Social Media Marketing 101

Social media are highly interactive online technologies that allow individuals and groups to share content, often in virtual communities. Their best advantage is their ability to facilitate engagement, and I mean lots of highly valuable engagement I have often mentioned otherwise, like in posts about nurturing leads through x number of touchpoints down through the sales funnel.  Social media is the tactical side of those discussions. To put it otherwise, the whole point of social media is to network, ie to reach and engage with otherwise strangers.

The game changing aspect of social media is the fact that they are dialogic (ie they provide two-way communication) which varies considerably from earlier monologic (or one-way) forms of marketing communication like newspapers, television and magazines. For this reason, when using it, remember to harness its dialogic super power. If you can do that, you will be exploiting it far more fully than otherwise.

Uses & Benefits (of multiple social media channels. Beware however that, if you wish to use multiple channels, only select the few best fits. Avoid spreading yourself too thin.)

• Improve market reach. Reach as many portions of your market as possible by participating in multiple communities. Do not put all of your eggs in one basket, especially since many of your competitors likely limit themselves this way.
• Improve search engine rank. Your social media presence will be considered as part of the content that affects your rankings. Consequently, if you have your brand’s name on social media, and even multiple websites with their own high page rankings like Facebook, Twitter and so on, your business will piggyback off of those high rankings.
• Improve Customer Service & protect your brand's reputation against negative feedback in 2 key ways. First, social media platforms allow you to track what is being said about your brand. It also allows your customers to communicate with you directly regarding their grievances. You can therefore respond quickly to resolve customer problems. Your quick responses signal that you are willing and able to resolve customer concerns and are therefore a good choice.
• Follow your competition to platforms to reach their customers. Once your competition is on a platform with an audience, you will likely benefit from it also. Review their website or content for a list of all of their social media accounts.
• Go viral. If your content is well received, your audience actually does the promotion work for you. This is a marketer's dream because it costs considerably less that otherwise. Social media sites typically provide some type of function(s) that facilitate this. Examples include Facebook's 'share' function, Twitter's 'retweet' button, Pinterest's 'pin' function, Tumblr's 're-blog' function and so on.

Social Media Strategy

Do not post just for its own sake. Have a strategy instead. For for-profit businesses, you likely want your posts to convert leads through stages of the sales funnel. A social media strategy involves 1) objectives, 2) tactics and 3) performance measures. 

1) Objectives.  

1. Establish social media marketing objective(s) that align to business goals (like mission statements) and your corporate strategy plans.  Ensure these objectives are S.M.A.R.T, ie specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Common social media objectives include the following.
• improve brand awareness
• encourage engagment
• advertise your products and services
• sell your products and services
• measure how your market perceives your brand
• offer customer service over social media platforms. Example(s).
• To use [a platform, to be subsequently selected] for customer support to lower average response rate to under 1 hour by the end of quarter 2. 
• Track your brand's performance and adjust your strategy accordingly
2. Know your audience as intimately as possible. The better you know your audience, the more consistent and attractive you can curate your brand voice and tone.
3. Know your competitors. This includes looking closely at their offering and social media behavior. Can you create a type of mini marketing communication centric SWOT analysis (using Porter's 5 Competitive Forces and Pestle)? 
• Strength: You can use the special dialects of the small local towns community while the international market leader can not.
4. Select social media platforms that meet your objectives. Key considerations include whether your audience comprises customers (B2C) or businesses (B2B), the type of content you produce, whether you want the content to be  found via daily feeds vs audience searches over the long term. For instance, if you want to know what people are saying about your brand right now, feeds are more useful than search engines. Since pull marketing content requires keywords for search optimization, YouTube is a better option over Facebook. Consider the demographics of your audience. 10-year old YouTube content can continue to generate leads and engagement in ways that Facebook won't. See basic details about different social media platforms to consider when undertaking this step. 
5. Be sure to get your account verified as a safeguard against imposter accounts. See each platform's steps.  

2) Tactics.

1. Create a social media content calender. To this end, establish tentpole events that are most likely to appeal to your target market. For each tentpole, calculate all associated dates that require your action for each tentpole event. Use tools like Buffer to schedule your posts well in advance to different platforms (Twitter, Instagram, etc).
2. Determine what content is truly valuable and engaging for your target audience. If unsure or need inspiration, follow these tips.
• look at the content of closest competitors, direct and indirect. 
• Sometimes, a competitor is strong on one platform but weak on another. Analyze whether dominating the platform with their weaker performance is an opportunity for you to dominate that platform and attract a lot of the market.
• Use social listening tools. Social listening allows you to know what current and potential customers think about you and your competition. These analyses may uncover opportunities for brand (re)positioning, at the very least in your messaging.
3. Design brand voice and tone that appeals to your target market. Include it in your brand style guideline to ensure that your personality remains consistent, even across platforms.
4. Create content that will appropriately engage your audience. Examples include the following.
• answers to audience questions
• routinely seek out posts of other creators with a significant following. Make some meaningful and positive feedback that could get the attention of their followers. Various platforms have their means of facilitating this like Twitter's retweet feature, Instagram's @tag and so on. 
• In response to an article, you can say "I liked your perspective on X ..." (and NOT simply 'I liked your article"). 
• Demonstrate your expertise. However, for the sake of being relatable, post content that also shows your imperfections like mistakes.
• include images (NOT only text and links). For instance, businesses using inforgraphics generate traffic over 10% more than otherwise. Remember that humans process visual content faster than text. This is particularly noteworthy when considering the limited amount of time in which to capture the attention of an audience online.
• Kylie Cosmetics engaged its audience over 2 years of content in the form of selfies and home videos. They portrayed Kylie just as a luxury lifestyle brand with repeated, obligation-free touchpoints before the launch of her lip kit business. Read my full case study of Kylie Cosmetics.
• Gamification is fast becoming a great opportunity for encouraging customer engagement.  
5. ...

3) Social media audits.

1. Perform a social media audit of your accounts. Since specific steps are outside the scope of this article, read otherwise on how to perform social media audits. Example(s) of common metrics of social media audits include the following.
• engagement metrics. Focus on these metrics (over less meaningful types like vanity metrics) because engagement indicates actual engagement. They include engagement (like comments, virality behavior, etc), click-through, conversion and so on. 
• vanity metrics (number of likes, followers, )
• audience profile as planned? (demographics, demand, etc)
• Find and report imposter accounts that use your name to capture or mislead your target market.
• Useful analytics tools include hashtracking, Followerwonk, etc 
2. Have appropriate expectations for the results. For instance, brand awareness marketing is geared towards long term results like trust, loyalty, authority and so on. Consequently, do not expect immediate 'direct responses' like purchases, clicks and so on from efforts designed for brand awareness. Brand awareness is a more nebulous measure and usually takes several months or longer before sales occur. Here are some common examples. To ensure you are taking a strategic approach, list your metrics in a meaningful way. The stages within the sales funnel is an example.
• Brand awareness
• To drive traffic (with Linkedin) to your website, monitor click-throughs.
• To raise brand awareness (Instagram), track number of Instagram Story views. 
• number of followers, shares, etc
• Engagement (ie how much audience interacts with your content)
• Comments, likes, mentions, etc
• Conversions
• to advertise (Facebook), monitor cost-per-click (CPC).
• Relationship management
• testimonials, repeat sales, your team's average response rate, etc
3. Adjust your strategy accordingly.

Summary of most popular social media platforms

Among the most popular forms with over 100 million registered users include the following (listed in alphabetical order).

• Facebook and its associated Facebook Messenger.  
• Audience profile: teens to grandparents for B2C
• Your method(s) of use: business pages; groups; host events)
• Usage: brand awareness, conversion campaigns, B2B, B2C, retargeting campaigns.
• Useful features: targeted advertising; live broadcasting; offers continuously / dynamicallly evolving results for current trends
• Facebook Messenger
• Feature: Businesses can respond directly and personally with target customers who download the app.
• Instagram
• Audience profile: a bit younger than that of Facebook, gen Z, millenials; mainly used as a mobile app
• Business content type(s): visual, photos, short videos, live streams and stories that disappear at the end of each day.
• Usage: brand awareness, visual-first platform, B2C, influencer marketing.
• Useful feature(s): influencer marketing is  potentially much higher on this channel; Interactive questions in 'Stories' make the feature exceptionally good for engagement; Up to 30 hashtags are allowed per post as a means of potentially appearing in the continuously trending search results; @ tags of other accounts are useful for shoutouts for non-competing companies with the same market for new customer acquisition / market penetration.
• Pinterest
• Audience profile: mostly women, millennials.
• Usage: brand awareness, e-commerce, shopping, website visits, retargeting, campaigns, travel, food, B2C, influencer marketing.
• Quora
• Useful features: ranks highly on Google search results pages. It is also a search engine itself. This is powerful for creating backlinks and therefore boosting SEO. Consequently, it is ideal for business promotion. Users select specific topics and can therefore find you if you offer something in which they are truly interested. Your content can be shared and liked by users to rank it higher on results pages. You can enter your credentials in your profile. in order to plan your questions strategically, you can search for questions with the highest number of followers.
  
  
• Tik Tok
• Business content type: short viral videos, creative.
• Audience profile: mainly popular among young viewers.
• Useful features: some of the videos get shared on other sites as well.
• Twitter 

• Audience profile: Males; between 35 and 65, especially below 49. 

• Business content: microblogging (NOT as visual) so best for news and B2B; starting conversations; images, links (back to your business website) and other types of popular social media features

• Usage: brand awareness, retargeting campaigns, politics, news, B2B, B2C, mobile-first marketing efforts.

• Useful features:  polls; retweets (ie virality potential technology); paid private publishing
• LinkedIn  (to boost professional networks)

• Audience profile: B2B professional clients;

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• Usage: brand awareness, recruitment, B2B

• Your content: business-oriented; general posts that showcases your expertise, long-form content, and even job listings; great if you are a startup or entrepreneur looking to boost their professional networks, to reach out to B2B clients, to reach investors or to boost brand recognition 

• YouTube
• Business content type(s): video content; tutorials or demonstration (very popular).
• Usage: brand awareness, educational content, how-to videos, SEO-focused content (NB.YouTube is the second most popular search engine), influencer marketing.
• Useful features: share videos on non-YouTube sites; create playlists; interact with audience on the YouTube platform; content is optimized for search.
• Audience profile: Varied, even including persons over 55; over 2 billion monthly logged-in users and even more viewers without accounts, fastest growing demographics. B2C and even some B2B. 

WhatsApp

• Content type & useful feature(s): text, voice or video messaging mostly to audience's mobile devices; 1-on-1 or group chats (group chats may allow or block audience participation);
• Audience profile: U.S. and globally; especially younger groups.
• Telegram
• (similar to WhatsApp)
• Snapchat
• Audience profile: young audience
• Content: photos, short videos or text messages that remains available for 24 hours.
• Features / benefits: useful for raising brand awareness among adolescents.
• Pinterest
• Business content type: visual; posts of products, blog posts and a variety of other content; fashion; home decor; food; DIY content.
• Feature: search engine
• Audience profile: young people; women.
• Reddit
• Chat bots

CONTENT RELATED TO USING MULTIPLE SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

• Sales funnel 101. Social media is useful for the all important 'engagement' phase of the sales funnel.
• Brand voice and tone
• Social media 101
• Instagram 101
• Facebook Groups
• WhatsApp Business
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Chatbots
• Tawkto
• Social media management 

• Social listening
• Use tools like Buffer to schedule your posts to various social media platforms well in advance.        

• Be guided by where in their purchase decision process your customers are. This will help you to create appropriate posts, advertisements and other engagement content. 
• Summary of other social media platforms: https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/09/social-media-channels-marketing.html 
• Internal links
• Details of the most popular social media platforms to be considered when selecting social media platforms. 

• Social media content ideas 

Nudge customers closer to buying decision by asking questions like:  

• 'Which do you prefer between A, B and C?, Which is your most favored or hated disliked option?

Use a snippet of the most powerful part of a testimonial in a graphic. Then place the entire testimonial in the description of the post (of Instagram for instance) 

Transparency: Show behind the scenes, where ingredients come from, etc especially if not usually made public knowledge.

Quick tips:

FAQs:

Before & after: results after you helped.

Other related industries:

User generated content:

Long form content (apx once monthly)

Community issues

Direct sales offer 

• Abovementioned case studies in other content
• Instagram 101 | Instagram
• Kylie Cosmetics

Brand Storytelling

What is brand storytelling?

Brand storytelling is a type of content marketing that is designed to engage consumers emotionally. Content marketing involves creating and sharing material (commonly video, blog or other social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is absolutely intended to stimulate interest in its products (albeit indirectly). In other words, rather than use boring educational e-books or infommercial content about product features, you can instead use storytelling, best yet with lifestyle branding, to engage a consumer's buying mind via their emotional backdoor. In short, brand storytelling is a strategy to emotional stimulate consumers. 

What is a brand story? A brand story is the narrative or the reputation attached to your brand. It is what others may say about your brand, often the first thing they think of. It is useful to consider the term 'brand story' as a collective term because it is the residual idea that is left in a consumer's mind having interacted with your brand over an extended period in numerous ways. If your brand shows up in the world in a way that remained strictly consistent with the brand personality, a consumer's response when asked about your brand is likely to incorporate some key aspects of your branding design plan.

 

Examples of what some customers might say for the following case studies.

• Red Bull support extreme sporting events.

• Nike encourages athletes (of more conventional sports) to excel. 
• Coca Cola is about happiness and friendship.
• Harley Davidson's brand thinks people should enjoy life and feel free.  Notice that, rather than sell motorbikes or roller coaster rides, these brand stories sell the core belief. 
• Disney thinks people should have fun. 

Since the brand story is often known only implicitly, it is even more critical that a brand's content remains consistent and clearly aligned with branding goals. A brand suffering multiple personality disorder will find it hard to maintain a good niche of 'friends'.

Uses & Benefits of Brand Storytelling

Emotional branding. Research shows that stories trigger the brain to respond to stories in very affecting / moving ways and people are 22 times more likely to remember story-based information than fact-based information. Stories even encourage people to feel more emotionally connected to brands than otherwise. Using the brand story as a more organic advertisement is ideal. Your story should ideally include how you resolved their pain points, etc, the story will be even more beneficial. Read more about emotional branding (along with case studies for the emotions of happiness, sadness, anger and fear).

Differentiation. A compelling brand story can help to seal competitive advantage. After all, according  to the Content Marketing Institute's 2019 B2C Content Marketing Trends, roughly half (only 52%) of content marketers frequently use storytelling in their marketing. If you are fortunate to be in a market with even less focus on content marketing, you have even a greater opportunity.

Brand Story Tips

• Know the brand attributes. (See examples of brand attributes). This are essential parts of the brand and need to be communicated.
• Integrate all aspects of your business with branding so that it is consistent. 
• Red Bull marketing model is consistent globally. 
• Own and control your content without needing to seek third party rights. 
• This is the motivation behind the creation of Red Bull Media House.

• Generate quality, authentic content that truly is emotionally engaging. Focus on the brand personality and attributes, NOT the product.
• Red Bull tv tells real life stories of the challenges and triumps of its star extreme sports athletes. Red Bull does not show athletes holding the can of their product. They are relying on the audience to be so emotionally connected with the content that, when they need to 'feel revitalized', they will buy Red Bull. The subtle placements of their brand imagery is sufficient for the audience to know the source of the content.

• Create different communication media  products (video, blog, etc) based on your market's preference. 
• Red Bull creates its own featured films, episodic series, documentaries and so on. 

• Create valuable media channels that could provide 360 degree publishing. 

• Create innovative content. 
• Red Bull's events are often very innovative. A key case in point was the famous man jumping from space.
• Do not allow the brand story to develop by chance. After all, it can be implicit and left to perceptions of others (much the way any human being has a 'story' that can be concisely construed by observers). Take charge; direct how your brand story is told. For instance
• When creating brand awareness from the earliest stages of the brand's life and or when your target customer is still only at the top of the sales funnel (TOFU), expressly communicate the brand story in writing in the 'About' page. Essentially, begin training everyone about your brand's narrative.
• Brainstorm for brand stories from daily activities that relate to your brand's source of competitive advantage, featured employees whose practices reflect the customer experience that is integral to your brand's competitive advantage, things learned, etc  Examples include show how your buyer who is concerned with eco-friendly materials visits suppliers; show how you make the product is handcrafted with thoughtfully sourced ingredients.
• Articulate the brand story to anyone being recruited to provide content in one way or other, from employed content providers to customers about to write reviews or feedback. Prompt and guide these content providers accordingly.
• Have a communication marketing plan whose raison d'etre is to honor the brand story. For instance, establish details for managing each type of content element (above).
• Include brand style guidelines regarding types of content. What you say is just as important as the form you use to communicate it.
• Always make the target customer profile into the protagonist with problems and show your product as the hero or resolution to customer problems. (Focus on benefits NOT products and features). Use customer stories. This helps to showcase that customers love your brand. Publish customer reviews and stories that are compliant with your desired brand story. Whenever possible, use classic storytelling techniques; character development, a character's arch / transformation, etc. Wherever possible, be inspirational.
• Be social. Show your brand's human side. After all, customers have relationships with people. You can humanize your brand if you showcase yourself as the brand's founder, team, the office, behind-the-scenes activities, daily activities and so on. Consider that the KarJenner clan social media achieves this very well. The public has such intimate knowledge about the family members that their humanity is a people magnet that allowed Kylie Jenner's product launch to result in a complete sell out within hours, even though she was a teenager selling products that offer nothing extraordinary that can not already be achieved from other brands. Inclusions in brand story telling include stories about how and why the founder created the company.
• Teach others how to tell your story. As early as possible, preferably within the first few words of content, let customers be clear of how the brand adds value. Be concise to maintain the emotional hook. This is important because you are NOT the only one telling your story.  
• Take advantage of internet marketing tools. Examples include. 
• Use video contagion
• create a unique hashtag

CONTENT RELATED TO TELLING A BRAND STORY

• Emotional branding (with case studies illustrating the emotions of happiness, sadness, anger and fear).
• Lifestyle branding strategy
• Brand awareness & brand awareness srategy
• Unique value proposition
• Promotional strategies to build brand awareness
• As much as possible, encourage customer reviews and feedback to be compliant with the brand story.
• Measuring brand awareness
• Branding 101. See where this step fit into the process of brand strategy management.
• Brand personality
• Audience-driven content management

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves setting up your website so that search engines can rank your website as highly as possible on search engine results pages (SERPs). The higher your website's ranking, the more easily your potential customers will be able to find your store.

There are different SEO approaches. 

• Off Page SEO. Includes the following. 

• Backlinks, ie links from external websites that send potential customers to your website. However, remember that back links are ranked differently based on their quality as perceived by search engines. Set aside resources (time and otherwise) for developing high quality backlinks. Ideally, set backlink SEO goals for time periods and work towards getting them. 

• Seek after backlinks from sites that search engines consider relevant. If you sell cars, do not seek after links from kitchen gardening websites. One alternative is to request backlinks from your ecommerce store's product manufacturers.
• Request that backlinks use relevant keywords like 'XYZ, 12-speed blender' rather than 'click here'

• Use content marketing. Create compelling content (in written, infographic, spoken, video or other format) that truly adds value to your target market. Content marketing works simply because the content is so good that it will get shared. Engaging with well established bloggers or vloggers is an example of how you can generate high quality relevant backlinks. (See a sample letter of how to contact these influencers). NB. Although content is still the sine qua non for success, content is most effective (re engagement) when accompanied by infographics, ie some form of visual representation of written words.

• Welcome backlinks from social media (Facebook, Twitter, the average blog and so on) but their positive impact on search engine ranking is usually marginal. This is because they are 'nofollow' links. FYI, you can verify whether backlinks are higher quality 'follow' or 'nofollow' links by entering 'Control U' or 'Command U' to review the code of a webpage. A good 'follow' backlink looks like this <a href="https://www.yoursite.com">The ABC site</a>. However, 'nofollow' backlinks have an additional piece of code <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.yoursite.com">The ABC site</a>
• Know that backlinks from pages with numerous other links are generally less valuable than those from pages with fewer links

• Avoid paid backlinks. Search engines can identify websites whose only purpose is to provide backlinks over quality content. Consequently, search engines can penalize or even delist sites that rely on such low quality backlinks.

• Guest posts on well established, relevant websites. You make on external websites or blogs. Guest posts also help in generating high quality backlinks.
• Press releases. 

• On Page SEO. Includes the following. It is easier for new store owners to focus on this approach before off page SEO.

• Product title. See how to create the product title automatically in MS Excel for CSV product file uploads to Shopify

• URL (aka 'handle' in Shopify). See how to create the product page URL automatically in MS Excel for CSV product file uploads to Shopify 

• Product description 

• Meta description. FYI a meta description is different to the product description. It is usually unseen in the coding of the page. You may even use the description as a mini advertisement that potential leads will see on the SERP.  See how to create the meta description automatically in MS Excel for CSV product file uploads to Shopify. Example

• Order  [page title] today from [brand]. Free shipping and insurance on all our [brand] [product line] products. Order today and get a free [bonus - usually an add-on product]
• Always include the following elements within the product description.

• level 1 header, ie the largest header available. 

• vendor's name. This should already be in the title.
• SKU

• Alt image tag. Use the product title for this. To enter this detail automatically, you may either create formula in Excel for the CSV product upload file or use an app in Shopify like 'Alt Text' or 'SEO Image Optimizer by Booster apps'

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• Long Tail keywords. These are highly detailed and specific keywords. They are best for targeting leads who are already very far into your sales funnel, most likely with buying intent. The details include as many of the following as character limits will allow and the relative importance of each element (*** very important, ** moderately important, * least important). For instance, character length for product titles and meta descriptions are 55 and 160 respectively. Needless to say, if you are paying for Google traffic, it is best to use long tail keywords. Besides it is less competitive and cheaper to do so.

• brand name / make ***. Examples: Canon

• key product-specific feature **.  Examples: color; size

• special name of the product (line)***. Examples: Corolla
• version **

• Stock Keeping Unit number / SKU ***. Ensure this code is the standard manufacturer code that your potential leads may be able to find and look for

• generic product type *. Example: 'hat'; 'bag' 

• Broad keywords. Refer to keywords that are best suited to potential leads that are yet not very far into your sales funnel. Such people may search merely out of curiosity and for general information.

When you have completed SEO preparations, create a free account on Google Webmaster Tools ( http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml ). Then register the website to get Google to start crawling your site sooner than later.

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CONTENT RELATED TO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION / SEO

• CSV Product Upload: MS Excel tricks to automatically create complex SEO elements like the title and URL (aka 'handle') within minutes
• Use this great knowledge to improve Google Product Listing Ads / PLAs 
• Use this great knowledge to improve Craigslist ads

Tentpoling for Marketing Communication Strategy

Communication with your target market (or promotion) is a key aspect of the marketing mix. However, timing that communication appropriately around a significant event is often the essence of strategic communication marketing. Apply the following steps to meet your marketing objectives.

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1. Select events that are relevant to your target market. Also consider the mission statement for your business' current period. For instance, a new business may be concerned with brand awareness, new customer acquisition, customer loyalty and so on.  Keeing the mission in mind may help to select only  the most worthwhile tentpoles and insert meaninful touchpoints into the execution plan. Common examples of events include the following.

• new product launches - aimed at long term sales of a non-seasonal product 
• seasonal cultural events, like Christmas - aimed at promoting seasonal increase in sales  
• consumer events, like birthdates, subscription expiration - aimed at brand recall, loyalty, etc
• major third party events, like World Cup sporting competitions.
• the occurence of positive or negative risks, like natural disasters affecting your industry, your or a competitor's product recalls - aimed at brand recall, acquiring competition's customers, etc
• major current affairs (like new civil rights legislation, natural environmental debates, release of popular movies)
• trending social media topics (hastagged topics),
• You can even use events that are not directly related to your product as an excuse, simply to keep your brand in the minds of your customers. Essentially, you aim to piggy back off of events that create their own buzz among your customers. In this last case, you may need to consult a calendar of events like national holidays, celebrations (often based on historical events and milestones). Consider your industry and a calendar that might apply to your business' core values and focus. For instance, a culinary arts business may consult a calendar with different food days. See below how to maintain and list and highlight events and their dates.

2. Know the dates of the event and align marketing communication with your market's response timing. This is important because you are unlikely to sell Christmas decorations if you begin to advertise on Christmas day or even Christmas eve. After all, people will have usually completed decorations by then because they buy in anticipation of the event. In the image below, the green line shows the start of early prebuzz marketing communication campaign. See how to use Google Trends to estimate your target market's pre-buzz readiness. Prebuzz may take many forms that include Youtube infommercials.

See below how content, manufacturing and advertising can be scheduled around each event.

Tentpoling: marketing communication is about timing

The following table illustrates how I fill my marketing calender with events. The order in which I list tentpoles is based on the earliest date on which I must take action (usually for manufacturing the product or for inviting pre-orders as a means for planning manufacturing volumes). In other words, I do NOT use the event. In the example below, Christmas is the event. However, it appears in the August list.

August (Date calc)

1- Event & search keyword(s), date	2-Ad Type, media, timing	3-Product availability	4a-Product Type, production method, lead time	4b-Product Differentiation Special edition symbols, etc	5-Manufacture date(s)
Christmas 25 Dec	Ø B2C: pre-manufacture pre-order invitation via FB product page, Instagram, YT, 7-20 Aug, 1-4 Oct   pre-buzz (v sharp peak) via Facebook, FB product page, 13Dec to 24-Dec   post-buzz (excess stock), 26-Dec to 5-Jan       Ø WS: pre-manufacture pre-order invitation via messaged link to order form, 7-20 Aug	Ø B2C: Facebook, Instagram, 5-Oct to 26-Dec                   Ø WS: Shippers, 28-Sep to 20-Dec	Rum cake, fruit soaked, 7 weeks	Red, white, green	10-Aug to 2-Nov

1- Event

& search keyword(s), date

2-Ad

Type, media, timing

 

3-Product availability

4a-Product

Type, production method, lead time

4b-Product Differentiation

Special edition symbols, etc

5-Manufacture date(s)

Christmas 25 Dec

Ø B2C:

pre-manufacture pre-order invitation via FB product page, Instagram, YT, 7-20 Aug, 1-4 Oct

 

pre-buzz (v sharp peak) via Facebook, FB product page, 13Dec to 24-Dec

 

post-buzz (excess stock), 26-Dec to 5-Jan  

 

 

Ø WS:

pre-manufacture pre-order invitation via messaged link to order form, 7-20 Aug

 

Ø B2C:

Facebook, Instagram, 5-Oct to 26-Dec

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ø WS:

Shippers, 28-Sep to 20-Dec

 

Rum cake, fruit soaked, 7 weeks

Red, white, green

10-Aug to 2-Nov

Here are the meanings of the columns.

Column 1. The event refers to the date or range of dates during which consumers recognize the event. The keyword used by the target market.

Column 2. Advertising date is based on when consumers are likely to begin thinking about and buying in anticipation for the event. This may also involve inviting customers to pre-order for the sake of establishing appropriate manufacture volumes for special editions and perhaps creating a sense of scarcity. 

   a. B2C / Direct consumers: This date is based on when interest peaked. Interest levels are based on historical Google Trends data for the keyword(s) associated with the event. Examples include: Google Trends for your target market's region over the past 5 years.

   b. Wholesale (WS). This date is earlier than the date for consumers. It gives WS customers enough advance time to order and receive shipments in time for when interest in the product peaks.

Column 3. The date from which the product is available for shipment 

   a. B2C: usually the day after advertisement

   b. WS: S/A 

Column 4. Production

   a. Product type and production lead time

   b. Themes & symbols

Column 5. The ‘manufacture date’ field is calculated as Availability date to WS customers MINUS production lead time.

 

3. Respond to your market's environment and trends. Although events that are relevant to your market are unplanned, they may be useful for marketing if they have some strong correlation with your market's response to them. This is where post-buzz tentpoling can apply. Examples include news events and social trends (like the public response from anything like oil prices to movies featuring some aspect of your product or social media events). Like other newbie marketers, you probably agonized over how you could possibly emotionally engage your market into buying your product. The solution is to ride the wave of your market's emotional response to events in the news, movies and so on, ie as the emotional response can relate to your product in the middle of the sales funnel. Learn more about the sales funnel. Emotional marketing this way is the driver behind the phenomenon in which a previously obscure style of dress suddenly flies off shelves after a major event like a celebrity wedding, an awards ceremony and even viral wardrobe malfunctions. 

4. Create buzz content, actvities and products that meet your market's touchpoints requirements. Use personal branding, lifestyle branding, relevant keywords for search engine optimization (SEO) in titles and so on, etc. See how to use Google Trends to generate timely content. When creating content around a major third event (like world cup sporting events), check with your legal team before using creating content that associates their brand with yours. If are reliant on major news events, your risk management team needs have a plan for horizon scanning for quickly generating post-buzz content for such circumstances. When possible, have a risk communication plan with script templates.

Consider the case of Kylie Cosmetics' Lip Kit product launch. It sold out within 1 minute despite no paid traffic and under 10 full time and only slightly more temporary staff members. The event used several years of Kylie's selfies for pre launch buzz. While her fame gave her an unprecendented following of hundreds of millions of fans, the brand's following paled in comparison. It was therefore sensible to closely link her personal brand to her cosmetics brand. Her Instagram started in 2011 as being very typical of any teenager. However, at some point, there was a noteworthy shift including many high quality images. Why would a teenager who is not a model need to take so many glamorous, obviously curated photos? The daily photoshoots showcased her personal brand personality exactly how it would appeal to her target. Specifically, the brand personality was one that her target would want to 'befriend'. However, it rivalled the cosmetics brand in terms of engagement for her posts. Her personal brand was therefore indispensible to any product launch. It is noteworthy that her frequent posts built feelings of trust and familiarity - a brand manager's dream. Her daily posts of the minutae of life provided the numerous touchpoints that basic products alone struggle to achieve. Another key learning point is the fact that the process of repeated touchpoints to build familiarity and trust take time and should be planned well in advance. For instance, The Kylie Lip Kit name had been trademarked in 2015, ie 2 years in advance of the launch. The pre-launch touchpoints never discussed lips. Rather, they focused on makeup tutorials for everything other than for the lips. This therefore manufactured the need for a solution for lips. She was not asking anything of her audience. Rather, for 2 years of stellar patience, these posts only provided perceived value. What she was getting in return however was that her target market was not only the trust and familiarity but also a reciprocity debt (a subtle principle of influence / persuasion). To launch product extensions, she made her personal brand appropriately relatable with strategic collaborations with family, friends and even her baby. Scarcity marketing is often beneficial to tentpole marketing. It was intentionally used for Kylie products despite the fact that, if they wanted, Coty, the part owners of the Kylie Cosmetics brand would have had sufficient marketing knowledge to schedule production volumes to better meet demand. Besides, even Kylie's likely less experienced team would have known that her milllions of loyal fans could easily have sold out her 15,000 lip kits. Even if they had not, experience over the years of having sold hundreds of thousands of lipkits would have given them sufficient experience to prevent the brand's continued trend of product stock outs. The initial product launch stock out was ideal for creating a brand story for the media that would positively shape brand perceptions as being highly desirable and something to be bought as soon as possible. Beware however, this is generally more suitable for trendy products (NOT necessarily your mainstay products).    

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JAN
NEW YEAR'S DAY 01-JAN
    SPECIAL OFFICE HOURS

US NAT'L WHIPPED CHEESE DAY 05-Jan
SCOTTISH BURNS' NIGHT 25-Jan
GERMAN APPLE DAY 11-Jan


FEB
WORLD SAMOSA DAY 29-Feb
CHINESE NEW YEAR 08-Jan
US NAT'L PIZZA DAY 09-Feb
CHRISTIAN PANCAKE DAY 09-Feb
VALENTINE'S DAY 14-Feb
US BANANA BREAD DAY 23-Feb
US NAT'L MARGARITA DAY 22-Feb

MAR
NCAA MEN'S BASKET BALL TOURNAMENT
US SPRING BREAK
US NATIONAL  EAT ICE CREAM FOR DINNER 22-Mar

APRIL
NCAA MEN'S BASKET BALL TOURNAMENT
GOLD MASTER'S TOURNAMENT
WEDDING SEASON
MOVING SEASON
BUILDING SEASON
US NATIONAL PET DAY
INTERNATIONAL MOTHER EARTH DAY 22-Apr
 GERMAN BEER DAY 23-Apr
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MAY
MOTHER'S DAY - 13-MAY
WORLD LAUGHTER DAY - 1ST SUNDAY
 HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION
HUMMUS DAY 13-May
AUSTRALIA NAT'L BURGER DAY 28-May

JUNE
NATIONAL ACNE AWARENESS MONTH
 FATHER'S DAY
ARBOR DAY (COSTA RICA) 15-Jun

 FATHER'S DAY
CANADA NAT'L (POTATO) CHIP DAY 27-Jun
CANADA FOOD DAY SAT OF CIVIC HOL WK'END
WIMBLEDON
TROPICAL SPRING / WET SEASON BEGINS
WORLD MILK DAY 01-Jun
INT'L SUSHI DAY 18-Jun
AUSTRALIA VANILLA COKE DAY 02-Jun

JUL
INDEPENDENCE DAY (US) -4-JUL
    SPECIAL OFFICE HOURS

MLB ALL-STAR GAME
US NATIONAL ICE CREAM MONTH
US NATIONAL ICE CREAM DAY 3RD SUN
JACKFRUIT DAY 04-Jul
WORLD CHOCOLATE DAY 07-Jul

AUGUST
FRIENDSHIP DAY 1ST SUNDAY
 SUMMER OLYMPICS 05-Aug
MOTHER'S DAY (COSTA RICA) 15-Aug
 US TENNIS OPEN 29-Aug
WOMEN'S EQUALITY DAY (US) 26-Aug
 NATIONAL DOG DAY   26-Aug
 NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL 28-Aug
INT'L BEER DAY 1ST FRI

SEPT
NATIONAL ALOPECIA AWARENESS all of Sep
 LONDON FASHION WEEK
US LABOR DAY 05-Sep
INT'L BACON DAY 05-Sep
EMMY AWARDS 08-Sep
NFL SEASON KICKOFF 08-Sep
INT'L COFFEE DAY 29-Sep

OCT
WORLD HABITAT DAY 1ST MONDAY
 WORLD VEGETARIAN DAY 01-Oct
WORLD FARM ANIMALS DAY 02-Oct
WORLD CHICKEN DAY 2ND THURS
WORLD EGG DAY 2ND FRI
WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY 10-Oct
 WORLD HANDWASHING DAY  15-Oct
 WORLD FOOD DAY 16-Oct
WORLD TRIPE DAY 24-Oct
S AFRICA NAT'L BRAAI DAY 24-Oct
MLB WORLD SERIES
HALLOWEEN
COLUMBUS DAY
WORLD CHEESEBURGER DAY 27-Oct
AFRICA FOOD & NUTRITION SECURITY 31-Oct

NOV
NATIONAL SKIN CARE MONTH 01-Nov, all of Nov

WORLD VEGAN DAY 01-Nov, all of Nov
GUY FAWKES' 05-Nov
US ELECTIONS 08-Nov
THAI NATIONAL CURRY DAY 1ST FRI
INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR TOLERANCE 16-Nov
 WORLD PHILOSOPHY DAY   3rd THURSDAY
 GERMANY NAT'L SOUP DAY 19-Nov
WORLD HELLO DAY 21-Nov
 THANKSGIVING 25-Nov
DEUTSCHEN BUTTERBROTS (DUTCH BABIES) DAY 25-Nov
BLACK FRIDAY 26-Nov
CYBER MONDAY 28-Nov
DIWALI 30-Nov

DEC
INTERNATIONAL TEA DAY 15-Dec
 BRAZIL NAT'L MUFFIN DAY 18-Dec

CHRISTMAS 25-Dec

    SPECIAL OFFICE HOURS
 NEW YEAR'S EVE   31-Dec

PERSONAL TENTPOLES (FOR EMAIL MARKETING)

• BIRTHDATES
• EXPIRATION DATES
• PAYDAY
• WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES

NATIONAL TENTPOLES (FOR EMAIL MARKETING)

• FIND THE COMMEMORATIVE DAYS FOR YOUR MARKET

UNPLANNED EVENT TENTPOLES (FOR POST BUZZ TENT POLE MARKETING)

• MOVIES APPEALING TO YOUR MARKET
• RISING OR FALLING OIL PRICES
• SOCIAL EVENTS (CELEBRITY FASHION TRENDS, CELEBRITY NEWS & SO ON)
• NEWS OF SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGHS
• VERDICTS OF CERTAIN HIGH PROFILE COURT CASES
• OUTCOMES AND POPULAR REACTION TO MAJOR EVENTS 

CONTENT RELATED TO TENTPOLE MARKETING

• List of Commemorative Days
• List of Awareness Days
• Google Product Listing Ads / PLAs
• Craigslist advertising
• Create a Tentpole Marketing Calender Using Each Element of Your Target Customer Profile (Graduate school example)
• See how to use social media for tentpole events.
• Instagram 101. Attaching questions to Instagram stories is excellent for encouraging engagement around tentpoles.
• Fully integrate your tentpole promotion into the marketing mix. For instance, update all other marketing communication accordingly. This includes banners and slide shows on your website and social media (Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and so on). Also advise all front end personnel accordingly and forms of communication like telephone greetings, mentioning the offer, email signatures and even your live chat shortcut welcome text can be.
• Other discussions on abovementioned case studies
• Kylie Cosmetics tentpole and scarcity marketing case study (above), social media marketing, etc.
• Internal links: Kylie Cosmetics case study re product launch tentpoles; tentpole calender;

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