5 Simple Steps to Master Customer Relations on Social Media.

“You are in queue, please wait.”

“Aap qatar mein hain, kripya pratiksha kijiye.”

If this makes you feel angry and helpless all at once, then congratulations, you too have experienced the good ol’ customer service of the 80s and 90s. An era when customer service was king and all the customer could do was wait and wait and then wait some more to finally be heard and sometimes maybe served.

Contrast this with 2022.

Airline lost your luggage? Tweet at them.

Your favourite tea brand did not live up to your expectations? Slide into their DMs.

Had a great customer experience at your local coffee shop? Make a reel on Instagram with your favourite barista as collaborator doing his moves to the latest Harry Styles song and tag the coffee shop so they can reshare it too.

As you might know, building a successful brand is about consistency. Small steps performed regularly to bring brand reality closer to brand goals. In the digital world, these steps often involve marketing to new eyeballs on social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, Youtube etc, and search engines such as Google and Bing. But one of the most important steps to ensure that these new eyeballs and customers stay is to build and nurture a lasting relationship with them with genuine and helpful customer service.

For customers and businesses alike, social media has become an easy and effective way to connect and engage with each other. Whether it is feedback received in-the-moment of the customer’s experience, the launch of a new line of products, the brand’s stand on a social issue or even engaging with other brands. Social media has made it easier for brands to become more human. By standing out and staying connected. But you might be wondering: how does one begin treading these social media waters as a brand? How much is too much? And what tone should a brand adopt?

The digital marketing mavericks from Flora Fountain, the top social media marketing agency in Ahmedabad have come up with some simple steps for brands to follow on social media to build customer relationships that last. Let’s

SOCIAL LISTENING

It is important for a brand to have its ear to the ground on the internet to know what people are talking about it online, what trends are being followed by its potential customers. This activity of monitoring various digital platforms, topics and keywords to identify important mentions of the brand and its related topics is called Social Listening.

Brands can modify and enhance their promotional campaigns and customer communications based on this information collated through social listening. While there are many paid online tools available to assist with this actively, the top digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad Flora Fountain does it the old school way, by regularly scouring through platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, etc. through targeted keywords, phrases and topics.

This way, the social media managers are able to assist their clients in resolving their issues by offering insightful responses to their inquiries, and make better educated selections.

TAKING FEEDBACK & ACTING ON IT

Feedback helps brands understand what their customers like, what are their pain points, evaluate how their target audience perceives them. With social media making communication between customers and businesses all the more direct, the cycle of feedback has become quicker and hence brands have to be all the more quicker in responding to them.

Show the customers that their inputs are valued by putting their suggestions and requirements into visible action. From launching new products, services or any interesting and useful feature, implementation of customer feedback received through DMs, reviews and other avenues can help brands gain their trust and loyalty. It shows that you hear their concerns and needs and you’re willing to act on it for their benefit.

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Engage With Them! How Interactive Content Helps a Brand Grow Online

Pick 6 Horror Movies and We’ll Guess Your Biggest Fear with 98% Accuracy

Heels or Flats: How do you dress to impress on date night?

We all have come across such articles on the internet. And in most cases, have clicked on the link and answered all the questions, either out of curiosity or interest in the brand. This is interactive content at play, on web and social media.

WHAT IS INTERACTIVE CONTENT?

Any form of content that encourages the user or follower to not just passively consume content, but participate and interact with the brand, is called interactive content. It can include quizzes, surveys, polls, riddles and calculators added into articles, social media posts and stories.

It is an interesting and fun approach to connect and interact with the customer, pick her brain on what they think about the brand, its products and in some cases, even collect data from them for future marketing activities. And anything more than just reading text is always more engaging.

In order to provide the best social media marketing services in Ahmedabad, Flora Fountain has always believed that content must engage, educate and delight the brand’s user.

BUZZFEED – KILLING IT ON THE INTERNET WITH INTERACTION

Everyone knows BuzzFeed. While there might be different reasons why people like them, the one thing that makes them stand out in the market in terms of content, are their interactive posts, quizzes and surveys. According to BuzzFeed, 96% of users who start their sponsored quiz, complete it. That is a very high completion rate!

And the brand has been successful in generating engagement, user interaction and data collection because their content targets specific audiences, it is created to be mobile-friendly and incorporates a lot of visual elements.

It’s very simple, create content that makes storytelling a conversation, rather than one-way communication, where the consumer is only reading and gaining information but cannot interact back.

Like, this FRIENDS S1-based quiz that takes one on a nostalgic trip back to the teens. What’s fun is that they become addictive after a point.

BENEFITS OF INTERACTIVE CONTENT

Increases consumer engagement

When a brand creates any form of interactive content, it is seeking its users’ opinion about the topic. It shows that the brand truly values the consumer and they are open to accepting their users’ ideas, thoughts, and feedback.

And no, it’s not rocket science to create engaging content online. And one of the best examples of it is this great use of the Poll Stickers feature by youth fashion brand Forever21 about their footwear trends.

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Social Listening: Why You Must Know What Customers Are Saying Online

3.6 billion in 2020 to 4.55 billion people in 2021!

No, that’s not the increase in population but the increase recorded in social media users.

4.55 billion people, or about 57.6% of the global population, today use social media.

This ginormous population is constantly interacting online, collectively creating (and bringing down) trends, fashion, memes and also brands! Whether they are B2B, B2C, B2B2C, every brand today needs to know what people are talking about them and their competitors online. They also need to know where to find these users who are talking about them, and which users to pay more attention to.

How? Through social listening.

Let one of the best digital marketing companies in India, Flora Fountain help you hit a gold mine for customer service and product development through social listening.

SOCIAL LISTENING

Social Listening is a strategy used by brands to monitor and track all the public conversations taking place on any social media platforms related to their brand or product. These conversations or mentions are analyzed for insights to evaluate customers’ feedback.

In simpler words, it helps a brand understand why, where, and how online conversations are happening, and what people think of the brand.

WHY DO BRANDS NEED IT?

Social listening can help brands understand and thrive in a dynamic industry that morphs faster than a Power Ranger.

A. BRANDS CAN LEARN ABOUT THEIR AUDIENCE & CREATE BETTER CONTENT

If a brand actively practices social listening, it can learn a lot about what its customers desire. The strategy helps the brand discover where their audience is most active and which social networks they predominantly use. Also, brands can understand what their audience wants, where their interests lie, and questions they have, based on certain topics and keywords. Knowing where your company falls behind and knowing where you exceed customer expectations will allow you to perfect the areas you’re already succeeding in and build a plan around the areas that are in need of improvement.

B. BRANDS CAN BUILD BETTER SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

Once brands learn the various important aspects about their audiences, this information can help build a better digital marketing campaign. Because the best digital marketing companies will always make campaigns focusing on topics that are relevant to the target audience, so they sit up and pay attention.

Social listening helps a brand uncover such relevant topics by analysing all the social conversations based upon such keywords.

C. BRANDS CAN GET A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR COMPETITION

Social listening also enables a brand to get a better understanding of how audiences feel about their competitors and the industry in general. This data gives an insight into where the brand fits in the market. It might also reveal competition, direct or indirect, that the brand didn’t even know existed.

D. BRANDS CAN FIND RELEVANT SOCIAL INFLUENCERS

Finding the right influencer for a brand is not a piece of cake. But social listening helps brand identify people with a strong following on social media and other online platforms, that match their target audience. Because when the right people talk about the brand to the right audience, chances of higher sales and customer retention increases.

BUT HOW DOES ONE PRACTICE “SOCIAL LISTENING”?

Users are unafraid of sharing their opinions online. So, in order to keep up with them, a brand must listen to them. This can be done by either hiring a team or a social media agency to keep a tab on trends, or by using a specialised software or online platforms that offer social listening tools, that give businesses access to more detailed forms of information.

1) START WITH A ‘GOAL’ & KNOW WHOM TO LISTEN TO

What is it that the brand wants to achieve with promotional activities on social media? Higher sales? Explore new audiences? Improve customer retention or form a new channel of sales/revenue? Once this is clear, it becomes the GOAL of the brand.

Next, the brand must figure out where should they put their ear on. In simpler terms, a brand should know which platforms they need to pay attention to. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google searches, LinkedIn, etc.

Thirdly, how to identify these conversations. Through direct mentions of the brand, social media handles, and/or product names, hashtags, campaign names and relevant keywords, names of important people in the company, topics related to the brand. And all these points to study the competitors as well.

A great example of it is the following post, where Starbucks was not tagged with its official twitter handle, yet the brand was able to identify it online thanks social listening and respond to it, thus improving their customer engagement.

2) EMPATHIZE WITH THE AUDIENCE & RESPOND FAST

The audience needs to feel that they are being heard.

And in order to do that, the brand needs to engage a little more with its audience. Be it negative or positive, the brand needs to empathize with the audience.

If a brand gets positive feedback, then it needs to figure out what the audience loved about it and build marketing campaigns on that basis. And if the brand gets negative feedback, it needs to know the pain point of the audience in order to solve it.

3) CHOOSE THE RIGHT LISTENING TOOLS!

As kids, everyone is taught how active listening is important, but when it comes to brands, they haven’t always had the right tools to do so at a large scale. But now, there are many that can help brands in collecting and analyzing data in an easier way. Here are some that work across major social media networks:

Sprout Social:

This tool provides brands with in-depth analytics and insights for organised social listening. One of its features shows the hashtags and topics that are trending across the mentions of the brand and replies on behalf of the connected brand. The name of the people and brands that most frequently talk about and get mentioned with a particular brand surfaces on the tool.

Hootsuite:

Brands can use this tool to monitor conversations, keywords, mentions, along with hashtags and respond to them. The tool helps a brand to analyse many real-time conversations taking place on digital platforms.

HubSpot:

Brands can monitor social interactions and connect with the right people. It allows a brand to link data from social media with contacts in their database in order to create custom keyword monitoring, email alerts, mention notifications, etc.

Other than these, there are tools like Lately, Brand24, Brandwatch, Buffer, TweetDeck, Mention, which come with comprehensive features to help brands collect brand mentions across major social media networks.

As one of the top full-service digital agencies, Flora Fountain provides digital marketing services in Ahmedabad, India and across the world. Drop us a message to plan some insightful social listening strategies for your brand.

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5 Lesser Known Features of Instagram to Make Any Business Stand Out

Everybody is on Instagram! With 1.386 billion people actively using the platform every day, it is the 4th most used social media platform in the world. According to us at Flora Fountain, one of India’s top digital marketing companies, Instagram is no longer just a social media platform to post pictures and videos, but an ever evolving people’s platform where people can connect, interact, stream and even shop.

And for a business to make the most out of it, here are 5 interesting but lesser known features that Instagram’s product team came up with in 2020-2021.

THE AUDIO SEARCH TAB

Everyone is reeling aka scrolling through reels. It’s true! Close to 100 million daily active users in India consume content on reels every day. It has also brought back into limelight many musical classics and become a deciding factor in new songs trending.

But the challenge was that people couldn’t recall the actual names of the songs. Now with a new search feature called Audio in the search tabs of the Explore section, anyone can simply type in either the lyrics of the song or the name of the artist and find the audio clip and its many variants on Instagram.

Further, users can also see the many reels made using this specific audio clip and even use them for their own content. How does this help businesses and professional pages? The social media experts at Flora Fountain, the best digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad, say that by using popular or viral song clips on the reels, the chances of the reel ranking higher on the explore pages of people consuming similar content increases, and it becomes easily discoverable to more people on the platform.

TEXT TRANSLATION IN STORIES

As per Statista figures from October 2021, India has 201.1 million active users on Instagram. Instagram supports 9 Indian languages on the app for posts, stories, etc.

Now, to ensure all its viewers get to explore, see and understand what people around the world are talking about on the platform, no matter which language they use, Instagram had launched Text Translation on Stories in July 2021.

How does this work? Every time someone sees a story with an overlayed text in a language that is different from the one set in their app, Instagram will show a “See translation” notification on the top left corner. Once users tap on the option, they will be presented with a translated panel. This feature currently supports 90 languages.

This update can be useful for brands operating in global markets. Instagram users all around the globe can now translate and understand the written text in the Instagram stories of their favorite brands. It already had this feature for its post captions, profile bios and even comments, but not many might have noticed or talked about it.

WORDS TO TEXT SUBTITLE STICKER

Okay, now this one feature has us very excited! The words to text feature sticker on Instagram stories changes the way stories and reels are viewed. Known as caption stickers, this feature turns verbal speech into text and displays it on the screen as the video and audio plays along.

Think about it. People who can watch reels in public! Just by turning off the sound! And still not miss much of the action. Of course it is also super helpful for people who have hearing disabilities, who can also enjoy reels without any audio cues.

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Advertising on Social Media: Why You Need a Separate Game Plan

Who would have thought that the platforms created to let people share stories from their lives through pictures and videos would turn out to be such great tools for audiences to discover new products and services and for brands to find these new audiences. And the pandemic has only made it more so!

It is time to go deeper into the social media rabbit hole.

Social media marketing and social media advertising. Always knew they were different, but didn’t know who to ask? Read below for some insights from Ahmedabad’s best digital marketing agency!

First things first, social media marketing is purely organic activity, which involves posting pictures, publishing stories, responding to comments and inquiries on messages and sharing the posts in various groups and communication channels.

While social media advertising comprises all paid marketing activity on various social media platforms through the means of sponsored posts and boosts, done over and above the usual social media marketing activity such as posting and creating stories.

While there is an overlap between the two in terms of results and goals, advertising on social media is a different ball game altogether, with targeted budgets, a keener understanding of target audiences, and a smart selection of the content that should be boosted.

Because of the difference in strategy and skills required for the two, the top advertising agency in Ahmedabad suggests that a mere social media strategy or calendar does not cut it for a brand. Serious brands must have a separate game plan for the two. Read on to know why and everything else about social media advertising.

WHY ADVERTISE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media advertising is an all-encompassing format of marketing for a brand. Since social media is a place where the people are a bit chilled out, it gives marketers the opportunity to go out of their way with creativity to make their brand stand out.

The regular advertising in the digital world includes the usual suspects, like pay-per-click ads, website display ads, video popup ads, digital billboards, etc. But social media has promotions and boosts, which offers them great flexibility in tweaking the audience, its reach perimeter, the budgets, and putting a pause or restart as per the brands requirements.

Even the best digital marketing agencies in India believe that organic reach is hard to achieve, hence if a brand has the bandwidth and resources to spend, they must consider social media advertising for quick win and turn around.

HOW TO ADVERTISE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Different platforms have different ways to let businesses and individuals promote themselves and their services to a large swathe of potential customers with interests that align with what they sell.

Listed below are the various kinds of paid promotions a brand can run on different platforms.

TWITTER PROMOTIONS

With Twitter Promote, the Twitter algorithm automatically promotes Tweets to the brand’s specified audience. It promotes the first 10 daily organic Tweets that pass the Twitter quality filter. It also promotes the brand account to attract new followers.

Marketeers can focus on up to 5 interests or metro locations, and let Twitter do the rest. Unfortunately, with this feature, marketers can’t choose which Tweets to promote. (That’s why creating great content on a regular basis for every platform is important).

FACEBOOK ADS

With over 2.45 billion monthly active users, Facebook is popular across many demographics. Just as many teenagers use Facebook as their parents—and seniors are quickly catching up. With ads, brands can direct users to its Facebook Page or the website as a part of the sales funnel. One such great form of advertising is Carousel ads on Facebook timelines.

Carousel ads work well to showcase different features of a product, or to explain a step-by-step process. They’re also a great way to present multiple products or services.

Sometimes, brands can showcase a variety of products in a single carousel chain, and every picture can have a customised purchase or inquiry link. This way, it can not only be a great sales and data collection tool too.

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The Ultimate Guide to LAUNCH A Product on Social Media

Remember the last time you scrolled through your Instagram feed and thought “Hey, how did they know I was looking for this sneaker/hoodie/blender/fill in the blanks?” More and more people are discovering new products and services online through social media, over traditional methods of discovery like TV ads, newspaper ads, hoardings and billboards. And this is even more true after the pandemic, with an increasing population comfortable spending time and money online.

So it is imperative, when a brand has a new product ready for launch, to create a big buzz online. Brands have to get people curious about the product and the idea behind it. However, with over 3.6 billion people active on various social media platforms, spending an average of 2.5 hours every day scrolling and messaging, there are chances of a brand’s messaging getting lost in the din and noise made by almost everybody online.

So here’s the ultimate cheat sheet (or guide, if you will) created by India’s top social media marketing agency, Flora Fountain, to make some noise, stand out and attract the right eyeballs for a new product or brand launch online.

1. FIRST THING FIRST, IDENTIFY THE AUDIENCE

The first thing a brand must do before planning a new product or starting any form of marketing activity for its launch, is to understand “WHAT DOES THE MARKET WANT?” and “WHERE DO WE FIND THIS AUDIENCE”

It starts with market research, where the ideal customer is identified based on various demographic points like age, gender, interests, income, region, etc. It can start from something as simple as a Google search of a product similar to the one about to be launched by the brand. Simply going through the kind of people that the competition brands are addressing through their content, images, and the reviews on their shopping platforms can give a rough idea about the ideal customer.

If the product is targeted towards young people in their 20s who love following trends, then Instagram is the place to find them (well, isn’t everyone on Instagram now!). If the product is more service-based, priced higher and is targeted at a somewhat older audience, Facebook can be the place to target such an audience. If the target is business communities, or art lovers, or musicians, there is a platform for these too. But it all starts with knowing who the product, service, brand or idea is meant for: the OG TG.

2. PLAN OUT THE ONLINE CONTENT CALENDAR

Having a launch timeline is very important for the brand to chart out every move, every post on the various digital platforms it is active on. While it may sound like a task as easy as taking a picture and posting it on Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest with a caption stating check out our newly launched collection, it is way more than that…

Think about it, the product pictures needs to be clicked, they have to be named (if not done), banners and creatives for website pages and posts are to be made, captions as per the platform (hashtag heavy for Instagram, long yet linked for Facebook and short and sweet for Pinterest) are to be written, promotional email drafts have to be created, SEO work is to be done, special social media promotional content for boosts are to be made… Phew!

Yeah, that’s right… All that, apart from the regular, in-store or outdoor marketing campaigns. Here’s a look at how Ray Ethnic, an Ahmedabad-based ethnic fashion brand recently planned their product launch. Simple, minimalistic & to the point.

Plan out every piece of content that will go online, from the teaser to the launch to the product showcase. Yes, it takes time, but then actual work becomes a piece of cake.

3. START CREATING A BUZZ

Social media is such a powerful tool, it is scalable, cost effective, provides great creative freedom to experiment, and the best part: The people are there, online!

And one of the best ways to get started with the promotions is by generating curiosity among the people online, on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and even LinkedIn (if the brand has an audience there).

Start with Coming Soon posts like these:

Give the viewers a sneak peek on how the product is going to look like, what it is for, why it is unique, etc. This is kind of teasing the customer, by showing parts or some element of the product as a preview and why they should look forward to it.

Next, you can create countdown posts that usually say, ‘2 Days to Go’, ‘1 Day to Go’, etc. These kinds of promotional content create a sense of anticipation among the followers and the customers and they stay tuned with the brand page on social media.

And finally, post the launch, a giveaway or a contest can be run through specially created posts to boost up the engagement on the page. Wondering why? Because when the page gets maximum engagement, the posts are visible on the Explore and Suggestion sections of non-following people online who may have similar tastes in the product.

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5 most common Digital marketing myths busted

“I have a small business; I don’t have to do digital marketing right now”

“Email marketing? Does it even work today?”

These are some of the most commonly used rebuttals by entrepreneurs when they are asked to hire a digital marketing agency for their businesses. Now, they either don’t know what digital marketing is, or have heard and believe in the various misconceptions around it.

But, what are these misconceptions about digital marketing, and how are they detrimental to businesses, if not busted? Read on to know the 8 most common digital marketing myths.

1. DIGITAL MARKETING IS ONLY FOR BIG BUSINESSES

Digital Marketing provides all businesses, big or small, with equal opportunities on the internet. With a well-researched and proven digital marketing strategy, small businesses can compete with big brands online, allowing it to reach a wider audience despite having a standard marketing budget for it. A Forrester study states that post pandemic, businesses should ideally spend around 46% of their total marketing budget on digital marketing now.

In today’s day and age, digital marketing is an indispensable strategy for every business no matter what size it is. Because whether it is a smartphone or a roll of toilet paper, people are now looking for them online first.

2. NO NEED TO INVEST IN SOCIAL MEDIA

One of the biggest mistakes a business can make in today’s time is to believe that their customers aren’t on social media. According to a study on Statista, over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide in the year 2020. These numbers are projected to jump to almost 4.41 billion in 2025.

Having a presence on social media gives businesses the opportunity to promote their products or services to their ideal customer base directly, interact with them more, stay on track with the trends and even sell through these platforms. The possibilities to attract potential customers and generate leads through targeted ads on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are endless.

3. DO IT, ONLY IF YOUR COMPETITION IS DOING IT

Now, let us make it very simple here. If your competitors are doing digital marketing, then you should do it too. But, if none of your competitors are online, be the first one to be. Grab that first mover’s advantage and make hay as the sun shines bright.

A brand should stay ahead of the curve when it comes to digital marketing, as not going digital means missing out on a whole new world of new customers a brand can reach. And digital marketing is not just promoting products and services on social media. It includes, email marketing, targeted digital ads, SEO and much more.

Here’s a sneak peek into the various activities done by Flora Fountain, a digital marketing company in Ahmedabad India.

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Captions That Captivate! 8 Tips to Write for Social Media

What attracts the attention of the viewer on social media?

• A beautiful visual
• A good photograph
• A stunning design

But what results in an interaction on the post, a LIKE, a COMMENT, a DM (direct message) or a link click?

A captivating caption, something that delights the reader, generates curiosity in them, convinces them to read further and take action.

While sharing photos or creatives on social media, a well-written caption will set the tone for the post, inspire your followers, give value, spark discussion, and demonstrate the brand`s personality.

And here are some suggestions for creating a compelling caption and improving a brand`s social media marketing approach.

FIRST IMPRESSION IS WHAT LASTS!

With people`s attention spans shrinking, a strong opening line will help you grab their attention. While you have the entire text box to narrate a story about the post, it is the first 50 characters that matter. Especially on Instagram, because people are going to click on the “Read more…” call out only if the first line leaves them intrigued and wanting for more.

Your captions should be a natural extension of your post. There must be a strong connection between the image and the caption. Never let a post get published without a copy or simply repeat what is written in the image copy, as your caption. A repetitive copy is as useless as a post with no caption.

FULFILL THE INTENTION

Your captions must fulfill the purpose behind the post. Before you write a caption, ask these questions to yourself: Are you trying to establish a connection with the target audience? Do you want them to take action after reading your caption? or are you simply showing off the brand`s personality through the writing.

If it is an action post, make sure you make it clear in the second or third line of your caption on what the reader needs to do.

“Click on the link in bio”

“Call 123456789 to know more”

“Share your thoughts in the comments below”

These are some examples of Call To Action phrases to be used in captions.

GET THEM TALKING!

Create social media captions that elicit feedback and encourage your audience to comment on your post.

One of the simplest ways to increase the number of comments on your post is to ask a question. The questions don`t have to be difficult; they should be basic and simple.

Inviting your audience to submit their tips, reviews, and recommendations is a fantastic method to engage them. Because trust us, your users will not respond to you unless you ask them to.

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