by tradesmeninsights | Apr 16, 2024 | Tradesmen Insights
By Kylie Stanley, PR Technician
Understanding the importance of social media analytics is key to unlocking maximum success for your business. Every like, share and comment helps companies to leverage their content and gain valuable insights to their audience, content performance and overall strategy. In this blog, we will dive into social media analytics and why they’re crucial for maximizing impact and achieving your goals.
Understanding Your Audience
Social media analytics provide you with audience demographics and behaviors that can aid you in content creation. By knowing metrics such as age, gender, location and interests, you can have a deeper understanding of who your audience is and what resonates with them. This information will allow you to tailor your content to better meet their needs, increase engagement and build stronger relationships with your community.
Evaluating Content Performance
Analyzing your social media performance and engagement is essential to maximizing your content with your audience. By examining metrics such as shares, comments, link clicks and likes, you can identify trends and patterns in your content performance. For example, you can see when the best posting times are for your business and what type of content performs the best, like products, behind-the-scenes or company news. Knowing these insights will help you to refine your content strategy, focus on what works best and optimize future posts.
Monitoring Brand Awareness
Brand reputation is everything in 2024, and social media analytics allow you to monitor your brand awareness or also commonly called brand sentiment. You can track mentions, tagging and comments of what people are saying about your company or products. By listening to what people are saying about your brand online, you can address any issues or concerns in a timely manner and foster a positive brand image.
Making Strategic Decisions
Ultimately, social media analytics empower you to make informed strategic decisions that drive results. Adjusting your content strategy allows you to make confident decisions that are backed by real evidence. This approach to social media development ensures that your company is constantly improving and staying ahead of the curve of the ever-changing social media platforms.
In conclusion, social media analytics are not just numbers on a screen – they are powerful tools for driving growth, engagement and success. By leveraging analytics to understand your audience, evaluate content performance, monitor brand awareness and inform strategic decision-making, you can unlock the full potential of your social media presence and achieve your goals. So, don’t overlook the importance of social media analytics – dive in, explore, and let the data guide your journey to success.
by tradesmeninsights | Apr 8, 2024 | Tradesmen Insights
Social media trends are always changing, especially year after year for B2B marketers. In a recent post from WTWH Media, they break down six social media trends that you need to know about for 2024. In this blog, we will be taking a look at each trend and why you might want to incorporate them into your 2024 strategy.
Trend One: SEO
SEO isn’t just for your website but can be used on your social media platforms as well. Google is always ranking and optimizing search results for users. Creating practical and helpful social media content can help to drive traffic to your account. Consider adding keywords to captions, descriptions and hashtags to your posts as leveraging SEO can lead to a 30-percent higher engagement rate.
Trend Two: Social Media Platforms
Over the years we’ve seen many social media platforms pop up, but this doesn’t mean your brand should join every social media app you see. When it comes to social media, brands should prioritize quality over quantity. Companies should focus their time and energy on platforms that resonate with their target audience.
Trend Three: AI
AI is here to stay in 2024! AI can help marketers brainstorm content ideas and provide support to save time while giving valuable insights. Several platforms have AI tools for marketers to use such as listening tools, AI-generated images, writing assistants and more! While AI can assist with ideas, marketers are still the brains and leaders when it comes to marketing.
Trend Four: Authenticity
While AI-generated content is spreading, it’s important to keep high-quality, human-led content at the top of your strategies. Right now, nonpromotional content is the number one type of content consumers don’t see enough of from companies. Think about the type of content you’re posting for your audience and think about what they might find valuable. Leaning into community engagement and nonpromotional content can build trust with your audience. Try showcasing employees, company events or even behind-the-scenes content to strengthen brand reputation.
Trend Five: Influencers
Influencers are for every company, especially within the trades! Many brands are having success with utilizing micro- and macro-influencers. When working with influencers, you can target your audience and showcase your products to them. Other influencers for your brand are your employees. Employees can provide trusted expert content and drive authentic engagement for your brand.
Trend Six: Video
The growth of video has skyrocketed, particularly short-form video content. This doesn’t mean you can’t use long-form video, and since social media keeps expanding their video length, we might see an increase in how long videos are. At the same time, the human attention span has shrunk to 8.25 seconds. If you’re not already, think about adding videos to your marketing mix for social media. Videos are a great way to capture the attention of your audience and provide valuable information they’re seeking.
If you’re not already using one of the ideas listed above in your 2024 plan, think about adding it! With the everchanging social media platforms, it’s important to stay on top of the game against your competitors. Check out the full article from WTWH Media to learn more.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 25, 2024 | Tradesmen Insights
By Kylie Stanley, PR Technician
Social media is a valuable source for brands to hear feedback from customers, listen to concerns and engage with their followers. As a brand you might feel that turning off comments can help to prevent negativity, keep the focus on your product, save money from having to monitor comments and feel exclusive. But turning comments off on social media or ads is a bad business practice that should be avoided. In this blog, we will break down why you should keep your comments on.
Opens Conversations
Social media is a great place to listen to your customers and have open conversations about your brand and/or products. It also allows customers to engage with other customers about the products. We’ve seen comments before where one negative comment leads to multiple positive comments from other customers touting them on why they love the products. Allowing these open conversations lets your customers engage with each other or provide product concerns that need to be addressed.
If a customer has a negative experience with your product or service, wouldn’t you want to know about it? Or if they have a question about how to use it, wouldn’t you want to help them? Turning off comments would only lead to upset customers and never provide insights into any problems within your business.
Creative Ideas
By having open conversations on social media, it can develop ideas that your business can implement. If you see negative comments about a specific product, you could write a blog or press release on the item to debunk these comments and spread awareness on the item. Additionally, social media comments could lead to creative ideas of what you could do at a tradeshow, whether it be fun booth ideas, giveaways or a trades influencer who wants to meet up and learn more about your brand.
How to Handle Negative Feedback
Now that we have discussed why keeping the comments on is beneficial for your brand, let’s discuss how to handle any negative comments you might receive.
Make sure to reply to their comments! Most times, negative comments are coming from a bad experience, so ask “can you please email or message us with more detailing regarding your issue.” This will show other customers that you’re being attentive and taking note of any problems customers might have. Also, remember everything on the internet is public for everyone, so not responding or leaving an aggressive comment towards your customer would reflect badly on the company.
Another alternative to turning off comments that you shouldn’t do is deleting or hiding comments. Hiding comments can weaken the trust between you and your followers and make you appear to be hiding something. Social media is meant to be conversational, so you should show your customers that you are receptive to both positive and negative feedback and want to encourage discussion. Check out our full blog post on “best practices for handling negative comments” to learn more.
Before you turn your comments off on social media or ads, think about the feedback you could be missing. Be open to having conversations with customers to see how you can improve any concerns that may need to be addressed.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 6, 2024 | Tradesmen Insights
Following is a guest post from our friends over at Long & Short of It, masters of ideation, customer insights and market research. They like to say they “dig and find lots of data and then turn it into actionable insights.” Following is their guest post.
Innovation has always been an indispensable driver of progress, reshaping industries, and propelling businesses forward. But why do some organizations just do it better than others? Those organizations practice an important principle – they embrace diversity.
It’s often thought that innovation is the domain of a privileged few, characterized by ingenious thinkers, executives, creatives, or right-brainers, who single-handedly come up with brilliant ideas. However, the true essence of innovation is far more empowering and all-encompassing—it is a quality that resides within every individual, regardless of titles, roles, and backgrounds. A cornerstone of our ideation sessions has therefore always been including a wide variety of individuals to participate in the process of creating new ideas.
Diversity of thought
No one has a monopoly on creative thinking or the ability to see things from a different perspective. And yes, while certain individuals may innately be more creative thinkers, the potential for innovation is available to everyone. In the right conditions, anyone can be an idea machine.
Change things up
Encouraging individuals across all levels to share their unique insights and ideas creates a culture of problem-solving. During many typical brainstorming sessions, you will find similar people, going into a typical conference room, in front of a whiteboard, with the idea that in this sea of sameness, new ideas will be generated. That poor team is doomed from the start. It’s not so surprising then that the ideas are less innovative and more likely just incremental improvements.
Nurturing a culture of innovation
Organizations can enhance their innovation capabilities by:
1. Embracing Inclusivity: At your next brainstorming session, stretch the boundaries of who you would normally include. Invite individuals from other departments, interns as well as executives, and even some from outside your organization.
2. Changing the landscape: Please just have your brainstorming sessions anywhere but in the usual space. Go outside if you can, a different building, anything but the same room where you may have always held these types of sessions. There’s a reason why new thoughts blossom by simply taking a walk or an activity that breaks your normal routine.
3. Following through: Don’t ask for ideas only to ignore them. It’s important to not only have a wide variety of people participate in the ideation process, but also to stay engaged with them through the entire life cycle. Not all ideas are good ideas, but all need to see how their collective ideas are implemented, transformed into something even greater, or possibly shelved as a future potential initiative. And most importantly, helping them understand why.
4. Acknowledge and communicate: Recognizing and applauding innovative contributions—regardless of their scale—reinforces the principle that everyone plays a pivotal role in propelling innovation. Even if not everyone in the company can participate in some form of an innovation session, if you are encouraging their input and ideas, ensure it is being acknowledged..
5. Fostering a creative environment: It can be difficult to just ask people to take the time and go be creative without providing them with the resources to do so. Your organization doesn’t have to go as far as Google’s famous 20% policy where they allow employees to spend at least 20% of their time on pet projects, but there needs to be some allocation for people to take on the added role of helping your organization come up with breakthrough ideas.
Creativity resides in the heart of every individual across your entire organization. It should not be an annual event or a special exercise, but a mindset embraced by the company, backed with up with processes and support. Even if innovation sessions are often led by marketing or your strategic planning group, it’s important to remember that they may lead the process, but all are involved. Your organization’s ability to harness the full breadth of everyone’s innate capability to tap into their creativity holds massive potential for innovative progress.
by tradesmeninsights | Feb 19, 2024 | Tradesmen Insights
By: Insight2Profit
It should come as no surprise that data enables us to minimize risk and make more effective business decisions. Where does that data come from, though, and how is it interpreted? Market intelligence, the process of collecting, analyzing, and leveraging data on markets, competitors, and customers to maximize profit opportunities and reduce threats, is a major factor empowering companies to respond to changing conditions and succeed in today’s fluctuating market environment.
There are several different methodologies within market intelligence—qualitative interviews, quantitative surveys, secondary research—and all of them reveal unique actionable insights. This data can be used to answer critical business questions like willingness to pay, key purchasing criteria, and price perceptions relative to competitors.
We sat down with Andy Banyas, Director of Market Intelligence, to discuss the ways collecting market intelligence can enable strategic decision-making. Over his career, Andy has led more than 200 market intelligence consulting engagements, supporting some of the largest companies globally in gaining value-added insights to guide their business. He has experience across a wide range of industries, including various industrial markets, business services, and consumer products.
How Can Market Intelligence Drive Profit Growth?
Andy: Obtaining a clear understanding of how customers perceive a specific business and its offerings allows for formulation of a go-to-market strategy that leverages client strengths and exploits market opportunities and competitor vulnerabilities. Understanding the key elements customers consider when choosing a supplier provides the insight necessary to build a compelling market positioning and messaging strategy that leverages these key drivers, and the ability to price based on value to the customer to extract the full return from each sale.
Knowing how customers evaluate their purchases, what is most important to them, and how they perceive competitor offerings helps build the foundation for making sound and confident decisions on product, pricing, marketing, and channel strategies, all built on the knowledge of what is most important and compelling to customers, allowing the client to move forward with confidence.
What Are Some Examples of Key Questions Businesses Have About Customer, Competitor, and Supplier Behavior That Market Intelligence Can Help Answer?
Andy: While each situation is unique, there are several broad categories of inquiry that market intelligence can address, including:
- What are the key drivers of a purchase decision – including the importance of product/service performance; price; availability; ease of use; and channel options?
- How is the business and its offerings perceived in the market? Are they seen as a commodity, a low-price offering, or a high quality but high-priced provider? How is the business perceived across key criteria compared to leading competitors?
- What is the role of price in the buying decision? Is it the most important consideration or are there other factors at play? And what is the level of willingness to pay more across each key market segment if specific additional value is provided?
- Where are the key leverage points in the value chain? What role and level of importance does each node in the chain fulfill, and what is the impact of the value chain on customer behavior and the business?
- How are competitors perceived in the market? What value do they bring; what is their key point of differentiation; where are their weak spots that can be exploited?
How Can Market Intelligence Help Solve Price Increase Uncertainty?
Andy: The best way to explain how market intelligence can help solve price increase uncertainty is with an example:
Problem: One of INSIGHT’s clients was considering a price increase but was concerned about the reaction in the market and potential loss of volume. They were also unsure as to the reaction among their key distributors to a price increase, so they wanted to gather data to better understand the role of price in the purchase decision as well as distributor perceptions.
Approach: INSIGHT designed a custom data-collection approach that included one-on-one interviews of end users conducted across two different market segments, and interviews with various large distributors serving those segments.
Result: End-users indicated that price played a minimal role in the purchase decision, and the product/provider chosen was based primarily on the strong performance of the product; a history with the product and provider; ease of use; and strong support from the provider sales rep.
Additionally, distributors reinforced this information regarding end users and also indicated that they didn’t see a price increase as affecting the market, and in fact were questioning why increases had not already occurred.
The takeaway here is that the client could increase prices significantly (10-15%) across key market segments with no risk of losing unit sales volume, while still maintaining a strong presence in the market and relationships with key distributors.
What Research Methods Does INSIGHT Use to Help Businesses Gather Market Intelligence on Topics Like Willingness-To-Pay, Purchasing Criteria, And Demand/Market Trends?
Andy: The methods employed differ by project and are customized for each specific need. Generally, though, there are two methods for gathering information:
- Primary research, which involves collecting insights directly from people in the market, such as customers or competitors. Primary research may take two forms:
a. In-depth interviews, consisting of one-on-one conversations with key constituents in the market that obtains more qualitative data than surveys.
b. Surveys, with an appropriate sample size to ensure appropriate confidence levels that obtain more quantitative data than interviews.
- Secondary research, which is focused on searching information already in the public domain for insights on industry trends, emerging technologies, government regulations, key competitor data, and macro-economic factors.
In addition, research will often include interviews with key stakeholders and SME’s within the client organization to gain their perspectives and insights on key topics.
Once Information Is Collected Through Interviews, Surveys, And Secondary Research, How Does INSIGHT Analyze and Interpret That Data?
Andy: All the information gathered is analyzed in its entirety to build a complete understanding of the key topic areas. For the interviews, INSIGHT will look for commonality of answers to build a consensus on certain key topics, as well as divergence in answers to reveal any confusion in the market or differences by segment or customer type.
For the survey analysis there are multiple analysis methods available including the comparison of numerous cross tabs of the results to compare responses across different criteria. In addition, tools such as Gabor-Granger may be used to determine the price elasticity of products and services.
A Van Westendorp analysis can be used to understand the ranges of prices offered that allow a determination of an optimized price point(s). Also, conjoint analysis can be done to help determine how people value different attributes that make up an individual product or service. The specific analysis tool INSIGHT chooses is dependent on the problem being addressed and the goal of the research.
Regardless of the tools used, the outcome is a detailed summary of the information obtained and the impact this market intelligence has on the client business, as well as clear recommendations on how the client should proceed considering the intelligence gathered.
What Are Some Examples of Market Intelligence in Action? How Have INSIGHT’s Findings Directly Contributed to A Business’s Strategy Going Forward?
Andy:
Example #1: Market intelligence on end users and competitive offerings allowed for the development of competitor profiles that sales reps could utilize to counter competitor positioning and offerings. This same market intelligence helped guide the development of customer profiles that segmented the market on key variables associated with perceptions of value and usage. Such prospects/customers could be prioritized based on opportunity, and specific messaging and sales outreach strategies could be developed for each profile.
Example #2: Market intelligence on distributor pricing of client products indicated a price position well below many leading competitors, providing the client the opportunity to increase prices on multiple products while still maintaining a competitive price advantage. Research methodologies were developed and introduced to the client so that they could regularly monitor distributor pricing to be alerted to any competitive price changes and/or changes in distributor pricing of both the client and competitor products.
Example #3: Primary interviews revealed a customer beginning the process of retooling their operations and in turn evaluating the potential purchase of all new equipment. Client sales team was alerted to the opportunity and were successful in beginning the conversation on selling equipment to this customer.
Example #4: Client was provided overwhelming evidence that end user customers had limited awareness of or sensitivity to product pricing, allowing the client to immediately increase prices with little risk of volume loss, and increased margins on sales to existing customers.
