Six New Year's resolutions worth sticking to
What are your new year resolutions?
J
oining a gym, shedding some timber, eating more healthily, making more time for your family?
Or putting more weight behind your marketing mettle?
With the ink barely dry on 2016 there are already a billion blogs out there with trending topics on what you should be doing over the next 12 months on a plethora of platforms. Mixing multimedia with paid-for posts, chatting with “experts” online and pressing the self-destruct button on content creation.
It all sounds a little confusing for the first week back at work, doesn’t it?
So let’s make it a little easier for you. We drink a lot of tea at Happy HQ, though we don’t always look at the leaves, nor do we have a crystal ball. However, at the end of last year we went through our Happy predictions we made we 12 months previous – and some were spot on, others were a bit wide of the mark.
But that’s the thing with predictions.
"Embrace the future and go live more."
Here’s what we think you should be thinking about doing in 2017:
Put some weight on (your content)
As stated a few blogs back, content marketing is not dead and its demise won’t be happening over the next 12 months. Successful content marketing comes from focusing on your market with the right sort of content, whether that be video, animation or the written word and catching their attention. Don’t write for writing’s sake. Have a strategy, understand your market and the results will follow.
Be the influencer
Influencer marketing is on the rise, mainly because people trust recommendations from people they see as “thought leaders”. Seeing a thought leader giving your product a great testimonial carries a lot of weight and further adds to your all-important sales funnel. Get the right influencer on board and your brand will establish greater credibility.
Go live
Facebook invested millions in its Live stream feature when it launched last year and also produced an advert for it. The result? You can now see your pals down the pub, experience events in real-time on your mobile and join in from the comfort of your Lazy Boy. Instagram also got in on the act with its Stories feature and Twitter is also experimenting – and also had Periscope first – so embrace the future and go live more. 2017 will be seeing more live events than any year thanks to the demand for living in the now.
"Successful content marketing comes from focusing on your market with the right sort of content, whether that be video, animation or the written word and catching their attention."
Make it personal
Users are becoming wary of too much advertising and people are now prone to product pitching every time they log on. The time has come to be more savvy with the sales message by personalised and relevant content and honing in on what your target audience is looking for.
Get chatty
If you are an iPhone owner then you have your own personal Chabot in the form of Siri, although you might not be aware of it. It’s essentially the salesperson who never sleeps, ready with the data needed based on your consumer. And who doesn’t need one of them?
Prepare for self-destruction
Users of Snapchat know all about grabbing the opportunity before it disappears in a matter of moments and this kind of technology is gaining momentum. Increasingly, millennials have zero tolerance for clutter and with a decreasing attention span, placing an expiration date on your social content makes urgency even more urgent. Coupled with Snapchat surpassing Facebook in video views it’s about time you used your time wisely, don’t waste it.
Of course, there are other marketing developments in 2017 but we think the above is something you should be become advocates of. Have we missed anything? Let us know. Need help with any of the above? Talk to us!
