With the majority of society using one platform or other on the internet, be it social media, email marketing lists, or searching on Google, taking your marketing to the internet is a good way to build brand awareness, create leads or boost traffic to your website.  To enter and maintain awareness with this growing audience, you need to be online, and social media is a way to achieve this.  Here are five things to consider before you begin a social media marketing campaign.
 
1. Define your goals or objectives
As with any form of marketing, the first step is to determine what you want to achieve. Do you need more people to visit a page on your website? Do you want to build a database by asking people to sign up for a free ebook?  Do you want an increase in sales?  Each campaign will potentially have a mix of objectives, some may be similar to others.  It is important to write down what your goals are and give them a number, so you have something to measure against.
 
2. Choose your platform
If you are starting out with social media campaigns I would suggest using one platform.  Learn this platform well, including how the analytics works, so you can understand how your campaigns are succeeding, or not.  Tweak campaigns to increase your goals or objectives, to fine tune them and to leverage off successful campaigns.
 
3.  Get it in writing
Prepare a timeline of your activities. Who is going to undertake tasks?  When do the tasks need to be undertaken? When they are done?  This is helpful for analysis after the campaign and can form a template for future campaigns.
 
4.  Develop outstanding visuals
Graphics bring a social media campaign to life, video is a fantastic tool also.  Create a series of ads, monitor how each performs and compare this so you can shift your tactic and adapt as required.  Remember to use well thought out graphics and imagery, you are representing your brand and it is important to keep consistency and high quality to the fore.
 
5.  Consider your audience
Who are you trying to reach and how does this fit with your goals?  Consider that if you do not have a highly targeted audience your campaign may fall flat.  Use your target audience to create content that will appeal, that is relevant, and that you can target your advertisement placement too.
 
This list is only the beginning, it is a good foundation to begin your first social media campaign from. Remember, content is king and you need to create content that is relevant, valuable and on target to your audience, in order to meet your goals and objectives.
 
If you would like help planning a social media campaign get in touch with us.

Written by Kathleen Boyd.

I’ve been thinking lately about why some assignments go smoothly and provide satisfaction and success to all involved. And the conclusion, is that a clear and effective brief is a key factor. And more than that, a clear, effective brief that’s in writing.

Why? Because it means that thought has been given to all the elements involved before the job is started, which means that everyone involved understands the ultimate objective of the piece of work, and the elements required to help meet that objective successfully.

That in turn saves time, money and frustration.

Sometimes though, it can seem like it’s too much effort, or the ‘job’ isn’t worth spending the time. And we can be as guilty as the next person, taking instructions on the fly and getting on with the ‘doing’. Oftentimes this works out but is the result as effective as it could have been if a more strategic approach was taken.

It’s a discipline to prepare a brief. However, there are key questions to be asked that can be established in a template so that you capture the essentials:

• What is the task
• What are the objectives
• Who is the target audience, what do you know about them
• What is the single or unique minded proposition
• What is the appropriate tone to be taken
• What are the mechanical elements that need to be adhered to / included
• What’s the timing
• What’s the budget

You can always add more, and we can expand on this with you if you’re interested. And if you don’t give us a written brief, don’t be surprised if we capture what you say and supply it back to you in writing so you can be sure we’ve read your thoughts correctly!

We're ready to take your next brief...

Written by Dale Cowie

Hosting a webinar is an opportunity to share your expertise, build trust and authority with your target audience/s.  You can also reach people easily that are not necessarily in the same town or city as you.

A webinar is a useful to for a number of reasons, it can be used to:

• Share your skills and knowledge
• Inform in more detail of your services
• Teach about a product or service
• Answer questions.

​Read more below on the benefits of hosting a webinar and grab some tips on where to start with one.

Hashtags are important to the way we communicate online because social media platforms turn any word or group of words (without a space) that directly follow it into a searchable link.  The magic then happens when searching, as simply a #hashtag helps to populate groups of content; if you click on a hashtag you can see all the content associated with that group of words #hashtag in real time. 
 
Hashtags originated on Twitter in 2007, and today are used by both brands and people alike, to gain more followers and potential customers.  Not only on Twitter, #hashtags can be used on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and other social platforms.  They can be used to promote specific events or campaigns.  You can search to see what people are talking about / interested in currently, and they provide an opportunity to join a conversation or engage with those having conversations about things relevant to your brand.
 
How to use the #hashtag

1. Group all your words together, don’t put in a space
2. Differentiate between words with Capital Letters - they don’t change the search result eg. #TgiF will give the same results as #TGIF or #tgif
3. Use numbers if required; special characters and punctuation marks will not work
4. Put hashtags at the end of your post or comment.

The purpose of the @mention symbol on social media is to ‘call out’ directly to someone.  They will get notified that you have mentioned them.  This is beneficial for businesses for a number of reasons, it lets the person or company know straight away, it puts you or your brand in front of who you are mentioning, it can leave a positive impression, and it encourages reciprocation.
 
The @ symbol had its origins (around 1970) as a connector in email addresses before being picked up by Twitter in 2006, Facebook in 2009, and LinkedIn in 2013. It is now across the majority of large social media platforms such as Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest.  You may have noticed that Facebook is rolling out your company page name in the profile banner area with the @mention at the moment - see below.

How to use the @mention (using Facebook as the example - see above):

1. As you start typing in your status update @Kite, a drop down list will then appear and you can select your connection or company from the list that pops up.
   
2. Keep typing the remainder of your update.
3. The mentioned company or person will receive a notification letting them know they have been mentioned.

There are several tools online that can be used to monitor your brand online, here are a couple but there are plenty more:

• https://mention.com/en
  
• https://www.hashtags.org/
• https://tagboard.com/

If you need help understanding how @mention or #hashtags work let us know, they can be tricky to get your head around when first starting to use.  We can also help with your online branding for social media platforms.

Written by Kathleen Boyd

Why Pages are important for business

While you may not see much of a return these days unless you are paying for advertising, a Facebook Business Page is still a free and easy-to-maintain online presence - clients, potential clients and others can view information on your business, and it counts as a listing in Google.
 
To get the most out of your business Facebook page you want to complete as much information as you can to bring your business to life.  Facebook is continually adding in new features too, like the Services Section and the Shop Section so keep an eye out for these.
 
Informative, engaging post content along with images and video posts are a great way to showcase your company and offer the opportunity for communication with your followers.
 
So while Facebook may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it does have its place.  For any questions about Facebook, or if you are ready to set up one for your business, get in touch today.

Written by Kathleen Boyd

Having a well resourced website is not a bad thing; in fact, an archive of blog posts shows your experience in your field, and further Google will not penalise you for older blog posts. 
 
You may have noticed that a date will appear on the left hand side of blog posts in Google, and on social media platforms each posts has the date it was shared.  Someone that is searching the internet for a specific topic will generally take note of this date, register it as old content and that it may not be relevant to their needs.
 
This poses the question, should I delete old blog posts or keep them?  While the answer can be a little murky, I would recommend keeping them, they are not doing any harm sitting there, and in fact, can have some benefits. 
 
Below I share some thoughts on why you should keep your old blog posts.
 
Content is king for SEO
Every article or blog post you write is adding to your business’s digital footprint and helping your business rank in Google. It is showing off your expertise, building your credibility, and if you were to delete this content, then that is a lot of hard work wasted.
 
Keeping up with latest trends - make use of older content
Show you are on the ball by having links from your older blog posts to newer content on the same subject.  Set aside time to review old posts and update them or repurpose with any new information or add links to more up-to-date posts on the same subject.

Opportunity to improve your site - no indexing old blog posts
If you are coming up with multiple issues in your Webmaster Tools due to incomplete meta descriptions and titles in older blog posts, you can ‘no index’ these. This will hide them from Google so they are not crawled or seen in search results.  Or, if you have time, go through old blog posts and add in any missing data to the backend to help with your SEO.
 
Site architecture and internal linking
You may have a large site with a lot of content and internal links between pages and content. By deleting blog posts you are running the risk of link breakages, and there is nothing worse than coming across a 404 page when something is broken. This can cause the reader to question the validity of your whole site.
 
Inbound links – referral traffic
If another business or individual links to content on your site that is subsequently deleted, it will create a broken link.  Inbound links are important as they assist with SEO - the more you have, the more authority Google deems you to have. If someone links to an article in your blog and it is no longer there, then that link becomes useless and can affect your referral traffic.
 
On a final note, are things ever truly deleted from the internet anyway? 
When you create content online, be it for social media, an email, a blog post, it is all sitting in someone else’s assets.  And even if you delete it, it can still exist.  Each social media platform, Gmail, and even your local internet provider, stores your data on servers, and each will have their own terms and conditions as to how the data is deleted so if you are determined to delete, it may pay to check these out
 
If you have any questions on how deleting old blog posts may affect your website, get in touch today.

By Kathleen Boyd

​Pre world wide web, it was a sales maxim that you should make contact with, be in front of your sales potentials every 90 days - three months (or less).  Is this still relevant in today’s world of digital marketing and social media?
Certainly it is now possible to blog, post, email inexpensively and relatively quickly, and digital analytics can tell you with what impact your message is being received. Our expectations around communications have changed immensely over the last two decades; we no longer wait for the post to bring us into contact with others; we expect responses to be almost immediate.
Frequency
So while it’s easier to make and keep contact, how often should we be in front of ‘our people’ ?
If your business is B2C, then quite probably the answer is far more often than every 90 days. In fact, for some (younger) markets you may need to be employing a daily presence in social media feeds.
For B2B businesses, the timing can be anything up to 90 days depending on your industry, what resources you can put to the comms, and whether there is any seasonality impacting purchase decisions. (Seasons are three months!)
Quality over quantity
We would suggest of more importance though, is the value of what you have to say. To keep in touch just for the sake of being in touch can have a negative response. If your contacts (be they existing clients, prospective clients, influencers) feel bombarded, and/or question the value of the information you are sending them, they will likely hit the delete button or unsubscribe to be lost potentially forever! Or in the case of printed communications, file them in the bin unread.
So quality over quantity but regularly.
Make it easy for yourself
Make it an objective to take note of industry comment, success stories, learnings that are relevant to your contacts. Ask your team to do likewise – set up a Google docs or similar where ideas can be pooled, have it as an agenda item for your staff meetings. This way when it’s time to write your newsletter - digital or printed - or social media posts, you aren’t on the back foot and it won’t take you another 90 days to get something out there.

​If you’d like to learn more, get in touch. We’ve got more ideas on how you can keep your business in front. 

Have you ever considered publishing your communications online?  At Kite Communications we have been working with Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers to digitally publish its magazine.  You can check out the latest autumn issue, click here.   Below we highlight some advantages of digital publishing for you to consider the next time you create your magazine, newsletter, or book.
 
Save time and money
Digital magazines are relatively straight-forward to upload if you already have artwork created for a print version. Additionally, some online magazines let you load content straight into their software so you can do away with artwork design costs, not be limited by set page amounts, or layout restrictions as you create your print and digital magazine at the same time.  As an added bonus, if you only publish your publication online, you can save on printing, postage and storage costs.
 
Learn more about your readers
Many online publishing platforms have statistics that come with them.  The depth of this information can vary on what (if anything) you pay to use it.  You can measure statistics such as click-throughs from links, the length of time spent on a page, and some software will also have heat tracking so you can see how a mouse was used across each page.  Tracking how a reader engages with your magazine online provides the opportunity to fine tune future publications.
 
Interactive media increases engagement
With the ability to include video, sound, and interactive links within your publication (offered by some online publishers) you are increasing the opportunity for your reader to be engaged right there within your magazine.  They don’t need to click and go somewhere else online so you can get your message across clearly and quickly, and increase the amount of time a potential customer is viewing your brand.
 
Get people on the go
A quality online publisher will convert your magazine so it is easily readable across mobile devices thus creating accessibility to your magazine that you may not have had before.  For those stuck in the daily commute, busy execs with time between meetings, mums and dads on the go with littlies; now the majority of people have their ipad, tablet, or phone with them so they can read your publication as it suits.
 
Global reach
If your subscribers move to another location, they can maintain their loyalty with a simple click as you notify them with an email that your magazine is live.  A regular email is also a great way to share other news at the same time.  Plus, the power of Google means once online, your magazine is searchable by everyone. 
 
Here are a couple of online publishing platforms to check out, and if you would like to discuss how to get your magazine online simply get in touch here.
 
Issuu.com
Mirabel’s Digital Studio
ZMags.com
Yudu
Joomag
Flip PDF professional
Adobe digital publishing suite

Written by Kathleen Boyd

The days of the free organic search proving fruitful for your business are coming to a close, as more and more people take up the offer of paid advertising to have their business on the first page of a Google search.  This is not to say that organic search engine optimisation is redundant and won’t help; it is still important and every little bit will help when targeting your audience. 
 
Read more to discover some simple steps you can take to help boost your business ranking:

1. Search for your company name online, you won’t need to check your own website so use an advanced filter to remove it from your search results.  Eg. type in “business name – site:yoursite@yourdomain.co.nz” this will give you search results for your business less content found on your website.
2. Go through the search results and make sure any listings for your business are correct, if there are outdated details contact the organisation behind the incorrect listing and request a change, or change yourself if it is a directory listing you manage.
3. Social media is a great way to get your business ranking, so if you haven’t set up your Google My Business, Facebook, Slideshare, or LinkedIn business page do this, it will appear near the top of the Google results. 
4. Look at other online directories that you can use to list your business, for example Yellow, Finda, Yelp, Chamber of Commerce, industry specific directories etc, and list your business with them.
5. Google has made getting your business details online easy with Google My Business. This is a one stop dashboard for listings, search, Google+, YouTube, Maps and more.  It is vitally important to have this business listing.

Having your business ranking on the first page of Google isn’t a one-off process - unless you are paying for advertising, and even then there are no guarantees.  Organic searches change constantly and you need to carefully consider your search engine optimisation techniques, including keyword phrases, and then monitor how these are performing.
 
If you need help with listing your business online, get in touch with us today.

Written by Kathleen Boyd