How many times have you needed to get in touch with a company about a product you’ve ordered or a service they have delivered, only to find that the advertised means of contact is an online form which can take up to 24 hours for a response? 

As a species, technology and innovation are making us more impatient – and more demanding. When we have questions or issues to raise, we want to be able to do so immediately, and we want to know that our message will not only be acknowledged but also responded to. 

Enter the new world of social media marketing. 

We are constantly being told about how social media is an important, modern part of the customer journey – both during the discovery phase, the research phase, and the follow up phase. For companies who are on top of their social media and are utilising it seamlessly, this means that everything from reviews to complaints are likely to be received through social platforms – with Facebook ranking as the most popular platform for businesses. But what about the benefits of social media marketing, and messaging in particular? 

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing refers not only to the use of social media for advertising and marketing products and services, but also includes direct messaging and commenting as a means of contacting a company and/or responding to customers. Initially designed as just another means of online contact, advances across the industry have meant that automated chatbots are now an integral part of every social media strategy – especially when it comes to Facebook Messenger marketing, which is the outlet of choice for most modern consumers seeking a way to get in contact with a company at all hours of the day (and night). 

The benefits of chatbots when it comes to Facebook Messenger marketing

There are a broad range of benefits that come with using social media as an integrated part of your marketing strategy, but chatbots sit up there as the most beneficial aspect to come from Facebook Messenger marketing in particular. 

Far from the robotic images and flat responses that many envisage when they think about chatbots, modern chatbots are interactive, engaging, and able to use everything from words to visuals and videos by means of response to a variety of questions, issues and comments. Of course, in ascertaining and identifying the benefits of using chatbots in your Facebook Messenger strategy, the first thing to note is the simple fact that your communication lines are always open – unlike real team members, chatbots don’t need sleep. With this in mind, chatbots are especially popular with global brands where their customer base lives across a huge variety of time zones and thus may need assistance at any time of the day or night. 

Another benefit of integrating chatbots into your Facebook Messenger marketing plan is that they can provide consumers with simple answers to a huge range of questions – thus eradicating a huge load of admin for your social media team. More often than not, consumers contacting you through social media will be after a quick response – for example, the stock levels of a certain product, or the status of a delivery driver. These require factual, quick responses which can be delivered seamlessly by a chatbot. 

For those instances where a more personalised response is required, the developments in AI mean that this is becoming more possible every day. By being able to differentiate the products and services required by different individuals, and by using the details they provide in order to generate personalised responses, the future for chatbots – and for sales conversion – is bright. 

As well as the efficient and effective responses created by chatbots, additional information and benefits that can be gained through the use of chatbots include:

• Data Analysis of your target audience
• Communication learnings about how your audience interact with your brand on social
• A broader understanding of where your target audience are and what they look like
• Seamless payments through a central platform

Other benefits of Facebook Messenger Marketing

As well as being able to use chatbots to replicate and engage in personal and direct conversations, there are a handful of other benefits that come with using Facebook Messenger marketing as a company or brand. 

For one thing, the messenger platform allows you to integrate with your target audience on a platform which works for them and which they regularly use as part of their everyday internet activity. All too often we see brands and companies losing out on that crucial transition from browser to buyer, simply because they are not presenting a presence that is readily available across different platforms. If you only allow customers to ask questions through a contact form on your website, or by dialling a number and being put on a hold list, the likelihood is that you will lose a large chunk of potential business from those who would rather quick on a quick chat icon and receive an automatic response. 

And finally, why not consider Facebook Messenger marketing as a way to acknowledge and generate information about orders and delivery notifications? A massive 85% of people say they want to be able to text back after receiving a push notification – so it follows that using Facebook Messenger marketing to control those kinds of notifications could open up a channel for conversation and ongoing communication. 

Why you should integrate Facebook Messenger marketing today

Facebook is the OG of all the social media platforms when it comes to consumer – business interactions, and as such it is leading the way with the integration with direct messaging, consistent communication and advertising, and chatbots. The future of your business could well rest in the way that you employ and use social media in the coming weeks and months, particularly with the 2020 pandemic driving more and more people to browse and shop online. 

Create a seamless consumer experience using chatbots and messenger apps – and watch as browsers start to become buyers.

My SEO Predictions for 2021

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) has long been considered an integral part of the digital and online marketing world, using the power of keywords and valuable internal and external website links to increase your organic search results and increase the level of genuine audience traffic moving onto your website.

There are a huge variety of aspects which go into a high quality SEO campaign strategy, and as such more and more companies are looking to recruit experts and entire outsourced services which are dedicated to increasing and improving their SEO.

This article looks a little more closely at the areas in which SEO could grow over the next year, considering the ways that technical reliance will continue to adapt and change the ways that we use online to communicate with our customers and clients.

Taking our learnings from 2020 into 2021

If there has ever been a time that online strategy has been important, it’s been this year.

With businesses being forced to close their doors, limit their capacity and completely change the way in which they interact with customers, the value of social media and a strong online presence has been felt across the business world, regardless of industry.

From recruitment and advertising vacancies, to launching new products and services, sharing testimonials and internal stories, and simply communicating with clients and customers, everything in 2020 has been about finding new and innovative solutions – and a lot of this will carry on over in 2021 as more businesses herald the value of a strong online presence.

In terms of SEO, this means an increased focus on understanding who your target customer is and how to reach them.

It means knowing what search terms and solutions your customers are searching and looking for, and how they might come across your brand or website page.

It means producing high quality content which proves your worth as an expert in your industry or field.

Most of all, it means creating and maintaining a website which is as much written for usability and reader value, as it is designed for Google and a high SEO ranking.

What SEO will look like in 2021

One of my biggest predictions for SEO in 2021 revolves around a more connected use of search results which combine standard content with GIF’s, videos, images and other graphics. The world is becoming increasingly visual and more and more users are finding visual guides just as easy to use – if not more so – than standard written guides and chunks of content.

If you can elevate the value of your website with some internal and external video content, using the right keywords and meta tags for Google to trawl through, you will find that image recognition technology provides a boost in your company’s prominence both on Google and other search engines.

Another way that SEO will shift focus in 2021 is towards more of a well-rounded user experience, which combines and blends social media presence with email communication, influencer marketing and affiliate marketing.

If you can get high quality third party sites and influencers to repost and link back to your landing pages, as well as including relevant external content on your own site, the chain of high quality links will serve you well and will create seamless user experiences which not only read well in terms of Google but also mean that more active consumers will read more about and potentially click through to your site.

When it comes to link building, I do have two of my own top tips to share to help you harness the power of links in 2021 and beyond:

1.      Keep your links about quality rather than quantity.

2.      Don’t outsource your link building to just any another company, as the risk is too high: there are so many organisations out there which sell link building solutions and ultimately will end up packing your website with spam. Put the time in and build internal and external links up yourself.

And then we have content itself, and the way in which companies will continue to use content as the main driving force in their SEO strategy.

Keywords remain an integral part of a consistent and high quality SEO strategy, and so the higher the value of content you can create and share on your site and other online platforms, the better.

However, far too often I see bloggers and writers simply stuffing their content full of keywords which make little sense – and unfortunately, Google has outgrown us in terms of intelligence; now able to read and identify every time a keyword has been used as a space filler.

What this means is that, now more than ever, SEO strategy has to use keywords in a smart and intelligent way which highlights value and relevance, without going over the top. 

Steps you can take to improve your SEO in 2021

Google will often change its algorithms with little warning, and so one of the best steps you can take to keep your SEO relevant and up to date is continuing to watch and keep an eye on technical innovation and online reports about new ways that the internet is being used – across all devices.

One of the main areas that I predict Google will focus on in 2021 is mobile optimisation across all devices, in terms of delivering a high end user experience to every used regardless of how they interact with a site. It is no longer enough to deliver the same homepage on a computer and a smartphone – the sites must be tailored to the end user and the way that they are using the site.

I could go on for pages about the ways in which SEO will shift and change in 2021, but for me the key lessons to take and implement are these:

·        Put time and thought into the ways that you can prove and showcase expertise and authority in your industry or sector.

·        Create content which does more than share the keywords a few times. Make every blog and article count – and remember, the better the content, the more likely it is to be shared.

I hope that’s of some use to you, I’m happy to thrash ideas around, so if you’re looking at starting or improving your SEO in ’21 – give me a shout or head over to kaizen-digital.com for more info.