The Small Business Guide To Digital Marketing: Part One

The Small Business Guide To Digital Marketing: Part One

James Hanway of After August Co

At this point in our society's technological development it comes as no surprise to learn of the importance of social media marketing. No longer a growing trend, social media marketing has solidified itself as a top tier method of growing brand awareness and distributing information. Tech giants like Facebook (Instagram), TikTok, Pinterest, and Twitter hold the keys to the kingdom of digital marketing and trends. As the generation which created the Internet watched their children grow with smart phones, they were quickly supplanted as the population to target for online shopping. 

When we started looking into marketing on Instagram and Facebook I did a little research and concluded that instead of paying for generic dissemination I would save my pennies (figuratively - ads on social media cost hundreds or thousands of pennies) and hit the feed to see what organic traffic I could muster on my own. Knowing that what we wanted for our business was ultimately interest in purchasing something I began with the first handful of marketing tenants I'd learned and went from there. I have concluded that there are a handful (5 or so depending on your opinion) of imperatives that begin in separating content people are interested in vs. content that is passed by. 

1. For goodness sake, take good pictures. 

2. Continuity: its all about the Aesthetic

3. Don't blast people! Check your optimal times and be efficient.

4. Craft your content for your target audience - and craft thoughtfully to represent your brand.

5. More baskets = better for your digital eggs. (spread your continuous content over different platforms)

Our social media presence is in no way dominant. I will be the first to admit that I feel often very overwhelmed and honestly quite silly with my head and thumbs deep in Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok for more than I ever did 'socially'. What I can say through all of my efforts however is that is has literally paid off. We have seen a dramatic rise in organic interested traffic on our Etsy page which has correlated to more sales. 

Pictures are important. If our social media profiles are a vision into our social lives (or how we would like our social lives to appear), then the pages we create for businesses should be a vision into what we would like potential customers to see. With high quality pictures comes a higher degree of respect for both the product and the business. This works directly with 2: continuity. Here is a screenshot of our Instagram profile: 

 

We use the same background for every picture we take (since we purchased the background - and deleted many of the pictures prior to the background as well). We have also tried to angle our bags in the same direction, and generally in the same light, distance from the camera, and focal points. Our pictures are not perfect, nor are they identical; but our goal is at some point to post pictures or posts and for them to be easily recognized as ours. 

This leads directly into the latter three points. We have our most important aspects under consideration, and now the tedious part is posting them. I looked through Instagram's analytics and saw when our highest levels of engagements were, and taking that into consideration alongside my observations therein I have pinpointed a few time slots in each day when we will post on each platform. It is important to remain continuous not only in the pictures/posts themselves, but also with the timing of each post. Successful marketing and advertising is one part product, one part delivery, and three parts timing. A good rule of thumb is posting per each platform at least once a day. The last thing we have wanted to do is be annoying or trite - but ultimately given the target audience the frequency can vary given the time of day or year (or honestly how you are feeling in a given moment). The most important thing is to remain true to the image you are portraying for your brand.

Embarking on the daunting task of marketing through social media (or online in general) can be approached in a few different ways. The fastest way into digital marketing is through a credit card - this comes at no surprise. Paying for marketing campaigns through one of the social media outlets is generally fast to set up, its fairly thorough in terms of outreach, and its monetary possibilities are virtually endless. With a few clicks an online campaign can be established for as specific a target market as desired - and the campaign can run non stop until the well runs dry. For an organization with deep pockets the first option is the easiest and will earn the highest visibility. Every time a person in the targeted age range opens up their Instagram feed, the sponsored ad holds the responsibility to make itself known - and it does make an impression. Impressions, if you are unfamiliar, is the total number of times your content could have been seen. It is a surface level measurement of visibility based on the platform's algorithm. For example, if you are scrolling through your news feed and whiz by an ad in which you are within the target market without looking - you may not have seen the content - but it was there. Very quickly one can assume that although in the 'numbers game' marketing mindset Impressions are important - but they are not the most important. For those businesses on a budget - small ecommerce businesses or small brick and mortar alike - it is the engaged user and click-through data that truly matter. 

As we learn along the social media curve we will do our best to share what we have learned along the way. Feel free to reach out via email, Etsy or social media for information, or just to connect with us.

email: afteraugustbrand@gmail.com  < Etsy - Instagram -  Twitter -  Pinterest >

"Knowledge wants to happen, just as life wants to happen. Both want to happen as community. Nothing illustrates this principle more than the Internet." -Verna Allee