Tag Archive for: Blogs

How COVID-19 has impacted digital transformation in today’s business world.

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It comes as no surprise that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the world we live in, in more ways than we ever expected. Overnight, we began relying heavily on digital technology to allow us to continue our lives as best and as ‘normal’ as we could.

Digital marketing has become the saving grace for many businesses throughout this time. Consumers are trusting the use of digital platforms to gain information about products and services, more than ever before. From online shopping to business networking, the use of online platforms have allowed businesses to continue to flourish despite the unprecedented changes that occurred and continue to occur.

It has become a crucial element for your business to enhance your digital strategy. In a time where focusing on the digital elements of your business may have been an area lower on your priority list. It suddenly became the most important step in assisting in your businesses survival. However, the implementation of these strategies will develop long-term benefits for your business.

Interacting with your clients and customer base has reached a whole new level through this digital transformation. With more people becoming well-versed in the digital space, there are new opportunities for you to reach, network and grow your audience and business. A number of studies have shown that the business world has digitised far more rapidly than previously projected due to COVID-19 and it has raised the bar for the development of a digitally inclusive future.

A survey conducted by Mckinsey and Company determined that businesses are three times more likely to say that at least 80 percent of their customer interactions are conducted within a digital landscape. Research has also displayed that on a global scale business digitisation has accelerated by approximately 7 years.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have all become well acquainted with online shopping, (it’s just a little too easy isn’t it!). In fact, in Australia since the outset of COVID-19, total online sales saw a rise of 67.1% throughout 2020.

The transition to enhancing the use of the digital space has required businesses to invest heavily in specific strategies whilst managing the security of the business. With the processes and investments that are required to do so, businesses have chosen to invest in this area for the long term.

It is now, more than ever an extremely beneficial opportunity to invest in the digital world of your business. This space has grown rapidly in the past two years and will continue to rise in importance and value.

Here at Savvy Creations, we provide the services to assist your business growth in the digital world. Feel free to reach out to our team of specialists to help you ensure you are getting the most out of your digital presence!

The Ying and Yang of Social Media

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Social media is a world unlike any other.

It’s still new to us, especially if you consider how it seems to be everchanging with each new phone update.

Life would be made much easier if only there was an extremely specific recipe to success for all small businesses on all social media platforms. A recipe that needed just a splash of engagement, a cup of killer content and a beautifully cohesive brand identity as the cherry on top. Then, BAM. You’ve got yourself a tsunami of eager customers for life.

In all seriousness though, I wish there was a simple recipe you could follow step by step that would unlock the secret to a successful social media presence… sadly there isn’t.

But, there are many methods that are proven to work that you can try out and modify for your specific business, product and audience. You can navigate your own way to social media success and create your own unique recipe to get there.

Something that will have to be figured out on this journey to a successful social media presence is where your fine line is for various topics. What is to too much and what is too little? What is smothering your followers and what is neglecting them? Where is the line between sticking with what works and boring, repetitive content?

Here are a few examples for you to consider:

  1. Over Posting and Under Posting

Finding that sweet spot in terms of how much you post is a vastly underestimated aspect of social media. It is commonplace for upstarting small businesses to believe they must post everyday (sometimes multiple times a day) in order to keep the interest of social media users.

This is false.

In fact, posting too much will likely annoy your followers who will have a newsfeed oversaturated by your content. It may negatively impact the view of your business and the number of followers you can maintain.

On the flip side, you don’t want to make your content scare so that you lose the opportunities social media provides for conversion and leads. Your acquired followers may also unfollow you if they don’t feel they are receiving the amount of valuable content they signed up for.

2. Over Selling and Under Selling

To sell or not to sell? That is the question!

This is probably the hardest area to pinpoint in terms of what is too much and what is too little on social media. Of course, it is important to promote your products and draw awareness to your website and other business materials. That is why businesses use social media in the first place, to market their brand and products.

However, too much selling can sometimes repel audiences as they begin to feel bombarded by efforts to get them to the checkout. Your business will lose its personable side.

In amongst content which promotes and sells, there should be content that is educational, motivational or prompts casual engagement with your followers in order to create a feeling that there is a person behind the brand.

I suppose you can say there is a fine line drawn between selling and building relationships. Strike the perfect balance between these two things and you’ll end up with trusting customers who are not only engaged with your product, but they are eager to support your business.

3. Finding Followers and Finding Customers

It’s true. It looks good when your social media pages have a large number of followers. Visitors to your page may be impressed by the numbers and opt to join the extensive list of followers. A large following has potential to increase engagement and the sharing of your content to an even greater audience of people.

BUT…

Obsessing over numbers should not be your objective. Finding people that will have a genuine interest and customer potential should be the objective.

There’s no harm in having a couple of empty followers (those which add to your follower count but will not contribute more to your business) but the core base of your following should be made up of people that are beneficial to your business. These people can be obtained through targeted advertisements, use of relevant hashtags and searching the follower lists of competitors.

It is up to you to walk that fine line between having a larger following that looks impressive to visitors whilst still having quality individuals that make up this list.

4. Doing What Works and Making Content Varied

On social media, you track and measure the success of your content. When a post skyrockets and does ten times better than all your other posts, it’s exciting and you feel like you’ve finally cracked the code. All you have to do is keep posting that kind of content, right?

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

It’s important to know what your audience responds positively to and engages with but, you should endeavor to keep your content varied. Social media audiences will not tolerate copy-paste content, they appreciate variation and innovation.

Sure, if posting a “Tip Tuesday” is your thing and your audience is positively responsive, keep it up. If you have an adorable dog that your audience goes wild for, include them in a post every now and then. Take advantage of what works, but don’t let your content become too repetitive and stale —your audience won’t thank you for it.

It’s Time to Get Savvy: 6 Essential Strategies for Small Businesses on LinkedIn

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LinkedIn stands apart from other social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook as it isn’t about showing off your personal life, it’s all about your professional life. LinkedIn allows users to network with other users, creating a gigantic web of connections across the entire platform for individuals and companies alike.

For individuals, this platform provides professional networking, connecting, and job searching. Alternatively, businesses can use the site for recruiting and more importantly, developing and strengthening their brand. That is, if they know how.

Often for small business, knowing how to navigate and stand out on social media platforms like LinkedIn can seem daunting, especially when they are unfamiliar to you. To steer you and your business in the right direction, we’ve come up with some of the best tips and tricks to help you wield the power of LinkedIn.

  1. Turn up the Professionalism

LinkedIn varies from most other social media platforms as it demands an air of sophistication and professionalism. This often means that small businesses must alter their usual brand content in some way to cater to the platform. This doesn’t mean you to have to turn away from your brand identity, it simply requires adopting a heightened formality in terms of language and sometimes imagery. Unfortunately, due to this fact, the convenience of auto-posting between social media platforms is strongly discouraged as the expectation and standard of content is entirely different on LinkedIn.

  1. Email Marketing

A strategy for small businesses looking to expand their clientele is to write a message to be sent to individuals that you connect with on the platform. This message should thank them for the networking opportunity and invite them to join you email marketing list through a direct link to the email signup. A feature of LinkedIn is that it lets users’ message 50 people at a time in this way which welcomes a huge amount potential business opportunity. Keep the message light, and professional.

  1. Posting Blogs or Articles

Many businesses have a website that features blog material. The benefit of this is that it enables a business to showcase their expertise and personality to possible customers. Posting some or all of this blog content to LinkedIn as well allows potential for greater exposure and display of your experience and knowledge as a business that will set you apart from competitors. This is particularly helpful if any of your content begins to gain some traction as LinkedIn will then highlight and boost the visibility of this content across the platform to relevant individuals. Obviously, this is a great tool in garnering awareness and interest in your brand.

 

  1. Employee Profiles

For small businesses, it is beneficial to have employees create profiles on LinkedIn. The reason for this is that it allows for greater exposure to your brand by creating more avenues to your company page (as long as your employees include their current occupation and company in their profile). Additionally, Forbesconducted a study that found out ‘“Employees are 70% more likely to engage with your company updates.” When your employees “like” and “share” status updates, they make them visible to their contacts.’ This domino effect can happen in various ways and shows how employees on LinkedIn can act as promotors. Another role of your employees is as brand ambassadors so ensure they have appropriate photos and a complete profile.

  1. LinkedIn Groups

Small business owners should join LinkedIn groups that are relevant to their target demographic. This is a great strategy to gain insights into audience pain points, needs and topics of interest that help in shaping and improving your marketing strategies. A perk of LinkedIn groups is that you can message members of the group that you may have built a relationship with even if you aren’t connected. The space itself may also provide the opportunity for general interaction in the form of your business giving advice in the group which builds your reputation and expands brand awareness. Overall, this feature is a great way of building relationships with potential future clients and getting your business name out there.

  1. Profile Summary

The ‘summary’ that features on your profile is vital in making an amazing impression on visitors to your page. You have 2000 characters to convey in an enticing way what exactly you do. Don’t worry about addressing the entire planet, you have a specific audience and they are the only ones who matter. Be succinct, be exciting, be personable and be unafraid to boast a little bit… be confident, not arrogant. It’s hard to know if you have got your summary right but just try to think of it as a first date, the reader is wanting to connect with you and this is your opportunity to put your best foot forward, show off your assets and try to get a second date.

Here are some examples to get you started.