The idea is that you can track visitors’ cookies—so you’re able to display ads to users who didn’t complete a form, or purchase, on prior visits.  For example, if you go to an online shoe store looking for running shoes, but you don’t purchase, then, with remarketing, the store could display running shoe ads to you, enticing you to come back and buy a pair.

Companies with products or services that require a longer decision-making process often utilize AdWords remarketing—so that, during that shop around process, the company can remind the consumer of their deals or promotions. Travel-related companies, like cruise lines, as well as colleges/universities, use remarketing often—because a vacation and an education will probably involve research and comparison.

My personal favorite feature of Google remarketing is the ability to create remarketing lists. With remarketing lists, I can tell AdWords I want to remarket to the people who viewed the T-shirt section of a website showing a “20% Off T-shirt” ad; and remarket to the people who viewed the bathing suits section of a website with a “Free Pair of Flip Flops with Swimsuit Order”. Remarketing allows you to personalize the ad to the needs of the user, which proves to be quite effective in many scenarios.

AdWords remarketing will display your ads on the Google Display Network. What’s the Google Display Network? It’s the community of websites that have opted to allow Google to display ads on their website. Just like a campaign on the Search Network, remarketing campaigns include the same metrics in the AdWords dashboard, so you can review CTR, conversion rate, bounce rate, average time on site, etc.

Now a piece of advice— change your remarketing ads a minimum of once a quarter. This will make your brand seem less annoying as you follow your past visitors. You can also set impression caps—show an ad no more than X number of times a day—so the user isn’t bombarded with ads.

Remarketing services can prove to be extremely successful for companies wanting to reach back out to their recent visitors. Not sure you want to manage a remarketing campaign in Google AdWords? Contact the Sparxoo search marketing team today and turn visits into sales and leads!

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Why should we care about moms (besides the obvious, of course)? Moms make 85% of all brand purchases, but only 3% of advertising agency creative directors target women. Not to mention, 91% of women feel that advertisers don’t understand them (she-conomy.com).

There are 75 million mothers in the U.S. Who does the grocery shopping? The Christmas shopping? Clothes shopping? And who is buying more insurance plans, vehicles, and electronics? You got it. Mommy dearest. Which leads me to another reminder: never underestimate the power of a woman: Today, they control more than 60% of all personal wealth in the U.S. More money = more buying power.

Here are 7 of the many lessons from mom that ring true for good branding… 

Lesson #1: Just Trust Me. I’m Your Mother.

Inexplicable, but true. We always trusted when our moms said it would be okay.

Brand experience must achieve the same thing. Consumers aren’t just paying for a good or service. They’re paying for the emotional connection that comes along with it. Consumers want to trust in brands’ persona and quality, and enjoy associating with the brand.

Lesson #2: Don’t Take Candy from Strangers

Consumers won’t buy from brands they don’t know and trust. Get personal, be their friend, and propose your value, plain and simple. Consumers want engagement and interaction from brands, which builds trust, and thus, credibility. Don’t be a stranger.

Lesson #3: You Can’t Lie to Me; Moms Know Everything.

Part of brand messaging is the transparency that allows customers to see the alignment between value, employees, and product. Consumers notice—and appreciate—genuine brands. In today’s consumer market place, authenticity is key. To strike consumers with authenticity, a brand must show its distinction from the crowd as the most preferable choice. Consumers face a lot of choices, but laddering-up your brand with their lifestyle is the key to their heart (and wallets).

Recognize your target market and investigate. Find out their needs and their desires. Then, devise an enticing and precise strategy, from social persona to brand assets; an aspirational brand with a voice will rise above the other high-quality commodities.

Lesson #4: Always Try Your Best

A good brand is one that simplifies and improves their target audience’s lifestyle. Brands must get into the mind of the target market; a good brand knows what the consumer needs before they know themselves. Simply marketing to the masses won’t work. You must try harder.

Lesson #5: Nothing Beats Experience

Whether it was trying something new or learning a lesson the hard way, mom was right. And just the same, consumers want to be enticed by an emotional connection; create a living brand experience, and you’ve likely hit a gold mine for brand loyalty.

Lesson #6: “Walk and talk”

Moms are juggling kids’ hobbies, education, health, the grocery shopping, and the bill paying. There’s no time for chit-chat. In today’s busy world, “brands are the express checkout for people living their lives at ever increasing speed” (Brandweek). Give a concise value proposition, and be the simple convenience that consumers rely on.

Lesson #7: Never Give Up

Constantly refresh and revise your marketing strategy, finding the leading edge way to appeal to your target audience.

Sources for this article include www.nielsen.com, thenextweb.com, www.askingsmarterquestions, The Entrepreneur, and she-conomy.com

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Lucky for us, there’s rarely a dull day in the office. But that’s only because we make it a point to re-invigorate our creative juices: brainstorm sessions, photo shoots, and spontaneous smoothie field trips.

Digital and branding are about interaction and creating an experience. How are we going to do that if we don’t keep our communication and inspiration skills sharp? So to keep a brand dynamic and enticing, it’s important to maintain a fresh perspective – both as individuals, and as a team. I sat with the team and collected our top ten “must’s” for creative growth and productivity:

1. Be adventurous: Everyone agreed that trying new things helps keep them going. Being adventurous keeps your thought process active, which spurs innovative thinking.

2. SUP: For our designer, immersive experiences kindle the creativity. In digital design, you certainly can’t do the same thing twice.  “That’s why I try to always leave time for spontaneity,” Ryan says. To be honest, I think we’re all a little jealous of his lifestyle. “Immersion lets me recognize what drives emotional appeal. I’m able to more quickly dive into the mind of the client and design what they desire.”

3. Commit to enjoyable engagements: As marketing lead, Adrienne has to be a wealth of strategic and stunning messaging and content. Meanwhile, her unofficial role is to to keep everyone laughing. Everyday. I know – I’ll have what she’s having, right? But if we had to point the finger at the work-around-the-clock-er, it’s Adrienne. So where does she draw the line? “Planning everything is really helpful,” Adrienne says; she can judge where to stop, and get ahead when there’s time to spare. “I also make sure to schedule enjoyable commitments, so that I don’t cancel, but I’m always glad once I get there.” Otherwise, she says, “I try to chose entertainment that sets me up for new discoveries; I never know what I’m going to get… which great for communication innovation. “

4. Take a Breather: Search Marketing can sometimes make you feel like you’ve reached a plateau. But Jonathan achieves success because he knows when it’s time to take a break. He focuses on his analysis, but doesn’t ever get discouraged when it takes a little time to see results or make a discovery. Instead, he steps away (usually for a smoothie, or a cruise in extreme cases), and comes back ready to dive in. And with a pair of fresh eyes, he usually has a break through pretty soon after.

5. Schedule your fun: I’m sure you’ve read countless articles on founders and CEOs taking a break. David exemplifies the work-life balance. He makes it a point to be efficient and effective as he responds to challenges with precise questions that get the job done. David says that what keeps him sane is a commitment to exercising, scheduling his time to work just as precisely as he schedules his social life, and keeping the promises he makes to himself.

As a team: Not only is taking time to “live” crucial to producing good work, we also take the time to constantly nurture ourselves as a team.

6. Collaborate: Since everyone owns parts of each project, getting on the same page is a must. And we never fail to come out with feedback. Daily uncut discussions are important for perspective and progress.

7. Recap: After all the brainstorming and creative strategy that goes into a client project, there are three recapping practices that amplify what meeting ROI:

• Work out the kinks. A dry run of our meetings ensures that we achieve our intentions, and that presentations run smoothly.
• Recap asap. After the meeting, thoughts are fresh in our heads, so we reflect on client feedback. It’s a prime time to recognize opportunities for improvement and devise preliminary next steps.
• Recall. Before the next meeting, recall what happened last time, what has been undertaken in the interim, and how advances have been made.

8. Get outside the office: In a team setting, it’s important to naturally mesh. And time outside the office accelerates the process. Whether it’s on a daily basis, like walking to grab coffee together, or to celebrate a project or new team members, quality team-time is invaluable for natural productivity. For example, last week was the CEO’s birthday: cupcakes, a little rowdiness & bad singing voices = bonding.

9. Reward & compliment: We all work hard, but recognizing stellar performance only encourages more stellar performance. By giving positive feedback, leaving nice notes, gifting employees with holiday time off, a rewarding that team member who has been working especially hard, everyone feels like their hard work is recognized.

10. Create a workspace wonder: An open and comfortable workspace inspires inspiration. We work from a cozy loft downtown, with wood floors, brick wall halls and a heaping candy bowl. Not only do the open air and natural light work like an instant dose of happiness, we’re also only ten steps away from the Tampa culture, and can work or brainstorm in our room equipped with whiteboard, armchairs and refreshments. So, there’s not much room for secrets… But there’s always a reason to laugh.

How do you make sure you don’t get burnt out?

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The ADA’s goal:

• The mission: Prevent and cure diabetes and improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes.
• The branding goals:
  • Promote the event on a local scale, and the cause on a national scale.
  • Reach the target market – riders and supporters – regarding both, the event, and the bigger messages: find a cure and live healthy.

Sparxoo’s asset:

• Social media advisement:
  • Sparxoo assisted with social media efforts, from content creation to account management and strategic scheduling. Social is crucial for event planning; Sparxoo consulted ADA personalities to maintain engagement, ensure that the campaign was aligned with search efforts, and showcased the cause.
• Blogger Outreach:
  • We provided guidance for the Tour team to identify bloggers that were relevant to the event. This is a great tactic to disseminate event details and spread the support.
• Community Outreach:
  • Together, Sparxoo and ADA identified potential local businesses that attract their target market. This method instantly attracted attention and spread the word, as Tour print materials were made available to likely supporters.
• Strategic Collateral:
  • In my last blog, I talked about how businesses can think outside of the box to achieve mutual benefit. The previous bullet points exemplify the obvious opportunities for collaboration: ADA wanted to increase the event as a brand in the community, thereby working towards their mission, and we had the services to help. In addition, our genius art director designed the art to the right for koozies to be given out at the Tour event. Who knew one koozie could say so much? First and foremost, it keeps the bikers drinks cool. Then, the art represents being heart healthy, and gives off the feeling of missions rooted in love.

Two is better than one:

This is a prime example that all companies have something to give. Whether your whole mission is grounded in saving the environment or bringing water to children in Africa, or if you’re a Pilates company who pledge to help the local school’s readership program – we can all give back.

The ADA: experts on NPO work with a passion for preventing and curing diabetes.

Sparxoo: expertise in branding, and our passion is… well, branding.

Sharing expertise allows each party to accomplish their goals; we may not be able to cure diabetes, but we can donate our services to help the guys who can. Working pro-bono with the ADA allowed for collaborative efforts, and increased fulfillment of the higher purpose: work towards a cure for Diabetes.

 Missions accomplished:

“The Sparxoo advertising team applied their creative marketing approach in helping us identify not only our target market, but the areas and channels to best reach our market. Their social media knowledge has allowed us to create social profiles, so we can stay in-contact with riders and supporters, as well as deliver important information about the Tour de Cure, and healthy living.”

- Melissa Parsons, Tour Manager

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From Marginal Cost to Mutual Benefit – The reality of business goals is price maximization. However, price maximization and PR are no longer separate entities. It used to be that PR unnaturally shoved ads at people and convinced skeptics to buy. As brands increase their social good, it all seems to flow together naturally. Consumers care about your cause: they buy – you profit – they feel good, with their product and their gold star for saving the world – you feel good because you fulfilled your cause and can afford to open up shop tomorrow. The mutual benefit that is inherent to social brands allows for a less sensitive price point, an enhanced affinity toward the brand. Happy consumers, happy shareholders, happy world. Naturally.

From Product to Passion – People are going to buy things they need. But what keeps them coming back to a social brand? If you’re providing something that people care about, and they know that they’re part of something bigger… they’ll fall in love. Brands can make an emotional connection, regardless. But a brand that tugs on the heartstrings speeds up the process. It’s like having the home field advantage.

 From Commodity to Culture – Consumers love companies. The whole company – the CEO, the workers in the store, the “look and feel” that they have when they use product, and the personality and culture that the company represents. Social brands heighten company transparency as every stage of the value chain is aimed towards a higher purpose.

From “Me-Me-Me” to Mission Statement – Social brands have a transparent mission statement that defines how and why they work. This sets the stage for striking messaging (my personal fave). There’s no need to boast and brag about your product. Your existence does all the talking. For brands with a social purpose, the mission is the comparative advantage.

 From Selling to Storytelling – The invigorating thing about social good brands is that they already know their story. If you offer quality and uphold your mission, customers will keep coming back. With poignant messaging and positioning, the story retells (and sells) itself.

From Exchange to Engage – Pardon me while I get up on my branding soap box, but the market place is no longer just about buy/sell swaps. There are so many variables involved, and it’s a feat to make sure that your audience choses you. Being socially good represents the future of marketing: people want value added every step of the way. This includes the personality and mission of the brand, its digital and social presence, the quality of the product, and the recurring interactions that result.

 From Cluttered to Simple – It’s streamlined. Core values that are simple, clear, and desirable. With a defined purpose, the brand plan manifests quite beautifully. Look at two of the most refined and irresistible social good brands:

• One pair of plain shoes that we probably would have thought were ugly, but they identified with a cause, so the rage began with the young, aspirational crowd, and then become a trendy icon for social good.
• Whole Foods. A grocery store experience that epitomizes conscious capitalism. Eat good, feel good, look good, do good. Then check out with the cashier who wishes you a peaceful day as they put your organic salad into your reusable bags and you donate to their sustainable micro-loan program. I love it.

And From Advertising to Awe-Inspiring – People naturally prefer brands that work for social good if there’s an option. And why wouldn’t they? It’s an added bonus. It adds meaning, (with the help of Gen-Y) it’s the thing to do. In this case, product paired with purpose is as close to an indestructible advertising foundation as you could get.

Ultimately, a socially good business model is primed for everything else to succeed naturally. The messaging, the branding, the social following. It all aligns easily with the mission.

 So you’re thinking… What about my brand? This just doesn’t apply to what we do…

Oh good! Then you’re in for a surprise (and you’re on the right website)!

Your brand may not be defined around social good, but it is known for something. The day when the core of all brands is to work for social good may be far off. And that’s ok. But the day when all brands aren’t socially bad is… well. It’s here. Most brands are trying to incorporate some level of “social good,” at least in the sense that they aren’t vilified (for polluting or lying about their product inputs). And it allows for an extra bonuses: revealing personality, community involvement, tons of PR gains, and even cost saving.

Your brand can adopt some components of a social good business model, and make it work in its own unique way. Start with these three questions:

• What does your brand want to give to its consumers?
• What is your brand’s strongest asset?
• What does your brand want to give to the world (or community)?

Those are the preliminaries of your social good blueprint. Mix that with a little creativity, and you can find a way to embed an earth-lovin’ component. In case you wonder if this really works, think about these general examples and tell me if you can’t think of a brand that has adopted something that aligns with their company:

• Restaurants who serve organic, farm-raised food, use menus made of recycled paper, or use green electricity to keep the lights on.
• Clothing companies who use only organic cotton and work to minimize their carbon footprint.
• Hotels that tell you to leave the towel hanging up if you’d like to reuse it (great PR, and minimizing their laundry load… Genius, right?)
• Coffee shops that offer a discount for bringing their reusable cup (They save money on cups, the reusable cup gets seen more often, and might even bring the conscious consumer in more often)
• Grocery stores’ isles whose freezer lights are motion activated (again, saving money and the planet.)
• Insurance companies who give employees days off to volunteer.
• Branding agencies who do pro-bono projects for non-profits who are directly making a change.
• Any company who pairs with a non-profit to contribute double the efforts toward a cause.

The moral of the story: Everyone has something to give. You have 21 days until Earth Day to think about a little something your brand can do to benefit the community. Social good is a new asset for business models, branding, and you and me. Just let us know if you need help brainstorming.

The post Why is “Social Good” A Good Business Model? appeared first on .

“So Adrienne, what you’re saying is you don’t have to build separate sites for each device?”

“Hold up now Jonathan, you mean to say I can actually save money on web maintenance with this responsive web design.”

Yes, a single site. And yes, cost savings amounting to over 50%.

We love web design. And honestly, we don’t mind answering this or any other digital question. And with that, we’d like to invite you to our Responsive Web Design party.

When: Now. Today. Yesterday, and ongoing indefinitely.

Where: That crazy place called the World Wide Web. And any and all devices that accesses it.

Why: With the advent of responsive web design, brands no longer have to develop a mobile site in addition to their traditional site. Typically, these were the sites with the “m.” in front of the URL, signifying the mobile version of the website. These also typically involved hefty bills for companies. Today, a single website can be designed that can be responsible across the growing number of platforms, browsers, and devices your target audience is accessing them from.

The way your audience consumes digital is changing each day. Today, 40% of consumers have turned to a competitor’s site after a poor mobile experience. While 57% of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site. With these statistics leading the charge, the importance of a responsible web design is more visible than ever before.

RSVP: Contact our awesome Sparxoo advertising agency team to see how we can help you today.

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SEO was the most time-consuming—and most used—inbound marketing tactic for online marketers worldwide: 23.9% spent more than half their time on SEO. Just 7.8% invested similar time in social media marketing and 6.3% in content marketing. (Read more)

If you’ve decided it’s time to get help with SEO, than there are some things you should look for in a potential SEO company. After all, your SEO agency will be an extremely important component to your overall marketing department.

An SEO Agency That Does More Than SEO

An SEO campaign has the purpose of elevating your website. It’s not just adding keywords, but tracking user behavior and adjusting site components to enhance usability. How can this be done if there isn’t a web developer present? At Sparxoo, our marketing and SEO specialists work closely with web developers to ensure your site is properly adjusted to best accommodate the end user.

An SEO Agency That Provides You With Monthly Reports

A proper monthly report contains the website metrics, with an analysis of the organic performance: non-branded keywords generating traffic, referring traffic sources, etc. Without this information, it is impossible to create an effective plan for next steps. If your SEO expert were not reviewing this with you, I would ask why. Then, demand they do.

An SEO Agency That Knows Their Way Around Codes & Tags

Though SEOs need to be clever copywriters, copywriting is not the only job duty. Yes, the creation of fresh, unique content is crucial for improving search rank; however, to best display your website to search engines, there is a necessary technical strategy. SEO experts should be properly using Robots.txt files, canonical tags, and rel=”nofollow” to verify that search engines are crawling the pages they should; not crawling the pages they shouldn’t; and are not finding any duplicate content in the process.

Partnering with a digital marketing & SEO team is an effective way to get your target market to your website, but, beware the SEO companies that don’t put their best digital foot forward.

To learn more about SEO services, speak with a Google-certified, white-hat Tampa SEO team at Sparxoo. Contact us today!

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User experience isn’t simply the look and feel of a company’s website or products. It makes up all aspects of the user’s engagement with the company. Your user experience sums up how well you’re meeting the needs of the customer.

Don’t Press Your Luck
2.6 seconds. That’s how long your website has to make a great first impression. In those two seconds you have to garner enough interest and engagement for a user to stay and navigate through your website (or your bounce rate will skyrocket, and your SEO will sadly suffer).

So just how do you do this? You can’t just give customers what they want (simple, easy to use, pleasant to look at). You must anticipate their “tomorrow needs.” They are not going to tell you they need a website that is easy to navigate, but they do. They need you to make their experience as seamless as can be—through interface design, back-end design, marketing and graphics.

Dance a Jig
Here’s a scenario, would you rather read about a hilarious dance, or see a picture of it? Simple enough, you need to see it to get the full effect. This is how your consumers feel. You must show, not tell on your website. A single image can replace hundreds of words of text.

The text on your website also plays a significant role in user experience. Your copy must be magnetic. Your brand’s voice must come through with each sentence. In today’s time poor, information rich society, every word really needs to count. Gone are the days of pages upon pages of text. Today, best practices in user experience tell us that users have limited time to read, and prefer concise, to-the-point copy.

Pot of Gold
Pop Quiz: What’s your job?

Incorrect.

Your job is to make your consumers’ jobs easier. Your job is to be the solution. When we look at how we can do this, we see that user experience plays an enormous role.

1. Usability: No one can use your website if they can’t find it. How does your SEO hygiene look? If a simple Google search for your offerings doesn’t yield your company, chances are, it displays your competitors.
2. Eye Candy: Humans are visual beings. To truly create the engaging experience with your brand, you must capture their attention through striking visuals that are relevant to their needs.
3. Be Obvious: Please don’t play hard to get. Clearly show and display your product and service to your consumer. Don’t make them guess what your capabilities are.

At the end of the day, user experience starts and stops with the end user. This is your consumer, and your strategy must be driven at benefiting them. Don’t make your website content all about you. The consumer has a need. And your job is to be the solution most tailored to them.

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Every time we work on a creating new brand strategy – incorporating the ideas from every perspective – it excites me (and kind of blows my mind) how seamlessly a comprehensive plan comes together into a living brand. To show you how possible it is to fuse all of the digital components into a functional brand, I’ve broken up the brand’s digital presence into three components (or “-abilities”), which I examine from the search, content, and user experience pillars of a brand strategy. 

Disclaimer: I’m just breaking it down into basics, to show the importance of making sure that everything fits in at every phase of the brand’s presence.There’s much more to all facets of good branding.

1.    Findability

Search: Great product, brand design, target market… As much as I love social media, visual content, and blogs, all of that only matters if your site gets found. The essentials?:

Keywords: You’re proud of your brand, of course! But for search purposes, it’s important to leverage words related to your brand/industry that will get searched. You might have the sleekest imported brand, the “Ronshai boutique bursa,” but if your targeting a market that likes high-end leather purses – that’s what they’ll search: leather purse. If your content is laden with company jargon, people who are looking for you (but don’t know it yet) won’t find you.

Technical Analysis: A functional technical foundation is the premise for digital branding – make sure that nothing is blocking search engines from crawling your sites, have site maps, and have tracking on your pages. You can have a million pages – but without links or traffic to your page… well… nothing will happen.

Readability: It’s hard to believe sometimes… but Google can’t actually read. To help it know what your site is talking about, readable html content is important, since people won’t always have browsers that show images or turn text into speech. Oh, and by the way, Google wants to see natural links, too… so getting your brand talked about in the digital community is irreplaceable; it makes you seem like a thought leader when real links are driving traffic to your site (i.e. comments on other articles). Being findable also comes from being visible. The Internet is a community, and a digital brand is a part of it.

Content:

The quality: When creating content, it’s important that you use words that people will search. Design blog titles around what people typically type into Google. Visual content is enticing to your consumers, but being “findable” requires relevant words first.

The quantity: There’s no such thing as “too much” (quality) content. If I had to pick one thing that a brand can’t live without (note: yes, brands are living things), it’s good content. Why? Because Search engines and people love content. If a search engine sees that your site is active, they like that. If a person has content to attach to, they’ll fall in love with your brand.

User Experience: Using data is great for getting a pulse check: Once your brand is up and running, analytics provide a strong foundation for brand optimization. With an inherent quantitative tendency, though, it’s important that you use data only for leverage, and to qualitatively optimize. Use the numbers to guide your brand (i.e. know what people like and where your traffic comes from), but don’t let the numbers define your brand. Remember – the reason you have the numbers is because you’re an engaging brand: keep engaging. Just refine. And refine… and refine.

2.    Navigability and Usability

The Logic: Your website isn’t a store, but needs to be just as easy (if not easier) to navigate. Website design and user experience need to (naturally and subtly) align with SEO components and facilitate enjoyable, natural navigation. In economics, this is called “choice architecture:” design the sight based on the nature of the users – know what people want, and cater to that. Embrace intuition, then let your creative abilities (the wireframing layout planner, the genius copy writer, and the design ninja) do the rest.

In fact, just like with many creative strategies, this concise and clean format forces the creation of stellar brand collateral. The narrowness inspires high quality.

Search: The design of the website should include the content and the right words that the search engine will favor. Know your search foundation, and then differentiate the brand further. For example, “call-to-action” buttons or newsletter sign-ups represent an example of the blend of search and user experience: search data lets us know the impact of each web layout approach, and we can alter the web design appropriately.

Web design and content: Users want simplicity – but you have a lot to tell them (we hope). How does it all come together? Use the search as guidance, design a navigable website, and place appealing content (blogs, images, company newsletters and brand showcases) within the conceptual design. Also, be sure to frequently touch base with the search expert when writing blogs: it’s an art and a science. And a nice way to vent.

3.    Lovability

Like I said with the user experience – these people aren’t with you. You’re digital presence is doing the talking. Similarly, you have to create content for personality. Whether people know it or not, that’s the aspect that they will fall in love with in the online arena. TOMS? Shoes for a cause. Chubbies? Pants with a sense of humor. IBM? Industry-giants. Why do we “know” these brands? They have a personality – which is created and maintained by an active, pristine, and personifying digital presence.

Search and content: If you’re optimizing SEO in all the right ways, social is a great place to disseminate your content, as well as maintain brand exposure, voice, and personality (and more platforms = more Google love). Blogs and page build-outs will help showcase pages that aren’t as readily “findable,” and will be an asset in the search engine world. Optimizing content – by theme, key word utilization and internal linking – helps to make your info. not only findable, but also attractive and personable. And that’s what I’m getting at:

 There are creative minds, and technical minds. In digital – you can’t have one without the other: You can be attractive and personable, but you have to get found. Or, you can get found, but have to make people like what they find. One option is useless without the other.

It’s not that complex. But consistently fusing the different streams of thinking into all brand counterparts can be (in an exciting way) overwhelming.

In sum, there’s a precision involved in building a website that gets found, looks great, and locks in an emotional connection. It’s a blend that must be constantly strived for in order to have the most successful brand possible. The key: take a piece of each branding specialty and find how it fits into every branding pursuit.

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Fuse Pilates

Fuse Pilates developed a photo campaign with inspiring messages, motivating their audience to embark on a journey of fitness and health. The imagery is shared on their blog as part of  “Fuse Pilates Photo of the Month”, as well as shared via social media. Their photos are imaginative, creative, and branded. In the end, it would be difficult to think of Pilates and not visualize the Fuse Pilates woman performing a Spiderman pose.

Red Bull

Like Fuse Pilates, Red Bull featured inspiring messages on top of stunning imagery. These images are shared on Red Bull’s Instagram and actually submitted by fans, as part of the #GIVESYOUWINGS campaign. Red Bull often receives praise for their adventurous photos; however, the #GIVESYOUWINGS campaign has certainly raised the bar for brands’ social engagement.

Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines

Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines knows their competitive advantages: their massive ships. They have rock climbing walls, zip lines, and surf machines—so they’ve decided to feature images that depict these activities. You’ll notice that instead of a logo or brand name, we only see #DesignedForWOW. Much like Apple, their style and reputation are known well enough to be able to omit this branding. It doesn’t work for everyone, but, for Royal Caribbean, it works.

When strategizing a photo campaign, consider your brand image and your competitive strengths. Then, develop a posting strategy based on the social platforms that your target market frequents.

Contact the Sparxoo team today to discuss social media marketing strategies.

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