You might think you have a great brand, but it won’t work without a strong social media plan. The two go hand in hand and that’s that!

But, for some of us, social media is the biggest challenge when it comes to gaining traction in the marketplace.

This is because it’s something you must own, and it takes time and imagination. No half-measures or empty promises. You simply have to do it.

Let’s be honest. Many of us just aren’t very good at social media. We shy away from getting up close and personal.

We really don’t want our business day being constantly interrupted by who’s saying what on X (formerly known as Twitter) or who’s doing what on Instagram.

We’d much rather talk to people about our business face to face. Or pick up the phone or send an email.

But the undeniable truth is that we ignore social media at our peril. It’s here to stay for now and these are some compelling facts you should know. Charity Digital – Topics – Social media facts you need to know in 2024

So roll your sleeves up and get on with it. You might just start enjoying it!

If you stay committed, you will make a success of your social media and your brand will thrive.

Step-by-step guide on how to create your plan

1. Make sure your social media profile is in line with your brand’s DNA. It needs to look, sound, and feel like your brand.
2. Identify your target audience and which social media channels work best for them. If they hang out on TikTok, then that’s where you need to be.
3. Know what your goals are and how you’re going to achieve them. This is where you might need some advice from a social media expert.
4. Start telling your brand story in an honest and authentic way. How your company and its services and products help people in their day-to-day lives. Short videos are a great way to do this.
5. Make sure you’re having a conversation. Don’t showboat. Listen and learn from everyone who connects with your brand. Ask for people’s feedback and act on it. Be real and do what you say.
6. Build a content calendar and commit the right amount of time to your social media activity. It can’t be hit and miss.

Two rules you should never break

• One third of your posts should promote your business, one third should be shared content from industry thought leaders and one third should involve personal interaction with your followers
• 80% of your posts should inform educate or entertain and 20% should promote your business

The perfect social media post

Videos, images, GIFs and memes, text-based news updates, audio clips, ‘how-to’ guides are some of the types of social media content.

But we’ll leave it to the social media experts for advice on how to write a great post. Here you go:

How to Write the Perfect Social Media Post – Social Progress

And don’t forget, where there’s Hope Creative, there’s always hope. If you want some guidance from people you trust, we’re always here for you. Check us out on our socials or contact us in the usual ways.

Your brand creates awareness about your business. Marketing creates a direct connection with your customer. One won’t work without the other, it’s as simple as that!

Imagine your brand as the author of a book and marketing as the publisher. Very different roles but totally the same purpose – to tell a story that people want to read.  

This is one of the reasons why marketing is so important to your brand. It’s the tangible way you create leads and convert them into sales.

Here are four more reasons why marketing makes such a difference to your brand’s success.

• A reason to buy

Marketing shows a potential customer how your products or services can solve their problem or meet their specific need. It helps to influence their buying decision because they can clearly see the benefits of what you’re offering. They have a reason to buy.Once they have a reason to buy, though,youmust deliver. Get it right and your customers will come back for more and they will spread the word.

• Your ideal customer

Understanding what your customers want and need is vital, especially nowadays because people are so well informed. Market research helps you to work out your target audience and how you can best reach them. This enables you to connect with your ideal customer and tailor the message to suit them. You can find out what works for them and what doesn’t. And you can use this data to improve your offer.

• Better than the rest

Your offer must stand out from your competitors. Competitor analysis will build a picture of your marketplace so that you can promote your unique selling points (USPs). It’s all about finding ways to show why your business is better than the rest. But you can’t just make bold claims about how good you are, you must show evidence. This comes from gathering genuine feedback from your peers, employees, suppliers, partners, and customers. Marketing doesn’t work if it’s based on smoke and mirrors.

• Getting engaged

Winning and retaining customers is a key part of effective marketing. Getting engaged with your target audience and then staying connected is the only way to build a loyal following. Marketing campaigns give you a reason to stay in touch and build lasting relationships. Social media, video, blogs, feedback forms, trust ratings and newsletters are all helpful here as part of your engagement plan.

There’s more to marketing than this, obviously, but the way to approach it is to break it down into bite-size chunks. You don’t have to spend a fortune or sign up to a scary retainer.

Just make sure you invest a little time getting to understand the basics and talk to the right people about what to do next.

Here are some useful links which might help: 

What Is Marketing? Definition and Guide (2023) (oberlo.com)

Pain Points: How to Empathize with Customer Problems and Solve Them (hubspot.com)

And if you want free advice, you can always talk to us. Or you can sign up to our newsletter which always has useful tips on everything to do with brand.

We talked about four key ways to bring your brand to life in our last blog. This time, we continue the theme but we’re focusing on something else that’s just as important – your brand story.

Every brilliant brand tells a compelling story where its vision, values and distinctive offer connect emotionally with its target market.

So, how do you go about creating your brand story? First of all, you need to understand your four fundamentals:

1. Why you exist
2. Who you are
3. How you do things
4. What you do

We covered them in our last blog and actually run a specific Brand Doctor workshop, which takes you through each one step by step. If you’re interested, let us know.

What’s your brand story?

OK, so once you know your why, who, how and what, you can start to think about your brand story.

Start by defining what you do in more detail. In other words, what’s your unique offer to your customers? What do you do that your competitors don’t. Ask yourself these five questions:

1. Do people buy your products or services simply because they’re more affordable? 
2. Are they innovative or genuinely unique in some way?  
3. Are they the highest quality ie better than the rest?
4. Do you offer the best customer service by a mile?
5. Is your service about a user-friendly experience that customers really enjoy? 

Is there one that resonates the most? Are there two or three that apply? Or is it something else completely? Now use your answers to begin writing your brand story.

Imagine a relatable scenario where you put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Create a hero struggling with an issue, show you understand their conflict and then provide a workable solution. We all love a happy ending!

This example is how Land Rover used a true story to celebrate its 70^th anniversary. ‘The Land of Land Rovers’ is set in a remote area in the Himalayas where a fleet of  1957 Land Rovers are meticulously maintained so that supplies can be transported along treacherous mountain roads between two small villages. The production team spent 10 days getting to know the brave drivers and listening to their accounts of everyday life. The resulting video is stunningly filmed, and these true stories only serve to reinforce the incredible off-road capabilities of Land Rovers.

Here’s another fitting example of brilliant storytelling. As we know, Google is all about advertising, yet it rarely highlights its search engine prowess on the screen. In its Parisian Love advert way back in 2009, we watch as a three-act play unfolds. It starts with a young man googling his up-coming adventure studying in France. All we see is his search history played out to sound effects and a gentle piano track.

We think it’s genius! There’s no hard sell, not even a call to action – just a love story which captures exactly what Google has to offer.

Hope Creative can help to bring your unique brand story to life. Get in touch and we’ll tell you how.

Why do people love the likes of Nike, Apple, and McDonald’s? Even if you don’t love them, you surely respect the power of such globally successful brands.

This is all because we buy into their DNA. You know what they stand for, you immediately recognise them, and you feel connected. You already have a story about their brand in your mind.

Nike wants us all to be the best that we can be. It says: “If you have a body, you are an athlete’. It wants us all to be included. NIKE, Inc. – Purpose — NIKE, Inc.

Apple simply wants to make our lives easier and richer with its innovative products. It wants to help us learn so that we can all realise our potential. Education – Apple (UK)

And McDonald’s wants to feed us but is also about families and fostering communities. Just watch its latest adverts on television and you can see this in spades. McDonald’s – YouTube

We think this DNA boils down to four key building blocks, which you absolutely must know if you want to build a strong brand.

1. You need to know why you exist as a business or organisation
2. You need to know who you are – your ethics and culture
3. You need to know how you do things – the way your business behaves
4. You need to know what you do – your specific offer to your customer

It might help if we take a closer look at an iconic brand that we all know well and, quite possibly, love. John Lewis is the largest employee-owned business in the UK. It has been trading for more than 100 years and its central aim has always been to do business differently. By making its staff partners and involving them in decisions, everyone feels a shared sense of ownership and commitment.

Why does John Lewis exist?

John Lewis’s purpose underlines this desire to include its employees: ‘As co-owners we all have a share in the business and a shared commitment to go above and beyond for each otherand our customers’. This is the why. John Lewis Partnership – Our Purpose

Who are they?

These days marketing people would describe John Lewis as a typical ‘caregiver’ brand. It wants to protect customers and behaves in ways that demonstrate this intention. No wonder that acting with integrity and doing the right thing are integral to its DNA. This is the who. John Lewis Partnership – Our values

How do they do business?

The way that John Lewis does things stems from its ethics and culture. It calls this ‘purpose in action’. It’s about walking the walk every day. This company isn’t afraid to describe how it wants its people to act. Treat people with fairness, courtesy and respect are its three guiding principles. This is the how. John Lewis Partnership – Happier People

What do they do?

John Lewis describes itself as a leading multi-channel retailer but what it offers is different. It helps to bring joy to every moment, not just the big occasions. This is the what. For all life’s moments | John Lewis & Partners

Hope Creative is here for you

If you need help answering these four questions about your business, we’re here. We offer interactive Brand Doctor workshops designed to meet the needs of any business.

If you want to run a successful business, you must communicate effectively with your staff. This is especially true now given the current challenges of the post-pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine and cost of living crisis.

Wellbeing research conducted earlier this year stated that only 33% of UK employees felt they belonged to their organisation. The 2022 trends for IC and what to expect from us | Industry News (ioic.org.uk)

This means two thirds of people are feeling disconnected and alienated, which all adds to your burden as an employer or HR professional.

Yes, it’s tough trying to motivate yourself sometimes, let alone the people who work for you so here’s how you can boost morale in your workplace.

Firstly, always remember that your staff are your greatest business asset. They are the people who interact most with your customers and how they behave really matters if you want people to stay loyal to your brand.

According to recent consumer surveys, 88% of buyers stick by a brand that they think is authentic. And nearly half of them will pay more for products and services from a brand they trust.

10 Branding Statistics You Need to Know in 2022 [Infographic] (oberlo.co.uk)

These statistics show just how important it is for your employees to live and breathe your brand ethics. How they engage with your customers will make or break your business.

So how do you keep your people motivated and ‘on message’ when the going gets rough?

Start a conversation with your staff

Listen and talk to your staff. Find out what they’re thinking, what issues are critical to their mental and physical wellbeing at work. Ask how you can support them.

If you want a glimpse at their current mindset, this link is worth checking out. State of the Global Workplace Report – Gallup

Ask for feedback on specific issues

Get feedback on specific issues if people have recently returned to your office after months of working from home. You can ask:

1. Do they like working remotely or is a hybrid approach best for them?

• Do they still feel cared for by you as their employer?

• Are they still on board when it comes to your brand ethics and company purpose?

• What employee benefits do they think are missing from your job offer?

• How could you improve the way you communicate with them at work?

• Do they still feel enthused, motivated, and engaged?

Include questions like these in a ‘Welcome Back’ survey. If people are still working remotely, conduct a regular ‘Keep in touch’ survey.

But you must act on your findings. Tell people what you plan to do, ask for their input whenever you can and be transparent about the outcomes.

Reinforce your vision

Find out if your employees understand your business road map. Do they still know what your company stands for and do they still connect with your ethos?

It’s time to refresh your brand messages and reinforce your vision. Here are our ideas on how you can do this:

• Desktop video alerts from your leadership team
• Visuals such as posters and banners in common workplace areas
• Message walls for staff to create their own brand stories
• Bite-size brand books and staff handbooks
• Internal social networks
• Digital newsletters

Here’s another useful link if you want to know more: Internal Communications Trends for 2022 and Beyond (linkedin.com)

And don’t forget that we’re here too. We can help you to plan your internal communications more effectively and we offer bespoke training and mentoring. Why not get in touch for a chat?

https://hopecreative.co.uk/our-services/