TikTok for business - insights from Gen Z

Recently, TikTok has become much more than a buzzword. It became the most downloaded app in 2021, and its popularity continues to take over the world. Could it replace Facebook and Instagram? We will wait and see.

Even though young adults and teenagers are the primary users of the app, it has become a great place for businesses to share and market their products and services.

In a previous post, we shared our "Beginners guide to Tik Tok". Here we will give you a glimpse of the future and how TikTok can be an excellent business tool thanks to Darina - our Gen Z insider for TikTok, who wrote this guest post for our blog.

Darina’s TikTok 101

TikTok is a social media platform used for creating, sharing, and finding short videos. Its primary target is people from the younger generations (Gen Z primarily), as a way to express themselves with original short-video content and share with the world by dancing, singing, jokes, lip-syncing and creating trends across the community. Here are its essential features:

• Video Length Options - up to 15s, 60s, or 3m 
• Trending 15-30sec Sounds, Filters & Effects, In-App Video Editing
• Additional Features - Q & A, Duet, Stitch 
• Copycat Features - "Now" (BeReal Clone), Stories (Snapchat Clone)
• Going Live & Multi-Guest Live - Requires 1k Followers
• Bio - 80 Characters + Connect Instagram and YouTube + Link (for minimum 1k followers or a business account type) + Email (for business accounts)

Personal and Business Accounts on TikTok

TikTok users can create two account types: Personal and Business. Here we will take a look at the pros and cons of both types: 

Personal

Pros 

• Monetisation Opportunities such as Creator Fund, Creator Marketplace, Live Gifts, and Tips (Make more sense for Creators rather than Businesses)
• Allows adding a Link in Bio but only after having 1k followers or more
• Access to trending audio sounds

Cons

• It’s not possible to have a personal account and run ads.

Business

Pros 

• you can add a link to your Website in your Bio
• you can add Email to your Bio
• Lead Generation Forms (from your Website or using TikTok Instant Form) 
• You can enable and set up Auto Messages
• You can run TikTok Ads (Currently unavailable for Bulgaria)

Cons

• You cannot use trending audio sounds due to copyright issues. Once you have a business account, you can only use sounds legalised for commercial use. That takes away the opportunity to participate in most, if not all, of the trends.

Account type

Currently, brands are allowed to have creator accounts instead of professional business accounts. With the creator account, they have much more options available for sounds and video creations, even though they cannot run ads. However, with a creator account, companies have more basic statistics options than with a business account.

It is essential to mention that the option for running ads is not available for business accounts in some countries yet. So it is up to your company's individual needs to choose the best option.

Organic Reach

With TikTok, you can reach a local audience effortlessly by default. However, it is much more challenging to reach a global audience. There are technical ways to make it happen: 

• Install a VPN + Remove Your SIM card + Change Device Location Settings + Change App Store Location Settings, if possible.
• Burn any clues that might be giving away your location. The best option would be to do it upon installation of the app before you sign up for it. Turn off GPS every time you use it.
• Don't provide your phone number upon signing up. Use an email address only.
• Go to TikTok settings, navigate to the "Language" settings and choose the desired target language.

In “Your Control” To Strategically Make It Happen Within The App

• Follow creators and brands within the country of choice and engage with their content by liking, commenting, dueting and stitching.
• Make videos in their language, and make sure all your captions and hashtags are in that language

“For You” Content 

1. Trends

There are different types of trends. Some are fun dances, and others are interesting points of view. Users add whatever caption they want, following their niche (within the video). 

Some trends require you to spend time analyzing them and understand how people apply them to make a point in a fun, easily-digestible, engaging way.  

It’s good to jump on the most popular trends. To do that, scroll the “For you page” to find them, or follow the most popular creators that always jump or the most popular trends. Every week you’d need to gather the new trends, analyze them, and try to understand their purpose, humour and main point. After that, you apply them to your niche. 

It is best for services, but if you have a product, try to focus on the features of your product and the benefits rather than just the product itself. Always relate the product to the lifestyle needs of your ideal customer. 

 

2. How to talk on TikTok and Talking Over a Trending Sound

There is a special way to talk on TikTok. The content creator needs to talk fast and straight to the point. They would need to present as much information as possible and provide as much value as possible for a minimum of time. To achieve that, the content creator needs to press the pause button regularly and record only when they are 100% sure what their point is and feel confident enough to say it as fast as possible. 

Here are some pointers that you can use when creating TikTok content: 

USE hooks to grab the attention:

• “You won’t believe this.”
• “X reasons why… .”
• “How I went from X to (result) in (timeframe).”
• “You need to stop.…”

You will find a lot of content from regular content creators or experienced marketers. 

3. Transitions

“Transitions” add an element of surprise. They keep people excited and interested in the content. They are best used for the fashion and beauty niche, as well as for the travel and tourism industry. They can be applied when showcasing different products. Keep in mind that external Video editing is tricky but possible, and the results could be much better. 

4. Aesthetic Mini Vlogs

That's an excellent option for product businesses within the wellness/beauty niche to showcase their products not in a sales way but more in a way that gives a vibe and feeling of value when incorporating these products into everyday life. 

Pick a trending sound, extract it, get it on CapCut, or find it directly on CapCut - the video-editing software owned by TikTok. Have a set of pre-filmed, aesthetically pleasing videos, get them on CapCut, and start editing. The keyword here is synchronization, and you'd need to synchronize the music with the video flow and the effects.

5. Skits / Character Conversations  

Skits are a great way to show expertise in an engaging way, pretending you educate someone uneducated on a specific topic. Of course, people like to make funny skits too. But the best way for businesses is to give value by offering educational ones.  All you need to do is make a scenario, split yourself into two personalities and… Action.

6. SEO

Keep your video short and sweet, and fun. Use TikTok slang. Use keywords and copy underneath the video. 

Hashtags Tips:

• Don’t use #FYP or #Viral.
• Use 3-6 hashtags, whatever fits.
• Use larger and smaller (amount of views) 
• Smaller - under 500K | Bigger - above 500K
• Make them specific to your content.

TikTok and SEO

For generation Z, TikTok is now our search engine because we don’t use google anymore. We “Just TikTok it.”  The app pulls data from 3 different areas:

1. Text within the videos
2. The caption underneath (keywords + hashtags)
3. What you say within the video, using keywords, because TikTok records everything that you say, which turns it into automated captions

7. Engagement

To like something, you need to press the heart. When you comment, it’s best to keep it short and straight to the point. That is how Gen Z likes it. The most important thing to interact with the application is to learn TikTok slang, humour and how to use emojis. There isn’t a shortcut or a way around it. Nobody can teach you because it changes with the new trends. You'd need to be in the TikTok flow.

Examples:

• “He/she understood the assignment” 
• “👁👄👁”
• “Go little rockstar”
• “CEO of…”
• “Main character energy”
• “I like it, Picasso”
• “Emotional damage”

*You can also google GenZ Slang or Vocabulary/Words and use them. 

8. Adding to Favourite

Not only can users favour videos, but they can also favour sounds, effects, comments, questions, hashtags, and products. To favour a sound, press on the sound page and select “Add to Favorites”. Press and long hold on the screen until a pop-up appears for every other type of content. The button looks like a bookmark and is right below the comment button. 

9. Duets

“Duets” are great for real-time reactions and collaborations. You have different layout options, but the two ideas will be playing at the same time. You can “duet” your video to showcase a before and after for your business. If someone has a great video with valuable information or a tip within your niche, you can hop on a duet and listen, react or show agreement and support.

10. Stitches

“Stitches” allow you to incorporate up to 5sec of someone else’s videos into your video. People use it to make fun of others, prove them wrong, or express opinions. That is good for elaborating on a topic, continuing a discussion, or testing a theory/tip.

With stitches, you can:

• provide more information
• continue a conversation
• correct a mistake 

11. Video Answers To Comments

On the comments left under your video, you can press the reply option. Once you do that, you can either give a written reply or make your response more engaging by pressing the video recording button on the left.

12. Q&A

Right under the Bio, click on it, and you will see many random questions. If you see one that relates to the content you want to share with your target audience, go ahead and film a video answer to that question. If the question is within your scope of business, it would be a great opportunity to show expertise.

“Story” Content 

There are two ways to post a Story: Either from the main home menu + or on your profile picture. You can either post a video or a photo. These stories end up on the “FYP” and have the same engagement opportunities, just like the regular TikToks.

That is the best way to use and post videos that you wouldn’t regularly post. It could be content outside your regular niche and what you typically post. That way, your audience can get to know you better without distrusting the niche you created for your account. It is something that you want up and running on your profile only for 24h.

It’s suitable for “Story Time." You can tell a whole story that you want to share. You can also put up daily updates, talk to your audience, and get to know them.

“Now” Content 

Like in the original app, you will get a random notification from TikTok that it’s time to post a “Now”. You can post only once a day and the format of the content, just like in the original app, is a picture that captures both - yourself with the front camera and your surroundings with the back one. The difference is that BeReal only allows photos, and TikTok allows both short videos and photos.

Just like on BeReal, to see what other people have posted, you need to post as well. Otherwise, their content is hidden. You can only share "Now" with your friends or everyone.

It’s good if a business has promo codes or any up-to-date promo/discounts to post there now or even on BeReal for the public audience.

Best Practice 

Keep The Videos Short And Sweet (15-30sec, 60s maximum). Although TikTok allows us to upload 3-minute-long videos, its users don’t like it. Their attention span is so short that if you can’t make your point in 15-30sec, they will lose interest.

UGC - User-Generated Content

UGC is a great way to advertise your products and services on TikTok. In this case, a content creator would create authentic videos about using your product or service. It is a powerful digital recommendation, only this time, you have a short trendy video of a customer/client using and sharing your products and services with the world. And the best part is that it doesn’t feel like an ad or sales.

Bonus

As Instagram decided to turn from a photo-sharing application into a short-video content platform, TikTok decided to make photos cool again. Now, users can switch to “photo mode,” which allows them to upload photos like a carousel and put music sounds over them. It’s not a video slideshow, and it contains static images. 

So when people said: “We want photos back,” TikTok listened. Did you hear that, Mosseri? 

As Gen Z rely primarily on short video content for information and entertainment, we welcome the challenges and the future changes that applications like TikTok bring and make the best of it. If you want to stay on top of the trends and monetize in the future, don’t hesitate to contact us and discuss ways we can TikTok your business.

About Darina: GenZ social media junkie with an obsession over TikTok and Short-Form Vertical Videos.

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by Martin

Social Media Content Optimisation Tips and Tricks

Did you know that over 88% of businesses market on social media these days? If this isn’t a clear indication that your business needs to be on social media, then we don’t know what is. It’s simply a must to go social but there are some essential things you need to know regarding optimising your content. In the world of marketing, they say that “content is king” and this has never been more accurate today. 

As a result, you need to ensure your content is clear, engaging and powerful. But how do you do this while ensuring that your online presence is consistent? In this post, we explore several tips and tricks that you can use to optimise your content. It all starts out with setting clear goals and expectations.

1. Set clear goals

As a starting point, you shouldn’t go social just because everyone else is doing it. You need to have a clear strategy and goals in mind before embarking on optimising your social media presence. This is why it’s crucial to set aside some time and think about what you want to achieve. Do you want more followers? Are you looking for more likes and shares? Do you aim to boost your sales through social media? What type of engagement are you looking for? Having answers to these questions is the first step to ensuring that your social media content is as optimised as possible. 

2. Ensure your profiles are complete

Next up, and once you’ve covered your bases with clear goals in mind, it’s time to optimise your profile. This means ensuring that every possible social media channel and the opportunities it affords you is completed as thoroughly as possible. If you have a Facebook profile, for example, you will want to fill in the “About” section, add contact numbers, images, store hours, your location and also use keywords so that the bots that crawl social media sites can find and rank you better. 

3. Create valuable content

Creating valuable content is the next big step. But how do you determine what is valuable? This will ultimately depend on the business and industry that you operate within. However, some important content that you can post about and share include reports on developments and trends in the industry. These are a great way of providing valuable information to your followers. Another aspect to look out for is evoking humour and emotions. This is an essential way of boosting engagement with your audience because it will signal to them that your brand is not a stiff corporate, but rather a company with a human touch. 

Furthermore, you should optimise your use of user-generated content (UGC). UGC is what your followers create and share related to your brand. This may mean engaging in a two-way relationship with them so that they feel valued and heard. Finally, it’s important to consider making your content interactive. This means making use of polls, informative infographics that can be used by your audience, providing free downloadable resources and many others.

4. Add tags and hashtags to your posts

Your post may be absolutely perfect in every way but it wouldn’t be complete for optimisation if you didn’t add tags or hashtags to it. These are the keywords that help bots classify content and they’re also the ways in which your users can find your content or valuable content more quickly. With regard to hashtags, it’s also important to understand each social media platform and its best practices. If you use Twitter, for example, one or two hashtags have proven to be the best strategy. Meanwhile, although Instagram allows for up to 30, you should limit your usage to around 11.

5. Use images and videos

We live in a visual world where we consume images and videos at a much faster rate as opposed to the written word. As a result, you need to use the right images for your brand and at the right size. You may also wish to make use of short videos because these are a crucial way of getting more exposure for your brand. From Q&As to how-to videos and everything in between including “a day in the life in your company” can really help improve the way in which your brand is perceived and achieve more visibility for your organisation as a whole.

6. Don’t forget your CTAs

Calls-to-action (CTAs) are another crucial component of your social media optimisation strategy. These CTAs require that your audience takes a certain action when engaging with your content. By omitting CTAs, your content will literally just sit there. But were you to add a powerful CTA to your content, you’d gently be guiding your audience towards taking an action. This could range from finding out more about your product or service, liking and sharing your post, downloading an important resource or even making a purchase. 

7. Remain active, not passive

You may think that once you’ve posted your content, that’s all that’s left to it. This would be an incorrect assumption. In fact, a best industry practice is to engage with your audience and ensure that you’re active on social media as opposed to being passive. You can achieve this by replying to comments. This shows that there’s a human side to your organisation and it comes in especially handy when it comes to customer complaints. The quicker these are dealt with, the better for your overall business reputation. 

8. Optimise links with UTMs

Finally, we reach UTMs or Urchin Tracking Modules. If all this sounds a bit technical or complicated right now, don’t worry. As will likely happen with many of your posts, you will want to lead your audience to your homepage, landing pages or even blog posts. This will necessarily imply posting links together with your content. 

By implementing UTMs in your links, you’ll be better able to gauge the ways in which your audience engages with your content and brand. And this will also help you achieve better tracking, enabling you to determine which type of content is more successful than the previous one. Ultimately, the goal is to use this data to make more informed decisions about your content going forward.

In a nutshell

Much like you would optimise your blog posts with the right keywords to rank higher for specific search queries, or your website and digital presence, your social media content needs to be optimised as well. Whether it’s using the right tags or hashtags, it all starts with having a clear strategy in mind. What goals do you want to achieve and how do you plan on doing this incrementally? Once you’ve figured this out, the tips and tricks mentioned above will help you stand in good stead with your patrons and customers, who are increasingly looking for a “human face” behind the corporate veil in its communication with the outside world. Consequently, social media content optimisation should be a key priority in your marketing efforts and one that should not be overlooked.

If you need some assistance with your overall social media and digital presence, let us know and get in touch with us. We’d be happy to help.

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by Martin

A Beginners' Guide to TikTok for Business

The evolution and popularity of the digital world today enable businesses to reach a long-awaited destination - the overcoming of geographical and infrastructural limitations. The online space is populated by a wide range of platforms and solutions that empower individuals and organizations to reach more like-minded users, target specific audiences, and get their messages across to the world. 

One of these solutions is TikTok, a social media that can give you the opportunity to communicate with more than 1 billion users across 150 countries. If you’re searching for reliable ways to grow your business and reach out to more potential customers, TikTok is the place to be. 

In this article, we’ll offer a detailed beginner’s guide on how to use TikTok for business.

What’s TikTok?

If you use the internet and have an idea of what social networks are all about, chances are that you’ve already heard of TikTok. In a nutshell, it’s a Chinese-owned video-sharing app that allows users to create, edit, and share videos mixed with music, effects, filters, and more. It’s an incredibly successful project and is considered the world’s fastest-growing social media app that attracts a number of popular celebrities, influencers, and businesses.

It’s different to other social media channels as videos are the prevailing type of content shared. TikTok offers incredible opportunities for business growth, as long as you’re confident enough to use it and create a winning strategy for content creation and sharing.

How to get started using TikTok for business

Getting started with TikTok for business is simple. All you need to do is follow a few steps.

Get the app

You can download the TikTok app from your App Store or Google Play store. Once you’ve downloaded it, simply click the “Me” option in the bottom menu bar and choose “Sign up”. Provide your details for registration or use another registered social media account.

Set up your account

Make sure you create a business account in order to get the most out of the app. You’ll see three dots found at the top right-hand side of the “Me” page. Select “Manage my account” and hover on to the “Switch to Pro Account”. You’ll see the option “Business Account”. Click on it and choose the category that best describes your business. This will enable you to receive personalized content, events, and more.

Create content and connect

Once you’ve set up your business account, there are a ton of interesting creative tools to explore. You can also start creating content to promote your products and services. You can share others’ content and gradually grow your account to become more easily discovered.

But before you can create magic on TikTok, there are a few ground rules and tips that you should know about.

How to grow your TikTok account

The only way that TikTok will make a difference for your business is if you manage to successfully grow your account and attract more users to it. This will enable you to make your content visible to more people, increasing your chances of brand recognition. 

The quickest way to grow your account is by creating interesting and attractive video content. You won’t need any special devices or technology gear, all you need is your smartphone and internet connection. When you’re creating content, keep in mind that the dominant audience on TikTok consists of younger people. Put otherwise, try to find the perfect balance between your brand and the audience by creating funny, grabbing videos. 

Here are a few quick tips for your TikTok videos:

• TikTok requires that all videos are in an aspect ratio of 9:16. 
• Currently, the maximum TikTok video length that you can have in order to upload your content is 3 minutes.
• The best way to shoot your videos for TikTok is vertical.
• Sound plays a key part in the TikTok experience. Make sure to add relevant and carefully selected songs or music sounds to your videos.
• Stay up to date with the latest TikTok trends for inspiration on promoting your brand, products, and services. For instance, some of the most popular TikTok trends include lip-sync or dance videos, micro sketches, and video memes. 

Advertising on TikTok

Another way to grow your TikTok profile and attract more followers is by advertising on TikTok. The platform provides a number of advertising opportunities, like in-feed video ads, branded hashtag challenge ads, brand takeover ads, TopView ads, and branded effects. Each type comes with a set of peculiarities and a certain expense that you’ll need to factor into your budget. 

Creating video ads on TikTok for business

If you’ve decided to expand your reach on TikTok by taking advantage of advertising options, you’ll need a step-by-step process. First, you’ll need to set up a TikTok Ads Account. Visit the TikTik Ads Manager and choose your billing country and the purpose of your account. Next, provide the requested details (including email ID, password, and verification code) and agree to TikTok Ad’s terms and conditions. TikTok will then check and verify your account and you’re ready to get started. 

You can create ad campaigns from the “Campaign” section in the menu, under “Create”. From there, you’ll be able to select your advertising objectives and personalize your campaign and specify your targeting. Finally, TikTok will ask you to choose a video or image to promote and to select a call to action button. You’re now ready to submit and enjoy the results.

Conclusion

TikTok enables businesses to grow and expand their reach by offering the perfect place for sharing and engaging with user-generated content. The platform is also appropriate for the creation of different business communities, where users interested in your business’ content can share feedback, discuss topics, and exchange ideas. Put simply, TikTok is an important marketing channel for any business, no matter how big or small. It’s a space that can help you unlock the full potential of your brand and reward you with more visibility, traffic, and sales.

If you need some assistance with your overall social media and digital presence, let us know and get in touch with us. We’d be happy to help.

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by Martin

How to increase your Instagram organic reach in 2022?

Instagram is becoming a vital part of the social media strategy of every business. This mainly goes for companies that work on the B2C level and sell goods and services to end-users. Investing in ads may be something that everybody does, however, there is another important aspect to consider - boosting your organic reach on the social network. Luckily, there are still some ways to do that on Instagram and we are going to give you a few essential tips. 

In this article, we are going to feature only proven tactics that we use for our clients. Keep in mind that the results may vary. If you are consistent and have high-quality and engaging content, the increase will come sooner rather than later. 

Use Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels

Last year, the Head of Instagram - Adam Mosseri, said that “Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing app”. He mentioned that “the company is looking to lean into entertainment and video after seeing the success of competitors like TikTok and YouTube.”

That’s why stories and reels should become your primary focus.

We know that they are two different things. However, both of them will boost your organic reach in 2022. Instagram Stories remain a key factor to share some brief insights from the company's everyday life or to announce something interesting that will be coming up - a new product, a new service, or maybe a promotion. They are the ultimate engagement tool for your audience where you can ask questions, run polls or quizzes and this way directly interact with your followers. The more they take action on your story, the more it will be prioritized by the algorithm because these actions will “tell” the platform that this content is cool and interesting.

Instagram Reels on the other hand will be pushed by the algorithm of Instagram itself (they have to overpower TikTok in some way, as Mosseri said). You can use reels to even share a short story that can be funny or creative and get your audience engaged. Maybe you can outline what awesome place for work you provide. Imagine an Instagram reel that tells that story: 

1. Work from the boring office as usual;
2. The weather is nice and people are looking out the window; 
3. The manager tells the whole team to head down and work from the beach;
4. Final shot with some refreshments and a few people on laptops with their feet in the sand. 

Not bad, right? However, you need to follow and apply the trends in the niche your brand operates in. Otherwise, you are going to have boring content that nobody interacts with. 

The right post at the right time

This might look very simple. Yet a lot of people out there are not paying attention. You can get the most of your posts if your schedule is aligned with the time of day when most people from your target audience are active. If you don’t pay attention to the details some mistakes can happen like: 

• Not considering that your target audience is in a different time zone; 
• Not taking into account holidays and vacation periods people have; 
• Not posting relevant content to some major events going on. 

In order to get the best out of your posts, you have to be sure to post the right thing at the right time that will get your audience engaged. This may sound complicated, but you can check when your audience is most active (from profile insights) and check if there is something interesting you can use as inspiration or the subject of your post. That answers the questions “When?” and “What?”

For example, for a client of Markception, we post on Instagram in the relevant time for Chicago (around 10 AM local time) and browse for local interesting events, historical facts, or celebrity visits to use as information in our posts. 

Engage the audience with challenges, giveaways, and contests

The best way to increase your organic reach is to engage your audience. And you can do that by involving them with something easy: 

• Have a challenge; 
• Ask them a question; 
• Organize a giveaway; 
• Get them to vote in the comments; 
• Organize some contests. 

All of these can be integrated into the social media strategy of your brand. For example, one of the best performing stories for a client of ours that offers beauty procedures was related to the way women put on their under-eye patches. There was a poll on an Instagram story and the results were amazing. It was the most engaging story ever posted on this client’s account. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go live, use hashtags, inspire user-generated content, and tag other users and brands

This may seem like too much stuff for one final tip. However, most marketers don’t use the full potential of the social network. In order to increase your Instagram organic reach the most, you have to use all the tools to your advantage. 

That means you can go live and share something awesome that happened to you. Did you land a new client? Opened a new office? A new store? Got some reward? Be spontaneous and go live when there is something big to share. You can always say at the end: “More news on our website soon!”. 

Hashtags are important because your post can be discovered by someone who doesn’t follow you. However, people don’t tend to use them that much. The same goes for the location. And you could be missing out a lot if you are one of these people. Explore the #s which are relevant to you based on your service, location, experience, trending topic, or something else that can be related to your business. 

Tagging on Instagram works both ways. Yes, it is great to interact with users and brands. However, the big boost will come if you inspire user-generated content that is related to your brand. For example, here is something you can do:

• Announce a contest for the best makeup routine with the cosmetic products you are selling;
• Communicate a reward that will be attractive enough to get the people engaged; 
• Get your audience to post a story with their makeup and share what they love about your product; 
• Get them to tag your account. 

That, right there is just one of the examples you can do. Get creative and you will achieve awesome results. Users are tired of the same old ads, posts, and content. They want something new, something fresh and they want it now. So give it to them! 

If you need some assistance with your overall social media and digital presence, let us know and get in touch with us. We'd be happy to help.

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by Venelin

What are some of the social media trends for 2022?

Another year is about to pass. And while people are still opening their Christmas gifts, we at the marketing agencies are planning meetings with clients to discuss strategies and are exploring useful trends that will be hot in 2022. In this article, we have summarised the best ones for you. A huge help in our research has been reporting on global trends by Hootsuite, Social media examiner, CMS Wire, and the Influencer marketing hub.

Trend #1: Influencers will help brands build communities 

Influencer marketing is not something new. However, it was more directed to increasing sales rather than creating communities. People are getting tired of seeing someone famous to try to convince them to buy something they don’t need. We foresee that one of the big trends of 2022 will be the joint work between marketers and influencers in creating communities around the brand with people that share the same values and vision. 

Trend #2: Content will be king again

Yes, it is true that people have shorter attention spans and are reading less as each year goes by. However, this makes written content even more important. You need to share compelling and engaging messages with your audience using fewer words. This requires a lot of skill and the development of the right copy for your brand. 

Good copywriting is just part of the bigger formula for content marketing. The main thing about a great content marketing strategy is the diversification of content formats and using them to achieve different goals. Brands should create audio and video content in different formats and distribute it via different channels. And not only that. 

The option for creating and distributing good content is a lot: 

• blogs;
• vlogs and videos;
• podcasts and audiobooks;
• ebooks and infographics; 
• different forms of visuals; 
• email and newsletters;
• presentations; 
• expert article and white papers;
• reports;
• free courses and training and many more. 

You need to find the rind formula that fits the needs and goals of your brand. 

Trend #3: Ads that don’t feel like ads

Consumers are tired of seeing the same old ideas, same old CTAs, same old visuals. The brands that risk it with their ads will have better chances than the ones that don’t. Ads in 2022 have to give some added value, not just be another brick in the wall of sponsored content people see. This can be done with the implementation of more creative concepts - ads that don’t feel like commercial material are the thing that will encourage people to trust the brand. 

Trend #4: Social media customer care becomes vital

Users are interacting with big brands more and more on social media. Yes, phone and e-mail remain a vital part of customer service. However, if brands underlook the customer care experience they offer on social media, they are going to be in big trouble. Communicating with customers on social networks is not about only chatting - you have to answer reviews or some status where an unhappy person has tagged your brand. Do not underestimate this - your brand might suffer a lot of reputational damage if you do. 

Users on social media expect brands to have an immediate and adequate reaction to their questions and needs. For them, social media is a channel for direct connection and interaction with a brand or business and their expectations are quite high. 

Trend #5: Nostalgia will work like a charm

The final trend in our short overview is nostalgia marketing. This will again bring benefits to the brands that know how to use it right. People are nostalgic and care about the past. The best thing is that it can be used by brands in almost any industry: 

• If you are a sports club issue limited edition shirts from several years ago; 
• If you are a diner, have a retro evening night. 

There are a lot of great ideas out there. When you sit down to figure out your marketing strategy for next year just make sure to stay true to your brand and follow the trends. If you need some help in that area, feel free to contact us. 

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by Venelin

How can Pinterest bring added value to your marketing strategy?

When most businesses plan their marketing strategy in terms of social media, the top social networks that come to mind instantly are Facebook, Instagram, Viber, and even Tik-Tok. However, an important piece of the puzzle remains overlooked and left behind - Pinterest. In this article, we are going to explore how this social network can be used as a strategic marketing tool for your brand. 

What is Pinterest and how does it work?

If we look at Pinterest, we will discover that the keyword here is one - images. The essence of this social network is the sharing of images. The people behind Pinterest say that its mission is to connect people worldwide through interesting things. While users browse through photos, videos, and other types of multimedia content, they can organize what they like on the so-called “boards”. When people browse the internet and see something they like they can put a “pin” in it and find it later on their profile in Pinterest on the right board. A lot of people do this for wedding planning, for example, to store in one place everything they have seen and liked - from wedding dresses, through decorations and food. In this short video, you can check it out.

Pinterest allows users to follow other people on the social network, to share and comment and tag each other. For business owners and their brands, Pinterest is a great option for sales and marketing in a creative way. It combines two of the best things that make it so popular for users - visual content and the option for users to share everything they like. This social network is based on interests and that can help brands reach relevant audiences that are interested and actually looking for products and services like the ones they have.  

Who is using Pinterest the most? 

Data shows that Pinterest has 478 million users that actively interact with the social network each month. Half of them are from the USA. Another country with a large number of users is Germany (17,5 million). If we speak about numbers, here are some statistics that can show you the potential of the network: 

• People have used the “pin” option 240 billion times; 
• There are over 50 billion different boards created on the social network; 
• There was a 30% growth in the number of users in just one year for 2020. 
• Since 2016, Pinterest has increased the number of active users by almost 330 million people. 

From a demographic point of view, women, in general, use Pinterest more. They account for over 77% of all users. 

Can Pinterest be an important factor for increasing sales? Definitely! Almost 90% of the users say that Pinterest is an inspiration for them before making a purchase. Data shows that ⅓ of all users earn in the range 50 000 -75 000 $ per year, which indicates a good purchasing potential. 

How can Pinterest help your business? 

Like everything in life, the usage of Pinterest to promote your business has some pros and cons. It can turn into a strategic tool or it can be a waste of time and effort. It is really all up to you (and your marketing team). The main things you can do with Pinterest are: 

• Become more visible to potential customers (helps you increase traffic and sales); 
• Integrate a “pin” button on your website to allow Pinterest users to save something that they like and review it later;
• Generate backlinks to your website - this is possible because every pin from a website keeps the link as well. 

A lot of people use Pinterest for inspiration and to find something that is similar to their taste. The social network shows relevant visual content based on the interests of the users, which often are actively looking for something specific. This can help your business a lot if you are going strong with high-quality visuals in your marketing strategy. You can achieve great organic results with good visual content. 

There is also the option to advertise on Pinterest to achieve even better results. You can create a campaign, set a budget, and choose the target audience. You will have to select specific pins to promote. Data shows that brands running campaigns to increase brand awareness spend 2 to 5 dollars to reach 1000 impressions, while a single engagement from users on ads is valued between 0,1 $ up to 1,5 $. Think of Pinterest as the pre-sales stage - this is the place where a lot of people decide what to buy. 

On the downside, there is the fact that maintaining this social network can take a lot of your time. You can dedicate some people from your creative or/and marketing team to this task and If the strategy is not good, you might lose their time without achieving any results. On the other hand, if you are looking to automate the processes, it can also be challenging and time-consuming. Pinterest still remains a niche social network and if you don’t have the right strategy, it might turn out to be a waste of time, despite the potential it has for your business. 

Is Pinterest suitable for your type of business?

There are several industries that Pinterest is great for. Keep in mind that the majority of users are female and this influences the results a lot. Here are the top industries for Pinterest: 

• Fashion and clothing;
• Cosmetics; 
• Wedding agencies; 
• Travel and tourism; 
• Food and gourmet. 

There are many more as well. Any brand with good visual content can use Pinterest. Online stores (B2C) are also a prime industry that can look into Pinterest as a marketing tool. Don’t forget that users are there to enjoy beautiful visuals and be inspired. A picture can tell 1000 words - use that wisely. 

What is the place and importance of Pinterest in our marketing strategy?

The place of Pinterest in the marketing mix depends on your current goals. We know that everyone wants to sell, but you might have to work a little bit in other aspects as well. That will help you drive sales up eventually. Pinterest as a marketing tool is great for any companies and brands that want to: 

• increase their brand awareness; 
• drive conversions up (and sales eventually); 
• create a bond between the brand and the target audience. 

We already mentioned that Pinterest can bring added value to your SEO. 

How to successfully adopt Pinterest in your current B2C communications? 

The first thing you can do is remember that this is not about you. People go on Pinterest to be inspired and they look for something beautiful. Give them that. See what the users like that are relevant to you. Not all pictures on the boards can lead to your website. Create thematic boards that can be explored, see what is trending and try to “catch the wave”. 

When you put a pin with a link to your website, make sure that you want to take users to the right section or product. This will help you increase your conversion rate a lot. 

And remember to socialize. At the end of the day, this is a community in an open social network. 

Will Pinterest work as a marketing channel for your business?

We get to the most important question - is Pinterest going to work for my business? At the end of the day, Pinterest can be an essential channel in your marketing strategy for getting more sales and traffic. This social network can become a powerful tool for any brand and business that sells to end customers (B2C) and provides different levels of interaction with your potential customers. We definitely recommend using Pinterest as a channel in your marketing strategy, especially if what you sell can be represented by inspiring visuals. 

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by Venelin