major social media platforms made it easier than ever before to shop, with seamless in-app buying experiences such as Instagram and Facebook Shop, as well as TikTok’s in-app purchases. While lockdown restrictions might be easing, we believe that shopping on social media will continue. 

The Rise of TikTok

If you hadn’t heard of TikTok at the start of 2020, you had probably heard of it by the end of the year.

Although it had its ups and downs, it emerged as one of the most downloaded social media apps of 2020, with both App Store and Google Play customers downloading the app almost 115 million times in March 2020 alone.

Brands are making more use of TikTok too, and this platform now has its very own influencers! If you haven’t checked it out yet, we’d suggest you do. 

Social Media During Civil Disorder

One of the most memorable civil events that 2020 gave us was the Black Lives Matter movement. This global rally against racism, racial inequality and police brutality was at the forefront on social media. Many brands took to their social platforms to speak out about the issues at hand and to show their support for the Black communities.

The social media platforms themselves also did their part, with almost every platform sharing resourcing on supporting at-risk Black-owned businesses, how to hire Black content creators, how to be an authentic ally, and much more. What was evident was that consumers want brands to take a stand on important issues, such as this. You’ll just need to make sure you put careful thought into your messaging in order to communicate your standing point effectively. 

You’ll just need to make sure you put careful thought into your messaging in order to communicate your standing point effectively. 

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We look forward to what 2021 one holds when it comes to social media and digital marketing. We’ve no doubt that it won’t be boring! Stay safe out there. 

We’ve accepted marketing life alongside a pandemic, WHAT NOW?

Since COVID-19 rocked our global perspective earlier this year, it seems 2020 has given the marketing industry a good rinse.

In a Marketing Dive article aptly titled, 3 months in, how COVID-19 has permanently changed marketing, the concept of crisis is explored within a marketing context admitting that the changes we’ve made to deal with this different social and economic landscape are changes that will become the norm.

Bob Liodice, CEO of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), told Marketing Dive that, “what COVID did is force a lot of marketers to step back and rethink relationships with consumers.” What the pandemic taught us is the important skill of agility. Ewan McIntyre, VP analyst of Gartner's marketing practice is quoted saying, "I don't just think that's COVID. I think we've seen this over the last 10 days [of protests], about brands having to be super agile in the way that they think about how they position themselves and what they mean.”

Although there has been a rise in consumer-led accountability for brands over the past few years, it is clear that this has reached a fundamental boiling point.

This trickles into the economic side of the conversation. COVID-19’s hit on the economy has been significant and as it slowly begins its recovery consumers are focused on their buying power – both from a budgeting and activism perspective. “A precarious direction for the economy moving forward puts the onus on marketers now to plan for multiple different outcomes and how each — from a significant recovery to none at all — will ladder down into all aspects of their business,” the article continues.

The introduction of remote working has decidedly reformed the work week across many industries. As most companies move towards a hybrid working model, marketers are forced to be more creative in pursuits for the perfect strategy.

“Fundamentally, the purchasing landscape is looking very different.”

The article points out that, “already a bigger part of brand strategy prior to COVID-19, e-commerce has jumped to the top of the agenda for marketers looking to engage the troves of people who are stuck at home and might remain wary of physical shopping for the foreseeable future.”

We have indeed faced many challenges this year, but the marketers will have to embrace their agility and creativity in order to forge a way forward. For, as much as we’d like to believe in the concluding segment of the pandemic being our saving grace, as McIntyre says, "If it's not COVID and it's not the challenges we've had over the last 10 days, it's going to be the climate crisis."

Want an informed strategy that tackles the current political, social, and economic climate?

We’re here to help! Please email Digital Republic at hello@digitalrepublic.co.za or give us a call on +27 66 463 6895.

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/3-months-in-how-covid-changed-marketing/579594/

HOW TO: BUILD A FORT...

& give your eyes an internet sabbatical

(featuring Ikea)

“Raise your hand if you’ve personally been victimised by your Apple weekly screen time report recently? ”

With the majority of our lives currently being lived vicariously through a screen (while a pandemic rages on outside), it is no wonder that everyone’s looking at their devices a lot more.

At the very beginning of the crisis The Washington Post wrote about everyone’s disbelief in their screen time stats. Eric K. Singhi, a Houston-based doctor, tweeted his report, showing his screen time had increased 185 percent to an average of 8 hours and 32 minutes a day stating that, “the rise in our collective screen time is natural in a time that finds ‘people still wanting to remain connected despite the recommendation to maintain a physical distance’.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/24/screen-time-iphone-coronavirus-quarantine-covid/

“…

screen time had increased 185 percent…”

to an average of 8 hours and 32 minutes a day

But as we reach the third or fourth month of social distancing, it’s now becoming all a little too much. We have been socialised to accept information constantly and consistently through many online platforms. Pretty overwhelming! And, although it is essential to stay informed about current affairs, we also believe it’s equally important to log off for a while.

Enter Ikea’s ad campaign aimed for the bored-in-the-house-in-the-house-bored individual (yes this is a TikTok reference, guilty!). This campaign includes a series of Ikea instructions on how to make tents and forts indoors to create a sense of adventure while cooped up at home as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

So. Build a fort! Six-ways. Build it for your kids or build it for you. Everyone desperately needs to connect with their inner child right now and what better way to hide from the world than in-between billowing sheets and dining chairs. https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/ikeas-quarantine-campaign-offers-6-ways-to-make-furniture-forts/

And if you’re still being personally victimised by your weekly screen report, here’s a WIRED article on how to set yourself free: https://www.wired.com/story/turn-off-screen-time/

Out here we’re still doing our best to make digital work for you so, from the safety of your blanket fort, get in touch with us.

Please email Digital Republic at hello@digitalrepublic.co.za or give us a call on +27 66 463 6895.

CONQUER YOUR FEAR OF ONLINE AD SPEND

“How paid media is essential to supporting your social media strategy.”

As our perspective of the world gravitates more and more towards the online space, it is worth asking why so many businesses are hesitant to spend money on digital advertising.*

The answer has largely been attributed to the idea that “online marketing” is somehow distinct from “offline marketing” when, in reality, whether being online or off the fundamentals of marketing don’t change and the importance remains.  

Here at Digital Republic we believe that we can conquer your fear of online ad spend.

Have the courage to invest in your business’ online presence!

Here’s how paid media is essential to supporting your social media strategy:

1. You reach more people
   Simply put; if you’re not spending money, you’re not being seen. The Facebook algorithm* prioritises paid posts over organic and if your target market isn’t engaging with your content, then the rest of your social media strategy is moot.
   
   The Facebook ad space is useful because it can be tailored to your business’ objectives. Once ads have run you have the added benefit of our team analysing the data gleaned and implementing actionable insights.
   
   

2. You get to know your audience
   There is a treasure trove of information online, if you just know how to tap into it. Our team uses falcon.io, a social media tool, to create custom audiences of users interacting with your content. This can then be used to create a specific segment you want to target; then expand your reach towards this and similar groups by exporting these segments to your preferred digital advertising platform.

   The result is a more detailed and specific social media strategy catered to your audience.
   
   

3. You control the audience’s online journey
   It has never been so easy to communicate effectively with your audience. The power of your ad lies in the story you convey rather than the “hard sell” approach of traditional advertising. You are essentially selling an idea, a concept, or a lifestyle and your ad content should reflect that. Good creatives deserve to be seen and to have money invested in them in order to have your audience understand and trust your business.
   

This is why paid media is such an essential part of making the most of the rest of your strategy.

We're here to help! Please email Digital Republic at hello@digitalrepublic.co.za or give us a call on +27 66 463 6895.

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*Thank you to:
https://seobrien.com/why-businesses-neglect-advertising-and-why-you-shouldnt
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-algorithm/

SOCIAL LISTENING

THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING YOUR EAR TO THE GROUND

WITHIN THE ONLINE SPACE

Monitoring your brand’s reputation online has always been a crucial part of brand growth and customer satisfaction. As important as analytics like engagement rate and number of mentions are, we are now able to look beyond these numbers and truly listen to the many conversations happening online at any given time.

This is what Social Listening is.

We are using the trends, mentions, hashtags, and competitor data that we have monitored to gauge an understanding of the online mood; better known as the social media sentiment. This is essential to keeping your marketing and brand development on track as well as giving you the power to respond and engage to positive or negative posts about your brand.

Falcon.io is a tool that draws from 2.7 million online sources to keep you up-to-date and ready to act when opportunities or potential crises arise. The platform not only offers you a goldmine of information but breaks down the results into demographics, sentiment, and influencers. You are then able to track trends and brand perception efficiently and customise your campaigns going forward.

Casting your listening net wide is an important part of this process. It is vital to know not only what is being said about your brand but also where. This includes pin-pointing which conversations and which platforms. Frequency and sentiment will differ according to platform (Twitter often has more of a consistent conversation running than, let’s say, LinkedIn) and will offer you insights into creating a strategy that joins the conversation, whether that be through organic or paid media.

Tapping into the conversation surrounding your competitors is also something you should include in your social listening strategy. This will give you valuable insight into what they’re doing right but, more importantly, a look into what they’re doing wrong so you can learn and be ahead of the curve.

Once you have discovered what is being said about your brand (and what is being said about your competitor brands) you are able to more successfully and efficiently discover new audiences.

… you are able
to more successfully & efficiently discover new audiences.

With falcon.io your surfaced profiles will be added to your data store and custom audiences. This is a simple, highly effective way to identify genuine prospects you can draw real insights from on an aggregated level

Don’t know where to get started? Below is a social listening preparation pack of keywords/topics for your brand. Armed with this you can use tools such as falcon.io to keep your ear to the ground and begin your journey to a better brand sentiment online and overall customer satisfaction:

• Your brand name and social media handles

• Competitor names and social media handles

• Industry buzzwords

• Your slogan or any other phrases associated with your brand

• Name of key people in your company

• Campaign names, keywords, and hashtags

• Branded and unbranded hashtags for you and your competitors

If you’d like to learn more and work on a full digital strategy incorporating social listening together with falcon.io please email Digital Republic at hello@digitalrepublic.co.za or give us a call on +27 66 463 6895.

Viral post...or not? The Dove ad.

The digital age, characterized by the ability to transfer information freely and quickly, seems to have resulted in a culture of lazy online journalism where online news sources and blogs vie for attention by creating eye catching (and usually irrelevant) click bate type headings and lobbing the word “viral” around for greater impact. It is often impossible to see everything that comes into one’s news feed, let alone confirm it. Additionally, the truth behind catchy words like “viral” seems to be of little concern.

A prime example of this is the recently perceived Dove racist ad campaign. The multimillion rand global soap brand released an advert showing a sequence of three images starting with a black woman who then removes her T-shirt to reveal a white woman and later an Asian woman underneath. News sources around the world have reported on screenshots of the ad – first shared by make-up artist Naomi Leann Blake – going viral.

But what does “going viral” actually mean? Urban Dictionary defines something that “goes viral” as an image, hashtag, video, or link that spreads rapidly through a population by being frequently shared with a number of individuals.

An example of this would be the 2015 Fees must fall movement where in Mid October, spanning a week– #feesmustfall got over half a million unique engagements within South Africa.

Does the ubiquitous Dove ad and its related posts live up to the title of “viral”?

At Digital Republic Consulting we are passionate about data and what we can learn from it so with this in mind we attempted to answer this question by looking at the data behind the post.

Posts started appearing on South African social media early on 8th October. These first few posts had very few interactions (between 0 and 30 each). It was not until 11:18 when radio personality, Eusebius McKaiser, tweeted about the topic that things started getting heated. He wrote: "Dove: with one quarter moisturising cream... can't clean racism." (image as posted).

Local actress Bonnie Mbuli weighed in on the topic an hour later with a tweet about the ad.

Over the two day period the most engaged content on Twitter was a Tweet by Minister Nathi Mthethwa which generated 2 574 interactions by 1 278 unique people.

The next 8 most engaged posts on social media were all by news media such as eNCA, Times Live, Eyewitness News and SABC. These posts went a long way to promote this topic. It can be argued that without the news media promoting this story it never would have reached the “viral” status is has so far achieved.

Now let’s look at the numbers across South Africa….

Using our social media listening tool, TRACX, we entered a basic search query to identify mentions, conversations and interactions with the topic around Dove’s racist ad.

Looking at the above numbers one could believe that this topic has actually achieved viral status, however, in 2016 the estimated number of Twitter users was 7.7 million and Facebook had 14 million users. When looking at the topic in relation to the usage numbers we can see that about 0.046% of Facebook and Twitter users in South Africa interacted with this topic. It must be mentioned that due to restrictions placed on 3rd party software tools by the social media platforms themselves, the number of users identified does not include users who’s profiles are set to private, it also only looks at data from South Africa.

So from the 21.7 million Facebook and Twitter users in South Africa, we were able to identify 9 938 unique people interacting with the topic of Dove’s ‘racist’ ad. To give this even more perspective we looked at the hashtag #dstvdelicious within the exact same setting as the Dove topic. Here we saw that 6 879 unique people interacted with only that specific hashtag over two days (6 & 7 October).

Looking at the data again on day three, we can see a drastic drop in the activity around the topic. It peaked on the 9th of October with 9 999 posts and interactions but looking at the same data on 10th October, we see only 936 posts and interactions.

Therefore, can we really say that the Dove racist ad topic has gone viral or is it simply a case of journalists being trigger happy on a word that increases excitement and viewership.

Discover 10 Reasons why Internship Programs Rock (for both Employers and Interns)

We’ve all watched movies about interns and hear about our friends & loved ones doing those elaborate “summer internships in Spain”. But what are internships really about? And what purpose do they serve?

Well, it seems that internships benefit both the employer as well as the intern, pretty much making it a win-win scenario; and here’s why:

1.       Valuable Work Experience before Graduating

Either by shadowing an inspiring senior, or doing general ad-hoc duties, the intern will soak up a sea of knowledge during this time because they get to work in a team, under pressure in real world business situations, whichever industry it may be. Learning how different roles in an organisation integrate as a team is something only practical experience can teach you. Real-world perspective & problem solving skills are everything.

2.       Networking

This is a biggie. As an intern, you could be fresh out of college or an adult considering a career change (remember the intern where Vince Vaughn worked for Google?). Whatever the case may be – you grow or start creating your professional network system that could lead to business opportunities in the future. You could lend a helping hand and vice versa. And if you can, get a mentor as this is crucial to learning about your desired industry whilst having a fantastic reference under your belt.

3.       An Opportunity to ‘test-drive’ the Chosen Career Path

It is one thing to read up on and study a topic but completely another to actually go through a day ‘in the life of…’ Many, many times interns realise a few months into an internship that they do not in fact want to peruse what they initially thought was right for them, but take with them important lessons from the working world, heck even a brand-new skill set from that specific company that they did their internship through. But in most cases, the internship is a solid foundation & preparation where they can apply their knowledge.

4.       Internships & the Economy

They have become key in today’s economy because whether the internship is paid or unpaid, they are adding to the workforce in a positive aspect whilst adding value to businesses. Having that experience on their CV allows them a much better chance of landing full-time employment after graduating.

5.       Fresh Ideas & New Perspectives

Now from a business perspective, bringing in an influx of interns provides an organisation with unique individuals who, if managed correctly, bring in new ideas and a year’s supply of highly motivated pre-professionals to help out where needed – especially with short-term projects so that the senior staff can focus on the serious stuff.

6.       Genuinely Potential Employees

This program helps the employer suss out the intern’s working style, how well they add to the organisation, and how quickly they learn. So it’s kind of like a prolonged practical interview, where the potential employee gains experience within the company before being hired properly. This is a great return on investment as research has shown that internshipsincrease employee retention rate.

7.       Benefits for the Business

Interns provide employers with so much additional manpower which in turn increases the overall productivity of the organisation because each intern will have specific strengths & skill sets. So as an organisation, creating an effective Student Internship Program provides an excellent element of cost-effective help. These new team members could help grow your business with their immediate assistance.

8.       Student Internship Program (SIP)

If your organisation has established a well-put SIP guidebook, then you have yourself a fair and consistent process that benefits the community because it helps students pay for their studies as well as contributing intellectual expertise to the educational sector.

9.       Reputation

College campuses are viral societies, so if your organisation does a great job with your first batch of interns, word will quickly catch on and soon you’ll have the most sought after talent asking to be a part of your program. If people are happy working for your organisation your clients will also notice this – and the spiral continues upwards!

10.   Giving Back

Internship programs are a way of giving back to the community. We’re not talking about charity cases here in the least. In fact, educating & mentoring the young minds of tomorrow whilst receiving these many forms of assistance is exactly why this is such a fantastic win-win situation as mentioned before.

                                                   Bringing It All Together

Is it all cookies & cream? Probably not. Whether you’re creating this type of program or joining one takes trial and error (even blood, sweat and tears at times), but a point to remember here is that internship opportunities are not limited to office settings. It doesn’t matter if you are a dog walker at your nearest vet or a note taker for a magazine editor – if you’re a motivated individual or an interested company ready to enter into a mutually beneficial relationship- you’re on the right track. This is how business and networks grow.

This Valentines Day, catch your perfect match and keep them.

Love is in the air and everyone is eagerly searching for their perfect match, so it's okay for you as a brand to also be looking for your perfect match- someone who will like your posts, someone to chat to all the time and someone to tell the world how much they are in love with your brand. But before venturing out on the quest to finding the one, here are some useful tips to get you started.

The perfect match we’re talking about here is the target market and analytical tools such as Tracx can be used to identify the target market and provide insights as to who your type is, where to find them and what appeals to them. As breath-taking as the thought of your perfect match waltzing into your life seems, you need to be proactive and go out and put yourself out there. What better place than where your target markets are likely to be, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.  In social marketing, it is risky not to have a clearly defined target audience, it's not like the motivational speech of "Shoot for the moon if you miss, you'll land among the stars." It just doesn't work like that, because you'll be shooting into the black expanses of space--where no one exists. Targeted posts make sure that your brand posts fall into the right hands, resulting in improved social metrics such as likes, engagement rate, new followers, more efficient campaigns and generate an increase in ROI. The higher your following the better reach you’ll have and a good reach has the potential to generate more leads.

After you’ve identified and clarified what you want, it’s time to put the next techniques into play. These techniques include constant communication and feedback as well as getting to know their likes and dislikes.  I Remember just how exciting meeting someone new was, I would literally sit with the phone in my hand waiting for his call.  Businesses also need to treat their followers on social media the same way, by using a dedicated community management team. This is a team that makes sure that all posts and comments about your brand are attended to as soon as it happens and gets escalated to the right people to better resolve their queries. Think of them as your very own cupid, always there to inspire love and retain customer loyalty.

Keep in mind that nothing is as impressive as someone who listens attentively and knows what makes you smile, what drives you crazy and anything else in between. Now you need to aspire to be like that because businesses that use social listening tools are better able to improve or develop their products or services, know their target market's topics of interest, reduce customer’s frustrations and maintain brand reputation. Social listening tools can also be used to stay ahead of everyone else and know what's going on in your industry, what your competitors are doing, what your target market finds impressive about those brands and what their flaws are.

Your perfect match obviously ticks all the right boxes not only for your brand but other brands as well. So, it can get a little annoying to see all these brands talking about themselves all the time and your perfect match could simply ignore what you would like to say as a brand and focus more on their friends and family. Don’t have a mini heart attack yet, there’s a way around that. You can use influential people to put in a good word for you, gaining your brand major points. Influencer marketing is not a new concept, maybe you remember it as "Word of Mouth" ring any bells? This type of marketing has the benefit of increasing brand awareness and expanding your reach, another one of your cupids to draw back the bow and let the arrow go straight into your markets heart.

We’ve all been on a couple of first dates and this can get a bit tricky as we would like to make a good impression, in our preparation efforts we ask ourselves what to wear? Where to go?  What to talk about? Problem is many brands fail dismally here because they do not strategically plan their social media content and gaining a market share is more important to them than maintaining one. The best way to make sure that this is the last first date your target audience has with you and not your competitors is to keep them engaged and in doing so, you need to work out what type of content are you going to post? Which platform will generate the most engagement? When is the best time to post? How often should you post?

There is no “one-size-fits-all” answers to these questions, this differs from business to business but this should assist you in answering the above questions and putting together a social media marketing strategy. Same way you would call your significant other every night, your brand needs to also remain consistent and generate posts at least once a day, depending on the type of business you have, the type of social platform and the number of audience you currently have. It can get a little awkward with you and your date just sitting there with nothing else to talk about, which is why you should take initiative and break the ice. But don’t talk about yourself all the time, once in a while share interesting content which has meaning to your target market and they can't wait to share it with everyone else. Your brand can also ask real and thoughtful questions to start a conversation and on the same note, answering any questions your audience has. This is an indicator to your audience that you are paying attention and that you genuinely want to build a solid customer relationship.

Once you've got your target market wrapped around your little finger, all you need to do now is to keep the fire burning, keep that spark alive. From there on your business judgement and intuition will take you the rest of the way and your brand and its audience can live happily ever after.

Xoxo,

DRC

National Day of What Now?

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13th October is considered No Bra day. Gentlemen, I can almost see those smiles you are all wearing. The craze or trend of social media users picking a date randomly, and linking it to a campaign in an effort to garner some attention towards the subject; is one awesome social innovation. #NoBraDay trended for a good 4 hours on Twitter and brought about a variety of interactions from different individuals - the everyday nudist, rife feminist, creepy and weird airhead; to simple everyday folk. That’s a lot of Big Data to be analysed. This data is crucial to unpack because it reveals new and different perspectives of the same target market the brands have come to know. Understanding this view or different side to them may direct the way brands package their offerings; this to form consumer satisfaction.

It is often said that “Knowing is winning half the battle” and “application” is the other half. Fitness fanatics and cancer associated organizations usually gain more engagement (conversation & discussion) on this day than usual because of this initiative. Note: October is Breast Cancer Month – coincidence? I think not.

The point here is: there is a huge opportunity to be explored by brands that undertake a particular matter as a point of interest. Insurance companies, apparel brands, lingerie and underwear brands; they too have something to offer in some way or another and in turn perhaps attain sales or further trust from their consumers through this ingenuity.

Should a brand such as a publishing/editorial company run their campaigns around such dates and not the conventional or everyday celebratory dates like 23 April, Talk Like Shakespeare Day, no wait, I meant 23 April, National Book Day, then maybe more engagement can be the case. The truth is; what is unusual or different drives engagement.

Benefits to implementing this idea:

• There are 365 days in a year to choose from and each can be altered to suit the brand’s goals, needs and targets.
• This kind of initiative provides “free” brand awareness.

Analysts like ourselves - Digital Republic Consulting (cough cough) - help by fine combing through the Big Data your social media platforms provide and in turn offer credible and actionable intelligence from it using our award-winning social intelligence tool partner, Tracx - a robust social media research and management platform. Honestly, going through 3 000 posts on Facebook is not something you would enjoy doing - we do because we find the social media world and industry fascinating and full of opportunity. Here is why:

“An unappreciated spouse when quite like a mouse; makes for no happy house.”

Brands, gear up and gather those sales and marketing brains together. There are a lot of housewives and househusbands needing some pampering and acknowledgement out there. 3rd November marks Housewives Day.

The sudden realization of being negligent and unaware of topics, which to a large degree are unpopular but surprisingly important, evokes emotion. It is this emotion that drives the engagement brought about by these special days on social media - this can easily lead to action. By brands incorporating these weird, wacky, sometimes fun and worthy causes into their campaigns they get to be involved in something greater than profit - love for the brand. This brings about loyalty - a valuable entity to any business. 

Written by Theriso Motaung 

Social Media Audits

Social media is buzzing with excitement. Consumers take to social media platforms to make their small mark on a brand by exclaiming what they like, dislike and would like to see. Brands are provided with valuable customer feedback by simply talking to the right people in the right places.

Having a well-constructed social media strategy is just as imperative as performing a thorough social media audit.  According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, consumers tend to trust social media messages more than advertising or news articles about the brand, hence, it is the responsibility of the brand to know which messages are having their intended effect. Search engine optimization (SEO) can only be established by knowing what works for you. In order to create useful social media strategies, brands need to know first and foremost how to reach current and potential consumers organically.

What is a social media audit? 

·         An examination of social data in order to assist marketers in knowing what consumers are saying about a brand and their competitors

What is the main objective of a social media audit?

·         To analyse what type of content is gaining the most traction for a brand and on which platforms

Why is it necessary to investigate social media platforms?

·         A platform analysis is performed in order to determine where pertinent audiences (target markets) are interacting with content  

What does my company gain from a social media audit?

·         You will gain key performance indicators that not only display your social media performance but provide real-life insights that can be adopted in your business marketing strategy

My company is an SME, is this still relevant to us?

·         Yes – regardless of whether your business is in its infancy or well-established, this audit is necessary to make decisions that optimise consumer-brand experiences

How can Digital Republic help?

·         We can provide a social media audit that both analyses your personal data, using a highly intelligent programme called Tracx, and provide key social media insights that are customised to your business objectives

What information does Tracx provide?

·         Tracx provides comprehensive social media data which includes some of the following key aspects:

-   Audience demographics

-   Influencers

-   Sentiment

-   Reach

-   Share of the voice

-   Competitor analysis

Are you attracting more males or females? How old is the average person engaging with your content? Where are your audience members predominantly based? All these types of questions are answered through a thorough and accurate analysis of your social media channels. Social media audits provide you with the little hidden gems of online data that can help make your business’s future even brighter.  

For more information about Tracx, go to: https://www.tracx.com/

Reference: https://hbr.org/2015/11/conducting-a-social-media-audit

Written by Claire King – Content Specialist

Brands vs. Consumers... The social war.

Let’s face it; consumers are evolving faster than brands. Much like natural selection there will always be those people who struggle to adapt to the rapid changes, but for the most part, consumers are complaining “better” and the truth of the matter is that consumers have evolved, but brands have remained, generic. Sure, a personal touch takes a bit more effort, but with rife competition in most industries, brands should start to evolve their customer service and not just their service and product offerings.

Does it often feel as though brands are fighting this fight by launching a new website or app or some fancy service that is relevant to a niche? Instead of “improving” they are fighting their battles with “more.” Brands are, inevitably, spreading themselves very thin.

It is not simply about customer service and keeping up to date with the latest trends in digital with an ever expanding digital strategy that one cannot manage, but rather about really understanding what works and what does not work. Having multiple platforms also confuses people, especially with varying response rates from each platform. Can you say inconsistent?

Digital Republic is conducting social intelligence studies across industries in South Africa to determine the “culture” of customers so that brands can better understand their consumers, their frustrations and with that learning we strive to assist brands in incorporating what really matters into their culture and not only their strategies. Consumers know when they are being lied to and brands do not always realise that staff represent their culture in a very influential way. You do not only want customer loyalty, but you want to be sure that your staff are excited to be part of your brand.

With Tracx, any brand can have access to this insightful and robust data. Through Digital Republic you can have access to people with the knowledge and experience to translate the data into actionable next steps. 

You Talk and We Listen

Digital is dynamite. It can only be described as millions of explosives constantly going off and before your enthusiastic digital marketer even has a chance to clean up the debris, another bomb goes off in the distance. This does not imply that it is unenjoyable because in essence it may be one of the most exciting, dynamic and outright groovy industries to date...but I am impartial.

Many people question what it is that we at Digital Republic Consulting actually do. This can be answered in one simple sentence: You talk and we listen. We look into the minds of consumers.  Now while this may seem particularly invasive, we can only see what an individual intends for us to see. It is a relationship of give and take that is beneficial both to us and the consumer.

There are some common misconceptions that online media is simply a space to share humorous memes, post before and after pictures of one’s gym progress and engage with extended family that you would otherwise rather never engage with, bar a postcard in the mail. These are some of the things that certainly make social media interesting but our job is to make it useful.

There are two distinguishable departments at Digital Republic: analytics and creative. I form a part of the latter which involves content creation and consistent monitoring of our clients’ online platforms. My daily objectives are to share content which has ‘shareability’, ‘retweetability’ and ‘likeability’. Essentially, I want you to see it, read it and feel it. I adopt a creative yet informative approach to creating online social media content that appeals to the desired target market. Analytics, on the other hand, involves the rather intimidating notion of BIG DATA. My colleagues utilise their awe-inspiring statistical skills in multi-platform analyses of online data with the assistance of a multi-dimensional programme named Tracx. Amongst many other things, Tracx utilises machine learning by constructing algorithms that make data predictions with little human interaction. This allows for the analytics department to monitor any online activity pertaining to our clients. Our team works on online reputation management, monitoring of online conversations, predictive analysis through trend analysis, creating actionable insights for companies, strategic planning that coincides with the visions of the client and many more ad hoc tasks and case studies that help us keep you informed. The intricacies of this work are too vast to express here but inherently, it encompasses a lot of raw data that we compartmentalise and bring sense to.

So, besides the evident boasting of the quintessential digital marketing company, I feel that the most imperative question is not what we do but why is it useful? If you are reading this article, then you already know the answer to this question. We are in an ever-changing world where many people nourish their brains with information gathered from social media sites. If we have a complaint about a product or service, many of us would rather put fingers to keys and express our grievances over social media. Not only is it efficient but it also makes you feel like a part of a community that understands you. I reiterate: You talk and we listen. Whilst some may mourn the seemingly archaic ways of organic customer-brand interactions, social media provides a convenient, energy-saving and cost-effective way to communicate. Similarly, what better way to know the true reputation of a brand than viewing it from the uncensored opinions of its consumers?

With regards to our vision as a brand, we have three fundamental goals. These include:

1. Having the best people in the business

2. Living the motto of customer centricity

3. Delivering actionable insights

We are here to serve our clients and we are here to serve their customers. We form a web of communication that runs across multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and many more. We manage large communities of people who are constantly being reassured that their questions are being answered and their voices are being heard. We delight in knowing that consumers are satisfied with a product or service and if this is not the case, we work diligently to rebuild a strong relationship between our clients and their consumers.

I have placed the work of Digital Republic in a nutshell. We are multi-faceted company using a highly intelligent social media monitoring computer programme - I really could keep typing until my fingers fall off. Our value lies in what we deliver and create. We exist purely to deliver a service that is strengthened by our expertise of the modern world of communication and enhanced by a principle of transparency.

If you have any more questions, please do ask…we will listen.  

hello@digitalrepublic.co.za

Written by Claire King – Content Specialist