The Evolution of Black Friday

Written By: Danielle Gazda

While the phenomenon known as Black Friday has questionable origins, potentially going back to the 1800s, the retail holiday as we know it today started in Philadelphia in the 1950s. This is when people from the suburbs flooded the city for an annual Army-Navy football game and a round of discount shopping. However, the use of the term “Black Friday” for the post-Thanksgiving shopping spree didn’t become a nationwide trend until the 1980s. Read more about the history of Black Friday and the myths surrounding its origin on the History Channel website.

In its 40 years of being an official retail holiday, Black Friday has evolved greatly. A significant development was the first-ever e-commerce transaction, which happened in 1994. As e-commerce has taken off in the past two decades, first with websites and now through social media, how people purchase what they want and need has transitioned away from physical retail locations. Black Friday is no longer the physical fight it used to be (well, it usually isn’t), but brands are still finding ways to entice people to shop online and in stores.

Here are some Black Friday best practices all retail businesses should know:

Month-Long Sales

Black Friday is no longer confined to just a single day or even the following weekend, which includes Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. In the past few years, many brands have opted to create pockets of sales throughout the month of November. These sales sometimes even start in late October.

You don’t have to discount items during this entire time, but it’s good to get a leg up on holiday shoppers who don’t want to leave things to the last minute or hate feeling limited to a single day, especially if they need to go in person.

These discounts can start small — for example, with free shipping — and ramp up throughout the month as it gets closer to Black Friday.

In-Store Exclusives

If you have physical locations and you’d prefer to have at least part of your customer base shop in person, then offering exclusive in-store discounts is a great option. It may be worth staggering your online and in-store deals, so you can draw more people into your stores. Start with limited discounts online and add further offerings in-store to reach that initial wave of holiday shoppers in your area. 

It’s a great idea to advertise in-store deals in marketing newsletters or on paid social media ads with proximity location targeting.

Special Discounts for Loyal Customers

If your brand has a rewards program, VIP group, or even a newsletter, you can target loyal customers with exclusive deals just for them. Repeat customers are more likely to actually make a purchase and to purchase a large number of items. They may be interested in buying for themselves or giving gifts to loved ones and friends who may, in turn, also become loyal customers. People often have more trust in brands that are recommended to them by people they’re close to.

Holiday Marketing

Competitive holiday marketing is key to making Black Friday sales work for your company. As with most things, it takes money to make money. Investing in ads across social media and Google is your best bet for reaching a wider audience or an audience that is most likely to complete a purchase. Other brands will be doing the same thing, so bids for display space may be higher than you would usually be comfortable with. Finding the right balance of creative assets, copy, landing page, and other elements may be difficult, but in the end, it should be worth it.

Newsletters, as mentioned earlier, are a great way to reach already interested customers. If they’ve signed up for emails from your brand, then they have probably made a purchase in the past, or, with the right deal, are likely to make a purchase in the future. Utilize newsletters to share sales, exclusive discount codes, promote best-selling or low-selling items, and inform customers about restocks and product availability. 

The last part of holiday marketing is promoting your business on social media. Aside from paid advertising, social media is how many people now find products and services they’re interested in buying. Don’t forget to keep up with your social media posting. Share your products, share online and in-store promotions, and run a few giveaways. Giveaways during the holiday season can get people excited about your products — and even if audience members don’t win, they may be more likely to look at your website and make a purchase anyway.

If you’re interested in stepping up your holiday marketing strategy, check out some of our other holiday marketing blogs. You can also contact us through our website, or email us at info@thisis270m.com, for help in working on your digital marketing strategy.

The Most Authentic Social Media Platform: BeReal

Written by: Danielle Gazda

By now, you’ve probably heard of BeReal — then again, as a business owner, you may have heard nothing about it at all. BeReal is the latest social media platform taking Gen Z by storm first released in August of 2020. It now has over 15 million daily users and over 28 million downloads as of September 2022. This is a 315+% increase in usage and over 1000% increase in downloads since the beginning of 2022. What makes it unusual is that it’s almost an anti-social media app because it has a way of subverting all current preconceptions of how content is created nowadays. 

How Does BeReal work?

Central to BeReal’s quirky appeal is that users are prompted (just once every 24 hours) to share an in-the-moment photo at a random time during the day. It also utilizes both the front-facing and back-facing cameras on the phone. This dual camera system has already been duplicated for Instagram Reels and TikTok. So far, BeReal is strictly a photo-sharing app, which goes against what all digital marketers now know — video content is king.

Interacting on BeReal

With the daily prompts, users get two minutes to post their photos. If they miss that window and post later in the day, a notification about the late post is sent out to all of their followers. This is another way BeReal subverts social media expectations: It gives the impression that sending out a post notification is a bad thing. In reality, it doesn’t matter too much, but that’s the novelty of it.

No Advertising on BeReal

Currently, there is no way to advertise on BeReal, nor are there any plans for advertising in the immediate future. The creators of the app wanted to get back to the roots of social media, where friends and family share images of daily life without the intrusive boosted posts, sponsored posts, or inducements to buy. They are considering bringing in-app purchases to the platform to earn some money, but the app itself will remain free, and the in-app purchases will not be required to use BeReal.

Companies on BeReal

Beauty brands have been the first companies to migrate over to BeReal. It’s easy to tell that their posts are coming from genuine employees. And while they may be curated to a certain degree, these photos are definitely shot on phones and are meant to feel as organic as possible. Some brands have leaned into doing giveaways or providing special discount codes to drive up interest for their products and to attract new followers. It will be interesting to see if this continues and if other categories of companies will follow suit.

Is BeReal Right for Your Brand?

If your audience is primarily Gen Z (or you want to grow your Gen Z audience), then yes, adding BeReal to your monthly content calendar may be a good move. It will take time to adapt to the less curated, less professional platform, but it could definitely be a beneficial move. Even TikTok and Instagram are trying to integrate dual camera photos for their own platforms. If your team isn’t familiar with BeReal, it may be best to have some employees try it with personal accounts first and report back on what they think might work for your brand. Keep in mind: BeReal could be a heavy lift since the expectation is a post every day — and that post can be prompted any time between the early hours of the morning and the late hours of the night.

Follow 270M’s social media to keep up to date with the latest digital marketing and social media trends. If you’re interested in hiring a digital marketing team, visit our website, or email us at info@thisis270m.com.

How to Utilize Google Analytics for Your Business

By: Danielle Gazda

Google Analytics is a free website traffic tracking tool. It takes user information gathered from each page of your website and compiles it into reports that help you analyze it. You can discover demographic details, bounce rates for each page, and much more. Most importantly, this information allows you to make better-informed decisions about products and user experience.

You can also connect your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts to combine user engagement ad campaign data with website data.

Here’s what you need to know:

Tracking Code

After you’ve created your account, Google Analytics will provide you with a piece of G4 tracking code that you’ll need to embed on each page type of your website. This is what enables Google Analytics to gather user data from your website.

The Hierarchy

Here are some primary terms to know after you’ve set up your Google Analytics account.

  • Account- Having an account is mandatory. You’ll provide some general information that relays what type of company you have.
  • Property- For each account, you can determine “Property,” which can either be a website or an app. If your company utilizes multiple websites or a website and an app, they will have to be set as separate properties. They will each receive their own unique G4 codes. You can combine data later in Reports.
  • View- Under each property, you’ll need to set up your “Views.” These determine what data Google Analytics looks at and pulls to process into reports. Limiting a View too much will result in missing information. Always keep a view of “Raw Data,” which contains no limiting factors, and another view that excludes internal company traffic and bots. 

Once this hierarchy has been established and code embedded, you can run Real-Time reports to see the metrics coming in. However, you won’t be able to generate accurate reports until after a few days later — it takes some time to gather enough data to make meaningful reports.

Dimensions and Metrics

Now we get into how to read the data you’re seeing in reports. Most of it is broken down into Dimensions and Metrics. These are the different user variables Google Analytics learns about and reports on.

  • Dimensions- Dimensions are categories of demographic information. This can include the browser and device being used, landing and exit pages, as well as specific user information, like location and customer type.
  • Metrics- Metrics are the quantifiable data that is collected. This includes information about sessions, session duration, page views, conversions, bounce rates, and numbers of new and returning users.

You also can make custom dimensions and metrics if there is specific data you want to see that are not standard options Google Analytics offers.

Reports

There are five different categories of reports: Real-Time, Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions. Each report has an overview and then provides various breakdowns of the information.

  • Real-Time Reports provide you with insight into what’s happening on your website at that exact moment. This report won’t be used often. It’s good for checking performance when you implement new filters to ensure everything is running properly.
  • Audience Reports allow you to go deeper into the difference between new and returning users. It digs into demographic, geographic, and behavioral information. These can help inform your ad campaigns as you learn what your audiences are interested in.
  • Acquisition Reports break down traffic by the source. A source is what brought your user to your website. It includes organic, direct, referral, email, social, paid search, display, affiliate, and (Other).
  • Behavior Reports provide you with information about how users interact with your website. Some basics are Landing Pages, Exiting Pages, Page Speeds, Search Terms, as well as sessions and events.
  • Conversions Reports share user behavior as it relates to e-commerce business goals. First, you’ll have to establish goals in Google Analytics. These goals can include newsletter subscriptions, adding products to cart, completing an order, or making an account. If your website is for e-commerce, this will be important to set up.

Conclusion

Google Analytics is a great tool for any business with a website, whether it’s a company site, e-commerce site, blog, or any combination of these. If you have goals for how users will interact with your website, Google Analytics provides detailed reports about users and their behavior to help you optimize your website and ad campaigns.

Would you prefer to have a team manage Google Analytics setup and reports for you? 270M can handle all of your digital marketing needs. Contact us on our website, or email us at info@thisis270m.com.

Five Ways TikTok Can Help Grow Your Business

By: Danielle Gazda

The use of video content is a proven method of advertisement. Commercials have enticed audiences to try new products, visit new places, and make countless purchases in the decades since they first appeared on television. Now, video has become the best way to market products, services, and yourself on social media platforms, as well. Static visuals can be well crafted and beautiful, but short video content is what younger generations want to see more and more.

At the moment, no one does this better than TikTok. As Instagram, Facebook, and the rest try to catch up, TikTok has quite the monopoly on enticing, shareable, bite-sized video content. Vine, for those who remember it, was essentially an early version of this. However, it was rarely used for marketing purposes, yet it showed what kind of communities could be built. If your product or service is geared toward a younger audience, then TikTok is where you want to be.

Here Are Five Ways to Make TikTok Work for Your Business:

1. Post Genuine, Less Commercialized Content

Obviously, the goal is advertising and getting your business out there, but you shouldn’t be doing that in your company’s everyday posts. Audiences don’t want to feel like a product is being forced on them. Content should be fun and laid-back, and not always focused on a product or service. Show the people who work for your company. Show behind-the-scenes glimpses of how your product is made. And show your workspace and office — audiences want to know that there are real people behind companies nowadays.

2. Stay On Top of Trends

A great way to get TikTok to organically boost your content is by creating content that has the potential to go viral. Participating in popular trends can be a great way to do this. But you certainly don’t want to go viral for the wrong reasons, so know when to skip a trend and leave it to the influencers.

3. Posting Product/Service Content

Of course, you’ll need to post some product/service content so your audience knows what they’re buying. Videos can be a great tool to show off a product, answer frequently asked customer questions, do demonstrations, provide tips, and more. The goal is not only to make your product stand out but for the video to be interesting. It’s very easy for audiences to simply keep scrolling and move on, so think carefully about your opening visuals and audio.

4. Partner With Influencers

Working with influencers can seem almost necessary to get your business better known, and in a lot of cases, it’s true. Influencers can have enormous reach. If even a small percentage of their audience follows up and views your brand, that can mean hundreds of people with their eyes on your product. Working with influencers can be expensive, though, so if you’re a small business, you can initially reach out to smaller influencers who may be willing to post in return for free products instead of an actual fee. You can find creators to work with at TikTok Creator Marketplace.

5. Let’s Talk About Advertising

Now, down to advertising on TikTok. TikTok offers six forms of advertising: In-Feed Ads, Spark Ads, TopView Ads, Brand Takeover Ads, Branded Hashtag Challenge Ads, and Branded Effect Ads. Learn more about each of these ad types from this article at the Later blog. Each advertising option offers unique opportunities to engage with your audience and expand it. Some may work better than others for your brand depending on how you think you can best reach your audience.

Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, TikTok continues to be the way of the future. Start your TikTok business account today with the help of the 270M Team. Visit our website, or email us at info@thisis270m.com.

Mindful Social Media Posting Habits

Written By: Danielle Gazda

Social media can sometimes be tricky to navigate. It’s particularly important to be mindful when posting about months or holidays such as Pride Month or Black History Month. You don’t want to appear to be pandering to a group by suddenly making inclusive posts or changing your brand’s logo to be “on-theme.” 

There are a significant number of memes about companies that suddenly become friendly to the LGBTQIA+ community during Pride Month as their imagery explodes with rainbow colors. Even if your brand is well-intentioned, it may come across as manipulative and capitalistic. The same is also said when horrific events, such as mass shootings or police brutality, are featured prominently on news outlets. Numerous companies will feature blacked-out solidarity posts or send out empty statements of sadness and consolation.

To be a good brand on social media, you need to be consistent, conscientious, and aware. Below are a few tips for doing this with your own brand’s social media posts.

Inclusive Imagery

Throughout the year, your brand should strive to continuously include imagery that contains a diverse cast of models. It’s important to promote inclusivity. It follows a modern trend in organic posting of allowing audiences to see themselves in your posts. The representation of minority ethnic groups, LGBTQIA+ individuals, as well as plus-size and disabled models are massively important. Be conscious of who you include whether you’re setting up your own photo shoots or using stock imagery.

Employee Participation

Include your employees in the decision-making process for posts about potentially sensitive topics. This will boost company morale and help to ensure you’re getting everything right. Facilitate company-wide conversations about what you should be doing for Black History Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Pride Month, and more. Your own diverse team members are your greatest asset.

Avoid Stereotypes/Cliches

Your employees can also be invaluable by helping you avoid using language or imagery that may be offensive. It’s true that you can’t please everyone, but you can avoid glaringly obvious issues by being cautious, curious, and mindful.

Transparency

Always be deliberate with posts showing support, and be transparent in your intentions. Targeting is a part of creating ads and enticing people to purchase your product or service, but there can be a fine line. Continue to steer away from harmful stereotypes. Some decisions regarding targeting may be specific to what your company offers and represents.

Activism

Even after making claims of inclusivity, diversity, and solidarity, companies may not take a genuine stand or make an effort toward actively benefiting the groups represented in their ads and posts. Part of being an open and welcoming brand is to put your money where your mouth is. Larger companies can donate to charities and organizations. Smaller businesses can set up fundraisers or promote awareness campaigns for organizations. However, both should start closer to home. Ensure that your work environments are safe, inclusive spaces that are stocked with resources for your employees.

Being an advocate and an ally for multiple groups is necessary nowadays. It should also be what you want to do and what you want your brand to be a part of. This does not mean your content should bombard your audience with “Look at how inclusive we are!” Part of being a trustworthy business is knowing when to use your platform to raise your voice and when to step back and allow the individual communities to speak up on their own — potentially using your platform to do so.

For more digital media marketing information and tips, subscribe to the 270M newsletter and read previous blogs. If you’re interested in taking your digital marketing to the next level, contact us at info@thisis270m.com.

The Importance of Investing in Imagery for Your Brand

By: Danielle Gazda


Imagery often gets overlooked in the whirlwind of tasks involved in starting a new business. The focus is on designing a logo, setting up your website, and other more immediate needs. People sometimes fill their website with basic images of their products on a white or solid-color background, and then… that’s it.

In the world of social media e-commerce, creative and unique imagery is essential. Marketing on social media is founded on sharing unique and creative photos and videos that will entice customers to learn more and purchase.

Your company should set aside a budget to have a photo and video shoot roughly every three to six months. For photography, this is to keep the imagery fresh by trying new configurations and pairings and diversifying models. For videography, this is to explain new concepts, answer common questions, and demonstrate your product. There may be some differences depending on whether you’re selling clothes or food or CBD products, etc., but the same basic principles will apply. 

Make sure you keep these concepts in mind when shooting:

Positioning

Photographing your products in different positions can be a lifesaver when you run out of unique images or want a certain setting that you don’t already have photographed. Using a variety of different positions and angles will make it easier for your graphic designers to create the desired look in their photo editing software while keeping everything looking as realistic as possible.

Varied Groupings

You may never think of putting two or more products together in an image, but there may come a time when you want to do it. The main way to approach this is to arrange products by categories. For example, if you sell clothes, you could create two image categories: one that displays your entire shirt collection, and another that shows pairings of shirts. And don’t forget sets that go together, such as a shirt, pants, and shoe combination. This could be useful for planning an outfit post or putting pieces together for a giveaway.

Lifestyle Images/Videos

Basic model photos and videos sometimes won’t be enough for your audience. Be sure to create imagery that shows your products in a natural and organic setting. These include: a group of friends hanging out together, a family around a table, or someone walking down the street. Whatever your product is, create scenarios that your customers may actually find themselves in once they own your product.

Answering Questions

For many companies, consistently coming up with topics for videos can be trickier than creating static imagery. Some good places to start, aside from lifestyle videos, are product demonstrations, explanations, and answering FAQs. These three categories are fundamental if your company is new and you are trying to generate brand awareness. Having a knowledgeable person talk through your products or give a demonstration are great ways to show people why they should buy from you.

These tips are not just for new businesses, they will work for pre-existing ones, as well. Social media posts can become stale to audiences if the imagery isn’t refreshed every once in a while. Social media teams and graphic designers can be extremely skillful when it comes to reaching and communicating with an audience, but if you want truly unique content for your social media channels, regularly setting up photo and video shoots will make a world of difference.

If you’re interested in finding a photographer or videographer for your brand, we can help you. Contact us through our website, or send us an email at info@thisis270m.com.

Affiliate Marketing for Long-Term Partnerships

Written by: Danielle Gazda

The more places potential customers can see your brand the better. For most companies, this means advertising on multiple social media platforms in addition to Google and various online publications. 

But there is another way to look at it.

The more people that help you promote your company or product the better. To this end, some brands enter into partnerships with influencers to increase their visibility. Affiliate marketing offers yet another way to advertise with a partner, whether they are an influencer, blogger, microsite, or large media site.

So, What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a kind of mutually beneficial business relationship. 

Here’s the breakdown:

  • You provide a trackable link for your affiliate partner to share on their social pages, website, blog, etc.
    • These trackable links can be created on affiliate platforms such as ShareASale and AWIN.
  • Any customer who visits your website/page through the affiliate link will be associated with it.
  • If the customer completes a purchase and the purchase is verified, you pay your affiliate partner a commission based on an agreed-upon percentage.

How Is This Different From Influencer Marketing?

The most common way to bring a partner to your digital marketing team is by working with social media influencers. These types of partnerships are usually one-time paid transactions, i.e., you pay the influencer to share a product on their social channels and that’s the end of it. Some companies also opt to send influencers their product with no strings attached, and influencers will only share it with their audience if they like it and think their audience will, as well. 

Affiliate marketing, however, is typically a long-term partnership with an influencer or company. The link you provide can live on your partner’s blog or website for as long as they choose to partner with you. This can create a steady passive audience as people find themselves on a partner blog or website and then on yours. The partnership can also be an active one. If the individual or company you partner with is on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, they can plug your brand from time to time for their more engaged followers to see.

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

Driving Traffic and Reach

The primary hope is that affiliate marketing will drive traffic to your website from new and previously unknown customers. New customers should mean an increase in purchases and an ever-growing audience as they tell their friends and family about your brand. If you’re lucky enough to have a partner who is an influencer with a huge following then you’ll be set. 

Create Your Terms

Commissions average from 5% to 30% of a purchase — it really depends on what your brand is comfortable with, especially if you’re a small business trying to gain exposure. Just be prepared to negotiate.

If you’re partnering with an influencer who primarily posts on Instagram or TikTok, you can also negotiate how often they share your brand’s products. This could be once a month or a set number of days per year. Remember that your partner will be motivated by the idea of receiving passive income, so there’s a real opportunity for reaching many new customers.

Can Small Businesses Benefit from Affiliate Marketing?

Small businesses may not be comfortable paying commissions since every penny can make a difference for them. But affiliate marketing can still be an effective method of promotion for smaller companies. A good strategy here is to consider partnering with a small business in a field similar to yours—perhaps even without the commission, at first. You can provide one another with an affiliate link and share new followers and customers. 

The Takeaway

Affiliate marketing is a great way to advertise your business and get consistent exposure. A fruitful partnership can help you reach an audience that might never have otherwise found your brand.

Use Social Media E-Commerce to Boost Your Business

Written by: Danielle Gazda

E-commerce in social media apps has come a long way in the last couple of years. Online shopping in this form was inevitable, but it developed much more quickly than most people expected. The pandemic forced people to stay in their homes and created a demand for more ways to shop online — it also opened a range of possibilities for retailers.

Based on Black Friday and Cyber Monday trends of recent years, online shopping is becoming more and more popular. Making purchases is even easier now that people can shop directly in commonly used social media apps.

Meta’s apps, Instagram and Facebook, have been at the forefront of e-commerce. Facebook even had a leg up with its Marketplace feature, which allowed any individual to sell products or resell items. Instagram and Facebook Shops, however, are more geared toward businesses. Thanks to algorithms that look at what customers are interested in, these shops have helped small businesses gain followers and sales, with or without paid advertising.

Your business can create e-commerce shops today!

Instagram & Facebook

Since these apps are both part of Meta, their commerce policies, community guidelines, and fees are the same. Setting up a shop on either platform is free and done primarily through the Commerce Manager on your company’s Facebook page. 

When you set up your e-commerce shop, you will choose whether your customers will check out through the apps or if they will be sent to your website. There are pros and cons to both.

The major pro to in-app checkout is that customers will be more likely to complete a purchase. As people are pulled to websites outside of an app, often they stop and don’t buy. Even if they do browse the website, they are less likely to complete a purchase than if they could just buy through Instagram or Facebook.

The con is that there are fees involved with choosing to do checkout through Facebook and Instagram. While the fees are not ridiculously high, you may want to reduce any money loss if you have a small business. Whichever app a purchase is made in, Meta gets 5% of the total purchase per shipment. There is also an established flat fee of 40 cents if a purchase is $8 or less. (These fees are being waived through June 30, 2022, to help small businesses post-pandemic. It is unknown if this will be extended.)

It is also important to know Meta’s Commerce Policies and Community Guidelines about what businesses are permitted to sell through the apps. There are some restrictions. As an example, companies that sell CBD or marijuana-related products will not be able to sell through the apps.

TikTok & Pinterest

TikTok is in the e-commerce game with its shopping feature now available in most countries. It also presents the option of in-app checkout or website checkout. Fees of 1% to 5% could apply, which seems to be based on where the buyer is located. It would be safe to assume that the standard is 5%, as it is with Instagram and Facebook. If you choose not to create a shop on TikTok, you can still provide a link to your website in your bio.T

Pinterest does not have in-app purchases but is still extremely popular with shoppers. You can link to items or your website directly in the Pins you make. Many people peruse Pinterest for inspiration, and with a business account, you can tag up to 25 items in a single Pin. This is extremely popular for fashion and furniture/homeware sites because you can tag each individual item that you think customers can buy.

The Takeaway

Choosing to set up e-commerce shops in popular social media apps is a great idea. It generates more exposure, allows you to tag products directly in your posts, and provides an in-app catalog for potential customers to browse without leaving the app. Whether you choose to do checkout within the apps or through your website, you’ll still be on the right track. You can also pair shops with paid advertising or boosted organic content. This may be beneficial to help garner that early exposure — but do it sparingly so you don’t spread your budget too thin.

E-commerce is the way of the future. So get your foot in the door now.


Contact us to help you get started on your e-commerce journey.

Take a Break from Product Posts

Written by: Danielle Gazda

 

If you advertise on Facebook, Instagram, or other social media platforms, here’s something to think about: Audiences can become bored by endless posts about a company’s products or services. 

If they are already following you, then they know what you’re selling, where they can purchase items, and what your claims about your products or services are. So why should audiences keep following a brand that they already know and buy from? For some, it’s brand loyalty or identification with the product. For others, it’s the hope of finding out about new products or getting discount codes. However, when those aren’t possibilities, audiences need something else to keep their attention.

Fun, trendy posts can be a great way to keep your audience engaged and  interact with them. Let’s have a look at a few different types.

 

Current Events

Posts about current events are a great way to start. Keep up with events, such as sports championships, the Olympics, and major news stories. Even if your company isn’t a sports brand, showing support when a hometown team is involved in a big game can go a long way toward community building. Most companies stay away from politics, but if you want your company to reflect your opinions, it can be good to post about various causes you support. You can hold fundraisers around the winter holidays or in a relevant month.

Holidays

Widely celebrated holidays are also important sources of material. You can choose them based on your audience’s demographics, how a holiday relates to your product, geographic location, or other factors. Some companies choose to acknowledge as many as possible, so they can include their whole audience. Popular holidays such as Valentine’s Day and Halloween are also great for promoting special offers. Make sure you also acknowledge country-specific or regional holidays based on where your audience is from, not just where your company is located.

‘National’/Social Media Holidays

Other holidays to observe are the so-called “National” holidays — as in, National Read Across America Day or National Hydration Day. You can find calendars online that show you what weird, thoughtful, or just plain fun holidays will be celebrated in a given month. There are also national holiday weeks and months — as in, National Mental Health Awareness Week and National Noodle Month. The holidays on these calendars are also great for marking the changing of seasons or reminding your followers of the observances that occur during a month. Browse through them to find holidays that fit in well with your brand. There are food, beauty, medical, mental health, nature, animal/pet holidays, and so many more.

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a list of them at the beginning of each month.

Memes

Memes are tried and true, but can actually be tricky to navigate. Audiences may see companies as trying too hard if they overdo posting memes. It’s best to keep them relevant to trends that are very popular at the time of posting and to keep the posting of memes to a minimum — one or two per month is usually enough. There are exceptions depending on the format of the meme and what your company can say by using it. Remember that memes are meant to be fun and funny, so don’t overthink them.

Audio Trends

Audio trends are going to be most relevant if your company utilizes TikTok for marketing. (Some of these can also translate well to Instagram Reels.) Audio trends are clips of songs or viral phrases that go in and out of fashion very quickly, so it is important to keep up to date. There are a few evergreens that can always be brought back or revitalized if the topic of content requires it. Use these well and sparingly though — as with memes, if audio trends are overused, audiences may think you’re trying too hard to be relevant to younger users.

 

Spice up your social media profiles with some of these fun post ideas. Marketing is no longer straightforward advertising of a product; being trendy, relatable, and human are becoming far more important. That’s how you bring in an audience and keep them coming back for more.

 

How NFTs are Changing Art Forever

By: Danielle Gazda

 

Let’s start with what an NFT is.

NFT stands for non-fungible token. This “token” is the general and commonly used term for a piece of digital art that has been authenticated and minted. The most familiar forms are 2D and 3D digital art, but it can also be music, photography, videos, Tweets, memes, and more. Any type of digital media is viable.

 

How can you own something intangible and replicable?

Think about NFTs like they’re expensive, physical art. If you own an original painting by Monet then you have the genuine, one-of-a-kind piece; however, that doesn’t stop museums and online stores from selling prints of the exact same piece. It can exist outside of its original form.

NFTs are essentially the same thing. The concept was initially created as a way for digital artists to authenticate their original pieces and be able to sell it like physical art with ownership. The sites where you buy NFTs function the same way that auction houses or eBay does, where people bid on the items they are interested in.

 

Creating and selling NFTs.

There are many places across the internet where you can find out the specifics of creating, minting, and selling NFTs, but there are some key things you should know. Minting, for instance, is the process of changing a regular file of digital media into an NFT. This is done on a registry website that uses blockchain.

A blockchain is a decentralized software network where no single computer controls the network, instead they work in tandem and separately to store files securely, keep records, and act as a payment ledger. A commonly used site is Ethereum, which is also one of the biggest names in cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is important because that is the only payment method available to create and purchase NFTs. 

To purchase and use cryptocurrency (crypto) you need a digital wallet. Setting up a digital wallet and buying crypto happen in separate places. Common wallet types are MetaMask, Exodus, Trezor T, and Ledger. Common sites to buy crypto are Coinbase, Binance.US, Gemini, and more. There may seem like a lot to learn, but once you’re set up, it gets easier.

From here, you can buy and sell NFTs at your leisure.

 

Why should your company make NFTs?

NFTs are popular, trendy, and worth a lot of money in most cases.

Creating an NFT based on your company logo, a product, or concept can be a new way to get your brand visibility for more and new people to see. It also establishes that your company is tech-savvy and future forward.

Making digital art is free, but changing it into an NFT can be expensive. There are fees involved, but the payout can be significant since most NFTs go for thousands, hundred thousands, and even millions of dollars. This may not happen right away, but making an NFT may still be a fun and advantageous avenue to explore.

 

If your company has a strong brand identity then it may be worth pursuing. Remember to be creative with the digital media you make, see what’s out there, and what you can contribute to this new digital art world.