A dozen benefits to having a Facebook business page.

Social media advertising case study: Anchor Bay Holidays

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:13:05 GMT

In this month’s blog, we’re showcasing how we’ve helped Anchor Bay Holidays with their social media advertising as well as elevating their online brand more generally, and sharing some of the exciting results of our partnership.

Why did Anchor Bay holidays contact The Thinking Cap?

In May 2024, Anthony Smith contacted The Thinking Cap on behalf of his company, Anchor Bay Holidays; he found us via a Google search as he was looking to outsource the management of his digital paid ads.

He was running the social media ads himself, and felt that they were working ok, but they could be better: that’s where we came in.

How did they present the project?

Anthony wanted us to focus on his social media advertising; he knew that the ads themselves didn’t look very professional, and they were being shown to a cold audience rather than being targeted at any particular demographic.

When we began working with Anchor Bay Holidays, Anthony was spending a healthy £700 per month on his social media advertising, which is considerably larger than most companies allocate, and we were keen to help him to get better results for his money.

What was your strategy?

The Thinking Cap is a husband-and-wife team, and we love working together to help businesses to grow their online presence and marketing.

So, whilst Martin was busy creating the ad visuals, I worked with Anthony to create four different ad sets.

We also used analytics from Anchor Bay Holiday’s website to work out his primary audience, and from there we worked to refine this and create the four different ad sets:

1. The first ad set utilised one of his best-performing cold audiences, but altered the visuals and text from the original ad to elevate the hard work Anthony had already put into this previous campaign.

2. Anthony has a large email subscriber list, which we used to create a ‘lookalike audience’ – an audience very similar to those who are already invested in his holiday cottages – for the second ad set, which yielded a really receptive group.
3. For the third ad set , we utilised retargeting ads. This is where interested customers who haven’t yet completed their booking are shown social media ads which refocuses their purchase and redirects them back to the website. In order to do this you need a Facebook event pixel on your website, of which Anthony already had.
4. Finally, we created the fourth ad set which focused on the dog-friendly aspects of Anchor Bay Holidays, and aimed these at an audience of people who’d shown previous interest while on Facebook or Instagram in dog-related products such as dog food, training, and grooming, so might well be looking for a holiday where they could bring their pet along.

For each of these ad sets, we created a static advert, a carousel and a video, which worked well alongside focused text and the right 'Book NOW' call to action.

Did your work with Anchor Bay Holidays focus solely on social media advertising?

No – We also redesigned his homepage, and made sure that this was ready to go live at the same time as the ads, so that interested customers were directed to a website which was clear, professional and easy to use.

Previously, Anthony’s website didn’t have a clear route for customers to follow, and it was difficult to work out how to search for a holiday cottage.

Once this was cleaned up, the website looked great, was easy to navigate and now has clear CTAs (Calls to Action) so that customers know where to go in order to book a holiday.

How did Anchor Bay Holidays feel the ads were going?

Even within the learning phrase – when the Meta Ad Manager is refining the best audience to send your ads to– Anthony found his new social media ad sets to be high-performing.

They achieved conversions much more quickly than previous ads, and the audiences reached were much broader too.

Something Anthony was particularly pleased with was that the average cost per click was vastly reduced; before working with us, he was paying around 50p per click, and we reduced this to 10p – sometimes less. So he getting five times more traffic for the same price.

What were the results for Anchor Bay Holidays?

The overall feel of Anthony’s social media advertising is completely transformed since we began working together.

His ads look much less cluttered, and more accurately illustrate the luxury, high-end holidays that Anchor Bay offer – showing why they’re worth the cost and attracting an audience who are willing to spend this amount. See the below image for the Before and After ad imagery. Less is more (in this case)...

The messaging across their ads and website is now clear and informative, with a warm welcoming tone which showcases the values of Anchor Bay Holidays as a company.

The customer journey is much smoother due to our work on the website, as clients can use a clear search filter to find what they need.

Anthony’s social media advertising is now targeted and reaches a more defined and interested audience – which is reflected in the much higher conversion rate of customers; now that his investment in ads is being directed to the right people, he’s getting way more clicks from the right people.

In fact, between March and May 2024, click rate increased a massive 1177%, and cost per click was reduced by 300%. Alongside their 847% increase in impressions, this makes for a very impressive roundup of results!

What does ongoing work with Anchor Bay Holidays look like?

We now work on a monthly retainer with Anchor Bay Holidays and look after a wide range of their marketing tasks.

Alongside their social media advertising and posts, we write regular blogs for Anchor Bay, run magazine ads and competitions, and have co-ordinated PR collaborations, including working with the Spirit of Yorkshire whisky distillery, which is just around the corner and a perfect collaboration for such a locally rooted business.

We have also overhauled their newsletter. We mentioned earlier that this had a large audience, but unfortunately the emails had no clear messaging and poor imagery, so it was time to upgrade these too.

Their email marketing now has a similar feel to the new ad sets, and are full of information about the high-end holidays on offer through Anchor Bay to guide customers through to purchase.

Would Anchor Bay Holidays recommend you to others?

Anthony at Anchor Bay is really happy with our work – in fact, here’s a review he left for us which speaks for itself:

“What a Team!!! I’ve only worked with Lisa and Martin for about 6 weeks but they’ve totally transformed my business! In a few short weeks they have refreshed all the creatives (something I was an amateur at), have created blogs (a job I really didn’t like) as well as made my whole brand lifted to the next level. The main success (in addition to the above) is the impact they have had on my social media ads – turning a lacklustre set of campaigns which just ‘worked’ into targeted and high performing ad sets! I cannot recommend them highly enough to your business!”

It’s hardly surprising that Anthony is so pleased with our work. He was previously managing around 50 properties on the bay in Filey but thanks to his new, professional marketing and high-performance social media advertising, his business has now grown to the point where he’s managing over 75 properties, and is considering expanding into other areas along the Yorkshire coast.

Not only have we solved his marketing problems and made the running of his business much smoother, we’ve also attracted a large number of homeowners to his portfolio, and given him the confidence to upscale knowing that he can rely on our support as his business grows.

Anthony is keen to recommend our services to other business owners who need a hand with their online marketing, and we can’t wait to meet more people like him who’d like to elevate their brand.

If this sounds like you, get in contact today and start your journey to high-performing social media advertising and business growth.

Blue ticks on social media: is Meta Verified worth it for your business?

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:00:29 GMT

Here’s something I’ve been asked more and more over the last year: ‘is Meta Verified worth it for my business?’.

Until recently, having a blue tick next to your username on Instagram, Facebook or X (formerly Twitter) was something reserved for well-known public figures, but since Meta’s verification system changed in 2023 it’s open to many more.

In this month’s blog I’m focusing in on Meta Verified, what exactly it is, and what the benefits are so that you can find out if it’s a good idea for you.

So, let’s dive in: is Meta Verified worth it for your business?

First of all, what does Meta's blue tick mean?

The blue tick was part of the Twitter landscape for a long time before it was adopted by Meta and used on Instagram and Facebook.

A blue tick means that the profile has been verified – it’s the real deal. This isn’t someone impersonating a person or brand, this is them, and you can trust their profile.

Until a couple of years ago, the blue tick was a free mark of verification awarded to high-profile public figures and brands.

But in 2023 Meta Verified was launched, whereby individuals and businesses can pay a monthly fee in exchange for the blue verification tick, which provides additional benefits such as increased visibility, protection against impersonation, and access to extra features.

It was initially piloted in a few countries and has now been established in the UK for over a year; it’s a service which is continuing to evolve as Meta refines its offerings and addresses user feedback.

Side note: are blue ticks on X the same?

It’s worth saying that Meta Verified is very different to the blue-tick system now used on X.

In 2021, ‘Twitter Blue’ was introduced, where any profile can receive the blue tick in exchange for a monthly fee, and these users are given features such as being able to edit tweets.

In contrast, Meta Verified has a more robust verification system in place whereby profiles are assessed in order to establish their credibility.

The blue tick therefore carries a much higher level of trust on Meta platforms than on X, and the extra features available encompass support for businesses in maintaining that credibility.

If you’re asking the question, ‘is Meta Verified worth it?’, you need to weigh up what the benefits would be – so what are the features that are offered with Meta Verified?

What is the appeal of being Meta Verified?

Being Meta Verified in the UK gives several benefits to individuals, brands, and businesses looking to enhance their online presence and credibility on Meta platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

When people ask me, ‘is Meta Verified worth it for my business?’, these are the advantages that I tell them about to help them decide.

Credibility and trust: does the Verified Blue Tick mean more than ever, or is it just a clever cash-grab?

In an online landscape where disinformation and fact-checking measures are changing and users are reevaluating who and how to trust, it’s important for your business to show authenticity.

Meta’s aim for verified status is that it communicates trustworthiness, and sets you out from your competitors, as well as enhancing your reputation – which is good for any business, but especially ideal for luxury brands who are selling a high-ticket product or service.

But now that there are no longer any third-party watchdogs on the platforms, some would argue that paying for Meta Verified is their only way to establish trust online, and by removing fact-checking, Meta have forced users’ hands and created the perfect storm to drive sales of the coveted blue tick.

Whether this was Meta’s plan all along or not, the blue tick has long been associated with authenticity and having it alongside your business’s name is bound to build positive associations of trust on their platforms.

If you’re running a small business, Meta Verified could be a way to signal to the outside world that even if you don’t have a huge following yet, you are to be taken seriously and trusted.

Boosted visibility

Many businesses struggle with maintaining social media visibility, which can be crucial in growing your audience in order to get leads.

Verified profiles are often prioritised in search results, driving even more traffic to your platform, and onto your website.

Studies also suggest that users are more likely to engage with verified accounts by liking, commenting on and sharing posts, because they’re more likely to interact with accounts which they trust.

This drives your reach, further growing your audience.

Protection against impersonation

We’ve all heard horror stories of accounts claiming to be someone they’re not; it can ruin a brand’s credibility and have huge impacts on business.

Having a blue tick means impersonators are less likely to create an account to mimic yours, as it’s so easy to tell which is the real you.

This is important in any business, but in industries which rely heavily on trust, such as healthcare, financial management, childcare or many others, the blue tick could be especially valuable.

Access to additional features

Given that one of the main aims of Meta Verification is to enhance credibility, they’ve followed this up with improved customer support around account issues, offering content removal or account recovery in the event of impersonation.

They also have a live chat function to help you connect with customer services and speak to a real person which is always a relief in a high-stress situation.

Verified users can also access exclusive features such additional content creation tools, early access to new platform updates and the ability to add links to reels.

If you’re looking to grow your platform in response to audience activity, you’ll be interested to know that users who are verified can also see more detailed analytics .

Seeing deeper insights into audience demographics, engagement trends and performance metrics will help you to tailor your content and online strategies to those you want to reach.

Enhanced security features

It should be a top priority for all companies to keep their information secure online, and Meta Verified requires users to enable two-factor authentication to protect your account from unauthorised access.

Meta Verified users are also often better shielded from spam and malicious activity than non-verified accounts, which is another weight off your mind.

So, is Meta Verified worth it for your business?

I’ve talked you through the benefits of being Meta Verified, but there are costs and eligibility requirements too.

In the UK, Meta Verification typically requires a fee, which is around £9.99 per month for personal use per platform (Facebook and Instagram).

It can cost more to sign up through the app, so I’d advise looking into doing it via desktop if you’re considering it.

You’ll also need to meet certain criteria, including:

- Being over the age of 18

- Submitting a government-issued ID to confirm your identity

- Having a complete personal profile with a personal profile picture and bio

- Meeting Meta’s terms of service and community guidelines.

They might seem stringent, but these requirements are really what make Meta Verified such a valuable asset, as the trustworthiness of the blue tick relies upon confirming that you are a credible account.

And here’s a bonus top tip too: if you decide to take to the leap and become Meta Verified, update your app to the latest version to make sure that you have full use of all of the verified features while you’re on the go.

Talk to us about whether to become Meta Verified

Is Meta Verified worth it?

Now that you’ve read my summary of the benefits and requirements of the Meta Verified status, I hope you feel better informed as you decide whether you think the blue tick would be a valuable asset for your business to build online credibility.

It’s important to remember that it’s not a one-size-fits-all question, and I would advise weighing it up case by case to see whether verification is right for your business.

If you’re considering Meta Verification, I’d love to help you see how it could fit into your wider online marketing strategy.

Get in contact with me or book a free 15-minute call to chat through how we could boost your online presence and see if Meta Verification is the way forward.

I can’t wait to hear from you – get in touch today and ask me, ‘is Meta Verified worth it for my business?’

A Guide to Outsourcing Social Media Marketing in 2025

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 09:19:02 GMT

As we approach the end of the year, many companies are reflecting on their marketing strategies and planning for 2025, including considering outsourcing social media marketing.

This is a major decision that can significantly impact your brand's online presence, and there are plenty of things to consider if you’re thinking about it.

This blog is here to guide you through these considerations to help you find a compatible agency that aligns with your brand's vision.

Define Your Goals and Objectives

Before approaching agencies, clearly outline what you hope to achieve with your social media marketing and identify your specific needs .

These could be things like brand awareness, lead generation, customer engagement, or sales.

Define how you’ll measure success with your social media marketing by setting measurable KPIs (key performance indicators) such as engagement rates, follower growth, and website traffic.

Depending on your KPIs, make sure you have everything else in place before your Google Analytics setup, for example lead generation landing pages.

If you need these created, make this clear to the agencies you’re approaching for outsourcing social media marketing.

Understand Your Brand Identity

If you’re looking into outsourcing social media marketing, you’ll need to know the brand identity you want represented online.

It might be that you don’t have one and you want guidance on this; we help plenty of businesses with establishing a brand identity – contact us to find out more.

However, if you have an in-house marketing team and your social media is an extension of what’s happening everywhere else in the business, you’ll need to provide the below to agencies which could help you with outsourcing social media marketing:

Articulate Your Brand Voice: help the agency understand your brand’s personality, values, and target audience.
Consistency is Key: find an agency that can maintain your brand’s voice across different platforms; if you have a brand guideline, supply it and ensure it’s up to date for digital use, not just for offline/print.
Give Instagram Examples: if you use Instagram, provide grid examples that you like and don’t like , and explain why in both cases.
Provide platform info: If you are B2B or B2C or both let them know the platforms you are already on, provide URLS and struggles you are encountering on them all. It might if you are both you need to change up the content on the more business platforms aiming at Trade, this will mean your messaging and approach is totally different.
Humanising Your Brand: including people in your posts helps engagement, so think about how the agency can humanise your brand without working with you in person. Could you provide photos and videos of your team, or could the agency visit regularly?
Voice Formality or Informality: is there a line the agency cannot cross in terms of how familiar you appear online? If so, set those boundaries now.
Continuing Brand Voice in DMs: what level of interaction do you want from your outsourced social media team? Do you want them to answer any questions that people post in the threads or DMs? You could suggest a WhatsApp group for the team and the agency for urgent replies required.

Research Potential Agencies

If you’re considering outsourcing social media marketing, you want to make sure the agencies you approach are congruent with how you want to be represented.

Make sure you look at their portfolio , reviewing past work to gauge their expertise and creativity. They may have a showreel of their work, like we do. Which you can watch below...

You can also read their reviews online, to see how previous clients have fed back on their strengths and weaknesses. You could even ask to speak to current clients of theirs for an up-to-date insight into what they’re like.

It’s good to assess the agency’s expertise in your industry ; if they have experience in your sector, they’ll already understand your audience and competitors.

You should continue to evaluate their communication as they interact with you; how responsive are they during this initial contact?

Evaluate Collaboration

Outsourcing social media marketing will naturally involve collaboration with a person or agency, so you need to establish how you envisage this working.

What will your approval process be?

Would you like to see and tweak everything before it’s posted, and how often will this occur – weekly or fortnightly, via email, Slack, Google docs or OneDrive?

You need to set clear expectations and be realistic as time is money.

Now is also the time to talk about which collaboration tools they use for project management and communication, to ensure that things run smoothly.

Understand Their Social Media Strategy

This is crucial if you’re planning on outsourcing social media marketing to them!

What’s their approach to content strategy, including types of content they produce (e.g., graphics, videos, blogs)?

Make sure they’re prepared to provide regular analytics and reporting, and remember they’ll need access to your Google analytics here to see the full picture.

Clarify your views on the usage of stock imagery and video. Stock images won’t help to build trust in your brand, so could you provide an image library or ask someone internal to update the agency on what’s going on?

I’ve written before about how keeping your social media social and personal will help your audience to engage, so you need to make sure that you have a natural way of communicating the personal side of your business so that it can be shown online.

Treating the agency as an extension of your internal marketing team will work best, perhaps through providing access to webinars, courses, or industry events.

Consider your CTAs! What Calls to Action's are already in place within the business, can the agency use them, and are they traceable? Or does the agency need to use new ones?

Discuss Budget and Pricing Structure

Understand their pricing model, retainer, project-based, or performance-based, and ensure it aligns with your budget.

What’s the value for money?

Look beyond the price tag; assess the potential ROI from their services, and how much time will this free up of your staff to be doing other things.

If you don’t have the budget for a longer-term commitment, then be realistic and honest with the agency. Perhaps they could provide an easy-to-replicate style, create a content plan, train your staff in using it and then leave you to it 4-6 months down the line.

If this is an approach you’re interested in, you should look at our Marketing Strategy Starter Kit which does exactly that!

Plan for Long-Term Partnerships

Once you’ve found an agency to work with, it’s great to build a long-lasting relationship with them.

Look for scalability by choosing an agency that can grow with your business and adapt as your needs change.

Try to find a flexible agency.

As well as outsourcing social media marketing, if your agency can do more than just social media, they could also write a blog for you in the same tone of voice, run Meta ads alongside the posts, create a landing page or a download for lead gen purposes or create a LinkedIn training programme to help get your internal team on the right page sharing your posts… the list goes on.

Finally, it needs to be a good cultural fit.

Ensure the agency’s values align with yours for a more cohesive working relationship. It may be best to find someone local who can meet in-person.

Talk to us about outsourcing social media marketing for your business

Outsourcing social media marketing can be a game-changer, but choosing the right agency is crucial.

If you’re ready to elevate your social media strategy, contact The Thinking Cap today for a consultation and let us help you find the perfect fit for your marketing needs!

At The Thinking Cap, we specialise in tailored marketing and social media solutions that resonate with your brand and audience.

We know how hard it can be to keep your social media fresh, so our dedicated team is committed to driving results and fostering meaningful connections online.

Book a chat through our Calendly link , or send us an email and let’s chat about outsourcing social media marketing today!

Launching a website in 2025? Here’s how to write a good website brief

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 16:02:12 GMT

With January on the horizon, we thought it would be a great idea to give you some tips on how to write a good website brief.

You might have a whole host of new year’s resolutions, but as well as deciding to actually use that gym membership. Many small business owners use the new year as a great time to create or refresh their website.

This means that the end of the year is the time many agencies are receiving briefs for new or renewed websites.

If you’re thinking of sending out some enquiries and getting quotes, you’ll need to know how to write a good website brief.

If you can write a good website brief, you’ll demonstrate that you know what you require from the agencies you’re approaching – and it’ll be better for you as a customer as the more detail you can give at the start, the less likely you are to encounter hidden costs down the road.

So, if you want a functional website for your business which meets your needs, let’s dive in and find out how to write a good website brief.

First things first: the basics

What are the primary things to cover in your website brief?

Have you already bought your domain and email addresses , or will these need to be bought and budgeted for too?

We’d recommend buying these yourself so that you own the rights to them and have control over when you’ll renew them yourself.

Will your site require eCommerce to power a shop and receive payments, or is it a general website where no checkout/cart and payment gateway is required?

Would you prefer a placement holding (single-page) site, or a comprehensive SEO-driven website?

A generic site will have less text so may well have cleaner visual appeal, whereas an SEO-driven site will ideally have one page per product/service, with 500-600 words per page which include your keywords.

This will drive more visitors to your site but will likely require well-structured subheadings and works best with a blog too.

Once Google has indexed your site with your SEO keywords, bringing leads to your website, if you’re expecting it to have ongoing SEO work behind the scenes as well, you could ask for a price for this separately.

Have a serious think about your budget and outline this so that you can give an accurate idea of how much you’ll be willing to spend. This will give an idea of the scale of the project.

Knowing the answers to these questions will ensure that you’re well on the way to being able to write a good website brief.

Give some background to set the scene

If you want to write a good website brief, you’ll need to give some background on yourself and your company.

Here are some useful questions you’ll want to answer:

Who are you, and what does your business do?
What’s your target audience?
How big is your team?
What are your values and ethics?
Do you have any certifications?
What are your CTAs (calls to action) – how do you want people to get in touch from the website? This might be different on every page – actions such as contact us, download further info, book a demo, book a call back…
If you’re self-employed ‘one-man band’, do you want to appear as a bigger outfit, e.g. having a landline rather than a mobile number, and not adding a ‘team’ page, hiding your map if you work from home etc.?
Do you have a brand guideline, or fixed colour palette for the web team to follow?

How would you like your website to be structured?

A big part of knowing how to write a good website brief is knowing what you want.

Have a look at other websites, not just those of your competitors!

Send over a selection of URLs with your list of likes and dislikes for each, to give the agency a feel for exactly what you’re looking for.

It doesn’t matter how many links you give; it might be you like the navigation of one, the layout of another, the colour scheme, the footer, a gallery layout, even a product page of another - all of this detail will help.

Think about the flow of your website - will it be a single page (which we don’t recommend for SEO), or will it guide users through from one page to another?

If you require an SEO-driven site, you’ll need a site plan for every product or service, as each will have its own page.

You could also provide a list of the names of the pages you’d like to be created.

Design, look and feel

You’ll also need to outline the intended design of your website to write a good website brief.

Will you provide your own images? Bespoke photography is best, as it’s hard to trust a website that relies too heavily on stock photos.

Do you have a brand guideline?

This is more than just a logo, but a style of imagery, brand colour palette, fonts, tone of voice etc, that will need to be considered throughout the site. If you have a brand guideline, you can provide this upfront.

When it comes to fonts, you may not be able to use a specific one, but Google often has fonts very similar which can duplicate your branding. Whichever agency you use will be able to advise on this.

What about added extras that make a big difference to the look and feel of your site once you’ve launched?

One example is having your social media headers to match your website style; this can be easily created and included in the price. So why not mention this in the brief and tell them the platforms you are on?

Be prepared to provide a lot of content

A website as a whole needs lots of EEAT signals (which stands for Experience, Expertise and Authoritativeness Trust signals) which you will need to provide.

Your ‘about us’ page needs to fully showcase your EEATs to give a feel for you and your brand.

You’ll need to demonstrate experience, expertise, authority and trust, so make sure that you evidence these in your brief.

A great way of demonstrating expertise in your brief is by including reviews. Start collating them especially if they’re spread across multiple platforms like Facebook, Google, TrustPilot, Feefo, and LinkedIn etc. Maybe copy and paste them all into one Google doc and if you'd like your reviews showing on each of your services pages, be sure to flag which reviews relate to which service.

If you’d like your new website to show these in real time, you’ll need to add this into your brief as it’ll require a plug-in (from the review platform to your website back-end) which will need to be priced for.

You’ll want to clarify that you don’t want any duplicate or AI-written content, and that if you require a SEO-driven site, you need SEO-optimised text written for each page.

Technical things we recommend you ask for

If it’s not a world you’re acquainted with, it can be hard to know what you need.

We’d recommend that the agencies you approach include in their quote:

Setting up and providing access to Google analytics (GA4)
Setting up and populating Google Business Profile (previously called Google My Business)
Reducing pop ups and overwhelming ads
Providing any plugins you need, for reviews, social media, etc.
Linking to social media – outline which you use
Creation of a blog – these are great for long-form SEO content
Including some back-linking work post-launch
Adding a Facebook pixel to your website – this can start collecting valuable data for if and when you want to start retargeting website visitors, or when you want a warm audience to advertise to.

You may be worried about asking for everything upfront in case this drives up the price.

These are all the things you need to consider, so you will have to pay for them at some point, and you may as well know what figure you’re looking for from the start.

It’s worth considering appointing someone in-house who can project manage the work required for collating all your resources and writing your brief itself, as this is a big task and it’s so important to write a good website brief.

How can we help you to write a good website brief?

At The Thinking Cap we love to partner with SMEs to help them to grow and achieve their goals.

We design, project-manage, write SEO copy and handhold throughout the entire project, the only thing we outsource is the back-end techy development and hosting, (which we also manage with our trusted partners).

We know all the jargon, we know what you need, and we’ll smoothly provide everything required, eliminating delays which can hold some sites up for months.

Alternatively, if you have an agency in mind, we can help you write your website brief, provide the designs, copy and be the go-between, keeping you up to speed at all times.

We’d love to hear from you if you’d like to work together on your website or on a website brief. Book an initial 15-minute chat to talk it all through, or simply get in touch for a price.

We also offer an ‘ideas hour’ where we could chat for longer and thrash everything out to help you to collate your brief.

Whatever you need, we’d love to help you to launch a fresh website in the new year, get in touch today about how to write a good website brief.

Introducing… our new Marketing Strategy Starter Kit!

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 14:48:48 GMT

Introducing… our new Marketing Strategy Starter Kit!

At The Thinking Cap we’re really excited to be launching our Marketing Strategy Starter Kit as part of our partnerships with smaller businesses.

We wrote last month about why we’re the perfect outsourced marketing partner for SMEs , and our Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is something we’re offering to help businesses who want to elevate their marketing and sustain it long-term too.

We understand the marketing struggles that SMEs face, with limited time and resources, a need to keep your branding consistent, and small or solo staff teams mean that it’s not easy to make a splash with your marketing.

Our Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is: so, the answer why is it the solution for your business?

Why the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is perfect for your small business

If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to elevate your marketing without committing to a traditional retainer-style model, the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is for you.

We’ll work with you to create a marketing strategy which achieves your goals, represents your business and broadens your reach.

We implement the foundations to get everything up and running, before leaving you with a starter kit to help you keep the good work going into the future.

Our team at The Thinking Cap have a huge range of experience working with brands such as Nike, Barclays, Vodafone, IHG and British Airways.

But we don’t want to keep all that expertise to ourselves! Instead, we’re taking this big-picture thinking and distilling it down into a package that everyone can benefit from: the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit.

We’ll help you to understand your marketing needs

The first step to creating your marketing strategy will be sitting down with us to chat through the aims of your business and identifying your USP .

Defining your unique selling proposition will allow us not only to get to know your business but to see the unique needs and challenges of marketing for your area.

We’re familiar with the common marketing challenges that SMEs face, and we love helping small business owners to overcome them.

Perhaps you’d love help refining a currently haphazard approach to social media, or you want to avoid becoming one of the small businesses you see with low-quality designs which don’t reflect their services or products.

You may even have tried using some of the great free software out there but found it overwhelming and not known where to start.

We’re well-versed in lots of free design options out there which we can introduce you to and train you in, as a starting point amongst getting your business marketing up to scratch.

The Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is an improvement on the traditional marketing agency model

Many marketing agencies prefer to work on a retainer basis, where a fee is paid each month for marketing services provided.

This approach is not always suited to smaller businesses, as the ebb and flow of marketing needs is not accounted for in the fixed price, so it isn’t always the best value for money.

Perhaps your company has an in-house marketing team who are great at execution but need a hand with strategy or design expertise.

Here’s where our Marketing Strategy Starter Kit comes in, partnering with you to give a great starting point for your own team to implement high-quality and effective marketing strategy.

What’s included in the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit?

The aim of the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is to leave you with all you need to implement strategic and high-quality marketing.

But how do we do that?

In-depth Business Analysis: we’ll assess your business’s unique needs, aims and objectives so that we can tailor a marketing strategy along with on brand designs specifically for you.
Tailored Lead Generation Strategy: the creation of a customised lead generation plan will ensure that your goals for outreach are achieved.
Create a 3 month content plan: we'll do the thinking and planning for the next 3 months content ensuring its aligned with the overall strategy.
Creative Content Development: we’ll create strap lines, a landing page, blog topics, a handful of social media posts in a variety of styles, a newsletter in a template design that can be replicated, and a handful of starter Meta ads all of which capture your business and reach your audience.
Mini Style Guide: we’ll give you all you need to maintain brand consistency in the content you create in the future.
Canva Training: we’ll make sure everything we design can be edited and replicated in Canva, so no-one will see where our work finishes and yours carries on. We’ll train you/your staff to continue marketing efforts effectively, empowering you to take ownership of the design.

Why should you choose the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit?

The Marketing Strategy Starter Kit offers complete transparency with a one-time, fixed fee, so you know exactly what you're paying for upfront. This predictability makes budgeting straightforward, with no hidden costs.

Priced at just £3,500 + VAT—the equivalent of a single month’s salary for an average Marketing Manager—the kit provides exceptional value. To make it even more accessible, we also offer flexible payment options, allowing you to spread the cost over a couple of months as the work progresses.

A big focus of the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is the dedicated support and training we give to you.

By getting to know you and your business personally, we can curate strategic marketing planning and design and then train you in how to implement it, giving you long-term ownership of your marketing as well as vital skills.

But don’t just take our word for it - our online reviews show that The Thinking Cap not only have a huge level of marketing expertise, but we also know how to use it to help other businesses.

Empowering your team for ongoing success

The vision of the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is to empower your team to take your marketing to the next level.

As well as giving you a foundational tailored content plan, strategy and creative assets (to get you started), we enable your business to replicate your content internally with our style guide and training, ensuring a cost-effective approach to brand continuity.

By implementing a self-sufficient marketing strategy, you’ll be able to sustain the growth in your marketing efforts long-term, rather than relying on an agency to provide content for you on a regular, short-term basis.

If you need, we can also check in with you to keep you accountable and make sure you’re sticking to the plans and goals we’ve made until you’re in the swing of your regular marketing and posts.

It’s worth paying the cost of a few monthly calls or zooms to make sure that you’re implementing the marketing strategies which will help your business to grow and flourish.

Talk to us about the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit today

Our Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is the perfect solution for SMEs, bridging the gap between expert strategic planning and in-house execution.

If you’d like to find out whether the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is for you, reach out and book a chat to talk it through today.

As we spend so much time tailoring it to your company, only two businesses per month can enrol in the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit, so we recommend acting quickly to book your chat in so that you can secure your spot for the next year.

Thoughts? Questions?

Get in contact with us or leave a comment on this blog to tell us the biggest challenges you face with marketing. We’d love to see SMEs sharing ideas and perspectives in the comments section here.

We’re really excited to see who we’ll be making a Marketing Strategy Starter Kit for next year – will it be you?

How you can effectively use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing and grow your podcast audience

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 12:55:59 GMT

How you can effectively use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing and grow your podcast audience

Some small business owners and podcasters integrate a LinkedIn Premium subscription into their paid marketing strategy, but this blog is all about how you can actually use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing.

A LinkedIn Premium subscription offers options to help generate leads and boost your outreach. However online conversations I’ve been part of recently with Business Coach, Investor and Podcaster Phil Fraser have highlighted that these don’t seem to be overly effective, and there’s a frustrating lack of integration between the services offered and users’ existing LinkedIn backends.

I’ve written this blog with Phil’s problem in mind, but any services can be promoted well on LinkedIn for free – it’s not just for podcasts!

When you compare what’s offered with LinkedIn Premium vs. the free version of LinkedIn , you could be fooled into thinking it’s essential to pay for a subscription, but this blog is here to show you how you can use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing.

With a consistent, sustainable approach you can boost your engagement by using LinkedIn for free alongside your other marketing methods, and it probably won’t take much more time than you’re currently putting in.

How can you use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing?

Whether you’re a printer, a photographer, a project manager or a podcaster there are plenty of ways to find your target audience without paying for a LinkedIn subscription in order to send more messages.

Here are just some of them…

Using LinkedIn polls as lead generators ssss

Polls are a great tool that you can utilise to optimise how you use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing.

The key is to know the purpose of your poll and consider what you’ll do to follow-up with your voters afterwards.

For example, let’s say I wanted to raise awareness for my 30-day content plan .

I could create a poll on the final day of the month saying, ‘I can’t believe it’s the 1 ^st November tomorrow, hands up who’s created and scheduled next month’s posts?’, with options for people to vote for options such as ‘yes I have!’, ‘not yet’, and ‘I’ll be winging it again this month’.

Then I know that anyone who hasn’t voted ‘yes’ is my target audience.

So, when the poll ends I can do one of two things:

I can posts about downloading my 30-day plan and tag my voters into the post saying something like ‘as per your vote I thought this might be useful for you’.
Or I could send them a private DM, as per your vote, I thought you might like to receive my helpful 30-day planner. This allows you to get your foot in the door in a proactive friendly way without sounding too cold and sales'y!

Using LinkedIn searches

Reaching out to 2 ^nd and even 3 ^rd connections on LinkedIn is a great way to build your audience.

The number of 2 ^nd connections you have is, of course, based upon how many connections that you have, so the first step is to build your network.

You can use LinkedIn searches to find those working locally in your industry, searching for different keywords and seeing who your current connections are interacting with.

Then, once you’ve asked to connect with them, leave a great 300-character note to introduce yourself, and a voice note once you’ve connected to build that link.

Check out their contact details and follow up later with a link to your services or podcast episodes, mentioning particular products or episodes that might interest them based on their background and industry.

Using LinkedIn hashtag searches

Another great way to locate your target audience is to find the people who are posting about your industry.

If you’re looking for businesses in Leeds, West Yorkshire you might search for #leeds, #leedsbusinesses, #yorkshirebusinesses then follow the businesses using the relevant hashtags, check out their posts, business page and staff.

Planning ahead is key here; if you already know what you’re about to launch, whether it’s a new podcast episode topic or a promotion, you can start searching for people in the preceding month who’ll be interested in what’s coming up.

Then in your short connecting note, you can mention that you have some great things in the pipeline suited to them, give them some details, and that they should follow or connect with you for more.

Searching relevant hashtags will also show you what’s trending in this area and who’s active.

Comment on their posts to get noticed and become a known quantity; I wouldn’t recommend dropping your links there, as you’ll be seen as hijacking someone’s post for your own means but do comment and connect with people then send them your links.

LinkedIn posts

Posting regularly is a great way to use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing.

If you’re a podcaster, you could write a post asking your audience who they’d like to listen to on your podcast and why, and get them to tag them in the comments, or ask them to think of a friend who’d love to hear your content and tag them.

I’ve spoken to Phil Fraser about his LinkedIn marketing strategy for his podcast, and there are loads of ways that you can use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing in this area.

Phil founded his podcast to raise awareness for his Leeds-based business coaching and Angel investor profile, and it’s now a big part of his general marketing strategy.

The podcast is integrated across his platforms, being posted to YouTube and other social media platforms as well as emailing links to his database of contacts.

Phil always posts a preview/teaser for each upcoming podcast the day before it drops, then posts when it’s launched each week, and then posts again the next day with snippets of the key points.

All these posts raise awareness of the podcast, increasing subscriber and listener numbers.

But what else can you do to keep your podcast marketing fresh and use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing?

How to use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing for your podcast

You can use LinkedIn’s free creator mode, which offers a featured section where you can showcase podcast episodes or promotional graphics, making it easy for visitors to access your content.
You also establish authority in your industry by writing blogs and LinkedIn articles on the topics described in your podcast.
Then you can include backlinks to your podcast too; this coupled with the longform content will tick a lot of boxes for organic SEO.
Join and participate in relevant LinkedIn groups related to your industry, podcasting, or businesses in your local areas.
Share insights and podcast episodes and engage with group members to build relationships.
Write guest follow-up posts after interviewing someone on your podcast, thanking them and sharing key takeaways, linking back to the episode.
You could share another LinkedIn post with the same link again in the next couple of months, or sooner if anything topical to the podcast has arisen in the news or locally since.
It’s also good practice to ask your podcast guest to like and share your posts to their connections too.
Make sure you’re sharing your content across all your social platforms and tag their handles on all those platforms as well.
They might even write a blog about their experience on their podcast with links to the episode and your website, creating valuable backlinks for you.
By integrating some of these strategies, you, or any podcast host, can effectively use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing, enhancing your podcast outreach while fostering a community around your content.

And remember, consistency and engagement will be key to seeing long-term results so keep chipping away at it!

Let’s talk about how to use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing

If you’re keen to find out more about how you can use the free version of LinkedIn to increase the reach of your marketing, you’re in the right place.

You can book a POWER HOUR call for just £197 to get your ideas flowing, talk all things marketing strategy, and come away with tonnes of ideas to implement.

If it’s LinkedIn tips and know-how you’re specifically interested in, you’re in the right place. Get in contact to register your interest for out bespoke LinkedIn training with expert Lisa here.

Or if you fancy a more general chat to see how we might be able to help, you can book a free 15-minute intro call through our Calendly link here .

We’re also looking for new clients to work with as marketing partners for their business, taking a lot of the specialised thinking out of your hands.

Whatever your aims are, we’d love to help, so get in contact today and why not start off by asking how to use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing?

Why The Thinking Cap is Your Ideal Outsourced Marketing Partner for SMEs

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 10:42:39 GMT

Why The Thinking Cap is Your Ideal Outsourced Marketing Partner for SMEs

If you run a smaller-scale business, you may well have wondered whether there are any companies which specialise in acting as an outsourced marketing partner for SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises).

It can be difficult when seeking help with your marketing to find someone who really knows the unique joys and struggles of a company the size of yours, but we’re here to show you that tailored assistance is available.

The Thinking Cap (TTC) are a husband-and-wife-team with unparalleled expertise in marketing and communications, and as a smaller-scale business ourselves, we love partnering with SMEs to transform their marketing strategy and bring them results.

In this blog, we’ll show you why it’s a great idea for your business to consider delegating your marketing, and why TTC is the ideal outsourced marketing partner for SMEs.

We understand the unique pain points of SMEs

There are specific reasons why small and medium-scale enterprises in particular find marketing a struggle, and we know how to support you in them.

Here are some of the common pain points we encounter from our clients – do any of these resonate with you?

Limited Resources: by virtue of their size, many SMEs operate with tight budgets and small teams. Marketing is one of the jobs which can be hardest to fulfil under these conditions but is crucial to business growth.
Lack of Expertise: with a smaller team, it’s much less likely that SMEs will have the in-house marketing expertise which is so needed – but it takes a lot of time to build a knowledgeable team either through training or recruitment.
Time Constraints: those at the helm of an SME often juggle multiple roles, you’re a CEO, an accountant and a business analyst all in one day – and this makes it really difficult to focus on marketing.
The Need for Consistent Branding: whilst your business grows, it’s crucial to have a cohesive brand presence through your marketing, but when you’re keeping so many plates in the air it’s difficult to establish and maintain this.
Keeping Up with Trends: it’s a challenge to stay current and have your marketing seen amongst ever-changing digital marketing trends and algorithms; you can quickly find yourself out of date as soon as you’ve got the hang of the latest technologies.

Why The Thinking Cap are uniquely placed to help

With all that in mind, we believe that The Thinking Cap are the perfect outsourced marketing partner for SMEs – here are a few reasons why.

We offer comprehensive services in marketing and comms, so you only need to look to one place for support in:

marketing strategy,
list building,
social media management,
content creation, (and also training)
organic SEO and back-linking,
email marketing,
social paid ads,
graphic design,
branding,
LinkedIn training and profile building
website design and styling
landing page creation
lead generation campaigns
etc....

One provider also ensures consistency as well as less management on your side.

We don’t have a one-size-fits-all-approach, but instead produce tailored strategies for each of our clients. We get to know your business and customise a strategy to align with your goal and target audience.

We’re an expert team: small but mighty. And we’ll use our years of experience in marketing strategy to transform your SME like we have with so many others. Our previous client base are the likes of, Barclays, Shell, Lloyds Bank Group, YBS, Nike, Aldi, LV, Vodafone, British Airways, to mention a few and we have both worked globally, but now we like to help smaller companies stand-out as much as the bigger well-known brands, and thats where The Thinking Cap can help!

We focus on results, using a data-driven approach and utilising analytics to measure the success of our campaigns in order to optimise them for ongoing effectiveness. See below for our latest results we brought in shortly after starting work with Anchor Bay Holidays and to view our social media showreel click here .

We offer cost-effective solutions for SMEs

A crucial factor when looking for an outsourced marketing partner for SMEs is cost.

We offer flexible pricing structures especially designed for SME budgets, as the prices of our packages are based on the number of days per month worked, rather than the job as a whole.

This means it’s much easier for you to flexibly control the amount you’re spending where needed.

And the value of outsourcing has never been higher; the return on investment (ROI) you can expect by partnering with an experienced marketing partner is huge, especially compared to the ROI of training your existing staff members.

The costs of outsourcing are also clearly much lower than hiring full-time employees for your marketing – especially when you consider just how many marketing roles are covered by our one team.

We’ll streamline your marketing communications

We’re the ideal outsourced marketing partner for SMEs because we offer a single point of contact, meaning that you’ll just have one person to liaise with about all your marketing needs.

We keep it simple: we don’t outsource any work and only take on projects we can handle. This ensures full transparency and consistency, eliminating any chance of miscommunication. Unlike others, we don’t promise the world just to secure a contract, only to pass it off to a junior staff member, as it's just us.

And our transparency extends to our relationship with you, too; we know the importance of honest reporting and updates, so we keep all our clients regularly informed about the progress of all their campaigns.

Let our clients tell you why we’re the ideal outsourced marketing partner for SMEs

You don’t have to take our word for it – we’ve worked with countless SMEs who can tell you about the results we’ve achieved by partnering with them.

Here’s what Anthony from Anchor Bay Holidays had to say about working with us after we transformed their Meta advert performance over a six-week period, with campaign clicks increasing by 1177% alongside cost per click reducing by 300%.

“The main success … is the impact they have had on my social media ads - turning a lacklustre set of campaigns which “just worked" into targeted and high performing ad sets! I cannot recommend them highly enough to your business.”

We love working with smaller businesses, building personal relationships with them and sharing in the satisfaction of moving their marketing along and seeing results.

Earlier this year we wrote about our work with Hemingway Tailors and Holmeshaw Property investment . Two very different businesses who are both thrilled with the way that TTC have transformed their marketing efforts and are now seeing their businesses thriving as a result.

Our portfolio speaks for itself; you don’t need us to tell you that TTC is the perfect outsourced marketing partner for SMEs when the businesses are so vocal about saying the same thing.

Look no further than The Thinking Cap for the ideal outsourced marketing partner for SMEs w e’re convinced that we’re the perfect outsourced marketing partner for SMEs, and if you’re convinced too, we’d love to hear from you.

You can book a free initial consultation to discuss what your business needs and how we can help.

And now’s the best time to do it, as if you sign up for a year at this stage, we’ll throw in a half day for free every month – that’s an annual saving of £2400!

We can’t wait to find out more about your business, and show you why we are the ideal outsourced marketing partner for SMEs.

How does SEO marketing work, and how can I use it?

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sat, 14 Sep 2024 18:16:05 GMT

How does SEO marketing work, and how can I use it?

If you’re a business owner trying to grow your online presence, you’re sure to have heard of SEO marketing, but the question I keep hearing over and over again is how does SEO marketing work?

Many of us don’t really know where to start, or what the nuts and bolts of SEO marketing really are.

If this is you, then look no further; The Thinking Cap is here to help.

We’ll walk you through what SEO marketing is, how it works, and how you can use it to improve your business’s visibility and get results.

What is SEO Marketing?

SEO Marketing (Search Engine Optimisation Marketing) is a strategy aimed at improving a website's visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), primarily on Google, to attract more organic (non-paid) traffic.

It involves optimising various aspects of a website, as well as external factors, to ensure that it meets the criteria search engines use to rank pages.

Implementing the requirements of SEO marketing will boost your website’s ranking, showing it more favourably amongst search engine results and broadening your reach.

So that’s what it is, but how does SEO marketing work?

How does SEO marketing work?

SEO marketing comprises a number of different strategies, all of which can be built and established over time.

So, the question ‘how does SEO marketing work?’ has quite a long answer - but we’re here to walk you through it.

It’s important to say that SEO marketing is a long-term investment; it doesn’t yield immediate results like paid advertising, but over time, it can deliver sustainable and highly cost-effective results.

So, here’s how it all works and where to start.

1. Keyword Research

The first step in SEO marketing is identifying which keywords and phrases your potential customers are using to search for your products, services or information related to your business.

Think to yourself, “what would I Google if I wanted to find information about this topic?” - and that word or phrase is probably a good bet for your keyword.

If you’re stuck, tools like Google Keyword Planner , Ahrefs, or SEMrush are commonly used to find keywords with a high search volume, and low competition.

‘ Ask The Public ’ is another platform which allows a certain number of free searches each day, to help you to find the keywords and phrases which the public are searching for on your given topic.

2. On-Page Optimisation

Now that you’ve found your keywords, here’s what to do with them and how to optimise your web pages:

Content Creation: create high-quality, relevant content that is optimised for the target keywords. This includes blog posts, product descriptions, landing pages, and more, which contain your keywords in optimum places.
Meta Tags: optimise meta titles and descriptions which are shown in search engine results to make them more appealing and relevant to both search engines and users.
URL Structure: make sure your URLs are clean, descriptive, and contain relevant keywords.
Header Tags: use plenty of headings and subheadings to structure content in a way that is easy for both users and search engines to understand.
Internal Linking: link to other relevant pages within your site to help search engines crawl your site more effectively and improve user navigation.

When people ask me, ‘how does SEO marketing work?’ they’re often surprised at how simple it seems when I talk them through finding keywords and on-page optimisation.

Unfortunately, it does get more complex from here on, but by breaking it down into these simple points you’ll be able to implement these SEO marketing principles and see results over time.

3. Technical SEO

Now that your webpages themselves are fine-tuned, there are things that can be done behind-the-scenes to optimise your site as a whole.

Site Speed: improve your page load times, as faster sites rank better.
Mobile-Friendliness: ensure your website is optimised for mobile devices, as Google uses mobile-first indexing.
Crawlability: make sure search engine bots can easily crawl and index the site’s pages. This includes submitting an XML sitemap and using robots.txt files properly.
HTTPS: use a secure HTTPS connection to ensure the site is safe for users.

4. Off-Page Optimisation

There are also things that you can do to boost your SEO marketing apart from your website itself.

Backlink Building: acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable websites which link to your content. These act as a vote of confidence and can significantly improve a site’s authority and ranking. You can find out more about backlinks in our blog about using diverse str ategies to drive website traffic .
Social Signals: although these aren’t a direct ranking factor, active engagement on social media can indirectly affect SEO by driving traffic and increasing visibility.
Guest Blogging: writing articles for other websites will also help you to gain backlinks and increase your site’s authority.

Linked to backlinking, we would also recommend using listing software, which allows you to instantly update your business listings across search engines, popular directories, maps, social media and even sat-navs.

At The Thinking Cap we have access to some incredibly powerful listing software which means that you can update your business photos, descriptions, opening hours and any other information in one easy-to-use dashboard. Every change you make will automatically sync the update across every platform, and regular updates can boost your local listing rankings across Google and Bing — so that's an extra incentive!

With this listing software you can also create special offers and post to multiple business directories and social media platforms including Facebook, any time you want, directly in your Listing Manager dashboard.

It’s one of the most powerful local marketing tools in the world, so if you’re interested in finding out more, you can email me with the subject SEO Listing tool, here .

5. Content Marketing

Something essential to SEO marketing is the creation and promotion of high-quality content.

Producing blogs, videos, infographics and other content streams which answer the searcher’s queries will be shared widely and linked to by other websites.

Updating your content regularly will keep your website fresh, which is another thing which search engines favour as well as keeping your audience with you.

If you’re struggling to know where to start with content creation or need some ideas for what content you could produce, head to The Thinking Cap’s resources page for great tips and guides to get you started.

6. Analytics and Reporting

SEO marketing is a long-term project which is ongoing and requires refining in response to what’s giving results.

It’s sometimes hard when people ask me ‘how does SEO marketing work?’, as they’re often hoping for a quick fix which will boost their leads.

But in reality, it’s a process of creating and refining content in response to performance - and there are some great tools out there to help you see what’s working.

Using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other SEO software to monitor website performance, track keyword rankings and analyse traffic will allow you to adjust your strategies accordingly.

Reporting helps in understanding what’s working and what isn’t, so that your strategy can be refined over time.

How does SEO marketing work together?

Let’s pull it all together.

We’ve covered a lot of ground, and you might be wondering how all these different strategies interact. How does SEO marketing work together?

Search Engines: Use algorithms to rank pages based on factors like relevance, authority, and user experience.
SEO Professionals: Optimise websites to align with these ranking factors.
Results: A well-executed SEO strategy leads to higher rankings on SERPs, which drives more organic traffic, and potentially increases conversions, from sales, to leads, to getting clients over the line.

Alongside all of this it’s good to know what Google likes and keep abreast of the latest changes. Producing helpful and relevant content is a must, so that your page gets seen at all.

If you’d like some tailored help with SEO marketing for your business, we’d love to chat more.

We’re a team of experts in marketing and online strategy, and we support countless brands in SEO marketing as well as content creation as a whole.

We’re looking to partner with more businesses who are keen to take their brand to the next level, so if this sounds like you, get in contact today and ask us, ‘how does SEO marketing work?’.

Why you should be using diverse strategies to drive website traffic

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 16:36:55 GMT

Why you should be using diverse strategies to drive website traffic

The digital world is changing all the time, so it’s important to be using multiple strategies to drive website traffic rather than just relying on one platform to bring in your leads.

When I ask my clients how they drive traffic to their website, they often point to only one or two content types, and it’s usually primarily through social media. But this puts a lot of pressure on that one strategy, and leaves your business stranded if it dries up.

An over-focus on social media in particular can lead to algorithm dependency and audience fatigue, but whatever the platform is, if you’re overly dependent on single strategies to drive website traffic you’ll eventually limit your reach and the effectiveness of your marketing.

In contrast, diversifying your web traffic strategies can maximise your website’s visibility and engagement – and ultimately lead to more conversions.

So why does it work so much better?

The benefits of diversifying your strategies to drive website traffic

There are three big reasons why you should be using multiple traffic-driving strategies:

1. Widened reach

Put simply, using multiple content types will help you to reach a wider range of audiences.

The demographic of users across various channels varies hugely; you’ll reach different people on social media to through an email campaign or a paid ad.

So, if you want to tap into various audience segments, the best way is to combine various strategies to drive website traffic.

2. Improved SEO

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short, is key in driving traffic to your website.

The higher your page is ranked by search engines, the more easily people will find your site and discover your brand.

Creating diverse content across multiple platforms helps to boost your rankings, getting your website seen by more people.

There are also types of content like guest blogs which allow for great opportunities for SEO - but more on that later.

3. Increased engagement

Different platforms and content types engage users in different ways.

You can engage your audiences in various ways by using multiple strategies; blogs to provide in-depth information, social media for speedy interactions, paid ads to capture attention with targeted messaging and so on.

You can make sure that you’re meeting the various needs of your audience by producing a range of content and utilising multiple strategies to drive website traffic.

Key content types to drive website traffic

So, you’re convinced that you need to diversify your content types, but what strategies are out there to do this?

Here’s our list of top strategies to drive website traffic – why not choose a couple which you aren’t doing currently, and incorporate them into your marketing strategy?

Blogs and articles

Just as you’ve stumbled upon my website through this blog, you could be regularly updating your website with high-quality content which will attract and retain visitors.

To improve visibility, you’ll need to make sure your posts are compliant with the latest SEO and get them rising up the search engine rankings. Another important point to raise is to make your blogs and articles 'helpful', Google love helpful content .

Guest blogging

In both directions, guest blogging will create valuable back links between your website and others’.

You could ask other writers to put together a guest blog for your page or establish yourself as an authority in your niche by offering to write guest blogs for others in your industry.

Whichever you go for, you can drive referral traffic with guest blogging, which is great for SEO, especially if you’re getting a back link from a higher-ranking website.

Paid advertising

You can use paid campaigns to target specific demographics, tailoring them to your ideal target audience.

This will increase the likelihood of reaching potential customers, as well as providing immediate visibility and traffic. To see if it's for you, you can read more about social media paid advertising here .

Email marketing

Building up an email mailing list allows you to directly communicate with your audience, and in contrast to social media, gives some immunity to the whims of algorithm changes which can unexpectedly limit your reach.

Regular newsletters and updates can maintain engagement and drive repeat visits from previous customers. We call this your low hanging fruit.

Influencer collaborations
Partnering with influencers can allow you to access and tap into the audience they have established.

By endorsing your brand, influencers can improve your credibility and ultimately drive traffic to your platforms and website.

To do this you either need a relationship with the influencer, pay them to do this or gift a product, that make its worth their while...

User-generated content

User-generated content, or UGC, is any content which is created by users and posted on a brand’s platforms – similar to influencers, you will need to pay for this service or arrange a gifted collaboration.

The difference here is that the content is created as if they are the end-user (customer) and they supply the content to you to post to YOUR audience.

The common use of UGC is customer reviews, unboxing videos, a reel showcasing one of your services etc.

Showing real people honestly sharing their opinions on your products is another way to build brand credibility and reach a wider audience; I’ve written more about UGC here .

Build a holistic marketing strategy to drive website traffic

You don’t need me to tell you that today’s online environment is competitive, and that to be seen and stand out from the crowd, you need to utilise a well thought-through marketing strategy.

In this dynamic digital landscape, it’s even more risky to rely on a single traffic source which is vulnerable to change.

But by embracing a diverse range of strategies to drive website traffic you can ensure consistent site visitors, improved engagement and better overall performance.

Diversification not only safeguards against platform-specific issues but also maximises your website’s potential to attract and retain visitors.

Need a hand working out which content types to invest in most, and where to start? We’d love to help.

Ask us for help with diversifying your strategies to drive website traffic

If you want help from marketing experts who’ve built and maintained their own brand through utilising diverse content types, look no further.

We’re Lisa and Martin, a husband-and-wife team who together have helped countless brands to create and implement marketing strategies which get them noticed by their dream customers and see their businesses grow and grow.

We’d love to chat to you too and see how we can partner with you to build your brand and bring it to where you want it to be.

Book an initial 15-minute chat through our Calendly link so that we can work out where we’re at, or contact us another way if you’d prefer.

Get in contact today and let’s get started working out the best strategies to drive website traffic for your brand.

Harnessing AI for Social Media Content Creation

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 17:24:39 GMT

An Introduction as to why you might use AI for social media content creation.

Keeping up with content creation and social media marketing can feel like a Sisyphean task. Every day you labour to push colossal boulders of content uphill across an ever-shifting digital landscape. You reach the summit and hope for the best, only to wake up the next day at the bottom of the hill preparing to scale it again. The cycle never ends.

The constant pressure to produce fresh, engaging content across multiple platforms can quickly lead to mental fatigue and burnout. Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is paving the way for streamlined content creation, allowing you to produce better material efficiently, effectively, and effortlessly — while still preserving that critical human touch.

There are nine common content marketing hurdles every business owner faces . Training yourself in the techniques of AI for your social media content creation will give you the strength to vault those hurdles with confidence. It will significantly reduce thinking time, prevent burnout, and enhance your overall productivity. Combining AI with other tools also optimises SEO while preserving authenticity. This principle applies not only to your written content but also to imagery and video. The virtual world is your oyster bed, and its pearls are easier to harvest than you think.

Read on as we dive deeper into the infinite expanse of the digital sea.

1. The Power of AI for Social Media Content Creation

A. Automation of Routine Tasks

Content Scheduling : A major advantage of AI is its ability to automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks. It streamlines processes such as the scheduling of content across multiple platforms to enhance efficiency and ensure consistency in your content delivery. You may fall ill, sleep in, or find yourself dealing with an unexpected crisis. This can wreak havoc with your posting schedule and damage your professional credibility. AI never sleeps, never falls ill, never gets distracted. It ensures your content goes live at optimal times to build your brand’s reputation for reliability and consistency.

Automated Responses: AI automated responses to emails, Direct Messages (DMs), chatbots, and social media comments provide instant and accurate responses to common queries 24 hours a day. Again, AI never sleeps. This creates a positive customer experience from the first point of contact that builds loyalty and frees your time to deal with other business that require a more personal touch.

Automation is but the first step in tapping into AI for social media content creation. It gets better. Read on.

B. Social Media Content Idea Generation and Trend Analysis

Brainstorming: AI tools can quickly identify emerging patterns, predict future trends, and reveal unique ideas for content you may not have considered. This data-driven approach eliminates writer’s block, and helps you create content that is fresh, timely, and relevant to your target market. Without a doubt, the most compelling reason to use AI for social media content creation is its extraordinary potential to serve as your personal muse.

Trend Analysis: AI tools can analyse vast amounts of data to draw on a wide range of perspectives and identify trends that are not immediately obvious. By recognising and acting on these trends early, you can position your brand as a thought leader and innovator in your field. This proactive approach keeps your content relevant and builds a stronger connection with your audience by demonstrating your understanding of their evolving needs and interests.

C: Cultivating AI for social media content creation

Customising Content: By analysing user data, such as browsing history, demographics, and engagement patterns, AI can identify trends and preferences within different audience segments and use this information to tailor content specifically for each demographic. It can suggest topics and styles that resonate best with a particular segment to improve engagement and increase customer satisfaction.

Content Repurposing: AI can quickly identify which content performs well across different platforms and suggest ways to adapt and reuse it for various channels and audience segments. This saves time and resources, but also ensures consistency in your messaging. A single piece of content, such as a blog post, can be adapted for multiple platforms: case studies, newsletters, press releases, infographics, tweets, and vlogs. This cross-pollination increases your impact across various channels, keeping your message consistent and your brand visible. Cultivating AI for social media content creation helps you seed a garden that stands out in the virtual landscape.

2. Preventing Burnout by Firing Up AI for Social Media Content Creation

A. Streamlining Content Creation: Mental fatigue, brain fog, and writer’s block are the Trinity of Evil for content creators. Delegating repetitive tasks to AI optimises the content creation process. By handling mundane and repetitive tasks, AI streamlines the creation process, easing the burden on your mental resources and preserving mental energy needed for strategic thinking and decision making in other facets of your work that demand your attention.

B. Enhancing Creativity: AI is a powerful tool for overcoming writer’s block and other creative barriers, sparking new ideas by presenting alternative perspectives or obscure connections to develop for content. It generates keywords, phrases, analogies, and metaphors to inspire further development, while also providing facts, statistics, and real-world examples that enhance your credibility. Additionally, AI proposes outlines, opening lines, or narrative structures that push beyond your comfortable writing boundaries, encouraging innovation in your thought processes. Embracing modern AI for social media content creation turns the terror of a blank computer screen into a quaint relic of the past.

3. Integrating AI with SEO Tools

A. Importance of SEO in Content Marketing: The Role of SEO tools like Google Keyword Planner help identify relevant keywords. Semrush , offers comprehensive SEO analysis. Ahrefs provides competitor research and other features. By making SEO a priority, you improve your online presence, rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs), and attract more clients based on hard data, not gut instinct. My SEO written blogs are one of my main lead generators, they have brought in customers as far as Sweden into my funnel.

B. Combining SEO Tools with AI for social media content creation: When you combine AI with the treasure trove of available SEO tools you reap the rewards of quickly identifying high-performing keywords. This offers valuable insight into optimising your content for improved rankings based on readability and keyword relevance. This ensures your content is engaging and visible to your target audience.

C. Continuous Improvement: AI works in conjunction with performance evaluation sites like Google Analytics , hotjar , and HubSpot to provide detailed data and insights on user behaviours, engagement metrics, and conversion rates. AI effortlessly assists in analysing this data to provide you with insights and recommendations for your future content strategies.

4. Maintaining a Human Touch

A. The Human Touch in Partnership with AI for Social Media Content Creation: Social media, by definition, is social. We share photos and videos of our pets, our holidays, even our meals. But it’s not all food and fluff. The fact that social media is a more fun, informal channel gives a unique platform for businesses to show their company culture and show ‘behind the scenes’ insights into the life of the business.

AI tools are highly efficient at crunching data and optimising content, but they can never replace the human touch. We connect with people, not machines. We respond to personal communications and relatable stories that evoke emotions, reflect our experiences, and resonate with our values. It is crucial to walk the digital tightrope and find the balance between technology and humanity in order to create content that not only ranks on search engines but resonates with your fellow human beings.

B. Post-AI Humanisation: Re taining the human element requires editing and refining your AI-generated output to ensure it aligns with your unique voice and values. Adding your own narrative touch and personal anecdotes makes your content more compelling, more relatable, and more engaging. Manually adjusting specific elements, interlinking relevant blog articles, strategically placing backlinks, and reworking sections of the text demonstrate your intimate knowledge of the subject matter and assure your audience that there is still a real person on the other side of the screen.

C. Engaging with Your Audience: Again, genuine engagement requires a human touch working hand in hand with AI for social media content creation. Take the time to personally engage with your audience, answer their queries, address their concerns, and show genuine interest in their experiences. These interactions allow you to better understand their needs, concerns, and preferences and enable you to refine your content strategy to provide even more value. This personal touch builds trust and creates genuine connections with your audience.

5. Case Studies and Success Stories

A. Examples of Brands Successfully Using AI for social media content creation:

To attract a younger audience for Heinz Ketchup, Canadian creative agency Rethink used DALL-E 2, a text-to-image AI generator, to produce unique visuals and incorporate them in artistic scenarios. The campaign exceeded expectations. With a social media engagement rate 38% higher compared to previous campaigns, it generated over 850 million earned impressions. The campaign also received extensive media coverage from publications in multiple sectors and won awards for the agency.

Petco uses an AI-powered nutrition platform that analyses a pet's breed, age, weight, and other factors to provide customised dietary recommendations and generate automated meal plans. They supplement this service with genuine human interactions, provided by pet nutrition experts who respond directly to customers' questions and concerns. By combining the efficiency of AI with the empathy and expertise of their staff, Petco is able to create a more personalised customer experience, and better assist in maintaining the health of their pets.

In addition to using AI to provide personalised recommendations based on previous purchases, browsing history, and preferences, Sephora introduced their “ Sephora Virtual Artist, ” an AI-powered mobile app that lets customer can virtually apply makeup products and receive personalised recommendations. Their “ Colour IQ ” system scans customer’s skin to recommend perfectly matched makeup shades.

Starbucks has implemented their Deep Brew AI engine to analyse customer data and generate personalised marketing messages and product recommendations tailored to individual preferences. As a result , Starbucks has experienced higher quarterly earnings and increased membership in their rewards program, leading to enhanced customer loyalty and a stronger market position in the highly competitive coffee industry.

In addition to chatbots and virtual assistants to improve customer service, Adidas uses AI technology to analyse individual feet, their shapes and biomechanics, to design custom footwear that fits perfectly.

B. Lessons Learned: In corporating AI for social media content creation requires best practices to avoid common pitfalls. Ensuring content doesn't sound too robotic and maintaining proper regional spelling and terminology are essential. Learning from others’ experiences helps avoid mistakes and leverage AI effectively. As the technology is still in its infancy, lessons are still being learned, but several valuable lessons have already emerged. These insights can guide marketers toward successful implementation:

Best Practices for Integrating AI for Social Media Content Creation:

Data Analysis and Insights: Use AI to predict trends, audience behaviour, and content performance to refine and modify your content strategies.
Automation: Employ AI to streamline repetitive tasks repetitive tasks, such as content distribution, social media posting, and email campaigns, including streamlining keyword research and content outlines.
Personalisation: Utilise AI to deliver targeted content by analysing individual preferences, behaviours, and demographics.
Content Generation: Complement human-created material with AI-generated content, especially for data-heavy reports or summaries.
Human-AI Collaboration: Combine AI-generated content with human creativity and empathy to ensure your brand keeps its human voice, not a robotic one.
Continuous Improvement: Regularly test and refine AI strategies based on performance data.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them:

Lack of focus: An ambiguous AI strategy and unclear goals will lead to ineffective implementation, wasted resources, and lacklustre results.
Over reliance on AI: Don’t replace human creativity entirely. Use AI as a tool, not a replacement.
Robotic Tone: AI-generated content can sometimes sound mechanical. Balance automation with a human touch. Edit and refine AI-generated drafts to ensure a natural, voice, not a robotic one.
Ethical Considerations: Be transparent about AI-generated content. Disclose when chatbots or automated responses are in use.
Americanisms and Spelling: If your audience is primarily in the UK, avoid American spellings and idiomatic expressions.
Continuous Learning: Stay updated on AI advancements. Regularly assess and adapt your AI strategies to keep on top of your client preferences and industry trends.

Conclusion

In Summary

Synthesising AI for social media content creation offers numerous benefits, from automating routine tasks and generating ideas to enhancing SEO and personalising content. The data-driven insights from AI tools help identify trends, generate ideas, and tailor content for specific audience segments. By automating repetitive processes, AI frees up mental resources to focus on strategic thinking and content personalisation. Integrating AI with SEO platforms further improves your content’s visibility and performance.

However, it is crucial to maintain a human touch in your content. AI may excel at crunching data and optimising for search engines, but it cannot replicate the empathy, creativity, and personal connection that resonate with your audience. Balancing AI with human elements ensures authenticity and relatability. Editing and refining AI-generated output to align with your brand's unique voice, adding personal narratives, and engaging directly with your audience are essential to preserving authenticity.

Final Thoughts

The digital landscape continues to evolve, and AI is rapidly transforming the content marketing landscape. While the integration of AI may seem daunting, the benefits it can provide in terms of efficiency, productivity, and performance optimisation are too significant to ignore. Continuous learning, openness to adaptation, and a willingness to explore the possibilities of AI-powered content creation are critical to staying ahead of the curve.

I encourage you to experiment with AI tools and find the right balance between technology and human creativity. By harnessing the power of AI for social media content creation while still retaining your personal touch, you can elevate your marketing efforts and build stronger connections with your audience. The future is your oyster bed and the pearls are yours for the taking.

• If you're struggling with your workload and want to explore outsourcing options, you can arrange a no-obligation 30-minute consultation by clicking Calendly call .

• If you would prefer a paid "ideas hour" session where I can provide tailored advice, you can book a £197 session through the Calendly link .

• For help starting your content creation or for our full range of marketing services from our experienced husband and wife team, check out:

https://www.thethinkingcap.co.uk/creating-your-content-plan

https://www.thethinkingcap.co.uk/about

Feel free to explore the options that best fit your needs. I am always happy to arrange a discussion to see how I can support your marketing efforts.

How to Optimise social media ads to be seen by your ideal customer

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 24 May 2024 17:10:33 GMT

We often hear from business owners a bout their challenges with boosting posts and achieving a low ROI from their social media ads. To help you get the most out of your hard-earned cash, we’ve put together some tips on how to optimise social media ads for better results.

We’re here to explain how incorporating paid ads with your organic marketing can raise awareness of your brand, speed up leads, and give you much more web traffic – you just need to know how to get them in front of your target demographic.

We’ve helped a huge range of companies to create and optimise their ads; from boosting ad engagement for a Yorkshire coastal cottage company whose paid reach had been reduced by Meta, to launching an ad campaign for a tailor which resulted in three big leads in the first week of the publishing – two of which have already measured up and paid for their wedding suits.

In fact, we received an amazing Google review the other week (which prompted this blog), see below:

Keen to find how it all works?

Welcome to our guide on how to optimise social media ads to have them seen by your ideal customer.

Understanding Your Target Demographic: Key Insights

The key to creating successfully optimised social media ads at any level is to know:

your target demographic – who is your buying customer?
what makes them tick?
when and why do they think of buying your product/service?
are there any connected services that your audience maybe showing an interest in?

The above point is crucial, and I’ll demonstrate why with an example from our client, Tailor. With the wedding season approaching and wedding suits being a high-ticket item, we decided to create a series of 'Wedding Suit' ads. Below is how the Meta ad carousel looked.

His target demographic for his wedding suit ad are people who are engaged (have their Facebook relationship status as engaged) to be married, men or ladies as both order tailored trouser suits for weddings from him.

What makes them tick i s that fact they want to look and feel amazing on their wedding day. So, we showed in the ad the client’s clients wedding photos, a mix of gender and age.

When & why do they think of buying a suit – generally it’s a bit closer to the wedding day, so 3-6 months to go, but if they have been looking and planning in other weddings services, like photographers they’ll probably need a suit soon…

What other services are connected that they are showing an interest in? What we mean by this is, if you’re planning a wedding and need a suit, chance are you’ll be looking for venues, following wedding photographers, engaging with wedding cake posts. With Facebook you can select your audience based on selecting interests. So people who have ‘checked in’ or ‘tagged’ Wedding venues into posts, anyone who has ‘liked’ or ‘commented’ on any wedding related posts/adverts, or have recently started following wedding photographers, celebrants, cake shops, wedding florists etc.

If your target demographic doesn’t spring to mind immediately, then have a look at those who are attracted to your business currently; who are you appealing to?

Our tailor is Leeds-based so we also know to target his audience’s location to a mile radius of Leeds and surrounding areas. He also has a lot of business coming from the LGBTQ+ community seeking ladies’ wedding suits for same-sex weddings. So naturally we’ve learnt to include photos of similar clients in their wedding attire across their organic social media posts and also their ads to show it’s something that they offer as an inclusive tailor.

If you are a larger company with a number of different departments, it’s worth asking as many staff as you can about this, especially other client-facing staff to find out any insights into the trends of your customers.

As well as the things you notice yourself, you can collate data of the people who already visited your platforms to help you optimise social media ads; it’s very easy to do this for paid ads in Meta with the aid of a Facebook pixel.

Facebook pixel is a code created in your business Facebook page and it sits on your website and collects data from your web-visitors Facebook profiles. Even if you’re not planning on creating Facebook ads just yet, it’s a great idea to start collecting this data as soon as possible.

I also ask all of my customers to list all the databases they have, and the fields that have been captured, if you have an email address or mobile number for your buying customer base you can use these to create lookalike audiences and direct ads to similar people.

All of the above helps Facebook direct ad’s to warm audiences meaning you spend less time and money to see an immediate effect. As you keep playing with audiences, you and Facebook will start building up a picture of the people who engage and relate to your brand.

This is when you can strategically optimise your social media ads.

Choosing the Right Platforms: Maximising Reach and Engagement

There are lots of platforms out there which you could advertise on, for example LinkedIn and Google ads but, in this blog, we’re talking about how to optimise social media ads on Meta - which comprises Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

This allows you to create one ad campaign which can be showed in a range of formats across those platforms, for example reels, stories, and in your feed. You might already have a good idea of which placement will be most effective for your audience.

But it’s not just about where your ads are placed; we take time to work out what type of ad will work best in each of those places and more of equal importance what ‘call to action’ will work best for them and you, to ensure you get the right outcome that matches your objectives. For example, what button do we use? Do we use ‘LEARN MORE’ and send them to a web page, or DOWNLOAD an informative brochure, or CALL NOW and create a pipeline of calls through to a waiting sales team etc. See below just a few of Meta’s Ad button options:

Learn more
Book now
Download
Sign up
Call now
Shop now
View all
Subscribe
Share
Request a call back
Donate here
Let’s talk

As you can see, there are loads of possibilities and different ways you can engage your audience through to the use of your ads! We just need to make sure it’s the right one and the link that sits behind it entices them to convert into a paying customer.

Crafting a Tailored Ad Strategy: Where to Begin

Once you’ve worked out your target audience, it’s time to tailor your ads to reach them.

Combine your knowledge of your customer base with your understanding of your brand, objectives, and services so you can begin to optimise social media ads!

The content will be driven by what you are wanting to promote/sell, but the media might alter depending on the age range for example, if you audience is younger, they might prefer a video or carousel (as they’ll to flick through the slides), however if your audience is older a static ad will suffice (and probably be cheaper).

You might need to showcase your product being used by the demographic you’re trying to attract but lack the necessary collateral. In this case, consider using User-Generated Content (UGC). UGC includes content such as photos and videos of people using your product or service. Your audience will perceive it as a customer review video, even if it’s a paid or gifted collaboration. This approach makes the content feel more authentic and less like an overly promotional ad. Read more about how to effectively use UGC in our blog here .

At The Thinking Cap we treat ads like mini campaigns; rather than one ad in isolation, you create an ad set within the campaign, and individual ads within the set.

It might sound complex, but it means that you can create a campaign to reach a certain audience, with different ad groups to test what works, that way you can quickly build a picture of what’s going down best.

Once published, your ad will enter a 'learning phase' during which Meta evaluates its engagement performance. Meta provides ongoing suggestions that you can choose to accept or ignore, that may help the ad’s potential.

But don’t be tempted to tweak anything too early, or the learning phase will start all over again. Leave the ad one week before you make any tweaks to let it do its thing, and then only change one thing at a time - otherwise you’ll never know what worked or what didn’t.

Leveraging Data: The Foundation of Strategic Ad Placement

Now that you’ve decided on the format of your ad, Meta will ask you to specify the audience you want to reach.

Without understanding your target demographic, you risk spending money on ineffective ads. As previously recommended, having a Facebook pixel on your website is crucial for optimising social media ads at this stage.

This is where you can apply the insights gathered about your ideal audience. As with any marketing strategy, you’ll have cold, warm, and hot leads. We suggest starting with the quick wins by targeting hot and warm leads first.

Examples of HOT target audiences

The two hottest audiences are the people who have ‘Liked’ your Facebook page and also to your Instagram followers.

Examples of WARM target audiences

A warm audience would be to create a look-a-like audience from a buyer customer list. Facebook take the email addresses and match Facebook profile to similar people and send the ads to them. So even though they may not have heard of your brand you’ll be sure they’ll like it and the ad will resonate with them.

Examples of COLD target audiences

If you have no insights or client data to go on, Meta gives you the option to ‘create’ a cold audience through a series of drop-down, demographic, lifestyle and interest lists. So, play around with what you think and be sure to name the audience appropriately, so you know the difference between your audiences.

Monitoring and Adjusting: The Continuous Cycle of Optimisation

The process to optimise social media ads doesn’t end when you press ‘publish’ – you need to keep a watchful eye on them!

After a week or so once your ads have come out of the learning phase, you can implement some tweaks to improve their engagement, and check back to see if engagement is improving.

We always ensure some form of ad tracking is included at the setup stage, whether that’s the Facebook pixel or our bespoke Google URL link which sits behind your button tracks the click throughs. In a perfect world we would also have access to your Google analytics too.

As well as helping create your ad campaigns, we also create regular reports for you, monitoring your ads and tweaking where needed.

We can use Facebook pixel to set up a long-standing ad which acts as a retargeting service to get back in touch with people who’ve been to your website and left; these are pretty cheap and can be very effective.

Talk to us about how we can help with to optimise social media ads for your business

Hopefully this guide has given you an insight into the world of social media ads and where to get started.

We would love to help you to take the next steps for your company; simply click on our Calendly link to schedule a 30-minute chat about whether Meta ads could work for you.

The Thinking Cap offers a comprehensive service in crafting your ad campaigns as well as monitoring them, all from a friendly small business who want to see your company flourish – so don’t hesitate to get in contact and start to optimise social media ads to reach your ideal customer.

How you can improve your visual communication in marketing your business

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 11:27:34 GMT

How you can improve your visual communication in marketing your business

At The Thinking Cap, we’ve worked with quite a few clients who want our help with their visual communication in marketing.

Many business owners have loads of knowledge of their industry and are pretty tech-savvy; many are even doing most of the elements of their marketing themselves.

But they fall at the final hurdle when it comes to the overall look and feel of their brand, which needs to communicate confidence to their audience.

On paper, you may well have all the bases covered in terms of providing information and a good experience for your clients, but if your visual communication in marketing isn’t coherent and polished, it can undermine all the positive messaging around your branding and product.

The value of visual communication in marketing

You may be wondering whether visual communication in marketing is all that important.

Surely the products speak for themselves…

The problem is that a potential customer will never try the product if the visuals they see don’t show why it’s so good.

People need to be attracted to the brand, the product or service on offer, and the business overall – and in such a visual world, just one quick look at a website completely influences how we perceive a business.

We've all experienced clicking on a seemingly high-quality product listing only to be directed to a website that feels cheap, with inconsistent marketing, leading to a loss of trust and prompting us to seek alternatives elsewhere.

This is why visual communication in marketing is so crucial – whether you’ve thought about how it looks or not, the aesthetic of your marketing is painting a picture of your brand to everyone who looks it up.

55% of brand first impressions are visual , formed by the look and feel of your marketing rather than the words you’ve written.

And those first impressions make or break whether potential customers decide to engage, or to look to your competitors.

How can The Thinking Cap help?

We’re here to help you elevate your visual communication.

We've got a whole range of blogs on topics like how personal brand photography can elevate your social media marketing , and we love offering tailored support for how to improve visual communication in marketing.

Our services vary hugely depending on the needs of each business, so we’ve got a couple of examples to illustrate the sorts of things we can do.

Visual Marketing Communications example 1: Holmeshaw Property Investors

Holmeshaw are a property investment company who experienced huge growth in quite a short time period, which led to them being overwhelmed by the number of leads to follow up on.

The problem was exacerbated by an outdated system which was fully manual and consequently very slow.

For example, when a potential customer requested to ‘Download’ a brochure via a Facebook Ad, the director would send them an email the next working day with the brochure attached.

Despite being rather lengthy, the email itself left a lot of customer questions unanswered and was entirely text-based, so wasn’t visually appealing and didn’t instil confidence in the brand.

We helped Holmeshaw to improve their visual communication in marketing by creating a fantastic Investor Guide brochure, full of graphics and information for future prospects.

It’s available for immediate download, so that the FAQs can be answered straight away and the potential client can quickly build a good impression of Holmeshaw as a company.

Holmeshaw were thrilled with the results; as the Investor Guide helped to speed up their lead-to-conversion rate, build trust in their brand and reduce the need for manual intervention, freeing up the directors’ time.

Below is an example of one of the infographics we created to show how the investors made their profit and the duration...

Visual Marketing Communications example 2: Anchor Bay Holidays

Anchor Bay Holidays came to us asking if we could look at improving, managing and redesigning their Facebook Ads.

They had a very healthy Ad spend of £200 per day but still weren’t getting the results they needed; Facebook had reduced their reach as the adverts were old and hadn’t been altered for a long time.

We revamped the Ads, strengthen their brand, and changed the audience and also dedicated half the time again to optimising the landing page the ads directed the users to. The landing page was cluttered with distracting information and offers that confused potential customers, causing them to leave without making a booking.

We understood the importance of visual communication in marketing. Within a week, we not only created a new set of ads but also redesigned their landing page, providing a clear path for customers to transition from browsing to booking. We are thrilled to report that these changes are yielding remarkable results. The new ad set has earned a high-performing badge within just three weeks of launch, generating 2,530% more clicks than the previous ad did in its lifetime, while also reducing the cost per click by 65% to only 13p.

What does our help with visual communication in marketing look like?

Many companies out there are great all-rounders but lack the creative vision which would bring their visual marketing to the next level.

You can’t be an expert in everything, and for smaller businesses it’s not usually feasible to employ an in-house designer, so bringing in a marketing expert makes all the difference.

Once we’ve created assets and imagery for your brand, we look at everything holistically to work out where else we use the assets in order to streamline our marketing efforts making it all coherent.

Here are the areas where we creatively reused the Holmeshaw Investor Guide once created, ensuring the client gets more value for their money and consistency across their other marketing communications:

Made the Holmeshaw Investor Guide available to download from their Facebook Ads (sole purpose for creating it),
Integrated the Investor Guide into their website for download
Incorporated the Investor Guide into their customer journey within newly automated emails
Linked the Investor Guide to their exhibition stand and business cards through a QR code
Connected the Investor Guide link within their relevant Instagram stories
Made the Investor Guide a feature button with their Linktree profile within their social media bio
Created an email footer design that included a link to the guide download
The list goes on…

At Anchor Bay Holidays, we've made the ad video and imagery accessible for the client to use across their social media channels, drop into their YouTube account, and they've already been uploaded to their third-party backlink listing sites. This elevates their brand across all platforms, ensuring a professional and consistent presence, leaving no aspect untouched!

At The Thinking Cap we think of everything, so that you don’t need to.

Sounds good? Get in touch!

We’d love to see how we can help you to elevate your brand – why not book a chat so that we can get the ball rolling?

We can’t wait to hear from you and help you to see how improving visual communication in marketing will take your business to the next level.

How to keep your social media marketing fresh if you offer one product or service

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 10:20:45 GMT

This is one of the things we are asked the most: how to keep your social media marketing fresh, especially when your company is focused on one product or service?

We all know the value of consistency online, but it can be really difficult to stop your social media feeds from looking ‘samey’ when you’re pushing the same thing each day, whether you’re marketing a dreamy holiday home or your services as a mortgage advisor.

We are here to give you some inspiration on how to keep telling people about that one thing your business does so well… and keep your social media marketing fresh while you do it.

Appeal to your ideal audience

This is really the first step in a lot of marketing; having a mental image of your dream client will allow you to know their needs and demonstrate how your product meets them.

Once you know your audience’s pain points it’ll allow you to create social posts around these issues that they’ll be sure to engage with.

Including polls in these posts or calls to action which encourage them to ‘comment with your experience of…’ will only increase that engagement further and keep your social media marketing fresh.

People love tips and tricks of the trade, so perhaps you could plan ahead to provide a weekly life hack or get on board with the #tiptuesday hashtag which is gaining momentum across most social media platforms.

One way to find out what your current audience want to know from you is by looking internally at the questions and enquiries you get coming up again and again.

By answering your incoming FAQs on your social media you’re bound to engage your audience by giving them the information they’re most keen to hear.

Sharing your social proof from the experiences of past clients

Including reviews (like the one above) from past customers is vital for enhancing trust in your brand. By showcasing feedback from others, prospective customers gain insight into the quality of your service and products, making them more inclined to choose your brand. Moreover, incorporating reviews into your social media strategy adds variety to your content, keeping it engaging and dynamic. These reviews not only highlight the positive experiences others have had with your brand but also underscore the personalised service you offer and what customers appreciate most about it. This transparency and authenticity in sharing others' experiences contribute significantly to building credibility and fostering connections with your audience.

Most social media marketing encourages the audience to look to the present – ‘at the moment you need this product’ or the future – ‘if you have this, your life will be better’.

By sharing reviews and other customer feedback, you expand the range of your social media by helping them to look backwards and see how others’ experience has already been improved by using your products.

If you’re not sure where to find customer feedback for your business, take a look at last month’s blog on using customer feedback in marketing.

Another way that you can use customer feedback to keep your social media fresh is through using UGC – user-generated content.

This is where customers create content themselves which exhibits your product, which you can then re-share on your social media accounts.

UGC is fantastic for building credibility for your brand and will also keep your social media marketing fresh by introducing a different voice – an authentic experience of someone who has benefitted from your services.

We can advise you on using UGC and give practical steps for pursuing this for your business, and if you’d like to read more about the importance of UGC we’ve written about it here.

Behind the scenes insights

Businesses often thrive on a slick social media presence, but this may tip into appearing impersonal, making them more difficult to engage with.

One way to keep your social media marketing fresh is to get multiple staff members involved, introducing your audience to the people behind the business so that they can get to know them.

Depending on your product or service, it could also be appropriate to introduce your pets to your posts.

It’s been shown that including animals in your posts can increase interest and engagement – and who doesn’t love a picture of the office dog?

Share your knowledge of the industry

For many of your audience, you may be the only company in your industry who they’re following.

To keep them engaged and keep your social media marketing fresh you can give them insights into the industry more widely, even if that means talking about a product or service which you don’t provide but is related to what your business does.

For example, if you’re a mortgage advisor perhaps you could make a post on the difference between home insurance and critical illness cover, keeping your audience informed on something which you know is relevant to them.

Or if you’re UK selling holiday homes, you could write about the rise in dog ownership over the pandemic, and the consequent increased need for dog-friendly properties.

We’d also recommend posting about industry-related news which demonstrates that you’re keeping abreast of the latest relevant updates; Google alerts are a really helpful thing to set up, which let you know when there are developments in the areas you’ve asked for alerts on.

Posts about these aligned topics will reassure your audience that you know what you’re talking about and can be trusted with their custom.

Another way to demonstrate your credibility in the industry and help get your name out there is to make sure that you’re engaging with other accounts too.

As much as you’re posting your own content you should be engaging with others’, showing yourself to be present in the industry you’re a part of.

We’d love to help you to keep your social media marketing fresh

At The Thinking Cap we know how tough it can be to keep your social media marketing fresh when you’re posting regularly about the same product or service.

We work with our clients on not only their social media, but their marketing strategies and help them to make the most out of every possible touch point a potential or existing client could have.

We manage the social media marketing for a number of our clients who range from Rainforest Cruises to Yorkshire based tailors! Have a look at our social showreel below where we have showcased a few of our 2023/24 client work.

If you’re keen to take your social media, or any other aspect of your marketing to the next level, we run a POWER HOUR where we can chat openly about where your marketing is at and provide tips and tricks to take away.

It’s all recorded so that you won’t miss a thing, and at just £197 it’s a real bargain for tailored advice which suits the needs of your business.

You can schedule your chat through our website – we can’t wait to help you to keep your social media marketing fresh!

Why using customer feedback in marketing is your new superpower

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 07:50:05 GMT

In the busy world of running a business, there are so many things to keep on top of that it probably seems like madness to suggest that using customer feedback in marketing should be top of your priorities list.

But at The Thinking Cap we believe customer feedback is not only paramount for assessing your company’s success, but that using customer feedback in marketing is your superpower.

The value of using customer feedback in marketing

You’re probably familiar with the role of customer feedback in securing future clients; we all know that sharing reviews and testimonials builds trust with potential customers which helps them to choose you over your competitors.

But what about using feedback internally, to shape and guide your processes as a company?

Implementing customer feedback not only enhances the customer journey and experience, but in turn will also boost your marketing efforts.

Being customer-centric in marketing means prioritising the needs, preferences, and experiences of the people you serve.

In order to do this, we must keep our finger on the pulse of clients’ views and opinions – so paying attention to their feedback is essential to being customer-centric.

There are so many areas which are revolutionised by using customer feedback in marketing, but here are just a few…

Tailoring your message: gaining an understanding of your customers’ views and needs means that you can better pitch your product so that the client understands how you meet their need.
Building relationships: knowing your client base’s viewpoints and sensitivities will give your team a better understanding of how to get alongside them and show your product to be one which serves them well. This is especially true when marketers are equipped to understand and respect diverse viewpoints and cultural sensitivities.
Customising offers and promotions: customer feedback will highlight the aspects of your business that your client base really love. Now you can use that element of your practice as a hook to draw others in, by including it in a promotion or special offer!
Responsive customer service: rather than applying the same customer service styles indefinitely, responding to customer feedback will allow you to shape your approach to meet the needs of your clients – which will hopefully result in even more positive feedback!

Whether you have an entire marketing department, or you’re a business owner who covers everything from accounting to marketing yourself, using customer feedback in marketing is key.

So how can you get hold of it?

Finding your customer feedback

So, you know that you need to be listening to your customers, but where do you start?

Listening to customer feedback means paying attention to all your customer touch points including anything that people (outside of this) are saying about your company.

This may be in the form of:

a review, testimonial, case study research
a complaint,
frequently asked questions (faqs)
live chat feeds
website contact forms
replies to emails
regular questions the sales team are asked

Which ever form it comes in, you need to ensure you have a way of logging/tracking all feedback made no matter the channel.

Is there a pattern to any commonly asked questions? Maybe part of your marketing message or customer journey could be clearer.

Do certain comments crop up multiple times? If so what are they, and how can certain aspects of this part of the business be changed to eliminate the unknown.

It can be difficult to know where to start, so here are some pointers on how to delve into using customer feedback in marketing, whether that feedback is public or private.

Public feedback: checking your online reviews

Customers often share their experiences and feedback on various online review platforms, sometimes without directly informing you, (like on your own Google Review).

Here's a glimpse into lesser-known avenues where Joe Public may voice their opinion about your business:

Yelp: - Generally used for local businesses
Facebook: - If you have a business Facebook page - there is a review tab (if you've not switched it off)
TripAdvisor : - Specialising in Travel, Hotels, Restaurants, Tourist attractions
Amazon : Product reviews
Glassdoor: Where employees review companies, culture, salaries, interview experiences etc.
Trustpilot: Anyone with a FREE account can leave a review for any business
Feefo: You need to have an account and send a 'review invite' to receive reviews on Feefo
Reddit : Not traditionally a review platform, but its where various communities discuss products and services openly
Yellow pages: Any business listed can receive reviews on Yellow pages
OpenTable : Where people review and rate restaurants from reservation to food, dining experience etc,

Start collating your customer feedback, by going to your google reviews, Facebook review tab and any of the above.

All the lovely reviews can be used in your marketing to help you build trust, pop them on your website use them in proposals. Back in October 2022 I wrote an article called, ' Why you need to gather social proof to increase conversions', this is a great read if you're struggle to see why your reviews will help.

I'd also recommend setting up Google Alerts for your business name very easily (click on the link and simply follow the steps provided) and Google will then send you an email each time someone mentions your name online – with a link to the post, article, press release, etc that you have appeared in. It may also be worth creating a Google Alert in your name as well.

Private feedback: sharing information within your company

One of the great things about customer feedback is that once you start to look for it, you’ll realise it’s found at almost every level of the business.

But this can also make it harder to keep track of, as staff members in multiple areas will be receiving it, and it can be difficult to make sure that’s it’s collected so that it can be listened to and acted upon and used.

In larger companies, we recommend touching base with every client-facing department head and making sure there is regular information sharing.

This could involve creating a centralised area for customer feedback, scheduling regular face-to-face check in meetings, including the web team who’ll have access to all the live chat records and submitted contact forms from your website.

However you do it, it’s important that you can have an overview of feedback in whatever format it comes so that you can begin using customer feedback in marketing.

For smaller businesses, it may be a case of taking time to consider each customer interaction and reviewing what was fed back, both explicitly and implicitly, through their contact with you.

Then make sure this information is recorded somewhere so that you can spot the trends over time.

How The Thinking Cap can help you with using customer feedback in your marketing

At The Thinking Cap we know a thing or two about implementing using customer feedback in marketing as well as improving customer experience.

I wrote recently about our work with Holmeshaw Property Investments; through our work together we gained feedback from Holmeshaw’s sales team about how often heard the same questions about the property investment journey when on the phone to their prospective customers.

In response we created this Investor Guide for their clients to download, so that potential customers had access all the facts upfront that they could possibly need to make an informed decision and move down the funnel - previously many had walked away at this point.

This has streamlined their journey hugely and is a prime example of what using customer feedback in marketing looks like.

If you’re interested in more of our expert advice, we believe that our marketing help will bring a fresh perspective to your company (that’s a link to a previous article we published!) Whether this would be partnering with an existing marketing department, or if this is a completely new idea to you.

We’re seeking new clients who want to revolutionise their marketing to improve customer experience and bring in new leads.

If you’d like to talk to us about the areas you’d like to grow this year, we’d love to hear from you.

You can arrange a call back through our calendly link , or alternatively email Lisa directly at lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk – we can’t wait to hear more about your business and help you to take steps forward with using customer feedback in marketing.

Why your business needs a marketing team with creative flair

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 13:34:51 GMT

Why your business needs a marketing team with creative flair

It’s no secret that most marketing is now done online, and many businesses are looking for an external marketing team to help them to see the wood for the trees when it comes to their online presence. My top recommendation is to find yourself a marketing team with creative flair.

But it can be hard to know where to start; what should you look for in a marketing team, and to know when you’ve found it.

Your business needs a marketing team which kn ows the importance of keeping things fresh in terms of communication styles, while making sure that your core message stays stable throughout.

That’s what we mean by creative flair - they need to have their finger on the pulse of what your customers are looking for, know exactly the language they use and be able to adapt their marketing media in engaging ways to reflect this and keep people interested.

At The Thinking Cap we’re committed to getting to know our clients’ entire business – profiling customer buying data and reviewing everything, so that we can choose the areas which can be elevated – and then picking these things up and running with them so that the business can thrive.

We’re a marketing team with creative flair, but not only that, we care about the outcome too.

We want your business to do as well as it can, and as an extension of your team, we work hard to establish natural and easy relationships with all of our clients.

This month we’d love to share two stories of clients we’re currently working with.

These profiles show you what it looks like to work with a marketing team with creative flair and – we hope – will help you to find an external marketing team which can take your business to the next level.

Our work with Holmeshaw Property Investments

Around a year ago, we were approached by Dan and Fraser from Holmeshaw Property Investments, an independently owned property investment company. They wanted help running their social media accounts, but after getting to know us they quickly realised we could offer them much more on top of this.

We assessed their business as a whole and saw a great opportunity to build their brand presence, making their marketing communications more consistent to maintain key messages across all their platforms.

This is the real bonus of a marketing team with creative flair; we were able to see the needs of Holmeshaw Property Investments and offer them a marketing partnership proposal where we now present their brand across a variety of media, keeping things fresh with new ideas so that people don’t get tired of seeing the same thing over and over.

And the results speak for themselves.

We have worked with Holmeshaw to elevate their brand by creating coherent communication, as well as introducing a customer onboarding and nurturing programme and creating an investor guide.

These services allow them to give their customers the care and information they require in a much more efficient way, whilst maintaining contact the whole way through.

And our work in producing branded sales collateral has opened a door for them with a major owner of UK holiday parks, helping them to secure exclusive selling rights.

We’re very proud of the work we have done with Holmeshaw to elevate their business to the stage it’s at, where they’re gaining exclusive deals and commissions, through a brand which communicates trust and high-end service. You can read our Holmeshaw marketing partnership case study here .

The team at Holmeshaw had previously worked with other agencies and not found the right fit but are now advocating our services to other business owners, and we’re currently creating a website for a client who they recommended us to.

"The Thinking Cap have immediately impressed us with their strategic thinking, creativity and expertise. They’ve not only started to improve our online presence, but also enhanced our brand and carefully improved our customer journey. Their holistic approach has had an immediate positive impact and we are thrilled to have them as our marketing partner. Lisa and Martin truly understand our business and we are very much looking forward to a bright future working together. We’re really excited about the possibilities!"

We’re thrilled to be working with them, and we hope that you too will find a marketing team with creative flair to bring your business to the next level.

Our work with Hemingway Tailors

We’re really enjoying our work with Hemingway Tailors, a luxury tailoring company based in Leeds.

We had been referred to them by a mutual connection and began working with them on their social media presence.

A number of months later their founder, Toby, approached us to seek some advice on how to push their gift product, a tailored shirt gift experience , in the run-up to Christmas.

The webpage advertising the gift experience at the time didn’t explain the concept of the offer or how to order one, so unsurprisingly it wasn’t getting much traction and orders weren’t rolling in.

With our help, the webpage was completely redesigned, explaining the offer, the timeframe, and how to order the gift experience – but our help didn’t stop there.

This is where it is so important to use a marketing team with creative flair; our Creative Director, Martin, knew how to pair this new webpage with a campaign which would highlight Hemingway’s fantastic products to a new, younger, audience.

In the same vein as French Connection’s ‘cool as FCUK’ tagline, he came up with a tongue-in-cheek social media campaign by replacing the ‘r’ in shirt with an trade mark R and using some cheeky taglines such as, ‘fed up with the same old shi®t?’ As shown below...

The campaign was a success, giving Toby the confidence to bring in an additional tailor to help out.

It led to a collaboration with an Instagram influencer and has helped to bring in a younger demographic of customers through the real buzz that was created on social media.

The tailored shirt gift experience is also a great ‘gateway purchase’ for prospective customers, who would like to get to know a company by making a smaller purchase before committing to a higher ticket spend like a fully tailored suit.

With so many folks out there having had a positive experience with Hemingway from their gift experience, it will also provide some future custom for the business, who will be at the front of people’s minds when they need a tailor.

We asked Toby what made him choose The Thinking Cap, and this was his response:

“I was referred to Lisa by a mutual friend and I’ve not been disappointed as I got a ‘two for one’ deal with not only Lisa’s great social media experience, but also getting Martin's vast brand creativity experience…and being a Yorkshireman, you always like good value! This collaboration has already proved to be well worth the investment and I’m sure in time will prove to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in business.”

We’re really excited by the campaign, which has truly exceeded all our expectations, and we’re looking forward to seeing what’s next for Hemingway. Click here to read more about our marketing partnership with Toby.

Finding a marketing team with creative flair

Our work with both Holmeshaw and Hemingway demonstrate that The Thinking Cap are able to provide marketing support which suits a huge variety of businesses to help them to get the exposure their company deserves.

It may be that your business already has an in-house marketing team, but you’d like to outsource one element in particular, and this is a great option too; we’ve been working with RISO for over 3 years now, managing their social media to allow their marketing department to focus on the running of events and other key tasks for the company.

We’re able to tailor our support to whatever you need, and we’re on the look-out for new clients who are excited about the new possibilities of what 2024 has to offer for their business. At The Thinking Cap we truly are a marketing team with creative flair, and we’d love to hear from you – contact us today to start a conversation about working together this year.

Social Media Case Study: Hemingway Tailors

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 10:59:31 GMT

Why did Hemingway Tailors contact social media agency, The Thinking Cap?

The Thinking Cap initially started working with Hemingway Tailors as their social media partner, running all the platforms social media and occasional email marketing campaigns.

One of our starting services to our client partners is to provide a content discovery day, where we explore everything about the company, the history, the people, the products and services, including CTAs (call to actions) and lead generator ideas that we can push through the social media posts.

It was during one of these sessions that we discussed with Toby (the owner), the Hemingway Tailored gift experience web-page. He was keen to push their only gift product, ‘Tailored Shirt Gift Experience’, in the run up to Christmas.

How did Hemingway Tailors present the project to you?

Toby wasn’t currently receiving any orders through the gift experience page on the Hemingway Tailors website.

We established that there were a few problems with the web page as it stood. It didn’t provide a clear explanation to customers of what the offer entailed, or what the ordering process was. In addition, it didn’t provide timescales for when customers could expect their tailored shirt to arrive or present the benefits of the gift experience to prospective customers.

We, therefore, had to rethink the whole page – the design, the information it contained, and the hooks, in order to build a campaign around the gift experience.

What was The Thinking Cap’s proposal?

We recognised that convincing a customer to invest in a new suit from an unknown tailor through social media alone could be tough, especially given the high-value nature of the product.

However, one way of achieving the result Toby was aiming for was to feature a product at a lower price point to help him to create those new relationships with customers and build confidence in his products, so he could upsell at a later date.

The ’Tailored Shirt Gift Experience’ was the perfect product to do this.

Our first task was to redesign the webpage to explain exactly what the process was and the timeframe.

We also created a new URL for the page:

https://www.hemingwaytailors.co.uk/pages/tailored-shirt-gift-experience

Martin, our Creative Director, came up with a clever concept which was inspired by the classic FCUK tagline.

With this campaign, we really wanted to help toby to appeal to a new generation, opening up a tailoring experience to a younger audience.

Martin, therefore, created a tongue-in-cheek social media campaign to get everyone talking about the Hemingway Tailors’ brand, by replacing the ‘r’ in shirt with an registered trade mark ® (shi®t), and some cheeky taglines, such as, ‘Fed up with the same old shi®t?’

Although the concept was quite simple, with just the statement, Hemingway Tailors’ logo and CTA of the ‘Tailored Shirt Gift Experience’, the webpage was designed to attract attention from a younger demographic.

What made them choose The Thinking Cap to work with?

We were recommended by another client to work with Toby on his social media platforms.

As a Leeds-based tailor, he wanted to be on LinkedIn so he could target his services to local professionals.

“I was referred to Lisa by a mutual friend and I’ve not been disappointed as I got a ‘two for one’ deal with not only Lisa’s great social media experience, but also getting Martin's vast brand creativity experience…and being a Yorkshireman, you always like good value!

From the moment I met them, I instantly felt that both Lisa and Martin were thoroughly decent people. This has led to a most enjoyable and thought provoking brand building process and collaboration whilst trusting them with my Hemingway, Block Code, and Rainbow Forensic Marker brands.

This collaboration has already proved to be well worth the investment and I’m sure in time will prove to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in business.”

How does Hemingway Tailors feel that the campaign went?

Toby loves working with us, but he especially loved the work we did on this campaign!

Our proposal gave Toby the confidence to approach his friend Matt (former ‘Married at First Sight UK’ participant), who is an Instagram influencer, to discuss the possibility of a collaboration.

Matt loved the campaign and personally wanted to be involved. So much so, that he went through the process himself and was over the moon with his tailored shirt!

We managed the social media campaign for Hemingway Tailors, directing social media reels and other content.

To Toby’s delight, an insurance company bought twenty as Christmas gifts for their staff right at the beginning of the campaign, boosting his confidence in the campaign and his product offering.

Later on in December, Toby appointed a new member of staff, Steve. Started in January, Steve will be Toby's mobile tailor, attending pop-up shops/stands etc.

To help Steve stand out, we’ve designed a variety of banner stands, one showcases the tailored shirt concept, selling it as a safe gender-free corporate gift, which will also help boost the campaigns awareness.

How do you feel the campaign went?

The idea behind the campaign was for Toby to engage with a new, fresh and possibly younger demographic, and we felt that the ‘Tailored Shirt Gift Experience’ provided the ideal opportunity to create a ‘buzz’ around the Hemingway Tailors’ brand, bringing it to a whole new audience.

The whole concept was great fun to work on and the messaging worked extremely well on social media platforms – with both meanings!

We also managed the whole online process, including homepage banner ads, links, social media posts and email newsletters, as well as managing the collaboration process with Matt on Instagram.

We are really pleased that the campaign was such a success, and that people were talking about the Hemingway Tailors’ brand.

In fact, it was so successful that Toby is still pushing the ‘Tailored Shirt Gift Experience’ today. After all , a shi®t is not just for Christmas, is it?

What were the results for Hemingway Tailors?

The campaign went so well that Toby had to appoint another member of staff to help with the extra workload.

The Hemingway Tailors’ brand is now being noticed by a new, younger clientele, by increasing brand awareness on social media platforms.

The involvement of Matt, Instagram Influencer, certainly helped to boost the message as he was so enthusiastic about his tailored shirt experience, and he loved the whole cheeky campaign concept.

The campaign has got legs and is still being used to promote the gift service.

Shirts are worn all year round, so although the fabrics may change with the seasons, the concept is for all seasons!

What were the results for The Thinking Cap as a social media agency trying to stand out?

We were so thrilled when Toby, his clients, his friends and his colleagues came on board with our proposal.

We learned so much ourselves on this campaign about the customisation and posture analysis that has to be taken into consideration when tailoring a bespoke shirt for an individual – we had no idea!

We were really excited by the buzz the campaign created around the Hemingway brand and we are pleased that it has exceeded all our expectations.

We are also proud to show small businesses that you don’t have to have the marketing budget of someone like French Connection (FCUK) to create a brilliantly successful digital/social media campaigns.

At The Thinking Cap, we have the expertise and multi-channel know-how, plus the strategic and campaign knowledge to produce great results for our clients, whatever their budget!

Would they recommend you to others?

Toby has already provided us with a great review (which we mentioned above) and is working with Martin’s creative design service on ideas for his other company.

What’s more, he has already told us that he will happily recommend The Thinking Cap to his wider professional community, and we can’t wait to meet them!

Marketing Partnership Case Study: Holmeshaw Property Investments

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 19:00:40 GMT

Why did Holmeshaw contact The Thinking Cap?

Dan and Fraser, the co-founders, were on the lookout for someone new to manage the company’s social media accounts and after googling and finding The Thinking Cap, they went on to see our LinkedIn posts.

They had previously tried a couple of agencies but found that they weren’t quite the right fit.

Between us The Thinking Cap’s husband and wife team has more than 55 years’ design, strategy, sales and marketing experience, so we know what works and how to do it!

We hit it off straight away and our working relationship was born. We have now just hit the 10th month of working together.

How did Holmeshaw present their business to you?

Holmeshaw, a UK property investment firm, specialises in marketing off-plan developments and fully furnished holiday lets to affluent investors and cash-rich business owners. In order to broaden their reach, they sought to promote their latest listings to a wider audience. Recognising the affluent nature of their clientele, they also aimed to enhance the sophistication and professionalism of their brand image.

The business grew during Covid-19 as people realised the importance of getting away with family on short country breaks, and the UK staycation market boomed as a result. Holmeshaw realised that they needed to both look and act consistently as a high end company for their target audience in order to build trust in their property investments portfolio.

As social media marketing was not in their skillset, they decided to outsource it so they could focus their efforts on growing their business.

At The Thinking Cap, we also saw it as a great opportunity to build their brand presence. Their marketing communications appeared disjointed and inconsistent with a number of different looks, which we felt diluted their brand story. This inconsistency was prevalent across a number of areas - social media, emails, newsletters, Facebook ads, and blogs.

There was no cohesive message and the content lacked focus, undermining the Holmeshaw brand. (This may have been because a number of different companies managed different elements with occasional contributions from both directors.)

How did they feel after contacting you? What made them choose The Thinking Cap to work with?

We all gelled instantly, which definitely helped.

I had met with them previously, but on the last meeting I took my husband Martin with me. Martin’s experience of working with well-known financial brands may have contributed to us winning the work.

We showed Dan and Fraser the work we had done for other clients and offered to conduct a social media audit.

They realised that we knew our stuff and trusted what we were saying. An extra bonus for them was that The Thinking Cap was local, as they knew that they might need someone to visit them and give them a nudge from time to time!

Although they were originally looking for help with social media management, we offered them a marketing partnership proposal.

They appreciated our forward-thinking approach and realised how everything could fit together to help them across other areas of the business.

How do they feel the partnership is going?

Our working relationship is going really well.

We have elevated their brand look and feel as well as helped them to automate systems internally.

For example, we encouraged them to introduce a customer on-boarding and nurturing programme, covering all the bases from initial lead through to sale.

We also created an investor guide packed full of facts, infographics, and FAQs that helped to keep leads warm, reduce questions from prospective clients, and, therefore, speed up the buying process.

How do you feel about the work you have completed for Holmeshaw?

We feel we have worked together to elevate the Holmeshaw brand through integrated and consistent marketing communications and collateral.

We hope to continue to help their brand to grow by creating exciting lead generation campaigns into the new year and beyond.

What were the results for Holmeshaw?

Their Facebook Ads are now refined and on-message.

We created an investor guide that potential investors can access by clicking a ‘download button’ on the adverts, which has really helped them to understand the investor offer. As a result, they are asking fewer questions, and they have trust in Holmeshaw when they follow things up.

The new marketing collateral has, therefore, helped to speed up the lead to conversion process, meaning less administration.

Our work in producing branded sales collateral opened a door for them with a major owner of UK holiday parks, helping them to secure exclusive selling rights.

This would never have happened without the coherent brand building strategy we implemented, all created within the marketing partnership agreement we put forward right at the start. They have gained exclusive deals and higher commissions through hotter, more informed pre-qualified leads.

“ The Thinking Cap have immediately impressed us with their strategic thinking, creativity and expertise. They’ve not only started to improve

our online presence, but also enhanced our brand and carefully improved our customer journey. Their holistic approach has had an immediate positive impact and we are thrilled to have them as our marketing partner. Lisa and Martin truly understand our business and we are very much looking forward to a bright future working together. We’re really excited about the possibilities!"

We also encouraged the founders of Holmeshaw, Dan and Fraser, to be more visual in company messages by putting them in front of the camera and asking them to record short videos when they meet investors or view properties. We made short clips and reels that reinforced their USP as trustworthy, friendly guys who know a lot about property investment. You can see from the Instagram showreel below, how great, factual and professional their social media posts look.

They are now looking into upgrading and investing in new systems for automation as well as expanding their team and moving into bigger premises.

What were the results for The Thinking Cap?

Holmeshaw kept us in the loop and leaned on us for help and advice gained from our years of strategic sales and marketing experience.

We relished seeing our clients grow in confidence and their business become more successful as their brand presence grew stronger.

Would they recommend you to others?

They have provided us with a great review and have already advocated The Thinking Cap services to other business owners.

In fact, we’ve already pitched to one client they recommended us to and creating a website for another.

Creating effective business social media not just fluff!

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 20:32:26 GMT

I keep hearing people mentioning the F-word when it comes to social media!

Fluff!

When they think of social media, their mental image is of endless cat videos, and teenagers sharing their version of the latest dance routine.

So, when you talk about your company’s social media it may be written off as the fluff that their teenager at home could create, but at The Thinking Cap we know that effective business social media is not the same.

Social media channels such as TikTok and Instagram may have a reputation for being fun and, well, social… but this doesn’t mean that they’re not places where businesses thrive – in fact quite the opposite is true.

There are huge opportunities for companies to market themselves to new audiences and play to their strengths using an effective business social media accounts.

If you look at the below video, it's a screen record we took of one of our clients, Antarctica Cruises, Instagram feed. You'll see a healthy mix of reels, animations, videos and static posts showing a wealth of informative facts, articles, stats and locational hooks to all drive traffic to their website, and drive in holiday enquiries/leads. You'.. notice that all posts maintain a strong consistent brand look and feel.

The streng th of effective business social media

The people who think that social media is all fluff have missed the importance of it as a marketing channel.

The fact that social media is a more fun, informal channel gives a unique platform for businesses to show their company culture and show ‘behind the scenes’ insights into the life of the business.

The messaging and the tone of voice used on a company’s social media may well be very different to that which you read on their website or in advertising materials.

But when used well, effective business social media can be an extension of the company’s brand, and often gives much more recent updates and information than their website.

So how can a company use their social media well, and avoid being open to accusations of producing only fluff?

Value vs. fluff

Your business social media needs to weigh up how much of what you produce is bringing value or adding fluff.

Bringing value…

The best way to bring value with effective business social media is to make sure that it is incorporated into a company’s overall digital strategy.

Your digital strategy includes website content, blogs, downloads, landing pages, offers, event management, advertisements… the list goes on.

And your company’s social media will bring value if it’s offering similar content and is integrated with all of the above elements, keeping it relevant and on-brand.

Often a great way to do this is to actually recycle content that has been used elsewhere within the business.

You may have produced a vlog with some ‘top tips’ which could be turned into a social media caption or a section in your company newsletter, whilst short clips from the video footage itself could be used to make a great TikTok video.

Or perhaps a post that performed well earlier this year could be reposted on another platform, adapting it to suit the audience there, so that it brings similar engagement again.

Creating good social media content takes a lot of effort, so don’t feel you need to start from scratch every time but repurpose the good stuff into a new channel.

…and adding some fluff

It may surprise you to hear that at The Thinking Cap we’re not totally anti-fluff.

But what are we actually talking about when we say the word fluff in relation to social media?

By fluff we mean the very informal, often amusing things we see on social media, whether it’s a meme or a video, or an update from someone’s personal life.

Fluff can be frustrating on social media, when your feed is clogged with things that aren’t relevant to you, and that you never thought you’d see when you followed a certain page because you didn’t expect them to post something that wasn’t relevant to their brand.

So why do we think that fluff can still have value?

Because it doesn’t have to be irrelevant and frustrating.

There can be a middle ground where you show the personal side of your company by sharing a funny meme about your industry or a silly video about your product.

But the key is that it can’t be meaningless fluff; it has to be relevant to your company and your brand.

The algorithms which govern social media are often based upon engagement; the more that users engage with your content, the more people it’ll be shown to – and if you’re making them smile, they’re bound to spend longer on your posts and share them.

So, if it takes some fluffy content to get the engagement going, that can only mean good things for people viewing your business more widely – if the fluff that they’ve seen is something that drives them to your company, rather than being completely irrelevant.

You can read more about how to avoid meaningless fluff in our April blog , where we dive into more of the details of how to be strategic with your social media.

The key to knowing the balance of value vs fluff is to use both in the right amounts. It’s all about connecting with your audience, and if sharing a funny video is the way to do this, then go ahead and do it!

How can The Thinking Cap help with effective business social media?

You may have read this article and thought, ‘that’s helpful, but I’m not sure where to start’.

That’s where we come in.

We’re a husband and wife team with years of experience in social media.

We offer a huge range of services to our clients from writing content and spotting social media trends to directing videos and managing exhibition stands.

If it’s anything to do with your content creation and social media, we can help!

Why not take a look at our content workshops, which will help you to manage your online content so that in time your business is able to do this internally?

Or if you’d like to talk to us for help tailored to the specific needs of your company, we’d love to hear from you. Book in a call today and we’ll be delighted to help to you work out the perfect value to fluff ratio for your effective business social media.

Keeping social media social… to make sure your marketing stands out from the crowd

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 10:13:45 GMT

Keeping social media social – why does this need discussion I hear you ask…

Well, do you remember when social media was purely social?

Once upon a time, you could scroll through Facebook or Instagram and only see your friends’ holiday snaps or your Niece’s roast dinner.

But in more recent years, social media has completely changed the marketing landscape, and apps like Instagram have become rich platforms where we can discover new brands and opportunities alongside keeping in touch with friends and family.

Social media is named social media because of its huge ability to bring people together and bring connection in a fractured world.

This means that as well as giving individuals a place to keep in touch with friends and family, social media offers huge opportunities to brands too, who can display their personality and company culture by showing the human side of their company to the world.

And while many companies started using social media in this way, unfortunately we’ve seen usage of it become more and more about hard sales, rather than about building relationships and starting conversations.

It’s all too easy for brands to hide behind slick videos and impressive stories and now with AI entering the scene it’s even more of a risk that companies will lose their voice and individuality by using the one-size-fits-all content which is created.

It's imperative for your company to keep social media social ensuring your brand stays fresh and appealing, standing out from the all-too-similar branded content we see online.

But how can you inject that human touch whilst still maintaining a professional and appealing online presence?

Keeping social media social with UGC

One of the main ways to increase authenticity within your brand is by making use of user-generated content (UGC).

Simply put, UCG is any form of social media content which is created by users and shared on the brand’s platforms.

This may be a review, an unboxing video, a reel showing a product – the key thing is that these are real people, who aren’t being paid to advertise anything (unlike influencer marketing, which is paid) - they’re simply sharing their opinions with their followers.

Why is UGC so powerful?

More and more, when people see something online which looks too polished, they assume that it’s either unattainable for them or it’s fabricated.

Whether the images are genuine or AI-generated, viewers will look at it and think, ‘that’s not something for me’.

Gen Z, in particular, place less trust in brands which appear perfect online, and we need only look to examples like Fyre Festival to understand where they’re coming from – you can project a perfect image online, only to dramatically let people down when the product doesn’t live up to its own hype.

By utilising UGC you show your potential customers that your product is genuine, and that real people are using and enjoying it.

The positive words of other social media users, whether they have a big following or not, often go much further to reassure people about the authenticity and trustworthiness of a brand than any polished company post.

How can I use UGC to make my brand more human?

The brilliant thing about UGC is that it runs on the basis that no money is exchanged for the content, making it available to any company on any budget.

It may involve you asking your customers to review their purchases on their social media platforms, or you could consider gifting your products in return for their posts.

There are a whole range of options available, and I’ve written much more about how you can use UGC here.

Keeping social media social with people and pets

It may sound obvious, but one of the best ways to give your social media the human touch is to include humans in it!

It’s hard to engage with a faceless brand, and users find social media channels much more relatable when there are people shown on their platforms.

As humans we are hard-wired to relate to other living things, rather than stock images next to a slick sales-pitch caption.

For example posts on Instagram that show photos with faces are 38% more likely to receive likes and 32% more likely to receive comments, even after controlling for social network reach and activity.

The researchers went on to investigate whether this positive engagement only applies to certain types of faces, but they found that ‘the number of faces, their age, and gender do not have an effect’.

So don’t feel that you need to have a certain type of look or persona to be showing your face on social media – people want to see you, your team, and the people you serve, whoever they may be.

And as well as human faces, you can also show the human side of your account by showing some non-humans too: pets!

It has been found that across brands of various sizes and spanning many differing industries, including pets in social media posts can increase engagement up to 295%.

Whether it’s an office dog or your own cat, showing an animal on your feed can really drive engagement up by reminding people that there is life behind your account and your brand.

As social media users become more and more tired of seeing similar branded content from countless companies, you can buck the trend by including real people and real pets to cut away from the all-too-perfect social media personas out there.

Learn more about keeping social media social on our new LINGO programme

I’m so excited about our new LINGO programme, coming in 2024, where we teach you how to make your brand’s social media content as accessible and successful as possible.

Following the success of 2023’s programme, from 2024 we’ll be building on this by looking at how to use modern technology to save time on the tasks that can be automated and use that extra time you’ve freed up to keep your social media social and crank up the human in your own marketing.

We want to make our resources accessible to everyone across the world, so our 2024 LINGO programme will be in a downloadable format suitable for users in any country – you won’t miss out, no matter what time zone you’re in!

We can’t wait to have you on board and share more of the wisdom which will help your brand to grow by staying human in 2024. Click here to find out more and sign up to 2024’s LINGO programme.

In a sea of AI-created content and generic branding, why not make 2024 the year where your brand stands out by becoming more human, more relatable, and more authentic to the watching world?

There are loads of places you could start – by investing in UGC, getting involved in our LINGO programme, or simply posting a photo of your face.

But if you’re not sure where to begin and you’d like to talk it over, we would love to chat to you; get in contact today and we can get the ball rolling to make sure you’re keeping your social media social.

How bringing in a marketing team will give your company a fresh perspective

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 17:29:36 GMT

How bringing in a marketing team will give your company a fresh perspective

Many businesses find it difficult to raise their profile, and growing companies in particular may not consider it a viable option to bring in a marketing team, opting instead to manage their marketing strategy themselves.

But it can be overwhelming trying to work out what’s best. Perhaps you’ve heard tips from others in your industry or you’ve been Googling how to approach it all, but you’re not sure where to start.

You already know that your business has something unique and brilliant to offer, but you don’t quite know how to communicate this to the world in a way which will be heard.

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone – and The Thinking Cap can provide a marketing team to suit your business’s needs and budget.

How can The Thinking Cap help?

We’re a husband-wife team with decades of experience in marketing and social media for both small and large businesses across the world, including blue-chip companies such as Barclays and Lloyds, as well as Nike.

But as well as these larger-scale projects, we also offer freelance creative marketing partnerships, often for smaller or growing companies.

You can decide how many days each month you would like our help, and we’ll use that time to manage your marketing strategy and focus on the areas where you’d particularly appreciate a fresh perspective.

Between us we can manage everything from both offline and online marketing to design and strategy.

And what sets us apart from other marketing teams is that we don’t just recommend what’s best for your company, we also implement everything, so you don’t need to learn a whole new skillset and you won’t be surprised by extra costs down the line either.

What would our marketing team’s support look like for your company?

At The Thinking Cap we know that every company is different, and we tailor the work of our marketing team to all sorts of businesses – so our partnerships look different for each of our clients.

There’s a huge range of companies that we currently have freelance creative marketing partnerships with, including a Leeds-based Tailor, two Florida-based cruise companies, and a property investment agency called Holmeshaw.

We have now been working with Holmeshaw for eight months. Originally, we were asked to manage their social media presence, but having established a relationship with their company we quickly realised we’d love to work on a wider marketing strategy for them, starting with expanding and enhancing their brand look and feel.

Since then, our work with them has grown to include

writing and publishing their regular blogs
creating a social media suite of images, animations and messages
refining their lead generation and customer journey
automating their email sequences for Facebook ad leads
writing and distributing their weekly newsletters
creating and designing their unique ‘Honest Investor Guide’ which includes accessible infographics
helping with last-minute exhibition support
create marketing campaigns and awareness pieces

Thanks to our help and support, Holmeshaw now have an online presence which is professional and clear; this has gained them trust with developers, leading to new developer collaborations as a result of our partnership.

Having laid this foundation and established a brilliant working relationship with them, we are now building upon this by working towards a strategic business-to-business campaign which is sure to set them apart from their competitors with its quirky and fun theme, see below.

Flexible approaches tailored to your company

Bringing a marketing team into your business may sound like a huge step, but with our freelance creative marketing partnerships, you set the boundaries of how much you ask us to take on – and this also means it can be tailored to suit your budget.

In fact, working with us in this way means that what we charge as our day rate is what used to be our hourly rate, so you get the same breadth of experience and skills for a fraction of the price.

During our initial consultation with you we will define the specific marketing support which your company would benefit from, and there may just be one or two areas where you’d really appreciate our input to meet your goals.

We’ve put this into practice recently in our work with a local golf club, who gave us the very specific aim of hoping to increase their female membership, as well as giving a general boost to their social media presence.

Despite budgetary restrictions, the flexible approach of our freelance creative marketing partnership means that we’re still able to support them on a consultation basis for either 3, 6 or a 12 months.

Depending on their goal and the length of time we work with our clients it’s always our aim to leave them self-sufficient by the end of this time, achieving this by providing an automated system, training for their department heads and/or creating a cohesive content plan for them.

Once our partnership ends, their marketing should be easier to manage and their staff will be able to manage their content and social media in-house. Leaving us to be on-hand for any larger one-off campaigns/design work where needed.

If you’re interested in being both literate and self-sufficient with your social media and marketing strategy, you should take a look at our content plan training course where you can learn from the experts to create a splash online.

Bring a fresh perspective to your marketing today

Now more than ever, we are swamped by information every day, and your company needs to stand out from the crowd in order for your voice to be heard.

At The Thinking Cap we know how to help your business to rise above the rest, and we’re looking for exciting brands and companies to work with who are ready to take the leap of faith, trusting us to take your company to the next level.

It can feel like a big step even to reach out to a potential marketing team, and perhaps you’re still not sure where to start to revolutionise your online presence, but the good news is that you don’t need to try to work it all out.

Instead, get in contact with The Thinking Cap today and talk to us about where you’d love your company to be, and we can make it happen.

We have experience in supporting both large and small businesses, with a whole variety of different aims, on a range of budgets – and we would be delighted to be the marketing team which takes your company to the next level.

9 common content marketing hurdles every business owner faces…

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 08:02:53 GMT

9 common content marketing hurdles every business owner faces…

If you’re coming across some frustrating content marketing hurdles when trying to generate more leads and business, know this: you’re not alone.

Almost every business owner will face at least one (but usually more) of these common challenges.

Let’s run through what they are – and how to solve them.

What are the challenges in content marketing?

As content marketing spans across a wide array of digital marketing media, including social media platforms, your website and its SEO, paid ads, and more, it’s no wonder that there are so many common content marketing hurdles.

Even though each business owner will have their own challenges that are relevant to their specific situation, there are some that apply to almost anyone. No matter what your business does, don’t feel embarrassed if you fall short of these…

The 9 big content conundrums:

1. Defining your audience

One of the most fundamental elements to successful content marketing is knowing your audience. But even though you may think you know who you’re selling to, many business owners still get this wrong…

And that’s because you’re often developing your business offer or you’re marketing to a growing and changing customer. If you have more than one product or service and relating audience, it’s even harder to nail this completely.

When this is the case, try to focus on your most dominant audience for your main products or services instead of trying to appeal at everybody all at once. You could even focus on one at a time, rotating your marketing efforts in a cyclical motion.

If this resonates with you, read here to know more about why you need an ideal customer persona to create good social media content .

2. Having a clear content strategy

Too many people post on social media, write blog posts, and create other content marketing media without first having an agenda. It can feel like an overwhelming task, but lack of a content strategy means you’re likely to fall at all the other content marketing hurdles along the way, too.

You need to create a content plan that builds in your goals and relates to your audience. Each post should have its own call to action (CTA) and purpose. Which offering does it relate to and what are you trying to achieve?

If you have no content plan, then you are more than likely posting in a scattergun style, and this is no fun to do or to follow and see.

3. Creating compelling content

So, you’ve been posting and creating content… but no one seems to be engaging or replying to you?

It takes time to learn what works with your audience online, and when you add in the never-ending social media updates and algorithm changes, it’s no wonder creating compelling content is another huge content marketing challenge.

Especially if you’re not talented in copywriting or design, and you’re learning as you go.

But that’s ok – here are some resources for you to learn how to create compelling content.

FREE online course – social media content made easy .
Tips for attention-grabbing content on social media

Alternatively, if you need a professional to come in and work with your team to create an engaging content plan and show them how to keep it going, I run content workshops, which can be a great starting point to get all your staff fired up and learn the ropes. You can read more about this service here.

4. Generating ideas

If you’ve struggled with the common content issue of creating compelling posts and media, it might be because you’re feeling stuck with ideas and don’t know how to talk about your business in different ways. Remember, what’s boring or obvious to you is often interesting to your audience, as it’s a sneak peek behind closed doors.

To get some much-needed inspiration, you can buy our digital marketing & social media content ideas notebook on Amazon for £7.19, to view click here.

5. Balancing promotion and value

Maybe the content marketing hurdle that keeps tripping you up is feeling too salesy… it can be difficult to get that balance between promotion and value.

But think about the low percentage of how many of your audience sees those sales posts in relation to your full follower or connection number. Not everyone that follows you will see every post.

Yes, it’s great to give value and share free advice , in fact it's essential in order to grow your audience … But you are running a business, so never feel guilty about selling online. It's all about getting the right balance for you and your audience.

Another thing to note is you may have a good content strategy but there are still times when you need to post off-the-cuff sales posts. Maybe you’ve got an unexpected gap in your diary or you’re launching a new product or service sooner than planned. It’s good to be prepared to sell when you need to.

6. Consistency

I'm sure you'll have you heard the phrase, “Consistency is key”? It applies to so many elements of running a business – content marketing being one of them. When you get busy or feel uninspired (see content marketing hurdle number 4), it can be difficult to keep up with a regular posting schedule.

That’s yet another reason to plan your content in advance, so you never go without frequent posts. When you plan an annual social media content calendar alongside scheduling posts in advance, you don’t lose your consistent habits.

7. Measuring ROI

You’ve been posting but you’re finding it challenging to see what the return on investment is for your time and money. Check out how to analyse social media metrics to create your next plan – it’s all about checking how your marketing is performing against your business goals.

8. Adapting to algorithm changes

If you feel like your content marketing isn’t performing because you find it hard to keep up with algorithm changes, I’ve got a hard pill for you to swallow. You should take no notice… Good content will perform regardless of the algorithm.

If you’re still concerned about social media algorithms, a top tip is to follow a professional and let them do the hard work for you…

Many LinkedIn ‘gurus’ share the summaries to their audiences, so you can see what’s relevant without digging into the updates yourself. Follow influencers that specialise in certain platforms and let them do the hard work for you.

9. Visual and design elements

As we’ve already touched upon, it can be hard to make compelling social media content if you’re not a designer. The Thinking Cap always encourages business owners to use Canva to create free, striking social media graphics.

Get help overcoming your content marketing challenges

At The Thinking Cap, you can get help for all things relating to content and social media.

Working with clients to overcome content marketing hurdles by offering training or delivering regular content marketing and social media management (so we do it all for you!) . Book a call to find out more .

A guide to getting started with LinkedIn Newsletters

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:53:15 GMT

A guide to getting started with LinkedIn Newsletters

When LinkedIn first launched their newsletter feature it was for creators and influencers to distribute long-form content to their followers directly on the platform. But since they started, LinkedIn Newsletters have had a face-lift, and we want to let you know how you can use them for your business… As they’re available for everyone.

What are LinkedIn Newsletters?

According to LinkedIn themselves –

“A LinkedIn newsletter is a regular publication that is sent to your followers' inboxes, a LinkedIn article is a long-form piece of content that is published on your LinkedIn profile, and a LinkedIn post is a short update that is shared on your LinkedIn profile.”

Unlike LinkedIn posts, which are limited in length, LinkedIn Newsletters act more like a regular email newsletter.

This means you can go in depth on certain topics, writing long-form content to educate your audience and showcase your expertise.

Whereas a LinkedIn article is displayed on your public profile, a newsletter is sent straight to your audience’s inbox.

What’s the benefit of sending a regular newsletter on LinkedIn?

Like with an email newsletter, sending a regular LinkedIn newsletter allows your audience to get to know you, forming trust with them over time.

This is great for results and building a habit if you stick to a regular schedule.

You can use your newsletter on LinkedIn to discuss topics relating to your industry, showing off your skills, sharing customer success stories, and being the ‘go-to’ person in your sector.

The more people hear from you, the stronger that bond becomes.

Also, if you’re regularly sharing content on your blog or writing an email newsletter, why wouldn’t you want this to be used to its maximum potential?

The best way to share a blog on LinkedIn isn't in a post dropping in the URL. It would be to practically replicate it on a LinkedIn newsletter and sharing this way. LinkedIn (like all the other platforms) don't like it when you try to move the audience away from the platform so by using an outside link on a post you'll receive a minimum reach, v's a LinkedIn article which keeps the readers on the platform.

Sharing articles and blogs this way on LinkedIn means you’re getting more eyes on your content for minimal extra effort and LinkedIn reward your reach in doing so. Which is a win-win if you ask us.

How do you get people to read your LinkedIn Newsletters?

You get subscribers by inviting your current LinkedIn audience, and when you've created a new newsletter they are notified via email. So every time you publish a new LinkedIn newsletter a notification goes into their notifications (in LinkedIn) and an email is sent to their email inbox, see below...

Most people ignore many of their notifications, so this is a direct line to your audience!

Some people may have turned their notifications off from newsletters – meaning they won’t receive a follow request.

There’s not much you can do about this, unfortunately!

Newsletters from LinkedIn company pages

LinkedIn company pages can also create newsletters, but there are a couple of differences you should know about.

You need to have 150 followers on the page before you can start sending them. However, it would be best to wait until you had nearer the 500 followers mark before publishing your first LinkedIn newsletter.

This is because when you hit publish on your first one, everyone in your network (all 1 ^st connections and followers) will receive an invitation to subscribe – but this only happens once. So, if you wait until you have more followers on your page, you’re more likely to get a bigger number of subscribers to your LinkedIn newsletter.

What makes an engaging newsletter on LinkedIn?

Just like with emails and other content online, you need to make sure it’s going to be interesting, informative, of entertaining for your reader.

How do you do that?

With these key things:

Engaging titles to grab attention from your reader, telling them what to expect in the newsletter.
Mobile-friendly formatting, so no matter where your subscribers are reading from, they get an enjoyable experience.
Use call to actions to get readers to take the next step, such as visiting your website, signing up for an event, or reading more about a service.
Add visuals to your newsletters, and even embed videos, to illustrate your point more clearly and make the content more engaging.

Common LinkedIn newsletter mistakes to avoid

While it’s your space to share what you want with your audience, there are a few ways you’re almost guaranteed to put people off, resulting in people unsubscribing.

These include:

Spammy over-promotion. Yes, it’s good to promote your products or services, but you need to get the balance right by offering value through your newsletter first.
Ignoring comments and engagement. When people take the time to comment or offer you feedback on your content, make sure you reply and take their thoughts on board. This will support building a community – not just broadcasting.
Being inconsistent. Show up with a regular schedule, as readers appreciate consistency.

5 steps to start your regular LinkedIn newsletter

So, now you know what they are, how do you start using them?

Here are 5 helpful steps to get you started:

Decide what your LinkedIn newsletter will be about – what do you want to be known for? Who will it be aimed at?
Think about a clear, descriptive name for your newsletter – don’t try to be overly ‘clever’ with the title, so people know what they’re agreeing to receive. Your title can only be up to 30 characters long (which is pretty short!).
Invite your contacts to subscribe – as mentioned above, you need to invite your audience!
Start writing your LinkedIn newsletters – try to stick to one key topic during each newsletter. Also make sure you’re thinking carefully about using searchable keywords throughout to be easily discovered by potential new subscribers, adding supporting links and images, too.
Keep going with a regular schedule – once you start, keep the momentum, and decide on the frequency. Will you send it once a week, every two weeks, or once a month? When you have this set, put it in your content schedule and stick to it consistently.

When it’s up and running, don’t forget to continuously promote the newsletter. Keep engaging your audience by asking questions and responding to them through the content and you’ll be a success!

Keep testing and measuring, so when you know what works well.

If you need help with fitting your LinkedIn newsletter i nto your content strategy, get in touch with The Thinking Cap. We offer bespoke LinkedIn training, full social media management , or if you just need a hand with content plan, we carry out onsite workshops too!

Tips on how to integrate social media into your marketing strategy

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 14:39:18 GMT

Tips on how to integrate social media into your marketing strategy

Are you wondering how your social media fits in with your wider marketing strategy?

You know you need to be posting on social media, but you’re not sure the best way to approach it.

Don’t worry, we can help.

Although social media can be an effective arm to your marketing strategy, you need to look at the bigger picture to see great results.

What’s the difference between a social media content plan and marketing strategy?

For that, you need a social media content plan and a marketing strategy. Yes, they’re not the same!

So, let’s dig in…

What’s the difference between a social media content plan and marketing strategy?

Before we get into how to integrate social media to your marketing strategy, it’s important to understand the key differences.

While a social media content plan outlines the types of content you’re posting to your audience, a marketing strategy goes into WHY that content will work.

Think of the strategy as the bricks to build foundations, but the content plan is the cement to bring it to life.

A marketing strategy should outline –

How you’re solving customer problems along the buying journey
What your goals are and steps you need to take to reach them
How to approach campaigns to segmented audiences

A content plan should include –

How to turn the problem-solving elements into a compelling story
Different types of content to encourage your audience to engage

Can you see how both elements are important?

Without the strategy, your content won’t pack a punch or help you reach your goals. Your overall marketing effects will be much better when you integrate social media into your wider marketing strategy – instead of thinking about them as separate

Why is your marketing strategy important to social media content?

Many of our clients get in touch with The Thinking Cap for support on specific topics, such as using LinkedIn.

But when we get started, it’s clear there’s no real marketing strategy in place.

When this happens, we love to help clients to develop a strategy, so they can integrate social media with better success.

Often when social media marketing isn’t working, it’s because the business doesn’t have their goals or customer pain points clearly defined. Without this, any messaging won’t stick, and people aren’t likely to engage.

There’s also no use driving traffic to a website that doesn’t work or is confusing. This doesn’t mean you need a new website, a landing page will do in the short-term interim. You just need to make sure everything works in harmony to make social media an effective part of your wider marketing strategy.

How to bring your marketing strategy to life through content

Once you’ve got a solid marketing strategy, you need to bring it to life with a content plan and overall marketing activities.

This could be both online and offline marketing – the way this looks will change for each business.

For example, you might decide to start sharing regular, well-written blog posts to your website. This is a great first step, but it can often lead to needing other areas of marketing.

If you haven’t got a lead magnet or free download to capture the attention of your readers, your blog posts could be less effective as you’re not gaining any new subscribers.

When you decide to create a free download, you also need to create a landing page and an email sequence. For your email sequence to work, you need a CRM system that’s right for the goals you want to achieve.

Quite quickly, you can see how one thing (blog posts) leads to many other things…

Similarly, if you are posting content to your social media platforms, you need to think about the full marketing process and have the correct systems in place.

That’s where we can help.

Repurposing content marketing for social media posts

Another key benefit to creating a more varied marketing strategy is you’ll be able to repurpose any content produced for your social media channels.

Instead of coming up with lots of social media posts on their own, you can create a bank of longer form pillar content to draw from.

Blog posts, email newsletters, and case studies are all brilliant content marketing formats to repurpose into shorter social media posts. You can break down the findings into short, snappy social posts, branded images, or even videos for Instagram Reels or TikTok.

Immediately, you have more content to distribute to your audience, and because it was created with a marketing strategy in mind, you know it’s aligned to your business goals.

Whether that’s driving more traffic to your website by including links, advertising your mailing list to get more email subscribers, or even pushing a specific offer.

Improving customer service and the buyer journey

Something that may not seem obvious when integrating your social media content with your overall marketing strategy is the positive impact it can have on other areas of your business, such as keeping in touch with customers on all levels.

As you’re making your brand more accessible and relatable across social media channels and other marketing platforms, you’re also setting the right expectations.

When customers can see more from your brand, they will understand your value and trust you more.

Many people would rather engage with your brand by signing up via a link without speaking to someone.

Social media gives your customers instant access to you, through comments and messaging. Use it to your advantage to improve the overall buyer’s journey. Find out more about how you can offer social customer service here .

Start integrating social media into your marketing strategy for better results

The Thinking Cap started as a full-service marketing company before pivoting to social media during lockdown.

We have also partnered with Martin at The Artful Dodgers, who has vast experience as a Head of Creative.

Between us, we cover design, strategy, customer experience/journey, campaign building, social media marketing, content planning, print, direct mail and a whole host of other marketing communication services.

We think outside the box and can help you with your wider marketing strategy, help create successful marketing campaigns both online and offline, and also help to regularly implement all marketing tasks.

If you need help to integrate social media into your marketing strategy, please don’t hesitate to get in touch . Alternatively, if you fancy an hours chat to sound us out to see if there is any synergy, we have service called Our Power Hour, it's £197 an can be arranged here .

Guide to using LinkedIn company pages

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 11:36:33 GMT

Guide to using LinkedIn company pages

Are you neglecting your LinkedIn company page? If so, here’s a complete guide to using LinkedIn company pages to get more eyes on your business and generate more brand engagement.

Why are LinkedIn company pages effective?

LinkedIn company pages are there for a reason. And there are many benefits to using your company page, including –

Showcasing your company as a whole – using the voice of the brand
Linking the company page from your website looks more professional
Companies can create different pages for their multiple audiences
External social media managers can easily become an admin
Access measurable performance data and analytics
Increase search rankings on Google and boost SEO
Attract top talent candidates to your company when hiring
Use the live broadcast and newsletter features directly from the page
Get notified when someone mentions your company on LinkedIn
Acts as a landing page for your company to promote specialist services
Use the page as a replacement for traditional PR to promote news/updates
You need to have LinkedIn company pages to set up paid ads (when you have active ads running, there’s an increase of 15-20% on reach and engagement on organic content)

LinkedIn has more than 930 million members , but the number of companies listed is a much lower 63 million. This means that although there are many users, they don’t all have representative or active company pages. So, when you do start using LinkedIn company pages, you’re increasing your chances to reach more people.

Setting up LinkedIn company pages

When you create a LinkedIn company page, you can assign multiple page admins to control the page and post on the company’s behalf. This allows for flexibility, as different people can post and comment.

This also opens the doors to getting support from social media marketers to manage your account, as you don’t need to share your personal password.

There are multiple sections to complete on the profile. Sections such as ‘workplace’ and ‘commitments’ are often overlooked. It’s worth taking the time to complete, as when you fill everything out LinkedIn improves your reach.

You can set up a ‘targeted audience’ for your company page.

This pushes your content to people in specific audiences, such as type of organisation, industry, job title, geography, and language. Completing this means your posts only display in the feeds of people who fit the profile – perfect for specific campaigns or topical posts.

Use multiple admins to invite people to follow your page.

When you get more followers, the number of invitations you can send is refreshed (it’s capped to avoid too many invitations), so it’s worth doing this at regular stages throughout the month.

Encourage people in your team to follow your company page and invite your network, too.

The more internal followers you have, the more employees can boost engagement and display the content to their own audiences. Find out more about using employee advocacy to improve your LinkedIn growth strategy .

Talking of followers, as a company page owner it's sensible to follow other pages as your company page, in order to get noticed.

You can only follow other company pages and not people and you have a limit of a 1,000 pages. Which should be sufficient for any company page.

So why would you follow another company page? Well it's simple. You can keep track of their company posts, engage with them as a company, share their posts to your followers/page and nurture them... for example:

If you follow your customers company page you can support their posts and send encouraging comments their way
If you follow your prospects you can nurture them and show up for them, and engage with their content
Follow associations you are a member of, and share their news and updates to your followers as it will be of interest etc.

I have created a TikTok video, that you can view here that shows people how to follow company pages from a LinkedIn company page.

The key differences between personal and company pages on LinkedIn

According to the 4 ^th Annual Algorithm Report, LinkedIn company pages perform best when you post five times per week, with the top days for engagement being Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Commenting 2-5 times per day increases your reach and engagement by up to 15%.

Having a strategy for commenting on LinkedIn posts and set templates can help staff stay consistent.

Unlike personal pages, when you post multiple times a day on company pages, it doesn’t harm the average reach for previous posts. This allows you to post more frequent content when using LinkedIn company pages without any negative impact.

What should you post on your company page?

Just like all social media marketing, it’s useful to have set content pillars and topics outlined before you start using LinkedIn company pages.

These pillars allow plenty of flexibility and give you the ability to showcase your unique point of view and brand personality.

The best performing content pillars to use on LinkedIn company pages include –

Personal stories – highlight individual employee expertise, your company team building opportunities, and why your business does what it does through personal storytelling content.
Employer branding – focus on the process of working with you, what your company is like behind the scenes, and any open career opportunities.
Social responsibility – explaining how your company deals with sustainability, circularity, equality, and diversity, and supporting your local community.
Thought leadership – in-depth articles, e-books, white papers, and downloads that showcase your company’s expertise and opinions about the industry.
Industry-related posts – discussing any news or updates relevant to your industry from third-party companies, publications, or legal changes, and what it means to your audience.
Event updates and news – promote the attendance or hosting of any events, webinars, courses, or other organised activities people can attend.
Product/service specifics – going into detail about the product/service specifics, including videos, demonstrations, technical information, and reviews.

Using a mixture of these content pillars, alongside different formats of content, will yield the best results.

Images and external links are the most dominant types of content from LinkedIn company pages, but you can also use videos, documents, and text-only post styles.

Newsletters from company pages (like the above) have benefits, as even though the reach can be lower, subscribers receive an email notification. Try sending newsletters from both personal and company pages to be noticed by more people.

You can also publish blog posts from your website to LinkedIn through the article or newsletter features.

Always publish the blog post to your website first, so Google can crawl the page and it then doesn’t negatively impact your rankings.

However, when you post them on LinkedIn, it’s a useful tip to slightly change some of the text or imagery.

Don’t forget to make your social media content accessible , so to not exclude people in your audience.

LinkedIn will always promote individuals first and foremost, as people buy from people.

But hopefully this has shown you using LinkedIn company pages gives you new opportunities to increase brand awareness. Get in touch if you need any additional support using LinkedIn for your business.

Avoid meaningless fluff: a guide to strategic social media content

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 13:59:50 GMT

Avoid meaningless fluff: a guide to strategic social media content

To make strategic social media content, there are important factors to consider. As social platforms are mostly unregulated and you’re free to post what you like (unless you break the guidelines), it can be wide open to meaningless fluff.

That includes social media posts that take up valuable space in people’s newsfeeds and is irrelevant to them. Meaningless content also includes topics that don’t align with your brand values and expertise. Instead of posting anything for the sake of it, focus your social media strategy on your overall goals.

Good social media content takes time.

When you go to the effort of creating social media posts, they need be worthwhile and meaningful. Your business growth will benefit too, if you avoid posting fluffy content. It’s not helping your reputation.

Whether you’re only just getting started on social media or have been posting for a while but not seeing results, you need to evaluate your social media strategy. It can be tempting to post anything and everything to get some level of engagement and be ‘active’.

Our advice is to post social media content strategically to get more visible online, grow your online community, and generate more leads. Period.

Our dozen strategic social media posting tips

Instead of putting something out for the sake of it, always think of the bigger picture
Put your customer first and answer their questions
Make your content solve a problem your audience has
Inspire your audience
Timing is everything, post strategically around certain buying cycles/thought patterns
Encourage conversations to learn more about your followers and connections
Always have your business goals in mind – what’s the reason for posting on social media?
If you are generating a brand awareness post, make it meaningful so your followers connect on an emotional level
If you are trying to reach and grown anew audiences make your posts helpful to them, so they want to come back for more
If its to get bums on seats to an event, make sure you tell them what they'll leave knowing
No matter what your goals are, your social media content needs to align with your potential ideal customer, so take time to understand them
Always include a powerful and relevant call to action (CTA), so they can act.

As I mentioned above all of your call to action 's should line up with your overall business goals and social media strategy.

Here is my quick call to action prompter:

Are you using a CTA to start a conversation?
Is your CTA to encourage direct sales?
Or is it to sign up for a newsletter?
Or maybe to register your interest in an up and coming event?

Avoid jumping on trends or posting about awareness days that mean nothing to your brand, just because everyone else is. By doing this you'll only waste your efforts by planning in social media content that only un-aligns your brand and confuses your audience. Which in turn equals zero engagement, zero trust and zero custom!

Repurposing and distributing content

Social media content takes time and effort – as do all elements of content marketing. So, when you produce content, don’t shy away from repurposing.

For example , you’ve written a company blog post discussing a specific topic, within this blog post, there are helpful tips and advice for your relevant audience sector. Then post your content on your busiest platform first, sharing a snippet to your other platforms with the relevant web link back to the original source. Always driving traffic to your website.

You can also break that blog post down into smaller snippets and take specific sections for individual more strategic social media posts. Or create a LinkedIn company newsletter with it, pushing the article to your LinkedIn audience that might not otherwise come across it on your website.

Any content can be switched and repurposed to become a different format, such as short-form video for TikTok, branded social media graphics for Instagram, topical blogs can become vlogs, or text-only posts for Twitter, the list goes on.

If you're stuck with what piece of content to repurpose, go with the highest performed content over the last 3-6 month window. Use this, slightly altering the content or even repost the same content. Don’t worry about people remembering the post from a couple of months ago – the chances are, they didn’t see it the first time around.

If you find a post getting a bit long then maybe expand on it and create a blog/vlog with it instead. Just go with the flow and don't pressure yourself as this is when the content will lose it's spark.

If you are finding that your content is prompting questions from your audience then this is great. Use these questions as post prompters. This is the best type of content I feel as you are listening to your audience and giving value.

So, a you can see repurposing brings a bigger opportunity to reach the right people and achieve more for your business – without much added effort.

Producing strategic social media content doesn’t have to be from scratch each time. Distributing and repurposing existing content is a win-win.

Inspiration for strategic social media content

Your social media content needs to add something to your audience's day. The hardest part can be thinking about topic ideas…

Here’s an overview of the different things you can cover to make your social media more successful and avoid fluff content . Use content for building your brand reputation, entertaining people, educating your audience, and selling.

Social media content falls under three main categories – growth, nurture, and money content.

Growth content is aimed at attracting new followers.

Helpful tips, free advice, and educational content works well.

Think about people who don’t yet use your services, what questions do they ask?

Provide value to encourage people to follow you for more.

Nurture content keeps existing followers or clients interested.

Share your knowledge, customer success stories, and testimonials.

This content will build trust and make you the ‘go-to’.

This includes personal experience stories from past jobs or projects and even talking about how you upskill yourself.

Money content includes social media posts aimed at selling your services or products, promoting what you do and adding a CTA to get in touch.

Think about calling out your customer pain points and expanding on how you can help to resolve them. If you have done the Growth and Nurture content well people will be prepared to part with some cash for help at this point. So sell every now and again and direct your followers to your cart/shop and let them buy.

Getting the balance between audience building and selling can be tricky on social media. As with all content, it should be actionable, helpful, useful and at the end of the day buy-able. Find out more about different styles in our checklist for successful content .

Content planning workshops for your business

If you need help getting started or to stop winging it, a content planning workshop would be valuable for you and your wider team.

Learn how to grow your business through strategic social media content and never run out of content marketing ideas again.

To book a chat with Lisa to arrange your content planning workshop, simply email lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk or call 07436 223688.

Creating a strategy for commenting on LinkedIn posts

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 12:14:09 GMT

Creating a strategy for commenting o n LinkedIn posts

At The Thinking Cap, much of our social media management and training revolves around using LinkedIn as a platform to generate business enquiries. When used properly, LinkedIn can open many doors. One of the quickest and most effective ways to build relationships is through commenting on LinkedIn posts.

Why you should be commenting on LinkedIn posts

A great LinkedIn comment strategy can build authority in your network. Even shy LinkedIn users who lack confidence to share their own content can get in front of the right people by simply commenting on LinkedIn posts.

Comments are the best form of engagement on LinkedIn. When you leave a comment on another user’s post, it notifies your connections in the feed. But it also gets seen by anyone else who’s following or connected with the original creator. That means if you leave an insightful or valuable comment on someone else’s post, you’re being seen by more people.

If you’re getting started on your LinkedIn journey, commenting on LinkedIn posts can feel far less daunting than sharing your own posts. Responding to other people’s posts is a great way to share an opinion and point of view – without thinking of the topic yourself.

Commenting on LinkedIn posts can accelerate the amount of people the content gets shown to. When people comment on a post in the first hour, it helps the post to perform 20% better as the LinkedIn algorithm sees it as engaging.

Replying to comments on your own posts also helps to increase the post reach, which is why creators with a big following are usually great at responding to comments.

Tips for writing interesting comments

One trap some people fall into is commenting for the sake of it. Don’t do that!

When commenting on LinkedIn posts, it should add something interesting or help continue the conversation.

Here are six tips to help you get started –

Ask the post creator follow-up questions about the topic.
Share how their post made you feel or how it changed your perspective.
If you disagree, explain why (respectfully) and share your own insights.
Tell people another resource or similar example relating to the topic.
Tag another LinkedIn user to encourage them to share their thoughts.
Summarise the post takeaways to show your understanding.

Your aim is to get to know your connections and be seen as a trusted expert. So, you’re either sharing something useful or you’re sparking a conversation to find out more about people.

A few things to consider –

Longer comments, of 12 words or more, perform better than shorter comments.
Commenting on your own posts first harms the reach, however, it can also help to relaunch a post again into the feed by tagging or replying to people hours after publishing.
Always reply to people’s comments on your posts – it's best to do so in the first 90mins after posting, but still good to do even if it’s a day later.
If you have a LinkedIn company page, LinkedIn now allows you to comment in your feed as yourself and easily switch to engage and comment as your business. See how easy it is by watching my 'how to' video below.

You can build great relationships by getting to know your connections through commenting on LinkedIn posts.

Things to avoid when commenting on LinkedIn posts

The common mistake when commenting on LinkedIn is writing vague, boring, or spammy comments. ‘Great post’ or ‘thanks for sharing’ don’t count as useful or interesting comments. Nor do self-promotion comments that don’t add anything to the topic.

Although commenting on your own post is helpful in most cases, you should let others comment first. The algorithm no longer likes the ‘link in comments’ approach.

Writing LinkedIn posts to encourage comments

You need a strategy for creating your posts, too. As our LINGO training explores, you need people to read past the ‘see more’ button. But you also need to consider encouraging comments by writing engaging content.

The best way to encourage comments is to share your content topic and then ask your audience a question. If you’re sharing a story, you could ask if anyone has experienced a similar situation. You can also ask your audience for advice or recommendations, prompting them to share in the comments.

There’s a reason why ‘unpopular opinion’ posts usually perform well – they cause people to respond.

Creating a successful LinkedIn commenting strategy

Now you know some of the best practises for commenting on LinkedIn posts, it’s time to create a strategy.

Ring the bell of your favourite creators ��.

A great way to up your strategy for commenting on LinkedIn is to find creators who share a similar target audience to you. If you ring their notification bell, which can be found on the top right-hand corner of their profile, you will be notified when they post. Try it here by clicking on my profile bell.

You can choose between all posts and top posts. If you comment on their posts soon after it’s published, your comment will be seen by many others. This is great for leveraging the audience of creators with a big following. The more you show up in their comments, the more they’ll recognise you.

Engage daily on LinkedIn

The best way to see results from commenting on LinkedIn posts is to engage with your connections daily. Many people suggest blocking out 15-30 minutes every morning to comment on other people’s posts.

Another great tip if you’re sharing your own LinkedIn content is to do this engagement activity before you publish your own post. It boosts the reach of your content because you’re active beforehand.

Continue the conversation

When you’ve shared an interesting comment and someone replies, use it to continue the conversation in a direct message. It’s a great way to build your relationship. Thank them for their insights and ask them more about themselves.

Or if you’re not yet connected, use it as an opportunity to send a connection request with a personalised note relating to the comment thread.

LinkedIn strategy training for business owners

This guide will hopefully have given you inspiration to start taking commenting on LinkedIn posts seriously and adding them to your daily social media marketing routine. If you need help with your own LinkedIn strategy, the LINGO training is perfect for you , or maybe you need a more bespoke LinkedIn approach , if this is the case simply get in touch for more support on using LinkedIn for your business.

How to use LinkedIn Live

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:43:28 GMT

How to use LinkedIn Live

Many people come to me asking how to use LinkedIn Live, including looking for advice about what software is best to use. Here’s a full guide explaining how to get started making the most of this feature.

What’s a LinkedIn Live?

A LinkedIn Live is a live video stream that goes straight to your audience to watch. They can tune in at any point of the recording and watch it back afterwards.

It gives you a chance to connect with your audience and community in real-time. When people join a livestream, you can see their name and any comments that pop up. This means anyone asking a question can hear a live response, without having to wait.

Your current connections and followers also get a notification alerting them you’re LIVE, attracting more people to join.

Why host a LinkedIn Live?

Hosting a LinkedIn Live can give you valuable insight into what your audience is thinking, feeling, and needing help with. The live notifications also get you to be front of your audience’s mind.

The best livestreams are created to engage with your community. You want to encourage questions and feedback, making users feel more involved.

Your LinkedIn Live format could include –

An interview with another person to discuss an industry-related issue
A live Q&A session, allowing your audience to ask you anything
Share an interesting announcement straight to your audience
Discuss an industry update and what it means for people
Education on a specific topic to help the community
Promote or host an event through LinkedIn Live
Share behind the scenes of your business

Make sure your topic is relevant and interesting for your audience. Have your ideal customer persona in mind when planning a live. Also use this to consider the best time of day to go live. For example, if you’re aiming for women solopreneurs to join, the school run time is best avoided.

What are their pain points? How do you help people? How can you make their life easier? Answering these questions are a great way to start.

How to use LinkedIn Live – the set up

First, you need to check you’re approved to host LinkedIn Lives. It’s a simple list of requirements set by LinkedIn, including –

Having 150 connections or more (to prove you’re active)
Turning creator mode on – read more about the pros and cons of LinkedIn creator mode here
Connecting a third-party video software (more on this below)
If you’re hosting a live on a business page, you must be the page admin.

This means most regular content creators should have access to host a live. The only location currently disabled from hosting a LinkedIn Live is China.

Connecting a third-party video streaming tool

As it’s a video streaming feature not available directly through LinkedIn, you need to connect a third-party tool to record a live.

Certain software partners are supported by LinkedIn, such as Restream, Socialive, StreamYard, Switcher Studio, and Vimeo. See the full list of LinkedIn Live certified partners here . Restream offers a free basic account, suitable for recording a LinkedIn Live.

You can also set up livestreams through Zoom Pro. This is my preferred method, as I already use the Pro features for The Thinking Cap training sessions. This means there are no further outgoing costs to make the most of this LinkedIn feature. A Zoom Pro account (without webinar hosting access) is only £12.99 a month.

If you don’t already have access to a Pro account, nor do you need the upgraded features, have a look at the other third-party software suppliers to find the best option for you.

Planning and promoting your LinkedIn Live

Now you know how to use LinkedIn Live, you can get planning.

Plan your event in advance to give yourself time to promote it to your audience. You can set up a LinkedIn Event and invite your connections along. This notifies people when you send an invite, and it also reminds anyone who clicks to confirm their attendance nearer the time.

Write an engaging title and description. Be clear about the topic, what they’ll get from joining, and how long it will be.

Promote your event through your regular LinkedIn posts. A great way to do this is to add a call to action at the end of your post to tell people to sign up. Read more about great call to actions on social media here .

When thinking about how to use LinkedIn Live, a top tip is don’t plan it out of the blue. By this I mean without first creating other posts and commenting on other people’s posts. You need to have a semi-engaged audience already, or else people will not trust you and give up their valuable time to watch.

Now, jump on and don’t worry about getting your live ‘perfect’.

When your event is running, keep an eye out on the incoming comments and who’s joining. By saying hello to people who’ve tuned in and commented, you’ll keep people more engaged.

Repurpose your LinkedIn Live video

After the event, you have an opportunity to repurpose the video content into smaller content pieces. With a little bit of extra effort, you can make a livestream work harder for you.

If you consider this before you start, you could plan out your LinkedIn live into sections, breaking or pausing at parts to make it easier to edit. Break the video down into smaller, short-form videos. Use a free video editing tool like CapCut for this to post across multiple social media channels.

Write social media posts based on the key takeaways and conversation topics mentioned during the live. These can also be used for social media image graphics and text-only posts to continue to engage with your community.

Remember, even with your best efforts, not everyone will have seen the LinkedIn Live. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t see great results the first time.

Use the live feedback as inspiration to make the next event even better. Ask your community questions on posts to see what people want to discuss. See trending topics and adapt your content to suit.

Create a solid LinkedIn strategy

At The Thinking Cap, we have plenty of resources to help you to create a solid LinkedIn strategy. Our guided live course LINGO is great for business owners to learn how to use LinkedIn effectively to generate business leads, in lunchtimes across only five days.

There are also FREE resources for you to continue learning, such as the content made easy course and how to create Canva graphics to stop the scroll.

If you need personalised support to create your social media strategy or how to use LinkedIn Live , get in touch .

How to make your social media content accessible

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 07:48:56 GMT

How to make your social media content accessible

On a recent LinkedIn post talking about my LINGO course, a connection asked if it went into details about making your social media content accessible. They shared first-hand insights into their issues with partial sight.

This conversation gave me a boost to brush up my skills and update the course, filling in my own knowledge gaps. LINGO now has a bigger focus on accessibility.

Why is it so important to make your content accessible?

In the UK, more than 2 million people have sight loss , either partially or fully. It’s estimated a further 10-11 million are deaf or hard of hearing. There are many other disabilities that make navigating online hard, too.

When your content isn't accessible you risk losing customers, clients, candidates, followers, and connections. You don’t want to alienate a huge portion of your potential customer base by not making your customer journey and social media content accessible.

As well as this, you could face reputational damage and legal penalties in some countries.

You need to learn how to improve your content to provide the best experience for as many people as possible. There are no negatives to making these changes. Making your social media content accessible helps everybody, as the best practises usually improves the experience for people without accessibility issues, too.

Improving accessibility in your content

First off, think about all the potential barriers your customers who have vision impairments or hearing loss could face when they interact with your company. Imagine being in their position – how easy would it be to get the full picture?

Putting yourself in other people’s shoes can help with identifying the steps for improvement. Spot opportunities and make a note of who else is creating accessible content you can take inspiration from.

Alongside the advice to always use clear language and good visual formatting, here are a few specific areas you can optimise your content for accessibility.

Consider these points the next time you share content online.

Screen readers

Screen readers are used by many people, not just those with visual impairments. People who are neurodivergent, have dyslexia, and have cognitive disabilities also use screen readers to help digest information.

It’s important to make sure people who need to use screen readers to access your content can understand the message. You need to include Alt text that describes images and videos.

Emojis ��

Emojis can confuse the message when the description is read out, so they should be used sparingly. Don’t use them instead of words and try to use them at either the beginning or end of sentences instead of the middle.

Contrast checking

It’s also vital to make your social media content accessible by considering using contrasting colours. When colours are not contrasting enough, it’s difficult for people with vision impairments and some forms of dyslexia to read them. The higher the contrast, the more legible things are.

If you’ve been sharing graphic images with very similar tones, this could have been causing difficulties for people. As does pale text on a white background.

The best way to be sure is to use an online contrast checker. The WebAIM contrast checker allows you to put in your colour combinations and it gives you a score for free. It will flag up if your colours are accessible or not, giving you advice on how to improve it. Below is a screenshot of my brand orange with white text . As you can see, a smaller regular font has failed as it doesn't stand out until it's larger and bold or in a white box with black text.

Caption videos

For people who are deaf or hard of hearing, including closed captions on your videos or audio files is a must for making your social media content accessible. Most platforms now have free in-app caption generators, which is great.

You should spend some time checking the captions are accurate, as they can sometimes pick up words and translate them wrong. Edit the phrases before hitting publish, so you can make sure everyone understands the content you share.

Another bonus to adding captions to your videos is it helps people who scroll their social media feeds without sound – hearing impairment or not. 80% of people will be more likely to watch to the end of a video with captions than without. 69% of people turn their sound off in public, and even in private 25% of people watch with no sound – it’s a feature NOT to be missed!

Making hashtags accessible

Hashtags are a great way to add more reach to your social media posts. Use camelCase or PascalCase in your hashtags. Capitalising the words means they’re easier to read – #likeThis or #LikeThis.

Here’s everything you need to know about using hashtags on social media .

Maximise your social media content with LINGO training

The LINGO course goes into more detail about putting this into practise and integrating accessibility to your annual social media content plan .

There are LINGO courses available for individuals and corporates. What’s the difference?

The LINGO LinkedIn coaching programme is run monthly for individuals. It’s a series of live workshops aimed at B2B service providers, sales professionals, solopreneurs, and general business owners. In five days, you learn all the essential skills to start generating business through LinkedIn.

The course itself is accessible, with live workshop sessions, workbook, and Trello board all easy to use.

The LINGO course is also available as a corporate package. Aimed at teams, the training is adapted to coach the individual team members on a common company goal.

In the session, we then spend extra time forming a head start with their content. You can also add on a content planning workshop to make the most of the day! Of course, we would focus on making sure your social media content is accessible.

If your company is looking to make your content more accessible, the corporate LINGO package is a great option. We can evaluate the content you already have and provide training to improve it.

Although The Thinking Cap can train you on making your social media content accessible, it may be worth speaking to an Accessibility Adviser for other elements of your business.

Jamie Shields at Disabled by Society is brilliant and can give you advice on areas for improvement. You can contact him via email: info@disabledbysociety.com or through their website: www.disabledbysociety.com .

Hopefully, you now see the value in making your social media content accessible. Sign up for the LINGO course to get practical advice and learn how to STOP Disabling people online with personalised coaching.

Should I turn on LinkedIn creator mode – yes, or no?

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 15:24:47 GMT

LinkedIn Creator Mode - Yes, or No?

LinkedIn creator mode has been around for a little while already. But people are still unsure whether it’s the right decision for them to turn it on or leave it off. Let’s talk about the key differences and the pros/cons.

What is LinkedIn creator mode?

It’s a profile setting on your LinkedIn profile. The LinkedIn team says it’s a “profile setting that can help you grow your reach and influence on LinkedIn”.

LinkedIn creator mode gives you access to different tools and features on the platform than the original setting (creator mode turned off).

What’s different about creator mode?

When you turn on LinkedIn creator mode, you see some key changes –

1. Your profile call to action is now ‘follow’ instead of ‘connect’

2. Your follower number is visible to everyone

3. You get to feature yourself in five hashtags on your profile (seen under your header)

4. You have the option of adding a 'Featured' section and it's up at the top. This is where you pin your favourite posts and/or articles.

5. Your Activity section is also higher up, detailing your viewer stats which is great social proof as to why someone needs to follow you.

6. You can add a 30-second video to your profile as well as your image

7. Add a direct external link at the top of your profile

8. A ‘+ follow’ button now appears in the top right of every single post you publish, making it easy for users to follow you if they like what they see in one single post!

The creator mode is supposed to push content creators’ posts out to more people and make it easier to gain followers. From the news feed, people can also hit ‘follow’ in one click.

The previous content you’ve shared, including articles and standard posts, are easier to see on LinkedIn creator mode. The featured section ‘pins’ key content to your profile, which can be handy for highlighting posts that represent your business to the best standard.

The new profile video plays automatically when people land on your page. This gives you a chance to build a relationship with new followers quicker and plays on the rise in short-form video content, too. People like to see what you’re like on video – it can help to build trust and show your personality.

Having an external link directly from the top of your profile is a useful tool only available in creator mode. Traditionally, it would be difficult to direct people to your website or to a sign-up page.

Other changes that are less obvious are having access to host a LinkedIn live broadcast and starting a LinkedIn Newsletter.

Defining your goals for LinkedIn

Before we answer the question, ‘should I turn LinkedIn creator mode on?’, it’s important to define what your goals are.

Every business and individual have their own reasons for being on the platform. What’s yours?

Examples could be –

Build a community
Get hired for a job
Hire new employees
Be seen as an authority
Generate business leads
Gain brand awareness
Keep your options open – like why you should use LinkedIn when retired to keep opportunities flowing

When you have a defined goal, using the platform is much easier and more intentional. Spend some time thinking about this first, then define a strategy. Read our guide with 7 steps to creating a LinkedIn content strategy for help in this area. Or sign up to our guided LinkedIn training course, LINGO .

Pro: Grow your following with LinkedIn creator mode

It’s been found that if you publish content at least twice a week on LinkedIn, creator mode is beneficial to growing your following.

LinkedIn also has a cap of 30k connections, which many people reach quickly. If you’re influential, you can still get followers even if you’ve hit your connection limit.

Caveat: people who switched have reported a change in engagement (some for the worse) during the transition period. it’s advised to try it for at least a month to see how the changes impact you long-term.

Pro: Curate your feed easier

Another good benefit of gaining followers instead of connections is that you don’t have to see everyone’s content in your feeds. Connections means each other’s content is shown to both parties. Whereas people can follow you, but if they’re not relevant to your goals and interests, you don’t automatically need to follow them back.

Pro: More control over how content is displayed

As mentioned above, there are more features in LinkedIn creator mode that help to control how your content is viewed. For example, you can curate your featured section. Adding an external link to your website, lead magnet, or email sign-up page also means it’s easier to convert profile visitors to prospective customers.

Your profile video can also be used to encourage a specific call to action and help build a relationship easier. All these things give you more control over how people view you and the first impression you give.

Con: About section less obvious

As the profile settings have changed with LinkedIn creator mode, the about section is now further down your profile. This could be considered a con, as it’s your chance to sell yourself. If you create original, interesting content, the argument is people will judge you based on that and scroll to your about section if they want to find out more. To get around this as a negative - post a video introducing yourself to your new connections and pin it in your 'featured' section. This way if someone who wants to know more doesn't scroll down to your 'about' section they can view your intro instead.

Con: Only useful if you share regular content

With the traditional profile layout, your about section acts like a landing page. This could be the better option if you aren’t posting regular, quality content with a clear message. If people’s first impression comes from a string of infrequent, inconsistent posts, you’ve got less chance of them wanting to follow you.

Summary – should you turn creator mode on?

There is no right answer for whether you should turn LinkedIn creator mode on or leave your profile on the original setting. It comes down to your goals, activity, and personal preference.

If you plan to engage regularly with your audience but not share content as often, you might not see the benefit of creator mode. But if you plan to be found more easily, build a community, and generate brand awareness, it’s worth seeing if creator mode works for you.

The Thinking Cap offers bespoke LinkedIn training and a group programme called LINGO . Both options can define your own strategy and help decide if you should turn LinkedIn creator mode on.

Tips for attention-grabbing content on social media

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 08:26:06 GMT

Tips for attention-grabbing content on social media

There’s so much information posted daily online now that you need attention-grabbing content to stop your audience from scrolling by. Do you need help learning how to get people to read, view, and engage with your social media content?

What makes an engaging social media post?

Firstly, are you spending time on social media yourself and engaging with others? What is it that makes YOU stop?

Although you’re unlikely to fit into your ideal customer profile, you can learn from what interests you. Is it the way they’ve framed their hook/headline? Is it the way they open with a question?

Some of the best social media posts get straight to the point. They tell you straight away what the key lesson or topic is. The posts are easy to read and consider users on mobile.

Identifying what makes other people successful on social media gives you inspiration and you can adapt their format to suit you.

Some ways to create attention-grabbing content include –

Ask a question highlighting your customer’s pain point
Share real results and case study details
Use specific numbers – e.g. 3 tips for… or 7 ways to improve…
Start with an unpopular opinion or controversial statement (if you can back it up)
Ask your audience their thoughts on a particular topic to open a discussion
Talk about a current hot topic that’s trending and add your opinions on it
Explain the answers to your most frequently asked questions
Show your process – people love seeing behind the scenes content
Use bright and bold visuals to stand out in a cluttered news feed
Share the ‘secret’ to success in your industry

To stop the scroll, you need great copy, strong, and visually appealing images, and a clear call to action (CTA). Here are some great CTA examples to help you smash your social media engagement .

Don’t forget your attention-grabbing content needs to be helpful and valuable. Don’t use controversial statements that provide nothing interesting or useful to your audience. That’s classed as click-bait and when people see this it can have a negative impact on your reputation.

Stop blaming the algorithm

Have you been posting social media content but you’re not seeing results?

Stop blaming the algorithm for poor performance posts. There are a few other things you need to consider before even taking the algorithm into consideration.

No matter whether you’re posting in the ‘right’ or ‘recommended’ way people will keep scrolling unless you’re sharing attention-grabbing content. If you’re being dull or corporate in your social media content and not showing personality, your engagement is likely to be low.

Also, if you aren’t spending any time engaging with people in your feed, you won’t be creating lasting business relationships. When you comment, other people see this in their news feeds. Not doing this not only makes it hard to build the know, like, and trust factor, but it also negatively impacts how many people the algorithm pushes your content to.

It’s the difference between shouting into an empty room vs having a discussion around a dinner party table with friends.

It’s your job to test what grabs people’s attention in your industry. If something works well, evaluate why. Then reframe the same topic in a slightly different way, called content repurposing, which can help you test opening lines or images.

Gain loyal customers with attention-grabbing content

Social media content can help to create long-lasting, loyal relationships through a good customer buying process.

Customers generally go through different stages – awareness, interest, desire, action (AIDA). Using the AIDA marketing principle, you can use social media to create awareness and interest with attention-grabbing content. Making the right first impression on social media can mean great success for your brand.

After people get through those first stages, you can create desire with different types of social media content. This could be a free download, a linked resource, or a product review.

User generated content (UGC) is perfect for showing how other real people are using your products or sharing their thoughts on your service. It can be great content for your brand and people respond well to it, as it feels authentic. Read more about the importance of UGC in social media to help you create desire.

When your audience has seen more information and their hesitations have been met, you can then encourage action. People who are invested in your brand and have seen interesting content that makes them stop scrolling will be more likely to trust you and purchase.

In time, you will take prospects from being unaware of your brand to becoming brand advocates – loyal customers who recommend you to others and provide repeat business. That should be your goal from using attention-grabbing contenton social media.

Getting the right people’s attention on social media

Attention-grabbing content that appeals to the masses is not enough. You need to get the attention from the right people, else you won’t grow your business in the right way.

Some people focus on going viral – but that shouldn’t be your aim. Without the right people seeing your posts, you won’t make any more sales. Although high engagement posts help with your brand awareness, you should always tailor your content to your ideal customer .

How to plan your social media content efficiently

To consistently create attention-grabbing content that helps turn people into brand advocates, you need a good system. The Thinking Cap would always recommend you use a social media content calendar to keep on top of your content.

Planning your social media content for the year ahead means you don’t miss key opportunities in the calendar for your brand. It also means you can get ahead of your game by planning 2023 social media content now by creating a consistent, intentional plan.

If you struggle with knowing what type of content you should create and how to make an impact on social media, The Thinking Cap can help with creating your content plan . Get in touch to find out more and start making attention-grabbing content.

Using employee advocacy to improve your LinkedIn growth strategy in 2023

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 08:48:19 GMT

As a business owner, using LinkedIn for your company can help you to grow in 2023. By implementing a plan and encouraging employee advocacy through a LinkedIn growth strategy, you can propel your social media presence this year.

What is a LinkedIn growth strategy?

A LinkedIn growth strategy is a plan you put in place to grow your audience, generate engagement, and gain new business leads. LinkedIn is a fantastic free social media tool, especially for B2B businesses.

The platform has evolved in recent years and now can become a great way to build authority and credible relationships. But without proper guidance or strategy, it could be huge time waster. It’s no longer a platform to simply showcase individuals CVs.

What should be in a LinkedIn growth strategy?

You need to create a plan that includes –

Defining your marketing goals – whether that be gaining leads, getting public speaking opportunities, or fundraising?
Defining your target audience – what are their biggest pain points and how can you solve their problems?
Creating content that appeals to your target audience – what types of content will you share? Text only, videos, images, carousels, and polls are all common LinkedIn content types.
Building your audience – are you connecting with the right people and actively searching for your target audience?
Engaging with your audience – how you will build a relationship with your connections? Once connected, you can now ‘ring the bell’ on people’s profiles to be notified every time they post. This makes engaging with their content easier. Relationships are built in the comments section and DMs in LinkedIn.
Which hashtags are relevant to your marketing goals – find popular industry hashtags and use 3-5 in each post to be found by more people. For a full guide on using hashtags for social media, read this blog post.
How you will evaluate your content performance – you need a way to track whether your goals are being met. You should review your social media data every month to keep on top of your LinkedIn growth strategy. Here’s a guide on how to analyse your social media metrics.

Outline all the above points from a company perspective and start breaking down tasks into your team members. The best LinkedIn growth strategies include not just the business owner, but all staff to create employee advocacy.

What is employee advocacy?

If you’re a business owner, it’s beneficial for you to get your employees and team on board with LinkedIn, too. Don’t think of them building their own personal brands as a threat – see it as an opportunity for building the awareness of your company through their connection base.

Leveraging your employee’s LinkedIn profiles by getting them to share their own content and promote the company’s content is an employee advocacy strategy. Think of your team as an extension of your sales team. In my eyes everyone is there to help promote the company.

Employee advocacy is important because it can build a great brand reputation and form strong relationships, helping to –

Inspire your workforce
Create brand ambassadors
Share emotional stories
Build a trusted community
Showcase brand personality and company culture
Improve your comms
Advocate change
Grow your business
Bring in qualified leads

How to encourage employee advocacy on LinkedIn

Your employees and team members are your biggest company asset. The people in your team all have unique expertise and knowledge within your industry. You’ve hired them because they’re great people and are brilliant at their job.

People buy from people. If you represent a great company culture and your employees show knowledge of your industry on LinkedIn, it will help your business go from strength to strength.

But it can be a challenge to get your employees on board. Maybe they’re not confident in using their social media, or they don’t see it as an important task.

To encourage employee advocacy, you need to educate your employees on the company goals and how using a LinkedIn growth strategy can help get you there. It’s also important to make sure employees have enough time in their schedule to make it a priority – don’t expect people to do it in their own time.

Do this right and your business will be associated with credible experts in their field. Clients may approach your employees directly to start working together. It gives your business a well-rounded approach to LinkedIn – and could help to lighten your workload as a business owner, manager or salesperson.

If you advocate for positive change within your company and highlight the benefits to the company – and the staff members – you can add employee advocacy to your social media marketing strategy.

Learn how to create your personal LinkedIn growth strategy

If you need help creating a personalised LinkedIn growth strategy to encourage employee advocacy within your team, The Thinking Cap can help.

Do you need help with content ideas and how to formulate a social media content calendar? Our content creation workshops would be perfect for you.

Are you just getting started on LinkedIn yourself? Do you want to learn how to maximise your own LinkedIn profile before educating employees? The interactive LINGO course gets you ready to smash LinkedIn within a week or our bespoke LinkedIn training can nail your strategy.

Start encouraging an employee advocacy mindset now to fly through 2023.

Social media scheduling tools could be screwing up your engagement – here’s how to fix it

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:44:41 GMT

Social media scheduling tools could be screwing up your engagement – here’s how to fix it.

Have you been using third-party social media scheduling tools? Did you notice a drop in engagement? Has your audience growth ground to a halt? You’re not alone… using schedulers can screw up your organic reach.

At The Thinking Cap, we believe the negative impact of using social media scheduling tools far outweighs any positives. Let’s explain why in more detail and tell you how you can fix it.

Why social media scheduling tools are popular

It’s no secret that social media scheduling tools are seen as more convenient than posting every day.

There are many popular tools out there, such as Hootsuite, Buffer, CoSchedule, Planable, and Taplio. Used by many marketing teams and business owners alike, they’re sold with the premise of making your social media marketing easier.

When you batch create social media content and work to a social media calendar, having everything scheduled can be a weight off your shoulders.

The dark side of scheduling tools

In theory, social media scheduling tools save you time and make your marketing more efficient. But what people don’t often realise is the negative impact using schedulers can have on your results.

Third-party schedulers –

Don’t offer the full posting options
Remove the human touch
Reduce social interaction

Limited content types through social media scheduling tools

Most third-party tools don’t offer the full range of content types. For example, LinkedIn does not currently support PDF uploads in scheduling tools. They also don’t allow you to post polls.

This could be having a big impact on the results of your content, as you’re not able to take advantage of the popular carousel post feature or ask your audience a question through a poll.

You also cannot post Instagram stories through a social media scheduling tool. Stories are a great way to show behind-the-scenes content and build a personal relationship with your followers.

Most tools also don’t allow you to tag others in posts, which is another a missed opportunity to increase your exposure.

Less engagement on your social media posts

Have you heard of the term ‘post and ghost’ on social media? It’s when someone shares a post but does not spend any time on the platform interacting with others. Every time you schedule a post using a third-party tool, the platform thinks you’re posting and ghosting.

Platforms like LinkedIn penalise users who don’t engage and interact with other connections. To be seen, you need to spend time on the platform commenting on other posts and sending messages to people.

Using a social media scheduling tool means you’ll be losing out on the human interaction before and after your post goes out. That not only makes you less visible in your connections’ news feeds, but it will reduce the amount of people LinkedIn shows your content to.

Humans crave personal interaction . It’s no different online as it is in-person. The law of reciprocity is a strong influential bias that affects most people, without them even realising. People naturally think if you do something nice for me, I’ll do something back.

That means when you comment and like other people’s social media posts, they’re much more likely to support you and your business. People give back when they’ve had interaction and support.

Social media is all about building the know, like, and trust factors. You can’t do that without starting conversations with potential prospects and showing up regularly.

Using social media scheduling tools removes the human element of your profiles and makes it feel like shouting into a void.

Less relevant content by scheduling too far ahead

Another potential downside of scheduling your posts too far ahead is you could have a lack of relevancy to industry news and updates. It’s great to have your social media content calendar planned, but by scheduling so far in advance you could forget to check how relevant the posts still feel.

You’re less likely to notice mistakes and spot new opportunities for live engagement when using social media scheduling tools.

A local marathon was once cancelled on the day yet at lunchtime, when it should have finished, many companies published congratulatory posts!!!!! They’d not unscheduled them and it really showed them up.

What to do instead of using social media scheduling tools

Instead of using third-party social media scheduling tools, here at The Thinking Cap we advocate for planning your content in advance and posting live each time.

You can prepare everything in advance, so each day all you have to do is copy and paste the content to your social media channels. Save everything from image uploads, hashtags, and links ahead of time.

To help your planning, we recommend you create an annual social media calendar and include relevant topical awareness days in the plan.

Then you can use a project management tool like Trello. If you haven’t used this before, here’s our guide on how to use Trello to up your social media game . Set your Trello board up with daily reminders, so you never forget to post!

Tips for making the most of your social media content

Building brand awareness through social media content is more than simply posting good content. When people see you interacting more often, they will begin to trust you and recognise your name.

The time saved using scheduling tools could be beneficial, but is it worth losing out on building an engaged audience? We don’t think so…

On platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram, it’s worth spending 10-15 minutes engaging in your feed before posting your pre-planned content. It will help you to build genuine relationships with your connections and increase your visibility.

Does social media overwhelm you? Need help making the most of your online audience? Get your FREE social media audit to learn what you could be doing better. It will help you to spot new opportunities for growth.

Hit the ground running in the New Year by planning your social media content for 2023 now .

Let’s kick social media scheduling tools to the dirt and start smashing your content goals together. Get in touch if you need tailored help maximising your social media results or 121 support on creating your content plan .

Get ahead of your game by planning 2023 social media content now

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 09:14:28 GMT

It’s nearly the end of the year. Christmas is around the corner. Many of us are tempted to take things easy and come back afresh in January. But December’s a great time to start planning 2023 social media content.

By being active in December, you’ll be ahead of the game come January. There are lots of little steps you can take now that will help you to hit the ground running in 2023. Use this time wisely for a more effective social media strategy next year.

Planning 2023 social media content relating to your business goals

What are your goals for 2023? Do you want to launch new products, add a new service, or build your audience?

The best time to start on those goals is now. Whether you want to reach more people or break into a different audience, planning 2023 social media content around that is a smart move.

Make a list of things you’d like to do in 2023, such as –

Posting more video content
Setting up a TikTok account
Posting regular case studies
Adding influencer marketing
Sharing industry news
Posting regular blogs
Running competitions
Creating your own hashtags
Sharing behind the scenes footage
Talking about an emerging topical subject

Trying new things on social media platforms

Are you wanting to start posting on a new platform?

Maybe you’re smashing it already on Instagram and feel it’s time to branch out to LinkedIn. Or the other way around.

There are many reasons you might want to switch up your social media strategy. Your new product/service could be relevant to a different audience and they’re not active on your current platforms. The changes on Twitter could be driving more of your audience to other platforms…

At the end of the day, social media is about testing what works. It’s also about finding where your audience is hanging out. It may be that things you did earlier in 2022 are no longer showing the same results.

That’s natural. It’s also why we recommend reviewing your social media metrics regularly.

In 2022, where have most of your leads come from? What content performed best? Which platforms worked most effectively?

Make better predictions for the year ahead by reviewing the past year. Knowing this data now can allow you to start planning 2023 social media content intentionally.

Plan an annual social media calendar

Social media can change quickly, but no matter what platform you use, your business can benefit from creating an annual social media calendar .

Alongside topical awareness days , company milestones, and regular social media content plans, you can also list your goals and actions.

Quickly populate your social media calendar by choosing the best content from 2022 and repurposing it . Your audience may have changed and it’s unlikely that people will remember you are using it again. Even if they do, it’s not a bad thing.

Also choose content that didn’t get as much traction as you’d hoped. Can you improve it and repost it? It could be your hook (opening line) needs work. Test things and see if they work better this time around.

Content repurposing ideas include –

Turn videos into shorter clips
Create text posts into branded visuals
Make a video from a carousel post

You’ll find that quickly enough, you have lots of material already for planning 2023 social media content.

Festive fun in December

Throughout December, you can be planning your social media content for next year whilst also being active on your current channels. Everyone loves seeing behind the scenes of offices and teams’ festive fun.

Will your team be wearing festive jumpers? Are you taking your staff out for a celebratory lunch? Will you be playing elf on the shelf in the office?

Take some pictures and post them online.

Are you giving any time or support to a charity for Christmas? Share why on social media.

Taking time to stay active in December will mean it’s easier to come back to work in January and hit the ground running. Stay in people’s minds during December. When others get slacker and stop posting on the run up to Christmas, you’ve got more chance to be noticed.

Schedule social media posts for January

Why not get ahead of yourself and schedule your social media posts for the first couple of weeks in January?

After time off over Christmas, it can be hard to get going on social media again. After a break, future you will thank yourself for not having to think about what to post straight away.

Trello is a great tool for planning social media posts. You can use the boards to visualise the content, alongside setting reminders and uploading documents. Read our guide on Trello here. In January, you can lift these prepopulated social media posts with minimal effort.

There are also free scheduling tools you can use like Buffer or paid for options, such as Hootsuite or Later, if you want multiple accounts.

Professional development during the festive period

Do what you can now to start 2023 with a bang.

We are not advocating you to work on your social media strategy instead of having a Christmas break. But it would be useful to sign up to some online courses or learn from free resources when you have time. Our free training includes creating scroll-stopping graphics and content made easy .

It might be that your last week of December usually is quiet, or you’re an itchy business owner who can’t take more than a few days off. If that’s you, it could be a great time for staying active and learning.

Our live LinkedIn training course LINGO will be running in December. It’s a half an hour session each morning throughout one working week. After, you’ll have the tools to smash LinkedIn and attract your ideal clients.

Why you should use LinkedIn when retired to keep opportunities flowing

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sat, 12 Nov 2022 09:48:32 GMT

Are you retiring from a full-time role soon? Have you worked your whole life to get to where you are in your career, and you don’t want to close the door to all opportunities? Here’s how to use LinkedIn when retired to keep your options open.

Keep your LinkedIn profile active when retiring

You may have decided to retire from your full-time role and plan to not work again. You may be planning your retirement for the near future and feel uncertain about what to do. Either way, it’s wise to keep your LinkedIn profile active.

In a few months’ time, you might find yourself pining for work opportunities to keep your skills sharp. After all, you’re ready for a break but you love your job!

There are some people who never fully retire. It’s not always down to their finances – they love working and keeping themselves busy.

When the time comes (if you haven’t already), there are ways to still sell yourself and use LinkedIn when retired to leave yourself open for new opportunities.

But what kind of opportunities are out there after retirement?

When you’re retired, you might want to take up –

Part-time consultant or advisory positions
Running workshops to teach your skills
Mentoring start-up companies or graduates
Become a Non-Exec Board Member
Speaking opportunities in your industry
Volunteer work or fundraising

After retirement, there are lots of ways you can add value to people who are less experienced than you. Whether that’s for free or paid opportunities, choosing to still use LinkedIn when retired will put you in prime position for exciting opportunities.

How to change your LinkedIn profile when you’ve retired

If you use LinkedIn when retired, you will need to change your profile to reflect your future needs. Adapt your LinkedIn profile like you would for any other job opportunity.

For any LinkedIn user, it’s important to not only put your job title in your LinkedIn headline. For an All-Star LinkedIn profile , you need to clearly communicate the value you have and how you can help others.

Here at The Thinking Cap, we encourage all users to do these things with your headline –

Include keywords that people will search for
Explain what you do and who you work with
Make the benefits you give easy to understand

It’s no different when you’re retired.

You can still explain your key skills and how you plan to help people. You do not need to list the word ‘retired’ at all.

Add a new consultancy role (or similar) to your experience section, elaborating on how you can help people in more detail.

Treat yourself as a freelancer or business owner. It’s up to you to take on the right opportunities that come your way, people don’t need to know how many other clients you work with.

Encourage past employers or clients to leave a LinkedIn recommendation

You can use LinkedIn when retired to leverage your past career skills. Increase your profile’s credibility by asking for a recommendations from people you’ve worked with/for.

It will help you to build trust and authority within your industry. People who land on your profile can see the value you bring, and the nice things people say about you.

Here’s a full guide about how to request LinkedIn recommendations .

What content to share if you use LinkedIn when retired

Keeping your LinkedIn profile active with regular content when you’re retiring can be beneficial. Stay top of mind and become a valued industry leader.

Like with all business owners, telling stories of your experienced makes for great content. It doesn’t matter that you’re now retired – you can still share your learnings and expertise.

Think about examples of –

How you’ve overcome a problem in your industry – what was it and what did you do?
Things you learned over time about your job role – what would you tell your younger self?
Highs/lows of your career journey – did you continue trading through a recession? What was your biggest achievement, or what are you most proud of?
Different job roles you held – how they lead to where you are today?
An influential person/mentor you have learned a lot from – why did they stick in your mind?
Your favourite resources about your industry topics (books, podcasts, YouTube accounts, other LinkedIn profiles, etc.).
Frustrations with common issues in the industry – what would you change?
Why you enjoy your industry topic – what was most interesting to you?

As a semi-retired/retired person on LinkedIn, you can tap into people who are willing to learn from others. Become a strong voice to educate others by talking about your experiences – new and old.

Whenever you have an interesting conversation with someone about your industry, share your views. If the news brings up relevant stories, explain your thoughts.

As with all social media content, try a mixture of different media. By using text-only posts, videos, images, infographics, and any other form of content, you’re able to cater to a wider audience. Test and measure what works – but most importantly, have fun!

LinkedIn training to maximise your opportunities

If you’re planning for retirement or have found yourself looking for part-time consultancy roles but have no experience in this, The Thinking Cap can help.

Our LINGO course will give you the foundations to find the right people, optimise your profile for that audience, and build relationships all through LinkedIn. As a past employee of a company looking for consultancy work as a retiree, this can be a brilliant starting point if you’ve never had to work on a contract basis.

Attend five, live 30-minute group sessions. Learn the basics of approaching people for work and getting yourself in front of the right audience. In just a week of live training, you can use LinkedIn with confidence. Either visit our website for more information or contact me directly.

It’s never too late to start selling yourself on LinkedIn. Even if it’s not for financial gain, there are many ways to use LinkedIn when retired to find great opportunities.

The importance of user-generated content in social media

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sun, 09 Oct 2022 10:28:56 GMT

The importance of user-generated content in social media

User-generated content in social media is on the rise. The chances are, you’ve seen this type of content in your social newsfeeds and across the internet without realising it. Let’s run you through what it is and why it’s important to your social media strategy.

What is user-generated content (UGC)?

User-generated content (UGC) is any form of social media content that’s created by users and shared on the brands platforms. The brand post this content on their own social media channels as a customer review of the product/service. Another term is user-created content.

User-generated content in social media can be images, text, video, or audio across many forms –

Live streams of people using your product
Testimonials and reviews
Transformation reels (such as outfits or make-up)
Product unboxing videos on YouTube and TikTok
Blog posts with their thoughts

The idea is not new – think how long you’ve been able to edit Wikipedia pages or comment on news articles for. Audience participation has been used in marketing for many years now to encourage people wanting to join in on trends.

With the rise in social media marketing, UGC has become even more popular and accessible. It puts real people front-and-centre of the content and grows your word-of-mouth reputation.

Build credibility with authentic social media content

Adding user-generated content in social media strategies is a great way to add authenticity to your brand.

Why is authenticity important?

Recent studies show 90% of consumers say authenticity is a key factor in their buying decision. This statistic is at an all-time high. The same study also finds consumers are 2.4 times more likely to see UGC as authentic.

Using user-generated content in social media will develop a strong sense of trust and credibility, forming better client relationships and loyalty. After all, people buy from people. If you see your friends talking about how great something is, you’re more likely to buy it.

How is UGC different from influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a cash transaction. For an agreed sum, they will create a social media post promoting your products/services to their audience. Influencers have a large following. The number of followers to be considered an influencer is constantly changing for each platform.

With user-generated content, the items may be gifted but often no money is exchanged. It’s also for people with lower followers. UGC can be made by anyone who can use social media platforms to record and edit content. So, if you’re able to make an Instagram reel, a carousel from numerous static photos or a TikTok, you’re able to create UGC!

User-generated content in social media takes up hardly any of your much-needed marketing budget. It’s a cost-effective way to get your brand in front of a bigger audience.

What makes good UGC?

Good UGC is created by people who fall within your target market. You need people to relate to that user in the video or photo. If they can see themselves in the content, they will be curious to take the next step in your customer journey.

If it’s an unrelatable piece of content they can’t connect with, they will keep scrolling without a second thought.

You don’t want your user-generated content in social media posts to come across as fake. Using real people who are going about their everyday lives will work most successfully. Get static photos or video or ideally both of someone using your product or service, mentioning the benefits to them, why they like it etc. If you are worried about the quality of the said photo's maybe hire a photographer. Tim Dunk, a friend, has a really clever way of taking photos remotely via an app through a mobile phone. It's a great way to get a photoshoot done without the concerns of having someone in your home. He can navigate and style the shoot from the other side of the world if need be... read more on how Tim can help you with any UGC style photography .

How do brands apply user-generated content in social media strategies?

There are many ways you can build user-generated content into your social media strategy. When you’re creating your social media calendar , you can add in a focus on gaining UGC. The way you approach this will depend on your business, but let’s look at a few ideas…

UGC for new brands

Reviews are hard to get from customers. To get a catchy, well-structured review that improves your brand image is even harder, especially as a new company.

UGC can help newly formed companies to quickly add an element of social proof and credibility. For example, if you’re launching a new brand that has no pre-existing customer reviews, UGC can be a great choice. You can get a better time and cost return than most other marketing strategies.

Grow a community with UGC

Open an honest conversation line with your customers through user-generated content in social media posts. By sending your target audience products to try and share their experiences, you’re able to get instant feedback from your potential customers.

Even if you’re giving away products for free, it can give you key insight to what your audience thinks. In any marketing, this is gold dust for your messaging.

Encourage user-generated content with prizes or competitions

A great way to encourage people to create UGC is to launch a challenge or competition. It could be a prize-draw to win a certain item of your range or picking a winner of someone who responds to your challenge. Either way, you will create a buzz around your brand and be seen in front of many more people.

You can also create a custom hashtag for the campaign to boost the campaign and give users a place to easily see other people’s posts. Here’s everything you need to know about hashtags for social media.

One thing to remember is when you’re asking for your users and audience to take time out of their day to create UGC, you need to respond. There needs to be an open dialogue between your brand and the users posting content, else it will be one-sided, and people will no longer see the benefit in taking part.

How do I get started with UGC?

Anyone can benefit from UGC to promote their brand. Here at The Thinking Cap, one of our clients was struggling to gain compelling social proof for their social media content. For a new consumer audience (as they sold previously to trade-only) in a competitive field, UGC was a great approach.

If you need help with your social media content strategy, we can help. Get in touch for help finding people to create user-generated content in social media posts for your brand.

Why you need to gather social proof to increase conversions

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 07 Oct 2022 09:43:44 GMT

Why you need to gather social proof to increase conversions

We’ve all been there… asking a customer for a review and hearing crickets. Although it’s hard to gather social proof for your business, it’s an essential task. Here’s our guide to making it easier to get compelling reviews from your happy customers to boost conversions.

Why is getting social proof so important?

Social proof is an effective marketing tactic for many reasons. It helps you to –

Build credibility and trust
Increase brand awareness
Convert leads into customers

Let’s put ourselves into the customer’s shoes. Would you rather buy the product with 200+ positive reviews, or the one with only three?

As a new customer, it’s beneficial to see what other customers have said about the product/service before buying. The classic know, like, and trust element is sped up when you gather social proof.

Social proof and the bandwagon effect

You know when you see someone else with something, and it makes you want it? Or when you see a crowd of people following each other without understanding why?

That’s the bandwagon effect. It’s a cognitive bias that often makes humans follow each other’s behaviour. People can be seen to ignore their own beliefs, which can also be known as herd mentality.

As consumers, we don’t want to miss out on the best option available to us. That’s why we want things more after hearing great reviews from others.

The bandwagon effect highlights the importance of why you should gather social proof. If your brand is seen to be taking the lead in the industry with lots of happy customers, others will follow more easily.

How to successfully gather social proof from customers

There are lots of ways you can ask your past clients for reviews or testimonials. The approach you take to gather social proof will depend on the type of business you run and the customers you serve.

Use an online review platform to gather reviews in one place. Popular options include –

Google (on your business profile on Google Maps)
LinkedIn recommendations
Amazon product reviews
Survey Monkey
Which?
Trustpilot
Feefo

A few of the above come with a cost, and as a small business owner you may prefer to collate your reviews, testimonials and endorsements using the free resources you have for now. Like Google reviews which also helps you with your SEO and LinkedIn, which helps you increase your credability.

Below is an informative video showing you how to ask for a LinkedIn endorsement.

Here are our suggestions about how to ask for a review using different methods.

Manual follow-up

For some businesses, sending a manual follow-up email with a link to your chosen review platform will work best. If you’ve had a close relationship with your customer, you can add in personal notes about how much you’ve enjoyed working together.

Generally, people want to support you if they’ve been happy with your service. Mention how important reviews are to growing your business in your email.

Pick up the phone

Although some people find asking for help on the phone scary, plucking up the courage can be a great way to get people on board with leaving a review.

You can also ask if they’d be willing to talk about their experience with your brand for a case study. Not every person will be comfortable doing so, but you don’t know until you ask!

Ask for a LinkedIn recommendation

If you use LinkedIn as part of your marketing strategy, asking for a LinkedIn recommendation can be a great way to gather social proof on a platform you’re active on.

Having recommendations on your profile will build credibility when you’re connecting with new potential customers and growing your audience. View the video above to find out how to request LinkedIn recommendation.

Use automated software

Platforms like Feefo and Trustpilot offer automations to gather social proof from your customers without you having to do anything. They can access details from online booking requests and digital receipts to send SMS or email messages asking for a review.

Although less personal, it can work for companies that have lots of customers and would otherwise find it difficult to gather social proof.

Printed requests in packaging

For some businesses, you might find adding in a printed review request into your customer parcels a great way to gather social proof. Add in a personal note about who’s packed the order and ask to leave a review.

User-generated content

With any of the methods, you can encourage people to create user-generated content and share it to their socials with gifted products. This is a great cost-effective way to encourage people to talk about your brand online. Read more about how to benefit from user-generated content in social media here.

No matter how you ask for them, be sure to include your positive testimonials across all your online touchpoints, including –

All areas of your website - for example, running along the webpage thats relevant to the review
Landing pages
Email opt-in pages
Social media posts
Newsletters
On product listings
Email footers
LinkedIn profiles
Downloads

How to add social proof to your social media strategy

Now you know how to gather social proof, how do you use it in your social media content?

Social proof can be a great part of your content strategy, nurturing your audience. It covers one of three types of content – nurture, money, and growth.

Nurture content helps existing followers to remain loyal but can also solidify your credibility to new customers. It’s all about building trust so people feel more comfortable buying from you. Check out our checklist for successful content for more information.

You can share the social proof by creating a visual of the review and posting that online. We recommend using Canva to create a branded image , like below. Or if your audience responds well to text-only posts, simply copy and paste your reviews!

I f the testimonial includes lots of detail, pick out the key aspects only. Reviews can often be most impactful when they are short and to the point.

Lastly, if you’ve received great user-generated content with a review as a video or image, share it straight to your feeds. With longer video content, you can even break it down into smaller clips to share.

That should have given you a great starting point on how to gather social proof to increase conversions. If you need more support with your social media strategy, sign up for our LINGO course or get in touch for bespoke training.

7 steps to creating a LinkedIn content strategy

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 08:06:13 GMT

7 steps to creating a LinkedIn content strategy

As you might already know, LinkedIn is a brilliant free social media platform to generate business, form relationships, and become a trusted authority in your industry. But to make those things happen intentionally, you need to know how to create a LinkedIn content strategy.

Continue reading to find out what the 7 steps are and up your LinkedIn game today.

Creating a content strategy using the free version of LinkedIn

There are many LinkedIn strategists out there that encourage you to pay for the premium subscription or sign up for sales navigator. Not me!

This guide only includes things you can do for free because I love helping other business owners to make the most of LinkedIn. Without paying for any extra features, you can learn to generate leads and build a great brand reputation – all by nurturing your audience through content.

By creating a LinkedIn content strategy, you can consistently reach the right people. But where do you start?

Here’s our 7-step process to create a LinkedIn content strategy…

1. Identify your target audience

2. Decide on your content pillars

3. Use a variety of content types

4. Look at your competitors’ profiles

5. Create a social media content calendar

6. Define what success means to you

7. Test, measure, and tweak

Now, let’s run through these in more detail so you can hit the ground running with your LinkedIn content strategy.

1.Identify your target audience

Like with all marketing, you need to know who you’re targeting. Painting a clear picture of your ideal customer is the first step to creating a LinkedIn content strategy. If you’ve not yet done this for your business, you can find out more about why you need an ideal customer persona for social media content here.

2.Decide on your content pillars

What industry are you in and what do you want to be known for? Your content pillars are the key themes that should run through all your LinkedIn content. Choose 3-5 topics that relate to your industry, products, services, job title, and personal interests that you can talk about easily.

Deciding on content pillars makes it easy to identify whether your content aligns with your LinkedIn content strategy and means you won’t run out of things to talk about.

3.Use a variety of content types

To cater for the different types of people within your audience, try using a mixture of content types. This will help your content to appeal to a wider range of potential customers. For example, some people like to consume content in text-only, others prefer video or images. All social media platform algorithms prefer you use a mix of post types too.

No matter which type of content you’re using, you should always make sure your content is accessible. That means any videos have subtitles (or captions), images have alt text, and you’re using images with a good contrast level.

If you’re new to posting on social media, this part could take some time to test. If you’ve already been producing social media content for other platforms or blog posts for your website, you will have a head start. See which content types get the best engagement from your audience.

4.Look at your competitors’ profiles

Identify some key leaders within your industry and look at their profiles. What are they doing well? What areas are they missing the mark on?

Seeing the content they’re producing and who’s engaging with it will give you an insight into what works and also allows you to spot opportunities to do things differently.

5.Create a social media content calendar

A key part of making your LinkedIn strategy work is being organised and staying consistent with posting. By creating a social media content calendar, you can plan the content ahead of time and create a bank of content to look back on.

You can include topical awareness days within your content calendar and plan around key dates and seasons. If you’ve never created one before, read our guide on how to create an effective social media content calendar .

6.Define what success means to you

When you’re outlining a LinkedIn content strategy, you need to know what you’re looking to achieve. What are your goals for using LinkedIn?

Is it simply to generate new business leads? Are you looking for strategic partner relationships? Maybe you’re looking to build authority within your industry and get invited as a podcast guest , or get bums on seats to an event?

No matter what your goals are, setting these targets gives you something to focus on.

7.Test, measure, and tweak

Now you need to evaluate the goals you set for yourself and keep them in mind throughout your LinkedIn content strategy. By testing different content types, different messaging and tone of voice styles, you should learn what works best.

Depending on what your goals are, it may be which content got the most engagement, gained the most followers from, or opened the door to new opportunities. Take some time to review your goals and results regularly, analysing what worked and spotting opportunities. Learn more about how to analyse your social media metrics and tweak your content.

Create a LinkedIn content strategy with The Thinking Cap

If reading all this has fried your brain or you’d rather work with someone on a personalised LinkedIn strategy, we can help. The Thinking Cap has an interactive course called LINGO to teach you everything you need to know about using LinkedIn to get great results.

Unlike many courses out there, LINGO guides you through the whole journey of using LinkedIn to generate business – with maintenance checks and regular services, too! Get practical advice from a LinkedIn expert and accountability sessions to keep you on track.

Together, we can create a LinkedIn strategy that suits your business goals. We run through what to say, how to say it, and how to make it look professional using the free tool Canva. Get the confidence to create a targeted LinkedIn content strategy that will get you great results. Read more about the LINGO course here or click here and jump into my diary and arrange a free, no-obligation call to see how the LinkedIn training could help you.

Creating content plans in a guided session from The Thinking Cap

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 17:57:50 GMT

Creating content plans in a guided session from The Thinking Cap

Content marketing is now at the heart of most businesses. It’s like spreading your seeds into various plant beds to see which ones take. The timing and conditions must be right for your seed – or prospective customer – to transform. Creating content plans is like planning and tracking which seeds grew best. Next year, your crops will flourish because you’ve taken the time to test what works.

When you understand the principles behind creating good social media content, and already know what your audience responds to, what’s next?

It can be hard to take all that information and make it useful to you. That’s where content plans come in – it’s the perfect way to organise your full content marketing efforts into a cohesive system.

Even when you have a good understanding of creating valuable content, including generating ideas and posting different types of media, it’s hard to manage without a content plan. You also have previous content you know you should be repurposing. But how do you go about creating content plans that generate customers for your business?

What to include in your content plans

When creating content plans, it’s looking at more than your social media posts. It includes your full sales funnel, such as any of the following already in place –

blog posts
case studies
lead magnets
how-to videos
free downloads
email newsletters
product/personal branding photos

Customers are looking to be nurtured online and consumer behaviour has changed since the pandemic. Many people check out businesses social media profiles before Googling them, and so a good online presence and solid content marketing plan has never been more important.

If you’d like to know more about content plans, we have plenty of resources available to help you. Look at our guides on how to create effective social media calendars and creative content marketing ideas for 2022 .

Guided sessions to create and maximise your yearly content plan

It’s difficult to sit down and spend time creating content plans, let alone doing them well – that’s why The Thinking Cap now offers guided sessions to run you through the process.

In the guided content plan sessions, you will come away with a FULL year’s worth of content ideas and a structure to make your plan work for you. Creating content plans means you’ll always have a reference point for you or your team – meaning no more staring into space waiting for inspiration to hit!

What’s included in the guided content planning sessions?

To create a successful content plan, you need to be aware of your businesses’ full content marketing presence and outline how it all works together. That way we can start using the full picture to inform our decisions.

First, we create content pillars that cover the whole range of your products/services. This means that you’ll have a consistent topical interest throughout your brand, no matter which area you’re promoting.

Then we make the distinction between your different products/services and their intended audiences. If that’s one clear sector, you will have one content plan. The bigger your company’s offering and audience, the more comprehensive you’ll need to be when creating content plans that are easy to follow. If you have recently changed the way you operate, you may need to spend longer on defining these aspects to suit your new audience.

Once you have the basics of your content plan and strategy outlined, the specific details will follow.

In the guided sessions for creating content plans, we –

List out the different call to actions (CTAs) you need to get people to sign up/get in touch/begin their customer journey with you. This gives you a checklist to make sure you include a good range throughout your content.
Create a short template that includes your contact information, such as your social media handle, your phone numbers and email addresses, and how people should get in touch from each platform. Having this to hand will save you so much time later down the line.
Outline the relevant posting styles for you and how you will use them. Think about the platforms you are using and the best types of content for those, as well as how the audience engages.
Set a clear brand message by using a consistent tone of voice. Have guidelines that explain which words to use and which to avoid, what tone to take, and other suggested phrases that show your personality and ethos.
Write out all the customer problems you solve, what their main concerns are, and your frequently asked questions. This will give you a reminder to make sure your content is being helpful and answering these points.
Look into your team’s different skill sets and explore how each team member can contribute to your content plan. That way it’s not all on one person and you’ll get the best results possible using people’s strengths.

When you write social media posts, it’s important to think about which graphics, videos, or supporting media goes alongside each one. As a big f an of using Canva to become your own social media graphic designer , we run through this on the guided sessions. You’ll learn how you can use Canva as a tool to design your own on-brand images and videos.

Testing and measuring your social media content results will help you to focus on what’s working – and scrap what’s not. The Thinking Cap can help you to evaluate this and look at your overall marketing performance.

Creating content plans to level up your marketing

You might feel like you need more understanding on how to use LinkedIn for promoting your business before creating content plans. If that’s the case, then the LINGO course is for you. After completing LINGO, many people have wanted to take their knowledge one step further, and strike whilst the iron is hot, by signing up for the guided content plan sessions.

If you’re ready to sign up for The Thinking Cap’s guided sessions and start creating content plans for your business, book a free 15-minute, no-obligation call with Lisa .

How to get a consistent voice when outsourcing your social media content

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 17:37:06 GMT

How to get a consistent voice when outsourcing your social media content

When you work for yourself, it can be hard to think about outsourcing your social media content to someone else.

It might feel like they’ll never be able to sound like you and share posts that are authentic to who you are. Many solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and small business owners feel the same…

It’s a catch 22 situation when you run your own business and don’t get help – you need the help, but because you can’t let go of the tasks and want to do it yourself, you ultimately don’t have time. That’s when your social media content drops off the wagon and looms over you as something you know you should be doing.

So, how does outsourcing your social media content work when you have a strong brand personality and industry expertise? It’s impossible, right? Not at all…

Here’s why handing over your social media content may be easier – and more rewarding – than you think.

Benefits of outsourcing your social media content

For social media content to be successful, whether outsourced or not, it needs to feel authentic to your business and brand voice. A consistent message across different platforms is needed to attract more customers to you, showing your expertise and building trust.

Outsourcing your social media content to the right person means you –

Keep your current audience engaged
Build authority as an industry expert
Grow your followers/connections
Don’t miss out on key trends
Target the right people
Bring in new leads, organically!
Take time off!

Social media marketing is hard to get right.

Content needs to have a tight strategy and good storytelling to be successful. It’s not always about sales, it’s also about responding to trends and topical news. You need to test what works and spot how to make improvements. Most importantly, you need to be consistent…

An experienced social media manager can take this off your hands and get you great results.

By choosing to outsource, you can spend more time on the money-making business activities that make you great. Whether that’s project work, developing new products, or any other business development, investing in outsourcing your social media content will give you the chance to move your business forwards. Start working ON the business, rather than in it.

Find the right social media manager for you

Like with many business relationships, finding the right social media manager comes down to connection and trust. To feel like you can hand over your business reins to someone, you need to feel understood and believe they can represent you properly.

Find someone who GETS you. A good social media manager will take the time to ask questions and really get to know you. This includes your business story, your personality, your ideal customers, and the goals you want to achieve with your social media content.

Look out for these traits in a social media manager –

G reat communication – do they come across well and are easy to understand?
Experience and industry knowledge – have they managed accounts before?
Creativity – can they think of interesting content ideas that fit your brand?
Flexibility – are they willing to adapt their approach to suit your business?
Personality – do you get on with them on a personal level?

It’s important to consider these before hiring a social media manager to outsource your social media content to.

Don’t make the mistake of choosing the cheapest option. The popular phrases “pay peanuts, get monkeys” or “buy cheap, buy twice” are often used in the marketing world, meaning it pays to invest in someone who can deliver quality work. Using inexperienced social media managers can harm your brand’s reputation and costs you more long-term…

It may take time to find the RIGHT person, but once you do, outsourcing your social media content will feel like a weight off your shoulders. Stop worrying about not using social media enough and never think about updating profiles again.

How social media outsourcing works with The Thinking Cap

With social media content, it should not be a one-size-fits-all approach. Some social media agencies deliver lots of content, but it’s not targeted to the right audience or in line with your brand voice and values.

At The Thinking Cap, we take a personalised approach. Taking into consideration your unique personality, your business offering, your target audience, and your values, you get a partner in crime that supports you towards your goals.

Working with small business owners, we understand the need for clear communication and trust. The personal relationship with clients means The Thinking Cap get great results for you. Two heads are better than one – stop letting your content ideas die from neglect.

Nothing is ever posted without your approval, so you still get eyes on your content and changes are made when needed. But as the posts are all written in line with your tone of voice and style, the pressure is off you to come up with new ideas and constantly deliver.

Your social media content schedule will be created to suit you, too. When you have nuggets of inspiration or a personal story to share, you still have the freedom to post yourself or share them for us to post on your behalf. The Thinking Cap specialises in formulating content optimised to get social media working for you.

Outsource your social media content for personal or company pages, or both. Depending on what works for your business, we can curate a content plan and schedule to suit.

Level up your social media content

Maximise your audience reach by working with a social media expert like The Thinking Cap.

If you are not quite ready to outsource, check out our guided course for business owners, LINGO. It helps you to make the most of your social media on LinkedIn, with practical advice and content templates so you can get started straight away.

Grow your business faster by outsourcing your social media content. Find out more about our social media manager services by booking a free discovery call with Lisa.

A practical guide to using social media in recruitment

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 13:27:30 GMT

A practical guide to using social media in recruitment

U sing social media in recruitment has become standard to extend the reach of job vacancies and look for suitable candidates online. It gives you a direct line to people and makes qualifying roles easier and quicker.

Unfortunately, some recruiters on social media platforms such as LinkedIn can get a bad rep. This happens when recruitment companies use the platform in the wrong way. You often see complaints when recruiters are hounding people with impersonal messages. Another problem is employers feel their best talent could be approached.

But there is a right way to use social media in recruitment!

We don’t want you to be a recruitment company people shy away from, so here’s a practical guide to make the most out of your social platforms by building credibility in your industry. For help creating genuine relationships and delivering a quality service, read on…

Example social media content for recruiters

Ultimately, recruitment companies, like you, are there to develop strong teams to help businesses to scale. Growing the business and being more profitable comes down to having the right people in place – and it’s your job to get that right. The best way to approach using social media as a recruiter is to showcase the value you add to client businesses’ growth.

There are different types of content you can share as a recruitment company to your social media platforms to maximise your success.

Growth content – presenting yourself as an industry expert by giving away free information to increase your audience
Nurture content – building relationships by explaining your process and sharing testimonials to get your audience to know, like, and trust you
Money content – persuading people to take the next step in working with you

Ideally, you want to use a mixture of these three social media content types to cover different aspects of your business, your values, and how you help people. Target all your social media content to your ideal client profile.

Covering these topics in a 40/40/20 split (respectively) will build authority, trust, and credibility within your network. It opens a dialogue with your connections/followers and gives you an opportunity to create meaningful business relationships.

Growth content examples for social media in recruitment

Think of this as sharing your thoughts on industry news, showcasing your expert recruitment knowledge, and giving away handy tips. The free advice should be useful to your ideal client and answer their key pain points.

Examples would include sharing tip sheets about how you can ease your growing client’s recruitment gaps. List top recommendations for attracting great recruitment candidates. When businesses are expanding and need help with recruitment, explain the process of how this works.

Discuss your point of view about how industry-related news affects your audience and ideal client base. This could include topical conversations around how the ‘big resignation’ affects companies and how you advise they deal with it. Share how you feel about popular industry trends and respond to what other experts are saying in their social media content.

This social media content can also be used to encourage downloading a free industry-related lead magnet and creating a funnel to capture your prospect’s data for email marketing.

Nurture content examples for social media in recruitment

This type of social media content is meant to nurture your existing audience to build credibility. For social media in recruitment, use this to share success stories. Showing your audience reviews, customer case studies, and testimonials of how you’ve helped grow a client’s team.

Use the nurture content to show your personality and tell personal stories. Explain why your background makes you a great recruitment company to work with. Share personal stories from favourite moments in your career. Tell your audience what your hobbies/interests outside of work are. Be friendly and don’t be afraid to show your personality!

Money content examples for social media in recruitment

The term money content is not simply for direct sales, but more to nudge people to find out more about working together. Your money content should encourage connections to enter your funnel.

Example call to actions (CTA) in your social media include –

Talk to our team
Book a discovery call
Get a free quote today

After these events take place, you can take them outside of the social media platform to your database or CRM. This means you can reach out and nurture them until they’re ready to engage your services.

Engaging on other people’s social media content

Sometimes, it can be hard to know where to start when it comes to engaging with others. As a recruiter, you can connect with a variety of people and see a broad range of posts in your feed. So, how do you know which ones to interact with?

When commenting and liking social media posts, it’s an opportunity to showcase your knowledge and personality. Engage with anything that resonates with you – whether that’s to do with your industry, values, location, services, or customer pain points.

Not every comment has to be related to the recruitment industry. Show support to people in your network and they’ll notice your profile, being inclined to reciprocate kind words. If you read a personal story you can relate to, share your perspective.

Be careful to offer a balanced viewpoint and avoid any strong political or religious topics. Staying neutral on some subjects will make sure you’re not offending anyone in your network.

FACT: Did you know admin of your company LinkedIn page can now engage as themselves and also as the company - in their home feed? By doing both you can get your recruitment company name out there in front of more people in a more conversational way.

Watch my video here to see how easy it is.

Using LinkedIn as a recruiter

LinkedIn is by far the best way to use social media in recruitment. First create an All-Star profile and start posting content to build a personal brand and be yourself on LinkedIn. Then post regular growth, nurture, and money content, tailored to your target client and your success rates are guaranteed to rise.

Hopefully, using social media in recruitment feels less daunting now! For people who want personalised support using LinkedIn, The Thinking Cap’s new course LINGO is perfect for you.

Why you should be building a personal brand and be more human on social media

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 19:52:42 GMT

Why you should be building a personal brand and be more human on social media.

Creating relationships online takes time. When posting only sales content on your social media platforms, people aren’t getting a chance to make that vital connection with you as a human. That’s where building a personal brand comes in…

A personal brand is defined as a conscious effort to create a public perception of an individual by positioning themselves as an authority in the industry.

It helps to build credibility, likeability, and trust with their audience. Building a personal brand can advance your career and business opportunities, as you’re differentiating yourself from your competition.

Content tailored to your personal brand can and does –

Increase your engagement and following
Speed up the know, like, and trust process
Create more loyal connections/followers
Help your company to stand out from the competition
Influence individuals buying decisions by showing real people

Simply put, there are many positives to having a strong personal brand. The only downside is it can be hard to know where to start. That’s where we come in…

Tips on building a personal brand through social media content

Your audience will be more likely to buy from you if you present yourself as an interesting person they can relate to, instead of a boring person with nothing in common. The phrase ‘be more human’ is used a lot for this very reason.

How you choose to share your story will be personal to you. There are some aspects you’ll be happy discussing, and others you may want to keep private – that’s perfectly normal.

A good way to begin is to create a list of 3-5 content pillars you want to be known for and are comfortable talking about in conversations. At least two should be relevant to your industry, and the others can be hobbies/interests that make you who you are.

Once you have your content pillars and topics outlined, creating the rest of your social media content based on your personal experiences will be easy.

Here are some starting points for what to share to build your personal brand –

·Share your back story – talk about how you got to where you are today, and lessons learned along the way. People are nosey and love stories!
Re-introduce yourself to your new connections – don’t assume they know everything about you yet. A video can work well to introduce yourself ( see my recent example here ).
Talk about relevant industry topics – be honest if you have opinions or niggles about certain things. We’d recommend avoiding any strong views on politics or religion, though.
Share examples of things your industry is doing well – praising competitors can work in your favour, so explain why you liked their product/ad/content.
Post behind the scenes photos or videos of you working – people love to see what happens before the finished product. Share you and your team prepping for events, meetings, developing new products/courses, and new office updates.
Ask your audience’s advice on something you’re working on – opening yourself up to receive feedback can not only help with product/service development, but also shows you’re human.
Share brand photography of yourself so people recognise your face – if you haven’t already, get some new photos taken that are not too corpor ate. Read more about how personal brand photography can elevate your social media marketing.
Open a Q&A session for your connections – let people ask their burning questions and share answers from your team members.
Start a podcast or live video series – create interview opportunities with guests and showcase your industry knowledge.
Raise money or volunteer for charities that are close to your heart – explain why the cause is important and what you’re doing to help. Share fundraising progress, the run-up to any events, and any sponsorship opportunities.
Use topical awareness days to create fun campaigns – read more about why it’s great to use topical awareness days and how to create good social media content from them.

You will find your own perfect mix of content when building a personal brand that feels right to you.

Remember that social media platforms are controlled by an algorithm, so you should be mindful to share a mix of content types. Try photos, videos, text-only, PDF files (also known as carousels on LinkedIn), or GIFs/animations (multiple static images together). See what media works best for you and how your audience responds to it.

Don’t worry if it doesn’t feel like it’s ‘working’ straight away – creating good social media content takes some trial and error, as does finding out about your audience. It’s a long-term strategy that works best when you’re consistent… learning how to analyse your social media metrics means you can improve your future content plans.

Another helpful tip is to make your content accessible for all. Add alt-text to image files (a description of what’s happening for people with vision impairments) and captions to videos (for people who are watching without sound or have hearing difficulties).

Be more human in your social media content - DO YOU!

Overall, the most important thing is to be honest. Stay true to your company and personal values when building a personal brand, and you’ll attract the right kinds of people. If you’re part of a team, encourage others to do the same.

Don’t forget to share your sense of humour. If there’s something that’s a little bit silly but you’d happily say it to clients in real life, don’t stop yourself from posting it on social media. Share your team members’ personalities and quirks, too!

People buy from people and social media at its core is made to build meaningful connections. Having a focused approach to building a personal brand is simply a tool to make your efforts more effective. That way, you’ll be presented with more relevant business opportunities and propel yourself as an industry leader quicker.

For more personal support on building a personal brand and using LinkedIn to generate business opportunities, check out my NEW course ‘ LINGO’ . It takes just 30 minutes, for five days to turn your opinion of, and success on, LinkedIn around with LINGO .

Don't just take my word for it, here are a few recent LINGO reviews

Launching new LINGO course – using LinkedIn for generating business

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 10:22:42 GMT

It’s certainly no secret that I’m a BIG fan of LinkedIn and what it can do for your business. The potential to land new customers and put yourself in front of opportunities is like no other. As a business owner myself, I know what it’s like to feel lost with where to start on LinkedIn for generating business…

That’s why I’m launching a new course, LINGO.

LINGO is perfect for anyone working as a B2B service provider, is a Solopreneur or a just gone alone after leaving the corporate world.

After many trials and errors, I’ve discovered what works on LinkedIn to effectively generate leads and new valuable connections –

Produce relevant and interesting content to attract your ideal customers
Create eye-catching visuals to complement your posts using Canva
Build your engagement levels and create a community
Post authentically to your personality type
Build a network of trusted connections
Increase your brand awareness
Connect with the right people
Spot referral opportunities

The new course – LINGO – is made to help you get going on LinkedIn for generating business.

How is learning to use LinkedIn going to benefit you and your business?

If your current LinkedIn profile still reflects a stagnant CV and you never post anything, you’re missing out on a huge range of potential opportunities.

By using LinkedIn well, you can build your brand awareness (whether that be your personal or business brand), generate leads, promote your business, and be seen by a whole array of people you would struggle to reach off the platform. In short, LinkedIn can generate sales and build strong business relationships unlike any other social media channel.

Plus, 50% of what you learn on this course relating to LinkedIn can be transferred across different social media platforms.

Start using LinkedIn for generating business

The NEW course LINGO is for people who know they could be doing more on LinkedIn, but don’t know where – or how – to start.

Many LinkedIn trainers provide a one-size-fits-all approach to their courses. That’s not what this course is... LINGO is tailored to give you a strategy on LinkedIn for generating business in a way that feels right for you.

Depending on your personality type, personal interests, and industry, you’ll want to approach your LinkedIn content differently. An extrovert who’s happy to share the ins and outs of their daily life will have a different content strategy to an introvert who is more reserved.

That’s what makes this training so effective – you will come away with a content plan and tips that suit YOU. Make sure you feel comfortable to post and interact on LinkedIn authentically.

Having promoted myself on LinkedIn since the very start of my own business over 12 years ago , I have lots of knowledge to pass on. I’ll teach you how to not only start generating genuine business leads, but to ENJOY it too.

Creating content should be fun and feel true to who you are… when people feel forced to create something that’s not aligned with their own personality or brand, it shows. The best content on LinkedIn is where you can tell people are being themselves and are enjoying the process along the way.

How does the LINGO programme work?

It’s split into five LIVE sessions across one week. Every morning, 8:30-9am Monday to Friday, we have a quick-fire coaching session targeted to using LinkedIn for generating business.

Before the course starts, you will receive some preparation materials.

1. Get a high-quality printed workbook to guide you through the week’s training.

2. Answer an online personality questionnaire so we can learn more about you and tweak the deliverables around your own style.

And after each day, you’ll get an email covering the key points discussed and useful resources to help deepen your understanding of the LinkedIn training.

On the last day, there’s a Q&A session immediately after the final coaching session for any burning questions you still have… but don’t worry if you can’t stay for the whole thing, the Q&A will be recorded for you to watch back.

In the space of a week, you’ll have the knowledge and practical advice you need to start hitting LinkedIn properly, along with –

Pre-populated Trello board for organising your social content (find out how using Trello for social media can up your content game here )
A physical workbook to guide you through your training
Recommended further reading and handy resources
Canva design templates for you to adapt and use (find out more about using Canva to become your own social media graphic designer here )
Example written templates for connection requests.

It really is a comprehensive guide to using LinkedIn for generating business.

Why choose Lisa at The Thinking Cap to deliver your LinkedIn training?

As already mentioned, I’ve been using LinkedIn for myself for years now, with great success. When my business changed to focus on social media, I started teaching LinkedIn masterclasses for other business owners and since then have been delivering regular sessions.

Don’t just take my word for it, here are a few reviews from my LINGO customers –

If this has made you think about how you need to be improving your use of LinkedIn for generating business, you can sign up to the LINGO course for only £249.

LINGO is live and is run the third week of every month. To read more or to book your place, simply click here.

The Thinking Cap have found their charity partner

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sun, 29 May 2022 17:22:51 GMT

Our charity partner is, Yorkshire's Brain Tumour Charity .

It's nice to have found a charity partner with meaning. Yorkshire's Brain Tumour Charity is right for us on so many levels.

My dad passed via a brain tumour,
It's an amazing charity that does awesome work,
It's in Yorkshire, and
Nicki the philanthropy and partnerships manager is the most lovely person.

Lisa, the founder of The Thinking Cap decided to get involved with the Headingley based charity a few months back following a networking 121 in a coffee shop.

"After dropping a few donations off at the shop Nicki and I popped for a coffee and started to talk about our businesses. There was an instant friendship spark and I just wanted to help Nicki and the charity increase their monthly donations"

A few conversations later and we have created and launched the Business Connections Club .

We are inviting at least 200 Yorkshire business owners to give something back to a Yorkshire charity, and to get involved.

This could be because they themselves have recovered from a brain tumour, or the illness may have affected family, friends, or employees or that they have a Yorkshire connection.

How can I get involved in the YBTC Business Connections Club?

Business owners who want to get involved can complete a direct debit form for £25, or more, per month. Alternatively, companies can give a one-off annual donation of a minimum amount of £300.

In addition to making positive connections in the community, below are some of the benefits:

Laboratory tours at hospitals to see current research
Discounts on YBTC event tickets
Social media coverage
Backlinks to their website
Members’ networking events
Ongoing fundraising tips – fun ideas for staff involvement

So what will the donations go towards?

100% of these monthly donations fund counselling or support people who have recently had a diagnosis, and help those living with a tumour or people affected by treatment. For example:

A lady near the end of her life couldn’t walk her dogs and was afraid she’d lose them. YBTC paid for a dog walker to look after them in her home, feeding and walking them so they could stay with her until the end.
A young boy with a brain tumour desperately wanted to see a particular football match, so YBTC paid for tickets and transportation (both ways) for the family.
A mother of four with a brain tumour couldn’t afford a desperately needed new washing machine because the illness prevented her from working. YBTC stepped in and bought her the new machine.

As well as counselling and practical help, YBTC also funds brain tumour research in three hospitals: St James’ in Leeds, Hull University Hospital and Sheffield University Hospital.

If you are a small business owner or an individual reading this and cannot afford to become a Business Connections member but would like to donation a small amount there are a few ideas you can do this without it hitting the bank balance:

You can donate, clothes, bric a brack, cd's videos, dads, books, small furnishings etc to our Otley Road, Headingley shop
Facebook ask you near to your birthday if you'd like to ask for donations from friends - you could set this up for them to come through to YBTC
If you buy items from Amazon you could do this through Amazon Smile. Amazon Smile is a website operated by Amazon. It features the same products at the same prices as the standard Amazon site. The only difference is, when you shop on Amazon Smile, the Amazon Smile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the cost of all eligible products to your chosen charity.This could be YBTC.

If you are looking for a charity partner, and/or you are based in Yorkshire then maybe YBTC is the right charity for you.

Why you need an ideal customer persona to create good social media content

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 12 May 2022 18:26:16 GMT

Have you been posting regular social media content, but it’s not really getting your business anywhere? One thing you could have overlooked is your ideal customer persona. Without one, your content won’t be speaking to the right people or audience.

An important question to ask yourself is, what problem do you solve? Pin down how you really help people, and why do they choose to buy from you. These questions are key to unlocking your client profile and creating successful content.

What is an ideal customer persona?

An ideal customer persona is a representation of your dream clients, focusing on painting a picture around who they are. It’s a fictitious profile, based on real customer data and educated assumptions.

Other names include:

client avatar,
audience persona,
ideal clients,
ideal customer profiles,
marketing persona,
buyer persona and other variations.

Take examples from current or previous customers by listing things down about them. Think about who you had a great working relationship with, who paid on time and provided you with a healthy profit – in other words the best customers you have/had. Then dissect which areas of their personalities, interests, and situations are most relevant to why they bought from you.

Then look at these aspects further through market research, looking at competitors in your industry. This can help you to understand who you’re trying to target, and spot opportunities to speak to them in ways the competitors are not currently doing so.

Once you know who your ideal client is, you can list their pain points (problems), motivations, interests, location, and job titles. You can also outline any other distinguishable characteristics, such as how old they are, if they are a parent to a toddler, etc, to help narrow down and niche your audience.

HubSpot has a free buyer persona tool, called ‘Make My Persona’. It can help you to name your ideal customer persona and even creates an animated avatar – all great tools to help you to imagine them.

The further into your business you are, the easier creating an ideal customer persona can be, as you have more real data to look at. And your customer profile might change over time as your business grows or your products/services change, so a regular review is recommended.

Ideal customer profiles for B2B and B2C

Think about if your product/service is business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C). Although there are many similarities, they do have slight differences and your customer characteristics may need to be adjusted.

Do you sell to a person within a business? If so you could do with know the job title of your target contact.

How do they like to buy, annually, adhoc, do they go out to tender?

Below are typically the business traits you need to consider.

Likewise, if your product or service is aimed at the consumer market (B2C), people’s hobbies will play a larger factor than in a B2B setting. That’s because in B2B, people are mostly making business decisions, and in B2C, people are mostly making personal decisions.

Below are typically the consumer demographics you need to consider.

Why is a customer profile important to my social media content?

When posting any content to social media, it should serve a purpose. For businesses, both lead generation and brand awareness are usually your main goals…

Without an ideal customer persona, both aspects will become increasingly difficult. However, when you pinpoint your ideal client in detail, you can curate your content accordingly.

Speaking to your customers directly can help you to niche your message and build a stronger online community for your brand. Lead generation will become more natural, because your messaging is targeted to that specific type of person.

List the pain points and problems you solve, making sure you address these in your social media content plan. If you have a core problem you help people with, this should be clear in all messaging you put out into the world.

A great place to start is to create a social media content plan on Trello . List your content pillars (or topics) and your ideal customer persona findings, including any social proof and relevant competitor research. This will focus your social media content plan to reach your desired audience.

Don’t worry about putting some people off – if they’re not your ideal customer, your social media content shouldn’t be made for them. By presenting your specific topic and audience, you’ll build stronger relationships with the people that matter to your brand.

How do I reach my ideal clients online?

When you know your ideal customer persona, it’s much easier to target them online. By researching your customers and where they spend their time, you can focus your efforts in the right place.

If your customers use Facebook groups, you could create a closed community group that focuses on conversations with your audience. If your clients look for connections on LinkedIn, you should spend time building up your LinkedIn profile and posting content there. Without the knowledge around who your ideal customer is, you will be potentially wasting time trying to be seen in the wrong places, costing you potential customers and sales.

By looking at competitors, you can also see what people respond well to. Are there certain colours, branding, and visual content people are engaging with more? Does video get more response than text? Test these things by analysing what’s out there, taking inspiration from it, but then making the content your own. Read more about how to analyse social media metrics here.

Consider what topics your customers like talking about. You can use popular hashtags to get in front of new people on your social media accounts. Follow the latest industry hashtag trends to create responsive content. For more information on this, read our previous blog post on everything you need to know about hashtags for social media .

I hope this has given you a good idea into why speaking to your ideal customer persona opens the door to more great opportunities than trying to speak to everyone. Being specific with your social media content messaging can be vital to your business success. For more support, sign up to our FREE social media content made easy masterclass or get in touch for bespoke social media training.

A guide to improving your LinkedIn SSI score

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 09 May 2022 19:20:07 GMT

A guide to improving your LinkedIn SSI score

LinkedIn is one of the best ways to target your ideal customers online. With access to millions of users, you can use LinkedIn for a targeted approach to social media. But before you start you should make sure your profile is up to scratch by checking your LinkedIn SSI score.

What is a LinkedIn SSI score?

It stands for Social Selling Index (SSI). Your LinkedIn SSI score is a key indicator of how well you’re using the platform.

It’s broken down into four categories:

1. Establish your professional brand

2. Find the right people

3. Engage with insights

4. Build relationships

Not only focusing on what you post, it’s about building a community and targeting leads. The different categories have a score of up to 25 each, making a total possible score of 100.

It also shows you how well you compare to others in both your industry and your network. It helps small business owners to be found easier – it’s not just to be used as a sales tool. By looking at your LinkedIn SSI score, you can measure how well your social selling efforts are going and which area needs the most improvement.

People who have an SSI score of 70 or over have an increased reach of 25%.

How do you find out your LinkedIn SSI score?

A free feature of LinkedIn’s sales navigator, you can follow this link to find your LinkedIn SSI score (make sure you’re logged into LinkedIn first!). It’s worth checking this every couple of months to see your progress.

It will display your score with the four different categories in different colours in a chart. The page doesn’t have much detail around how to improve your score, so let’s dive in to our suggestions to improve your LinkedIn SSI score and presence…

Another thing to mention is if you’re aiming to reach an All-Star LinkedIn status profile, you need your score to be 60 or over. As a small business owner, you should aim for over 60 as a target. Anything over 70 is considered excellent!

Establish your professional brand

Official advice from LinkedIn is to complete your profile with your customer in mind and become a thought-leader by publishing meaningful posts. But what does that really mean and how can you improve your professional brand on LinkedIn?

First, you need to know who your customer is. Get really clear on who your target audience is, and fill out every section of your profile with them in mind. Speak to your customer directly and highlight how you solve their pain points.

Take your customers on a journey through your LinkedIn profile. Make sure that all sections are filled out and updated.

Your headline should use specific keywords that people would use to search for you.
The about section should be about how you help your target customer. Explain your skill set and use the space for testimonials and a call to action.
The experience sections should list all relevant previous jobs and give an overview of how you helped to achieve X during Y position.
Your existing role should be targeted to your CURRENT target customers. Add in supporting mediums, such as an introduction video, images, free resources, and links to your website.
The volunteering section should be completed if appropriate.
List up to fifty skills in the LinkedIn skills section.
LinkedIn recommendations are built-in reviews and testimonials from other LinkedIn users. If you don’t have any yet, here’s a guide to how to request and give LinkedIn recommendations .

Don’t forget about using a good, clear picture of yourself for your profile picture and creating a personalised banner, too.

The specifics: 19 points are for the way you build your profile, including visuals, featured about section, keywords, skills and recommendations. 4 points from your network, with regards to receiving endorsements and recommendations and the last 2 points are for published articles.

Find the right people

As LinkedIn’s advice is to identify better prospects in less time using efficient search and research tools, we think that needs more explanation…

You need to know who you’re targeting to improve this aspect of your LinkedIn SSI score, too. Think about your ideal client and search for them regularly.

Using the LinkedIn search bar, type in keywords for your target customers and connect with second degree connections (those who you already have mutual connections with). Break it down into short bursts of ten requests, once or twice a week.

Be sure to include a personalised connection message, picking out something about their profile as a talking point. This is limited to 300 characters, so keep it short and sweet.

Remember to be friendly and not salesy. People don’t like to receive ‘cold pitch’ messages on LinkedIn. Once people have accepted, start the conversation by sending them a follow-up message and ask them questions – this time, you’re not limited in characters.

The specifics: 18 points are in the 'free LinkedIn' and its based on the number of searches you make, number of 2nd and 3rd degree profiles you visit, acceptance rate on sent invitations etc. 7 points from Sales Navigator and the number of Lead/account searches, saved searches, acceptance rate in mails. So if you don't have Sales Navigator the maximum points you'll have in this section is 18.

Engage with insights

LinkedIn’s tip is to strengthen your network by connecting and establishing trust with decision-makers. Part of this will keeping your profile up to date, like making sure you have a profile picture. Other parts come from increasing your endorsements and sharing helpful content.

Direct messages also have an impact here. Following on from finding the right people, if you start a private conversation, this will help you to build relationships. The higher your post reach and engagement rate, the higher your LinkedIn SSI score will be, as you’re getting recognised as a helpful person in your network.

Using your LinkedIn SSI score in reality

Remember, it’s a helpful guide – not a guarantee of work or leads. Don’t get too bogged down by the scores but DO focus on areas that are weaker than the rest.

Try to improve your LinkedIn SSI score and please let us know if it’s helped. For bespoke LinkedIn training or general social media training and advice, contact The Thinking Cap .

This is probably the easiest section to improve if you feel nervous about using LinkedIn. Their official advice is to discover and share conversation-worthy updates to create and grow relationships.

Simply put, it comes down to liking and commenting on other people’s posts. Share thoughtful responses to their topics and the more comments you make, the better your LinkedIn SSI score will be – and the better your visibility, too.

Even if you’re only posting two times a week, which is enough for many small business owners, try to log in most days and leave some comments. You can follow relevant hashtags and comment on these feeds, too.

A new feature on LinkedIn is the notification bell. When you visit someone’s profile, you can now click the bell and be notified when they post. This is handy if you have some key prospects you want to build a relationship with.

The specifics: 18 points are based on your own content: received engagement, diversification of content, group activity, newsletters and/or articles. & points from Sales Navigator using in mails and smart links, buyer intent figures etc. So again, if you don't have Sales Navigator the maximum number of points is 18.

Build relationships

LinkedIn's tip is to strengthen your network by connecting and establishing rust with decision-makers. Part of this is keeping your profile up to date, like making sure you have a profile picture. other parts come from increasing your endorsements and starting helpful content.

Direct messages also have an impact here. Following on from finding the right people, if you start a private conversation, this will help you to build relationships. The higher your post reach and engagement rate, the higher your LinkedIn SSI score will be, as you're getting recognised as a helpful person in your network.

The specifics: The points awarded for this is based around multiple devices use, response to notifications, messages and invites, your engagement on feed posts, time you spend on LinkedIn, number of monthly logins etc.

Using your LinkedIn SSI score in reality

Remember, it's a helpful guide - not a guarantee of work or leads. Don't get too bogged down by the scores but DO focus on areas that are weaker than the rest.

Try to improve your LinkedIn SSI score and please let us know if it's helped. For bespoke LinkedIn training or general social media training and advice, contact The Thinking Cap.

How to create an All-Star LinkedIn profile – The Thinking Cap way

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 09:33:31 GMT

It’s no secret that I absolutely love LinkedIn . For reaching your ideal target market, especially when working in B2B, LinkedIn is the place to be.

But how do you make yourself stand out amongst the other 756 million users? One easy way is to achieve the All-Star LinkedIn profile status.

What is an All-Star LinkedIn profile?

LinkedIn categorises its users into five main types: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert, and All-Star.

To reach an All-Star LinkedIn profile, you need to have the following sections filled out –

1. Profile picture

2. Headline

3. Industry & location

4. Experience

5. Skills

6. Summary

7. Education

8. Connections

Why is it important to reach the All-Star LinkedIn profile status?

Having an All-Star LinkedIn profile means you’ve achieved the highest status and reports show you’ll be forty times more likely to receive job opportunities.

Even if you’re not actively looking for work, you should always aim to be an All-Star. When you’re using LinkedIn with an All-Star profile, your post engagement, reach, and searchability are all higher than those with incomplete profile sections.

Every element of your LinkedIn profile helps to build credibility and trust. Not just for your direct target audience, but with people who could be potential referral partners for you, too. If you build a good reputation for yourself on LinkedIn, it opens so many doors…

Now let’s run through each element so you can be on your way to getting an All-Star LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn Profile Picture

People like to see the face behind the name. Having a good quality, clear photo of yourself will give a great first impression. LinkedIn profile pictures are in a circle format, easily cropped from any picture. As the icon is small in the newsfeed, make sure your face is easy to spot, helping people to recognise you.

Many people use a brightly coloured background on their LinkedIn profile picture to amplify their visual presence. See how easy it is to alter a photo in Canva. In the video below I have chosen the Logo sized image in Canva and removed my background and added a glow

LinkedIn Headline

Your LinkedIn headline should clearly explain what you do and who you work with. It should be more than your job title… You’re missing a trick if you simply write ‘business owner’ or ‘managing director’ as your headline.

As people search LinkedIn for people to help with business opportunities, your headline should include key search words. With keywords, you’ll appear in more relevant searches and be found easier by the right people.

Another great reason to have a solid headline is it’s a quick way for people to see a summary of what you do. It’s visible not only on your profile, but if people hover their mouse over your profile picture in the newsfeed. That means when you’re posting or leaving comments, people have an instant snap-shot summary of you.

I have highlighted the 'headline' area, keep adding text and emoji's to grab your readers attention, until you run out of characters.

Industry and Location settings

This is a quick one to tick off your to-do list for reaching an All-Star LinkedIn profile. Make sure you enter your country and location details along your industry. People like to know where you’re based and having your industry set is self-explanatory!

LinkedIn Experience section

The LinkedIn experience section gives you options to include start and end dates for as many roles as needed. Fill out your previous experience, including the company and job title, whether that’s employed or self-employment work. To reach All-Star status, you need three experience sections – your current role and the two prior.

You should include all relevant experience and a summary of what you did. Like on any CV, this summary should give people an idea of your achievements and responsibilities. This experience section is most closely linked to a traditional CV than any other area.

Think of it as not what the company does, but what your role was within that. For example, if you’ve helped to increase sales by x%, successfully delivered a new project, or reached a great ROI target, list these in your experience summary.

Skills

LinkedIn gives you a section to fill out your most pertinent and relevant skills. These can be changed over time, so it’s best to start with your essential skills and add in more with your experience. For an All-Star LinkedIn profile, you need to list at least five skills.

Try to list your soft skills and hard skills. Think about soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and time-management. Your hard skills will be those specific to your industry.

LinkedIn Summary (About).

The LinkedIn summary is often called the 'About' section. It’s a difficult section to get right, as you want to include as much information as possible but in a concise way.

I’d recommend you follow this structure for your LinkedIn summary –

1. An opening statement. This acts as a summary of your experience and should highlight your most relevant skills.

2. Bullet-points of your achievements. Like in the experience section, you should focus on achievements instead of daily duties.

3. A closing statement. How do people follow up with you and what are you looking for next? Include details of this and a strong CTA to encourage messaging or emailing.

It’s worth using short sentences and a personal style to your summary. Write as if you’re directly talking to someone who has landed on your profile and avoid using the third person. You’ll connect to your reader and build on your trust and credibility much quicker.

Education

List your relevant education, including your schools and graduation years. You will be shown people who also studied at the same schools, known as alumni.

LinkedIn Connections

To reach the All-Star LinkedIn profile status, you need at least fifty connections . It’s worth building this up regularly to help grow your audience.

Bonus point to build LinkedIn credibility – LinkedIn Recommendations

Getting LinkedIn recommendations is not technically part of the All-Star LinkedIn profile requirements, but it helps to build people’s trust. For more on this read ‘ how to request and give LinkedIn recommendations ’.

Check your All-Star LinkedIn profile status as you go

LinkedIn has a built-in tracker, called the Profile Strength Meter. You can check your progress and see signs for improvement on there. If you tick off these aspects, you’ll be a LinkedIn All-Star in no time.

I hope this has helped you to understand the benefits and how to reach an All-Star LinkedIn profile. If you still need help, please don’t hesitate to contact The Thinking Cap for any social media or canva training queries.

How to request and give LinkedIn recommendations

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 06:07:40 GMT

LinkedIn recommendations are built-in reviews (or testimonials) within your LinkedIn profile. .

Traditionally, recommendations on LinkedIn were used as an online character reference when searching for new jobs. Now, they’re being used for building relationships in different ways. First, let’s discuss why they are important. Then we will run through practical steps about how you send and receive them.

Why are LinkedIn recommendations important?

As it’s online for everyone to see, a LinkedIn recommendation increases your credibility quickly. Receiving them is a great way of boosting your LinkedIn profile and creating social proof. Giving LinkedIn recommendations shows your respect for others you’ve worked with.

Great for both sides, sending and requesting recommendations should not be forgotten about.

If you identify as a business owner, freelancer, or solopreneur, receiving recommendations will help to grow your customer base. And if you’re an employee within an organisation, you’ll be helping to build your personal brand and assist any future job applications.

How do you request LinkedIn recommendations from people?

First, think about your most recent clients, customers, or partners. Providing they’re LinkedIn users, you can send a personalised LinkedIn recommendation request. They will get a notification and can easily fill out a recommendation for you.

Try and get a good mix of recommendations across your different services or products. Or across your different sectors that you service.it's always good for the reader to be able to connect with the recommendation so they can see how your product/service will work for them.

See below as to how you can easily request a LinkedIn recommendation.

As you can see the above video shows you to:

Head to your profile on LinkedIn. Scroll down to the ‘Recommendations’ tab. You will see a list of your received and given recommendations, separated by two tabs. To create a new recommendation request for someone, click on the + symbol and then ‘ask for a recommendation’.

Type the names of people you’ve identified as past clients in, clicking on their profiles once you’ve found them. You can send multiple requests at once, but I’d recommend personalising your invitation text to each person.

Be polite and explain how you’d appreciate them taking the time to write a short testimonial. Include a summary of what you worked on together, as it will help them to write a LinkedIn recommendation suited to your industry with keywords.

When you offer multiple services, asking people to specifically mention what you helped with gives new and potential customers a full overview of how you can help.

For example, if I was asking for a LinkedIn recommendation for The Thinking Cap, I’d use a message like this –

“Hi [name],

I’d really appreciate if you could please leave a short testimonial, based on the work we have done together recently to increase your visibility on LinkedIn.

If you found the training and advise useful and it’s helped you to achieve great results, I’d love to hear about it through a recommendation.

Speak soon,

Lisa”

This request should prompt your customers to leave a detailed review for all to see.

When a LinkedIn recommendation is submitted, you have the option to review it. If there’s any incorrect information, you can ask the person to amend it. If it’s all good, it can be added to your profile instantly.

Below is how the recommendation will look after you've accepted it and added it to your profile.

How to give someone else a LinkedIn recommendation

There are two ways to give other people a recommendation. The first way is to head to the same part of your profile, as listed above. When you click on the +, you instead click ‘Give recommendation’.

Another way is to head directly to that person’s profile, scroll down until you find their recommendations section. You will see a button at the top right of that box, saying ‘Recommend [name]’.

To make giving a LinkedIn recommendation easy for you and beneficial for the receiver, follow these bullet points as a guide: –

Start with your favourite or most unexpected thing about working with them.
Describe how and why you worked together – what problem did they help you to overcome?
Say you’d recommend them to others and if you will continue working together.
Use keywords in their specialism. E.g. for The Thinking Cap, recommendations around ‘social media training’ or ‘LinkedIn visibility’ will help us to build credibility in those fields.

By taking the time out of your day to leave someone else a recommendation, you’ll be spreading some joy and giving back.

It not only keeps your relationships going, but it can keep you at the forefront of their mind. When building relationships on LinkedIn, that’s an important factor to be considered. Even if the person you’re leaving a recommendation for isn’t a direct client, they could be a great referral partner.

If you’ve worked with an employee within an organisation and you were impressed with their industry knowledge, specialist skills, or customer service, tell them! They can use their LinkedIn recommendations as evidence to request promotions, build their reputation, and even help them find their next job.

Leaving nice recommendations for others will give you good karma. If appropriate, it can also encourage people to give you one in return.

Share your recommendations to build credibility

Whether you’re a business owner or an employee, sharing your LinkedIn recommendations on different platforms will help boost your trustworthiness.

I’d recommend lifting the text from your recommendation and creating a colourful graphic in Canva, matching your branding.

Like the below image. This is exactly the same review (as above) Debbie at RISO U K gave us on LinkedIn, however because it sits in my LinkedIn profile, people on Facebook will not see it, people who are in my email newsletter list will not see it. So, I need to create an image with the text and make it more visible on my other social media platforms and also across my marketing communications in general.

So in Canva I created the image below. RISO manufacture inkjet printers - hence the stack of paper, my logo is added to maintain my brand consistency and purple is RISO's corporate colour.

For help on Canva , download my free introduction on how to ‘ Create Canva Social Media Graphics that stop the scroll ".

Before you do this, have a quick think about how impactful the full testimonial is. If it’s long, you might be better to choose one or two sentences only. When it comes to testimonials and recommendations, often the shorter the better when shared in image format.

This means you can upload the image to all social media platforms and on your website, too. Just because it’s a direct LinkedIn recommendation, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share it anywhere else.

Go one step further and ask your most willing customers to leave you a video testimonial. Although harder to pin down, a video testimonial can do wonders for your credibility and trust. New leads hearing from your past customers is powerful.

If you are lucky enough to receive a video testimonial Canva can help you present it in such a way - like below.

I hope that this blog has given you an overview of the benefits of sending and receiving LinkedIn recommendations – and why they’re a valuable marketing tool.

If you need more support, feel free to get in touch for bespoke LinkedIn training or how to create stunning images using Canva.

How personal brand photography can elevate your social media marketing

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 11:49:06 GMT

As your customers see more online content than ever before, it’s important to take steps to stand out from the crowd and stop the scroll! It’s no secret that good photography can do wonders for your business.

But are you on the fence as to why should use personal brand photography in your social media marketing?

Well, there are many reasons why putting your face on social media marketing materials can be beneficial to:

Be more visible
Get recognised
Build credibility

In recent years, the term ‘authentic’ has been used for social media marketing more times than we can count. But being authentic and showing your true self really works for generating more genuine customers.

Who doesn’t want to improve those things and get more business?

This guide explains how you can use personal brand photography in different ways to elevate your marketing efforts and build a solid online presence, being authentically you.

Why you should use personal brand photography instead of stock images?

Especially important for small business owners who provide a B2B service, using personal brand photos means you’re not seen as a faceless business.

Give customers a personal customer service feel by showing who you are. For employees in larger companies, showing the faces of team members has the same affect.

When your best asset is you (or your team), it makes sense to show it off!

Photographs and images form the main base of many social media marketing. They drive engagement and get your brand noticed in busy newsfeeds, when done right.

You have two options for getting personal brand photography :

take your own photos (or ask a friend)
book a professional photographer (it isn't as expensive as you'd think).

The first option is a good starting point and is better than nothing. You can take good quality images on many mobile phones with either a selfie or asking a family member, friend or colleague to take them for you.

The second option will be more of an investment, but it will certainly pay off when you portray a more professional image. A photographer will point you in the right direction to creating timeless images that you can use in many ways.

You might have found using stock photos is having an adverse effect on your engagement as in truth it's not the same. People zone out if they think an image looks too similar or staged… showing real people in real settings is always better.

Although your personal brand photography shoot will mostly be capturing your personality in image form, you should also use it as an opportunity to shoot complementary compositions.

For example, if you work in a certain setting for your industry or use specific equipment. Take a few photos where you’re not the centre of attention, but those things are. This style of close ups and filler images can be especially useful for introverts or camera-shy people.

Another consideration when taking photographs is your clothing. Where possible, use complementary colours to your company branding. Or if your branding is bold, wearing more subdued colours can help to avoid a clash. It’s also good to have a few different outfits… when you shoot all your photos in a summer dress or shorts, they don’t look quite right in winter.

When it comes to the style of your branding images, no one is saying they need to be corporate. Your clothes are personal and show off who you are, so don’t be afraid to wear something different. Wear what you feel comfortable in and is your personal style, and your personality will shine brighter.

How to use personal brand photography on social media

Having a good catalogue of personal brand photographs on-hand means your social media content will always help to connect to your audience. Using these images in a variety of different ways will present your personal brand at every stage, no matter the platform.

Use images from your personal brand photography shoot for you :

Social media profile pictures
Social media banner images
Any social media post across every platform you use
Blog headers
Website – home page, about us, meet the team pages, training collateral
Newsletter headers
Social media animations and video graphics
Landing pages or registration pages

They can also be useful additions to email marketing sign-up welcomes, printed marketing collateral, the list goes on!

Wherever your customer touchpoints are, adding an image of yourself or relevant pictures from your personal brand photography will make it more human.

Remember, every time you comment and like other people’s content, they’ll see your images. Personal branding helps to build trust and relationships in online communities, too.

If like me, you like to get your money's worth, you can alter your photos yourself, making one photo look very different every time you use it. But how?

By using Canva.

Altering personal brand images on Canva for social media marketing

When sharing top tips or testimonials on your social media channels, you can add an image into your designs.

Using Canva is a great way to incorporate your personal brand photos. Once you’ve uploaded the images, they’re easily accessed time and time again in your library. You can also set your brand colour and typography settings. These features make it quick to create a new branded asset to share on social media.

In Canva, you can alter the way each photo looks. Remove backgrounds, layer images, change the position and orientation, add a drop-shadow or glow, and insert curved text around them. There are also pre-set template sizes on Canva, so if you’re creating a new Facebook post, the recommended size is available.

For more help with creating eye-catching images that stop the scroll, read ‘ how to become your own social media graphic designer ’ or download the FREE Canva guide by The Thinking Cap. It’s an instant access course that runs through the fundamental tips to get starting in using Canva.

Alternatively, if you prefer to outsource this design, we'd love to help you recycle and alter your photos accordingly. To find out more about us and how we can help simply, click here and let's pencil in a short call.

Hopefully this will have given you a good insight into the power of using personal brand photography in your social media marketing, and how to get started. The Thinking Cap offers social media training masterclasses , perfect if you need inspiration on how to build a strong online presence and a personal brand that feels right for you.

Everything you need to know about hashtags for social media

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 15:31:48 GMT

Hashtags – what are they? And how are you supposed to use hashtags for social media? This article will run through an extensive look into using hashtags the right way.

What is a hashtag?

Hashtags are metadata tags represented by the hash symbol # (the technical term is an octothorpe) at the beginning.

It follows the format - #word

Hashtags should not contain any spaces. If you want to use multiple words, you can write it as one but we recommend camel case for easier reading, like this - #TheThinkingCap

You can use numbers in hashtags, but not symbols.

Hashtags for social media have been around since 2007 and have developed over time, but the principle remains the same. They’re used to tie in conversations around social media channels, uniting users on a common theme.

Common uses of hashtags for social media are –

Social listening
Searching for trends
Following certain industry topics
Topical awareness days (read more about why it’s great to use topical awareness days for your content marketing)

They can be a great tool, when used properly. Don’t use hashtags for social media without first looking at their relevance to you. Every platform has a hashtag search option, this is a great way to see what others are posting about. Checking the following count is a good idea, too, as you should use a mixture of hashtags with higher and lower follower numbers.

Local area hashtags can be a great way to reach your local audience, as people from your area will engage and it benefits people searching your content.

Let’s dig deeper on how you should be using hashtags on social media…

Social media platforms have different rules for hashtags

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok all have different ‘rules’ for hashtags. The algorithm differences mean hashtags perform in different ways, depending on the social media platform you are using.

To get the most out of using hashtags for social media, you should adapt your content to suit each platform. Although the advice is based on real results, you should test and measure your own success aligned with your social media goals.

As a rule, you follow, click, or search for a hashtag and the social media platform will display all relevant content into a separate newsfeed layout from your main one. This makes it easy to see targeted content on specific topics, seeing other related posts and conversations.

Hashtags on LinkedIn

LinkedIn likes you to use a mixture of hashtags with a big following alongside smaller ones. The algorithm will help to push your content to other users who are interested in similar topics or follow those specific hashtags. Sometimes, it’s better to use less popular hashtags as your competition will not be as fierce.

I highly recommend to following hashtags you use in your posts, especially on LinkedIn.

By searching for the hashtag (like below) and then click on follow. By doing this, your directing the posts (that have the same hashtag on) to your feed.

This:

Provides topical content to your feed so you don't have to keep searching for it
You can easily see who you might want to collaborate with (or keep an eye on)
Helps you identify new connections who have a similar interest

Three hashtags on LinkedIn seems to be the sweet spot. Many LinkedIn experts agree on this, any more seems to impact the reach of your posts. Like most other platforms, you are better to put hashtags at the end of your posts to increase readability.

Hashtags on Twitter

Twitter displays hashtags in a stream. You can filter the type of media, by latest posts, and even the user location. This makes it easy to look only at photographs, for example.

Twitter is also easy to find related searches, so once you are looking at a hashtag stream you like, others are easy to find. The most trending hashtags on Twitter are displayed on the home page for you to see. As Twitter is a fast-response social media channel, it’s an easy way to pick up reactive content ideas based on current trends.

If you see below - if you type in your preferred hashtag into the Twitter search bar you have the choice of tweet content you can view with the hashtag in use. This is broken up into:

Top tweets
Latest tweets
People - when you click on this ab you have the quick option to follow these Twitter accounts
Photos - these are all the posts where a static image has been used alongside the #
Videos - these are all the posts where a video has been used alongside the #

As suggested by Twitter’s help centre, you can use as many hashtags you want in a tweet, but they recommend you should stick to no more than two. With the lowest character count per post of all platforms, Twitter hashtags can be integrated into the main copy, as it’s all about sending a concise, fast message to your audience.

Hashtags on Facebook

Facebook is similar to Twitter in many ways, as hashtags are displayed in streams. However, Facebook users generally have their accounts set to private, so when you search for hashtags on Facebook you are more likely to see only influencers or company pages.

Facebook, like Twitter, also categorises posts in a hashtag stream by media type and shows trending topics. Additional search criteria on Facebook hashtags show the shop feature, groups, events, and suggested pages. Facebook has a larger range of use than Twitter, so that’s reflected on the hashtag search feature.

It’s recommended to use two or three hashtags on Facebook to improve the reach of your posts.

Hashtags on Instagram

For hashtags on Instagram , they must be in the main post content and only show up in the comments if it’s on your own post. If you’re commenting on someone else’s post with a hashtag, that won’t show in the hashtag feed.

To make your Instagram caption easier to read, you should put your hashtags at the end of the post and add spaces between the main body copy and your hashtag list. This also hides the hashtags from the preview, making your Instagram post look more visually appealing. After all, Instagram is the most visual social media platform!

You are limited on the number of hashtags you include on Instagram, see below:

It’s up to thirty hashtags on main posts to your Instagram grid,
Up to ten on Instagram story posts.

Don't forget to use some searchable hashtags in your bio too. Use these hashtags to explain your product or service or location if this is important. See below for an example of how to incorporate these into your bio.

But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should… the jury is still out on the optimal quantity of hashtags for Instagram. Most people use between three and five, but others are successful using twenty or more. Instagram gives you a bit more creative freedom than other social media channels!

Hashtags on TikTok

TikTok is a newer platform, but has a solid hashtag strategy to help with organic reach. Visually, the hashtag search feature looks most like Instagram’s. At a glance you can see how popular a hashtag topic is and view video content shared.

The way TikTok limits your hashtag quantity is slightly different – the caption can only be 100 characters. The general consensus on TikTok is between five and eight hashtags gives a good level of reach.

Using hashtags for social media to find new audiences

As with all social media content advice, you should test using hashtags to see how your own audience reacts. It’s a great way to get found by new audiences on social media channels and build a stronger brand presence.

If you still need help with using hashtags for social media, read my ' Daily Hashtags explained' blog post or get in touch .

How using Trello for social media planning can UP your content game.

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 16:04:15 GMT

In case you’ve not heard of it before, Trello is a free simple project management tool. It can be used in your business in SO many ways, but my favourite is to use Trello for social media planning. Accessible via your desktop and on a mobile, Trello is my go-to app for planning content and storing ideas.

Trust me, once you start using Trello, I know you’ll love it as much as I do!

But how do you use Trello for social media planning?

If you’re not yet familiar with Trello, it’s a tool that displays lists and ideas in a simple, easy to use column format. There are other systems which are similar, and some use the term ‘Kanban board’.

The reason I love Trello so much, is not just because it’s free. It also has a versatile, visual, and user-friendly interface. Everything has a drag and drop feature and you can access your Trello board from any device, making it the perfect companion for those brain dump moments…

You can also invite multiple team members to access your account, making it a great collaborative tool for social media. Trello is free (did I mention that already!) and easy to set up – go open your account now! Then read on to find out the best way to start using Trello for social media planning.

How does Trello work?

First, you have a Trello Board. Then within that, you have Trello Lists (the columns) and in each List you have a number of Trello Cards.

Below is an example of a new Trello board and I've picked a suitable background image. You have the choice when you create the board of a background image or colour.

As you can see I have started entering a few lists of the topics of the content I want to create. For me I want to get bums on seats to my masterclasses, I create a weekly #wisdomwednesday post, I need to think of topical blogs etc. So this is what my content needs to be around.

You can have multiple Trello Boards.

From a social media point of view I would recommend two dedicated boards. One for your social media content ideas and the other to save your final posts in, so using the same columns storing your actual post text, hashtags and media (image, animation etc). This way you have your final posts all in one place for re-using or tweaking at a later date.

If you use Trello for other areas of your business, keeping each organised into different categories, as with any filing system, will help it be more efficient.

The Trello Lists are laid-out in column format. You can have multiple lists on a board and completely tailor your list headers.

An example of a simplified Trello Board could be used for your annual content promotional calendar, so listing the months of the year, with list headers – January, February, March, April… you get the idea!

Within those lists you have Trello Cards. Your cards can be organised with added features, such as –

The social media post text (in the description)
Attachments – images/videos - whatever media you used in the post accompanying the text
Due dates
Checklists
Coloured labels (categories)
Assigned to dedicated members

Once your lists and cards are set up with reminders, you can also switch to use the calendar view if you wish. This feature makes it really easy to track due dates. This is a handy feature if some of your content is date sensitive.

Below is my actual Content Trello board, as you can see my content is split into the following categories, Management, WisdomWednesday, quotes, 30-day planner and monthly awareness days. I have about 25 columns in total, however here is a screenshot of only 5 to give you an idea.

As you start filling your board, you'll soon notice if you're light in content in one particular area.

Looking at the below, I now know I need to work on more content aiming people at my 30-day planner.

Start using Trello for social media planning

Now you have an account and you’re familiar with the basics, you can adapt your Trello for social media planning. How you choose to set this up will depend on your needs, but I find having different headers for each month a great place to start. Or you could have a board per week, have column headers for each day and then cards underneath with the image you’re going to use, the wording, etc – you could even record your insights here too.

You could add in a ‘social media content ideas’ column, using it to bookmark other people’s content you like, saving URL’s and even images for when you need inspiration.

Having other cards with your regular #hashtags or details of promotions can be helpful, as you always have them to hand. Use your cards to save any information that you’re likely to re-use across your social media content regularly, saving you time in the future.

Using promotional days for social media content is made easier with Trello. For more on this, read ‘ why it’s great to use topical awareness days for your content marketing’.

With the board showing your content in a visual format, you can quickly see if you have any gaps. You can even keep previously posted social media content for repurposing in the future. By simply adding a ‘Repurpose’ list, you can move cards between columns and set yourself a reminder to look back on this again.

Trello for working as a team on social media content

If you work in a larger team or need to get your social media content signed off for approval, Trello is perfect.

Do you have a half-formed social media content idea you’d like some input on? Use Trello’s integrated team-friendly tools to help collaborate.

For your approval process, you can create lists for each step, for example, moving a card in to a list titled ‘To be approved’. When you do this, it’s not only easy to see the item needs approving in the column, but you can also re-assign the task to a team member. This person is then responsible for the content approval and internal comments can be used to tag each other with feedback. Notifications can help members spot changes.

Once items have been approved, you can then move it in to an ‘Approved’ list and re-assign the card again. Using comments gives a great opportunity to explain feedback and see records of how the social media content developed from an idea to a polished piece.

How to plan your social media content – what do you include?

So, you’re ready to get organised – but you need more help coming up with consistent ideas for social media planning.

Your social media content plan should include a healthy mix of these three categories –

1. Growth content

2. Nurture content

3. Money (sales) content

This means you’ll concentrate on growing your audience, nurturing your existing customers, and selling your products/services without too much focus on one area. For more information on how you plan your content, so it’s varied and builds an audience to be proud of, read my ‘checklist for successful content’ .

A common problem among many businesses is content idea generation. For more support on this area, you can access The Thinking Cap’s free online Social Media Content Made Easy Masterclass .

I’ve also created a FREE content ideas notebook to help tackle the fear. It gives you content prompts to keep your ideas varied and engaged, and it’s a great layout to scribble down key dates to structure your content. If you'd like a free content ideas notebook, click here to go through to my website .

I hope this has given you a good idea on how to use Trello for social media planning. But if you still feel like you need help with your social media planning, I provide one-to-one social media training . In a session that’s personalised to you and your business, we focus on your specific audience and goals for social media – get in touch to learn more.

How to create an effective annual social media calendar

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 18:45:04 GMT

How to create an effective annual social media calendar for your company's marketing.

I always recommend businesses create an annual social media calendar to help with their social media content. It means you will always have something to refer to and will never run out of social media content ideas. It will help you to stay organised, even when you’re at your busiest.

What is an annual social media calendar and how do you create one?

A social media calendar will look different for every business. In its simplest form, it’s a calendar outlining key social media content ideas and themes for each month. Starting from January, all the way through to December, providing ideas for each month in advance.

Using a social media calendar can turn your sporadic and inconsistent ideas into a strategic content plan for your business promotion. You can order your FREE Content Ideas Notebook (see below ) so that you can plan special dates for the year and jot down content ideas as you have them.

Many people tell us having the FREE Content Ideas Notebook in conjunction with an online tool is the ideal scenario.

The way you create your annual social media calendar is not as important as making sure you use it consistently. You should find the best way for you and your team if you have one.

It can be a grid, list, table, or any other format you find easy to follow… It could be done on a simple Microsoft Excel sheet or Word document. It could even be a paper document you hang on the wall.

But an online tool is much more effective for collaboration within teams, as multiple people can access your social media calendar. Google Docs is good as it’s based online. The tool I personally use, and recommend others to, is Trello .

Using Trello for your social content calendar

Trello is an online project management tool. You can add different users and it’s accessed through your desktop and a handy mobile app. Your content ideas will only ever be a few clicks away. You can upload documents, links, and text all to one place with Trello.

You can set up columns for each month, listing all the meaningful ideas and their relevant information and documentation. You can even set an automatic reminder on the day of each content idea, so you will never forget about your social media content plan.

There are many other similar platforms out there to help make your project management tasks simple with multiple users. Try them out for yourself to find the best way for you and your team.

Things to include in an annual social media calendar

Once you have your format decided, start filling in each month with key themes and ideas for your social media content.

This is your opportunity to cover all bases with your annual social media calendar, making sure it’s relevant to your company, your goals and any special events/dates.

Social media content ideas for your annual calendar include :

Your company’s trading anniversary
Staff anniversaries (number of years with the company)
Topical awareness days, including holidays
Daily hashtags, such as #tiptuesday
Upcoming events you’re attending or hosting
Seasonal topics relevant to your industry
Special offers or seasonal changeovers

Now, this is not an exhaustive list. But let’s dive into some of these a little more…

Topical awareness days and annual holidays

Topical awareness days are a great way to fill your annual social media calendar. You can pick suitable topics and plan your content in advance. For more on this, read my previous blog post ‘ why it’s great to use topical awareness days for your content marketing’.

Using common holidays can also be a prompt for you to share how your company and team works. People like to see what’s going on in your business, so setting reminders on your social media calendar means you won’t let another year go by where you forget to post anything.

For example, does your team have an annual Christmas jumper day? Take a picture! Or do you send out gifts to your clients for Christmas? Show a behind-the-scenes shot of your staff wrapping the gifts.

Daily hashtags, like #TipTuesday , can be a great way to create consistent social media content around a planned theme. You could plan these in advance and put them in each week/month to your annual social media calendar to make sure you have enough relevant content to share.

Seasonal offers to promote in your social media content

Your company might have seasonal offers or changeovers in your products. For example, you could offer items that lend themselves to be natural gifts. Using your annual social media calendar, you can highlight certain products to push on the run up. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day… they’re all perfect examples of buying trends that can appear every year.

Another example would be if you offer services that tend to be more popular at certain times of the year than another. If you’re an accountant, you will have key accountancy dates that come up every year. Or if you work with people who need to plan around school holidays, you can mark these down and use it to your advantage.

Use your annual social media calendar to plan your content around any of these opportunities, raising awareness of the dates and encouraging people to get your help. By catching people at the right time with your social media content, you have the potential to generate more leads and clients.

Get started with your annual social media calendar now

The best way to get started with your content plan is to start simple. It won’t be a perfect or polished list of topics to begin with, and that’s ok…

Your content calendar’s aim is to keep your company social media activity thriving throughout the year, even when you’re busy. If you plan your content themes in advance, you’ll never run out of things to say.

When you feel inspired throughout the year, you can add in more detail. Think of your social media calendar as a continual work in progress...

For more inspiration on how to create interesting and impactful content to fill your annual social media calendar with, listen to ‘ The Impact Sessions 46 – podcast with Nick Bramley ’. I was a guest on the show talking about all things relating to social media content. You can also order your FREE Content Ideas Notebook to get you started.

Why it’s great to use topical awareness days for your content marketing

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 21:35:53 GMT

Why it's great to use topical awareness days for your content marketing.

Coming up with new social media content plans with fresh ideas all the time is tough. That’s why using topical awareness days for your content marketing plans can be a great place to start.

Create topical content for relevant awareness days for increased social media visibility and never run out of things to talk about!

From the more commercially known topics, to the weird and wonderful reasons, awareness is always being raised for something. Celebrations happen all the time, all over the world. Leverage these to improve your social media content and get in front of new customers.

Choosing relevant topical awareness days for your business

Top tip: choose topical awareness days wisely!

Why? Because not every awareness day will be suitable for you to talk about, and it might be a bit much if you tried… by creating your own personalised promotional calendar, relevant to your audience, you can get the balance right with your social media content.

How do you choose which days to focus on?

Make sure you research the meanings behind the days to check if they are appropriate to the customers you are trying to attract. Some celebrated days are American, so a UK-based audience would not respond to this.

You can also plan your topical awareness day mentions around key customer buying cycle dates, focusing on what prompts your ideal audience to buy. Does Valentine’s Day offer a good content marketing opportunity for your brand? Use popular themes that people are already looking for to leverage your social media content. That’s why listicles for gifts can be a great content marketing opportunity for topical awareness days.

Ethical or sustainability issues are hot topics at the moment.

You can highlight what your customers care about by talking about these topics in a sensitive way, relevant to your brand. For example, if you have eco-friendly products, can you promote that for Earth Day? This is what I did for a client of mine, RISO UK.

Reaching a wider audience with your content marketing

When you post about topical awareness days in your social media content, you are creating an opportunity for your brand to be seen by new, wider audiences. Think of it being a chance to cast a wider net over your social media channels by talking about new topics… aiming to open up the conversation in your social media feed.

If you have a personal reason why certain days and topics are important to you, why not share a video or blog post explaining this to your audience? It’s a good way to build rapport, showing your personality and values in a clever way that helps your content marketing.

Over time, you will learn what your customers are happy to share and engage with around the different awareness days…

Don’t be afraid to put some personality into your social media posts around awareness days!

But do be careful to not use the topical awareness days in a way they weren’t intended – this could backfire. Don’t stretch the specific topics beyond their meaning for your own purposes, as you will look insensitive and could harm your reputation. For example, Remembrance Day is a Memorial Day – NOT an opportunity to sell your new brain training software…

Another idea for you is running a competition alongside the social media content, choosing a topical prize or charitable donation. People love a competition, especially if it’s for a good cause…

Planning your content marketing for topical awareness days

A good way to start is to look at the full awareness day calendar and highlight topics that you are naturally drawn to. Then spend the year following other awareness days you’re unsure about to plan for next year.

When creating content marketing calendars, add your topical awareness days in to your plan way in advance. Then you can plan for them with plenty of time, months before the days you choose to promote happen.

There are many useful tools to help plan your content marketing, adding in your topical awareness days… Trello is a great platform. It’s simple to use and you can create a column for each month, setting reminders. Even upload your branded images and the full social media copy with hashtags (more on this below) so it’s all ready to schedule.

If you saw a particularly great post from someone else, save it to a file, holding awareness day content marketing examples.

This can help you to improve your content for next year and come up with great ideas! To begin with, you may need to test which are the best awareness days for your brand, analysing the social results. Find out more about analysing your social media metrics here.

Look out for a blog post we’ll be publishing soon which will explain how to create your own promotional content calendar.

Using hashtags for topical awareness days

Most awareness days have their own hashtags created, you can follow these in advance to see the build-up. Once the day arrives, don’t forget to include the hashtag within your content to be seen alongside other people’s posts.

Noticing other people’s social media activity through the hashtag can also allow you to see any potential reactive content angles or opportunities to say something no one else is. Hashtags are also a great way to see topical awareness days from the previous year, helping to see past activity.

If you need more help with understanding hashtags, read m y previous blog post ‘daily hashtags explained and why you should use them’ for more detail. They’re a great tool to keep on top of current trends and get your content seen by different people.

Hopefully this will have given you a good idea to get started with using topical awareness days to improve your social media content. Get in front of new people, never run out of topics to talk about, and create a strong brand foundation!

If you would like any futher help with where to start using social media, sign up for our FREE masterclass – social media content made easy.

How to analyse social media metrics to create your 2022 content plan

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sat, 22 Jan 2022 18:45:09 GMT

It’s the start of the New Year and you are now in a position to create your 2022 social media content plan… but where do you start? I want to share with you some great ways to review last year’s data and how to analyse social media metrics.

Before you analyse social media metrics, ask yourself –

Where did most of your leads come from last year?
Which content types performed best on your social media posts? For e.g. Static image and text, video, carousels etc.
Do you know which platform created the best return of investment for your time/money?

Being aware of your social media metrics allows you to tweak and alter your content, noticing what worked – and what didn’t!

Why are social media metrics important?

Your social media content comes with various metrics, this might be called Insights depending on the platform. These metrics can be measured, giving you a good understanding into the performance of all your posts.

Typical social media metrics that the platforms provide, include the analysis of –

Visitor demographics
Demographics of your engaging audience
Number of likes & click throughs on individual posts
Number of views/Impressions to your audience
Post shares
Post saves (Instagram only)
Comments

Remember in addition to the above platform metrics, you also need to check out your website analytics too. From logging into google analytics you can also find out –

How many website visitors came from a certain social media platform
Which post from the social media platform got them to your website
Which call to action is working best
From the above you can then compare social media platform performances
... and from which URL and how long they stayed on your website, how many pages they viewed etc.

There are many ways to create new content plans for your social media, but first by understanding the above and what's worked in the past will give you a head start for the coming year's content plan.

Set goals for your social media

It’s great to have clear, defined goals for the year ahead before you consider creating content. Goals make it easier to understand which social media metrics you should be looking at, choosing how you measure your success.

Each company and brand will have their own goals for social media. For some, it will be direct sales. For others, it will be to generate brand awareness and others might be collating data, like sign-ups for a demo, an event, a download.

Let’s take an example… your goal this year is to increase the number of downloads you have for your lead magnet, thereby increasing your email marketing lists. To achieve this goal, you’ll need to ensure you have plenty of content that's around th e subject of your download. Think about what your customers pain points are and does this download help it? Start creating thought provoking polls, carousels outlining helpful tips and nurture your followers all the way to the download.

Use the same successful call to actions/post type that worked before on the same platform. Your audiences on LinkedIn will be different to those on Twitter so when checking what worked before on each platform it's important to remember which platform it was on and not mix the them up.

Add clear call to actions in your social media content

Now you have defined goals and you know what your audience re-act to and engage with, on which platform, all you need to do is marry up a previously successful clear call to action and away you go.

Before you publish a post, check there is a call of action of some kind. You have to work a bit harder on Instagram as you cannot drop a link into the post, it's always in the BIO, so remember you may need to change this around your latest post.

If you need help with your CTAs, read my previous blog post ‘ great call to action examples to smash your social media engagement’ to get started.

Social listening and monitoring

Social media marketing can be very reactive. It’s good to be able to keep on top of key trends and listen to what your audience wants to talk about. This is called social listening.

Social listening can be done by:

monitoring your social media accounts - look out for customer feedback and direct mentions,
search in the platforms search bar for any hashtags you use - see what other people are talking about,
keep track of your customers posts by following their company pages,
keep an eye on what your competition are doing, this is easy in Twitter as you can add groups of people into different lists and then view all the posts of that given list - also a great idea to do for industry publications, influencers etc.
watch industry influencers, read their posts and look at the comments they have received etc.

By social listening it shows you a snapshot of your audience’s conversations and reactions and it can also keep you ahead of any trends.

From this method alone you can generate lots of amazingly engaging content that your audience will love, find useful and it'll keep them coming back for more.

How to analyse social media metrics

If you work through this blog like it's a work book, by this point you should now have an understanding of -

What level of detail the social media metrics provide
How your website analytics play a part in your analysis
Your ideal goals
What CTA's align with these specific goals
What is working on the socials for your competition,
The types of content your target market re-act and engage with

But now we need to know what has worked for you, so we need to create a list of your social media successes, that includes, post type, the platform, CTA etc.

So, lets move forward into your own platforms metrics and see what worked for you, this way you can make informed content choices and start planning for 2022.

Start with the platform you think performed best for you last year.

Remembering on LinkedIn if you have a company page, there is an 'Analytics' tab (starred below) and it helps you view certain analytics from the last 7 days, right up to the last year on your company posts.

It's not so easy to measure your personal posts directly from LinkedIn, as you have to go into your 'Me' drop down / manage posts and activity, then view each post individually. See below as to where to click.

There is software separate to LinkedIn that can help you analyse your personal posts in a lot more detail, Shield is one of them.

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have the insights all embedded and are pretty good. Here's where to find them.

Twitter analytics - can be found by logging in, clicking on the three dots / more button, analytics!

Facebook insights - can be found over on the left hand side, under manage page, insights!

Instagram insights - can only be found on the mobile app, under the burger menu (3 lines in the top right corner).

Once you get the hang of it, it's a great idea to check all analytics at the end of every month.

If you are a sales person working for someone else, you could always ask to see the company page analytics and see how your personal posts (about the company) enhanced their page activity.

So, break your data down into monthly sections, this will help you to spot seasonal trends.

Although social media data can be great, it doesn’t always show the bigger picture. Sometimes, posts with less comments and likes can lead to more website visitors. Take this information into account when you analyse social media metrics, as it may mean you are more careful in your decision-making process.

Now you’ve studied your metrics from last year, make it a habit to check your content’s performance monthly. This way, you can implement and tweak any changes required and go with the flow!

Simply by knowing what your audience responds well to makes content planning much easier.

Good luck!

I hope this blog has given you a good understanding about how to analyse social media metrics to influence your new content planning, knowing which parts are important to your business goals. For further support, please don’t hesitate to get in touch for personalised social media training .

If you need a notebook to keep a list of all your top performing posts in, remember there's my My Digital Marketing & Social Media Content Ideas Notebook on Amazon - only £7.19.

We are 12!

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 15:10:48 GMT

The Thinking Cap: from offline print to social media training

We are hugely proud to say we’ve reached 12!

Its not all been straight sailing and we’ve changed our services up over the years to ensure we bring our clients the latest skills and services… but we’re celebrating in style, stronger than ever.

Now the birth of a business is often tied to personal factors at a ‘now or never’ time… mine was way back in November 2009. I’d been dismissed from my sales job because I’d needed six-weeks off work for a hip replacement. My son Stanley was only fifteen months old, and it was almost Christmas… it wasn’t the happiest of times for my family as you can imagine.

The Thinking Cap was born

After about month, I was sent a sign about my next move. Don’t you just love it when that happens…

A previous customer called me out of the blue on my personal phone, asking if I could help with an urgent print job.

The penny dropped!

I could carry on offering customers my print, direct mail, and data experience through my own company – I didn’t need an employer!

My husband, Martin, helped me decide on a company name, ‘The Thinking Cap’ - it suited me to a tee. I’m always full of ideas and suggestions for improvements and always wearing lots of hats (caps)… now I had a chance to implement all my ideas through my own company and offer my customers the best deals! It was a no-brainer.

Martin created the brand, logo, and I set about and created my very own (first) website launch ing early January 2010.

I started generating work by calling previous clients, dropping leaflets to local companies, and using, the then new social media platform, LinkedIn.

Taking my past twenty years’ experience in offline services, my first clients were offered a selection of; data cleaning, data segmentation, data profiling, managing direct mail campaigns, looking at postage savings, design for print, and print management. It now seems so strange to think that’s all I offered back then!

From offline to online digital marketing su pport

It wasn’t long before more and more people wanted a mixture of email marketing and direct mail, so I started offering e-shots, data cleaning and segmentation, and SMS marketing.

Now, it wouldn’t be a business story without some challenges would it and, at one point I have to admit, I nearly gave up!

As happens in many small businesses, I had a number of clients not paying their bills on time, ended up paying suppliers from my own pocket, and hitting my marketing budget hard. I ended up taking a part-time job to relieve financial pressure for a while until the business stabilised so I could go full-steam ahead once again.

Four years in, during October 2014, a huge milestone was reached - The Thinking Cap became a limited company and had a rebrand.

I launched an incredibly successful campaign called ‘Keep It Local’. A spin-off from the popular ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ theme about local business. I created branded mugs in boxes with my business cards and went door-knocking. With press features in local newspapers behind me, things really started looking up and I landed three large clients , Holme Farmed Venison , Cromwell Polythene and Spentex BCA .

Social media marketing began to soar!

Social media was becoming increasingly popular, and I realised I needed to upskill further through digital marketing training. This enabled me able to offer social media services into the marketing mix for my clients.

I then began providing social media and marketing training to an established commercial finance brokerage . They asked me to help set up all their franchisee companies.

Should we stay or should we go

As a family when we had the opportunity to relocate to Melbourne, Australia, for my husband’s job, we jumped at the chance. Here's a photo of Stanley on the Southbank, the evening we arrived.

I continued to work for my social media clients but also took a full-time job at a boutique printing company, called Bambra , which was great fun! It wasn’t too long though before something told us life down under wasn’t going to be permanent for us and when we returned to the UK.

I took a sales job in the print and creative industries, but then the pandemic hit, and I was furloughed.

The Thinking Cap had been trickling along in the background for a little while. Not being one to ever sit idle, I decided to offer social media and online digital marketing training to local businesses who were struggling during the pandemic.

I volunteered my knowledge to get them online, helping retailers set-up e-commerce websites, social media accounts, logos, and other general marketing support. This reminded me of my love for my business and helping others, so The Thinking Cap was back full time – an easy decision!

Focusing on delivering specialist social media training

I realised that no man is an island and decided to invest in myself and the business, to propel it forwards.

I hired a business coach who helped me to niche, to focus on social media training, and I began setting up my online social media courses. Over the last year, I’ve been working with some incredible customers to increase their social media marketing performance through training.

"Lisa’s design creativity, content creation skills and all round being a jolly nice person to work with has made our time working together very enjoyable. She is full of great ideas and could help any business whatever their size. Contact her and see for yourself!"

Debbie Callaghan, RISO UK

The Thinking Cap has transformed over the 12 years, moving with personal, business, and social trends. Although social media marketing wasn’t a thing when I started the business, it’s been a natural progression from my print media and sales background … and I absolutely love it.

The social media training I offer is for both small, owner-managed companies, and large companies with full marketing teams. A huge highlight for me during the lockdown was training the entire team at Leeds Mind Charity (around 40 staff) on using LinkedIn

"Lisa delivered two workshops on LinkedIn for the team at Leeds Mind, from the basics to some more complex elements. As someone who thought they knew all there is to know about LinkedIn, I learned a lot and felt really comfortable to ask lots of questions, even some of the obvious ones!

The team responded really well to Lisa's relaxed but professional style. She is incredibly knowledgeable on the subject, and we felt in very safe hands. Thank you, Lisa!"

Kate Goldring, Leeds Mind

With social media marketing always adapting, the training I offer people does too. In 2022, a new LinkedIn Lead Generation course will be launched, alongside a new annual social media and content planner.

If you are interested in brushing up your social media skills and would like social media training, please visit my training page initially or pick up the phone and let’s have a chat!

I have both free and paid training available. There really is something for everyone.

Level up your social media with creative content marketing ideas in 2022

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 15:39:11 GMT

Level up your social media with creative content marketing ideas in 2022

Creating content marketing material and posting on social media all the time can leave you feeling stuck for ideas.

If you've found yourself defaulting to the same style of posts and want to shake things up in 2022, here's our guide on generating creative content marketing ideas that can be shared on your socials.

Whenever you are planning your content marketing, it's vital to stay organised. And for just this reason, we've created a number of resources to keep on top of your content and social media marketing. Get your 30-day planner an d notebook with 12-month planner to write down all of your creative content marketing ideas.

Ideas for different types of content marketing

New Year is always a great time to start forming new habits and learning new skills, especially when it comes to organising your content marketing planning. It's a great time to try something new. Let us first look at the different types of content that you can share to form your overall content marketing mix -

Blogs and articles
Email marketing
Website pages
Video content
Audio content
Photos and branded images
Social media text posts
Infographics
Free downloads - e-books/PDFs

You may not want to use ALL of these content marketing formats, but using a mixture is usually best. Your audience will not find your content engaging if it's always presented to them in the same format. Test to see what you get the best response from.

And please, don't forget to add call to actions! Read more about ' how to write a compelling social media call to action in your posts ' and ' great call to action examples to smash your social media engagement '.

Repurpose old content so you don't always have to find new ideas

Something many people forget about when it comes to creative content marketing ideas is repurposing your old content. Just because you have shared it before doesn't mean you can't share it again. Successful content marketing strategies not only create new content but also focus heavily on using what you already have.

Say you have a blog post that's from a year ago, there are a few ways to refresh and re-share it. You could re-share that to your social media channels with a reflection on it, or add an updated section to it on your website with a time stamp to say it was amended.

Another good suggestion is to keep an eye on the news and current affairs - if they touch on topics you have written about previously, you should share that article with your thoughts.

Now, let's talk about video and audio repurposing. These could work for if you've been on a podcast episode or recorded a video interview. You can create lots of small clips from the original file to share separately across your social media channels, write a blog post based on why the file was created (sharing an embedded file), and you can also add branding to your video or audio files through free tools like Canva (more on this later) or Headliner (great for podcasts).

No matter what form of content marketing you use, there's always a way of repurposing old content!

Sharing your content through social media marketing

Every time you create a new piece of content, whether that's hosted on your website or not, you should use social media marketing as a way to promote it. The different social media channels have slightly different rules, but generally speaking, social media platforms reward you when you share a variety of content types. It's better for the algorithm if you can mix it up and keep people engaged.

One of the joys of social media is the versatility, as each platform allows you to post different types of social media content. When you are using a combination of social platforms in your marketing mix, you can have fun your content. But this also comes with a common challenge many of us face - how do you always come up with creative content marketing ideas?

If you don't know where to start, read the previous blog about ‘ how to craft a social media plan in 5 manageable steps ' first .

Creative content marketing ideas for you to use in the New Year

A New Year always gives us marketers plenty to talk about. As a prompt, there are some questions listed below that can form plenty of material for your new email marketing campaigns, social media posts, and blogs.

What have you and your team achieved this last year?
What's been happening 'behind the scenes'?
Have you hired new staff?
Did your offering/products grow?
What changed for you?
What inspirational quotes resonate with you?
Do you have a new product launch planned or special offer?
Will you organise a face-to-face meeting/event?
Where do you see yourself in this new year?

In time for the New Year, you can also share older content as a reflection (another form of repurposing content). It's a good time to look back on what you were posting about on your social media channels or website blog a year ago to see the progress you've made. Don't be afraid to repurpose any content marketing from then to form your 2022 plans.

Another way to form creative content marketing ideas is to share your thoughts based on what you do in your own time, too. People love personal content, especially if it features a cute pet! This is explained in my previous blog post ' how pets can help you create winning content' .

Using Canva for content marketing visuals

All content marketing formats perform better on social media when there's a striking visual for you to share with it. Your visuals could be a mixture of professional brand photography, branded imagery, and infographics. Many people digest information better if it's presented to them in a visual format rather than plain text.

A fantastic tool to create striking visuals is Canva. Popular with many in-house marketers, Canva offers a free platform to use that doesn't require any design skills. With its easy drag-and-drop feature and pre-built templates, you can create beautiful images with your company brand colours in minutes.

Not only that, but as mentioned earlier in the post, you can edit videos and audio files on Canva. This can be useful when you need to share video content, such as reels, but you also want to add your company logo or text overlays.

To get support with Canva, The Thinking Cap offers a free online course to help you - access it here, ' create social media graphics that stop the scroll!" . If you still need some extra support, get in touch for 121 Canva training or talk to me about creating a full suite of on-brand imagery for you to use directly.

That should have given you some great starting points to level up your creative content marketing ideas for 2022, but if you need any extra social media content support, get in touch.

Get your sales team ready for social selling in 2022

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 20:24:11 GMT

Get your sales team ready for social selling in 2022

There's no doubt that the way the world sells things has changed dramatically over the past few years. Are you and your team ready for optimising your social selling in 2022 to get ahead of the trends?

The pandemic saw an overnight interruption for traditional sales teams. Physical meetings and introductions were no longer allowed. Everything went online. But if you were like many businesses, you were not prepared for social selling then, and may still not be now.

Although the pandemic has caused many businesses to change the way they operate, there are still many companies who are slightly behind the times and need to focus on improving their social selling in 2022 to keep up with the competition.

Recent statistics state that "75% of B2B buyers use contacts and information from social networks" as their purchase process.

Online activity on social media has never been more important for selling. Read more about ‘why now, is the right time to start socially selling’ on my previous blog post.

What is a social selling strategy and how do I start?

If social selling is a new concept to you and you're wondering what it means, here's a definition -

"Social selling is a softer sales lead generation technique. Where your individual sales staff directly interact, engage and nurture their online connections, socially".

So, what does that mean for your business sales team and how do they start social selling in 2022?

First, you want to identify your target market and create ideal customer profiles.

Then you want to use the LinkedIn search feature to find people that fit these profiles to build meaningful relationships.

Social selling should not be seen as a sales quick-fix but as a way to build your reputation and gain people's trust over time.

Using LinkedIn for social selling in 2022 to get ahead of your competition.

LinkedIn is a great tool for social selling, as people have their job information available to see publicly. People are generally on there to do business and connect with like-minded professionals, so opening a conversation is important.

You can connect with people on LinkedIn by sending them a personalised connection request, mentioning why you would like to connect (a compliment about their work or content works great here!).

One important thing to note is that people don't like being instantly pitched to in their direct messages. Your aim is to build a personal rapport with your connections rather than just collecting information or cold-pitching. For more on this topic, read my blog 'Make the right first impression on LinkedIn’.

But the real work is done when you engage with other people's LinkedIn posts. By liking and commenting on other people's content, your relationships will form quicker and your profile reach will also be higher.

When you use the platform more often and engage regularly, your content will be shown to a larger proportion of your connections and you're more likely to get good results. Using the comments section to share your own thoughts on other people's posts can help you to be seen as insightful and knowledgeable.

Beyond the initial sale, "53% of customer loyalty is driven by a salespersons' ability to drive unique insight, share their knowledge or prove their worth". Being consistent with sharing your own insight and engaging with others will not only help you to generate new leads, but it will keep your current customers' loyalty.

Train your team on the importance of social selling

By now many of us have realised that the effects of the pandemic are here to stay. And one huge impact that's not going anywhere is the increased use or social selling. It now needs to be a vital part of your overall marketing strategy.

One way of achieving this is by signing up your sales team for The Thinking Cap's LinkedIn Training Tailored to YOU . This training will guide you through getting your business noticed and staying in front of your target audience. The live online training will be tailored to your team's needs to ace social selling, showcasing industry-related examples and tips, to bring into your social media strategy on LinkedIn.

With an actionable plan after the LinkedIn training session, your team will instantly be able to -

have a completed profile that people will find and want to connect with
post with confidence
understand the LinkedIn algorithm
create varied content that stops the scroll to stand out in the LinkedIn feed
search for and connect with correctly targeted people

Enquire about the LinkedIn Training now to learn how to start making money from social selling in 2022.

Sharing content to improve your social selling in 2022

A key part of a good social selling strategy is to share useful and educational content to your LinkedIn feed to position yourself as an expert within your industry.

Suggestions of content ideas include;

free downloads
book a demo
infographics
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Social selling does not need to stay on the social media platforms, because even though the relationship starts there, you can encourage your connections and followers to join your mailing list, book a call or meeting, or buy directly. You should have measures in place to start collecting these prospects' data. A good example is you can share a link to a landing page to encourage a sign-up to get their contact details, and so taking the conversation away from LinkedIn.

Creating content for your team on LinkedIn can be time-consuming. Many companies team up with a marketing company to get extra support for this and here at The Thinking Cap, we can help. In addition to the LinkedIn Training, you can get personalised design materials and online collateral for you to make the best overall impression.

To start making money through social selling in 2022, sign up to LinkedIn Training Tailored to YOU with The Thinking Cap and get a head-start for your sales team.

Training your new Kickstarter employee on social media and content marketing

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 14:57:19 GMT

Have you taken advantage of the gove rnment's Kickstart scheme?

If you have employed a 16-24 year old in your business under the scheme, will you be using them to help produce your social media and content marketing? It can be hard to know where to start when thinking about training your new Kickstarter.

Make the most of the extra support for your business by giving them skills to start their career.

What is the Kickstart scheme?

The Kickstart scheme is funded by the UK Government to support young people who are currently not working. For candidates to be considered, they must be on Universal Credit and within the age bracket of 16-24 years old.

If you have already applied to the scheme, you'll know that to be eligible you also must make sure you are training your new Kickstarter employee as part of the agreement. This is to make sure that you are teaching them valuable skills to assist finding new roles in their future, helping the next generation of workers.

The scheme is for a minimum of 25 hours a week in a 6-month period. During this, it's important you on-board them and train your new Kickstarter employee to have the skills needed for their role in your company.

Training your new Kickstarter on social media and content marketing.

Another requirement of the scheme is to have a brand new position for your new Kickstarter employee. It cannot be taking over from a previous role.

One route people are choosing is to employ a candidate to help with social media and content marketing. The funding is allowing smaller companies who did not previously have the ability to create this marketing role to now do so.

Your new Kickstarter may have good knowledge of social media for their personal activity, but they are not likely to have any experience in social media or content marketing on a professional basis.

To create a successful role you should include training your new Kickstarter employee in your plan. Give them training for skills specialist to business digital marketing.

Give your Kickstarter the right start with quality training.

Kickstarter digital marketing training with The Thinking Cap

As a specialist in social media and content marketing, I can give your new Kickstarter employee all the skills needed to make sure they hit the ground running.

Let me help in training your new Kickstarter and yourself at the same time should you wish.

What social media and content marketing skills are included in training your new Kickstarter?

With them starting a brand new role, you may need help assessing the tasks you would like them to undertake. Having training can be a good opportunity to discuss your targets with an industry expert. This can help to ensure your new Kickstarter can progress and learn new skills whilst understanding what they are expected to achieve.

With training from The Thinking Cap, we run through all they need to know about social media and content marketing, including -

The differences between personal and business posts.
Understanding your ideal audience and how to talk to them online.
Business platform basics and also the etiquette of using them.
Training on how to spot content opportunities for your industry.
The importance of branding, including logos, colour palettes, tone of voice, and consistency.
How to create striking social media graphics in Canva (a free software).
How to plan content in advance for your approval, creating content calendars.
How to schedule or post in real-time on the different platforms.
Talking about hashtag use and research which ones are best for you.
Creating a LinkedIn profile that reflects your business and attracts your ideal clients.

If your company already has some activity online, we can make sure in training your new Kickstarter the profiles/pages/groups and the content are optimised to suit your target audience.

By focusing on free software and tools, your company's content marketing and social media presence will be professional and engaging without any additional monthly fees.

At the end of the six month placement you'll have trained someone and moulded them to suit your business needs.

How do we get started in training your new Kickstarter employees with The Thinking Cap?

To make sure the training is bespoke to not only your company, but to your new employee's skills, we start with a discovery call. I'll ask you questions to determine the level of training that's most suited.

Once that's done, we schedule three private two-hour sessions on Zoom. If you would like to join us (or send another team member along), it could be beneficial to training your new Kickstarter and helping their progress.

These three sessions will run through your business goals, audience, and work to their levels of experience. All sessions are recorded on Zoom, so you can look back at them whenever you need to.

But after the sessions, the support doesn't stop there. You will have access to my private Facebook group - a great place to ask questions and see the regular content tips posted.

Not only that, you'll get a free thirty-day content planner to help them get started in their first month.

How much does the social media and content marketing training cost?

This specialist training is only £500.

This equates to just a third of the £1500 funding you will have received to go towards training and equipment costs.

Spending £500 will help to create an actionable plan with new skills to help push your business forward.

It's a win-win. Help the next generation of workers by teaching them new skills in social media and content marketing for business.

Once you've completed the training, you can keep your content ideas organised and flowing with ' My Digital Marketing & Social Media Content Ideas NOTEBOOK ' available to buy on Amazon for only £7.19.

There’s no better time to level up your social media and content knowledge than now. My training your new Kickstarter package will give you the resources to comfortably create content for your business, resonating with your audience and help in growing your business. Buy the training today and let's get started!

If you're unsure and want to chat it through, let's pencil in a no-obligatory call, here.

Great call to action examples to smash your social media engagement

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 13:36:50 GMT

In this article, we want to share some great call to action examples to add to your social media posts to increase engagement. Running through reasons to use both easy and complex call to actions, you'll be able to get the conversation going with your audience for the right reasons after reading this .

But, why should you bother to use a call to action on social media?

Well, as you know your brand can share content to your audience for free on many social media platforms. By using some call to actions that create customer engagement, rather than always asking for direct contact, you will be able to establish a trusted relationship. Building the know, like, and trust element of your content is essential to getting social media engagement.

What counts as social media engagement?

Engagement is a term used across many popular social channels defined by your audience (or 'fans') interacting with your content. Every like, share, re-tweet, and comment counts as social media engagement.

Building your engagement levels means that your customers are more likely to support you and you're one step closer to opening the conversation with them.

Call to action examples that lead to social media engagement include a variety of things that you're encouraging your audience to do, that may not necessarily be to get in touch.

Social media engagement also helps to spread your social posts to others who have similar interests to your audience.

With the assistance of algorithms, if a customer of yours comments and likes your post, it's more likely their network and similar profiles will also see your post, too.

It's free advertising of your brand. Having a call to action that encourages comments can be an easy way to create a dialogue with others.

What are the different reasons you would use call to actions on social media?

Different call to action examples will be used for different purposes. You can use a call to action to encourage any of these areas of your business growth -

Brand awareness
Audience reach
Traffic to your website
Lead generation
Sales

Within the different call to action examples, there are things they can do to help your business overall...

Call to action examples for engagement

For brand awareness, encouraging social media engagement will help to show your brand to more people, therefore more people will be aware of your company and will begin to trust you sooner. This will in turn increase your audience reach.

Simple examples of call to actions for engagement would be -

Like
Comment
Share
Tag a friend

The more active your audience is in response to your content, the better it will perform on all social media channels, so adding call to actions can really help.

If adding one for every post feels daunting, try some simple call to actions (like the ones listed above) with a quick suggestion, for example: 'tag a friend who would agree with this post', or ask a question at the end to encourage people sharing their thoughts in the comments.

Another way you can create social media engagement would be to ask your audience to share their personal story through a #hashtag campaign. Creating a personalised hashtag can be good when brands are asking for people's response to a topical conversation, such as the #thislittlegirlisme campaign.

If you set up a branded campaign with a specific hashtag, people can follow it and your brand awareness will increase.

Call to action examples to increase sales

If your product/service operates on your website, your social media call to actions may include links or buttons to lead them directly to the website. E-commerce websites do this especially well from social media, as you can click through to buy easily.

Having a post that asks for engagement but has links to your website can create a good way to sell, without seeming 'salesy'.

Call to action examples for landing pages

You may also have a service that can be signed up for through your website, such as an online course, that can be accessed through a direct link or landing page.

A landing page is usually a page that is promoting just one product/service at a time. You will normally find the navigation page is hidden and the aim of these landing pages is to get you to take one clear action, that's not always selling something.

This could be signing up for a newsletter, joining a pre-sale waitlist, or accessing a free download. A landing page will usually require the visitor to enter their email address and so you gain a lead to drop into your marketing funnel.

By sending your social media followers to a direct landing page, you can encourage them to learn more and result in being directed to your clear call to action.

Examples of these more complex actions could include -

Sign up now (online courses)
Buy here (link to product or payment link)
Book your appointment (consultancy)

A landing page can be created with third-party services such as Leadpages . They're easy to set up and use with drag and drop functions, and give access to store your customer data. Other useful software includes ConvertKit which sits behind your landing page and collects the data for you, tags leads, and can automate email marketing sequences.

A sales page is similar to a landing page, but is focused on persuading the reader to buy something straight away. Using call to actions multiple times on a sales page is vital to make people take that final step of a purchase.

Call to action examples for downloads

Whether your audience are downloading something for free or paying, you can use call to actions to encourage them that your download is of value to them.

What would you ask people to download?

Many different documents are used across marketing, including; whitepapers, fact sheets, infographics, designs, templates, and are most commonly accessed with a gated download. This means in exchange for the customer's email address or payment, they receive a copy of your useful document.

These documents are called 'lead magnets' as they entice someone to exchange the email address for a download, and so you have the email address of a 'lead' (someone interested in your product/service).

Not only can this be a great social media topic to share, it can also capture your audience's data to be used in the rest of your sales funnel.

You could say any of the following call to action examples on your social media accounts -

Get your free e-book
Sign up for your free template
Access the PDF now
Claim your copy here

Tip: it's always good to explain the value they will receive by following these call to action examples. What's in it for them?

What makes a good call to action?

As explained in detail in our previous blog post, 'How to write a compelling social media call to action in your posts' , there are many ways you can approach your call to action. The more specific and personalised to your offer, the better they will perform.

By simply adding a call to action to your social pages, you open up many opportunities to increase your overall company marketing presence online.

To get help with your social media planning, I've created a notebook to help keep all your social media and digital marketing content ideas in one place. Its available from Amazon at just £7.19 and is called ' My Digital Marketing & Social Media Content Ideas Notebook ''.

Hopefully I've has given you some good call to action examples and ideas about how to include them in your social media posts to increase engagement and awareness of your brand. If you feel you need more help with your social media, please have a look at my various social media training courses .

How to write a compelling social media call to action in your posts

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 16:15:02 GMT

Millions of social media posts are created every day, but what makes a good one? Including a powerful social media call to action can turn your content from boring to brilliant.

What is a social media call to action?

First, let’s discuss what call to actions are and then we will discuss how to use them when creating social media content.

A call to action is telling your reader to act and do something – in effect, what you want them to do next!

By explaining WHY, you can influence people to follow your call to actions. But you need an overall understanding of your audience first. You need to know what you want the reader to do and take into consideration what problem you’re solving for them.

Example call to actions:

Click here
Visit our website
Buy now
Call us
Get in touch
Sign up
Register for a free trial
Request a quote
Book a call
Books a demo
Subscribe
Download our tip sheet

Creating social media content that encourages engagement

Not using a social media call to action on your posts is a missed opportunity. Social media posts with clear call to actions create a higher engagement than those without.

But most are generic and don’t make the reader compelled to take this action. So, how do you make your call to actions great for social media?

Five key tips for creating killer social media call to actions:

1. Personalise the call to action to your desired reader

2. Use strong action words

3. Create a sense of urgency

4. Clearly explain the benefit to the reader

5. Make it easy for them to carry out the action

Personalise your social media posts to your audience

All social media posts should speak directly to the reader. Use words like ‘you’ and a conversational message to achieve this. There’s so much noise on social media that you need to do something to grab their attention and make them feel seen.

Research your chosen target audience to see what makes them tick and speak directly to them. Don’t worry about putting some people off, as appealing to everyone often means you are appealing to no-one.

Use strong words in your social media call to action

You want to use strong command words that tell the reader exactly what they should do. Then compliment them with strong power words that highlight why they should act.

For example, phrases such as –

“Download your proven guide to success in social media”

‘’Sign up for these fool proof tips on creating an email list”

“Get your free copy of our ultimate client lead strategy”

You want to avoid sounding desperate or tentative. Make each word as direct as you can, without being pushy, for maximum effect with your social media call to actions.

Create a sense of urgency

Use words like “ now ”, “ limited time offer ”, and “ not to be missed! ” to create a sense of urgency in your social media call to actions. People are more likely to be persuaded to click and act on your call to actions if you can generate a fear of missing out!

Clearly explain the benefit to the reader

Alongside strong words and a sense of urgency, you should clearly explain why the reader should take this action.

What’s in it for them?

Readers want you to answer this. If they can read your post and think “so what?”, then you need to rephrase it. To take it one step further, you could explain the benefit using statistics, such as “5x your revenue in two months with our free download”.

Make it easy for them

Whichever action you want your reader to take, make sure your social media call to actions are simple and lead directly to a clear landing page, sign up page, or contact you option.

If they have to jump through hoops to do the thing you’re asking, they will give up and your call to actions will fail.

Have you ever visited a website and it’s been hard work, so you’ve left? Don’t make that same mistake. And, always make sure you regularly test your links and process.

Call to actions are most effective when they are at the end of the social media posts. Use the main body of the post to set the reader up with the WHY, persuading them of the benefits, THEN hit them with a strong call to action last.

Using social media call to actions on different platforms

Each social media platform has their own way of presenting information, so when you are creating social media posts for multiple platforms you need to consider this.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok all have their own ways of sharing links, for example.

Simply saying “click on the link…” could create a challenge if you’re duplicating the content on different platforms, as your reader may need to take different actions to find the link.

On Instagram, for example, you may have the shopping features and you can tell your audience to “tap to shop”, but on Twitter, you’d have to direct them to a link.

Being mindful that different social media posts across multiple channels will need different call to actions is important to the success of your posts.

Get help with creating a social media call to action that engages your reader from The Thinking Cap

Does the idea of creating social media content give you a headache, even after reading our guide to call to actions?

Our clients often struggle to come up with new social media posts that will engage with their readers – we love helping them to overcome this.

We have created a checklist for successful content for you to look at, but at The Thinking Cap, we love to help people directly through our social media training and social media management services.

Coming soon, we have a blog post explaining how to use call to actions for engagement. This could mean that you’re not asking customers to contact you directly, but to comment on social media posts or sign up for further communications. It goes into detail about applying your call to actions to marketing funnels such as email marketing signup forms, eBook downloads, and creating hashtag trends.

Whether you want us to create new content for your social media posts, or train you in how to do this consistently, get in touch to master your social media call to action skills.

How Pets Can Help You Create Winning Content

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 10:57:23 GMT

Working from home over the last couple of years has been reflected in our content, whether the odd photo of our new desk set-up or being photobombed by one of our pets.

Either way, I’m sure your followers and connections have enjoyed seeing more of a ‘human touch’ with your content.

Showing your pet on a post really does work with increasing your engagement.

Whether it’s your beloved cat sat on your keyboard or your dog bringing the post.

It’s a great way to give people a peek at your personal life whilst doing business. After all, it’s called SOCIAL media, so let’s be social every now and again.

Personally, I have noticed a much higher engagement rate when my dog, Storm, features in any of my posts. It’s proven that pets do help with increasing engagement.

It makes sense. After all, a dog is man’s best friend – so why wouldn’t we like to see our furry friends across our socials?

More reasons to include your pets in your social media posts:

�� Animal people are everywhere

�� Animal posts receive more engagement

�� They’re uncontroversial

�� They’re more shareable

�� There’s a broader audience

Pets, especially dogs and cats, can reduce stress, anxiety and depression, ease loneliness, encourage exercise and playfulness and can massively help lift our mood. The sole purpose of a therapy dog, to make people feel better. Which is the way it works.

It’s nothing new. In 2016 Newswhip carried out a study and found that some brands saw up to 295% more post comments that featured pets. You can read this study here .

Your pet dog could really be your new office trendsetter! Just give it a go and see.

We know Newswhip’s research was carried out by analysing 15 brands that regularly featured pets on their Instagram only. However, people are starting to be more human on other more business platforms like LinkedIn.

I am not saying by any stretch to feature your pet into every LinkedIn post, but every now and again and maybe on a Friday is ok. Think about your audience. What do they care about, and how can you leverage that to engage with them.

Try it and see what the engagement is like. Everybody’s connections are different and react differently.

Throughout the year, there are many awareness days that might be a good excuse to introduce your furry four-legged friend.

Here are the pet awareness days that we celebrate internationally and also in the UK: :

January, Walk your dog month – maybe post-walk to work.

11-14th March, Crufts – perhaps you are exhibiting or showing your dog?

April, National pet month.

The 15th of June, International working animal day

The 25th of June, Bring your dog to workday

The 8th of August, International cat day

The 26th of August, National dog day

The 16th of November World horse appreciation day

NB: the above days were based on 2021, and may alter year on year – so please check before posting

Remember your pet-related hashtags.

Remember, if you do post on any of these days, use the relevant hashtag. For example, this is the hashtag #BRINGYOURDOGTOWORKDAY

For the 25th of June, awareness day, Bring your dog to work day. They even have a website for the occasion, have a look here. The reason behind this particular awareness day, is to raise awareness and also donations for a great dog welfare charity. So, what better excuse to take your dog to work.

If you’re looking for a hashtag that is unrelated to an animal awareness day, here are a few ideas:

#PAWSOME (instead of awesome)

#DogsWorkingFromHome

#dogsofinstagram

#catsofinstagram

#doglovers

#dogoftheday

#doglife

#itsadogslife

The list goes on.

You can also use the breed as a hashtag.

It doesn’t matter what route you choose to go down: your pets are a great win on social media.

Try and remember this when you’re planning your social media content and try and get them into at least one post a month. They will lead to higher likes and comments. It’s a fun and straightforward way to boost your social media channels.

Remember if you are looking for inspiration on content, we have our FREE Content Made Easy Masterclass and to go with this why not register for our FREE Content Ideas Notebook .

Social customer service and why you need to be offering it.

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 16:09:57 GMT

Start seeing Social media as a customer service relationship tool. NOT a selling tool!

How many times have you tried to book a table, ask for opening hours, or ask a store if they have a product in stock, via Facebook messenger, Direct Message on Instagram or WhatsApp? Whether you like it or not Social media is becoming a point of contact to resolve customer questions and concerns.

If done properly, it’s highly effective as it allows a conversation to start on the platforms your customers and prospects are already using.

The quicker you start seeing your platforms as a relationship customer service tool, the quicker you’ll form lasting relationships.

Here are a few stats to show why you need to start incorporating a customer service solution into your business social media plan:

1billion messages are exchanged between people and businesses every month on Facebook Messenger.

64% of people would rather message than call a business.

46% of people expect brands to offer customer service on Facebook… when in fact only 23% of companies provide this service on Facebook.

So as you can see you're not alone.

But where do you start?

By setting up a dedicated handle for social media customer support
For example, Hootsuite have a separate account for this called @Hootsuite_help. Do the same using ‘yourcompanyname_help’ and do it on the platforms your customers are active on.
Share this in your profile/bio of your company social media accounts so people know how to contact you if they need to.
Alternatively, try a li ve chat plug-in on the website, this also gives people at all times of the day an alternative contact point. But make sure it’s manned.
Make sure you have a dedicated customer services team managing the responses and not a third party (unless they have all the possible questions and responses to hand).
Get your customer service team to generate a list of regular FAQs and the answers and have these ready to copy and paste when required.
Then see how you get on and refine the process.
Remember to always gather feedback from the customer service team as this will be crucial to the future of your content marketing. If customers regularly have the same questions, that’s a clue you need to provide some tip sheets and informative posts.
Always respond and quickly. If you do not have a team managing responses overnight, switch on an automated reply managing their expectation. Facebook is a platform that times your respond time. And rewards your pages accordingly.

You know it makes sense using social media as a customer service channel.

Over the last 18-months or so Covid-19 has altered the way we talk, communicate, meet-up, research products and shop etc.

We know things are starting to get back to normal, but for a long period of time, people have become use to buying food online, researching and buying products online etc.

Many will continue with this quick the efficient online buying route and have become to love the fast-paced messaging method too.

At the end of the day, the buying landscape has changed so you need to change the way you sell around it.

The harsh fact is:

All stores were closed forcing buyers to change their buying behaviour
All face to face in-store selling and point of sale interaction came to an abrupt end
Lots of Micro stores have now popped up online,
People are buying online with digital savvy newly established companies, that you now have to compete with
Your online customer journey now needs to be tiptop
You need to be showing up consistently online on the socials nurturing those relationships
You need to re-think, alter your systems and re-train your customer facing staff to be the face behind the website live chat, and social media platforms and reply ultra-quick to resolve any complaints or answer any questions etc.

If you feel like having a 121 chat about this topic or your social media in general let’s pencil in a time.

Here is my Calendly link

Alternatively, if you’ve enjoyed the blog and want to receive more articles like these along with content tips for the month, please pop onto the website and subscribe (the form will pop up) to our newsletter.

How to become your own social media graphic designer

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 13:56:26 GMT

How to become your own social media graphic designer

Here at The Thinking Cap, we understand how important it is that small business owners have the flexibility to create and distribute their social media posts on demand. Even if as a business you can afford outsource to a designer, or to a creative friend, they might not always be able to meet your time demands as quickly as you’d like.

Delays in receiving creative content can take away your ‘social media spontaneity’ which we want to avoid at all costs!

Our solution is, to become your own social media graphic designer, in Canva!

Canva is an easy to use, free, graphic design and video platform that allows you to design and publish anything using an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.

Have you considered creating content yourself? You don’t need to be a trained designer to create awesome looking social media graphics. You just need a bit of guidance and the right tools, like Canva!

Not only will you be able to create content as and when you need it, you can do all this… for FREE!

Social media posts with graphics increase engagement

Studies have shown that posts with some sort of image or creative content, produce an engagement rate 650% higher than that of a text-only post. For small businesses, this increase in engagement for simply adding a piece of creative content is massive - if you can do this at home and with no cost, why wouldn’t you?

It is important to remember that audience’s respond to familiarity, so be sure to keep your content branded. Make your social media graphics are instantly recognisable by using your regular colour palette and add your logo onto every image or video you share. Fonts are equally as important, use your preferred/corporate font in all your headings, sub-headings and across your general text. Again all of this is really easy to do in Canva .

Canva has 1000’s of pre-designed social media graphics and templates for you to use

The best thing about Canva is they have done the hard work for you, by providing thousands of pre-designed social media graphics in a variety of platform sizes. You can simply scroll down until you see one that catches your eye or search for a theme. Then switch it up by changing the colour, add in your logo and alter the text.

If you find you are using Canva a lot for £11.99 a month you can upgrade and have the Pro version. Which opens up a massive amount of royalty free images, videos, animations, stickers, audio clips and you guessed it even more pre-designed social media graphics and templates.

The Canva features are endless, even more so, when you have the Pro account.

Canva isn’t just for social media graphics

Obviously, we use Canva day in day out and typically use the social media graphic side of the platform, however Canva isn’t just for social media graphics. You may have seen Canva advertised recently on TV, they show a collaborative team jointly creating a presentation.

You can view the TV ad here.

You can create a multitude of offline products as well as the online digital assets, like stationery, business cards, letterheads, posters, postcards, photobooks, certificates and flyers etc. even branded merchandise, this list goes on.

Wide variety of downloadable formats in Canva

When you have created your masterpiece in Canva, it’s available to either download or you can send to print directly through the platform.

The list of downloadable formats is really good too, see for yourself (below):

PNG,
JPG,
MP4,
PDF Standard,
PDF Print (you have the option of adding crop marks),
SVG,
GIF,

Use Canva to create video content for your social media

I would highly recommend using more video in your content. I wrote a blog recently about how the social media giants are now favouring video, over any other post medium and the stats really speak for themselves.

It’ll be no surprise that you can use Canva to create video and animations, as well as static social media graphics.

Canva give you the choice from many stock video and animation options.

For example, you have the choice of the following 12 Canva video styles:

1. General video – size 1920x1080px

2. Facebook video – size 1080 x 1080px

3. Video Message – size 1920x1080px

4. Mobile video – size 1080 x 1920px

5. Video collage – size 800 x 800px

6. YouTube video ad – size 1920x1080px

7. Feed Ad Video (portrait) – size 1080 x 1350px

8. Slideshow video – size 1920x1080px

9. YouTube video – size 1920x1080px

10. LinkedIn Ad video – size 1920 x 1920px

11. TikTok video – size 1080 x 1920px

12. Pinterest video pin – size 1000 x 1500px

One of the great things about Canva is that all the pre-design templates whether they are static images or videos the size of the design area is fixed. Which is pre-defined by the social media platform. Taking out all the guess work.

Leaving you to concentrate on the design, knowing it’ll be fit for purpose.

Here is a short screen recording where I have selected the video tab, then picked the mobile video option. As you can see there are lots of pre-designed videos and animations to choose from. I've picked one, changed the text, added my logo and moved things around a little.

I could have also changed the image, background colour and much much more.

But this shows you how easy it can be with Canva.

If you want to learn more about Canva and develop some content inspiration, be sure to sign up for one of our upcoming courses.

Our FREE content masterclass , Social Media Content Made Easy, is a great session where we help you spot what great content is, how to find it and how to create accompanying imagery. We mention Canva and quickly show you the platform.

Our other FREE masterclass, Create Canva Social Media Graphics that Stop the Scroll, lasts about 40 minutes in length and it gives you a great introduction to Canva, the features and the capabilities.

We can also run private 121 Canva training with individuals, or teams. On all the courses you are sent the recording, in case you need to revisit the training at any time.

If you are interested in learning more about Canva, click here and set yourself up with a free account, upload your logo and have a play.

In the meantime to keep up to date with my news, blogs, Canva news, free monthly editable Canva images subscribe to my monthly newsletter, by simply visiting my website (the form will pop up).

Videos are now favoured by the social media giants.

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 20:16:40 GMT

With this in mind, have you changed the way you create your social media content to include more video?

In 2020, 2.1 billion users watched at least one video on YouTube. TikTok boasts over 1 billion users spanning across 150 counties, and Instagram reels is now available in 50 countries (as of August 2020). These figures alone are enough to prove just how popular video content has become.

Video marketing gives a whole new lease of life to businesses when it comes to your audience - you can target a whole new audience for free, or at a minimal cost however there is one drawback, you need to be creative with your content to stand-out.

We appreciate many SMEs simply do not have the budget to produce exceptionally high-quality video’s with celebrity endorsements like the big brands. Which can make it harder to stand-out, but you need to step outside of your comfort zone and try to create a personal touch with the content you do produce, so why not try with video?

Important social media video stats*

These statistics show, that you will:

Lose about 33% of viewers 30 seconds into your video.
45% of viewers leave by the 1 minute mark, and
Nearly 60% of viewers leave before your 2 minutes in.

So, no matter how long the video is it’s therefore paramount that your first 30 seconds are captivating and meaningful, to keep your audience interested, and whether your entire video is 30 seconds or 5 minutes long, make sure your viewers don’t leave confused.

Instagram reels are capped at 30 seconds. So, my advice to anyone is, make the first 30 seconds count on it’s own. If your video is 1 minute in length, pause slightly around the 29 second mark and make the first 29 seconds impactful. Then carry on with further information without waffling and leave on a high!

Then if you upload the video onto Instagram as a reel when it cuts off at 30 seconds it looks like it was planned and then use the full length video again on other platforms no forgetting IGTV.

With social media as popular as it is in today’s society, every platform you use does have a video option, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and even Twitter. Not only does this create a wider potential audience.

If you are wanting to create a video with a short life-span, then a story is ideal as they disappear after 24 hours. However, you will only be able to find this option on the mobile app version of the particular platform. The stories show as circles normally at the top of the feed when you are in the app. The people or brand that have a live story to be viewed will have a double circle around their photo/logo.

Here are a few video tips to help you get started using video on your social media platforms...

Because of the above stats* I would start creating videos between 30 seconds and 1 minute in length then decide which platform you want to show your videos on and see what restraints each platform has regarding video. They will all have a minimum and maximum length of time and maximum upload size.

For example, in Facebook you have three video options:

Dropping a native (MP4) video into a post
Doing a Facebook 360 video
Having a Facebook video story

All three vary in length restrictions and max upload sizes, see below.

A native (MP4) video can be between 1 minute – 241 minutes and a maximum size of 4GB.
A Facebook 360 video is a maximum of 30 minutes and 10GB and a
Facebook video story is shorter with a maximum length of 2 minutes and 4GB in size.

So, plan ahead as to which platform and preferred video style first, work out the length preferred, make sure your most important message is in the first 30 seconds and go for it!

So now I have an idea on the platform and preferred video length, WHAT do I video?

We suggest testing the water a bit, and seeing what your audience enjoy .

Perhaps you could:

create an Instagram story with a poll – asking your audience what video content they would like to see.
pick a blog or post that you know has previously resonated with your audience, and go back and create it in video form.
see what other people are doing in your industry, try and get a mix of educational, how to videos and ones that are more fun.

It’s worth remembering that while bigger businesses often have thousands of pounds worth of budget for video content, it is free to post on social media and a lot of the time, free to create the content. All you need is your mobile phone, make sure you’re set up to film vertically, hit ‘record’ the edit to your heart's content. Audiences LOVE a personal touch, so include yourself in the video (if you can) to really reach out to viewers.

One last thing, design for sound off!

Facebook found that people watch mobile videos everywhere — home, at work, during their commute, etc. and often they wouldn’t want the sound (and perhaps that’s why mobile videos are designed to play without sound).

According to Digiday, 85 percent of Facebook videos are played without sound so make sure you add captions to tell your story visually. You can add subtitles relatively easily by using any editing software, from iMovie, to Adobe’s Premiere Pro.

Once you’ve finished filming, edit it (you might want to crop the beginning and end, added subtitles and then chose your preferred audience/platform and publish.

Once posted, save as the native MP4 file on a USB stick (to save your desktop / mobile running out of space) and also download as an Unlisted or Private video in a YouTube account, until you decide what to do with it.

Happy filming!

Checklist for successful content

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 21:23:17 GMT

We all want to make our mark on our social media platforms and we want our audience to engage and remember our brand through our content. But first we need to create successful content.

Success comes from content that gets traction and makes your followers react, you might attract likes, comments, shares, direct messages, it might raise a smile and as a result you gain new followers and one thing your analytics won't measure is how memorable it's been for your audience.

In a nutshell, it's content that hits the spot and instantly connects with your audience.

It shouldn't be solely aimed on selling and bringing in revenue but on your audience and followers pain points and once it's been viewed you should start to be seen as a go to person or company, the trust starts to build and in time leads and sales will follow.

We know how hard it can be for people to gather enough content to keep your feed busy and the last thing you want are a few restrictions to be thrown in. However please check your content ideas through the checklist below before you start physically creating your posts. It'll save you precious time and you'll thank me later for it.

Here's our checklist for successful content

Make sure your content makes a difference to your audience/followers?
Make sure your intention is good? It's not all about you...
Show off and demonstrate your knowledge, experience, and know how.
Try and feature a product or service every now and again.
Does it entertain, educate, inspire, or help your audience?
If your content is aimed at a new audience, make sure it's clear what you do.
If your post is to gain new enquirers, make it easy for them to get in touch with clear call to actions.
If the reason behind the post to gain sales make it easy and tag in your products.

All content falls into one of three categories, these being:

Growth content
Nurture content
Money content

We recommend you post 40% Growth content, 40% Nurture content and 20% Money content, over the course of the month. If you do more than 20% of the Money related content, it will halt your following and people may even start to unfollow you. No one like to be constantly sold to.

AFTER ALL IT'S SOCIAL MEDIA NOT SELLING MEDIA

If you are going through 'writers block' with regards to your content, head over to our other blog posts, there are lots of informative posts that aim to inspire, educate and get your creative content mind working.Here's one blog that springs to mind. I wrote it back in October in hope you give my audience some food for thought for their content in 2021. You can read it here .

Here's more information on the three different categories.

Growth content does what it says on the tin - it aids growth in followers. It's aimed at cold prospects who don't know you, your company or your brand. You need to win over their trust to make them follow you, you can do this easily by giving something away like a fact sheet, a gift, free topical advice etc.

Nurture content helps your already existing followers remain loyal . It's through this type of content your followers start to see the real you, like and trust you and your brand. Share your knowledge, show off your client reviews and start building trust. People buy from people and they buy quicker if they trust you.

Money content - is where you sel l your products and services and hopefully bring in the money! Make it easier for your followers and tag in your products and link your shop. Alternatively if you are selling services, make sure you have the right call to action links, for collecting your leads.

We hope you've enjoyed reading our blog. If you would like to keep abreast of our future blogs we can send you these in our monthly newsletter. Simply complete the pop-up form on the website.

In the meantime, if you'd like to learn more about creating your own social media content, register and download our FREE content masterclass, Social Media Content Made Easy. To read more and register, click here.

Make the right first impression on LinkedIn

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 09:28:57 GMT

If you were attending a sales pitch, or an important meeting you’d turn up smart, you’d be polite and you’d have all the right information to hand, right?

Well, showing up on LinkedIn shouldn’t be any different .

People WILL view your profile on LinkedIn before they physically or digitally meet you. It’s only natural to know a bit more about someone before they spend time with you on a call or in a meeting.

I’ve done it myself, my reasons for checking someone out on LinkedIn is to view their work experience, see how long they have they worked at the company that’s of interest to me, see if we have any shared connections, and whilst I’m on their profile I view their recent posts and by doing so, it gives me an overview of how professional the person

As an individual, your LinkedIn profile is more than likely the first thing a new prospect will see.

So, you could say it’s your new first impression.

But it is the right first impression?

If you are a company owner, are you happy with how your staff look to the outside world?

Remember that business-oriented platforms like LinkedIn are professional sites that can be leveraged to help you:

to be seen as a trustworthy, industry-leading organisation
keep in touch with customers past and present
collate new prospects and start them on their nurturing journey
promote your professional products and services
generate leads and
make money!

The above can and does work for many companies on LinkedIn. Just make sure you or your staff are not the missing cog when it comes to your company’s creditability. Consistency is key when working in harmony with your staff to drive forward together on the same LinkedIn path.

We regularly hear that our staff are our best asset. If this truly is the case, then we need to show them off on LinkedIn. Make all their profiles consistent, credible, and identifiably you (as a company).

I mean, what would it tell you if your staff’s profiles were inconsistent, messy, have their job titles missing in the headline, were not connected to the company page, some had blurred photos, and the ones that weren’t blurred has been taken in a pub, and some photos were missing altogether?

Does this sound familiar?

An outsider’s glimpse of such an organisation would be careless, messy, unorganised, whereas by monitoring your staff’s profiles and making the right changes now, you could look the opposite!

So, where do you start?

On LinkedIn, monitoring all of your client-facing staff’s profiles and provide a list of amends you‘d like them to make.

Audit the following:

The profile images - is it professional, can you tell it's them, do you want a branded colour background?
Their headline - does it include any product, service or locational information you'd expect to see
Their current job - have they tagged in the company page? Can you see your logo?
Their job summary - is it up to date, does it tell the viewer what part they play in the customer journey?
Their list of skills - remember potential prospects may search for a company to work with via certain skills
Their contact details - is it their work email, do you have a work Twitter account, add this so any posts can be shared
The all-important privacy settings .- you will need their log-ins to check this.

OR, take an easier route and let us audit them for you and afterwards if you like we can run a workshop showing your staff how to make these all important changes and tell them why it’s important they keep everything as up to date as possible.

Then sit back.

Once all your staff profiles are uniformed, you can start looking slick, organised, on-trend, on-brand, consistent and most importantly, look like a team that people want to do business with.

If you are getting more serious on LinkedIn, and carrying out staff profile checks etc, you might benefit from a bespoke LinkedIn course . We can tailor this around your customer facing staff experience levels, your services, your company LinkedIn page, policy do's and don'ts, use of hashtags, how your sales team can utilise the search feature etc.

We'll even give you tips on finding industry-related content and providing details on how to engage and be social while being informative and being seen as an industry leader.

We have run lots of tailored LinkedIn workshops for a number of customers, more recently for a large team at Leeds Mind the mental health charity and also large northern Fire and Security company amongst other. All have found the online sessions invaluable. To see more on the bespoke course and to read their reviews click here .

How to craft a social media plan in 5 manageable steps…

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 10 Jun 2021 18:54:04 GMT

Have you been posting without much success and were wondering how to get your business noticed across the busy social media feeds? Then look no further, our 5 manageable steps should help you along.

1. Summarise your goals

Think about what you want to achieve in your business over the coming month/quarter. Is it to gain awareness of a new product/service or get bums on seats to a monthly masterclass? What does the anticipated results look like for each of your goals?What are the timings, allocated budget and resource do you have to achieve each of the goals?

For e.g. I run a monthly masterclass and I’d like to get at least 10 people booked on each month. I am willing to spend my time posting to gain organic sign-ups and approx. £100 a month on paid ads, and the timings are around all the course dates … .

2. Define your target audience

Do you know who you target audience is? To help you work this out complete my customer persona checklist below.

By knowing exactly who you are talking to, it really helps you focus in on your content and messaging. Simply because both have to be aimed at the customer.

Does your content help them with their day-to-day problems and pain points?

Is your content relatable to them in their situation?

So, for me: My training courses are aimed at small business owners, one-man bands, sole traders etc. who want to do their own social media or cannot afford to pay me to manage it for them. Their pain point is they are too busy doing everything else in the company and are time poor and need free tools and my free masterclasses to get them started. They have a limited budget, and location wise they can be Nationwide (as my courses are all online).

Hubspot, have a great tool called Make My Persona, click here and start to create and name your persona.

I'd p rint the pdf off and keep it on show , this will be a great reminder of who are you talking to when creating your content.

3. Analyse your competitor’s social media presence

List up your top 3 competitors and check them out on their website, their social media platforms, look at their reviews, their staff profiles on LinkedIn etc. and analyse the following:

What are they doing well?
What are they doing not so well?
Do you have a competitive edge on some products/ services?
What hashtags are they using on their posts?
What is their content like, is it factual, informative, engaging?
Who are their followers?

The below chart might help you carry this analysis out.

Feel free add extra columns to make the analysis more relevant and in-depth.

4. Audit yourself

Take a step back and look at how others see your company online.

Check out the following:

What’s working and what’s not working? Go onto each platform and check out your analytics or ‘insights’ as some of the platforms call them and analyse the following:

o The type of post that is working/not working for e.g., text only, static image, animation, video, reel, is it memes, growth content, nurture content etc. (all will become clear in point 5.)

o The time of day with what’s working/not working etc– as this will make a difference too and will guide to when to post in future.

How consistent are you with your content, it is all on-brand, carry the same message, call to actions etc.
Which networks are your preferred audience most active on?
How does your strategy compare to your competitor’s?

Alternatively, we can do this for you, as we carry out FREE social media audits, if you'd like to arrange a FREE social media audit, click here.

5. Create your content

By now you should have the following to hand:

1. Your company goals of what you need your social media to achieve for you.

2. With predefined deadlines and budgets

3. A knowledge of what you’re competing against

4. Know what your customer persona wants to see and hear

5. What type of content that makes your audience tick?

6. What platforms they are on and the approx. time of day

7. A vision of how you want to brand your own content across your socials.

With all of this in mind you can start listing all the types of content that you need to start creating along with your preferred call to actions.

We recommend you have 3 separate pages, one for each of the different categories of content, as shown below.

1. Growth content

2. Nurturing content

3. Money content

We recommend you post 40% growth and 40% nurturing and 20% money content.

See below as to the differences.

1. Growth content

The is content that will help you grow your audience on social media, with new contacts that have just come across your posts, feed, bio etc.

Give them something that will make them like and comment on your post and hopefully follow your page. E.g., problem-solving tips, a fact sheet, a 30-day content planner!

2. Nurturing content

Nurturing content will help your followers get to know, like and trust you.

Tell them why they need to buy from you. Where did you get all your experience from, be knowledgeable and share some snippets like in a masterclass or through stories, share reviews?

Start building up the trust through these types of posts.

3. Money content

Money content are the posts where you sell sell sell!

This is where you provide direct links to purchase your product or services. Always include a call to action that takes them to the shop or asks them to direct action (buy now).

So, you’ll end up with something like this

Here are a few ‘content’ related blogs we have written recently, they might be worth a read, if you’re scratching your head right now:

5 tips to help you break the monotony of creating your social media posts

Content with your content

Marketing plan v’s content plan

To help you along your content journey, you might appreciate downloading our FREE on-demand masterclass, Social Media Content Made. To read more and to register for the link, click here

We really hope these 5 steps help you along your social media journey, and remember our monthly tip, tricks, hacks & masterclasses will only add to enhance your presence.

If you have any questions or feedback, we’d love to hear from you, just ping us over an email, lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk

Why now, is the right time to start socially selling

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 14 May 2021 11:53:29 GMT

Most c ompanies are socially buying, are you in turn socially selling?

In a world where everything is online, merging your sales technique with an increasing digital network will lead to you organically developing a social selling platform.

A year and more has gone by since lockdown 1.0 and all client meetings, informal coffee chats and networking as we knew it moved online. The recent virtual cafés are now otherwise known as Zoom, Teams, Hangouts..

As a result, social selling has become more prominent than ever.

In a nutshell, Social Selling is the selling of a product or service following online, virtual relationship and trust building.

Finding clients can be tricky, however, with the way social media works today, finding clients through an online platform can be incredibly easy – after all, you can just hop onto the search bar on any platform and search for an industry-related hashtag, and there’s a whole world of conversations and prospects who are potentially interested in what you have to offer .

Building rapport and trust amongst your prospective clients means you can sell your product more easily. You’re not a stranger bustling around trying to make more money, you will be seen more as a colleague, a friend – a confidante even and you can use this to your advantage. Keep posting topical, factual, inspiring content and when your prospective client needs a product or service that you sell, by having a pre-established relationship, they will think of you first.

You just need to be on the right platform, with the right content attracting the right audience, then BINGO!

You’ll know from previous experience that people share everything on social media from interests and hobbies, their work pain points right down to where they shop.

By spending time socially listening you’ll see/hear your potential clients sharing a large amount of personal information online, whether it’s a business gripe, lack of time, asking for a recommendation, they might do a poll to find a solution to a larger issue. You name it see it as an opener for you to connect and engage with them.

It’s like going to a physical networking event where 20% of the people present were stood underneath a dream client locator pin. You wouldn’t ignore this, would you?

Socially selling means you have the online tools, to spot opportunities from the content that surrounds you daily, how to politely interact, connect and nurture them all the way down the buying funnel.

Home in on what information your online followers are talking about, if you’re in sales you need to share this with your marketing team, or make a note of it somewhere for you to use in your messaging across your content in the coming weeks/months.

Now you know a bit more about social selling and how vital it is in today’s buying cycle.

Here are some facts on why you need to start doing it:

1. Real online relationships lead to sales . Start creating real relationships with prospective clients and followers rather than just focussing on targets and KPIs, and watch how your sales flourish. Relevant hashtags can lead you to prospects who are already discussing your type of product. Maybe add into your CRM the hashtag source of how you found your lead, so you can manage them more strategically.

First things first, make sure your client facing staff, account managers and sales alike have brilliant online personas, All-star LinkedIn profiles etc. They all need trustworthy profiles and the company needs to be prominent too.

2. Your preferred audience are already socially buying . As I previously mentioned, more and more people are buying online. Customers tend to research businesses they may want to buy from, so make sure your business comes across well on more personal platforms such as Twitter or LinkedIn. 75% of B2B buyers use information from at least one social network site as part of their research into a potential supplier – if your social pages reflect badly on the business, that’s a lost customer and they’ll research more reputable and trustworthy businesses.

3. Your competitors are doing it. Get ready for these figures, because they are HUGE – 90% of all top sales professionals are already socially selling, and the figures get higher as the salesperson gets younger. If your competitor is socially selling, and this suits the customer best (for whatever reason), you’re missing out on customers. Your sales staff should be engaging in some way, shape or form with relevant content on LinkedIn. This keeps the algorithm in favour of the business as it hints at the business being active, engaging and therefore successful.

Where do we start?

We would strongly suggest LinkedIn as an initial place to socially sell, after all LinkedIn was BUILT for social selling, so take advantage of this!

Step 1

Set up a company page on LinkedIn, make sure all your staff connect themselves to the company page and start provide your staff with great content.

Step 2

Get all your client facing staff to check their profile and SSI (social selling index) score on LinkedIn.

Step 3

Then set some guidelines as to what they can post, how to post and provide collateral, like whitepapers, images, videos etc. for them to use.

Step 4

They need to connect with all their customers, people they have met in meetings, networking events, exhibitions etc.

Step 5

They need to follow industry-related companies – give them a list.

Make it easy for them and provide the LinkedIn company page URLs. This way they will see all the posts from these companies in their own personal feed.

Step 6

They need to ideally be on LinkedIn every day, engaging with their connections posts, checking out their feed and connecting with new people (through hashtag or content searches).

In addition

I’d like to suggest, on a regular basis provide in house ‘social selling’ workshops, to remind staff of why social selling is important, what’s new and how they can access company information to share.

Like anything you’ll want to test it’s working:

You can do this with regular staff checking their SSI scores
Monitoring the CRM with any LinkedIn taggable fields – source of contact, etc.
Google analytics – how many people are visiting from your LinkedIn posts
LinkedIn company page analytics

Finally, enjoy it, it should be social.

Happy selling!!

If you would like to discuss further how The Thinking Cap can help you start on your socially selling journey, get in touch. We run lots of bespoke LinkedIn workshops where we go through these stages and help put things in place internally. You'll come away with all the information you need, trained staff and all the recordings so if any new starters come along they have all the training videos to watch and refer back to.

Our details are: Lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk or call 07436 223688

Marketing plan v's Content plan

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 12:23:48 GMT

The Thinking Cap owner and Managing Director, Lisa East, took part in a recorded podcast earlier this year talking all things content, creativity, promotional planners, imagery and most importantly, how The Thinking Cap came to be what it is today.

During the first lockdown Lisa decided to niche more specifically into Social Media, after realising that being trapped at home could potentially affect people’s creative spark. On a normal day-to-day basis, ideas will be thrown around the office, you may have a lightbulb moment on your commute to or from work, or there may just be something within your workday that sparks that creativity. With everybody looking at the four walls of what had now become a home-office, maybe their content spark had been knocked, and help and guidance was needed.

In terms of the everyday running of a business (large or small), companies tend to follow a business plan – a guide of where the business is going. They also tend to have a marketing plan, detailing what sort of budget they have for the marketing of a product or service. However, very little seem to have a content plan – think marketing plan on a deeper, more detailed level. In order to market anything at all you need content, and how can you create content without a content plan?

Most marketing plans build strategy and their messaging around the customer journey, whereas the content plan is the cement, communicating brand promises with educational posts dropped in here and there.

The three main differences are outlined below:

Hopefully, by now we’ve got you thinking about creating your own content plan, but where on Earth should you start?

As Lisa mentioned in the podcast, a great place to begin, would be by creating a promotional calendar. Simply open an Excel file, and create 12 columns labelled January to December and start logging things that happen to you, your staff, your company and also within your industry, under each month.

Here are a few examples to get you started:

the anniversary of the company being founded - so you can share the back story on the anniversary
any upcoming staff anniversaries, retirements, birthdays - so you can post an 'employee spotlight' around these dates,
do you, as a company get involved in the Macmillan Coffee Morning or Christmas jumper day? If so, list them.
industry-related National/World days, for e.g. if you’re an Eco-friendly business, you may want to make a note of World Earth Day or if you’re a female-led business you may want to add International Women’s Day etc.
I recommend listing down the dates of any certifications that are being renewed, like ISO accreditations or any certifications like CHAS. As these are important to remind your audience of how regulated and trust worthy you are.

Now you have the solid foundations of your business related dates, you need to start adding others that are around what makes your customers/audience tick.

If you sell products that are aimed at the general public you need to think about why people buy your product, if it's a gift, log the following dates like Mother’s Day, Father's Day, Easter and Christmas. As these are probably the busiest in the gifting calendar. However if you sell a service or a product to a business, then other dates will be relative. For e.g. You run an accountancy practice, then log the end of the financial year, the annual budget, monthly reminders for expense logging and so on.

The main reason for creating a promotional calendar is that they help to drive your content, whether this be a monthly newsletter, blog and/or social media posts. They're brilliant for prompting you in advance and they really help you plan ahead. Once created remember to always look a month ahead and highlight important snippets. This is so you can start planting the seed, and start planning content in the run up to the event.

If you are struggling with ideas for day-to-day content for your brand, it may be worth downloading our 30-day content planner or downloading our FREE on-demand masterclass, ‘Social Media Content Made Easy’ . In this masterclass, you can pick up on a whole bunch of ideas to help fill any gaps your promotional calendar might have. To download the Masterclass an d watch at your leisure click here .

Before we leave you to get on with your promotional calendars and content plans, don't forget the social media algorithms reward your posts (with further reach) if you mix up the mediums you use, so don't forget to alternate your posting styles too. For example you might post a picture one day, then change the image the following day with a video or an animation, then create a poll and maybe add a document to another post.

Remember to also have a mix of factual, educational, behind the scenes, and try and show your a bit of humour along the way too. By doing all of this it's making your content worthy of engagement and hopefully in turn making it more shareable.

If creating a variety of content is too challenging, whether it being down to not having the time or the knowledge or maybe the budget to pay for a designer, then you might benefit from downloading our other FREE masterclass ‘Create Canva Social Media Graphics that Stop the Scroll' you'll come away with a great introduction to Canva. To read more and to download click here..

In the meantime, pop the kettle on and catch-up and listen to the pre-recorded podcast Lisa did earlier. You'll hear Lisa talking to Nick, the owner of The Impact Sessions, about everything we've covered in this blog and much much more. Simply click here , it's No 46. Enjoy!

Implementing a social media policy

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 09:43:34 GMT

In the first quarter of 2020, 420 billion people were active on social media*.

Now, how employees use their personal social media accounts is up to them, however, what staff post on social platforms can have serious consequences and can come back to haunt employers. Where would this leave a business, and how can it be managed?

Implementing a social media policy within a business is incredibly important in modern times, when a quick ‘Google’ of somebody can bring up their whole social media history. By creating a policy, you can clearly outline the dangers of posting on social media to your staff. But social media policies don’t have to be all doom and gloom – your social media policy can also empower staff, by giving them the chance to express their own views and opinions on social media platforms (although we would advise making sure they are clear that these views don’t reflect the business). A successful social media policy will also ultimately protect your brand, by making sure that anything published online adheres to your companies’ values, and potentially preventing any negative backlash.

So, what does ‘social media’ actually mean? Well, it can mean an array of things. From more personal and private platforms (such as Snapchat and Facebook) to Twitter and Instagram, where people tend to have larger followings. Then there’s the newer platforms such as TikTok, where people have more creative freedom over the content they post, and finally, LinkedIn, the business platform (that your staff may use as a digital CV, where they WILL be seen as a member of staff). This is the platform to keep an eye on. As a business, this is where your professional connections will spend most of their time.

Social media platforms are ever growing and changing, so it is imperative for a business to keep its social media policy updated. With business-based platforms (LinkedIn), a person’s posts directly reflect the company they work for, therefore this could be a platform worth included specific information about within your social media policy. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc., are all seen as being more for personal use, than business use. If your staff are client facing, it is worth asking them to add into their profile, or ‘bio’, that views are their own. This way if there is anything untoward, it doesn’t reflect badly on the company.

Now you know a bit more about social media and why a policy on it is a good idea, let’s talk about what you should include in a policy…

- Sharing proprietary or confidential company information

This is a big NO for most employees in a business anyway and is usually included in an employee’s contract, however sharing confidential information about the company via social media can end up causing all sorts of bother. It’s a good idea to include this to avoid company information being made public knowledge when this isn’t desired.

- Posting defamatory, derogatory or inflammatory content

This one seems like a no-brainer, however, 18% of employers in the US have dismissed employees as a result of something they have posted on social media. *(CareerBuilder) By not following this, employees can give the brand an image of employing undesirable, offensive and even aggressive staff. It would be a good idea to include a no-tolerance rule to this in your policy, to ensure no members of staff get caught up in a messy situation (or a lawsuit!)

- Posting information or pictures that imply illegal conduct

This one speaks for itself. Whilst what your employees do in their own time is their choice, you don’t want your company to become caught up in a scandal regarding the illegal activity of staff members. Not only would we suggest putting this in your policy but also remind all employees frequently that they are representatives for the business, and illegal conduct (explicit or implied) being posted on social media will not be accepted.

- Set of guidelines per platform with examples

This leads on from the previous point in a way. Your social media policy should include a non-exhaustive list of social media platforms with a set of guidelines for each. An example may be:

‘Snapchat – Do not post images where your company logo is visible, if the image could cause harm or negative impacts to the business. I.e., acting irresponsibly whilst wearing a work uniform.’

- Brand guidelines: How to talk about your products, services and company

Remind your employees that they are ambassadors for your bra nd, especially if they do choose to include the company name anywhere on their socials. By including an online brand guideline (slightly different to the general brand guideline) in your policy, you are reminding staff to use positive language and speak in a positive way when it comes to all things work related.

- Etiquette: How to respond to comments from customers

This one is incredibly important for your staff in client-facing roles. One thing I always say, is treat customers how you would want to be treated as a customer. I’m sure most people would agree that this would be with respect, with dignity and with compassion. Nobody wants to be spoken down to or belittled by somebody, so be helpful, provide exceptional customer service, and treat customers with kindness – this will always reflect the business positively.

- Confidentiality: Which details should absolutely not be shared on social media

Staff who are aware of sensitive information are normally told not to share this an yway, however, by including it in your social media policy you can make sure that staff know not to share confidential details online. A list of all the confidential information within a business is probably going to be quite long, so we’d suggest letting staff know the main ones relating to your business.

- Consequences: What will happen if they fail to use social media correctly

When creating a social media policy, you need to set clear consequences as to what will happen if social media isn’t used correctly. This could be a in line with your current disciplinary procedure, or a process of verbal and written warnings leading to eventual dismissal.

- Procedure for if staff leave

If a staff member leaves, there’s several things that need to happen. They should alter any social media that says they work for the business, as this would no longer be accurate. They would also need to have any access to admin rights, business log ins and passwords, and any other access to sensitive data revoked. This is to prevent the staff member from gaining access to private company accounts, especially if this would be done maliciously and could affect the business.

- Anything else you see fit

These are just a few examples of what you should include in a social media policy, however the list of what could be included is endless and can alter from business to business.

To get the policy created, you have a number of options:

1. Decide the points you’d like to be covered and contact a solicitor to draft this for you.

2. Contact the HR colleague within your organisation. This person will be a member of the CIPD. The CIPD might have a free template available to members, you can amend and use.

3. Download and amend a free template from the internet.

So, it’s all in place, sit back and relax, right?

To a certain extent. I would, on an ongoing basis randomly check your staff's social media.

Pop onto LinkedIn and view their profile (anonymously if you prefer) and check out their activity and do the same on the larger more popular profiles.

But what do you do if this policy is violated by a member of staff?

Your policy should be clear and precise, which means you can act quickly if a violation occurs and easily find which part of the policy has been broken. This would also be a time where more than one policy interlinks, and you may bring in your disciplinary procedure. For violations that aren’t of the most serious nature, or are one-off offences, it may be worth discussing the issue and root cause with the employee, rather than entering formal procedures. If you do have to follow a formal procedure as a result of a policy violation, it would be necessary to make sure you have all the correct documentation and proof – a copy of the violation, a copy of the policy, and any signed documentation from the employee with regards to the policy (e.g., a contract).

As mentioned earlier, social media is constantly changing and evolving, so keeping on top of your policy is key. Reviewing and tweaking your policy every so often means you’re able to keep up to date with new platforms that arise, as well as making any changes if a staff member is promoted to a client-facing role and updating the policy to match any changes in the company landscape, services and product changes.

I hope this blog has helped you tighten up your social media policy in-house, feel free to share to other business owners who might benefit from it too.

* Source: STATISTA

How to design scroll-stopping images

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 08:37:23 GMT

Everything on social media these days is determined by numbers - how many views you get, or how many likes you receive, even how many shares your content gets – all of these things contribute to the overall ‘success’ of your social media account.

One important aspect that helps to increase engagement with your content is the imagery you use on your social media channels. From Photoshop to Adobe software to Canva, there’s a handful of different ways to create this imagery and these are more affordable and user-friendly than ever. This means that brands are able to cut costs by creating content in house rather than outsourcing a designer.

Imagery is incredibly important across all social media channels, no matter how it is created. In fact, visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in your brain than words are * – imagine how much information you could get across to your audience by using effective and well-planned imagery, rather than firing a load of text at them. In addition to this, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, so by incorporating imagery across your social media you can really put across the important information you want your viewers to know about or learn about your brand.

Despite these figures sounding brilliant for increasing your engagement through imagery, it may not be as easy as it sounds. There is a loosely used term in the social media world – “the 15 second rule”. Users are said to spend no more than 15 seconds looking at a post on social media, however this number tends to be around seven seconds spent per post. That isn’t a lot of time to get across all the information you may want to share, so your content needs to be engaging. It needs to be what is known as “scroll-stopping” – people stop and spend more time looking at your post. This can be achieved by knowing your audience – what do they want or look for on a brand’s social media channels - and by creating fantastic imagery that can be shared across all channels.

Creating this fantasic imagery doesn’t have to mean hiring a designer, or buying expensive InDesign software. Canva is a free online design tool that I (and many other marketing and social media managers) have been using for years. By using Canva to create your social media imagery, you are really able to home in on building a brand image and create consistency across your channels. This can be done by overlaying your logo and uploading your font and by doing this your posts become instantly recognisable to your audience, and it allows your followers to associate your brand with the type of content you post.

By improving your imagery across your platforms, your social media engagement is highly likely to improve.

Many social media platform algorithm’s like Instagram and LinkedIn are well known to favour users who create posts using the different mediums available (text and image, animations, videos, reels, IGTV, stories, attaching pdf documents, sharing web links from verified accounts etc). Canva allows you access to a variety of free stock mediums like images, videos, gifs, animation, so you have them to hand to use and brand as your own.

In my FREE on-demand masterclass ‘ Social Media Content Made Easy Masterclass ’ I provide tips on how to create certain types of post once and how replicate them by making small changes, in order to re-use it with minimal effort. The same goes for animations and videos.

Scroll-stopping imagery equals higher engagement, the higher engagement the more the platform algorithm loves you, the more the algorithm loves you the more reach they give you which equals in more engagement.

So in terms of being successful on social media, you need to ensure imagery is playing it’s part. Start giving your followers, posts that they are proud to engage with.

The more likes, comments and shares will ultimately lead to higher social media success!

For anyone wanting to learn more about Canva, we also have a FREE Canva mastercla ss ,' Create Canva Social Media Graphics that Stop the Scroll ' , this free introduction to Canva will be more than sufficient to get you started.

* Source: t-sciences.com

How to design your Instagram highlight cover images with ease

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 18:06:16 GMT

How to design your Instagram highlight cover images with ease.

So, we are on Instagram, and we have a few highlights now, and they have been named, and are currently sitting under your bio.

The highlights are your circular folders that sit under the bio and above your tiled posts.

You can see two on this profile page - they have been named Reviews and Make it British.

We can create cover images in Canva that will uniform the profile page's look and feel.

Canva is an easy to use drag and drop design interface, which is free. We love Canva and use it for all our design jobs.

All you need to do is:

Log in to your free Canva account.
Type in the top search bar the following:

You will then notice that a large selection of pre-designed templates ready to use or edit. Pick one you want to use or the closest one to what you are after and edit it and make it yours! Remember, you can alter the colour to match your brand and also the text or image.

Things you have to think about. Do you want text or an image in the inner circle? If you're not sure, look at other peoples' Instagram profiles, take screenshots of the ones you like, and then go back into Canva.

Personally, I prefer images as they stand out better.

If your descriptions are quite lengthy, it's hard to read and defeats the object.

This is what mine looked like for Toad Diaries.

I picked a pinky-brown theme and changed the colour, then the text 'Make it British' was too long and made it hard to read, so I dropped in images instead.

Remember, there is a description in words under the circle already.

The actual size of the image is 1080x1920px and the circle is centred. The circle is about 800px high x 800px wide.

So when you have created all your highlight images, download them in Canva as a jpg and email them to yourself so you can open and save them on your phone.

Here's how to save your new Instagram Highlight Cover images on Instagram:

Go to your Instagram app and go to your profile
Press on the circle of the highlight cover you wish to change
Press Edit Highlight
Press Edit Cover (under the circle)
Then click on the image icon
and select the image you have just saved from your email onto your phone
Click on Done

... and repeat this step for all your highlights.

Instagram automatically centres the circle and the image inside, so don't worry about it being off-centre.

As you can see, the circular designs have now been updated and look a lot better,

Your profile will look more consistent and on-brand just by making this small change

Remember to keep creating new cover images in the same theme by duplicating a page in the same Canva design and then altering it!

My highlight images for my own page are very different from Toad Diaries as I am service-based, not product-based, so mine are along the lines of my service categories and can be viewed here .

Happy designing! Please follow me on Instagram here so I can see what you're up to!.

Any questions, send me an email at, lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk or if you think this sounds too faffy and would prefer me to design your cover images for you, let me know roughly what look you're after and the quantity, and I'll send you over a price. I can't see it being more than £10 per image if I'm using Canva pro's imagery selection.

If you've enjoyed this blog and are thinking of using Canva to design your highlight cover images as well as your social media posts you'll really benefit from downloading my FREE Canva masterclass, called 'Create Canva Social Media Graphics that Stop the Scroll'. To download simply, click here .

How to craft a perfect blog

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 19:30:45 GMT

How to craft a perfect blog from concept to publishing

Blogs are a brilliant way to increase your online exposure whilst establishing yourself as an expert in your industry.

So, why blog?

Blogs help to connect people to you and your brand. It's the most effective way of building brand awareness whilst providing relevant and useful content. Blogs provide an exceptional boost to SEO and drive the desired traffic to your website. Google and other search engines love fresh content on your website and score you highly for it. Because of this, I would recommend you aim to blog twice a month. If you run out of time, then once a month is great too!

It doesn't stop there. Blogs help develop and strengthen relationships, as they provide the opportunity for you to connect with your audience conversationally.

So, where do we start

There are four stages to writing a good blog, in my mind, these are :

Writing the first draft
Editing and optimising
Upload to your website
Publish and share on your socials

and within each of the above , there are further elements to consider, hopefully, the image below will help you visualise the process, so you can see the rights steps to take, the order to do them in , and also where you might need to draw in additional resource/ help from your colleagues.

1.Writing the first draft

Select the topic of the blog, think of a compelling title then research the relevant keywords you need to include in the copy.

This is what helps you with your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). There are lots of free keyword checking tools, WordStream has one and you can access th is here .

Next, pick the style of the blog. The blog section within your website should give you options. The things that will drive the style are, is it an announcement, will you have video, lots of images, quotes pulled in, etc. Generally, people pick one theme at the start of blogging and replicate it and over type, however it is nice to mix it up sometimes.

The next step is to outline the blog. Outlining gives the blog structure and helps you focus before you start writing.

This is what I did before I started writing this blog.

Bold heading

Intro (why blog?)

Sub Heading (So, where do we start?)

bullet points
more bullet points

Image (explaining the process)

Text on the process in bullet form, with headings

Writing the first draft
Editing and optimising
Upload to your website
Publish and share on your socials

The conclusion then wraps it up not forgetting to add a CTA, call to action.

2.Editing and optimising

This is common sense. Grammarly is a great tool and free. I'd recommend you use this, if you upgrade it will also check the readability. The Hemingway Editor is also really good. Remember to add any call to actions throughout the blog too. Remember people may get broken off, or not get to the end.

3.Upload it onto the website

This is where you see the blog in situ for the first time.

Making sure the outline structure is visible, by bolding your headings, adding your spacing, adding URL links, your feature image, tags, etc. Then preview it, tweak it if need be, and preview it again until you are happy with it.

4.Publish and share on your socials

Hit publish. Check the blog on your website and once it appears. Tell people about it.

Copy the URL and drop it into a social media platform like LinkedIn and check the feature image pulls through before you share.

Share on every platform you are on and say why it's a good read.

In order to get maximum exposure for all your hard work, why not try the below:

Share your blog URL across your social media platforms (including your company LinkedIn page)
Copy and paste the whole blog including imagery and create a LinkedIn article with it
If you send out a regular newsletter, mention it on there with a smaller image, the heading and a read more URL
Create an email footer - read our latest blog (with a link straight through) and get all staff to do the same
If you are a member of any Facebook groups, share them in the groups
If your blog is aimed at the consumer market you could always drop it into your personal Facebook feed
If you've been on one of my content masterclasses, you'll know to repurpose the blog - use the snippets of the blog text for individual tweets, posts. I call it recycling.

Have a go, and if you struggle, just google the topic you are thinking about and read other people's content, look at their style, imagery, headings, etc. It might take you a while initially, but after a few, they should begin to flow more naturally and you'll soon start to enjoy it.

And if you don't, you can always outsource your blogging and maybe contact me

Content with your content?

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 17:17:37 GMT

Be honest, are you content with your content?

How do you maintain a high standard of content and what can you do if you 'hit the wall' or your brain turns to mush?

Producing consistently good content for any business can be challenging, however with a bit of prep, planning and, an injection of creativity, it gets a lot easier.

Content to me is anything that displays on the page, your feed, your wall, your screen. It's not just the written word it's far more than that! It should be informative, yet entertaining, educational, and hopefully, shareable. In fact the more shareable the better.

It's not always what we think of 'Traditional Marketing' as this aims to sell a product or service. In contrast, content aims to educate, engage, delight and entertain the audience in buying into your brand loyalty before, during and after a purchase.

Good content serves a purpose, which might (and should) include:

Boosting your SEO
Increase website traffic
Social Media engagement
Stimulate a debate
Increase greater brand awareness
Add to your subscriber list
Start the lead generation/sales journey

Here is our 3-step approach to being content with your content

Content Marketing Strategy
Content Plan
Content Writing

Let's start with number 1:

Content Marketing Strategy

Without a content marketing strategy, it's like attempting to brush your teeth whilst eating oreo's.

You might have a cracking idea, even write a superb post, but if it's not of any interest to your audience or it doesn't help you achieve a specific goal, it's probably a was te.

Start by researching the following:

What are you wanting your content to achieve?
Who is it aimed at?
What are their needs?
What are their pain points?
What are their interests and desires?
How will your content help them?

The answers you come out with, will help you create very specific pieces of content.

I would also repeat this every month or so, as your audiences needs, pain points, interests and desires may change on a regular basis and therefore your content needs to change around it. Remaining relevant at all times.

Onwards, to number 2:

Content Plan

All of your brilliant ideas from the above strategy session will help you commence with your content plan. The content plan is where you cover:

Your topics ,
Type of content (text post, imagery, video, white paper, blog, web link), and the
Frequency

What you need to do now is to think of your buyers journey, and ensure your content (the findings from your strategy session) is in this order. This logical progressional posting will give clarity to your content and it'll be in the steps your audience are used to acting in.

If you are using blogs as part of your content (we highly recommend you do) you need to aim for at least 2 a month, 1 absolute minimum. Grab a coffee, look at your strategy notes and jot down all the blog titles you can think of, then thinking of your buyers journey list the order they need to be written in. Try and think of 12 (3-months worth).

Being from Yorkshire, I like to get my money's worth, so when I write a blog I make sure I use it as many times as I possibly can. To give you an idea, this is what I do:

Pop them on the website - using all the correct keywords alt tags etc. behind the scenes
Share the blog on all my social media platforms
Copy the content and paste it into a LinkedIn article (maybe a week after I've dropped it on my LinkedIn feed)
Drop part of the content (using a read more link), resize the header image and drop into a newsletter to attract further website traffic from my email list
Print it out and highlight snippets of detail, that will make lots of valuable posts individually, and create imagery to accompany it. Save for future social media posts.

Finally, to number 3:

Content Writing

If you've smashed your way through steps 1 and 2 you'll be raring to go with step 3.

So, a few tips, because let's face it you don't want to blow it now!

Be original, your topic more than likely has already been covered and out there, so up your game and be inspiring.

What will your audience gain from reading your post, make them engage and take your desired action.

Be crystal clear , don't beat around the bush with lots of jargon.

To help your content writing flow in the right direction, it's always a good idea to do the following:

Ideas will come to you when you least expect them, like when you're having a shower, walking the dog, watching telly. If anything springs to mind I normally send myself an email from my phone, so I don't forget it and pick it up the next day.

As you travel along your content journey, don't forget to constantly monitor what's working, what's not working, which element has worked (the text, the imagery, the time of day, the platform), and wash rinse and repeat all the good stuff.

Content creation isn't a black art, it's simply...

THE RIGHT CONTENT TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE AT THE RIGHT TIME

That reflects your passion for your business.

If you struggle with your content, my on-demand masterclass, Social Media Content Made Easy , might be of interest.

To read more and/or download the link click here

How Social Media influences the online buying behaviour

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 12:35:07 GMT

The global pandemic has force-accelerated the shift of buying online and in-turn this new buying behaviour has outed the importance of social media in the new fandangled buyer’s journey.

Pre-Covid

Buyers went to ‘physical’ shops to see, touch and feel objects on the shelves. The decision to buy (or not!) was made with the product in their hands in front of them. Over 80% of shoppers want to see and feel the item before committing to buy. Some, however, would still choose to go home and buy online anyway, but the vast majority would buy on the spot.

In-store retailers would also benefit from impulse buying. The carefully planned journey to the till littered with tempting goodies, the queues only slowed us to give our minds even more time to make those last-minute and impulsive buying decisions.

Post-Covid

Your fingers do the walking so-to-speak across the desk, tablet or phone. If you’re lucky, your product will get a glance. A few seconds is maybe all you get to connect with a buyer.

Online shopping behaviours have been significantly increased in 2020, triggered by the pandemic. The question is, are these behaviours going to have a lasting effect? Have people got now become used to this new way of shopping and are now much more likely to continue down this online ordering path?

We have seen big household brands such as Debenhams, Peter Jones and the Arcadia group falling by the wayside, leaving smaller digitally switched-on micro-brands coming up from the rear.

To survive as a retailer these days, you need to have a fabulous online brand presence. From eye-catching packaging, stunning photography and having a beautifully designed eCommerce website experience, to ‘post and sell’ on both Facebook and Instagram… oh, and don’t forget to be a fantastic storyteller within your marketing. If you could encompass all of this, which is no easy task, then you’ll step into 2021 gaining an edge when it comes to brand connection.

" It’s no longer the ‘on-the-shelf appearance’, but more like ‘on-the-screen appearance".

So, I suppose you could say online social selling has (or should have) changed the way brands design their packaging. Will it stand out online? How will we shoot photographs of it and get the message across within the few seconds you have before someone swipes their fingers across to the next post?

As a seller of a product, you need to maximise visual impact because the sense of touch is disabled from the packaging and product photography to the emotive story-telling. These elements all play a much more significant part when selling online. If you can improve and master these traits, you’ll thank me for it later.

Here are a few tips to consider as you approach 2022:

Look at your website and ensure that it’s mobile-friendly, has social media-rich features that enhance your visibility on Facebook and Instagram
Your product photography is dialled-in, and you have a designer that can help you enhance these and modify as we shift through the seasons
Get yourself on Instagram and Facebook, then connect the two platforms and start a shop
Start following ‘up and coming’ trendy retailers (even if they are not in your immediate space, it will give you an idea of their content, product shots and brand style that is proven to work).
Get a Facebook pixel on your website (in case you decide on ads or re-targeting at a later date)
Look at joining the 71,000 small and medium-sized businesses and sell via Amazon
Post socially and be regular about it
Find and involve industry influencers, like vloggers/bloggers and let the magic happen!

We hope that this article gives you some food for thought as we head into what looks to be another ‘heavily dominated by covid’ year. Best wishes to you all this Christmas and hope you all have a prosperous New Year.

Click here to arrange a FREE SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT or get in touch by emailing me, lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk

5 tips to help you break the monotony of creating your social media posts.

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 17:30:22 GMT

If you try one tip a day you’ll soon find you have the week covered ...

I’ve heard numerous times over and over again ’I struggle to find any content that people might be interested in’.

So with this in mind I thought I’d share just a few tips to get you thinking about the information you already have access to, that you might be over-looking, because you see it day in day out you're not seeing the value in it.

Tip 1 – Repurpose you old marketing collateral

Collate copies of any company brochures, sales aids, presentations, whitepapers, leaflets, press releases, and blogs and have a look to see what can be quickly turned into a social media post / or better still lots of smaller posts. If you have hard copies grab a highlighter and highlight the factual snippets of information, that people might like to hear/know.

Tip 2: Show off your reviews socially

There are many platforms where customers can leave you a review. I know myself I have a handful on my company Facebook page, a load of Google reviews, and I even have lots of LinkedIn endorsements. However, what you need to think about is, my LinkedIn connections probably won’t have seen my Facebook reviews and vice versa.

So copy and paste your review and drop them onto an appropriate image with speech marks and pop your logo on. Now it’s ready for sharing and do this for them all. If you have loads, start by making sure you have one review for each of your product types/services / or for each industry sector that you cover.

Tip 3: Create a poll

Do you have a niggle that might be sorted out if your audience was to vote on it? For me, I never really posted on a weekend, I thought it’s peoples own time, no-one will read them etc. But I found I was doing my own marketing/social media on a weekend so other business owners might be doing the same. So I did a poll on LinkedIn.

I found out from doing this that Self-employed business owners/MD of companies do check LinkedIn and respond on a weekend and employed people didn’t and the ones who did are my target audience. So I make sure now I build in weekend posts.

Tip 4: Use real humans in your post photos

Do you have any old industry-related photos of yourself, the company (inside or out) or colleagues that people can relate to? If they have been customers for a while they remember and reminisce. It’s always nice to see behind the scene shots, of staff who are generally unseen in the background.

Personally, whenever I feature Storm my dog into any post, I generally get 4 times the amount of comments and views. So, if all else fails, get a dog and remember to throw some personality into it too, its SOCIAL media after all!

Tip 5: Reshare other links

To help the content come to your inbox, try setting up google alerts and use industry keywords, names of associations, influencers etc. So for example if you are an HR consultant you could set-up google alerts for CIPD, the main professional body of Human Resources. For me, I have set-up alerts for all the platforms, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Goes through your alerts once a week or daily if you have time and feed relevant posts into your own social media. By dropping in the URL link (the image will be used so you don’t have to create one) and comment as to why you are sharing it. Maybe tag in a customer/prospect that you know will find it of interest.

Hopefully, the above give you a idea, however if you would like a full month of ideas, maybe you need to download our 30-day planner.

The great thing about social media is to keep it light, fun and social and don’t be too text-heavy. Sometimes less is more.

In my FREE masterclass, Social Media Content Made Easy, I cover lots of content tips, how to create it, where to find it, how to make it come directly to your inbox and finally how to make it look awesome. If you fancy registering for the FREE on demand masterclass, simply click here .

If you have any questions about any of the above tips, please send me an email, lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk

The virus has changed the way we socialise

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 17:06:44 GMT

The virus has changed the way we socialise

Stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic, with cinemas closed and limited restaurants to dine in, have been spending more of our lives online.

According to Ofcom:

UK adults are spending a record 4 hours a day online on average, as coronavirus changes communications
Twice as many are using video calls to keep in touch during lockdown
One in three now watch online video more than traditional TV, with two in five making videos themselves

UK adults are now spending more than a quarter of their waking day online – the highest on record – with services such as TikTok and Zoom seeing unprecedented growth, according to Ofcom’s latest study into the nation’s online lives.

Worldwide social media use has obviously climbed since the pandemic. Industry-leading Facebook, for example, recently crossed a monumental threshold. While Microsoft-owned LinkedIn cannot claim Facebook-type numbers, the professional social media platform has also seen new records in growth and engagement during the pandemic.

The pandemic appears to have accelerated the adoption of online services to keep in touch with colleague, customers, prospects, friends and family. So, maybe now is the time for you and your company to get noticed, online.

There are many ways you can start getting noticed online, here are a few ideas to get you started:

Get a website - a bit obvious I know
Start a newsletter - and start talking to your warm leads
Write a blog or two and start getting them out to your followers, fans, connections or in your newsletter
Get active on your social media platforms - or set them up and get social
Post images, links to blogs, and videos etc. checkout a previous blog of ours here that covers social media content ideas.
Participate on forums that are industry specific
Participate in industry relevant LinkedIn groups

If you'd like a free consultation of where your business is, how others see it online, and how you can up your game, complete our consultation form here and we'll get going.

In the meantime, why not connect with me on LinkedIn and make sure you don't miss any future posts and blogs...

Why images are so important on social media

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 17:59:08 GMT

Why images are so important on social media

Is “a picture worth 1,000 words?” Yes — if you have the right pictures.

Today, people are so time poor and have the attention span of a goldfish, or less and as a result, images are more important than ever, especially on social media.

A large part of the brain is focused on visual processing, allowing humans to process images at an incredible speed. Once we see an image that interests us, we then decide to read the post, and/or click on the link.

The top 5 things imagery can help with:

Get your audience's attention (stop the scroll)
Varied images keep people interested
Images help your audience remember your message
Images help you audience remember you and your brand
Consistent imagery across platforms builds brand identity

Just remember that posts that include images produce 650 percent higher engagement than text-only posts and that 81% of people skim read online. Scary facts and only 2 of many that ring true, you'll know yourself when you're online what attracts your attention and what doesn't and which of these have images.

Images are easier to get hold of than they use to be, and there are many royalty free stock image sites, like Unsplash and Pixabay and if you use Canva to create your social media posts, there is a wide selection of free stock imagery, videos and animations you can have access to.

You may not need a specific image as you might have an image that is pulled in from a web link URL or an article that you might be sharing, either way, ensure there is one.

Some times when a website is launched the web-developer might not set a feature image for each page, if you don't get an image that pops up when your post is loaded then these have been missed. These are easily added, and its important you do so before posting commences.

We have just listed the importance of why you need to use images, but you might need a bit of guidance as to how to use them to... this is really for another blog, however below should give you a few ideas of how you can incorporate imagery into your posts:

Nice relatable quotes
Customer reviews/testimonials
Product shots
Behind the scenes images of staff at work
Industry related stats/infographic
Funny memes (maybe on a Friday)
To make lists/tips stand out
To use hashtags - like our weekly #WisdomWednesday posts - see below

If you need any further advice on the types of imagery you could be using to enhance your engagement, just drop us a line or alternatively you might benefit downloading my FREE Canva Masterclass. It's called Create Canva Social Media Graphics that stop the scroll. It's a short introduction to Canva detailing how easy it is to create your own images with ease.

To read more and download the link click here.

Daily hashtags explained and why you should use them

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 16:32:57 GMT

Daily hashtags explained and why and how you should use them.

By understanding popular daily hashtags, and the most appropriate way to use them, you can significantly boost your engagement and brand visibility. Because people search for content via the hashtag itself by using them it makes your content discoverable from people and businesses that are not currently following you.

First things first, do you know the hashtag basics?

They always start with # but they won’t work if you use spaces, punctuation or symbols,
Make sure your accounts are public, otherwise the hashtagged content you write won’t be seen by any non-followers (which is one of its main purposes),
Don’t string too many words together. The best hashtags tend to be relatively short and easy to remember.
Use relevant and specific hashtags. If it is too obscure, it will be hard to find and it won’t likely be used by other social media users.
Limit the number of hashtags you use. More isn’t always better. It can look spammy.

Below is a daily list of hashtags we have complied, firstly you need to pick out the ones that are relevant to you, your industry and brand and use them in a clever way, not just to fill your weekly content planner...

MONDAY HASHTAGS

#MondayBlue

#MarketingMonday

#MotivationMonday

#Monday Memories

#MeowMonday

#MancrushMonday

#MusicMonday

#MeatyMonday

TUESDAY HASHTAGS

#TipTuesday

#TrainingTuesday

#TastingTuesday

#TechTuesday

#TopicTuesday

#TransformationTuesday

#TravelTuesday

WEDNESDAY HASHTAGS

#WisdomWednesday

#WellnessWednesday

#WhatsNewWednesday

#WayBackWednesday

#WonderfulWednesday

#WorkoutWednesday

THURSDAY HASHTAGS

# ThrowBackThursday

#ThoughtfulThursday

#ThankfulThursday

#ThirstyThursday

#ThursdayThoughts

#Thursdate

FRIDAY HASHTAGS

# FactFriday

#FeatureFriday

#MeatFridays

#FearlessFriday

#FlashBackFriday

#FollowFriday

#FoodieFriday

#FridayFun

#Friyay

SATURDAY HASHTAGS

#Caturday

#SaturdaySwag

#SaturdayStyle

#SalesSaturday

#SelfieSaturday

#ShoutOutSaturday

SUNDAY HASHTAGS

# StartupSunday

#SundaySweat

#SundayReads

#SundaySelfie

#SundayFunday

These are just a few to get you started. Have a think of how you can use them and maybe start by typing one of the hashtags into the search bar on any social media platform and see what comes up. This is a great way to find out how other companies and brands are using them.

When you understand popular daily hashtags and how people use them, it’s easier to jump in and join the conversation.

Jump in, have a go and remember to have fun with them!

Content ideas for 2021 on how to remain relevant on your socials

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sat, 03 Oct 2020 18:36:04 GMT

At the moment there is nothing more relevant than relevant content!

Did you know that Facebook has a 'relevancy score' and scores you by how relevant your posts are to your audience? The higher your score the more visibility Facebook allows your posts to have and so on.

I hear on a regular basis from companies we struggle to find content, we have nothing new to say, and because it's a constant struggle they give up!

It's worth pursuing with as there are so many reasons why social media is important for your business, here are just a few...

Engaging with your customers
Improve brand loyalty
Increase brand awareness
Increase web traffic
Marketplace awareness
Enhanced SEO rankings
Increased customer satisfaction

The list goes on, and on top of this, it's the most cost-effective part of any digital marketing you can do.

So, how do you find the content that you may already have to hand that your customers will enjoy seeing and engaging with? Firstly, content is a mix of anything you think your customers/followers will find interesting, factual and fun to read. Remember it's SOCIAL media and therefore not all about selling your products and services, well not on every post.

Here are 10 ideas to get you started

1) Create a weekly/monthly company-related stat or infographic. For example, I used to manage the marketing for an H&S training company and I created a graphic on how many people they had trained that month another example (the one above) is one I create on a weekly basis for the Horsforth Food Hub I volunteer for.

2) Mention your contract wins, or work you are on with . This will give you credibility to your audience and also give them an idea of the type of work you do.

3) Reinvent old blogs/articles fresh the header images, and update the content.

4) Post a poll/survey, this could be on a fun topic to get an idea of your audience's personalities and this valuable feedback can help you with the direction of your future posts.

5) Create some 'How to' or explainer videos. There are lots of tools around that can help you create these on a budget. In fact, if you have a smartphone, there’s a video-quality camera right there.

6) Share industry new s that is relevant to your audience and comment about why they need to read it.

7 ) Show off all your lovely customer reviews and testimonials . Ideally with this imagery, like the one above, again this will give you creditability and also people will start to trust you and your brand.

8) Provide industry tips and advice, for example, an Accountant could provide tips on VAT, self-assessments or how to log your monthly expenses. If you prefer show these tips in an image, like below. Ideal for Twitter when you are restricted to a number of characters.

9) Showcase your staff, show behind the scenes photos of certain members of staff doing their job, and maybe include a short fun Q&A section. This not only shows their job values but also their personality and your company culture. This helps the reader to feel connected to your brand.

10) Share value-added resources like whitepapers. Check they are updated and on-brand before you share.

The above should hopefully give you something to think about and value the information that surrounds you on a daily basis. If you are still struggling to create the content and also the imagery that accompanies it, then get in touch. We provide on-site staff training that will help you identify your content that's relevant to your audience on the right platforms and we can also show non-designers how to create the imagery too.

If you'd like to delve deeper into the above points, why not book onto our free content masterclass, Social Media Content Made Easy. It's approximately an hour in length and on-demand, so you can watch it at anytime. To read more and access the link, simply click here.

If you have any questions, we'd be happy to help, just contact us below.

How to post on Instagram from your laptop/PC

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Sat, 03 Oct 2020 17:30:39 GMT

How to post on Instagram from your laptop with ease

I nstagram is first and foremost designed as a mobile app. You're really supposed to upload from your phone, using photos you took on the phone, and in real-time. But that doesn't work for everyone, especially if you manage a business Instagram page from your personal mobile phone.

It's easy if you follow these simple steps:

Log-in to Chrome

Log-in to your I nstagram account

Go to your profile

Right-click anywhere on the white background until the following box appears, then click on Inspect

When your sc reen changes to look like this, click on the 'toggle device toolbar' button, that looks like a phone and a tablet together .

By clicking on this it allows Chrome to emulate different screen sizes, so you can see how your content looks across different devices. But by doing this is can it also tricks your laptop into thinking you are on a different device. So, click on this button twice until the mobile view shows on the left.

Then press refresh (1) so your screen updates and now shows the + button (2). When you see the + button you can now close the screen on the right by clicking on the X (3).

There you go! You're all ready to start posting from your laptop or PC.

If you liked this post and it's helped you, you'll be sure other people are struggling with this too. So please share it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram... and tag me in.

I have recently started weekly #wisdomwednesdays posts, so by following me on one or all of my platforms will hopefully keep you up to speed. Thanks for reading and happy posting!

A dozen benefits of having a business Facebook page

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 18:07:23 GMT

Reach your business goals with a Facebook Business Page

I’ve recently been targeting farm shops for a food retailer and whilst I have been qualifying the data I have been searching for information on the world wide web and quite shockingly I have noticed an equal split, approx. 30% have a website and no Facebook, 30% have a Facebook Business page and no website, approx. 10% have both with the remaining 30% of farm shops with no online presence at all!

So, in theory, these remaining farm shops are purely relying on local passing trade and word of mouth to maintain a constant flow of customer’s. You don't need a website to have a digital presence, a Facebook Business page might be all you need, and it’s FREE!

Your Facebook Business page can be used to develop your digital shopfront. You can grow your audience and learn more about your customers through it. B elow are some of the best practices that can help you reach your business goals with a Facebook Business page:

1. Boost SEO (search engine optimisation) – if someone is searching for you online, the Facebook link will come up on the first page. Also good to bear in mind, a lot of people search on Facebook first as it’s nice to see more recent content and companies tend to update their Facebook page more than their website.

2. Having a business page allows you to be able to advertise (sponsored posts) and you can intensively target, based on location, status (married, engaged), demographics, and interests etc.

3. People can like your page and when they do, you can send them an advert (sponsored post) direct to their wall

4. When people like a post you can invite them to like your page (if they haven't already done so) ensuring they keep seeing future posts.

5. Engaging with people on a platform they enjoy, whilst on their mobile keeping it light, social and friendly

6. People can ‘Check-in’ this then tells their friends (typically 150-200 of them) they have checked in at your business/location. They can also add text and photos too.

7. People can tag their friends into posts if they are with them or just for fun, spreading the net wider to their friend's network too.

8. People can ‘review’ your business whether this is for food, service, products and their friends will see it. If you prefer, you can switch-off the review tab.

9. You can message people directly

10. You can create events – which will pop up on the 'Home' feed of people who have liked your page, they can click on interested or share to a friend, or share to a group etc. Again spreading the awareness of the event.

11. You can manage appointments – making it easier to manage your business calendar

12. You can broadcast a live video – whilst your Facebook page fans watch and interact live.

There are more benefits to having a Facebook Business page than not having one. If you are going to set one up, you’ll need to be on Facebook yourself. Alternatively, we can help you set-up a business page and invite you to be an admin along with other members of staff or family members if a family run business.

A 10-step guide on how to create your own social media strategy

lisa@thethinkingcap.co.uk (Lisa East) — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 18:07:23 GMT

Social media plays a huge role in the growth and success of businesses today. Whether you’re running an online business or traditional retail outlet, having a social media presence puts your brand in front of more people compared to not having one.

While social media marketing seems as easy as sharing posts on Facebook or Twitter, the fact of the matter is, it isn’t. A great social media strategy involves careful planning, thoughtful relevant content and regular audits. That said it doesn't need to be a painful process.

Here's a 10-step guide on how to create an effective plan for your business.

Get organised , at The Thinking Cap, when we start working with new customers we create a mood board, that incorporates brand guidelines, colour palettes, tone of voice, ideas around the style of imagery etc.

Choose social media marketing goals that align with business objectives . Follow the SMART framework. Each of your goals should be: Specific / Measurable / Attainable / Relevant / Time-bound. Should having more followers be the priority over engagement?

Here’s an example of a S.M.A.R.T. goal: “We will use Twitter for customer support and lower our average response rate to under two hours by the end of the quarter

Conduct competitive analysis, this allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.

Who is your target audience? Do your fans/followers across all your platforms reflect this?

What does your target audience want to see on social media is key. That way you can create content that they will like, comment on, and share. It’s also critical if you want to turn social media followers into customers for your business.

Are you on the right platforms of where your target audience hang out?

Is your content hitting their pain points, are you influencing, teaching and helping in a social way, rather than just selling your products and services to them.

What day/time of day works best? When is the right time to post to your audience? Don't just schedule and hope for the best? This will alter across every platform too.

Track meaningful metrics , you may want to track different goals for different networks, or even different uses for each network. For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you would measure click-throughs. If Instagram is for brand awareness, you might track the number of Instagram Story views.

Carry out regular social media audits (maybe monthly/quarterly) and take stock of your efforts so far. Ask yourself the following questions: What’s working, and what’s not? Who is engaging with you? Which platforms do your target audience use? How does your social media presence compare to the competition? Once you start collecting this information, you’ll be able to tweak and make valuable improvements on a regular basis.

As you know social media moves fast. New platforms emerge, others go through demographic shifts.

Your business will go through periods of change as well.

All of this means that your social media strategy should be a living document that you review and adjust as needed. Refer to it often to stay on track, but don’t be afraid to make changes so that it better reflects new goals, tools, or plans.

When you update your social strategy, make sure to let everyone on your team know. That way you can all work together to help your business make the most of your accounts.

What’s next? If you’re ready to put your plan into action, I'm here to help should you need it. It might be a good idea to take me up on a FREE social media audit , this is always a good starting point.

If you need anything, please contact us below.

A dozen benefits to having a Facebook business page.

Social media advertising case study: Anchor Bay Holidays

In this month’s blog, we’re showcasing how we’ve helped Anchor Bay Holidays with their social media advertising as well as elevating their online brand more generally, and sharing some of the exciting results of our partnership.

Why did Anchor Bay holidays contact The Thinking Cap?

How did they present the project?

What was your strategy?

Did your work with Anchor Bay Holidays focus solely on social media advertising?

How did Anchor Bay Holidays feel the ads were going?

What were the results for Anchor Bay Holidays?

What does ongoing work with Anchor Bay Holidays look like?

Would Anchor Bay Holidays recommend you to others?

Blue ticks on social media: is Meta Verified worth it for your business?

Here’s something I’ve been asked more and more over the last year: ‘is Meta Verified worth it for my business?’.

First of all, what does Meta's blue tick mean?

What is the appeal of being Meta Verified?

Credibility and trust: does the Verified Blue Tick mean more than ever, or is it just a clever cash-grab?

Boosted visibility

Protection against impersonation

Access to additional features

Enhanced security features

So, is Meta Verified worth it for your business?

Talk to us about whether to become Meta Verified

A Guide to Outsourcing Social Media Marketing in 2025

As we approach the end of the year, many companies are reflecting on their marketing strategies and planning for 2025, including considering outsourcing social media marketing.

Define Your Goals and Objectives

Understand Your Brand Identity

Research Potential Agencies

Evaluate Collaboration

Understand Their Social Media Strategy

Discuss Budget and Pricing Structure

Plan for Long-Term Partnerships

Try to find a flexible agency.

Talk to us about outsourcing social media marketing for your business

Launching a website in 2025? Here’s how to write a good website brief

With January on the horizon, we thought it would be a great idea to give you some tips on how to write a good website brief. ﻿

First things first: the basics ﻿

Give some background to set the scene

How would you like your website to be structured?

Design, look and feel

Be prepared to provide a lot of content

Technical things we recommend you ask for

How can we help you to write a good website brief?

Introducing… our new Marketing Strategy Starter Kit!

Introducing… our new Marketing Strategy Starter Kit!

Why the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is perfect for your small business

We’ll help you to understand your marketing needs

The Marketing Strategy Starter Kit is an improvement on the traditional marketing agency model

What’s included in the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit?

But how do we do that?

Why should you choose the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit?

Empowering your team for ongoing success

Talk to us about the Marketing Strategy Starter Kit today

How you can effectively use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing and grow your podcast audience

How you can effectively use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing and grow your podcast audience

How can you use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing?

Using LinkedIn polls as lead generators ssss

Using LinkedIn searches

Using LinkedIn hashtag searches

LinkedIn posts

How to use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing for your podcast

Let’s talk about how to use LinkedIn for free to boost your marketing

Why The Thinking Cap is Your Ideal Outsourced Marketing Partner for SMEs

Why The Thinking Cap is Your Ideal Outsourced Marketing Partner for SMEs

We understand the unique pain points of SMEs

Why The Thinking Cap are uniquely placed to help

We offer cost-effective solutions for SMEs

We’ll streamline your marketing communications

Let our clients tell you why we’re the ideal outsourced marketing partner for SMEs

How does SEO marketing work, and how can I use it?

How does SEO marketing work, and how can I use it?

What is SEO Marketing?

How does SEO marketing work?

How does SEO marketing work together?

Why you should be using diverse strategies to drive website traffic

Why you should be using diverse strategies to drive website traffic ﻿

The benefits of diversifying your strategies to drive website traffic

Key content types to drive website traffic

Build a holistic marketing strategy to drive website traffic

Ask us for help with diversifying your strategies to drive website traffic

Harnessing AI for Social Media Content Creation

With January on the horizon, we thought it would be a great idea to give you some tips on how to write a good website brief.

First things first: the basics

Why you should be using diverse strategies to drive website traffic

In the busy world of running a business, there are so many things to keep on top of that it probably seems like madness to suggest that using customer feedback in marketing should be top of your priorities list.

Our work with Holmeshaw Property Investments

Our work with Hemingway Tailors

Why did Holmeshaw contact The Thinking Cap?

The streng th of effective business social media