The Daily Carnage

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Brand Building by LinkedIn (the Pocket Guide)

AUGUST 4, 2021

According to LinkedIn, most brands aren’t playing the long game. It’s up to marketers to find that balance of brand and demand to sell B2B services and products. Luckily, LinkedIn made a pocket guide to help you do just that.

In an ideal world, you want to be putting 60% of your budget into brand marketing. But that’s a big chunk of change we’re talking about here. How do you do it strategically? Leverage these two concepts:

The Availability Heuristic: How can your brand be at the forefront of someone’s mind when they are ready to buy eventually? You have to be the brand that is the most available.
The Affect Heuristic: Basically, if someone likes a brand, their views of that brand’s solutions and benefits will be positively impacted.

The guide gives several steps to building your brand with the basic building blocks being:

Connect with emotion: Balance the usage of rational and emotional ads to strategically build growth over time.
Broaden your reach: Reach is the biggest predictor of growth in B2B.
Plan long term: Through brand marketing, you’re building memorable links between your brand and relevant buying situations.
Grow your share of voice: The success of your content marketing also hinges on reaching a broader audience to grow your share of voice.

Check out LinkedIn’s full guide for stats and strategies on building your brand with long-term messages.

6 Ways to Use Branded GIFs for Your Brand

AUGUST 1, 2021

We love GIFs.

They’re perfect for reactions, pop-culture references, and just adding that little ✨pizzazz✨ to your images and assets. But how can you utilize them in your brand? Here’s how to use branded GIFs to help your brand stand out.

Twitter: Keep the conversation cute in replies. Brands can create canned GIFs responses for thank you’s, showing some love, or quick CTAs.
Facebook: The four best ways to use GIFs on Facebook is using GIFs in comments and replies, adding GIFs as short videos as posts, cover photos, and adding GIFs as a post image in Facebook Groups (we see you, Daily Carnage Facebook Group).
Messenger Apps: If you use Slack or other team chat services, you’re probably sending something like this to your co-workers. When it comes to other apps like FB Messenger, creating branded GIFs to use with customers is a great way of adding a little extra something in an interaction.
Chat Bots: Same goes for bots! If they have an arsenal of branded responses, it can add a more personal, human feel to the experience. Some brands have even made GIFs to call out their bot being a bot.
Instagram: GIFs can be added to Instagram in three ways. You can add a GIF directly to your Instagram Story (this will play like a GIF in video format), you can add GIF Stickers via the Instagram Story platform, or you can share GIFs to the Instagram Grid/Newsfeed.
Giphy: Now that you see all the ways you can be sharing GIFs on channels. You need to have somewhere to put all your branded GIFs. Start a Giphy account to build your library and direct your team to these resources.

For detailed how-to’s on making GIFs, ideas, and examples, check out the full Easil article.

3 Ways You’re Killing Your Brand

JULY 27, 2021

We’ve talked about the speed of marketing being important, but you gotta get it done right as well as fast. But is moving so fast hurting more than helping? Well, that depends how you’ve prepared yourself and what your goals are.

These are the 3 ways you’re potentially hurting your brand:

You are rushing your brand blueprint: Take a moment to do some zen breathing, and get your blueprint on lock. At every junction, you should have an idea of what works for your audience or customers. The key is that you can tackle every business decision without playing a guessing game.
Your brand has no meat: We’re not just talking logo and colors. Users want to hear your story and how you are different from the rest! What is your brand’s substance? Where have you come from? Where will you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe? (sorry)
Your personal brand is misaligned: Behind every company, organization, and brand are people! So people need to know their brand, know what it means, and know how to use it. Your personal brand aligning with your brand overall is another layer of authenticity your users can sniff out. Phonies are not welcome.

All brands, no matter if they are corporate or personal, need to live up to the brand they’ve built. Brands need to check in on their promises and deliver. It takes time to get to a point of being able to do that, so read the full Entrepreneur article for all the questions you need to ask yourself to build your brand.

The Power of a Consistent Creative Process

JULY 26, 2021

We get it, it’s hard to get your creativity on point. It’s not something that you can force, either. BUT a simple, consistent creative process goes a long way. When it comes to getting it done, a process that boosts productivity as well as creativity is key.

Digital Summit has a 40 min podcast explaining the power behind nailing down your creative process. Our biggest takeaway was how to get started on content ideas. Every journey starts with the first step, right? Well, step 1 is to break everything down to the basics and assess where to take them next.

There’s actually a nifty little formula for that: Content Ideas = The Focus + The Format

And what that means is you have to figure out the basics about what you will say (the focus) and how you will say it (the format). So how do you use this formula? Multiplication! Take 10 different focuses and think about them against 10 different formats. *Beep boop bop beep* You’re on your way to 100 ideas!

Asking the How’s and What’s and fleshing out what you find is a simple way to keep your ideas flowing. By doing this consistently, you can gain some better control of productivity. For all of the different formats and factors to look at in your process, check out the Digital Summit’s full article and podcast.

Understanding TikTok’s Influence on Sound and Culture

JULY 25, 2021

TikTok is ever-growing as both the ultimate zeitgeist and advertising platform. Music and audio bits are now referenced every day. It can be hard to put a number on just how much of a cultural impact something has, but TikTok is taking a swing at it!

In their latest data round-up, they put an analysis together on just how much influence the app has on sound, music, and culture. Sonic branding is becoming more and more essential to your marketing strategy. TikTok has seen trends and brands rise from challenges, memes, current ads, and sounds that can act as today’s jingles. Don’t believe it? See the big stats TikTok is sporting.

When brands feature songs that users like in their videos:

68% of users say they remember the brand better.
67% of users would prefer to see videos from brands featuring trending songs on TikTok.
62% say they’re curious to learn about the brand.
58% say they feel a stronger connection to the brand.
58% of users also say they’re more likely to talk about the brand or share the ad.

As for the cultural impact:

72% of users agree that they associate certain songs with TikTok.
71% of users believe the biggest trends start on TikTok.
70% of users believe TikTok communities have the power to create change in culture.
43% of users try something or go somewhere new after seeing it at least once on TikTok.

These were some of our favorite stats, but check out TikTok’s full report for more findings.

The Value of High-Velocity Marketing

JULY 21, 2021

How “fast” is your customer experience? Marketing has to be a timely dance nowadays for how immediate inquiries, comments, emails, DMs are. Not to mention, the internet never sleeps, and neither do things that can go wrong (Sorry, we’re not trying to keep you up at night anymore than you already are).

Here is the run down of doing Rick Bobby fast marketing (hint: it’s about being prepared):

Understanding your “Speed of CX”: It’s the measurement for how quickly you can deliver new or highly appropriate content and service.
Pick the right platform: A high-velocity content process means getting technology that can support it. Immediate responses are a new standard, but there are plenty of ways to deliver that without your team losing sleep.
Utilize segments and personas: Make them as identifiable as possible for the best individual experiences. It’s a lot of work up front to make your custom messaging more efficient.
Funnel Vision: Understand your most important journeys across your customer funnels. Where can time to market be reduced? Map out content to make sure your boat is free of holes for smooth sailing.

If you’re not first…you’re not last. But when you market at high velocity, you gain a competitive advantage. This may seem like a given, but reducing time to market on products or deploying content quickly means getting that marketing finders fee.

We want to stress that faster is not always better. And we’ve all seen that too many hot potato turnarounds can lead to burnout. Read more on high-velocity marketing tips in CIO’s piece and the featured case study.

How to Use Educational Content to Drive Brand Engagement

JULY 20, 2021

Creating content that inspires people to engage with your brand’s values, even if they aren’t considering your product yet, is a fine balance of information and entertainment.

Lifestyle suggestions, recipes, procedures, accountability, and forecasting are just some of the topics that separate a brand from a products/services-only content approach. It’s more than just content, it’s useful education pieces. But what kind of educational content can you make? According to EveryoneSocial:

Executive Transparency- Personal thoughts and experiences from the CEO create authentic, hands-on bits of content that can drill down into their areas of expertise.
Contextual Resources- Content that answers the question: How does your brand fit in the big picture of your industry?
Extra-brand Engagement Tools- Creating tools that provide engaging educational content that enlists anybody to act on the brand’s mission is a labor of love. One that your users might enjoy seeing in a thought leader type of brand.
Product Displacement- This can be a tricky one, but making educational content as brand-agnostic as possible is any company’s best bet to build trust.
Brand Lobby- This is putting it all out on the table without pushing a sale. Creating a “gallery” of information and services as a passive way of providing educational content.
Upfront Lagniappe- Present yourself as an authority by sharing educational content as a means to gain subscribers and dangle a loyalty reward while giving up the wisdom goods.

EveryoneSocial gives some amazing real world examples of each type of educational content being made by brands. Check out the full article to read for yourself.

3 Common Mistakes Brands Make with Representation

JULY 19, 2021

Representation and more diverse groups are nothing new to entertainment and advertising. While many brands are making good strides in diversity and representation both in their creative and workforce, there are still a lot of bumps in the road for others. Here are the 3 most common mistakes when it comes to representation in marketing, and how to avoid them.

Including the token diverse person: Diversity and inclusion isn’t a box to check off, it’s something to integrate across the board. Focus on building your network to include plenty of diverse talent so when the time comes for hiring, speaking events, or panels, diversity is authentic and not an afterthought scramble.
Thinking stock is enough: The article says it best, “Photos can be bought, but real stories and expertise from real people cannot.” It’s a basic instinct from consumers to want features, storylines, and more in-depth content from people who look like them and have backgrounds similar to theirs. While looking for diversity in your content is great, the real stuff like stories and testimonials with more representation will resonate on a deeper level.
Not building an inclusive brand from the start: Increasingly, consumers are looking beyond brand products and services. They want to know your brand’s values. Is your board diverse and do you support diverse hiring? They want to see brands supporting their communities either on local or national levels. You can’t support every group, but making an effort on the workforce level is crucial.

The biggest key is to be authentic. It’s becoming more and more clear where things are for the social clout. For more details, check out the Inc. article.

14 Ways to Use Instagram Stories for Business

JULY 18, 2021

Stories are everywhere: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn (RIP Twitter Fleets). Have you been incorporating them into your social strategy? Hopper gave us 14 ways to give you some inspiration with Instagram Stories. Here are our top favorites:

Announcements: Stories for announcements are perfect because they are time sensitive. Countdowns, hype ups, and behind the scenes can all be put in your stories in anticipation for something. It makes an audience feel like they have the inside scoop with your content.
Highlights: These are amazing for brands because they act as an extension of your bio as quick call outs for products and news. They’re customizable and cool. If you haven’t added highlights to your Instagram, go through your existing stories for content or start thinking of a posting strategy to make them.
Polls & Questions: Market research, customer feedback, or just to get to know your audience and have a bit of fun with Instagram’s two-option polls or get directly typed answers to a question. Both of these are great ways to add some engagement to your audience.
Going Live: We covered last week all about the beauty of Live Rooms. Going live on your stories is great for a lot of reasons as far as engagement and the format itself, but a huge benefit is placement. When you go live, Instagram notifies your audience and puts your story spot at the top of the list.

Hopper, a social media management tool, has 10 more ways to utilize Instagram Stories. Check it out for examples and more inspiration.