Like cardio workouts help you stay fit, good social media practices help brands maintain a healthy online presence. However, unlike traditional media, social channels are volatile and require meticulous attention, planning, and monitoring. The success of online branding critically depends on how a brand connects to, interacts with, and engages its followers. ‘Here,’ you are at the mercy of your consumers because ‘here’ you will only be as popular as they make you. Therefore, when it comes to online social media marketing, you cannot afford to make any mistakes.

The social media landscape is changing radically. Therefore it can get a little confusing about ‘what to do and what to avoid.’ Following is a comprehensive guide on what to avoid because your brand streamlines and performs better when you know what not to do.

Honestly, brand loyalty stems from ideology. A consumer who shares the brand’s sentiments will end up buying products and services. Your marketing practices should simply focus on reaching out to these people. Exercise empathy and connection before pitching an offer.

The digital crowd has an attention span of a fruit fly. They aren’t looking for preachy messages and self-indulgent boastings of brands. They are looking for genuine brands who listen to consumer needs and talk to their consumers. So strike a dialogue instead and boost your engagement scores.

If you look desperate, consumers will try and avoid you. After all, who likes an attention-seeking insecure character? So, stop liking your own posts. Instead, like others, & engage in a commentary. Remember, your brand has a personality. Build on it, don’t make it look like a narcissist.

If you blindly post content on social media without a strategy, stop doing this immediately. It is useless. Social media marketing practices revolve around an objective, like achieving maximum views, creating viral content, and infiltrating new consumer circles. What’s yours? Figuring out this part will play a crucial role in creating relatable content.

Surveillance is key to understanding market dynamics and modifying offers. A brand is like a celebrity; negative reviews can cause damage. Therefore your role as a brand manager is to keep a close eye on what’s happening online, how the brand is performing, and how it can do better.

People are different and respond differently to brand messages. This is why you cannot afford to have a single standalone message for every consumer. Instead, branch it out according to consumer interests and then personalise a message that focuses on that particular individual’s need. Yes, social media is challenging, and no one said it would be easy.

In a similar fashion that we draw inferences about a person from their likes and dislikes, habits and interests, people decipher the brand personality basis what the brand endorses. Therefore, who you follow is essential for the public to understand who you are as a brand.

Who the company head is and what the company is about are two very different things. A profile page endorses an individual and the individual acts as an influencer of the brand. Having only a Business page can limit your social media reach.

Your consumers look up to you as an industry leader. They want to follow and be associated with you because you matter. Therefore what you share on your social media page matters. Consumers vouch for knowledgeable brands exhibiting integrity, innovation, and information. Share global news. Congratulate other brands, show employee or consumer appreciation, and increase your popularity.

Before drawing up the social media marketing strategy and budget, invest in a fair amount of market analysis. Identity competition, consumer needs and preferences, spending patterns. When you have done the research right, you can plan the marketing right and perform right.

Also, look into aspects like avoiding spelling and grammatical errors, inconsistency, and plagiarised content and visuals. These brutal mistakes cannot be rectified and end up diverting audiences to competitive brands. Need help planning an effective, revenue-generating social media marketing? Contact us at business@dmipl.com.

Tom and Jerry are perhaps Disney’s most violent characters scripted so far. They are always plotting against each other, causing one another physical injury, yet everything about them seems funny! Everyone on this planet knows them and ADORES them. Such is the power of comedy. Take away the comic element, and Tom & Jerry could turn into gore.

Laughter is as contagious as yawns, and as a communication tool, humour has gained special favour with millennials, the most influential consumer community worldwide. Millennials, unlike their predecessors, have a different take on life; they live it with a pinch of comedy. More empathetic, bold, and diversity-indulgent, millennials are the birth givers of the era of Stand Up Comedy. Let’s explore why.

A comic narrative allows a brand to do something refreshing, positive, and happy. Humour-inciting storylines have captured the marketing spotlight because of the sheer brilliance in communicating serious messages and solutions easily and effectively, i.e., with a smile. Comedy, therefore, acts as much-needed relief to create calm and comfort for consumers. In addition, it inspires engagement, strengthens B2C interactions, and forges loyal patronship.

In fact humour has multiple positive attributes. It invokes goodness, tolerance, acceptance, transparency, and all things positive.

5-Star, Alpenllibe, Sprite, Snickers, Fevicol, Ambuja Cement, Godrej Security Solutions, Fevi kwik, Oyo, Disney Hotstar, Swiggy, and even credit card brands like CRED have illustrious comic ads that immaculately depict the relevance of humour in brand communication.

“In today’s overworked, under-appreciated, stress-filled, sleep-deprived culture, Humour is a necessity.”

Laughter is as contagious as yawns, and as a communication tool, humour has gained special favour with millennials, the most influential consumer community worldwide. Millennials, unlike their predecessors, have a different take on life; they live it with a pinch of comedy. More empathetic, bold, and diversity-indulgent, millennials are the birth givers of the era of Stand Up Comedy. Let’s explore why.

The internet explosion has presented itself as an opportunity for mass interactions. Everyone has something to say and expresses to be heard. Unfortunately, this has suddenly opened the floodgate to a tsunami of hate culture & trolling. Multiple studies show a strong link between the rise of online negativity and the metamorphosis of comedy-prone content; in fact, millennials find ‘comic relief’ a go-to haven that protects them from being a target of bullies. It’s the same with brands.

In current times, unorganized opinions govern online communication. There is too much of it and too vulnerable. Out of the vulnerability rises the need for humour. Humour mitigates tension; it kindles happiness and connection. It endorses a judgment-free space for exchanging dialogues. But most importantly, humour nurtures tolerance and acts as an antidote to hate-mongering.

The laughter-invoking commercials of Coca-Cola and Pepsi over decades depict healthy brand rivalry. Comedy, being the central plot of their advertisements, helped dilute the competitive tension, which otherwise may have been misrepresented as maligning and hurtful to the brand’s loyal followers. By infusing humour, both brands could mitigate consumer polarisation and make the commercial look more like a fight between two friends. By humanizing the rivalry, both brands attained favourable attention from consumers worldwide.

A very thin line separates humour from satire or dark comedy. Sarcasm and dark comedy differ from humour in ‘intention.’ While humour purely focuses on a light-hearted comedy, the intrinsic characteristic of satire and dark comedy is to demean by mockery. While humour can fit well into any context, parody and dark comedy are not as safe a choice.

A very thin line separates humour from satire or dark comedy. Sarcasm and dark comedy differ from humour in ‘intention.’ While humour purely focuses on a light-hearted comedy, the intrinsic characteristic of satire and dark comedy is to demean by mockery. While humour can fit well into any context, parody and dark comedy are not as safe a choice.

Uncomplicated plots: The intention of humour is to make people laugh. Complex, difficult-to-understand narratives can kill much of the fun. Therefore, keep it simple and straight.

Use of surprise: Be unpredictable. The idea is to surprise the audience with a memorable twist in the plot. Explore and experiment with unconventional ideas.

Time it right: Timing is a critical factor in comedy. Don’t break into surprise before the time is right. In comedy, you have to exercise control over how the audience thinks and feels, and just when they are sure of something, change it with humour.

Understand the audience: Not everyone shares the same sense of humour. Therefore, research your audience’s interests. Understand what type of humour is relevant for your brand and then align it with relatable brand ideology to develop a storyline.

English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer John Cleese correctly suggests that laughter connects us as a human race. He states, “It’s almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you’re howling with laughter”.

A successful marketing strategy brings people together, people of different castes, communities, faith, and professions. Humour can do the job well. A little bit of absurdity, surprise, mismatch, and comic timing can go to great lengths to impress and convert consumers. After all, who doesn’t fancy a good laugh in the face of existential dread?

Life ceases to be exciting when you are in a repeat mode – following the same old routine compounded with an evident lack of excitement! At that moment, what would you not do to add a little spark of unhinged fun! Similarly, when brands repeat their marketing strategies over decades, the consumers go ‘meh’…- company messages are ignored, online engagement does not drive past the ‘Like’ button, and sales dip. During such times, disruptive marketing can be the perfect rescue plan for brands. As disruptive marketing stands for everything exciting, new, & innovative, it can help prevent brands from nose-diving into a pool of negative impressions. However, the success of innovative marketing is not limited to the strategy itself but emerges from its experience.

When Nike stood up against racial discrimination in its campaign, it projected Nike as a just, empathetic, brave & honest brand. This altruistic character drew enormous support from people resulting in increased fan-following, positive press, and sales.

Today’s consumers exercise their frank opinions to shape brand impacts. Therefore, it has become increasingly important for brands to stay connected with fans. The need to have incessant conversations creates the need to do something new once in a while. The idea is to break the monotony in an unsettling way. In the age of TikTok, Facetime, InstaReels, Facebook Stories & YouTube Shorts, disruptive marketing is deployed as a path-breaking activity that creates viral reactions.

Brands also use it as a damage-control tool to bypass traditional approaches and become age-appropriate.

The element of ‘Surprise’ is the core around which disruptive marketing strategies are planned. The degree of surprise is what decides the success of such campaigns. Like when Shahrukh Khan was featured in the Disney Hotstar ads, he expressed disappointment in not being able to draw as much attention as the channel; people were rather amused. Likewise, when Venkatesh Prasad was featured in the ads of CRED fancily dressed as a boy band member, people applauded the idea.

Build a positive curiosity around the promotion by working on concepts not far removed from what consumers experience in their day-to-day lives. Put yourself in the shoes of your potential buyers and think simple. Then, wrap that simple idea up with an excellent disruptive presentation.

Earlier, every brand wanted to be a niche name in the market, but right now, the challenge is to be a disruptor!

To connect instantly with the TG, brands need to understand the pulse of the time. Every age has its medium. Disruptive marketing tactics are great tools to endorse your brand prominently at a lower cost with real-time responses and immediate conversations. Break free from conservative narrations and go beyond the expected. Consumers are not passive buyers anymore. They are forever watching; give them something worthwhile.

Facebook tricks you probably don’t know

Majority of the businesses today rely on various social media channels to promote themselves. Social media platforms are perfect to promote a business across the world in no time. Facebook is the powerhouse among those social media channels as it has an insane number of users and can easily make a brand reach target audience both in urban and rural areas. However, to polish a brand’s image through Facebook marketing, one needs to be aware of the various Facebook tricks. Let’s discuss the same here.

Pay Attention to Groups

Almost all the businesses follow the simple way of creating a page of their brand and begin the promotion. So how can you prove to be different from the herd? A differentiating facebook marketing strategy is to post your content in relevant groups. This boosts customer reach as groups consist of large number of people and one can get thousands of interested followers effortlessly.

Post Videos & Go Live

Statistics say that people are spending more time in watching videos on Facebook. All they want is the video to be engaging and creative. Hence, it can bring a lot of views if a company uses videos as one of its Facebook strategies

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Going live on Facebook is also picking up and assists a business get more personal with the customers as one can explain about the product features and benefits, etc., directly to the public. It helps build trust about the brand among the viewers.

Use Micro Influencers

Micro influencers having expertise in the domain of your business can help a brand reach thousands of target customers. These micro influencers don’t burn holes in the pockets, have local fan following and connect well with the localized audience. They can be the right choice for a business to do affiliate marketing on Facebook.

Respond to Customer Queries

Every business posts the links about ways to purchase their products. However, not all of them actively respond to the queries of the customers, which makes the customers run away. Thus, whether a customer enquires something through comments or message, make sure to reply as soon as possible to give a positive impression.

Use Facebook Ads & Boosting

One of the FB tricks that works for businesses reach a desired audience is to use Facebook ads and boosting. This Facebook marketing strategy needs a brand to spend some money, but it pays back by bringing new customers to the company’s website.

Moreover, keep posting regularly on the page, but tread carefully so as to not bombard the followers with too much brand related content. Give them breathing space and breathable content too- something they can instantly relate to like interactive posts, trending topics, etc.  Numerous brands use Facebook messenger to reach the customers directly through their inbox and can fast-track the business growth.

And very very importantly, hire the right people to do the Facebook job- whether you decide to do it in-house or hire an experienced digital marketing agency!

A professional hotspot, the hub for global news, trend-setting alarms & more – Yes, it’s TWITTER!

Twitter is the perfect example of the saying – keep it short & simple. Designed as an SMS based communication platform, Twitter format filters out the unnecessary, feeding the public insight based information, instantly. The twitter strategy perhaps foresaw the overpowering influence of digital media and addressed precisely the requirement to be to-the-point, because honestly, who has time to read illustrious Victorian flim-flam these days? No one!

What made the twitter strategy a standout apart from the character-based format is the way people address search – via Hashtags. Relevant content-related tags or labels as we can call it otherwise, make it so much easier for people to filter content. Looking for sports news? A simple search with #SportsNews and bingo Twitter will provide you with all related news feeds.

The hashtag used on Twitter has click-started what we know to be “Trends”. What’s hot? What’s happening? – That’s what Twitter trends are all about!

Is there an Ideal Twitter Strategy for Your Brand?

Now integrate the three magical Twitter approaches in one – To-the-point content + Contextual hashtags + Trending topics and you have cracked the ideal twitter strategy to make more connections every single day.

Below are Top Ten Insider trends to build a robust Twitter Marketing strategy for your business:

1. Establish a well-defined brand voice

Create a distinctive brand voice, select a language style and build on a flawless pro-active communication. Create niche tags for your brands and be social & vocal. Your user base will judge you, so prepare well and never back-down.

2. Add that personal touch

Design communication to address users in a personal, unique way. Build rapport and practice social listening – what do your users say, what do they like, what they dislike, learn and build a repertoire tuned to company goals and keep it original, always.

3. Connect through replies

If someone leaves a reply to your tweet, don’t forget to engage with the person then and there. It is important for your customers to know that you are listening and you intend to help. Responding to replies fosters trust with the user.

4. Create editorial calendars

If you are not pro-active on Twitter, you are lost under the pile of multiple influential brands who keep engagement kicking, every single day. The best way to practice this is to maintain a content calendar. Revising, updating, scheduling and never forgetting to follow-up is an important twitter marketing strategy.

5. Retweets

Even as a brand you need to inspire followers by following other handles. Why? Because who you follow is representative of who you are on a digital platform. This is where re-tweeting comes handy. Don’t have content? Focus on reusing what others are saying if that is of relevance and value to the brand. A simple yet tricky Twitter marketing strategy this is!

6. Initiate and participate in Twitter chats

There are chats on almost every topic, select and participate with the goal of fostering connections and converting them into loyal brand spokesperson. Once the chat session ends, don’t forget to reply and follow people simply to keep the relationship going.

7. Be flexible with your content bank

Planning ahead is good, but being flexible is one of the key twitter marketing strategies for businesses. Follow the latest twitter trends and speak out loud. Remember no topic is irrelevant, un-related – the game is all about how you place it to your user base.

8. Keep it visually relevant and appealing

Sharing content on Twitter, if backed by engaging images can create 2X impact and increase viewership and organic fan-following. Gifs fall under the latest twitter trend category as they entice audiences quickly. Also memes capture quite an attention.

9. How paid content works

Paid ad is a great twitter strategy but to reap profitable results, you got to invest long-term. Paid campaigns if crafted and planned well can elevate brand positioning and impact organic tweets

10. ORM practices

Address customer grievances openly to build transparency, be empathetic and human-like because business only sells if people like your digital personality. Practicing ORM to support customers is a vital strategy that you cannot overlook.

Shatter that corporate business image and make real connections with people through Twitter business accounts. The ability to chat, reply, search business related content puts you in control of communication, so make it count. However, there is no ideal one way twitter strategy that assures quick hits and instant fan following, the digital media game is all about having a long term plan and acting/ responding on the go.

Appoint an expert twitter marketing strategy planner to reap more benefits.

Building a great brand takes much more than an entrepreneur.

It mandates the use of combined forces of vision, creativity and acute marketing acumen of an excellent team that holds specialization in various sub domains of marketing.

With the blitz of the ever evolving internet marketing platforms, ‘Online marketing’ has become a buzzword that expedites brand building and provides interactive touch points which other modes of marketing do not. With paid advertising, effective targeting spells success. It would not be an overstatement to say that through a sorted digital marketing strategy using effective online marketing tools, customers can ‘experience’ a brand.

There are a few exciting reasons why online marketing has attained such grand success in such a short span of time. Some are those reasons are mentioned below:

Cost Effective

Traditional means of advertisement have always been expensive. Only a handful of businesses can afford to pay the cost of traditional advertising. However, promotion done online doesn’t cause a hole in the pocket. Google, Facebook, Instagram and other social media channels’ paid advertising packages are quite affordable.

24/7 Marketing

Internet marketing allows an advertisement to run 24/7. A customer searching for a product can see this advertisement and place an order anytime. This way a brand stays in the eyes of numerous customers all the time and makes business prosper faster.

Analyze the Campaigns

Digital marketing and paid advertising score over traditional advertising again as a business can analyze the advertising campaigns, while traditional ones are tough and expensive to be assessed. Analytical tools available on Google and every social media channel provide real-time access to the data related to the advertising campaigns. A brand can easily learn what’s working for its ad campaign and what not by accessing that data.

Global Reach and targeting 

Reaching the customers throughout the world is every business’s aspiration. Advertising through online marketing ensures that you can target customers from any part of the world as the promotional content goes beyond your local area. As a result, a brand can attract clients from around the world by spending a small sum.

Less Time Consuming

Advertising done through internet marketing is easy and quick. All you need to do is set up an ad campaign in a few hours and the promotional content goes live instantly. Hence, clients can be reached faster without having to wait which the case when it comes to traditional advertising.

Flexibility in Online marketing

Online marketing is also a flexible way of advertisement. Once a campaign is set it doesn’t mean it cannot be changed. A brand can change its digital advertising campaign anytime if the results don’t come out as desired.

Thus, be smart and choose online marketing to build your brand. Connect with us at 9810665256 to begin your social media marketing today.