Hashtags are #Everything

What was once your phones pound sign is now an instrumental part of today’s culture. With its first appearance on twitter in 2007 and then only a few years later being added to the OxfordDictionary, making it clear to be the “most popular means of categorizing content on social media.” The purpose of a hashtag evolves when a keyword or phrase are attached to the end of the # symbol."

It looks something like this: #lovemydog #Raincouver #DONUTDAY

Using hashtags in your posts enhances the reach it gets because anyone who is interested in that same topic “can search for that label to find other messages on that same social media platform.” For example, If I were to go on Twitter right now and search #Raincouver, I would see a ton of tweets from people discussing the rainy week we are having and if I were to tweet using that hashtag I would be among those tweets as well.

Same goes for Instagram, I would see a bunch of people posting photos of the rainy streets of Vancouver, or those sitting by their fire with a cup of tea.

What is so great about the use of a hashtag is how it unites people on so many different levels. “They serve as bonding tools with our peers and even strangers on social media.” For businesses, hashtags are a crucial part of getting your content out to the right target market, and there are three different types of effective hashtags you can use to promote your brand to its fullest potential: brand specific hashtags, trending hashtags and content hashtags. Brand specific hashtags are tags that you make for your own business to market your brand and promotions. It gives you the opportunity to be creative and make a branded hashtag that is unique to your business or defines your business. “Search for it on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and Facebook before you implement it. If your company name is common, choose a different hashtag name.” For an example, if you are a hairdresser named Elle in Nanaimo, start a hashtag #hairbyElle for all your customers to use when they take a photo of their fresh new hair cut/colour. So these are a type of hashtags that would trend amongst your close online personal network of followers. However, if someone were to come across the hashtag or see it when searching people’s profiles, then it would trace them back to your brand and hopefully implement more business. There are many companies that have done this very successfully but one in particular is Coca Cola and there brand specific hashtag #shareacoke ,which they use to engage with with the social community of Coke.

Trending hashtags are broader and are recognized by many viewers.  For this type of hashtag, it is important to keep it relevant and offer some kind of value to the topic at hand. “You’ve probably heard people talking about “what’s trending now”. They are often referring to the hashtags that are trending, or are the most talked about right now.” Any business can take part in this, however to avoid getting lost amongst the thousand of others using that same hashtag, you must act fast to get the fullest potential of exposure.  Try and “use niche trending hashtags to connect and develop relationships with your targeted market.”

Lastly, content hashtags are the use of hashtags in front of words that are directly related to the content or location in correlation with your company. “They aren’t necessarily trending or highly popular. They are simply common hashtags that are related to your post content.” For example, it you are marketing an upcoming event in Nanaimo you can tweet something along the lines of: People of #Nanaimo, come on down to the annual #pumpkinfestival to enjoy warm cups of #hotchocolate, #pumpkins, fun #costumes and more! This post will be seen on many searches relevant to Nanaimo, or pumpkins or hot chocolate etc., which is the target market you want to reach!

Overall, hashtags have provided businesses and most people active on social media with rapid growth and the potential to reach more consumers than we could have ever imagined. Regardless of the type of hashtag you use whether its brand specific, trending or content, you have been given the opportunity to be seen all over the world if the hashtag is implemented correctly.

VLOG #2 - Importance of Domain Names

Email Marketing Is Not Dead!

We’ve gone from emails, to blogging, to social media, all of which are important for marketers to invest their time and money in. However, if you are overlooking a marketing tool that is simply just email then you clearly are unaware of the significance behind it. It has been around a lot longer than social media, and therefore has much more users. “Morethan 34% of the people worldwide use email. That’s about 2.5 billion people.It’s predicted to increase to 2.8 billion email users in the next 2 years”according to The Radicati Group. Yes, you read that right.

 Smaller, more powerful tools eventually replace most technology, which has not been the case for email marketing. What’s even more impressive is that it is still clearly growing in popularity. Now why is that?

“If you’rerunning a real business, email is still the most effective way to universallyreach people who have expressed interest in your product or site. For that, itreally can’t be beaten.” – Colin Nederkoorn (founder Customer.IO). 

You are probably thinking, why would you waste your time writing emails that will probably get deleted right away or end up in spam, right? First of all, it is a big part of everyone’s lives and checking your email seems to align with checking your social media. It really becomes part of your morning routine. Most importantly however, it is very cost-effective for all types of businesses, big or small. Email allows you to reach out to consumers directly and better yet, allow you to personalize the content to help build those relationships. I believe it’s maintaining those relationships that freak people out when thinking about email marketing and that may have something to do with a four-letter word every marketer wants to stay away from… SPAM!

Like anything in your career or in life for that matter, if you’re going to do something you want to make sure you are doing it right. When it comes to email marketing there is a fine line of being consistent so that you don’t get forgotten about, and just plain being annoying. Is it necessary to send out emails to your customer everyday? Well, it kind of depends on what company you are working for. However, I would not recommend it for the most part because then you lose that personal relationship and become more of a robot to them. If that’s the case, don’t waste your time on it because you my friend just spammed yourself. A simple tip that could go a long way when interacting with customers through email marketing is giving them the option to subscribe to you. It comes across as a lot less aggressive and shows that you care about their wants and needs.

Another convenient aspect of email marketing is how measurable it is. You can track who opened your email, which links were clicked, and how many people unsubscribed. You are able to get a clear understanding of the overall performance, see where it is thriving and the areas that need more work. This allows a marketer to do a little experimenting, which is a great way to better learn the digital world.

Not using email marketing as part of your everyday marketing strategy means that you are not focusing on a tool that the majority of the world uses on a daily basis. To me, email marketing is a no brainer. Be creative, be personal, be knowledgeable and be worthy of your customer’s time because this tool is well worth your time.

The Power Of Influencer Marketing

Attention all marketers, you are going to want to jump on board this marketing technique that continues to be the investment all companies are beginning to make. Why spend money marketing in all of the wrong places when we are currently in a time where social media heavily influences consumers on a daily basis. This is what we call influencer marketing, “the action of promoting and selling products or services through people (influencers) who have the capacity to have an effect on the character of a brand.” It is no longer just the exposure that brands want, but more so the impressions that are truly of value to them.  When a-list celebrities or well established bloggers are willing to partner with a brand to post and create buzz about their products, it is like hitting the jackpot for a marketer.

Now because of the opportunities “influencer marketing” has provided for brands, it is crucial for marketers to focus on their social media presents (you’re crazy if you aren’t already doing so). In July of 2016, Instagram began to offer the choice of having a business profile. This is great for companies big and small because it provides easy access for consumers to get in touch and interact with you as well as you can include an active hyperlink on the profile to drive people to your website.

Besides the big name bloggers and celebrities like Kylie Jenner, even smaller business have found this technique of marketing to be worth their while. Small boutiques and companies are willing to spend a bit of money for social media influencers who have only a few thousand followers in their market.  The reason being, they will get targeted exposure to the consumers they want to reach. This is huge for a marketer in this day in age where many adverts just become “noise” to a consumer. I don’t know anyone who can remember five advertisements that they came across prior to this day, and can remember the message it was portraying. We just can’t because “Studies show that the average consumer is exposed to up to 10,000 brand messages a day.” Might I add that is a lot of money being spent on advertising to just be “overlooked”, which is why influencer marketing is completely worth it for a brand big or small.

Now I’ve just been using Instagram as an example, but you better believe that when you want a well-known celeb or blogger such as Cara Loren to partner up with your brand, that they are present on ALL platforms. So right there you are reaching out to their followings on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and maybe even YouTube. Those are the impressions that are worth your money as a marketer! “Another interesting stat is that 47% of online consumers use ad blockers, giving brands andbusinesses even more reason to put their dollars behind influencers instead.Influencers are the ones holding everyone’s attention.”

I believe that this marketing trend isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s going to keep getting bigger as more brands jump on this bandwagon that seems to generate value to both the brand and influencer. And for someone who has a social media presence of 6,000+ on Instagram and is currently a student studying for a career in marketing, I am all for collaborating with influencers to provide success for everyone involved.

Influencer Marketing Vlog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3EkdYS6U20