Social Media and Your Small Business

There can be no doubt that the rapid rise of social media has created a seismic shift in the way companies market themselves and communicate with their customers.

It could also be argued that this revolution has benefitted small businesses even more than their multinational blue-chip counterparts. The ability to communicate directly and immediately with an unlimited global marketplace was well beyond the budgets, resources and dreams of small business owners, before the advent of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, et. al. Now, the world truly is our oyster.

However, although running a social media campaign may be extremely cost-effective in terms of your marketing budget; for the small business owner, without the luxury of having a dedicated social media / marketing team, social media can be a very time-consuming activity. And, as with any business, large or small, your time IS money.

The Optimal Times to use Social Media for Your Business

So, if social media is going to take up valuable moments of your working day, it surely pays to know the most effective times of day to engage with your audience. i.e. those times of day they will be more likely to see and respond to your tweets, updates and ‘conversation’.

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is not as simple as you might think. The optimum time to ‘reach out’ varies according to different social media platforms and, as ever, the differing lifestyles of different customer demographics.

As with everything concerning your marketing, knowing your customers’ needs, desires and lifestyles is at the heart of everything. At least it should be.

But, as a general rule…

Facebook

• Optimum time to post: Between 1pm and 4pm, with a peak at 3 o’clock Wednesday afternoons.
  
• Note: Once the preserve of teens and young adults (and they still make up a sizeable chunk of the world’s Facebook users), there is clear evidence that they are now migrating towards alternative platforms (Snapchat, Instagram). The biggest demographic of active Facebook users is now in the 35-55 age bracket. Typical Facebook users are getting older!
  

Twitter

• Optimum time to post: Between 1pm and 3pm
  
• Twitter users are typically more active from Monday to Thursday.
  

LinkedIn

• Optimum time to post: between 7am and 9am. And 5pm to 6pm. i.e. the morning and evening rush hours / commute.
  
• Also at 12:00 noon (lunchtime).
  
• LinkedIn users are most active between Tuesday and Thursday.
  
• For a platform aimed mostly at business professionals, this is completely to be expected.
  

Google +

• Optimum time to post: Between 9am and 11am, with a peak at 9 o’clock Wednesday mornings.
  
• Note: the fastest growing age group for Google Plus users is in the 45-55 year old bracket. As with Facebook, social media is not a young un’s thing anymore.
  

Pinterest

• Optimum time to post: Saturday mornings and Friday afternoons at 3pm.
  
• With an image-led platform particularly suited to fashion, crafts, photography and pastimes, these peak times make complete sense.
  

Turbocharge your marketing with images, graphics and video

And one final word of advice, it is well documented that tweets and updates with photos, images or video generate a much greater response than those without. 

If you need a helping hand managing your social media marketing, or need ‘content’ for your websites or blogs, give Sunflower a call.

Over the last few months, we have been delighted to work alongside the marketing team at Barker Associates LLP, a firm of property consultants.

Our first project has been to design a display unit for use at industry events, conferences and exhibitions. We look forward to working on a range of other marketing materials shortly.

Sunflower is delighted to be supporting Traide, a small business exhibition taking place on February 19th 2014 at Bishop's Stortford college in Hertfordshire.

Showcasing a wide variety of businesses from the local area, all proceeds go to the Inspire Malawi charity.

Come and visit us at stand 29 – pop your business card in our sunflower pot and we'll automatically send you £300 worth of design/ creative vouchers.

To celebrate the launch of our new Presentation service, we are offering a 50% discount on any presentation development and design work (including animated videos) commissioned before the end of January 2014.
Don't miss out. Call now!

It's another one of those meetings. 
The presenter sweating as he delivers another lame joke to break the ice. With his back permanently towards the audience, he rattles off every single word from every single bullet point from every single slide from his oh so tedious Powerpoint show. 
And what's this? Oh God preserve us, a tired clipart image slipped in to "bring the presentation to life". 
The audience stopped paying attention ten minutes ago. They're thinking about what to have for tea tonight. Which junior exec has the nicest legs? Does the presenter's tie really match his shirt? Anything to relieve the agony of death by powerpoint.

A great presentation is like a great joke, told by a master entertainer.
All killer. No filler. It carries no excess baggage, deftly delivering its message clearly, engagingly and, most of all, memorably.
It tells a story. Seduces the audience. Takes them on a journey.

Sunflower can help you with all aspects of your next presentation.

Structure and Content
Have something to say to your customers but not sure how to say it? We will work closely with you; developing and shaping your presentation ideas, content and structure.

Design, Animation and Video
Avoid the same-old-same-old. Have your presentation created by a professional graphic designer. Every slide designed to deliver the greatest impact.
But why stop there? This IS the 21st century. Sunflower can create videos and animations to really give your presentation a kick in the pants. And if they are hosted on your YouTube account or website, they can be a convenient way to reinforce your message long after the presentation is finished.

Delivery
The idea of presenting to a group fills many people with dread. Sunflower will work with you, sharpening your delivery, posture, breathing, projection and  pace.  Developing your awareness and control of audience dynamics.

A presentation is in equal parts a piece of theatre, a business transaction and an intimate relationship.
They can be the most intimate contact you have with your customers and can make or break your next sale.

Contact Sunflower now.  

Happy Birthday YouTube! One of the most recognised and well-used URLs in the world was activated on 14 February 2005, and in just eight years, has grown into one of the most powerful broadcasters in history.

It streams an incredible four billion (plus) videos per day; from piano-playing cats to disturbing frontline footage taken by Syrian rebels. It can make global superstars overnight; from the ubiquitous Gangnam Style (over one billion views) to Fenton the dog.

And businesses big and small are hungry to make the most of this dynamic and fast-moving medium.

The marketers holy grail of course is for their video content to go viral. With an accountant-pleasing media spend of zero, their marketing message has the potential to be seen, and more importantly shared, by millions of potential customers across the world. A marketing wet dream if ever there was one.

Although viral success can never be guaranteed, it does happen.

In 2012, Bodyform released a beautifully witty and self-mocking video 'apology'  in response to a (fake? or genuine?) customer's feedback. Over 3.6 million hits plus extensive PR on the back of it.

But, with few exceptions, successful marketing through YouTube or Vimeo requires the same level of thought, planning, creativity, attention to detail and production values as any traditional TV or radio advertisement.

This ethos of quality in marketing applies equally to the small business owner as it does to global brands.

A poorly-produced 'home movie' featuring a small business owner talking blandly straight to camera for 5 minutes can damage a fledgeling brand rather than promote it and drive sales.
On the other hand, a well-crafted, professionally-produced video can be a truly powerful and surprisingly affordable marketing tool.

• Websites and emails with video content are far more likely to be read/ interacted with than ordinary text/ image content.
• Video immediately adds a human face to your marketing communication. Ultimately, people do business with people.
• Video allows you to demonstrate your product or service dynamically in a way which text alone would struggle to do.
• A professionally-produced video carries a certain kudos. It shows you really do mean business.
• Versatility. Video can be hosted on YouTube or Vimeo. Directly on your website. Embedded within an email. Played in-store or at point-of-sale. Played as part of an exhibition/ conference display. Viewed via laptop or iPad as part of a sales pitch.

If this has whetted you appetite to add video to you next marketing campaign, get in touch.
Sunflower will work with you to create a script that presents your marketing message clearly, compellingly and memorably. I work with a professional production team to ensure your video presents your brand in the best possible light.

1979. Hainault tube station. 
A small child stands, mesmerised by a poster. A lime green glow emerges from, what IS that? an egg? Silhouetted against the depths of space. Below it, eight words; In space, no one can hear you scream.

Why is this memory still so vivid decades (gulp) later? Why that poster and not the other 20+ on the platform that day?

I didn't see the groundbreaking x-rated sci-fi classic until many years later. I couldn't tell you who composed the score or whether it was being shown at the Odeon Gant's Hill. But I can remember the excitement, fear and trepidation that a particular combination of words and pictures had on me.

In any communication, how you make your audience feel is everything.

Above reason or logic. Above cold, hard facts. Although these are essential too.

Consider an awareness poster presenting the fact that one in three people develop some kind of cancer. It certainly makes a very persuasive rational argument. But it is the fear and concern felt by the reader that will really resonate and  linger in the memory. It is the emotional response that will inspire them to live more healthily, or make that donation to the cancer charity.

There are many things to consider when putting together marketing material, online or off. Headings, content, design, a call-to-action, materials, timing, brevity, colour and tone. But, in my opinion, at the top of the list should be feeling. Be it fear, amusement, desire, lust, anger, reflection or shock.

Sean Burke was aged eight in 1979.

He is a graphic designer and copywriter at Sunflower Marketing.

Of all the flag-waving hoopla which surrounded the Queen's Diamond Jubilee earlier this year, the thing that amused me the most was the frenzy of brands to cash-in on the event. 
By cash-in, I of course mean pay tribute to her majesty's 60 glorious years of service.
One upside of this blatant marketing onslaught was the special limited-edition packaging which temporarily flooded our supermarket shelves.

From teabags to toothpaste, this nostalgia-fest provided a trip down memory lane for some shoppers, and with it a design history lesson as brands re-issued package designs dating back to the coronation.

Putting aside the Jubilee completely, I have noticed a trend in recent years for a swing towards vintage design aesthetics in marketing communications and packaging design.

This can be seen in Shepard Fairey's Hope posters for Obama's 2008 election campaign, hand-drawn illustrations on gig posters, the popularity of designs by Cath Kidston and Orla Kiely, The Guardian's beautifully simple graphics work and the unstoppable ubiquity of the Keep Calm and Carry On posters.

This is largely down to simple nostalgia which never goes out of style.

But I think it is more than that.

In a world before the iMac and Adobe, traditional graphic design was done by hand. A designer's tools were pens, paper, transparencies, french curves, Letrasets and stencils.

This lo-tech approach inevitably introduced a degree of imperfection. Lines were not perfectly straight. Type wasn't always perfectly aligned. Screenprinted blocks of colour could look uneven and patchy.

This imperfection brings an unconscious but powerful level of humanity to any communication. The reader unconsciously knows the (visual/ verbal) communication has come from a human being, rather than from a piece of software or worse, a marketing committee. The communication can seem all the more genuine. More honest.

Notice how brands such as Innocent Smoothies, Body Shop and Graze tend to feature a more hand-drawn feel to their visual branding? Their core values are based on back-to-basics simplicity and honesty.

There is a heavy irony about modern designers using state-of-the-art digital technology to recreate the glitches and imperfections of the past. And being retro for the sake of being retro gets old quickly. 

But a designer who uses their modern toolbox with restraint and taste, creates work which connects to customers at a personal human level; that will always be timeless.

For design and copywriting created by humans for humans, give Sunflower a call.