Harnessing the Power of Podcasting in Brand Marketing

The recent retirement of the Indianapolis Colt's star quarterback, Andrew Luck, swept through social media and news outlets, with pundits and fans weighing in on his decision and wondering what's next for the athlete, including those wondering if Luck would use his popular Andrew Luck Book Club podcast as a platform to launch into a different career path.

Podcasting has certainly come of age and shows no signs of slowing down.

As a medium to reach targeted audiences, Podcasting continues to explode, with staggering growth levels between just 2018 and 2019.  According to data compiled by Apple, there were 550,000 active podcasts in 2018 with 18.5 million episodes in total; by 2019, those numbers have grown to 700,000 active podcasts with 29 million episodes in total.

The widespread use of smartphones worldwide has driven the growth in podcasting, with smartphones listed as #1 for the means in which users find, access, download, and listen to podcasts.  Using smartphones to listen to podcasts allows users to access their favorite audio content in a multitude of environments, including at work, at home, while traveling or commuting, and during exercise or workout sessions.

With the ability to reach audiences through dozens of languages, podcasts have taken fire worldwide, and the top categories include society and culture, business, comedy, news, and health.

While larger producers of podcasts such as NPR reach a listening audience of 20 million people per month, there is room for smaller, more targeted podcast producers to reach their ideal listener, making podcasting a valuable addition to branded content and advertising campaigns that seek to build brand recognition and brand authority.

Creating the right podcast content to reach your target audience is critical.  Seek to inform and entertain your audience instead of hard-selling your product or service.  Building authority in your niche and trust with your audience is key.

If you're wondering how to incorporate podcasting in your overall marketing scheme,  contact Real-Time Outsource and let us help you in creating quality podcast content that builds your brand and reaches your niche audience.

Two Major Differences Between Social Media Platforms

Today we will be discussing the key differences between the various social media platforms at our disposal. We’ll be looking at the foundations of sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, the three giants of the industry. We’re going to determine how each site is used by the users, and what the pros and cons of each site are.

1.      Twitter vs. Instagram: One of the key differences between these two sites is the way people try to portray themselves. On Twitter people are much more vocal about their beliefs, and unforgiving. They are willing to speak up to others and often engage in arguments to defend their point of view on matters. While on Instagram people wish to create a facade. They only show you the highlights of their life, no one will post what is going wrong in their life, and essentially it is only what they want to show you, in an attempt to show you how great their life is, but in reality, we have no idea what their life is like behind the screen. Another thing to note is the censorship on Twitter is very lax, and you can almost put anything you want, nudity, cursing, bullying, whatever you choose. While Instagram is quite strict when it comes to things of that nature and engaging in posting such content will surely result a ban on your account. So, depending on the type of content you post, you’d want to choose one over the other. Visuals vs. Words, this is another significant difference between the two, while both can be used as visual mediums, Instagram is definitely the preferred of the two, to post things like photography, graphics, memes, etc. While using Twitter is the preferred method when using words, while you can write captions on Instagram, like posting visuals on Twitter, the latter is preferred when writing about issues your passionate about.

2.      Instagram vs. Facebook: While on the surface these appear quite similar there are some differences we can look into. It is well known that typically Instagram has a younger userbase than Facebook, this is because Facebook has become a more family oriented social media platform, this is because it is usually to keep in contact with loved ones, such as Aunt’s, Uncle’s, Grandpa’s, Grandma’s, you get the gist of it. They are both owned by Facebook, so they are also highly compatible, you can almost think of a Facebook as compliment to Instagram or vice versa depending on your age.

We hope this discussion will serve you well in dispelling the mysteries surrounding the differences and similarities regarding the various social media pages we interact with.

3 Book Recommendations to read in 2020

Books are an incredible resource for information in the business world, there are books on any topic in business you can imagine, such as marketing tactics ranging from how influence your consumers, how to build deeper long lasting relationships with your customers, etc., there are also books you can read about former business giants, to seek out their perspective when making decisions, as well as to see the mistakes they made throughout their careers and how this can show you that even the greatest of greats fail on their way to the top, and you will not have to make the same mistakes they did.

1.      Shoe Dog: Written by the founder of Nike, Phil Knight. This book is Phil Knight’s memoir about his rise to prominence in the business world. It is an inspiring tale of a young man lost trying to find his way in the world. I feel that young adults will find his story very relatable and also inspiring. He goes through the whole evolution of Nike as a company, which was originally Blue-Ribbon Sports, which got its funding from Japanese investors. Highly recommended.

2.      Influence! The Psychology of Persuasion: Written by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. This book is incredible in learning the many different ways marketing can be used to influence your consumers to make purchasing decisions. It goes over things like price adjustment, reciprocation, authority, scarcity, and social proof among other techniques. All of these are useful additions to your marketing tool belt, not only that but it is useful information to know so you can defend yourself against such practices and be aware when they are being used against you. A must read to improve your marketing skills.

3.      How to Win Friends & Influence People: Written by Dale Carnegie. This book while not necessarily specifically for business, has many insights and techniques that can be used within a business setting. Such as remembering people’s names always, in the book he describes a person’s name as being the sweetest sound in the world to themselves. Another technique is letting the other person do most of the talking, as people love to hear themselves talk, be genuinely interested as this is one of the greatest compliments you can pay to someone. It has many recommendations that while they may seem to be common sense, we all too often forget to utilize.

We hope these recommendations will be of great use to you in your professional and personal lives! Good luck to you in all of your endeavors.

4 Social Media Marketing Don’ts You Should Know (And the Dos)

Social media marketing is not an option in today's business environment. For every business, big or small, smart use of social media is the way to go. To optimize your use of social media, these are some caveats that you definitely should pay attention to. 

Don't Forget Your Links

Your website is your anchor when it comes to marketing because that's where you properly showcase what solutions you have to offer, what your brand is about, and what your business cares about. All roads should lead home, and by roads, we mean Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and just about every other social media platform you're on.

Don't Post Text Only

A chunk of text after another won't cut it.  Your audience will soon tune out. Not good for your business. Remember, with social media marketing, and indeed, all types of marketing, visuals always go a long way. Imagery is appealing, captivating and more impression leaving. Mix up your text with an infographic, a video, or photo(s).

Don't Ignore Negative Reviews

One of the mistakes marketers do is to ignore negative feedback, believing if they do so, it will go away. In fact, these are the reviews that deserve your attention the most, because it shows goodwill and desire to fix mistakes. Instead, initiate dialogue with the customer. Ask for their contact so you can reach out and listen. Take this as a lesson on how to handle such a situation in future. It's a win for everyone.

Don't Spam Your Followers

There's nothing more annoying on social media than seeing the same person fill your news feed with the same info time and again. Brands are not exempt. Inundating your followers with the same material, or even mixed up content, but without a break, will drive customers to hit the unfollow button. Instead, schedule your content in such timing that it's relevant, fresh, and insightful every different time. 

With these simple guidelines, you are guaranteed a smooth and productive use of the very handy social media to market your business and stay ahead of the curve.

Please contact us to speak with one of our social media marketing experts today. 

Creating EPIC Graphics for Your Business

Today we’ll be talking about the best tips and tricks on how to create stunning graphics for your business’s social media pages, infographics, advertisements, billboards, etc.! It may seem like a daunting task at first but have no fear! After you are finished reading this article you be well equipped to tackle this endeavor with great success.

1.     Pay Attention to The Core Values & Themes of Your Business: You want your graphics to reflect that, if you have a business that is dedicated to fitness you don’t want to go and post quotes about love on your pages and vice versa. The first step is to figure out what types of content and quotes most closely match your business’s core philosophies. We also take this into consideration when considering the visuals, we are looking to use for our posts. If your business focuses on beach attire, you wouldn’t want to pick a visual that depicts a city’s skyline for your post as it just doesn’t match your product or theme you want to show consumers.

2.     What Program are You Going to Use: For programs available to create beautiful graphics we have a couple very high-quality options that come to mind. The first being Canva, which allows you to choose from hundreds of templates, fonts, shapes, pic art, combined with an easy to use format gives you all you need to create an amazing image that will be an accurate visual representation of your business’s core principles. Another viable option is the program Adobe Spark, which allows for professional level quality visuals, and loads of customization options, it does require a bit more practice to become proficient with, as the interface is not quite as user friendly as Canva’s is. There are many other programs available across the web, but these are the two we have personally had the most success with.

3.     Get Creative: The most important thing about creating graphics for your business though is to remember to fully express your creativity, trying different color combinations, visuals backgrounds, fonts, and font sizes, there is many different routes you can go. Perhaps come up with some type of weekly post, of a certain style of visual.

We hope that this post has been an enlightening experience on how easy it can be to create beautiful visuals for your business.

Three Helpful Tips to Create More Successful Social Media Campaigns in 2020

Creating a social media campaign can be a lot of work, that’s why today I’m going to go over some helpful tips and tricks on how to make the process go a lot more smoothly. We’ll be talking about things such as the Pomodoro technique, using a planner, calendars, and other tips to help you keep a clear mind to be your most productive self during the creation of your campaign.

1.     Pomodoro technique: What is it? The Pomodoro technique is essentially a way to better manage your time while working for maximum productivity. It is working in intervals, generally people will work 25-30 minutes at a time, followed up by a 5-minute break, then you continue these intervals until you reach your fourth interval, then you will take a long break up, around 30 minutes or so. This helps to keep your mind fresh, and not become overwhelmed from too much continuous work, it is works very well, and is personally one of my favorite techniques I have developed over the years.

2.     Using a planner: Using a planner is exactly how it sounds getting a planner and filling it up with all of your different goals, aspirations, meetings, project due dates, etc. This helps to keep your mind focused on what you are doing in the present, because you’ve already written down all of the other things you need to do, and when you need to do them by, so you don’t stress about them as much as you usually would. It is also a good idea to create mini goals, or steps that are achievable along the way to a larger goal, as this keeps your motivation and lets you know you’re on the right path. Using a planner can pay huge dividends in your life, if you have various different things you are focusing on at once.

3.     Using a Wall Calendar: Is one of the easiest ways to keep yourself on track for whatever endeavor you are currently tackling in your life. Simply put a wall calendar in a place you pass by or see frequently such as in the restroom, a spot in your bedroom or kitchen, and each day you accomplish a step to a goal you are working towards put a big X through that day, this is you playing mind games with yourself essentially because after a couple weeks it will begin to form a nice chain and you won’t want to break that chain. Even if you do, because as we all know in life things inevitably do happen when we least expect, just try your best to never miss two days in a row, I have also personally used this technique in my own life to stay on top of habits I wish to form and have found it very effective.

We hope that this list of tips and tricks, we’ll help you to stay on track tackling your goals and to do so with a clear mind.

Digital Strategies 101: Explaining Some Common Online Marketing Concepts

Having an established brand and high converting website is one thing, but when it comes to digital marketing in 2019 there are so many possible strategies to pursue it can make your head spin! After all, there seems to be an ever-growing amount of social networks, platforms and tools to use than ever before. In fact, some get so overwhelmed when trying to understand marketing that they give up before even trying. And then for the ones who do try, it can be very disappointing when their money is lost due to a failed marketing strategy. But don't worry. This article is going to break down all the different kinds of marketing strategies that exist today and catch you up to speed as to which is right for you.

Social Media

Social media is the use of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to promote your brand. Every brand should use some form of social media - most platforms are free to use and it is a great way to engage with your customers. The brands who should not be on social media are the ones who look to create a platform on every platform. This is unwise because it will lead to you doing a lot of work for what could be a low return on your investment. 

Social media works when your brand uses it to create engaging content that you post on a regular basis. It doesn't work when you try to inundate your customers with profiles on every single platform. This just wastes your own time and doesn't bear as much fruit as posting more strategically to platforms you know will be effective. 

Social Media Ads

Purchasing paid ads through social networks is a great way to spread the organic reach of your social media posts. This is a great tool for anyone who frequently shares content via social media or who wants to target specific demographics with their ads. It usually works when you have a specific audience in mind for your post. It doesn't work when you try to cast too wide of a net and end up reaching users who may or may not want to see your message. There is a low cost for entry when it comes to social media ads, so if you write effective copy and create compelling ads you can expect a significant return on your investment. 

If you need help putting together a custom strategy or have questions don't hesitate to contact us. We'd be happy to walk you through it all. 

Four Digital Marketing Habits to Get into in 2020

1.      Be diligent in your research: If you’re deciding how you’re going to advertise a new product, you must look at many different variables to find out who your target market is, what demographics do they fit into, their religion, their income, their gender, their ethnicity, the amount of children they have, and that is just on the surface. What makes your potential consumer tick, what are their inner most desires. You can find these things out and much more, through research, whether that be focus groups, surveys, etc. You have a wide range of tools at your disposal, and with the ever-changing landscape of the consumer market, it is important to always fine tune your target market.

2.      Know Your Why: While consumers are going to always be interested in what your selling, they want to know who is selling it, when it is going to go on sale. The most important W out of the 5 is Why, why are you selling what you are selling, what change do you hope to see in the world from people having your product and/or service. Is it simply to just have more money in your pocket and that’s it? While not exactly what I’d call inspiring, I do commend you for your honesty. Having a powerful why is one of the best habits to create for your business, take some time to really sit down and think about why you want to do what you want to do.

3.      Be Human: In a day and age of forever increasing automation, artificial intelligence, and fake connections. We should all as marketers want to try to be as genuine and human as possible in our approach. Whether that be in our advertisements, our public relations, or even with our own staff, we need to remember that transparency and the warmth that can only be created by a true human connection, are some of things hold closet to their hearts.

4.      Pay Attention to The Competition: For our last good marketing habit to get into, is to pay attention to your competitors! See what materials they’re using, what’s their customer service like, what is about their product that consumers like more than yours. Your competitors are one of your greatest reservoirs of information. So much to learn through their mistakes and successes. Do not be too prideful to make use of this information.

I hope you’ve found this information useful, and informative, and may it assist you greatly in all of your future marketing endeavors.

Three Strategies to Get more Organic Reach on Facebook

This Week I had the pleasure to chat with a Major Nationwide Brand… and they we’re wanting to find out why their Facebook Page was not getting any organic reach anymore.  It was truly an eye-opening experience as I was shocked that such a large brand that was dialed in team wise with social, but they were lacking any community engagement.  The call was actually really simple….  I said You’re Doing it WRONG if you want Facebook to play with you!   Then stayed silent… they said hmmmm?  I could tell that they we’re a little shocked with my real feedback!

Then I lead with my Top 3 Types of Posts that WORK for sure on Facebook… I said if you do these each week along with your other posts, I guarantee that you will get more organic reach each week!

1)     MEMES – Especially Funny Memes… search on Google or Make your own MEMES that are focused on the funny topics around your business… don’t BRAND them with your logos.  No one wants to share a post if it looks like a Ad Billboard!

2)     MOTIVATIONAL – Find motivation quotes around your audience and motivate them each week or even better on the weekend!  These won’t get as much love as FUNNY… but it will for sure resonate with your community weekly

3)     CONTESTS – Give away your products, services, or even just a $10-$20 Starbucks Gift Card weekly to your fans… they goal should be to have them Like and Comment on your post to be entered to the contest!  This is the for SURE way to get engagement…. GIVE TO GET!

Facebook is a community… if you try to send them to a landing page, website, or away from Facebook it’s going to COST you Organic REACH, and if that is all you’re doing on Facebook .. you will slowly LOSE!

Take these three keystone content elements and run with them.. I promise you that your community with GROW & THRIVE AGAIN.    

3 Tactical ways to go VIRAL in 2020

Do you think you have what it takes to go Viral? WE DO :)

Today we’re going to be discussing on how to get your business to go viral! The holy grail of social media the viral hashtag, challenge or meme! It is as elusive as it as glorious, many have tried and failed, but we will be giving you the toolkit on how to greatly increase your chances of success of achieving such a lofty feat.

1.     Create a challenge! Examples of challenges are the ice bucket challenge! The mannequin challenge! Or even the more dangerous tide pod challenge! (Please do not try this at home.), the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge! Or to throw it way back planking! These are all viral sensations that were wildly successful, all very different but very intriguing to the masses, so get in the lab with your colleagues and begin to brain storm, jot down potential ideas, and experiment with the good ones and put them into practice, who knows you may be on the verge of the next big thing.

2.     Viral Hashtag! Examples of viral hashtags throughout the years are #TheDress, #HeForShe, #PutYourBatsOut, #BlackLivesMatter, #CupForBen, as you can see many of these viral hashtags are tied to cause that people are passionate about. Find a cause your company truly believes in and wants to assist and create something witty, hilarious, or daring that could potentially help to support that cause!

3.     Viral Memes! Examples of viral memes are the world record egg! Which shattered Kylie Jenner’s previous record of most liked Instagram post, it was a quirky post which caught fire all across the social media platform being liked by millions upon millions of users all across the world. Fixing things with instant ramen! Bottle Cap challenge! Tough Guy Entrance! And many, many more! There is so much opportunity to create the next viral meme, just requires some creativity, a little elbow grease, and a great sense of humor!

We hope you found this information to be not only helpful but inspiring in your quest to make your business the best it can possibly be!