1. Define Your Goals

Begin by identifying your marketing objectives. What are you trying to achieve with your content? Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, or generating leads, clarity on your goals will guide your content strategy. 

2. Know Your Audience

Understand who your target audience is and what content they find valuable. Research their interests, pain points, and preferred content formats. This insight will help you tailor your content to resonate with your audience effectively. 

3. Choose Your Content Types and Themes

Decide on the types of content you’ll create, such as blogs, videos, infographics, or podcasts. Also, outline the themes or topics you’ll cover each month based on your audience’s interests and your marketing goals. 

4. Plan Your Content Calendar

Create a calendar format that works for you, whether it’s a spreadsheet, project management tool, or dedicated content calendar software. Map out your content ideas, assigning publication dates and deadlines for each piece. 

5. Allocate Resources and Responsibilities

Determine who will be responsible for creating, editing, and publishing each piece of content. Allocate resources, such as writers, designers, and editors, ensuring everyone knows their roles and deadlines. 

6. Incorporate SEO and Keywords

Integrate SEO best practices into your content calendar. Research relevant keywords and incorporate them naturally into your content to improve search engine visibility and attract organic traffic. 

7. Include Promotion and Distribution Plans

Plan how you’ll promote each piece of content across different channels, such as social media, email newsletters, and partner websites. Schedule promotion activities to coincide with your publication dates. 

8. Review and Adjust Regularly

Regularly review the performance of your content. Analyse metrics such as engagement, traffic, and conversions to assess what’s working and what needs adjustment. Use these insights to refine your future content calendar. 

By following these steps, you’ll create a structured content calendar that supports your marketing goals, enhances team collaboration, and delivers valuable content to your audience consistently.

Our expert team follow these guidelines in crafting content calendars for our many customers, if you would like to speak to someone about getting your own content written and saving time contact us today!

The post Building a Content Calendar: Best Practices appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Customer contact

Social Media allows customers to interact a lot more closely, interacting with customers can only bring a positive impact, there’s nothing worse than a company that ignores customer interactions it makes them look false and rude – in ‘real life’ you wouldn’t walk into a shop and expect to be ignored after saying hello to the shop assistant, the same analogy applies to ignoring social engagement.

It’s important for brands, especially consumer driven firms such as travel agencies to address customer interactions, even if they are negative to show that they value customer feedback. Those that show your values through social media and nurture those relationships through a customer centric approach are the winning companies online.

Social Media and user-generated content are an essential part of marketing to the modern affluent travellers. By leveraging the millions of authentic travel photos and stories that people post online everyday, luxury travel brands can create engaging digital experiences that move travellers along the path to purchase.

Unlike low price driven online platforms, high-end hotels and travel agents don’t want to reach everyone on Facebook and Twitter. That would be a waste of time, given that not everyone can afford your services (we talk a lot about buyer personas and the importance of refining your core audiences in other blogs). Utilising the likes of social analytics can help brands understand their customers better and provide valuable insights that drive stronger content strategies in the future.

Buyer personas

Buyer personas, or audience segments provide a deeper understanding of the target audience. Professions, ages and what they like/dislike are absolutely critical to successful online marketing. With the opportunity some hotel groups are now using, such as rewarding guests who have checked in via Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare with exquisite bonus services like complimentary spa treatments or a welcome bottle – these additional tactics drive the personal experience for the customer and help them to remember their experience with you, and in turn drive sales in the future. Another way to drive your audience interaction and engagement is encouraging holiday-makers to share their holiday photos via creative services and facilities.

Key takeaways

• Know your consumers, create a buyer profile (if you are struggling with this, we can help!)
• Keep it exclusive and relevant; tailor your content to a great customer experience
• Gain deeper insights into your consumers, and refine your activities based on THEIR needs and desires, not what you want to show…travel brands should then focus on creating tailor made, personalised content online.

Are you a luxury travel brand that is looking to excel your social experience for your audiences and drive sales? Contact us for more information and don’t forget to follow our page @brighterdirections on Facebook or LinkedIn for more insights.

The post How social media can drive luxury travel appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Here are some ways to optimise your SEO on your website:

Keyword Research

Developing a list of keywords is one of the main ways you can identify what words and phrases your potential audience is searching for and make it possible for people to find your site. Therefore, it is important to understand what people are looking for and to make sure that your keywords relate to the products, services, or information that you are offering.

Make sure that your keywords are highly relevant to your audience and are effective in making your site rank above your competitors. It is important to keep updating these keywords regularly to make sure that you make the most out of them as the market adapts. Additionally, making sure that keywords aren’t too popular and are unique is vital as keywords that are too popular are too competitive. This may mean you will struggle to be ranked higher on search results with other competitors using the same terms.

Meta descriptions

Page descriptions tags or meta descriptions are what people can see when they search for something with the description coming up for each website. It is important that these are filled in effectively, as these short paragraphs are your opportunity to promote your website and let searchers know what your page contains and whether it is the information they are looking for.

Making an engaging description using your keywords will get more people to click onto the links to your site and using a call to action is a good idea to use with this. Furthermore, it should be relevant to the page it relates to and you should ask yourself what makes you click on a particular link when you do a search based on the description that appears.

Think about your competitors and compare them with your own business to see how their website ranks against yours. Does your current meta description make potential visitors want to click the link to your site or theirs. If necessary, you may need to revise your description and make it more engaging so that you have the advantage.

Website Content 

When writing the content for your website, the two main things you want to consider are the readability and engagement it has with visitors. Talk about the benefits, not just the features that you are offering to your potential customers. People are only interested in how you can solve their problem and will just invest time in reading information that benefits them.

Provide information in the first paragraph that immediately engages with visitors and makes them decide to find more about what you are offering. Ensure that the content is condensed and readable which tells people what they want to know without making them read too much information which doesn’t answer the questions they may have. Using a call to action is very effective as part of this, which will prompt visitors to engage with you and invest in the services you are offering.

If you are looking to optimise your website and want more information on how to get the best results for your business, Brighter Directions are here to help. Contact our team today to discuss how we can support your digital footprint.

The post Search Engine: Making Your Website Optimised  appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Before the global pandemic, social media was being labelled as an addiction to millennials. The media was filled with ‘social media detox’ tips, telling consumers it is bad for their mental and physical health and is to blame for the depression rates rising. However, in 2020 everything changed for social media (just one of the many ways Covid-19 has affected society). This was the year we all turned back to technology rather than ‘detoxing’ to stay up-to-date with current events, be entertained, and most importantly, keep connected to our friends and family.

During the early days of the pandemic, we utilised social media for the quickest source of information as TV broadcasts and newspapers could not compare with the speed news can spread in the online world. The demand for information on anything to do with Coronavirus was unprecedented to what the media had seen before. Social media not only got the latest news stories out the quickest, but they were also the most accessible.

With the national lockdowns and restrictions altering our lives drastically, we sought entertainment from social media more than ever trying to fill all our newly found spare time. There were booms in fitness trends, recipes, home improvement videos, crafting, dancing, and anything else to escape from the doom and gloom of the pandemic. This not only gave us the feeling of being united but helped reduce the sense of loneliness from being isolated. More people were finding their voice on social media, including a demographic that had not been the main consumer before, the elderly.

Throughout 2020 there was a huge growth in the 70 to 90 demographic on social platforms. All around the world, older generations were signing up and creating accounts to be able to communicate with their friends and family. Likewise, companies and brands that were not based online and some who did not use social media were now being pressured into creating an online presence to compete with those who had already captured their audience.

As our lives completely moved to be through computer screens, we as consumers searched for the feeling of the ‘real world’ online. We want to see real people with real lives to who we want to connect. This has led to the biggest increase in influencer marketing on social media. We seek inspiration for everything through these influencers as we want to feel a part of a community and find the socialisation that we now lack in person.

A reason influencer marketing is becoming more successful is due to the ability of the influencer to communicate with their audience through likes, replying to comments, Instagram lives, Q&A stories, etc. Through these outlets, they can establish and build relationships with their followers.

Brands need to acknowledge the changes 2020 has bought to the social media landscape and ensure they create community management and develop a strategy that incorporates having dialogues with their customers online. They must organise their values and develop a brand personality that their audience can relate to.

As people are not currently able to visit stores and experience customer service, they need to form that relationship elsewhere. By brands showing support for issues around the world that they believe in, it helps to make a positive impact on growing their personality and thus making them more attractive to the consumer. Utilising tools such as Facebook and Instagram lives makes the brand more authentic and personable and not just an online company. The ‘new normal’ for social media means that brands have to learn to embrace this new social aspect of the online community and develop their own personality.

If you are unsure how to increase engagement with your audience, why not start with our three top tips?

1. Create a content plan for your social media to post once or twice a week. Posting consistently is key. Ensure you including captions, graphics, and relevant hashtags in your plan. Then you don’t have to worry about planning a post last minute.
2. Arrange a Q&A session with your audience on your Facebook or Instagram story. Decide on a topic, for example, a new launch or customer service, and ask your audience for questions. Prepare your answers beforehand and post as a story or host a Facebook or Instagram live.
3. Organise a competition or giveaway. This is a great way to increase your followers, your engagement, and appeal to a wider audience. You can either host this as an individual or team up with another brand or influencer.

If you would like to hear more about how to develop your social media and engage your audience, we’d love to help. Contact us via socialmedia@brighterdirections.co.uk to discuss your business.

The post The ‘New Normal’ For Social Media appeared first on Brighter Directions.

The majority of businesses that use Facebook, are not just B2C but a huge proportion are also B2B led, looking for brand awareness and audience engagement as such as consumer led brands.

A lot of businesses that use Facebook simply focus on the metrics, such as the best way to post a link, the most effective post content and the best time to post for higher reach.

We’re not at all saying that these aren’t great and fundamental strategies that you need to use while managing your commercial Facebook in terms of understanding and building your visibility – but, as a company looking to build credibility and position yourselves above the vast competition, you also need to focus on being consistent on why and what you post.
So, in this post, we are going to show you the best tactics and tricks to enable you, whether a consumer or business firm, how to use Facebook to release its full potential:

Cover Images:

Focus on optimizing your Facebook page through your cover photo – this is not only an image displayed but the first impression people will get of your page!

Facebook does have a pretty cool tool that when someone is to hover over your company’s name… it brings up a tiny preview of your page showing your cover photo!

This is a GREAT way to catch the eye of individuals or companies and completely FREE!

Always optimize your about section on Facebook with critical keywords and links to your website.

Interaction:

We all know that social media is about the audience and engagement… so make sure you put this into practice throughout all your social activities, such as:

Always interact with the audience engaging in your page – this is not only a great way to get you noticed, but also helps build your branding and position in the Facebook and Google feeds as it demonstrates your active presence.

Also, don’t forget to keep building your page, by inviting people who have liked your posts to like your page as these are already interested in what’s been posted.

By interacting with other pages it also helps enhances your visibility across other pages, some of whom may be really aligned to the proposition you offer.

Consistency:
The biggest way people will interact with you is through your posts. It is therefore crucial to know what you’re posting and how often you post.

Professionally, we will always advise you to have a mixture of different content that directly ‘speaks’ to your audience and reflects what THEY want to see from your page content, such as:

• Insights
• Business news
• Promotional

Facebook is more of an informal (community led) social media platform, so make sure this is reflected in the tone and style of your post and content strategy – think about the type of people using Facebook and always, always ensure that your posts reflect the audience you are trying to engage.
Brighter Directions are experts in Facebook marketing, Facebook engagement and Facebook advertising for organisations from start-ups to growing SME’s and global brands. If you are looking for any help to drive your Facebook campaigns and maximise your exposure and sales through social media, then we’d love to hear from you! Simply call us on 01246 252855

The post Are you using Facebook to its full potential? appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Video marketing by Brighter Directions

If you’re serious about increasing your brand engagement and traffic to your website, then video definitely deserves a place in your marketing arsenal. Thanks to streams like YouTube, not to mention Facebook’s automatic streaming of video content, more and more people are engaging with visual media like this.

Here are ten statistics we’ve read this week that demonstrate the importance of video marketing as part of your content strategy.

• Only 20 per cent of users will bother reading text beyond about 300 words. 80 per cent of users, on the other hand, will engage with a video that contains exactly the same content.

• YouTube has now claimed its place as the world’s second largest search engine. First, of course, is Google. So by being on both Google and YouTube, you’ve opened the door to the biggest international market available.

• By 2017, it is estimated that 74 per cent of all traffic on the internet will be video. People are already turning to video, and with faster broadband speeds and unlimited data packages becoming the norm, your business needs to be there to keep up with the times.

• Currently, 92 per cent of mobile video viewers will share the content with their friends. If you’re looking for viral marketing, video should be your new best friend.

• In terms of sales, research by Forbes shows that 65 per cent of executives will visit a vendor’s site after watching a video. Added to this, 39 per cent will call a vendor after watching their video.

• Videos aren’t just for YouTube either. Statistics show that homepage videos can increase conversion rates by up to 20 per cent or more. They are also more likely to stay on your website for longer; up to two minutes extra compared to websites with text only.

• Email marketers Unbounce found that videos on landing pages can increase conversion by up to 80 per cent.

• If you’re keen to move with the times, only 24 per cent or brands are currently using video marketing as part of their content marketing activities. Strike now, and become a leader in your industry for this medium.

• More than 100 million internet users watch a video every day. Of course, some of these are watching the latest humorous cat video, but a whole bunch of them are actually looking for instructions on how to do something or for advice. And many of them are looking to buy a product or service.

• Getting involved in video marketing can help your other campaigns too. Research by Syndacast showed that using the word ‘video’ in your email subject line boosts open rates by 19 per cent. It also showed a click through rate increase of 65 per cent, and a reduction in unsubscribes of 26 per cent.

Without doubt, video marketing is a powerful method of boosting engagement with your brand. If you want to find out more about what video marketing can do for your business, talk to us today on 01246 252855

The post 10 tantalising statistics that prove the importance of video marketing appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Brighter Directions social media and digital content experts

We’re constantly being told that our content needs to be truly compelling if it’s going to get the results we need. The web is packed with best practice examples, insider tips and how to guides on the subject of creating content, but how do you know where to start? Here are our top four tips for finding inspiration for your content which will truly compel your readers to take action.

Use the data you already have

Analysing your website is a great starting point, and not too difficult to do either. See what search terms led readers to your site, and which pages they looked at when they arrived. Put on your Poirot hat and see what you can deduce about your audience from the information you have about them.

Make the most of the knowledge you have in house

If you’ve got experts in the business who are willing to write, great. Unfortunately you’ll probably find it’s not high on their list of priorities, so let’s be a bit more creative here. Spend 20 minutes or so quizzing them about their job, what they’re working on and what’s going on in the industry in general. You’ll be amazed by the amount of ideas you turn up.

Pinch ideas from the competition, but do it better than they do

Read other peoples blogs.  Check social media feeds for updates. Figure out who’s getting the lion’s share of the traffic and why. It’s not a crime to write a similar blog post to something you’ve read from a competitor; just make sure yours is better written, more insightful and thoroughly engaging from start to finish.

Share knowledge, not products

Your early stage buyers are your target market for your blogs and whitepapers, and if all you’re doing is ramming home the features and benefits of what you sell, they’ll soon get bored and go elsewhere. Share your knowledge, make it easier for them to do their job and you’ll be a trusted supplier when they are ready to buy.

Creating compelling content is all about writing relevant, useful stuff that people love to read and share. Sure, it’s easier said than done, but with a bit of perseverance and some creative thinking, you can polish your content to get the best results every time.

For more support and insight into making it in digital marketing, talk to our experts today on 01246 252855!

The post Creating compelling content that really works: 4 top tips appeared first on Brighter Directions.