Category: Social Media + Influencer Engagement

A Social Media Super Bowl

Clairemont InternBlog, Public Relations, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , ,

There are 32 teams in the NFL across 21 states. Super Bowl XLIX, New England Patriots versus Seattle Seahawks, was the most-watched Super Bowl and most-watched television program of all time with a staggering 114.4 million American viewers. This past season, 103.4 million American viewers tuned in for Super Bowl LI, Patriots versus Atlanta Falcons. You could say professional football is a pretty big deal.

The various football teams have a lot of work to do on the field, and their communication teams have a lot to do off of it. Each team has to connect with thousands of fans, and one great tool to do this is social media. Any given team will be using social to post game results, questions to fans, information on players, news about the team, the game schedule, merchandise and more. That being said, we’ve ranked the top five NFL teams who we think have done a stellar job with their social media.

1. Dallas Cowboys

The Numbers:

The Cowboys have 3.75 million followers on Twitter, 2.6 million followers on Instagram and 8.6 million likes on Facebook.

Why We Love Them:

We love that, like most teams, the Cowboys share player interviews and highlights, but the team stands out in the way it uses social media to focus on the team as a whole and the friendship between players. We also love the shoutouts the Cowboys give the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, who have 393,000 Instagram followers of their own.

The Cowboys do a great job of utilizing Instagram stories, including highlights of wallpapers, captains, events and the season schedule. Most importantly, this team makes its social media shine by never missing a birthday shoutout to the players and well wishes to fans on holidays. 

2. Carolina Panthers

The Numbers:

The Carolina Panthers have 3.01 million followers on Twitter, 1.5 million followers on Instagram and 2.3 million likes on Facebook.

Why We Love Them:

The Panthers might have the most clever and humorous social media in the NFL. Expect to see a gif blowing off a big loss or the Panthers hitting another team with lighthearted jabs on Twitter. The Panthers are also in tune with younger fans and pop culture, recently turning Ariana Grande’s hit song “Thank u, next” into a hilarious meme and sharing the Panthers players you can play in the popular video game, Fortnite.

The Panthers can also be serious. We appreciated the team’s post in solidarity with Pittsburgh after the recent shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue.

In addition to staying on top of current events, the Panthers love showing off their players off the field, their fans and their city, Charlotte, North Carolina.

We’ve also got to hand it to Sir Purr, the official mascot of the Carolina Panthers, who boasts 17,900 followers on Instagram.

3. Minnesota Vikings

The Numbers:

The Minnesota Vikings have 1.26 million followers on Twitter, 769,000 followers on Instagram and 2.1 million likes on Facebook. The Vikings have a Facebook show, The Rundown, but with a pretty small following of just 1,700 followers.

Why We Love Them:

So! Much! Purple! The team colors of purple and gold jump out at you on the Vikings’ social media but especially on Instagram where uniforms, crowds of fans and tinted cartoons make a wave of purple. This team gets fans pumped for upcoming games by putting the Vikings’ cleats up against their opposition’s footwear.

We also love the way the Vikings get their fans involved with #purplepups.

4. New York Giants

The Numbers:

The Giants have 1.8 million followers on Twitter, 1.7 million followers on Instagram and almost 4 million likes on Facebook. The Giants also have a show on Facebook, called Giants Life, that has 4,000 followers.

Why We Love Them:

The Giants do so much community service and giving that there’s an account dedicated just to community relations! We love that the main Giants’ Twitter does a great job of retweeting highlights and sharing those moments with a larger Giants’ audience.

Like the Vikings, the Giants get fans involved with #NYGiantsPup, which has been used on almost 900 posts this season. Where the Giants stand out are their fun and flavorful posts sharing healthy tailgate recipes, which are done in partnership with Weight Watchers.

5. Buffalo Bills

The Numbers:

The Buffalo Bills have 965,000 followers on Twitter, 472,000 followers on Instagram and more than 890,000 likes on Facebook. The Bills also have a Facebook show with 17,000 followers.

Why We Love Them:

The Buffalo Bills prove that the number of followers you have doesn’t always equate to the originality of your posts. We love the Fun Fact Friday posts the Bills have been doing to highlight players and make them relatable to fans.

We also love how the personal lives of the players are shared on the team page, including interviews with the wives and kids of players.

Loyal football fans get excited about the uniform their team wears. This team shows its social media finesse by sharing what combination of pants, jerseys, gloves and socks the Bills will be wearing at their next away game.

Overall, the Bills are great about connecting with fans and are giving them a look behind the scenes.

Interested in other ways social media can shine? Check out our blog about getting the most out of your hashtags.

Written by Kaitlyn Karcher, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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5 Steps to Successful Influencer Campaigns

Cherith AndesBlog, Marketing, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , Leave a Comment on 5 Steps to Successful Influencer Campaigns

You’re done with your old mattress. Back pains, a weird lump, either too hard or too soft. Total Goldilocks moment. When you’re ready to seek your new, “just right” mattress, what do you do?

As it turns out, almost all of us would phone a friend. A research report by TapInfluence and Influitive indicates that 92 percent of consumers look to people they know as their leading source for recommendations.

That’s a hefty statistic that prompts any marketing strategist to consider tactics like influencer partnerships and influencer campaigns.

Quick marketing lingo crash course: In an influencer campaign, the company or brand partners with individuals who are considered leaders in their respective niches. Typically, these individuals have garnered a large following on social media and wield serious clout to sway behavior or opinion with their content. When done strategically, influencer marketing can move the needle in product visibility, positioning, desirability and sales.

But before you blow up the DM boxes of Instagram accounts, consider these five cornerstone elements to craft a successful influencer campaign.

The Right Platform

First and foremost, define your audience for your campaign or product. Don’t settle for generic buckets, like “women, ages 44-54 who have children.” Pinpoint several audiences or sub-audiences defined by behaviors, hobbies, seasonal wishes, websites they frequent and (here’s an interesting one) upcoming life stages. Future plans affect current decisions, my friends.

Determine which social media platform your audience frequents. For example, if I’m selling a Waterpik targeted to ladies in their 40s, I wouldn’t partner with a Snapchat influencer. In addition to demographics, product type will influence your social media platform. Instagram’s visual nature works perfectly for something like a fashion handbag line, while Facebook or YouTube better suits food products with opportunities for popular step-by-step recipe videos.

The Right Goal

Wade through the plethora of marketing metrics to determine your ideal end game. What does campaign success look like for your product? Is it a sales goal or does it trend toward engagement, awareness and visibility?

Then define your influencer campaign benchmarks. Are you optimizing these influencer campaigns for metrics including likes and shares? Click-through rates? Product purchases? Video views? Are you creating a sales funnel that begins with the influencer and then allows you to retarget web traffic? Define this process with a fine-toothed comb to pinpoint a clear path to purchase.

The Right Influencer(s)

There’s no shortage of stars and wannabe-stars on social media. Determine your ideal influencer’s criteria, such as followership, industry (and micro-industry), activity, connections and — of course — compatibility with your product. Reference your initial campaign to ensure a strong fit.

You can use database tools to help the search for influencers, such as Inpowered and Little Bird. But keep in mind that you’ll need to vet their findings manually.

You can also manually search Google and social platforms using creative combos of keywords, brand terms and location. At Clairemont, we maintain a strong network of relationships with influencers across several industries and regions, and often word-of-mouth recommendations from this group lead us to our next influencer connection.

The Right Offer

What are you asking the influencers to do? If working toward a sales goal, consider asking your influencers to pair their content with a promotional offer or coupon. Forbes.com cited a case study in which influencer marketing increased in-store coupon redemptions by 44.8 percent as opposed to the typical 15 percent redemption rate.

The Right Execution

That devil … he’s in the details, as we all know. Timing can prove a pitfall in hasty influencer campaign. Many influencers book partnerships for seasons such as the holidays far in advance. Careful planning for a campaign should address timing and fee structures as well as clearly define the types and frequency of content posted by the influencer.

Looking for some advice on your own influencer campaign? Drop us a line!
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Should You Buy Followers?

Clairemont InternBlog, Public Relations, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , Leave a Comment on Should You Buy Followers?

We’ve all done it. You post fresh content, respond to comments and employ a good balance of organic and paid exposure, but it seems like your social media following is growing at a snail’s pace.

Growing your social media can cause headaches and take an amount of effort and time that you feel like you may not have. You’ve heard that some accounts pay to boost their followers and, at this point, it seems like a creative solution to your problem, right? Unfortunately, like all things too-good-to-be-true, that notion is a little misguided.

Buying social media followers can have more consequences than just taking a large bite out of your budget.

1) It can damage your brand reputation. While buying followers can seem harmless at first, once real followers discover that your profile numbers have been padded, they may feel as if you are no longer credible. Once your brand suffers a negative reputation, it can be difficult to regain your customers’ trust.

2) You won’t get the engagement you need. With thousands of “bot” accounts (accounts created for users that don’t exist, copycat accounts or hacked accounts), you won’t be getting the true engagement that you need for social media success. Sure, you may be paying for hundreds of likes and retweets, but when you post content, the consumer is more than likely one of your fake followers. That doesn’t help get your message out there or grow your business.

3) It can be expensive. If you still want to risk it, think about how much money you’ll be paying to potentially damage your reputation and acquire hollow engagement. Most companies that provide these follower accounts charge in bulk for followers, likes and retweets. It could cost you anywhere from $50 to a few thousand dollars regularly.

4) It often violates platforms’ terms of use. If you still think that buying followers on social media is a good idea, think about this: it violates many of the top platforms’ terms of use, including Twitter and Instagram. While it’s not illegal, your account could be suspended or even removed.

It may seem like your account will take forever to gain a hefty following, but by uploading and sharing quality content strategically, you can grow your social media accounts. Try working in some hashtag magic or become acquainted with Instagram’s new algorithm to start.

If you need to step back and let some pros take over, drop us a line, DM us or tweet us!

Written by intern Yasmine Evans, a senior at NC State University.

 

 

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The Social Race: Paid vs. Organic Exposure

Clairemont InternBlog, Marketing, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , ,

It sometimes feels like social media is one big race; everyone’s trying to gain the most followers, likes and comments in the fastest time possible.

Social media provides an excellent opportunity to learn about your customers, expand your business and stay connected to the community. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an international corporation, a local business or a freelance artist. Taking advantage of the benefits of social media can be exceptionally rewarding.

Many people, though, can find it hard to grow their following and engagement. That’s where exposure comes in to play. Organic exposure is when you provide content on social media without paying for it, such as posts to your own feed, shares and comments. Paid exposure requires a monetary investment for items such as ads and sponsored posts.

In terms of our race, paid exposure is similar to a series of 100-meter dashes. You pay for an ad or sponsored content targeting specific audiences that, if done correctly, provides a quick boost to your numbers. Once that ad has accomplished its goal, a strong social media strategy will retarget the audience (another sprint) to move them along the sales funnel.

One benefit to paid exposure? Paid promotion helps to connect you with people that are already interested in your expertise but may not be following you yet. For example, if you’re a sports retailer, taking advantage of paid ads on social media means that sports fans (identified by their online activity) are more likely to see your ad than someone who doesn’t know that LeBron signed with the Lakers. This can drive an increase of traffic to your social media accounts and website. Paid promotion can also reach new customers and provide them with incentive to take action. With ad buys and strategic marketing, your customer base can grow exponentially.

Organic exposure is akin to the cross-country marathon. It takes time, effort and creativity. Posting creative, relevant content on a regular basis will help to build a relationship with your customers, further brand imaging and distribute information about your business. Organic engagement, however, often lacks a broad reach, especially in today’s social media climate. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin have all changed their newsfeed algorithms recently. This means that users’ feeds show content based on who they already follow and who they interact with using likes and comments. With this change, businesses can’t rely on just posting content regularly to drive traffic.

So what’s the best tactic to increase followers and engagement?

The short answer is both.

Paid and organic exposure work best when done together. It’s difficult to gain results by utilizing just one tactic. Start by establishing a reliable organic strategy. Post regularly, interact with followers (or non-followers relevant to your business) and follow others. Then try a paid strategy for a boost in followers and engagement. Make sure to research your target demographic and test varying ad durations, copy and target segments to find the right fit. But never forget to stay consistent with your postings and interaction.

Slow and steady (with a few well-placed paid slots) wins the race.

Are you looking for an award-winning social media campaign? Drop us a line!

Written by intern Yasmine Evans, a senior at NC State University.

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Making the Most of Your Hashtags

Clairemont InternBlog, Marketing, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , , ,

Hashtag. It’s one of those words you keep hearing and the more you hear it, the weirder it sounds. In social media, you’re constantly reminded to “hashtag this” or “hashtag that.” But which hashtags should you really be using … and why?

Remember that a hashtag is merely an identifier that pools certain posts together and keeps relevant data connected. It is a way for communities to share, a way to gauge opinions on topics and most importantly, a way for users to sift through the millions of terabytes of content floating around on the internet.

If you’re looking to beef up your hashtag game, you have to first ask, “For which platform am I creating content?” There is a monumental difference in strategy and results among Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Let’s break down each one.

Twitter

Twitter is where hashtags started, and the platform still emulates the tried-and-true spirit of their original purpose. Hashtags siphon your post into an online conversation. These tagged posts are “connected” to a thread of posts with the same hashtag, linking all the posts together. They work wonders for discovering developing trends and tracking relevant news or your favorite topics.

© [Artistan] / Adobe Stock
Twitter’s timeline algorithm, much like Instagram and Facebook, organizes your feed based on what it thinks will be relevant to your interests. One of the easiest ways to utilize hashtags is to find a popular tag and make your brand a part of that conversation. By engaging with a popular tag, your post will attract much more eye traffic. Connecting with trends is a great way to keep your brand in the loop.

Due to the 280-character limit, using several hashtags in a post doesn’t work well, so the most effective route is to use only two. Believe it, or not, there is an aesthetic appeal to social media content and writing a well-composed, organized and “clean” post could make all the difference.

Instagram

While people log on to Instagram to see carefully framed and beautifully filtered pictures, it is often the hashtags on the caption of a post that generates likes and helps it reach star status.

Tags on this platform serve as buckets for posts. Once a certain tag is put on a post, Instagram will group that post with all the other posts with that tag, creating an enormous gallery. Users can search any hashtag with Instagram’s Discover tab and see all the buzz on that topic.

This has shaped a community feel on the platform, letting foodies and travel enthusiasts alike share their posts with specific niche communities. Any brand has the chance to reach out to an exact market and share content with people that are interested in a certain topic.

Over time, certain hashtags have developed into industry standards, generating millions of posts. If you are a travel enthusiast, it may seem like a good idea to throw “#adventure” on your post, but at the time I wrote this article, that hashtag had almost 64 million posts. Remember that if you decide to use the more popular hashtags, your post could be lost a lot quicker due to the amount of activity!

However, Instagram allows you to insert 30 hashtags in one post, so use as many as you like! Just as a friendly reminder, it’s a good idea to make your hashtags appear lower in your caption so your post does not look cluttered. This can be accomplished by burying them beneath your text with dots, line breaks or whatever symbols you prefer. People will only be able to see the hashtags if they click on your post to see the full caption. On the other hand, tags can also be put into the comment section after a post has been made.

Facebook

Many people aren’t sure if Facebook is the place for hashtags. The original social network has traditionally been a platform for people to connect with close friends or specific users, unlike Twitter which encourages conversation among non-connected users.

Many businesses on Facebook use hashtags and promote campaigns the same way they would on any other platform. However, according to a study done by BuzzSumo in which more than a billion posts from more than 30 million brand pages were analyzed, posts without hashtags garnered more reach than posts with hashtags.

© [momius] / Adobe Stock
The sheer volume of that study makes it hard to argue that one should be using tags, but if your team has created a killer campaign and has found a great way to market it with an inventive hashtag, do it! It is still a good idea to keep the number of tags low to make it more appealing to the eye. We recommend approximately two.

The most important facet of the hashtag process is research! Research your industry leaders, influencers and audience to gauge tags people are using and which ones are resonating with those communities. In order to come up with meaningful hashtags that stick out, you need to know who you are trying to reach. You want to make sure your tag is refreshing and different from another brand’s hashtag!

Do your #research, be #inventive and don’t forget to have fun!

Now that you’re in the groove, check out some other tips on social media strategy!

Cover Photo Credit: © [Michail Petrov] / Adobe Stock

Written by intern Nathan J. McDaniel, a senior at Western Carolina University.

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