Month: July 2022

Since the dawn of social media, emojis have been a fun prevalent way of ‘showing emotion’ through any digital communication platform. 

From their start as the simple ‘:)’ emoticons to the development of the ‘emoji’ that we know today –  they have become an essential part of not just social media, but a key element of a business’s branding & advertising. 

In today’s blog post, we will be breaking down the importance of emojis in your brand’s marketing and how to start implementing them into your advertising campaigns.

But first, a bit of history on the emoji. 

 

 

History 

Emojis are small visual icons, created using Unicode Standard; the first emoji was created in 1999 by a coder employed by NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese mobile service provider. 

However, it wasn’t until the 2010’s that we began seeing emojis popularised outside of Japan, whereby Apple made the emoji a permanent part of its keyboard for IOS 5. 

As of July 2022, there are currently 3633 emojis available via Apple’s IOS Keyboard with over 100 more to become available by the end of 2022.

 

 

The Stats 

So why should your business be using emojis? 

Using emojis in your brand’s ad copy, Social Media & Email Marketing has been proven to boost engagement, CTR & open rates significantly. 

Just take a look at the statistics: 

-Facebook posts experience an impressive 57% lift when an emoji is featured

-Instagram content with emojis sees an engagement increase of 48%

-An emoji in the subject line of an email increases the open rate by 29% and the click-through rate by 28% 

But take note: Keep your emoji usage in touch with either your personal branding or the context of your post/ad, overusing irrelevant emojis to appear ‘trendy’ will not work in your favour, as they say, “No one likes a try-hard”…

 

 

Show Your Personality

Other than just being more naturally eye-catching for the audience, emojis can actually hold a vital part in how your audience sees your brand. Although the key component to any digital advertising is strong copywriting which conveys a brand’s TOV clearly, adding an emoji is simply the icing on the cake. 

Including emojis in your marketing adds more trust and a humanising factor to your brand’s image, ultimately allowing customers to stay loyal, as well as naturally boosting brand awareness. 

 

 

Emoji or not to Emoji…that is the real question

Finally, the standard for most brands is less is more when it comes to using emojis in your marketing – with 59% of consumers aged 18-34 believing companies are overdoing it. 

However, there are no rules to follow when it comes to emojis and truthfully it will depend on what you know will work well for your brand individually! 

For example…

Unicorn Cosmetics 

Although it is common for cosmetic brands to use emojis more frequently, due to typically appealing to a young female demographic, Unicorn Cosmetics takes that one step further, by ‘breaking’ the unsaid “less is more” rule and making it work in their favour. 

You will often see their ads covered with bright colourful emojis, which reflect the ‘magical’, ‘fun’ & ‘girly’ aesthetic that connects with their branding and makes them stand out from competitors. 

TUI

The ‘bog-standard’ use of emojis for marketing can be seen using Travelling Agency TUI. They use a selective & minimal use of the icons which relate to the topic of vacations/ travelling, which simply adds a more welcoming tone to their copy and is overall visually eye-catching for their audience. 

Balenciaga

Doing a complete 180, high-end fashion retailer Balenciaga refrain from using a single emoji (or much copy for that matter) in their campaigns, to keep a completely professional and exclusive aesthetic to their brand; with many higher-end brands feeling that emojis would ‘cheapen’ their overall tone of voice. 

 

And there you have it! 

If you feel that your business could do with an emoji upgrade or further guidance with your Ad Copy in general, our specialist creative team are here to help! Book a call with us and get your business growing today 🚀

Once your business has joined TikTok, the next step is creating content that converts. To be successful on this platform, there’s a formula to follow to appeal to the TikTok viewer. TikTok is a niche platform on which dynamic content keeps viewers engaged and performs incredibly well.

Read on to discover how to produce high-performing TikTok campaigns that lead to website conversions.

 

 

Engage from the start

Firstly, let’s take a moment to consider the TikTok viewer-persona. Their constant scrolling has given them an incredibly short attention span and they’re looking for instant engagement and interesting content – otherwise, they’ll scroll right past your ad.

The very first few seconds are crucial in setting the tone for a dynamic ad. Ensure you add a short caption at the start that effectively sums up what the following video is about (eg “3 ways to ____”, “How to ____” ) or entices the viewer to keep watching ( eg “Meet my new favourite ____”, “Wish I knew about this sooner”, ““Why you need this in your life”). You can be creative with this or stick to phrases like these that tend to work on the platform.

The viewer typically won’t carry on watching if it isn’t immediately clear what the rest of the TikTok is about – satisfying their short attention span is necessary in setting the right tone with your TikToks.

 

Essential elements

What do you need to create an engaging TikTok ad that shows off your product line and entices viewers to visit your site? Whether you’re creating an unboxing product focus or using UGC (User Generated Content), we’ll break it down for you:

 

1 – Always use dynamic transitions

Only use exactly what you need in each clip – if one clip is one second too long to stay 100% engaging, TikTok viewers are tempted to scroll onto the next video.

It’s brutal – that’s why it’s worth being a little ruthless with your content – what would be engaging to younger viewers? Does it keep up with the instant-gratification method that succeeds on Tiktok?

 

2 – Include a ‘human presence’

Whether it’s a hand or a face in the frame, TikToks including someone using or handling the featured product naturally engage viewers more than videos without any human presence.

 

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3 – Include captions

Depending on your clip lengths and whether or not your visual content speaks for itself, add captions to keep viewers engaged.

If your video doesn’t include a talk-through or voiceover, you can add text-to-voice on each caption, automatically converting them to spoken captions. This feature is often used on product-focussed content, so TikToks making use of this will fit right in with the viewership.

Keep your captions short and easy-to-read alongside the visual content – watching your TikTok should feel natural, and not strained or stressful to gain all the information it shows.

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4 – Add music or audio

TikTok offers a rich library of sounds you can add to clips, which can also be background music for voiceovers or talk-throughs.

 

5 – Include your brand name clearly at the start or the end

If viewers are interested in your products, they want to be quickly told where to find them. Make it easy for viewers by prompting the next step – conversion on your site.

 

6 – Finally, add a CTA

This can be a clear “Shop at ____” at the end of the ad, or something slightly less obvious but still powerful (eg “Get yours at ____”).

 

Align with the algorithm

Now you’ve got the basics for creating engaging TikTok content, what more can you do to succeed on this platform and be rewarded by the algorithm? The more people that view, like, comment and share your video, the more views you’ll get, as TikTok’s algorithm rewards seemingly engaging and popular content.

Let’s find out how you can increase your chances of higher views:

1 – Use hashtags in the video caption – before you post a TikTok ad, ensure the caption contains a few hashtags. These can be relevant to your product, market and video content (eg #grwm for ‘Get ready with me’-style content, or #howto #howtoguide), or you can find trending hashtags that could increase views.

2 – Use trending songs/audio – on TikTok, trends rule supreme and get you noticed, and this includes the audio you choose. If you identify tracks and audio clips that many users are adding to videos, see if you could incorporate these in an engaging way in your own videos.

3 – Create videos that loop – TikTok videos play on loop, and the more times you watch the same TikTok, the more the algorithm thinks it’s worth showing to others. If videos don’t have the clearest beginning and end, users might rewatch it before they even realise- if the first clip naturally continues from the last, you can trick viewers into watching your ad multiple times.

 

 

So, that’s how you can up your TikTok game and align with the algorithm. By spending some time on this platform and paying attention to high-performing content and other well-made TikTok ads, you’ll get the hang of how it’s done.

Creating and scaling high-performing TikTok content could be just what your business needs to reach new heights and attract new audiences.  If you’d like further guidance with creating successful TikTok content, or you’re interested in finding out more about our in-house TikTok services, get in touch with us today. Our Marketing Specialists are here to help your social media marketing get to the next level 🚀

With Summer now in full force, you will likely be seeing a lot of changes or updates to your favourite social media platforms, as a way to enhance the user experience and ensure users are being drawn to apps during the hotter season, due to the statistically significant drop in screen-time over the warmer months – Check out our latest blog for 5 Tips on a Successful Summer Campaign. 

We’ve compiled a list of the latest news & updates to look out for this month! 

 

Instagram – Reels in-feed

Following on from Instagram’s infamous ‘TikTok-ified’ update of May 2022, whereby all imagery and videos went full screen with the intention of “bring(ing) video more front & centre”; despite the controversy, this has not prevented Instagram from mirroring TikTok’s platform once again with their latest update. 

Now all video content (both new & old) will be presented as a ‘Reel’ and is being pushed separately to how you see ‘Posts’ on your feed. Reels rely on a user’s algorithm, therefore can appear on your feed at any time (whether you follow the account or not), sounding familiar?

Facebook – Groups Revamp 

With Meta’s common theme of mirroring features, Facebook is updating its ‘Groups’ feature which if you’re an avid member of the gaming community, you may see a striking resemblance to the popular messaging platform Discord. 

In these changes, you will see a new left-aligned bar channel for groups, with Facebook going as far as moving away from its iconic blue & white branding for the revamp, in favour of purple, much like Discords Purple & Black.

 

Twitter – Notes feature 

Twitter is testing a new feature called ‘Notes’, which allows users to go over the 280 characters limit, in favour of writing longer pieces with a whopping 2,500-character limit. Alongside the increased characters, you will be able to insert pictures & tweets just like a blog post. 

Notes can be edited, even once published which is a feature Twitter does not currently have available with normal tweets. 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1539640956915290112

 

Tiktok – Attribution Tool 

For the Digital Marketer lovers of Tiktok, the app has officially released its new ‘Attribution Manager Tool’ which enables advertisers to set custom attribution windows within TikTok campaigns.

“TikTok Attribution Manager enables marketers to select a specific time period to measure success: the click-through attribution (CTA) window can range from one day to 28 days, while view-through attribution (VTA) window options range from off to up to seven days.” – socialmediatoday.com

This feature offers more flexibility in measuring the results of your TikTok promotions, ultimately allowing you to be more strategic in which content to push. 

 

Snapchat – Launch of Snapchat+

Snapchat has officially launched a subscription service, costing users a total of £3.99 per month. A few benefits of the service include: Having a designated #1 BFF, exclusive access to ‘pre-released features’ & access to who has ‘re-watched’ your stories. 

However, unlike other social media subscriptions which commonly remove ads as part of the service, Snapchat has announced that advertisements will remain on Snapchat+ with Snapchat’s SVP of Product Jacob Andreou stating, “Ads are going to be at the core of our business model for the long term.”. 

 

And that’s a wrap! What are your thoughts on these latest features & updates? 

Here at Social Nucleus, we have an expert team of dedicated Account Managers & Creative executives who thrive in making your business’s Social Media presence as successful as possible, no matter the platform. Book a call with us today 🚀