5 ways to improve how you use Twitter for business

The latest blog from Cardiff media buying agency, The Media Angels. The final blog in our series, how can you improve the way you use Twitter for business?

1. What do you want to get out of Twitter? Is it for more light-hearted posts, industry news…

What do you want your Twitter presence to ‘feel’ like? Is your Twitter page a chance for your business to be a bit more informal and playful or is it for sharing blogs and industry news? By deciding what you want to get out of Twitter you can start to get an idea of the type of content you need to be creating and sharing.

2. Follow industry leaders, clients – re-tweet their news.

We use Twitter to follow influential people in our industry but also to interact with our clients. We can stay updated on their news and share it, we also like posting images of our recent work and tagging the client in the image. Use Twitter as another way to create a conversation with your client!

3. Showcase your own news – post your new blog etc.

We also use Twitter to link to our recent blogs, otherwise nobody would know we’ve uploaded one! By using hashtags we can be seen on relevant Twitter feeds too. We find our own news does really well on Twitter, especially if we’re tagging clients in the post too.

4. Use analytics – what do your followers like, what events are coming up, recurring hashtags

It’s analytics again! Twitter’s analytics are helpful as youcan see what other topics your followers are interested in. You could tailor your posts to include these topics and see if engagement increases. You also get monthly reviews of your page, showing you new followers, best performingposts etc.

5. Use Twitter’s features

On Twitter you have the option to add and image or GIF to your post. This is another way to add your personality to your post as GIFs can be quite funny! The added movement is really engaging too. On Twitter you can also create polls, similar to Facebook, and we find these good to use on quick or light-hearted topics to create a conversation with our followers.

Revealed: The world’s most valuable brands

Amazon bumps Microsoft from third place while Google and Amazon keep their positions at the top.

According to the latest BrandZ report of the world’s top 100 brands, those using technology to make people’s lives easier are winning in 2018. Technology and tech-related companies accounted for a staggering 92% of the overall ranking.

Tech giants Google and Apple lead the way, with both breaking the $300bn brand value threshold for the first time. Google took first place with a brand value of $302bn, following their 23% rise while Apple is just behind with a value of $301bn after their 28% rise.

However, close behind them is Amazon on one of the fastest growths the report has ever seen. After increasing their value by 49% to $208bn this year, they bump Microsoft (which grew 40% to $201bn) into fourth place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Walshe, global strategy director for BrandZ, ““Brands are increasingly concentrating on being able to meet consumer needs in interesting ways that gives them a superior advantage over their competitors – particularly when it comes to making people’s lives better and easier with technology.”

But some of the fastest-rising brands this year have come from China. Tencent, for example grew by 65% to $179bn, securing a place in the top five for the first time. In context, the speed at which brands need to grow to reach the top 20 has doubled to 40% over the last year. Over the past 12 years, China’s overall brand value has grown by a huge 1,444%. In comparison, the UK has grown by just 26%, the US by 239% and Europe by 37%.

It’s not been the best year for UK brands as only four make it into the top 100. Vodafone is the most valuable UK brand (37th in the global rankings) despite a 9% decline in value over the past 12 months. HSBC has grown by 15% but despite this drops down two spots to 50th. Shell also dropped to 63rd despite a growth of 10%. BT narrowly makes it in at 94th, following a 15% decline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walshe says that HSBC and Shell have done well compared to other UK brands because they are innovating with how they connect with customers. For example, Shell now has more retail outlets than Starbucks and Subway, after realising they cannot pin their future on fuel.

UK’s Top 20 Strongest Brands Revealed

The Top 20 strongest brands in the UK has been voted for and Lego has come out at the top!

The Centre for Brand Analysis asked 2,500 consumers to rank each brand for quality, reliability and distinction.

Previous winner British Airways fell out of the Top 20 all together as did Google and Amazon.

Rising brand names in the top 20 are Gillette in second place, and Apple in third. Marks and Spencer has overtaken John Lewis who is now in 15th place with M&S in seventh. BP, Shell, Disney and Heathrow all re entered the top 20 this year, whilst household brands, Andrex, Coca Cola and Heinz retained a position in the top 10.

Top 20

1. Lego

2. Gillette

3 Apple

4. Andrex

5. Coca-cola

6. Disney

7. M & S

8. Boots

9.Heinz

10. BMW

11. Cadbury

12. Rolex

13. BP

14. Shell

15. John Lewis

16. Heathrow

17. Jaguar

18. Kleenex

19. Visa

20. Haagen – Dazs

If you need help ensuring your own brand appears amongst the right media platforms so you STAND OUT and get results, contact our award winning team for impartial media planning and buying expertise on [email protected] or call us on 02921 320 200 #lovemarketing

 

 

Rajar Q4 2017. Who are the winners and losers?

The last quarter of 2017 Rajar results are out, illustrating a North V South success story in Wales.
North Wales has had a great performance with Heart North Wales up in reach and listening hours, Smooth North West and Wales has seen it’s reach increase by 13%.
Heart South Wales is down in reach and listening hours, although still holds the top spot with a 416,000 reach compared to Capital the next with a reach of 171,000.

Unfortunately Smooth South Wales didn’t have a good book, losing 38% of it’s audience and 33% of it’s hours!

Dragon Radio Wales has had it’s sixth successful Rajar results with a steady increase in reach up 50% this quarter and 80% up from the last quarter of 2016, with 27,000 listeners.
The independent station forerunner this quarter is Swansea Sound. On average its listeners now tune in for 10.7 hours per week, which has helped grow its hours by a whopping 50%.

UK Wide
Nationally, the Capital network is the second highest reaching network popular with a young and engaged audience. Overall, heart has had a good quarter in total listening hours, with Heart South West increasing it’s weekly audience figure to 391,000, up 6%
Digital radio share of listening is up by 1.1% to 49.9%. Commercially, digital share has risen to 51.6% compared to BBC’s 48.3%. This could be down to on-line and app listening as 26% of adults listen to radio via a mobile phone or tablet at least once a month.

In summary, Commercial radio continues to fulfil advertisers requirements for consistent performance and ROI. 90% of the population listen to radio, getting up close and personal for an average of 21.3 hours per week. With a broad diversity of listeners, radio still maintains it’s ability to deliver to wide audiences with a strong trust in the media.

If you want to include radio into your media mix or aren’t sure if you are using the right station(s) to deliver your campaign objectives then get in touch with us at The Media Angel. We’re here to offer impartial media guidance to ensure the best ROI on your marketing campaigns. standout@themediaangel  tel 02921 320200. #LoveMarketing.

 

Marketers report increased adspend despite falling confidence amid Brexit

According to the IPA’s Bellwether Report, UK marketers have “held their nerve” in the face of an uncertain business climate following the UK’s Brexit vote.

(more…)

Help your business STAND OUT from the crowd

Everyday it is estimated that we are exposed to nearly 400 marketing messages, of which only 150 are actually noticed and a lot less are recalled or make enough impact to prompt action. So how can you ensure you make yourself easily found?

1. Have a marketing strategy and review it.
Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and a focused strategy to help drive your business forward. Is retaining and winning new customers key or is increasing sales your goal? Don’t forget to review and tweak that strategy.

2. Know your customer.
Who are they? Where are they? How can you target them?
Knowing your customer helps target them at the right place at the right time and at the right cots; ultimately leading to a return in investment.

3. Know your competitors.
What are your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses? How and where are they advertising? what can you do differently?

4. USP’s.
Be clear of your unique selling point(s); make these part of your marketing strategy. Why should somebody choose you over your competitors? Let people know why you are the best company to come to.

5. Be consistent.
Be consistent with your messages, reiteration is key. You want your clients to recognise you instantly. Less is more.

6.Be clear.
What do you want your clients to do? Buy a ticket or product? Log on to your website? Find out more information? Call you? Tell them what to do and how to do it. Make it easy to be found.

7.Be social.
No business can afford to ignore social media; it’s good for developing a two way conversation between yourself and your customer. Having social portals and an up to date website helps build credibility, brand and SEO too.

8.Take a risk.
Don’t be afraid to try something different. Think outside the box. Don’t assume advertising is too expensive, TV and Radio can be targeted and cost effective if used well.

9. Cost.
Don’t buy an advert just because it’s cheap. If your target audience does not consume that media it’s a waste of money.

10. Explore.
Look at the new platforms where you can be really targeted; Video on Demand for example. You can target by area, age, demographic etc.

Contact our award winning team to ensure your marketing plans are crafted to perfection and deliver results.

Call: 02921 320 300  email: [email protected]  tweet: @themediaangel. 

Advertising in newspapers could triple your ad campaign effectiveness

Advertisers who are cutting back on newspaper advertising might be missing a trick.

According to a new study conducted by effectiveness consultancy Benchmarketing for Newsworks, which claims that advertising with newspapers increases overall revenue return on investment by three times.

The study covers 500 econometric models to provide evidence of the impact newsbrands have on advertising campaigns. The results show that newspapers increase overall campaign effectiveness as well as boosting other media – newspapers make TV twice as effective and online display four times more effective. It goes on to claim that using digital newsbrands boosts print ROI by up to five times.

The research follows challenging times in the print market, which has seen print advertising revenues decline at a rapid rate this year as advertisers are investing more digitally.

The research hopes to prove the value of print advertising. It claims advertisers wanting to maximise effectiveness in their campaigns need to return to 2013 levels of expenditure, where investment in print was at 11.4%. That figure has since dropped to 7.6 % in 2015.

On a sector by sector basis, the research found that adding newspapers to a campaign increases effectiveness by 5.7 times for finance; 3 times for travel; 2.8 times for retail; 1.7 times for automotive; and 1.2 times for FMCG.

Claire Harrison-Church, VP marketing at Asda, said: “Newsbrands are a crucial part of Asda’s marketing mix because they provide us with an influential and flexible platform that we use to inform and inspire our customers. The ultimate goal of our comms is to deliver returns and this large-scale study allows us to continue to invest with confidence. Retailers know that adding newsbrands to a campaign increases the effectiveness of other media – here we have the evidence to prove it.”

If you are interested in incorporating press advertising into your media mix, call one of our team on 02921 320200 or email [email protected]

Consolidation of Press Advertising Sales?

Newspaper groups are discussing merging their advertising sales.

With declining print revenues and a lack of online growth in the face of Google and Facebook’s dominance over the past 18 months proprietors and media owners have had to focus their minds.

There are around eight main sales houses currently– News UK, Mail Brands, Guardian News & Media, Telegraph Media Group, Trinity Mirror, Northern & Shell, ESI Media and The Financial Times; merging ad sales is a logical move to gain scale. This excludes regional newspaper publishers and magazine companies.

TV has consolidated into just three sales houses, radio and cinema each have only two major players; all have reaped benefits.

Trinity Mirror is very keen to push joint ad sales and have sounded out Telegraph Media Group, News UK and others.But progress has been mixed. Trinity Mirror has pulled out of 1XL, a joint ad-sales house for digital advertising, in which regional publishers Johnston Press and Newsquest remain involved.

Scott Gill, managing director of 1XL, is optimistic that joint ad sales can take off across the industry, “assuming legality is established and if there is buy-in from the highest levels”, he says.

So to conclude, moving to joint ad sales might be a good idea, but no-one thinks it will be easy and it could be a while up.

If you are interested in including press as part of your advertising campaign, please give our team a call on 02921 320200 or e mail [email protected] # LoveMarketing

Brands are losing consumer trust on social media

Brands should be concerned as social media is a key source of information for consumers when making purchase decisions. When questioned by CIM, 62% of people said they now ‘Often’ or ‘occasionally’ use social media when deciding whether to make a purchase.

Reactive Marketing Works

Aldi’s Christmas parody of the John Lewis ‘Man on the moon’ campaign could be considered a huge success for the discount supermarket chain.

Over the 12 week Christmas period until January 3^rd, Aldi recorded an increase in sales of 13.3% compared with chains Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, who saw small increases of only 0.8% and 1.5% respectively.

Brands such as Tesco even saw sales fall by 2.7% following an also fairly dramatic descend in storytelling ranking early last Winter. Their new campaign attempted to breathe life into the ‘Every little helps’ strapline, but instead produced ambiguity about its meaning.

Alongside fabulously competitive prices, Aldi executed a humorous and reactive TV campaign that successfully captured the minds of British consumers over Christmas. Involving themselves in the conversation and buzz around ‘Man on the moon’ Aldi managed to reap the rewards for their bravery and innovation.

Following Aldi’s lead, thinking in real-time to cut through, engage and react with consumer mood is a trend predicted to increase in 2016. Across all traditional and digital media platforms brands are expected to invest spend in campaigns triggered by different events. Much like Aldi, brands are said to be planning a focus on a range of offline triggers including popular TV shows (52%) sports events (48%) financial events (40%) TV advertising (38%) and even changes in the weather (33%).

Growth in sales as demonstrated by Aldi proves that clever content distributed on the right platforms has the ability to capture and engage millions of additional consumers. Get in touch with The Media Angel to discuss the best channels for your marketing campaign to help you over deliver on your campaign objectives.

 

Tips and Stats from Facebook’s Boost your Business Cardiff Event

We went along to the Facebook’s Boost your Business Summer Tour at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. If you couldn’t make it, here are some of our essential stats and top tips.

We listened to talks from the panel which included Facebook’s Olly Sewell, Manager of the SMB Partner Management in EMEA, Jules White from The Last Hurdle,  Justin Schwartz from the social media agency behind Rachel Organics. Did you know…

• 25m people use Facebook on mobile in the UK every day.
• People visit Facebook on average 14 times per day via mobile.
• Facebook attracts 4bn video views every day.
• At least 50% of users watch one video per day.
• The future is sight, sound and motion.
• Instagram marketing solutions will launch from this September.

10 top tips when using Facebook advertising:

1. Use the power of short videos to captivate your audience.
2. With all your messaging, think about what your customers want to hear and see more so than what you want them.
3. Set your objectives to gain meaningful results, such as website clicks, video views, events, and increase in sales. Focus on gaining real numbers, it’s not always just about likes and shares.
4. The best kind of content is ‘real’ content and that really works. Think as the end user.
5. When advertising you need to balance relevance and quality of ads with your bidding strategy and budget.
6. Schedule offers when your audience needs them.
7. Consider seasonality, e.g. Valentine’s Day or Christmas. You need to think carefully about when other like-minded businesses will all be trying to advertise at the same time.
8. Don’t under estimate the worth of your audience. It can cost more to reach the same popular audiences at the same time.
9. Use custom audiences to reach all of the people who matter to you.
10. Think yourself as a mobile business, as this is where you customers spend most of their time.

If you need help incorporating social media as part of your marketing campaigns, then please get in touch. We’re always on hand to take care of your marketing. Email: [email protected] or call: 02921 320 200.

And 2014’s Top TV Christmas Ad is…

Here’s the top 10 Christmas ads for 2014, polled by phone number provider, City Numbers.

More than 1,000 consumers were asked asked about the effect of Christmas branding. 37% surveyed said it made people feel good. Take a good look at the top adverts raising spirits this season…