I’ll let you in on a secret, brands are looking for engaged customers. Crazy, I know. Let’s break down what that means though because ‘engagement’ can become an empty term – it’s basically about having a customer base that knows who you are, likes what you say and trusts you.

This all falls under the umbrella of a positive customer experience and as more and more businesses are discovering, good customer experience drives sales. By 2020, Walker predicts that customer experience will be the biggest brand differentiator, trumping product and price.

And humanizing your social brand with personality-driven tone and content is all part of creating a strong customer-focused experience for whatever product or service you’re selling.

Monotonous, robotic corporate-speak just doesn’t cut it with customers in the digital age. They’re looking for personalization, authenticity and emotive connections with brands.

So, how can your social brand...

So, once you’ve got your brand new Instagram account live and kicking, it’s time to test and measure whether the killer content you’re sending out into the world is actually doing the trick.

Are you getting results?

Keeping on top of your overall performance, optimizing your content and intelligently analysing your metrics so that you can get the most out of your Instagram marketing strategy is key to your success.

In the short term, it’s pretty easy to assess whether your photo or video has made a splash amongst the rest of the 80 million posts shared daily, but long-term tracking will help you to improve your content strategy. Instagram analytics give you the opportunity to find out what your audience really wants.

Make sure that Instagram is a tool that will help you to meet your marketing goals and not just a pretty place to post selfies. Picking the right KPIs to keep an eye on is integral to building a successful content that’s moving in the right...

Here’s a stat for you - Instagram has over 8 million users that are using the business profile option.

That means that your brand needs to have a presence on Instagram if it wants to compete with millions of other businesses online. And tap into 800 million active users. In fact, over half of these users log in daily, according to Pew Research.

Delving into the world of Insta opens up lots of opportunities to interact and engage with demographics you might find difficult to access on other platforms. And with 60% of Instagram’s users aged 18-29, it’s the perfect place to pitch to millennials, Gen Z…and all the other bizarre names for younger audiences.

It’s a valuable platform with valuable audiences and your brand can connect with them in a fun, dynamic way.

But it’s not all about selfies with your dog and photos of sunsets. If brands want to succeed on Instagram then they need to come up with customer-focused, creative and thoughtful content...

Instagram has a huge active user base; it recently hit over 800 million monthly users. Arguably it’s one of the most dynamic, exciting social channels out there at the moment and it’s one of the fastest growing too. And you need to be on it! Compared to the powerhouses of Facebook and Twitter – it can seem like a safe haven, away from most of the fake news and spam.

In fact 60% of micro-influencers think it’s the best social channel for engagement rates.

The slick user design and visual content is easy to ingest and it’s a straight-forward way for businesses to create a strong brand identity. You can promote visual content and become…more visible.

Here’s where you come in. Instagram is a great digital space to carve out a following and try out fun, new marketing ideas.

Let’s take a look at how you can capitalize on Instagram’s growth and popularity to form a tight-knit, impressive community of brand followers.

Soul Search

...

Ever wondered how to make your own chatbot? Chances are that you’ve probably encountered one in a customer service interaction without even realizing. But it’s not just big brands that have the capacity and resources to build their own bots.

We’re going to use a ManyChat walkthrough to show you how to leverage your Facebook account to reach more users. Facebook Messenger chatbots allow you to create autoresponder sequences and qualify more leads.

All you need is a Facebook account and page. And when you’re playing around with new concepts and experimenting, we’d recommend creating a new account to test out your chatbot.

Let’s get started.

Your ManyChat Account

There’s lots of software to help you design chatbots, but we think that ManyChat is one of the best tools on the market. It’s free too, so it can really help you to get to grips with chatbot tech.

ManyChat will take you through a few introductory steps and you’ll then be...

Kik, the Canadian messaging brand fittingly described the digital space like this: “First there were websites, then there were apps. Now, there are bots.”

The rise of the bots comes with its very own tide of pop culture alarm-bells and prophesising about our new bot uprising, but we have an exciting opportunity to humanize our chatbots and make our own customer interactions even better. Chatbots don’t have to be mechanical in terms of their personality.

Customers don’t want to feel like they’re chatting to a machine – they’re after more authentic, honest and trustworthy customer experience. That’s why it’s in your brand’s best interest to innovate to humanize.

Let’s look at how.

1. Mirror your User – don’t make them do all the work

Creating a chatbot is about convenience. Your customers want quick, timely answers that solve their problems and provide value. If your chatbot is programmed in a way that makes...

Once you’ve built your own chatbot, your next task is driving traffic.

Retention isn’t great for chatbots – customers often use them once and then leave messenger bots.

So, securing subscribers is the first challenge and holding onto users is the second. But there’s lots of scope for creativity and innovation within chatbot tech. It’s still relatively new and people are growing increasingly familiar and comfortable with using bots.

Stan Chudnovsky of Facebook, said at Web Summit that "more and more of the conversations between people and businesses will migrate to messaging platforms", so drawing people towards your chatbot is a way of futureproofing your brand.

How can you generate more subscribers?

1. Add to Directories

Depending on which platform you’ve used to build your chatbot – you can add your creation to chatbot directories and catalogs, which will act as a reference point when people are searching for applicable bots.

For example,...

What are employers looking for? It’s one of the universe’s greatest mysteries and there isn’t one size-fits-all answer. Sometimes it can feel like they’re looking for their very own superhero.

But, one of the most sought after traits that employers look for is creativity – the ability to think outside of the box, look at situations from fresh perspectives and add that extra special element.

And it’s not just creative industries that benefit from creative thinking, it is STEM sectors, education, marketing, pretty much any industry you can think of. Creative thinking transcends borders, industries and is an incredibly valuable, transferable skill.

It’s arguable not really a ‘skill’ either, it’s an ethos and set of values that you can approach any scenario with; whether you’re launching your own brand or starting a new project at work. Flexibility, initiative, collaboration and resilience all require creative thinking.

...

Contrary to popular belief - J.K Rowling, Bill Gates and that annoying guy who got the job you interviewed for - aren’t sitting around churning out golden nuggets of creativity all day long, every day.

Creativity is a long game. And being a ‘creative’ can be frustrating, fruitless and ultimately frivolous. But it’s all part of the process. For every nightmare of a day, you can have a Tuesday treasure trove, full to the brim with fantastic ideas.

Accepting that your ideas don’t have to come to you perfect and fully-formed is a good place to start and recognizing that if you’re not feeling creative, it’s okay to take a break and not force it.

Who knows, your next best idea could occur just as you’re about to put gas in your car or when you’re running around after your dog because she’s stolen a toilet roll.

Let’s take a look at things you can practice to consistently come up with creative ideas.

Relax and Unwind

I...

Empathy is one of the most significant traits to possess in your personal and professional life – after all, it’s what’s inside that counts.

Being able to relate to the thoughts and feelings of those around you is a pretty good way to live your life and build relationships – the same can be said when trying to understand your customers’ intentions and wellbeing.

So, empathy maps are a really effective way to generate customer profiles and create campaigns that connect with users on a deeper level.

Mind mapping has its place in the creative process too and hey, some of the best ideas out there have started life on a napkin or in a notebook. Learning how to utilize mind mapping and get your creative juices flowing will help to provoke and carve out ideas.

Empathy Maps for Beginners

Empathy comes naturally to some people more than others, but the good news is that it’s something that can be developed and practiced with some simple mapping exercises.