Now is a great time for retailers to ensure your digital marketing activities are in place to maximise online Christmas sales. Read on to discover our top tips on getting set for more sales!

Social media is evolving fast, and if your business wants to grow and prosper in the digital age it’s important to understand, and adapt to, these changes.

Do you want to get more out of the events you attend? In this blog post we share our top tips on how to use Twitter when exhibiting and attending business events in order to raise your brand profile, expand your networking opportunities and generate leads.

Nothing looks worse for a business than empty, out of date social media profiles. Even if your accounts have less than 100 followers, the chances are that potential customers are checking out your social media profiles to find out more about you. It’s therefore important to post content regularly which reflects your brand values and speaks to the needs and wants of your target audience.

Do you sometimes ponder the value of social media for your business? Whilst some sales can be accurately attributed to social media through website tracking, there are some less measurable ways which social media is of huge value to your business. It all revolves around one thing: connecting with your target audience.

Now is a great time for retailers to ensure your digital marketing activities are in place to maximise online Xmas sales. Read on to discover our top tips on getting set for more sales!

A recent report undertaken by Social Media Examiner asked marketers to identify which social media platforms they most want to improve their knowledge on. Facebook took first place, growing from 73% in 2016 to 80% in 2017. Instagram increased from 55% in 2016 to 71% in 2017. Snapchat also rose significantly, from 28% in 2016 to 42% in 2017.

When it comes to getting noticed on Instagram there are basic rules to follow, as would be the case with any social network: post regularly, interact with users, include an interesting description with your photos that will get other users attention. Following these brief points, which we outline below, will greatly improve your brand awareness.

What is HootSuite?

HootSuite. You’ve heard of it, and you may even already know that it has something to do with social media. But is HootSuite free? What exactly does it do?

You've come to the right place to find out.

HootSuite is a social media management tool that allows users to schedule and post updates to any pages or profiles for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, WordPress and others from one place – the HootSuite dashboard.

When you sign up, you are essentially given a dashboard with tabs organising all the social profiles you connect to HootSuite.

Juggling multiple social media accounts across several networks can get hectic, and of the many management tools available, HootSuite is the platform we recommend for business. 

Have you tried Pinterest advertising yet? Since Pinterest created an advertising strand it’s proven to be a great way for visual brands to heighten interest and increase sales in their products using ‘promoted pins’. Promoted Pins are just like normal Pins, but you pay to have them seen by more people.

More Pinterest followers can help you get more likes, repins, comments, clicks and impressions.

This can then help drive traffic, increase sales, generate leads and build your Pinterest brand.

It also provides an opportunity for you to generate more engagement with your customers.

Here are some top tips:

Finally, some of the promised changes to Twitter’s famous 140-character limit have been implemented. The frustration of trying to write a tweet short enough to accompany a photo is now eased after Twitter excludes photos, quoted tweets and other items from the 140 characters allowed for a tweet.

The good news about social media marketing is that advertising provides a fantastic opportunity to spread your message to a much wider audience. The bad news is that it’s very easy to waste a lot of money if you don’t carefully set up and plan your campaigns. 

We all know that marketing your product online is vital for a product based small business. In 2013, 72% of all adults bought goods or services online, up from 53% in 2008¹. The number of people who buy online in 2016 is set to be even higher. The challenge for you as a small business comes when trying to decide the most effective online channels to spend your time and marketing budget on. This is when it helps to understand your customer’s purchase journey. Armed with this knowledge you can then plan your sales strategy intelligently.