What exactly is social media listening? It simply means monitoring any mentions of your brand as well as your competitors across all social media channels. Although social listening does require some time and patience, the benefits of social listening definitely outweigh the time and effort involved. Additionally, social listening would involve “listening” to not just the good, but also the bad.

It would be a great idea to implement social media dashboards to transfer all social updates that mention one’s company’s name or keywords. This would allow the social media team to analyze the various social media channels and find out ways in which to increase traffic to the various channels.

After having been exposed to the social media dashboards during the course of the online marketing campaign that my team did for our client, I have come to understand that there is much more to managing a social media channel than simply being active on it. By being active, I am referring to the usual attracting of followers and following them. I have come to realize that if constant monitoring of what people are saying about your business or brand on social media, and then taking subsequent actions and making improvements based on what they are saying, then there is no point to social media.

Articles:

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/top-8-social-listening-tools-do-way-more-listen
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/tag/social-media-listening/

Why aren’t more brands using Snapchat as a marketing tool? Snapchat is said to have around 100 million active users, with majority of its demographic being that of 16-25 year olds. These younger demographic of Snapchat users are certainly the future of consumption. Snapchat has captured the attention of this demographic in particular as a result of its unique and fascinating function. Individuals can send 10 second videos of randomness or one that tells a story and this video disappears almost instantly after the time limit. Several brands have started adopting this unique tool as part of their marketing strategy in recent times.

In my opinion, it would be best for brands and businesses alike to adopt Snapchat as a marketing strategy in order to keep up with the ever-changing tech-savvy and social media friendly world that we live in. Since Snapchat only allows videos to be seen once and for a certain period of time, this would allow businesses to capture users’ attention and create a positive impression. Videos could be in the from of teasers of new products, storytelling as well as by means of a competition whereby users could send in snaps in order to win free gifts.

Articles:
https://contently.com/strategist/2015/10/14/infographic-how-the-best-brands-use-snapchat/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/04/your-guide-to-using-snapchat-for-marketing/

A business’ website alongside its social media  channels are central and intertwined with one another in driving traffic to the online activities of this business. In order find out the specific areas to improve on with regards to social media marketing activities, it would be great to conduct a test to measure the effectiveness of the marketing efforts. This is where a tool such as Google Analytic comes into play.

Google Analytics provides the business owner with valuable data that helps to track where the business’ website visitors come from and provides metrics to better understand the visitors’ behavior on the website.

I was not very familiar with how Google Analytics worked until I had to make use of it as part of the E-Marketing project that we had to do for our client of choice. Needless to say, I was initally confused as there was so many different tabs and functions to utilize on Google Analytics. However, after reading online short-cut manuals, I managed to grasp its functionality quickly and was amazed at its effectiveness in allowing one to gain proper insight into the how our client can improve or manage their marketing strategy for better website activity.

Most people use LinkedIn as an online resume or to gain and maintain new and old connections for purpose of business of career advancements. However, there is more to LinkedIn for sure then just a means to showcase your educational qualifications, job experiences and skills.

As thought during one of the lectures towards the end of the term in E-Marketing, with a well-maintained LinkedIn profile, one can do wonders. Since LinkedIn is largely focused on B-to-B connections, business professionals should utilize LinkedIn as a major tool for social media marketing, without overlooking it as part of their digital marketing strategy.

Firstly, a business professional should strive to beef up his or her LinkedIn profile, in addition to the relevant information about work experience and education qualifications. A great professional head shot is always the way to go for the profile photo and a eye grabbing title serves as an icing on the cake. Additionally, it would help to post frequent status updates, integrate blog posts and tweets to your LinkedIn profile, request recommendations from your connections, as well as posting a LinkedIn event to help generate interest an event etc.

LinkedIn is a great way to build your brand and push the acceleration button in your career. It would also help to join groups that allow you to interact with professionals that share similar interests.

Articles:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anfernee-chansamooth/why-linkedin-is-the-most-_b_5706017.html

Non-profit organizations and their amazing causes need to utilize social media to create more awareness. These organizations have been known to shy away from the use of digital marketing and tend to hold on to traditional marketing practices. However, as technology has amalgamated with our everyday lives, it has become difficult for the non-profit organizations to ignore digital marketing.

More light is being shed on how effective social media marketing can actually benefit non-profit organizations in various ways. There are also agencies that are helping non-profits with regards to better marketing their causes. Media Cause is one such award-winning non-profit digital agency. It helps non-profits with raising awareness, building a community, converting their existing community into donors, or even all three. This digital agency prides itself in specializing in helping non-profits build a strategy that will help them achieve their goals.

Media Cause: http://mediacause.org/

In my opinion, this is great since many non-profits would want to create an outreach to allow people to be more interactive and engaged with their organization. Also, this would give non-profits the opportunity to the millennial demographic who are heavy users of social media. These millennials are cause carriers and as such are seen to have the ability to recognize a noteworthy cause and have an impact. They are also known to have the energy, passion and drive to make an impact. Therefore, utilizing social media for marketing provides non-profits with more benefits, in addition to giving them a good platform given that an increased proportion of millennials are becoming more passionate about giving back to society.

It has been predicted that Instagram will be taking over the digital marketing scene for businesses in the near future. This comes of no surprise to me given the presence of a Instagram for Business blog that is already out there.

With the Holiday season being around the corner, brands and businesses of all sizes are turning to Instagram to advertise and promote their products. This is a good strategy since more people are turning to online shopping on mobile these days given their hectic lifestyles and them being increasingly tech-savvy.

References:
http://blog.business.instagram.com/
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/here-are-9-eye-opening-digital-marketing-stats-past-week-16764
http://oursocialtimes.com/how-to-use-instagram-for-marketing-and-measure-the-results/