How much does Social Media cost in Kenya?
Businesses in Kenya are increasingly realizing the value of social media; and that is a good thing. But with value comes cost and that is what I would like to delve into today.
Is Social Media Cheap?
The word out there is that social media is cheap and many a social media practitioner in Kenya will attempt to prove this to you through case studies, research, and sometimes actual implementation. Internationally as well, it is common knowledge that social media represents the cheapest marketing option for businesses. But beyond marketing, the value of social media is seen and felt in its facilitation of many other business functions like sales, customer care, research and development etc. So I ask again, why is social media considered cheaper yet it is the most versatile platform for businesses to advance themselves?
Cost Misconception
I guess all the blogs written about how cheap social media is have led to this prevalent misconception that social media should cost next to nothing. Businesses are trying to employ social media at no cost and while the dive into social media is welcome, the just as many casualties of social media disasters point to this wrong approach tiered on a flawed perception. Cheap or cheaper does not mean nothing or next to nothing; it means there will be a cost attached albeit cheaper either in terms of same costs you employ in marketing but better ROI or a fraction of what you use in marketing or R&D for similar ROI.
Cheap Cheapens Social Media
The blogs that should be going out should not be stating how cheap social media is but rather how relatively cheaper it is. Stating social media is cheap cheapens our work as Social Media solutions providers because it creates the perception that anybody with knowledge of these shiny social media tools can do what we do. And that is the reason most businesses try to pull it off using interns. Our work is not being seen as an executive level grasp of business objectives infused with an understanding of emerging technologies with the end result being a strategic deployment of social media across the organization in a way that fundamentally changes how the business runs and ultimately improves the bottom-line.
Social Media Costs
The truth is that social media is relatively cheaper. You will get but ROI given the same resources. And it is important to realize that social media does not replace most business functions but rather facilitates most of these functions in a way that enables them to scale. Social Media is time intensive and human resources intensive as well; both of which have a cost connotation. There are services that cost cold hard cash and those have to be factored in too. So the next time someone says social media is cheap, what they mean is it is relatively cheaper.
How to Get More Followers on Social Media
If you want to gain more followers on social media you should follow the following rules:
- Know your target audience
- Don’t ask for followers
- Make good content.
In this article i will focus on GOOD CONTENT. Your content on social media should be one that goes VIRAL. In this case we can take viral to represent:
- Valuable
- Inspirational
- Relevant
- Authentic
- Looks good
Making Viral content is a top way of growing an organic following online. The content despite being viral, it should be unique. To also gain followers ensure you share other people’s content, have an online presence and share your own genuine and authentic content.
Creating and publishing great content can be a lot of work, so you need to get organized and figure out a schedule that works for you and your business. When you have put together a content calendar that you feel comfortable with and you can commit to, social media marketing becomes that much simpler.
A content calendar can help you, This Content Calendar will organize the way you curate and create content, and help develop your editorial and social media strategy!
Get in touch with us We can Help in guiding on creating your content
Lead Generation – Successfully Converted Your Leads Into Sales
Lead Generation is the process of stimulating customer attention into your business for the purpose of further rendezvous. It is the sowing of seeds.
Today, lead generation is carried out in digital platforms. Online lead generation is your marketing weapon and to win the war depends on how you utilise this powerful weapon. Utilising lead generation begins from understanding the importance of lead generation and its impact.
It is the process of getting an individual or organisation’s contact information of who/which is showing interest in the product or service that you offer. In order to generate such leads on a digital platform, first, you have to drive traffic to your business website.
Traffic to your website can be generated in numerous effective ways. All it takes is consistency.
You can do so by SEO, softwares, keywords, guest blogging, sales prospecting methods, social media platforms and much more.
The next step would be to have a lead generation form. Just driving traffic to your website and not getting their contact details would make them a site visitor and not your lead. You should communicate with the site visitors to convert them into a leads. Such communication for a long term relationship can be best done through emails.
Lead Generation Form:
Lead generation forms are the most important component of lead generation. It facilitates the overall process by collecting information of the site visitors. This helps you convert such visitors into actual leads.
It helps you compile user data
Site visitors don’t just submit their contact information. You need to a plan in order to compel them into submitting. This can be done by providing offers.
An offer is something that you offer to the site visitor that compels them to give their contact information. It becomes a critical part of your lead generation process as it persuades the visitor to share their personal information.
The important part in lead generation campaigns is the CTAs or Call To Actions.
Call To Action is either a button on the website that directs a site visitor to take a particular action. A compelling CTA takes users to your offer thereby allowing them in providing their contact information.
Lead Management
Leads come from different sources such as Web sites, social media, direct mail, third-party providers, events and call centres. Businesses undertake marketing strategies to attract potential customers, whether at the shopping mall, over the Internet or in person on the retail floor. It is vital to identify, understand and take relevant action immediately, as soon as the consumer states an interest.
Managing the generated leads helps you understand which tactics are bringing in the best or most leads. Thereby, you can optimise your plan to be both efficient and effective.
Lead Nurturing
Lead Nurturing is a relation-expanding process. It uses media platforms such as email, whitepapers, blogs, telecommunication, social media, third-party articles etc. The aim of lead nurturing is to support the prospects with relevant information and engage the same leads in an ongoing dialogue.
The goal of lead nurturing is to support and nurture long-term opportunities with the hope that these prospects or leads may indulge in future sales
Lead Conversion
Lead conversion is the final stage in this process. This means that the prospect has successfully converted into a sale. It helps us organise our prospects and move them through the sales cycle. This is the sole reason behind generating leads; to convert leads into paying customers. Leads become a dead asset if you’re not keeping in touch via follow-ups.
This doesn’t mean that the customer contact can be scrapped. It is of utmost value to the company. Even after the transaction is complete with the customer, the relationship still goes on. The existing customers are the best in generating more leads. And converting these leads is not as hard as they were referred by the existing customer and he adds brand value.
What is your lead generation process like? Do talk to us #WeCanHelp
Internet Advertising – Increase You ROI
Digital advertising, also called Internet advertising is when businesses use Internet technologies to deliver promotional advertisements to consumers. Digital advertising includes promotional advertisements and messages delivered through email, social media websites, online advertising on search engines, banner ads on mobile or Web sites and affiliates programs.
Digital marketing uses digital channels to market or promote the services and products to customers and businesses thus charting an efficient way to build a relationship with the customer with great depth and relevance.
EXAMPLES OF DIGITAL ADVERTISING
For anyone who has done a search on Google or gone to any professional media website, you’ve probably seen this at work. Examples include:
● Pay-Per-Click Advertising: These are the ads that show up on page one of search engine results. You bid to have your ad appear with the results for particular searches. You only get charged for the ad when someone clicks on it.
● Remarketing: Remarketing involves adding a tag to Google Adwords to pages on your site. When people go to a particular page, you can put them on a list for a related keyword or search term. From there, you can design a marketing campaign so these viewers see relevant ads whenever they search for the same terms or related ones.
BENEFITS OF DIGITAL ADVERTISING
Unlike billboards or TV ads, interactions with online ads can be tracked and measured effectively. The benefits that come from digital advertising include:
1) BOOSTS SALES
Research has show that every dollar spent on digital advertising yields back three times. This is as a result of increase in sales
2) HELPS YOUR OTHER ADVERTISING EFFORTS
Digital advertising doesn’t just yield you high returns in itself—it increases the return on investment of your advertising campaigns in other media too.
Research has shown that including online ads helps your other media perform better across the board.
3) GUIDES CUSTOMERS THROUGH THE BUYER’S JOURNEY
A big concept in modern marketing is the buyer’s journey. Basically, it’s the process a consumer goes through to buy a good or service. It has three stages:
● Awareness
● Consideration
● Decision
Entwined Media Limited has the tools, skills and experience to help you guide customers through each stage. We can work with you to craft advertising that speaks more directly to your audience.
4) STIMULATES INTERACTION AND WORD OF MOUTH
It’s the hard truth—no type of advertising can match word-of-mouth recommendations. People are much more inclined to use a product or service if a friend or family member like it. Online shares and recommendations have almost as big an impact as personal ones.
When someone shares a piece of your digital advertising, you get to tap into that immense power.
Entwined Media Limited can help you craft advertising content that does just that. #WeCanHelp
Social Media Management – Why Do You Need An Expert To Manage The Service?
Social Media Management is a service where we both create and manage your online presence, to help develop your business and brand throughout a variety of key Social Media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube and Pinterest.
Our Social Media Management Service helps in creating and managing a solid presence and well-crafted identity for any individual, business or company. We provide a detailed step-by-step process and best practice approach to establish and maintain a successful social media presence.
Here are a number of the elements we offer, in social media management:
Social Media Profile Audit
Right from the start, we conduct a complete audit by examining all your social media profiles, as well as your website and any additional information you provide. We evaluate your presence, branding, content, and audience engagement.
Along with the audit is a Social Media Profile Checklist that consists of recommendations on modifications for your existing profiles, and a checklist of what other accounts need to be created.
Social Profile Creation
Once we are done with your Social Media Profile Audit, we can handle the account refinement and set up any new accounts needed, based on the audit we conducted and your feedback.
Here are some of the elements we incorporate in setting up a Social profile for your brand:
● Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, GooglePlus, Pinterest, Youtube Pages
● Integration of Social Profile accounts
● Profile Naming
● Optimized Social Profile Description, About Me, etc.
● Installation of Social Apps
Social Profile Content Management
Social media sites are built around quality conversations, whether that be quality content, engaging questions, or captivating and interesting photos.
We offer both a comprehensive and detailed Content Audit and Strategy, to make sure you are engaging your audience properly and regularly. We incorporate effective elements of content management such as viral strategies, contests/campaigns, and community engagement.
We are also available to implement and manage your Content Strategy if you need us to.
At Entwined Media Limited #WeCanHelp. Contact us to get started with our Social Profile Creation and Management Services.
Social Profiles – The New-Age Tool
he creation of social profiles for the purpose of marketing is a new-age tool. Many SEO services tend to create fake profiles on social media networks to contact and tap potential consumers. However, they do not really follow a method that earn a favorable return on investment. The online users who are contacted are simply not interested because these social profiles are intruding on their privacy.
Our social profile creation services are markedly different. We do not believe in pushing across web links and spamming social media users. We carefully profile what kind of consumers we are targeting and process accordingly.
Different social media channels have specific demographics. While you will find people having a nice time on Facebook, those on LinkedIn are serious professionals. Our social profile creation services make this distinction while strategizing your online business. We keep in mind the consumer group that you are looking at. Then we create social profiles. Our social profiles are not half-baked jobs that are used to push links to your website on a random basis. A lot of study and research goes into creating online designs that are most effective for your business. Social media is not a teenage phenomenon anymore. It is a professional marketing tool and hence need to make optimum use of it.
It’s a off-page technique used by SEO’s to create profile for their client websites using various social channels. It is a one type link building technique. For a social profile creation you require:
● A company name
● Website address
● Company address
● A brief and detailed description of your company
● An email address
● Contact telephone
● Company Logo
To start off social profile creation services, we engage the following criterion:
● Well-researched and complete social profiles according to the stipulation of your business. The background information and a rough biography sketch is created so that SEO service administrators can handle them uniformly.
● Study social media networks and understand their demographic patterns. We focus our efforts on platforms that your targeted potential customers are using
● Social profiles are used to interact and post comments on social media networks. Also they are used to publish blogs and articles to generate opinion and interest about your brand
● Create a brand identity for your business by using social profile creation services
When you create a social profile you need to optimize your profile 100% so that the users can easily get view of your profile. Main importance is to provide information for the user.
At Entwined Media Ltd #WeCanHelp.
Why is Content Creation Important for my online business?
WHY IS CONTENT CREATION IMPORTANT?
As digital online marketers, we know how important content creation is for a company’s blog page, website and social media sites.
Companies all over the world have their defined way of describing who they are and what they do. Creative Content Creation, helps your company build a reputable brand, gain recognition, retain and acquire customers and most importantly emerge as experts amongst your competitors.
In the creation of content, there are 3 essential factors you have to put into consideration.
1. RELEVANCE
The world keeps changing over time. This means, there is need to stay up-to-date with the information you share with your audiences. You need to come up with a content idea that will be of value to the people who matter most to your business, that is, your customers and prospects.
Safaricom, a tele communication company in Kenya launched its 4G service in October 28, 2016, across seven cities that is, Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Eldoret, Nakuru, Kisii and Meru. With this new product, Safaricom continues to create different content that will ensure they attract, reach and engage their target audience hence acquire more sale for the service.
2. FRESH
Remember, it is easy to sell a solution to a current pain than to solve it when it is less of a concern. It is easy to sell a phone to someone who has just discovered that it will cost them 8,000 ksh to repair their old phone. News sites are the best when it comes to staying fresh and timely.
Mpasho is number one freshest Kenyan entertainment news site. They will always inform and share stories about prominent and celebrities that will arouse their audiences emotions hence create the desire to read through their articles.
An example is an article they wrote concerning Prezzo, a Kenyan music artist.
MPASHO EXCLUSIVE: Prezzo Involved In a Drunk Driving Accident after Leaving Ngong Road Bar
3. CUSTOMERS PAIN POINTS
Identify where the pain is. Get an understanding of what your audiences finds urgent, rough and worrying. With that in mind, find an in depth solution. As you look at the pain points of your customers, ensure that you use the right channels to reach your audience. This may be inform of visual content videos, blog posts, short reports or emails amongst many others.
We understand your pain points, therefore, our team of experts help you figure out the right content for your website, helps in managing your social media accounts and manage your display ads paid search ads.
Building a website requires the right Technical Architecture from the beginning!
Every company has a mission and a vision. The vision starts to fall into place when you have a world class design. To do this you require up-to-date skills to develop the technical solution for your digital strategy.
Web architecture is the foundation of the majority of worldwide networks on devices, apps, and services using web based communications. It is a layer that deals with challenges such as security, sales, efficiency and robustness of your website.
There are many platforms to build on but as a company, ou need to know the following;
1. Does the company platform describe your company well?
A good architecture should be that it describes your company well and in the easiest way to understand. All the relevant information about your company should be available on the website for example.
In most cases the basic architecture includes a homepage, an about page(For the company profile), Services page, careers page, contacts and other important plugins that link to your website.
2. Also you should know and ask yourself if all the information needed by the clients if it’s available on the website
A good website should have all the necessary information needed by the client who visit it. Focus when designing the architecture should be placed on giving all information to clients that they need to know about your products and services.
3. Do your website have an appealing and attractive user interface?
The design of your website should be visibly pleasing and appealing in order to drive huge traffics. When the website architecture is being considered you should look at things like large text fonts for easier visibility, more content for your users enlightenment.
In place there should be trust indicators such as a domain name that makes sense, branded email address, a competent design, a reliable host, an about us page, contact page, customer testimonials and a tidy website in terms of grammar. This features give clients the confidence as they visit your website.
Another important aspect of the interface is the appearance and accessibility on different gadgets for example the appearance on phones and on computer. The interface should be great to accommodate both versions.
4. The website integration.
In your website you should integrate features and link that related to you. Your company could be having a blog, a facebook account, twitter, google +, Linkedin profile or an instagram account, all this should be linked to your website.
5. The number of pages and their ease of accessibility.
The number of pages on your website should be manageable both by you and the end users who access them. When accessed the navigation should be done with ease such that the scrolling is easier. One should not take time to find what they are interested in on the website.
At Entwined Media Limited the good news is that for every need you will find a proper ready made made architecture solutions and its components once you give us your requirements.
We focus on solving your end user problems. We first try to understand your customers and then come up with a unique web architecture. #WecanHelp
Am I using the right Digital Media Platforms? A Platform Analysis guide!
For each organization, you need to know the items or things in your digital marketing that drive your short-term interests but you also need to understand what impact it is having on some of your ongoing trading performances.
This analysis gives an important guide on what to do in order to succeed online; choosing the right platform(s) is of utmost importance to attract the relevant customers who will need your products and/or services.
In Digital Marketing, a digital platform refers to either hardware or software of a site for presenting content, for example, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blogs, Websites and sometimes SMS. It brings together the different user groups that is, consumers and producers who do not know each other thus facilitating interaction.
One also has to consider do they have the right hosting servers if a website has a lot of downtime that means loss of business for the business provider!
At times, we confuse what is marketing campaigns, branding, and digital platforms. Simply for campaigns and branding, they are marketing strategies that incorporate digital platforms
Hence, platform analysis is the determining through research of your existing digital platforms on what you need to do in order to succeed in online marketing.
What we do.
At Entwined Media Limited when we carry out your platform analysis and engage with you, we help you to answer the following questions.
What platform(s) is your company using for its digital marketing?
If you have a platform for digital marketing, which platform are you using? It could either be a Facebook account, Twitter, the company Website, an SMS platform and many more.
Among the platforms you have how are they performing? Are they generating leads for potential clients or customers? Are they giving the desired feedback from customers about your product and/or services?
●Which of the platform is the best performing among them all?
●What is making customers attracted to the best performing platform?
●Which other platforms in existence can you venture into and generate success?
●Which platform has a potential among them all?
●Where should focus be directed more?
●How can you improve those platforms that are not performing best?
When we answer these questions and more we are able to do an analysis and see what strategy best fits your company.
Benefits of platform analysis.
1. Reduce Costs.
This helps in determining the platforms that we most need and we put more focus on them. By doing so we help you spend your resources prudently on the most important sources and by avoiding the unnecessary ones you save a lot on your resources hence reducing your operating costs of the platforms.
2. Maximise Capability.
When a platform analysis is carried out you are able to maximise your capability by using the platforms that are beneficial to your company and help you to grow.
3. Gain Speed to put products on the target markets.
A good analysis of the platforms helps us to understand which channels are the best to help with reaching the company’s target markets
4. Foster collaboration and Innovation for new products and Services.
With platform analysis we help you to create a collaboration between your channels for effective working between them. This creates and actualizes the idea of killing two birds with a stone once there is effective collaboration.
At Entwined Media Ltd, #WeCanhelp.
What is a Digital Online Audit?
Insight
Accessing your online presence and effectiveness of your digital marketing tools is vital. It is a self check routine of your entire digital ecosystem that allows you to gain insights on how your programs are performing and how you can speed things up for you return on investments.
Importantly here is to reconsider if your current digital marketing and presence are functional. Don’t rely on guess work. Do an online Audit.
What is an Online Audit?
Online Auditing can be defined as a process of examining the activities, techniques, processes and the performance of your existing digital campaign. Also, it can be described as the process that provides a business with a ‘zoomed out’ perspective of your entire online marketing efforts along with reviews of specific marketing channels.
This gives you a competitive advantage and ensures optimization of your marketing resources. At Entwined Media Limited we conduct your online audit and review your online presence and capabilities through a dedicated assessment. This analysis reveals your SWOT factors.
Benefits of Online Audit
Performing an audit of your online marketing strategy is a great place to start if your business is looking to gain a competitive advantage and ensure your marketing resources are not going into waste.
An Online Audit on regular basis is one way to keep your company ahead of the curve. A detailed understanding of how your online marketing campaigns are performing will give you the competitive edge and help you increase revenue.
By reviewing content across your digital channels, you will be able to identify opportunities to improve performance. Some the benefits your business will receive with a professional digital marketing audit includes:
● A detailed, data-based analysis of your current online marketing campaigns.
● A structured approach to help you understand the performance of your digital content.
● Know the costs of your digital strategy and review ROI.
● Review your competitive positioning in your market to maintain a competitive advantage in your target market.
● Detailed analysis of particular channels based on your needs and business goals.
● Helps come up with a well-defined marketing plan
● It creates business clarity for optimum resource utilization.
Comprehensive analysis and suggestions to address problem areas. You will also receive professional insight to optimize and next-step guide to improving your area of interest.
What we do.
At Entwined when we carry out your online audit strategy you will learn: how to improve your web presence with a targeted focus area to generate more leads, other channels to focus on and effective ways to plan digital online marketing.
Our team helps you to understand the following.
1. What you are currently using and the effectiveness of it.
2. The reach of your online strategy in terms of the rank, do you have an email? Is there a social media presence?
3. The digital architecture you are using and help you answer questions like, is your website accessibility easier or user-friendly? How best are your social media channels setup?
4. Content. Do you have a content strategy in place? How strong are your content assets? What formats are you using? Text? Video? Photos? Audio? Applications?
5. Conversion. Are your digital channels designed with a conversion funnel in mind? Do you have any forms on your website, Facebook, blog, etc? What is your rate of form fills per visitor? What is your form abandonment rate?
6. Integration. Are social media channels accessible from your website? Are you cross linking from one social media channel to another? Are you linking back to your website from social media channels? Do your offline activities connect back to digital channels i.e. print ads, trade shows, etc.
7. Measurement. Do you have objectives in place for awareness, influence, engagement, and action? What metrics are you using to gauge performance? Do you have reporting protocols in place? What is the frequency of measurement and reporting? Are there feedback loops in place? Are reports analyzed and acted upon?
At Entwined, #WecanHelp
0732 998899
