The power of Snapchat

Snapchat is one of the most powerful ways of communicating today, short and sweet bursts of messages between you and a friend on your phone that disappear before you have a chance to react, it’s the fast-paced engagement and the exchange of information keeping us hooked. From Snapchat’s origin in quick fire picture exchange, its has significantly evolved offering text exchange between users, highly interactive and engaging video filters, story telling video diaries, worldwide event coverage and most prominent – Brand advertising. Just as the evolution of social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Snapchat has quickly overruled as the leader in brand awareness. The user interaction analytics secure Snapchat as the most used social media platform and with this information comes a responsibility as a business to jump on board and get your brand out there.

There are many tiers of Snapchat advertising that can be easily achieved at any business level and what makes it better is Snapchat advertising is surprisingly affordable. For instance, our first use of Snapchat advertising at Kaizen brand Evolution was a simple Geofilter (interactive branding watermark over the top of the live feed camera) at Culture Night Belfast 2016. For this, we simply created a mobile sized, branded template, which could be used on the night of the event. The brilliant thing about Snapchat is that you set your location; timings and radius reach to pinpoint exactly where you want the Snapchat Geofilter to appear. What an unbelievably personal, in the moment and engaging form of advertising. It was so exciting seeing people interact and use our own Kaizen Brand Evolution filter on the night, and it appeared on your selections just after the main Snapchat filters. Following the interactions and success of the evening at Belfast Culture Night 2016, we reviewed the analytics of our simple Geofilter design and the stats were staggering. Let me put this into perspective, we set the location radius to an area of Belfast about the size of a football stadium, we had it running on Snapchat for 6hours and we told maybe 100 people who came to our stall at Belfast Culture Night 2016 about its existence and how we were testing the new medium. Our analytics report on user engagement was staggering: We had 17.3k views of our filter and 346 uses.

This only sets to prove my point on how powerful Snapchat is as a brand awareness tool. Following our first use of Snapchat we have been providing the branding service for our clients. Most notably for Boojum and their Halloween campaign. The premise of the campaign was to draw customers to each of the 3 locations of Boojum restaurants in Belfast City Centre. We created and designed 3 separate Snapchat filter designs for Boojum to use across their Great Victoria Street, Chichester Street and Botanic Avenue sites. Each design is different and alongside a Facebook and Twitter post we encourage customers to attend each Boojum location to essentially ‘catch ‘em all’ (not to paraphrase the Pokemon Go craze, but you get my point). There are two key points to this campaign, brand awareness, and brand engagement. Alongside the fantastic Halloween themed design the plans to involve their customers and locations will certainly prove successful. This forward thinking brand medium provides a new platform for brands to showcase their business in a new way, and the results speak for themselves. If we can achieve 17.3k views with hardly any marketing or build up, imagine the possibilities for your brand.

We now specialise in the design, creation, and customisation of Snapchat Geofilters and advertising. If you believe in your business and would like some design intervention online, engaging and interacting with more potential customers that ever, get in touch and we’ll be happy to set up a meeting.

GHBranded Culture Night 2016

Thank you to everyone who came down to GHBranded for Culture Night 2016. Super fun night branding your Social Media accounts! Everyone’s photos can be found here:

bit.ly/GHBrandedPhotos

Please tag, link and share your images, and of course use them as your profile pics!

We hope that those who came down enjoyed a taste of the expertise in design and branding offered by Kaizen Brand Evolution at our pop-up studio. The event opened up the experience of branding by offering advice on Social Media, staging a professional profile image with a choice of backgrounds to suit your personality, as well as taglines to suit your aim online. From Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn to Tinder we catered for all. Our own Snapchat Geo Filter on the night received over 17k views, not too shabby!

Our experienced designers in our Lisburn Road studio are here to help on a more permanent basis, to raise companies online profiles with strategic planning and reporting. We hope you keep us in mind for your next brand update, or when you decide to start up your own business.

To learn more about us, or view our portfolio of brands that we have created, pop over to: kaizenbrandevolution.com/portfolio

Get Twitter Branded

On Friday 16 September Culture Night Belfast 2016, we are offering to “Get Him/Her Branded”.

Kaizen Brand Evolution raises the profiles of clients we work with and so we are setting up a mini version of our process to enhance people’s online profiles on the night. Whether it’s to document the night with friends, for dating, or to have a killer LinkedIn image for that new job. On the night we’ll be offering personal taglines, and to have your picture taken in Cotton Court Galleries in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter. So come, down, get involved, Get Him/Her Branded!

Image and brand personality has never been so pivotal for businesses in the public domain on social media. Before the event we thought we would go through a few top tips for branding your companies social media accounts.

Twitter:

It’s a conversation, plain and simple. If your business holds a lot of events, or is conversation focused, Twitter will work well for you. Use Twitter to network in a more informal way. It isn’t about how many followers you have, but how many are engaging with you and your content. This is true for all social media, but more so of Twitter. Talk with people not at them, and you will see a big difference.

Use hash-tags to join other conversations and reach a wider audience. When you visit or host events, Twitter can help get the party started both before and during the event, you can create a buzz and reach more potential customers with your chatter.

On the night use our hash-tag chalkboard board to speak your mind in your profile photos, and start some conversations. Chatting to people in all areas whether it’s show off knowledge of your business or your passion for your work, it’s a sure fire way of getting noticed on Twitter.

Keep up to date on our event on our Facebook event page: bit.ly/GHBranded

Get Instagram Branded

On Friday 16 September Culture Night Belfast 2016, we are offering to “Get Him/Her Branded”.

Kaizen Brand Evolution raises the profiles of clients we work with and so we are setting up a mini version of our process to enhance people’s online profiles on the night. Whether it’s to document the night with friends, for dating, or to have a killer LinkedIn image for that new job. On the night we’ll be offering personal taglines, and to have your picture taken in Cotton Court Galleries in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter. So come, down, get involved, Get Him/Her Branded!

Image and brand personality has never been so pivotal for businesses in the public domain on social media. Before the event we thought we would go through a few top tips for branding your companies social media accounts.

Instagram:

Instagram is the vogue of social media, it’s all about beautiful well composed photos and videos. It’s all about aesthetics. Most prominent is food, fashion and fitness. If your company is any of these then Instagram is your main Social Media account.

Your imagery should be well composed, stick to the rule of thirds (Draw a 3×3 grid and place all object of interest onto the lines). Stick to them strictly and make sure your posts are beautiful and interesting! Filters can seem passé fast, so make sure you are up to date with new filters and try downloading apps with different filters to try out.

Like all social media accounts, being a little bit different can go a long way. Keep your hash-tags low, and put links and hash-tags in comments rather than the main body of text, as links won’t work on posts.

Keep up to date on our event on our Facebook event page: bit.ly/GHBranded

Get LinkedIn Branded

On Friday 16 September Culture Night Belfast 2016, we are offering to “Get Him/Her Branded”.

Kaizen Brand Evolution raises the profiles of clients we work with and so we are setting up a mini version of our process to enhance people’s online profiles on the night. Whether it’s to document the night with friends, for dating, or to have a killer LinkedIn image for that new job. On the night we’ll be offering personal taglines, and to have your picture taken in Cotton Court Galleries in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter. So come, down, get involved, Get Him/Her Branded!

Image and brand personality has never been so pivotal for businesses in the public domain on social media. Before the event we thought we would go through a few top tips for branding your companies social media accounts.

LinkedIn:

Professional photos are a must for LinkedIn. But try to look a little different. Everyone in the company should have a LinkedIn profile that links through to your company’s page. It’s your professional portfolio and shows off the individual and how you all combine to make the company a powerhouse.

All the rules of perfecting a CV apply here, and tailor it to your business you’re in or after. Follow and interact with people and groups, show off your authority and skill. Constantly learn and post the certificates regularly. Lynda, Google and Hootsuite to name a few, all have links that automatically share your recent learning’s or accolades.

Keep up to date on our event on our Facebook event page: bit.ly/GHBranded

Get Facebook Branded

On Friday 16 September Culture Night Belfast 2016, we are offering to “Get Him/Her Branded”.

Kaizen Brand Evolution raises the profiles of clients we work with and so we are setting up a mini version of our process to enhance people’s online profiles on the night. Whether it’s to document the night with friends, for dating, or to have a killer LinkedIn image for that new job. On the night we’ll be offering personal taglines, and to have your picture taken in Cotton Court Galleries in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter. So come, down, get involved, Get Him/Her Branded!

Image and brand personality has never been so pivotal for businesses in the public domain on social media. Before the event we thought we would go through a few top tips for branding your companies social media accounts. Let’s start with…

Facebook:

Is your personal story and public space to show the world what you’re about. Every business should have a Facebook page, as it is the number one social media platform. Think of it as the ‘Yellow Pages’, you need to be in it to be found and trusted. It’s best to make your Facebook profile picture the same as opposed to changing it regularly. However change your cover images to show what you’re up to.

Your posts shouldn’t sell directly, they should tell your business story. What’s interesting about your company? What can you add to people’s lives on a daily basis that will interest and engage them?

An engaged audience leads to brand advocacy and that leads to sales, without ever having to post an offer, gimmick, or sales pitch.

Keep up to date on our event on our Facebook event page: bit.ly/GHBranded

Power of Video

The Power of Video Conference was held on Monday 6th June in the newly finished Waterfront Belfast and brought together some of the internet’s biggest stars, including Casey Neistat (Youtuber of the year) and our very own Cian Twomey (Facebook superstar).

The conference kicked off in typical David Meade style, with the audience being told to get up and shake out all those Monday blues. With the crowd suitably warmed up, the conference began in earnest with the first guest speakers, Casey Neistat and Matt Hackett, creators of the new content sharing app, Beme. They highlighted some interesting facts about how social media can be all consuming and that how it has become too much about gaining the adoration of people you might not even know. Promoting the sharing of genuine content for the simple reason that sharing your experience with others is more valuable than trying to gain as many “Likes as possible”. Whether this will take off for business use is another matter, as was made clear by Facebook expert Peter McNicholl.

Peter showed the value of using video on Facebook, especially when used together with the advert promotion tool. He showed a staggering difference to the interactions of people on Facebook regarding ads with, and without video, with video being the most effective.

Next we learned the true power of affiliate links on YouTube with jack-of-all-trades Zack Nelson (YouTube channel: jerryrigeverything). Affiliate links to Amazon and eBay etc are a great way of earning continuous income from your YouTube channel, especially if you use Amazon as a reseller of any of your products. They work by tracking if a customer has come from your channel and awarding you with up to 10% of the total basket price if they go on to buy! This also means that if a customer goes from YouTube to Amazon to buy one of you’re own products, you can earn 10% additional to the sale of the actual item.

We had a great time learning the ins and outs of how video can benefit our customers, and are looking forward to putting some of the techniques into practice.

Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce – Twitter with Nick Pickles

Today myself and Vicki were invited to the lovely setting of the Grand Opera House in Belfast where Nick Pickles of Twitter was discussing the ins and outs of twitter. As usual the Chamber put on a great spread for breakfast and fuelled the attendees for what was to be an intriguing insight to the world of twitter. Nick’s presentation helped explaining how twitter is not a tool used to generate profit, but to show your brand personality.

Who wants to read tweet after tweet with a hard sell, its much more personal. In fact the ratio for personality tweets against business news should be 80% personality and 20% business if even. Vicki and I soaked up the information like two digital marketing sponges and put together a plan for out digital marketing strategy for our current and potential clients. This invaluable information has went a long way and we continue to grow our social media packages with some of Northern Ireland’s leading brands. Thanks Chamber, we look forward to the next instalment of business talks …and bacon baps.

Everyday’s A School Day at KBE!

Hootsuite University

Congratulations to Vicki, from our digital team, who graduated from the Hootesuite University. Hootsuite’s education and certification programmes are developed by industry-leading experts and feature up-to-date resources to drive meaningful results on social media. This management tool allows effective control of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, MySpace, WordPress, TrendSpottr and Mixi from one dashboard. Kaizen Brand Evolution’s commitment to learning means that we can deliver premium campaigns and enhanced results analysis on your behalf. Vicki is now listed in Hootsuite’s public directory of social media professionals gaining recognition and a certificate to boot!

So if your passion is your business, your product, your big idea, spend your time doing what you love. Let us look after getting the word out there, using social media tools like Hootsuite pros! Planned campaigns, designed and scheduled posts and most importantly results analysis and adjustments will let you reap the rewards of structured content converting to wider audiences and in effect sales.