ProBlogger

ProBlogger: 7 Steps to Snapchat Success 

Posted: 30 Jun 2016 07:00 AM PDT

By Sarah Moore of social media agency Eleven Lights Media.

Contrary to popular belief, Snapchat isn't just for the teen population trying to escape their Facebook-friending parents.

As of May 2015 there were 100M active users daily and over 77% of them are above the age of 18. As well as this, Snapchat is now boasting 8M daily views equaling that of Facebook (who has a much larger user base). When you consider these statistics, it becomes clear that for the most part, Snapchat incorporates most businesses' ideal client.

The questions I see flying around right now are – What benefit is Snapchat to me as a blogger? How do I use it effectively without wasting my time? How do you find anyone on the platform?

Essentially what people are asking is – How do I use it for business?

So if you haven't jumped on Snapchat yet I want to share a few cold, hard facts with you before I answer the above.

1. Snapchat is not a scalable platform.

2. For the most part, the way you use Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or Pinterest can not be applied to Snapchat.

3. It's difficult to measure ROI. Discoverability (the ability for you to find people and for people to find you) is not as simple as other platforms and really has only been opened up in the last few months with apps such as Ghostcodes.

4. You can't really run ads on Snapchat yet unless you've got a lot of financial capital or at least a decent sized marketing spend ($10k is a good round figure to start with).

5. Finally, the user experience isn't known for being super user friendly – at least initially until you find familiarity with it.

1:1 Relationship Building

That being said, Snapchat is amazing for building 1:1 relationships.

Yes, this can be time consuming but the return from this can be far more exponential than broadcasting your message elsewhere.

Consider the fact that you can message, call, respond to in-feed snaps, send video, send audio only and easily send photos all from within the app. It's basically a comprehensive communication tool that can be used no matter what industry you're in.

So below, I'd like to give you some tips on how you can use the platform effectively for blogging.

1. Storytell

I know it's on trend at the moment to talk about storytelling but the truth is, this is actually what Snapchat is great for. You have a mixture of image, video and editing capabilities that allow you to tell a story any way you like.

The reason storytelling is vital to your brand is because that's how we as humans have communicated from the beginning of time. A story is compelling and invites the onlooker to not only discover your world but also to engage in it too in a digestible way.

2. Repurpose

If you create a fun, compelling or informative story make sure you repurpose it elsewhere. Whether it be YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or your blog, don't let it go to waste.

I'm so passionate about repurposing because I know how busy life gets and repurposing allows you to keep pushing out content and reaching your audience without running yourself into the ground trying to be original and creative every single day.

3. Test + Measure

If you have a new blog post waiting to go out and you're choosing between titles, consider putting it to your audience and asking them to vote for the best title.
Stringstory often talks about screenshots being the new 'like' of Snapchat.

With this in mind, set your audience up and let them know you need some help choosing a title and you need them to snap the one that they like best. Then use the next few snap screens to individually showcase the titles. Change the snap length to 10 seconds to give them the maximum amount of time to read and snap their choice.

Another idea is to create bit.ly links that you ONLY share with your Snapchat followers. This allows you to measure how many are coming to your website and/or blog posts from Snapchat and gives you an idea on the relevancy and return from that audience.

If you sell products or are an ecommerce store I suggest the above bit.ly method also to see your immediate ROI in relation to specific product.

4. Circular Viralocity

Bit of a mouthful, I know. But basically what this means is to use Snapchat to push people to other platforms if you have something going on there.

I watched Gary Vaynerchuk do this a lot during his #AskGaryVee book launch. He would push people to his Instagram account through Snapchat, ask them to write something that they would only know if they had come from Snapchat and they would have the chance to win a book.

What this does is further cement your community by having them see you and engage with you on multiple platforms. Without going too heavily into it, this just means that further down the track it will be easier to sell to them because they have more buy in.

5. Have fun

As cliché and abstract as this sounds, it's actually imperative that you have fun on the platform. If you don't, people will see right through it and write you off.

As with any platform, try to avoid being too in-your-face with sales, always give value where possible and engage when time permits so that people know it's a two way street and not just a broadcasting tool for you.

6. Engage

This is probably one of the most important things you can do on this platform and in my opinion, is what Snapchat is truly designed for.

If you are not willing to engage individually it almost defeats the purpose of being on there in the first place. Because Snapchat is not particularly scalable, you are going to have the most success by interacting with the people that reach out to you.

Personally for me, this has led to ongoing business as well as overseas travel, speaking gigs and most importantly, new friendships.

I've reached out to influencers and had responses from them where I know I wouldn't be able to get that on other platforms because there's so much more noise. This is good news for those of you looking to guest blog or who have someone in mind to feature a product or engage in influencer marketing.

7. Consistency

As with any platform you have to be consistent in order to adequately measure whether it's working for you. Figure out what consistency looks like for you and try your best to keep to that.

I know a number of people who have thematic days or choose a theme to define the week in order to help them with their constistency. Currently Ahna Hendrix (CEO of ARCH Digital Agency) is doing this and for the past week has been creating content around the word 'determination.’ She talks, shares quotes and songs and thoughts positioned around her theme and creates a cohesive week of thematic content.

I share this with you to encourage you to do something similar for yourself so that you don't get too overwhelmed with creating new content all of the time. Overwhelm is a very real problem in the social media space and we want to avoid that by being organised and making it as easy for ourselves as possible.

These 7 suggestions to me, are the keys to the Snapchat kingdom and if you can master them I truly believe you will not only find success within the platform but you will grow to love creating content this way.

My final suggestion is to give it a go. Often times we let overthinking paralyze us when really we could have spent the same amount of energy just trying it in the first place.

Sarah is the CEO + Founder of Eleven Lights Media, a social media agency. If you want to connect you can find her on Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. She is everywhere (as you might expect) but these are the best ones to connect!

The post 7 Steps to Snapchat Success  appeared first on ProBlogger.

SMS Campaigns: 5 Success Stories and Why They are Useful for Your Mobile Strategy - DailyBlogTips

SMS Campaigns: 5 Success Stories and Why They are Useful for Your Mobile Strategy

Posted: 30 Jun 2016 05:32 AM PDT

SMS campaigns are a strategic tool for your mobile strategy. If you think this is an outdated means of communication, then we'll give you some data to consider: 100% of mobile devices can receive and send text messages. Over 350 billion text messages are sent across the world every month, despite the growth of apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Even companies like Coca-Cola still invest 70% of their mobile budget in SMS campaigns. Perhaps you should consider doing this as well.

Why invest in SMS campaigns?
There are many reasons why SMS will continue to work:
– SMS is created for mobile, so it has the same characteristics that people expect on this device: immediacy, simplicity, and speed.
– Mobile phones have a built-in SMS function so there's no need to convince users to download anything, unlike apps.
– SMS has a higher open rate than any other marketing tool. Over 90% of SMS messages are read within 3 minutes, compared to 22% for e-mails, 20% for tweets and 12% for Facebook posts.
– 65% of smartphone owners are open to receiving SMS offers on their phones.

Another interesting fact is that this means of communication – apparently simple and lacking of expressive possibilities – offers many creative opportunities to promote your brand. Still not convinced? Follow us as we unfold 5 stories of successful SMS campaigns, which achieved great results with simple but effective strategies.

How to create an SMS campaign: 5 success stories

#1 Aer Lingus and SMS campaigns for customer care

The airline, Aer Lingus, had to find a system to inform its passengers about delays or cancelled flights. Which system could be better than a text message? The SMS implementation was tested for the first time when the company encountered a problem with a flight from Malaga: due to some technical problems, passengers had to be informed to get to the airport 90 minutes earlier. By sending timely SMS, 75% of the passengers managed to arrive on time, thus avoiding refunding a large number of people and also increasing customers' perception of the company's reliability.
This is an example of how the immediacy of SMS can be positively used for customer care: every time your brand has something urgent to communicate, SMS is an inexpensive way to do this. It will instantly reach a large number of people, with the certainty of being read within a few minutes.

#2 Pepsimax and the perfect call-to-action

Pepsi launched an SMS campaign inviting consumers to send a message with the text "PEPSIMAX" and a numerical code in order to win tickets to a baseball match. The campaign had great success, not only because the prize was enticing, but also because the call-to-action (the code to type) was clear and customers knew exactly what to do with it. The creativity of this campaign focused on the means that was being used: the SMS.

Here's what you can learn from this story: if your SMS campaign is based on a code, prioritize it by putting it under the spotlight. The immediacy of the CTA is the key to boosting your campaign results.

#3 Carl's Jr. and limited time promotions

This fast-food chain, with over 1,300 restaurants around the world, is specialized in quick service. To promote its specialties and defeat the competition time wise, it needed a tool that could meet the customers' need for immediacy. They inevitably chose SMS. The campaign consisted in sending to its customers' smartphones a limited time offer of a burger combo at half price. The result was instantaneous: 20% of people who received the text message redeemed their coupon in one of the restaurants a few hours later. For every dollar spent in the SMS campaign, Carl's Jr. generated $14 in new sales. Try to create something like this for your brand. Think of a limited time promotion and choose SMS to inform your customers. A further advantage is the fact that, unlike traditional campaigns, the results can be measured right away: if a queue is forming a few hours after sending the SMS, you hit the target.

#4 Kiehl's and SMS integrated communication

The dermo-cosmetics brand, Kiehl's, created a campaign which integrated e-mails and SMS. Subscribers to its newsletter received an e-mail which invited them to try the new SMS service to receive discounts and promotions. For a six-month period, customers who activated the service by sending a text message with the keyword "Kiehls", received up to 3 specific offers a month based on their geographical location. The results: over 73% of people who signed up for this service made a purchase after receiving an SMS. And 81% completed a survey with useful suggestions to improve the campaign. In this case, the winning idea was that of integrating the use of SMS with other communication tools such as e-mails. In addition to increasing the visibility of your promotion, you can grow your contact database. Start from the e-mail addresses or phone numbers that you already have and invite people to fill in the missing data in exchange for a discount.

#5 BMW and the right time

The automaker, BMW, created a multimedia campaign to remind people of the importance of changing their tires during winter. This campaign focused on those who bought a car between March and September, considering that they might need winter tires. 1,200 customers received a series of MMS with a product proposal, and they were invited to contact the nearest authorized BMW tire retailer. Over 30% of the customers who received the message bought winter tires and this campaign had bumped up the company's revenue by over 110,000 pounds.

There are two lessons to be drawn from this case. Firstly, target analysis and campaign segmentation: if you have a very large database or a very specific promotion, do not waste resources. Identify your target and send the promotion only to them. Secondly, the strategic use of time: make good use of the SMS' immediacy to send your promotion at the appropriate time.

Are you ready to create your SMS campaign?
Did the stories above give you some interesting ideas for your mobile strategy? Once you've come up with an idea for your SMS campaign, you have to rely on a good system to send your messages. There are many interesting alternatives on the web, such as systems to create mobile sites and apps online with a built-in SMS sending tool. In this way, you can go mobile with just a single tool and carry out your campaigns on the same platform, via SMS and other means.

This year 100 billion dollars will be spent on mobile advertising. If you're currently not investing on any SMS campaigns, it's not too late. You still have time to catch up and take an action. If you're already doing this, what results have you achieved so far? Can you run your SMS campaigns more effectively?

Silvio Porcellana is the CEO and Founder of mob.is.it the online tool over 1,000 agencies and professionals use to build mobile websites and native apps for customers worldwide. From his retreat in the Monferrato Hills in North West Italy, he bootstraps companies, writes about web and mobile marketing, and helps customers succeed online. Read more from Silvio at mob.is.it blog.

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