Crystal Media

Marketing Clarity.

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4 Ways to Encourage More User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) can be a powerful marketing tool, with so many benefits to incorporating it into your marketing strategy. It can help save time, take the guesswork out of creating content on your own, increase engagement and brand loyalty, and broaden your overall reach. (Phew- that’s a lot!)

So how can you leverage UGC for your business? All you have to do is ask! Check out these 4 ways to encourage your audience to share their content with you:

  1. Engage with your audience regularly. By simply responding to comments/feedback, answering questions, and participating in discussions, you humanize your brand and give your audience a reason to relate to you. This builds trust and opens the door for them to share more with you. 
  2. Offer an incentive or reward. The reward or incentive doesn’t have to be monetary. You can feature customers in a newsletter, share their images on your website/social media, or even use them in a blog post.
  3. Create your own branded hashtags. These can be a strategic way to promote new products, describe your business, or refer to your community of followers. When promoted correctly, they can help motivate your audience to start including them in their own posts.
  4. Allow for a photo-op in-store. Showcase a cute decal on your dressing room mirrors or have a fun photo booth/space set up along one of your walls. People go out of their way to find creative photo-op spots to share on their feeds, so use this as an opportunity to drive them to your store.

And one more note: Before starting to share your followers’ images, videos, testimonials, etc., it’s important to make clear that if an individual shares this content with you that he/she is consenting to it being used/posted by you. The last thing you want is someone to deem you untrustworthy for taking their content without permission.

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5 Tips to Maximize Your Instagram Ads

If you are already running Facebook ads, chances are you’re running Instagram ads as well. Facebook owns Instagram, and Ads Manager is the platform for both. By default, ads created through Ads Manager run to IG. However, as Instagram continues to grow in both users and significance to marketers, now is the time to give your IG ads a little extra TLC.

Understanding the importance of their IG audience, we worked with our ads client Cooper and Binkley to build out their ads with Instagram in mind. Highlighting their example below, here are 5 easy tips to making sure your IG ads go the extra (digital) mile.

  1. Quality images: IG is an image-focused platform so the images and videos you choose should be top-notch. That doesn’t mean they have to be professionally done, but it does mean that they should be clear, eye-catching and easy to interpret. Just think of how your eyes behave when you’re scrolling through the IG feed.
  2. Use a healthy content mix: Yes, IG is image-focused, but that doesn’t mean it should be all pretty product shots. Mix in people, the store (if you’re a physical location), the community, humor and more. Make use of IG’s fun tools like polls and quizzes and, of course, video!
  3. Be on brand: Your visual content should tell the brand story as much as the copy. Be consistent with your brand colors, fonts (if you overlay text), filters, emojis, and tone. Your audience should know it’s you instantly.
  4. Have a clear Call-to-Action: Make sure you have a strong CTA in the text and it supports the CTA button. Is it a product? Use Shop Now. An Event? Learn More. Are you building your email list? Sign Up! The best marketing instructs your audience on what they should do, simply and clearly.
  5. Utilize the Swipe Up feature on Stories: A huge benefit of advertising is having the swipe-up feature on Stories. Organic Stories require you to have 10k+ Followers to add a swipe-up option, but not so with ads! The feature will show whatever Call-to-Action you’ve chosen and made it easy for them to follow through with a simple swipe.

👉 Pro Tip: If you have already built out your Product Catalog on Facebook, be sure to tag your products in the ad. It allows users to instantly connect with the product on your website. With just the click of a button!

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Understanding Facebook and Instagram Insights

You have a social media strategy. You’re consistently posting. Then what?? 🤷‍♀️

Facebook and Instagram have Insights built right into the platform that is a treasure trove of information IF you know what to look for. I know all that data can be overwhelming at first, so here are a few important basics to pay attention to:

Reach: The # of people who had any posts from your Page on their screen

Engagement: The # of times people have engaged with your posts through likes, comments, shares, and link clicks.

Page Views: The number of times a Page’s profile has been viewed

Deep inside that plethora of information are a few underestimated nuggets that I highly recommend checking out:

Responsiveness Rate: Customers WANT to communicate with brands through social media. Are you staying on top of your messages? Is there a ridiculously long response time when people try to reach you? Create a plan with whoever is in charge of managing social media to address response frequency and promptness to keep your response rate 100%.

Video Retention: We want you to post video, and we want you to post it often. But are your videos actually helping you? Check out your retention for each video (under Posts) to see average watch time and where, during the video, people drop off. This will help inform you of your best video length and what should be included.

Top Posts: You have content ideas right at your fingertips! Under Posts, scan through your posts and see what performed the best. Video? Images? Products? People? Take note of trends and build your content calendar using those themes. You already know they are working!

People: You probably have a good handle on what your Perfect Customer Group (PCG) looks like, but sometimes you’ll be surprised. Check out People to see detailed demographics about the people who follow and engage with you. Then tailor your content to speak directly to them.

Instagram Discovery: Instagram Insights, while similar to Facebook, have a few specific insights to look for such as Stories and Discovery. Discovery (found in individual post Insights) tell you exactly how people found you (from a hashtag?, the Explore tab?). Use this to help optimize your posts.

👉 Facebook: Click Insights at the top of your Business Page (if you don’ see “Insights,” click “More” and it will come up).

👉 Instagram: Go to your business profile, tap the menu icon, tap Insights

And please… Don’t feel the need to have a handle on everything at once. Start small and see what works for you. The info found in Insights can help you take your social strategy to a whole new level.

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How to Host an Awesome In-Store Event (and Get People There!)

Hosting an in-store event can (and should be) fun! Check out these three important tips on how to keep your customers coming back to your events again and again!

  1. Plan ahead and have a clear CTA. Respect that your customers have busy schedules. Give them enough time to plan to attend. Depending on the event, start inviting people 2-4 weeks ahead of time and tell them WHY they should come to your event. The name of the event and the first 1-2 sentences of the description should include all the information a person would need to know to decide if this event is for them.
  2. Offer extras that encourage people to stay awhile. Food and drink are always standard crowd-pleasers, but consider discounts, gifts with purchase, Instagrammable photo walls, swag, face-painting, games, drawings, projects, etc. exclusive to the event. 
  3. Collect info and be consistent. While you have people in your store, invite them to Like you on Facebook, Follow you on Instagram, join your email list, opt-in for your loyalty program, etc. Then (very important) make sure to follow up! Post a thank-you message on the Facebook Event Page. Send an email. Post a video to your FB and IG. Then do it all over again and have another great event. 😊

If you’ve been following us for any period of time, you already know what I’m going to suggest to get people to your event- send an invite email to your lists and advertise your event with a Facebook and Instagram ad. Psst… Facebook makes this pretty simple with an Event Response ad that you can find under Engagement in Ads Manager. 

Pro Tip: When setting up your Event on Facebook, use an image that represents the feelings or experience people will have at the event. If you have images of a packed store from a previous event, use that. Don’t use a “flyer” image that simply shows the event name, date, and time. It’s messy to look at and all that info is already listed below the image. 😊

Do:

Don’t:

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3 Facebook Ads Pro-Tips

We understand that running Facebook ads can seem daunting at times. Not to worry!   I’m sharing 3 tips that help make Facebook ads easy, efficient and effective:

1. Create your core audiences from the start so they are available to use across all your ads. Doing it in one sitting will help you think through your strategy and plan your attack. Create audiences that support each of your business goals. 👉🏻 Top Tip: Use FB’s Suggestions when creating Interest-based audiences; it helps show you options similar to the ones you’re using

2. Make use of Facebook’s ads creation tools. Inside Ads Manager, there is a whole suite of tools that help you create video slideshows, add graphic overlays and even music. 👉🏻 Top Tip: Be on the lookout for Facebook’s special holiday-themed video templates and overlays.

3. Use the duplicate feature. After all the effort you put into building audiences and creative, don’t let it go to waste. You can duplicate campaigns, ad sets, and individual ads. Just change the sections you want and you’re good to go. 👉🏻 Top Tip: Duplicating copies everything under the level you duplicated. For example, if you duplicate the campaign, the ad set(s) and ads will be duplicated. If it’s the ad set, the ads will be copied.