So, 2013 was the year of the twerk and the selfie. Now 2014 looks set to be a pivotal, self-celebratory moment of a different kind. Economists predict a brighter financial situation and as the economy is set to prosper, so should your agency.
It’s no longer possible to opt out of social media. You might not see it as a way of delivering clients but you’d be wrong; in the latest GRIT report, LinkedIn was named as the second most influential source of information, and Twitter ranks 18th, higher than Research-Live. Furthermore, 24% of research buyers consume information through blogs, and 37% through the email delivery of blog subscriptions. With the plethora of social media communications, what can your agency do to stand out? Here are a few tips from Mustard:
1. Your agency isn’t what you say about it, it’s what Google says about it. Look at how your company is doing on Google Trends. This will tell you how much you have been Googled through time and related search terms. You can also see how you are faring against competitors. Good looks like a positive correlation – anything else means that there’s work to be done.
To improve the visibility of your company on Google, the first thing to do is to define your keywords – the related search terms from Google Trends can help you out here, so can Google’s Keyword planner and of course always have a list of the business’ services at hand. Say you’re a qualitative research agency, ‘qualitative research’ would be up there (genius). Make sure these are reflected in your website copy and content.
2. Make your website a content hub. When you’ve decided on those keywords, you need to create content that includes them in the title (and in the URL to match). Don’t leave your readers guessing what the blog post is about but do take into consideration that the longest titles are not always the best. For example, the Daily Mail’s stinker of a headline: ‘Children shouted “Moobs!” at me in the street, but now I model in catwalk fashion shows’: Bullied teenager lost 9 stone in 18 months and now wants to encourage others’
Take time to produce a flow of interesting blogs (bearing in mind that you are writing for your readers and not just a search engine).
3. Don’t forget to use external platforms. External platforms, such as Twitter and Google+ increase the reach of your internal content and the traffic to your (wonderful, content rich) site. Take it a little bit further by creating a content plan, and establishing a tone of voice and themes: it is also important to be a curator of valuable information over social media – don’t just share your own content. Spend 15 minutes a day finding inspiration and useful articles to share, and use your existing snappy and eye-catching statistics with relevant hashtags to gain followers.
Another useful external platform is Slideshare, which allows you to share interesting findings with the rest of the World. Edelmen Insights does this brilliantly (check out their channel here) and have had over 360,000 views on their presentations over the last 6 months.
Hopefully this puts you on the right tracks for 2014! If you’re interested in increasing your profile you might also be interested in Lucy Davison’s post on using market research to get coverage in the media.