Whether you notice the subliminal messaging or not, our feeds are filled with paid posts encouraging us to part ways with our money, and the specialised algorithm on each social platform knows exactly the type of ads that will stop the scroll.

But the problem is, these social shopping ads have become so sophisticated that during a scrolling session, it can sometimes be hard to determine the difference between the content of those you follow and those that are sponsored.

Meta and TikTok have recently come under fire due to users noticing you can no longer scroll more than five posts before an ad, or a piece of sponsored content appears. But is this just the way of modern social media marketing?

We’re delving into what social commerce is, how it’s evolved over time, what’s trending and even how to set up a social commerce strategy.

TikTok has taken the social commerce world by storm. It may have been late to the party, but the global giant has revolutionised the way in which users interact with shopping ads, with 62% of weekly TikTok users engaging in ecommerce behaviour on TikTok.

The proof of its success is in the options available for advertisers to work together. They’ve created a cohesive and seamless way for influencers and brands to collaborate, combining features such as ‘Commission Paid’ tabs and ‘Shop Now’ tags to enhance the experience.

And it goes without saying they’ve been a driving force behind the uprise in ‘live shopping’ experiences. Similar to generic paid videos and carousels, these ‘lives’ appear within a few scrolls, so the user is never too far from being presented the opportunity to join one.

 

According to Hubspot, Instagram is the third most-trusted social shopping platform, but consumers say it has the second-best in-app shopping experience.

Instagram, alongside Pinterest, is one of the original visually led social platforms, and that means its users are expecting its sponsored content to achieve a certain level of either polish or personability. A study even indicated that 30% of shoppers now begin their shopping research and purchase journey on Instagram.

Instagram Shopping is split into various features to help customise your customer’s journey.

 

Product tags in images and videos within the app, allows your customers to be directed to your Instagram store to find out more information, or browse for similar items. This can be set up in both organic content, as well as Ads Manager, with the inclusion of product tags.

Instagram has also recently launched ads that are available with promo codes as another option to entice users to click through.

Pinterest is the original visual mood board where users, brands and creators can come together to visualise whatever they like. There are so many topics users can actively choose to engage with, from beauty and interior design to fashion.

Sharing ideas and inspiration is what this platform is all about, and if you’re a visually led brand then this is the place you need to be.

According to Pinterest, when users find something they love, they’re willing to pay 40% more per month than on other social platforms – that’s almost double the price!

The platform also makes it incredibly easy to upload your products to get started on your advertising and selling journey.

Similar to Instagram, Meta has created a robust advertising platform for marketers to showcase their products to users on the Facebook app. And according to Hubspot, Facebook is the most trusted social shopping platform overall in 2023, so it makes sense to ensure you’re hitting your audience on this platform.

Again, the Facebook social commerce experience can be defined in two main ways of display:

• Facebook shop:
  This is like a digital storefront where customers can explore the range of products available.

• Brand collections:
  Build up the ranges and collections of the products you want to showcase.
  

The post The Rise of Social Commerce: What it means for your ecommerce brand appeared first on No Brainer Agency.

Typical Company

54%

*Responses to the statement “Taking everything into account, I would say this is a great place to work.”

Employee Satisfaction Rating

0 %

We’ve picked up the certification after recording an overall employee satisfaction rating of 95%, putting it among the country’s best performing organisations for workplace culture and happiness.

We’re delighted with the impressive results from the accreditation, with areas such as Support (98%), Respect (97%), Collaboration (97%), Caring (97%), Fairness (97%) and competence (97%) all ranking highly.

Our Culture and Wellbeing Team

Culture Awards

Not only have we been recognised this year by ‘Great Place To Work’, we were also shortlisted in the coveted UK Company Culture Awards for Best Working Environment (Location), Best Team Culture and Best Agency to Work for (Small).

We have also recently been shortlisted in the Northern Digital Awards for Best Agency Culture, with the ceremony being held in February 2024 to reveal the winners.

The post We’re a ‘Great Place To Work’ certified! appeared first on No Brainer Agency.

To mark the return of Great British Bake Off, we have issued new Google search data revealing the UK’s favourite cake, and the results are off the tarts.

Our report dives into data on the most popular cakes to consume and recipes to whip up in the kitchen, as well as the regions and origins of popular sweet treats.

Revealed… the UK’s top 10 favourite cakes:

1. Banana bread
2. Victoria sponge
3. Chocolate cake
4. Red velvet cake
5. Sticky toffee pudding
6. Carrot cake
7. Cheesecake
8. Flapjack
9. Bakewell tart
10. Coffee and walnut cake

When compared to 30 family favourites, the data revealed that banana bread is the most highly searched cake in the UK, as well as the most searched for recipe – reaching around 165,000 monthly searches.

The nation’s second favourite cake, the Victoria sponge, has seen a re-surge in popularity in the past year. Google searches spiked during the Queen’s Jubilee bank holiday weekend this year, as more and more Brits were dropping it like it was hot.

The UK’s favourite cakes in numbers: 

We analysed data from Google’s Keyword Planner to assess which is the most popular cake in the UK.

Where do Britain’s favourite cakes come from?

British cakes account for 50% of the nation’s top 10 favourite bakes, including classics such as Victoria sponge, sticky toffee pudding, flapjack, Bakewell tart and coffee and walnut cake.

However, when it comes to cake and baking, it seems that Brits like to take inspiration from overseas, with the remaining 50% of the top ten bakes coming from countries outside the UK.

American-born banana bread tops the list as UK’s favourite

We became all too familiar with Britain’s most beloved cake during lockdown, with searches for reaching an all-time high back in April 2020. Yep, you guessed it!

According to Google Trends, banana bread is the most popular cake among Brits. Thought by many to be a UK staple, surprisingly, banana bread was first founded in America, making its debut in the 1933 cookery book ‘Balanced Recipes’.

The UK’s favourite baking recipes

1. Banana bread
2. Brownies
3. Flapjack
4. Carrot cake
5. Cheesecake
6. Chocolate cake
7. Victoria sponge
8. Christmas cake
9. Apple pie
10. Red velvet cake

The pie-opening data also reveals that more and more Brits are rising to the occasion, as search for cake recipes such as ‘Victoria sponge recipe’ succeed over searches for the cake itself, with 726,150 average monthly searches for recipes vs a modest 544,560 for cake.

Most Popular Bake Per Region

Britain is a nation of cake lovers – but which cakes reign regionally? We crunched the numbers to see which of our top ten cakes is most popular in each region.

We can also see the North-South divide remains prevalent, with Southerners beating Northerners to the pip in terms of search data. The data reveals that Southerners are searching for their favourite bakes more than Northerners, suggesting that they’re the bigger fan of cakes in the UK.

The Bake Off bug: how do British baking shows impact consumer behaviour online?

With millions of Brits expected to watch the return of Bake Off, it’s safe to assume more Brits will be catching the baking bug this year and monthly searches are set to increase.

While an average of 9.2 million people tuned in to watch each episode of GBBO last year, the UK saw a 157 per cent rise in the number of home baking businesses. It seems The Great British Bake Off is a mainstay of UK television and has already inspired thousands of bakers across the nation to rise up and start their own independent business.

Commenting on the data, Laura Rudd, Head of SEO at No Brainer Agency, said:

“Banana bread has officially been crowned the UK’s favourite cake, proving once and for all that it wasn’t just a lockdown fad – but it’s here to stay!

“I love seeing the impact current affairs can have on Google search trend data. While it may seem obvious, studying the data reveals the immediate cause and effect relationship between the two. The Queen’s jubilee shows more searches for a Victoria sponge, while the lead up to Christmas will naturally mean a higher search volume for Christmas cake recipes.

“It just goes to show how important it is to interact with current trends and topics as it will undoubtedly influence what Brits are searching for. Brands need to recognise and take advantage of these triggered peaks in search volume, adapting their strategies to reflect them.”

Methodology: 

Data collected: 06/09/22

Data collected from SEMRush and Google Trends.

The post Revealed: Britain’s favourite cakes appeared first on No Brainer Agency.

A report from CIPD also showed around 40% of employers said they expect more than half their workforce to work regularly from home after the pandemic has ended.

This represents a significant shift compared to the pre-pandemic world and presents opportunities for organisations to establish new ways of working. It also presents many challenges, and for business leaders, HR and communication professionals one of these challenges is ensuring effective internal communication for hybrid teams.

Last year, in the midst of the pandemic, we shared our six top tips for good internal communications – looking at ways to keep your team motivated and productive while maintaining a cohesive culture. Now, we’re taking another look at those top tips and helping you plan your internal comms strategy for 2022…

1. Over-communicate in times of crisis

The pandemic is still ongoing, with regulations changing frequently and the nations anxiety rising with every new news update.

You may want to continue regular briefings on the status of travel, working from home, and changes to the workplace. Communicate frequently to maintain confidence – people panic when they feel a lack of control, so be sure to be consistent, calm and communicate regularly to support your employees. Internal communication is key to ensure company morale and business continuity is maintained throughout and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Similarly, in a hybrid working environment, you need to ensure everyone is aware of important company messages, whether that’s in relation to COVID restrictions or things such as general company updates. You want to ensure people are receiving updates in an appropriate manner and not through the company grapevine – conversations can happen between people in the office or in a Zoom meeting some people weren’t part of, so consistency is key here to ensure all teams no matter where they’re based are up-to-date with company news.

Make sure anything important has been communicated to everyone – even if this means having several calls or following up with an email to ensure you’ve captured everyone with the messaging.

2. Conversation, not dictation

Internal communications shouldn’t just be about disseminating information, but it should spark conversation and help you understand your team – what are they concerned about, what motivates them, what makes them tick, how happy are they. Encourage feedback as this will help increase employee engagement, productivity and overall retention. It will also give everyone a sense of belonging.

It’s important to always make sure you encourage two-way communication, with questions from employees being listened to and answered, and if appropriate shared with the wider team. Whatever the situation, it’s likely many people will have the same concerns and questions.

Take this opportunity to let your workforce share their individual and collective ideas about how the new working environment might look – they may have ideas and suggestions that you haven’t yet considered.

Being transparent and creating a culture of openness and shared ideas will help earn respect from your team, as well as encouraging collaboration.

3. Choose the right channels

Preparing, creating and sharing factual and engaging content is only as good as the tools you’re using to communicate with. There’s a plethora of channels you can use for effective internal communications and depending on what you’re communicating and who you’re communicating to, a different approach may need to be taken for each message. Sometimes combining multiple channels to ensure your message is received is the best approach.

Make use of tools such as company-wide emails or e-newsletters, internal employee engagement and intranet platforms, phone or video conferences, town-hall-style events and in-person team meetings.

With hybrid teams, using channels such as company-wide emails or newsletters may be the most convenient way for people to digest messages at a time that suits them, without having to juggle other meetings or childcare. It’s also best practice to follow-up any important verbal meetings with written confirmation of what was discussed to ensure everything was conveyed correctly and it can be referred back to if required.

4. Create a network of champions

Any company initiative needs internal champions to ensure it succeeds, whether that’s rolling out new company processes or welcoming people back into the workplace after a long period working remotely.

Identify people in your team who understand good communication, embody your brand values and culture, and then bring them on board as champions. This doesn’t necessarily have to be people in leadership positions, you should select people from across all levels of the business.

During times of company change, such as implementing hybrid working, this is important as it can help put people at ease if they see others accepting and positively responding to your organisational initiatives and messages. It also provides teams with people they can comfortably approach with any issues or concerns they have, again encouraging two-way communication.

5. Create engaging content

Good communication, internal or external, is about creating a dialogue. Whether you produce articles, videos, e-newsletters or podcasts, make sure you include ways for people to engage with, comment on and share that content.

Your internal communication doesn’t have to be boring. Make sure it’s engaging as well as informative – look at introducing new ways of communicating with your team such as quizzes, surveys and podcasts. Or mix up your current internal comms – turn your weekly update email into a newsletter format with colour and images rather than a wall of text. Include a call-to-action or pose a question, get your employees really thinking about and engaging with what they’re reading, rather than just reading it and moving on.

6. Celebrate success

Teams continue to do great things under extraordinary circumstances, so make sure you celebrate it.

Recognition is important – it boosts morale and engagement. Share the positive stories that are happening within your company and highlight those people that are embodiments of your company values. It’s also a great way for employees to shout about the great work their peers are doing, encouraging contributions from everyone in the business.

Make sure you don’t forget the people that are more regularly working from home – just because you can’t see them every day, doesn’t mean they won’t appreciate a phone call, shout-out or email to praise the great work they’re doing.

The post How to plan your internal comms for hybrid teams in 2022 appeared first on No Brainer Agency.

Alexandra Hudson, 25, joins the team with a background in the property industry. Whilst working at the firm, Alexandra is also currently undertaking a master’s in digital marketing and data analytics and joins the team as an account executive.

Also joining the team of account executives is Charlie Briegal, 22, after completing an internship at the agency while studying languages at Newcastle University.

Michaela Leech also joins us as office manager with over a decades’ experience working in operations for businesses including ASDA and Byrne & Doherty Mortgage Specialists.

We have also welcomed four new clients to our roster, including Manchester-based clinical trials company, MAC Clinical Research, which undertakes pioneering new research into treatments for a range of conditions including depression, Alzheimer’s, and eczema. We’ve been appointed to support the team on all PR, paid media, and influencer marketing activities to drive leads for trial volunteers.

In addition, joining our client list is one of the UK’s leading credit card providers, MBNA. The team has been appointed to manage the brand’s regional and national sponsorship strategy which includes Chester Zoo, Chester Football Club and Storyhouse. Our team will lead on sponsorship activation including events and special projects.

Online life management platform Once I’ve Gone has appointed us to manage its PR, social media, and content marketing activities. The brand, which helps provide people with the tools to ensure they create and manage their legacy, appointed us after a competitive pitch.

And Rochdale-based community and cultural charity, Your Trust, is also working with us on a new PR and social media strategy for its brand, leisure and cultural assets. The charity manages many of the borough’s leisure and cultural facilities on behalf of Rochdale Borough Council, aiming to inspire residents to live more healthier, happier and creative lives.

Celebrating its sixth year in business in 2021, the agency is also currently recruiting for a new PR Account Manager.

No Brainer co-founder and managing director, Gary Jenkins said:

“This is a really exciting time for us all, as it’s fantastic to be growing our clients and our team.

“We’re proud to have so many talented people and delighted to welcome Alex, Charlie and Michaela to the team. It’s great to see them already rolling their sleeves up and getting stuck into life at No Brainer.

“We’re also proud to have the opportunity to work with four amazing new clients, all of which are doing fantastic things in their respective industries.”

The post No Brainer signals growth intent with a trio of new hires and raft of client wins appeared first on No Brainer Agency.

For some brands, social media is a channel that’s often seen as a tick-box exercise or last-minute thought, but given the right time and resources, social marketing channels can generate leads, boost your brand’s perception and drive sales. Research shows that over 45% of 16-34 olds research products online via social networks, so if you’re a brand who is still getting to grips with social or you’re looking to refresh your current strategy, no matter the industry, a targeted and well-considered social media strategy is essential to developing your brand in 2021. ‘But where do I start?’ I hear you ask… Here’s our guide to developing a social strategy, including some top tips on which tools to use.  

1. Define your audience

For any brand, defining and understanding your target audience is key to developing an effective social media strategy. Your target audience can’t just be “everyone”. It’s important to define the groups of people (or segments), most likely to engage with your product or business, based on demographics such as age, location, their interests and even job titles – but you can go a lot further with some carefully selected tools. There’s a great number of tools available to help better understand your audience’s behaviour online, enabling you to create meaningful audience profiles based on data, such as:

• SEMrush (free trial available) – great for understanding key demographics within an industry, competitor insights, as well as a huge amount of information about your own site
• Google Analytics (free) – If you already have an established website, don’t miss out on important information on the people who are already visiting your website (check out the Audience section)
• SparkToro (free starter subscription) – this comes with a free subscription and delves deeper into podcasts, accounts followed on YouTube/Twitter/Facebook, but also hashtags and phrases in their bios. All juicy stuff
• BuzzSumo (free trial available) – ideal for understanding the types of content that has worked well, especially on topics close to you (and identifying influencers!)

There are many ways to nail down your key audience for targeting. Creating personas is a great way to get to know your audience and really understand their needs. So, when it comes to targeted campaigns and content for both consumer and B2B industries you can be specific – whether they’re a key decision-maker at an accountancy firm in Newcastle, or they love to watch I’m A Celebrity, are a fan of Holly Willoughby, listen to That Peter Crouch podcast or shop at Aldi – all of this encapsulating who that person is, their humour and passions, so you can help forge a connection with your brand. Once you’ve defined your target audience, you’ll need to establish which social media platforms are used most frequently by them. This can change as your audience develops and new trends in social come to the scene, so it’s important to review this regularly. Sprout Social has a regularly reviewed dashboard to help align baseline demographics with your personas. Here’s a few highlights: Facebook

• # of monthly active users: 2.7 billion
• Largest age group: 25-34 (26.3%)
• Gender: 44% female, 56% male
• Time spent per day: 38 minutes

Instagram

• # of monthly active users: 1 billion
• Largest age group: 25-34 (33.1%)
• Gender: 57% female, 43% male
• Average time spent per day: 29 minutes

Twitter

• # of daily active users: 187 million
• Largest age group: 30-49 (44%)
• Gender: 32% female, 68% male
• Time spent per day/week: 3.53 minutes per session

As I said, Sprout updates this information regularly, so add it your bookmarks and check in every now and again – especially when reviewing your strategy. Interested in personas? We’ve got a great section in our how to create a digital PR strategy article.  

2. Social listening 

Our second step in creating an effective social media strategy is social listening, aka: professional snooping! Social listening involves using tools, such as Hootsuite, Talkwalker and Sprout Social, to monitor social media channels under the radar. The main purpose of social listening is to understand the online perception of your brand and industry, allowing you to tailor your social media marketing accordingly, in line with any current trends. But you can also set up alerts for specific keywords or competitors and is something to align your overall long-term and/or reactive strategy to. You can use social listening to:

• See what is being said about your brand, specific products, or your industry as a whole – sentiment analysis is a great metric to monitor here, as well as pulling out key words that are most commonly tied to your brand.
• Get an understanding of the market, feelings around market-leading products and services – feeding into the best topics for you, how to position your products and services as well as which hashtags and best practices you can identify.
• Look at what competitors are doing – from the posts and content they share, hashtags they engage with or promote, it’s all-important stuff that can be important for your strategy.
• Keep an eye on currents trends and viral stories – allowing you to join the conversation, as well as creating reactive campaigns (based on data!).
• Get ahead of any crises and monitor any situations tied to your brand.

But who does it well? Aldi. Aldi does it very well… And that’s for several reasons:

• They know their audience inside-out – engaging in the topics that their audience loves injects the Aldi brand into the audience’s everyday life.
• They engage with trends and tie it back to their brand
• They join in with the conversation – creating those ‘surprise and delight’ magic moments with their humour
• They spot those hidden gems when someone is talking about them
• They’re confident in who they are, have a clear tone of voice and are happy to be playful with it

Aldi are brilliant, but there are so many other brands doing amazing things out there – so it’s important not to just look at your own market, but look outside it too, drawing inspiration and lessons that you can leverage to differentiate yourselves in your market.  

3. Community Management

Community management is a proactive response to social media monitoring, actively engaging with your online audience to boost your brand’s perception and showcase its personality. This involves responding to direct mentions and comments by customers from a customer service perspective but also getting involved in conversations, responding to influencers where relevant, and engaging with users talking about your brand (see Aldi above!). Combined with social listening, you could also try vanity searching, or ego-surfing: using social media listening tools to search for mentions of your brand, without necessarily having been directly tagged, and responding to these. This helps you respond to customers and foster their loyalty and trust, whilst simultaneously understanding how they perceive your brand and products. This direct and real-time customer feedback can allow you to make changes to your product, brand or business that reflect customer demand. Tesco Mobile’s Twitter is full of great examples of social listening, vanity searching and community management, with a few sassy responses in there! For example:

We’re really sorry.

@ any other mobile networks you think should be sorry. pic.twitter.com/uIdwPn6MPR — Tesco Mobile (@tescomobile) March 3, 2021

Here, Tesco is showing a slightly cheeky side, owning its brand while employing powerful social media strategy which not only gets people talking about the brand, but drives sales too. Remember, social media is about being social – the clue is in the name! Build a community and engage with them regularly, and make sure you take the opportunity to have two-way conversations with online communities you are part of.  

4. Content Mix

Our fourth step in creating an effective social media strategy is having a rich and relevant content mix that focuses on your brand’s purpose and goals. Your content should reflect the mission you’ve assigned to each social profile, so that everything you post is working to support your business’ goals. Although this is unique to each brand, there are some guidelines that you can follow to produce varied and interesting content. Here’s one example:

• 50% of content will drive traffic back to your website
• 25% of content will be curated from other sources
• 20% of content will support lead-generation goals (newsletter sign ups, eBook downloads, etc.)
• 5% of content will be about your company culture

Don’t forget to vary your content type across social channels. Different media such as videos, gifs, images, and polls can have better engagement rates than just text. While the up-front effort might be more, stats show that social media posts with video have 48% more views, viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text, and 72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. Importantly, you need to work out what’s working and what isn’t with your brand. Try out different content mixes, and continually evaluate and reflect to find the right balance. Think about your audience personas and what they would genuinely be interested in seeing – you might even be part of that audience category, so ask yourself: would I stop scrolling to read this post, watch that video or click on this link? If not, then think of something else!  

5. Content Calendar and Scheduling

Next up in producing your social media strategy is to pre-plan some of your content using calendars and scheduling with a social media management platform, for example Sprout Social. It will make your life significantly easier, plus there’s a solution for any budget (Hootsuite has a free version). Scheduling allows you to post across various social media platforms without having to lift a finger (once you have scheduled it that is!) Although your social media should contain elements of reactive posts, the majority can be pre-planned and populated with content that follows your long-term strategy or goals. In terms of the best times to schedule your content, this depends on your target audience and when they are most active on social media. Once you’ve created your audience personas, you can work out the best time for you to post. Another piece of advice is to align your content calendar to bigger real-world events that are relevant to your brand, such as national awareness days (Social Bakers has a great social content calendar list here). By jumping on to these bigger events, you can get involved in social conversation and make use of relevant hashtags, keeping your brand relevant on social media. However, content scheduling does come with a big warning sign! Be prepared to alter or pause any pre-planned content depending on current news or trends – either to reflect a viral sensation or to deal with a crisis. Unfortunately, the “always on” approach to social media means that it also comes with the capacity to make or break a brand, with poor social media delivery potentially damaging a brand’s reputation. Content scheduling is essentially there to make your life easier, but it doesn’t mean you can click “schedule post” and forget. Our advice is to stay alert to current news and trends and make sure your content reflects this.  

6. Analysis and evolving your social media strategy

Whether you’re using a social management platform or posting directly, it’s important to regularly monitor your performance. Monthly reports are a great way of understanding what’s working and what isn’t doing so well, enabling you to refine or pivot your strategy based on real data. Important things to cover in your social media reporting are:

• Key metrics that ladder up to your overall objectives i.e., engagement rate, follower growth, link clicks, conversions etc.
• Best performing posts (across each platform) – with a breakdown of why you think it performed so well. For example, this could include things like…
  • Length of post copy
  • Use of emojis
  • Use of media i.e., Image vs Video vs Gif
  • Types of links
  • Types of content i.e., do how-to guides resonate more, or are your audience engaging with you when you post specific products?
  • Hashtags and tagging i.e., did engaging with a specific trending hashtag work? Did tagging that influencer expand reach and drive engagement?
  • Types of media i.e., are they people-focused, infographics or maybe they’re too generic?
• Overview of overall performance – taking those metrics to see what the overall performance trend is for each platform, comparing Month on Month (MoM) and even Year on Year (YoY) to demonstrate success or opportunities to improve
• Lessons learned – a vital part of your report, summarising everything above and what you’ll take with you into next month (as well as if it’s impacted your plans and strategy)

Besides monthly reports, it’s always important to be checking-in on your performance regularly to ensure you’re moving towards achieving your goals.

Key takeaways

An effective social media strategy is essential for any brand, especially as 71% of consumers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family. It can really make or break a business. Although the time taken to effectively and successfully manage a social media strategy is often highly underestimated, it’s time well spent. The key is to understand who you’re talking to, engage with them, and demonstrate how you can make their life better. Let’s grab a brew and discuss how we can help with your social marketing strategy.

The post How to create a social media strategy (in 6 steps!) appeared first on No Brainer Agency.

The post Ten of the best – and worst – social media campaigns of 2021 appeared first on No Brainer Agency.

New digital techniques, an increased shift to social and click-bait, and the changing needs of news outlets and journalists have really transformed the discipline.

So, if you’re an experienced comms professional terrified that everything you’ve learnt so far in your career is becoming irrelevant – do not panic. Or if you’re just starting out in your PR career, worried you’ve flushed nine grand-a-year down the toilet with your ‘traditional’ PR modules, you absolutely haven’t. Traditional and digital PR are not mutually exclusive. Instead, both have their roles to play – they simply have different objectives.

And so, while media consumption continues to evolve, traditional news rooms keep shrinking and media outlets pull their print editions, where does this leave ‘traditional’ PR? Here’s five reasons why its going nowhere…

1. Traditional media is still a powerful channel to reach your audience

The traditional media is still one of the most credible news sources and word of mouth remains a powerful tool for spreading a message.

Let’s take the largest pandemic of our lifetimes as an example of that. According to Ofcom, traditional media remained the most-used source of news and information about the coronavirus, used by almost nine in ten people (86%) and of these people, 63% said it was their most important news source.

Additionally, the most common way people shared news or information about coronavirus was by talking to family, friends or colleagues, either in person or over the phone.

With the rise of misinformation and fake news in our online world; radio, television, and news outlets will always be identifiable as a credible source of information to anyone at any age, and something that shouldn’t be discarded.

2. ‘We can’t measure PR!’ – Yes you can

There’s simply no skirting around the fact that measuring traditional PR has always been ambiguous and our old friend AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent) just isn’t a credible measurement tool. Was it ever?

Digital PR is much easier to quantify and you can prove its value in terms of website traffic, backlinks, performance on organic search and ROI for a business (like sales or enquiries).

Genuine brand awareness should continue to be a metric that’s held in high regard, particularly in a world where consumers buy into a brand’s values as much as the products or services it sells. That’s why it’s so important that you set out clear aims and objectives for your campaign or PR retainer from the outset so you can measure and quantify success.

Great PR isn’t about what you say about yourself, it’s what others say about you. And even better PR encourages a behaviour change. And there are so many ways to measure that too. We follow the best-practice guidelines laid out by AMEC’s Integrated Evaluation Framework, which means we’re focused on measuring:

• Outputs:
  Media reach, impressions, sentiment, event attendance, clickthroughs, tweets

• Outtakes:
  Subscribers, unique vistors, enquiries, comments, return visits, social followers and shares

• Outcomes:
  Trust level, statements of support, brand preference, sign-ups, leads, registrations

• Impact:
  Public support, sales increase, retention, donations, cost savings, targets met

Depending on your objectives, PR agencies like us will be able to make suggestions on the route we take to achieve that – whether that’s a paid media campaign to boost clicks or sign ups to a landing page or a traditional PR outreach plan with a well thought out story – or a concoction of both (which we love!).

Either way, one of the first questions from us will always be: ‘what does success look like for you?’. 

3. Traditional media is trusted

Behind the smart branding, CSR strategies and witty social channels, brands are still headed up by actual real life human beings. And so, trust plays a key role. In a world where a brand’s purpose matters to people – and it is proven to influence their buying behaviours – you could argue trust is more important than ever.

Just like meeting your partner’s Mum for the first time, traditional media has had a much longer relationship with its audience (in this case, your partner!) and that established bond and connection makes it more difficult to swoop in on.

In the age of fake news and mis-information, people still tend to trust highly reputable, long-standing media outlets and news organisations over information from social and messaging apps.

Even as a millennial, when a viral news story breaks, I’ll always head to the BBC for the verified low-down but then straight onto Twitter for all the quick-witted memes and public reactions. So too do many others.

And that’s exactly why the traditional and digital worlds still complement each other.

4. The evolution of the press release to integrated comms

In Ye Olde days, press releases were the main and only form of communication between PR and journo – usually issued by post, fax or carrier pigeon (ask our MD, Gary about that one!).

While press releases still carry their weight when it comes to communication, we’ve also acknowledged that not everyone consumes information in the same way. This is why as PRs in a digital world, we go that step further in considering other tactics and channels to present the same information.

A blog with target search queries from your SEO agency; a guest-appearance on a relevant podcast; visual content with an animated video; a CEO interview or a social media launch with a sponsored hashtag and a list of pre-briefed target journalists are all examples of going that extra mile when considering how you can communicate with your audience and understanding the channels that work best.

It’s about thinking beyond a single tactic. It’s about thinking in an integrated way.

All of this, however, still relies on the traditional PR skill of storytelling.

While the channels and tools might have changed, the required expertise to pull it off are still completely relevant.

5. Digital has made us more human than ever

The coronavirus pandemic and the shift to working from home has meant that journalists have been even more difficult to get hold of, so PRs have had to work even harder to capture their attention.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re all human beings with lives outside of work. Many of us enjoy a Saturday night takeaway, a drink in a beer garden (finally!), and we all face our own personal challenges.

But digital channels and social media have given us more access to people’s lives than ever before. Through Instagram, I still follow the lives of girls I’ve met on holidays years ago, and people from my Uni courses that I did one group project with, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one to admit that either. But naturally as human beings, we’re all just quite nosey! So how as PRs, do we use that to our advantage?

With more and more news outlets canning their print editions and focusing on digital subscriptions, there’s much more focus on website visits, clicks and engagement. After all, these outlets are still businesses, and these figures can be a highly attractive leverage for advertising and advertorial teams.

So, what inspires these clicks and comments? You guessed it – people. Real-life, relatable people with a story to tell.

Instead of leading with the brand’s story, what about the story behind how the brand’s Financial Director battles with dyslexia and still manages to head up a team of analysts? Or how your company’s pillow, while marketed to athletes and sportspeople, is helping hospitals tackle the coronavirus pandemic, or how an entrepreneur used your business to launch his own?

PR – whether traditional or digital – is rooted in storytelling but that knowledge to create those stories comes from a trained eye for one. And that’s a skill not to be sniffed at.

A good knowledge of the news landscape, a keen eye for a story and the skill of conveying a message is the foundation for a strong PR campaign – whether that’s digital or traditional.

As we face ever-changing technologies, new tools and approaches, PR agencies and professionals that evolve along with these changes will only continue to deliver real value for their clients. Traditional media and PR will always have its place, but those who complement their existing skills with digital tactics and tools will only keep on winning.

In this age, everyone’s an expert, but good PR isn’t always guaranteed. The skills of the “traditional PR” are here to stay, we’ve just added to our toolkit.

At No Brainer, we’re constantly embracing changes to our world and take steps to ensure we’re armed with the knowledge and tools to adjust and adapt. We’ve found that sweet spot between solidifying our understanding of the news agenda and journalist priorities, and complemented it with a more authentic understanding of our audiences and where we can find them in real-time *chef’s kiss*.

The post 5 reasons why traditional PR expertise still has a role in a digital age appeared first on No Brainer Agency.

We’re going to summarise some of the most important elements of SEO to give you a basic understanding to build on, as well as recommending a few places you can continue to learn SEO for free.

What is SEO and how does it work?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, which is the practice of enhancing a website and its content to ultimately increase traffic to that website. Core to that is how well you “rank” (where you show-up) on organic search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, to name a few.

Being the best at answering a user’s question (or need) is at the heart of SEO.

What are the basics of SEO?

It’s about understanding the wants and needs of your audience and creating the very best content (and website) so they’ll want to come back for more. There’s a lot of complexity sitting underneath that sweeping statement, but always try to remember – it’s about the user.

It’s a discipline that deals in the granular detail, so it can be very complex. But as you’re likely just beginning to learn the SEO basics, let’s start with the most common tactics; like creating high-quality and relevant content, optimising it around specific search queries (or “keywords”) and securing backlinks from high-ranking websites (we’ll cover backlinks next time).

Now you know what it is, let’s get to some of the nitty-gritty in this beginner’s guide to SEO…

Why is search engine optimisation important to a business?

SEO, also known as organic search marketing, is so important for businesses because the majority of potential customers or clients use search engines as part of their journey towards making a purchase decision. Appearing in organic search results for relevant keywords can transform a business and give a great return on investment.

SEO is a marketing channel that can complement and coordinate really well with other kinds of activity to maximise results and return on the budget and effort put into the wider strategy.

What is “Domain Authority”, “Domain Rating” etc.?

This is your “ranking power”: the likelihood a website is to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s scored from low to high, usually from 0-100. The BBC is an example (above) of a high authority website, which is 89 right now (a real powerhouse).

SEO solutions like Moz, SEMrush, and Ahrefs all have their own names for it, but Moz’s “DA” is one of the most widely known.

“Authority” is a very popular metric that people monitor to gauge success, and hopefully you’ll see yours keep on increasing. But there are other important things to monitor too, here’s just a few:

• Clicks and impressions on Google Search Console
• Volume and share of traffic (organic search) in Google Analytics
• Keyword and SERP position performance – use a tool like SEMrush, Moz or Ahrefs to keep track of your ranking positions
• Content performance – regularly audit your content and keep on improving. High bounce rate? Low amount of time on a page? Dig deeper and figure out how you can constantly make it better.

The 3 fundamentals of SEO

There’s a lot of great advice and information on SEO for businesses and organisations out there, and in some cases, there’s also conflicting advice which can be confusing. However, there are three categories or “pillars” which SEO can essentially be bucketed into – technical, on-site and off-site:

1. Technical

This is “under the hood” of your website. It includes optimising how your website is structured and improving its performance in a variety of ways.

What’s included in technical SEO?

Here are a few examples of some of the most common elements of technical SEO:

• Page speed optimisation – how fast is your website for desktop and mobile users? Speed means money, especially for e-commerce websites!
• International targeting – If your target audience is in multiple countries, then ensuring search engines understand that and rank the right content for the right country/language
• Crawlability – can search engines easily access and crawl your website? Do you have a good XML sitemap?
• Navigation – How users and search engines can navigate your website (think menus, breadcrumbs and information architecture)
• Being “Mobile-friendly”

Why is technical SEO important?

Technical SEO is such a vital part of a wider SEO strategy because without these foundational ‘unseen’ elements of a website being optimised properly, no other SEO activity or changes that you put in place will enable your site to reach its full organic potential.

Ensuring that your website follows technical SEO best practice isn’t a ‘once and done’ task which you can forget about after doing some initial work. Websites require monitoring and checking regularly on their technical SEO performance to ensure that everything is working as it should be. Technical SEO can be complex and is always evolving (as are the search engines themselves), so we’ll leave this for the more advanced SEO folk (for now).

2. On-site (or on-page)

This is about the content on your website and ensuring it’s the best it can be for your audience (see E-A-T below). Writing your content with SEO in mind is vital, so make sure your keywords are incorporated where it’s relevant – you can have brilliant content, but it’s of no use if no-one can find it!

It needs to be laid out so both users and search engines can quickly grasp what it’s all about, so structure the page correctly (think heading tags i.e. H1 > H2 > H3 etc., which you can find more info on further down in this article).

It’s also important to identify other pages within your website that could also be relevant, and link to them within the text (this is “internal linking”). This is especially useful when you have a highly successful page, and you want to improve the “ranking power” of an under-performing page. But, as we said before, the user is king here. So, make sure any links you add are relevant and will provide value for your audience (making it clear in the text you link from).

What are the on-page SEO factors?

As well as the main page content itself, there are other factors for on-page SEO, some of which can be ‘seen’ and some of which can benefit your site from behind the scenes. These include:

• Using a standardised URL structure with every page
• Best practice title tags on every page
• Best practice meta description on each page (which appears in search engines results and can help encourage people to click on your page)
• Implementing structured data correctly
• Optimising images with appropriate alt text

3. Off-site (or off-page)

These are things that aren’t on your website but directly influence your performance on search. Examples of this are other websites that link to you (also known as backlinks or external links). This is where link building comes into play. It’s the process of building quality relationships with higher-performing websites and influencers, and trying to get a relevant link back to your website (or leveraging Digital PR for the best results!). By gaining a link from a higher-performing website, they’re effectively vouching for you, and in doing so, they pass on a bit of their power to you – helping boost your Authority and performance.

What are the off-page SEO factors?

Essentially, off-page SEO is all about trust and relevance in relation to your own website, and while search engine algorithms and the factors or activity that they use to rank sites are always evolving and never fully disclosed or made public, our experience tells us that some of these include:

• Links from other websites to yours, known as backlinks
• Brand mentions on other sites that are not linked to your website
• Social media mentions of your brand and social content engagement
• Consistent local citations (i.e. the same address and company details used in every citation)
• Influencer marketing
• Guest posting/thought leadership content on other strong and relevant websites
• Reviews about your business
• Providing useful expertise on online forums
• Hosting or featuring on relevant podcasts
• Hosting or running events

What is E-E-A-T (EEAT), and why is it important for SEO?

In 2013, Google published the ‘Search Quality Guidelines’ document – a 168-page guide that gave SEOs an insight into what Google sees as a high-quality, trusted site (and would therefore value and rank highly) and regularly updates the guidelines. In December 2022, a change was introduced to update their previous acronym (EAT, which stood for Expertise, Authority and Trust) to EEAT, which adds ‘Experience’ to the previous term. Understanding EEAT and its uses is vital for determining your SEO and content strategy.

What does E-E-A-T stand for?

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust:

Experience

For the content creator to have personal experience of the topic or themes included in the content, with this context being a way to help indicate content quality to Google.

Expertise

To have a high level of knowledge or skill in a particular field. It’s evaluated primarily at content-level, not at the website or even organisational level. Google is looking for content created by a subject matter expert.

Authority

It’s all about reputation, particularly among other experts and influencers in the industry. Quite simply, when others see an individual or website as the go-to source of information about a topic, that’s authority. This is where link building can help.

Trust

The legitimacy, transparency, and accuracy of the website and its content. Raters look for many things to evaluate trustworthiness, such as whether the website states who is responsible for published content. Being transparent pays.

Although it won’t be right for all websites, building an SEO-led content strategy based on EEAT principles is a great approach and will pay dividends for most businesses.

How can the buyer persona be integrated into an SEO strategy?

As a fundamental part of any marketing strategy, buyer personas can (and should) also inform and help to shape your SEO strategy. Your target audience and what they need from you in order to become a customer or client of yours is pivotal to all aspects of SEO and the website user experience.

Integrating your personas into your SEO strategy from the start will essentially feed into everything from the ideal navigation options to present to users, to the keyword research you’ll do, the types and themes of content you’ll produce and the influential sites you’ll want to be mentioned on and linked to by. By benchmarking current SEO performance with your target audience, you can also track and measure your improvements over time in reaching and converting the users that are most important to your business.

Keyword research and intent: the backbone of successful SEO…

So, we’ve talked about the key things to consider and how E-E-A-T is important, but the backbone of this needs to be your keywords, and importantly, the “intent” for them.

“Intent” is all about purpose. Ask yourself “what is the user wanting to achieve when they search for this?”. Search intent is a very real thing, which can be categorised into a few categories:

• Informational

This is when they’re looking for information about something, like advice, guides or news. People often add “how to”, “where”, “why”, “what is” and other questions to their queries to find the best answer for them.

• Transactional

When a user wants to achieve an action, like buying or ordering something. For example, typical transactional keywords in ecommerce SEO could include “buy”, “cheap”, “order”.

• Navigational

This is when a user knows exactly what they want, it could be a brand name or even something like “Facebook login”

Thorough keyword research is a vital aspect of any SEO-led content strategy because it allows you to uncover the terms, phrases, questions and answers that are important to your users or customers – and their intent, allowing you to unlock them with your very best content.

A key consideration here is “search volume”. That’s the number of times a query/keyword is searched for each month. You may be tempted to go for something with a huge amount of searches, but these are often the most competitive and difficult searches to get a slice of the action. Try to focus your efforts on “long tail” queries (3+ words), anything under that is “short tail” (1-2 words) and usually has that larger search volume (because it could cover such a broad range of sub-topics). Mix in your users intent with your long-tail keywords and you’re off to a great start!

SEO takes constant care and monitoring and that includes keyword research. It’s essential because important keywords and phrases will inevitably change. Stay on top of what is changing and identify new opportunities or competitor gaps that may appear.

Similarly, your audience grows and evolves too, as does the way we, as audiences, use search engines.  Search engines evolve too, and algorithms get more advanced to better understand content to match users’ intent (we’ll cover algorithms another time).

There’s a variety of ways to do your keyword research, but we’d definitely recommend some type of SEO software (Moz is a good starting option for relatively low cost). They also have some great guides on how to do keyword research too!

What skills are needed for SEO?

A wide range of skills are needed to plan, implement and constantly improve a comprehensive SEO strategy. When you take into account the technical aspects, the analysis and research involved, the content creation and all of the off-page activity required, all with a high level of expertise needed, it shows SEO is truly a multi-disciplinary channel.

For many businesses or organisations, a team made of specialists in these various areas is needed for the best SEO results, whether it’s an in-house team or an SEO agency who provides these skills. Utilising the skills and experience of an agency is often a more cost-effective option, with access to senior specialists in all of these areas who can also handle the day-to-day management of all aspects of the strategy, including reporting.

Quick ways to optimise your website content today

Content consolidation

If two or more pages on your website have similar content, consider combining the best performing elements or both into one lengthier, more detailed page. As we’ve explained, search engines (and users) love quality content, so this is a quick win!

New content

This is an opportunity to use your lovely keywords research and SEO strategy to create new pieces of content that you know will resonate with your audience.

Content pruning

Sometimes your website needs some well-thought-out TLC. By pruning thin or low performing content, you’re effectively culling the weak spots from your site and making it stronger. Just don’t forget those redirects!

Once you’ve audited your content and either kept, consolidated or removed content – start thinking about how you can further tweak the pages. Incorporate your keywords and add those relevant internal links, but then think about the structure of the page. Here’s a couple more considerations:

Heading tags

Does each page have a clear title (H1), with clear sub-categories (H2’s and H3’s). Think of them as the H1 being the title of a book, with H2’s being your chapters.

H1’s and H2’s etc are all “Heading tags”. Your CMS (Content Management System) page editor will usually have an option to apply these in your text.

Meta titles and descriptions

When you look at a search engine result page, you’ll see each result has a title and a bit of blurb underneath – your CMS should have this in a specific section (if you use WordPress, check out the plugin called Yoast, it’ll add what you need and then some). Incorporate your keywords (naturally) into both of these, but also remember that this is your unique opportunity to tell the world why your content is worthy of a click-through!

SEMrush have a great infographic that dissects what a good page (for SEO) looks like:

Where can I learn about SEO for free?

Fortunately for eager learners, there are tonnes of useful resources to help learn more about SEO. One of our favourites for SEO beginners is Moz and it’s ‘Whiteboard Friday’s, which offers easy and digestible tips for those wanting to improve their understanding.

Similarly, SEMrush offers lots of tips on improving SEO knowledge and contains simple “how-to” guides and infographics, ensuring that you can become a Google guru in no time. Other notable resources include the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress websites and The Ahrefs Blog, which offers more detailed tutorials.

Check out Twitter too, it has a large SEO community that shares amazing content every day, plus they always welcome newcomers – take a look at #SEO and start following (we’re obviously going to suggest our very own @lauraherself too!).

The post SEO basics: a beginner’s guide to Search Engine Optimisation appeared first on No Brainer Agency.

Since the first national lockdown in March 2020, creating new and engaging visual content – such as video and people-based imagery – has been somewhat difficult for brands, thanks to varying lockdown restrictions and social distancing guidelines. With this, companies have had to adapt and change their business strategy to continue building content that resonates with audiences.

At a time when commuting is at an all-time low and video-conferencing is as much a part of our daily routines as eating breakfast, audio content has surprisingly skyrocketed to an all-time high. For example, BBC Sounds saw a record-breaking period for podcasts between April and June 2020, with more than 3.4 million weekly listeners. There was also more than 136 million plays of on-demand radio programmes and podcasts in that quarter.

As an award winning content marketing agency, it’s our job to predict, track and adapt to ever-changing consumer habits and given the current climate, this has never been more essential. At present, this requires having a strong focus on podcasts, with more brands than ever before looking to focus on audio content as a way of strengthening their communications strategies.

Audience excitement is shifting

Without question, the podcast industry is flourishing, with very few things bringing people together in 2020 the way podcasts are doing.

At No Brainer, so many of our Zoom team meetings begin with “Have you listened to the latest episode of the High Low?” or “Did you catch the New York Times’ election special on The Daily?”

In truth, podcasts are becoming as much a part of daily conversations as our latest Netflix binges or who we’re following on the Gram. This means the role of podcasts in society is only getting stronger.

With huge names such as Chanel and Sephora embarking on new podcast projects in recent months, it looks as if anybody who’s anybody has a finger in the podcast pie right now.

Podcasts are being developed for so many purposes, covering everything from comedic entertainment to monitoring news agendas and as tools to discover new and upcoming brands.

When you combine this with the simple starting process and the easy distribution, it’s not hard to see why so many brands want to get involved.

Why use podcasts for your marketing?

On average, regular podcast users listen to around seven podcasts each week, with the top five podcasting genres covering ‘Business’, ‘News and Politics’, ‘Society and Culture’, ‘Health’ and ‘Comedy’.

Successful podcasts have the ability to allow brands to communicate with their chosen audiences at any time, regardless of consumer schedules. It’s why we’re creating and using them now for our own clients in their respective industries. They can also be used to create new conversations with potential customers, while also crafting a greater sense of engagement with current ones.

Audio content is a win-win for companies in 2020, allowing them to take up space in an ever-growing marketplace, while also encouraging positive brand awareness and allowing for potential lead-generation. Moving forward, podcasts are likely to become even more imperative, offering brands yet another fantastic platform to engage with their desired audiences.

Using podcasts as part of your marketing strategy

With podcasts becoming such a big part of our daily lives, using them as a marketing tool is of growing interest to the majority of businesses, many of whom are keen to explore how a podcast series could bring additional value to their business. It’s an exciting form of content marketing that offers some really incredible opportunities.

At No Brainer, we are launching internal and external podcasts with clients, because the channels resonate, engage, and inspire employees, clients and prospects.

December will see the first external launch of one of our client podcasts, for the not-for-profit charity arm of our FTSE-250 client, HomeServe. The series will include conversations with leading industry influencers, and we’ve worked on it with our friend and former colleague Steve Bland, who is the host of award-winning BBC pod ‘You, Me and the Big C’.

Will podcasts still be worth the investment after COVID?

Visual content may have taken a nose-dive in recent months as a result of the pandemic and subsequent restrictions, but this method of consumption will likely return to the forefront of consumer preferences once the pandemic is over.

However, this is not to suggest that podcasts and its various audio counterparts will return to the background. Instead, evidence of these changing consumer habits dates much further back than the pandemic and are set to grow even further. For example, between 2018 and 2019:

• The global podcast advertising market rose by an estimated 42%,
• Research published by DMA in January of this year showed 37% of the British population listen to podcasts at least monthly.
• This percentage rises to 67% among men aged 16-29 and 54% among households with incomes of £75k+.

Podcasts can also work hand in hand with other content channels, helping to further a brand’s influence in their other owned spaces, such as social media channels and websites/blogs. Audio content, alongside visual and written content, is another significant way for brands to reach their desired audiences and share their key messaging. It’s here for the foreseeable, so incorporating it into wider communications strategies is definitely worth considering.

If you’re interested in learning more about podcasts in your industry or want to set up your own, feel free to get in touch!

The post The rise of podcast marketing appeared first on No Brainer Agency.