Hoopla Marketing

Saturday, 27 June 2015

Awesome evening at @JuanSanchez_chorlton getting some pics and trying the amazing food. #chorlton #manchester #tapas #spanishfood #spanishtapas

Monday, 22 June 2015

6 Top Tips for Successful Event Marketing

We all know that social media is a great way to promote events, so why aren’t your promotions as successful as you’d expected?

Probably because you are doing the same thing as everybody else, and you are not measuring your results. Not only do you need to be creative to impress your target audience, but you need to do it right, and most importantly, you need to keep track of everything. Failing to prepare and plan ahead is the first mistake a lot of businesses make when starting out on social media. To use social media marketing effectively, you need to watch trends and plan ahead of time. Here are a few tips to help you get more results from your social media efforts:

1. Keep up with trends: using Facebook and Twitter to promote your business is old news. Everyone is doing that. In order to stand out, you need to know what’s trending and take advantage of it. For nightclubs & bars, you should be working with Instagram (photos), Vine (short videos) and Snapchat (deals and sneak previews).

2. Create a content plan: making a post on Facebook 3 days before an event is not going to cut it anymore. There is a lot you can do to promote your events, so you need to have a plan. We suggest you start planning at least 2 - 3 months ahead, to ensure you cover all steps. That way, you’ll have time to spread the word online strategically, drip feed the details of your event and run other types of promos, like contests and giveaways. You can find more information on Content Generation here http://bit.ly/1Je00VQ

3. Identify your customers’ niche: where do your customers hang out online? Which social media sites do they use the most? Knowing that information will help you come up with the best plan. You don’t want to waste time on Facebook if your customers use Instagram. To find your customers’ niche, research what is popular around your area, have your employees ask customers, and test different strategies. Promote the same offer on different platforms, and see which one gets you the best response.

4. Be consistent and cross-promote: make sure to have the same message across all your social media pages. Keep the same designs and information, so you don’t confuse customers. Also, when deciding which strategies to use, combine social media promotions. E.g. run a contest on Instagram, but promote it on Facebook and Twitter as well. You can find more information on creating social media contests and competitions at www.hoopla-marketing.com

5. Get everyone involved and excited: especially your employees. Make sure you keep them in the loop on what is happening on your social media channels and how they can help you to promote the event. The more excited they are about your event, the more excited customers will be as well. Get your staff to share your posts on their personal pages to help you spread the word.

6. Track everything: In order for you to calculate your ROI you need to analyse key metrics such Clicks, Impressions, Reach, Engagement Rate, so you can compare and improve for the next promotion. Create a unique #hashtag for your event and your audience will include it in their tweets or posts resulting in even further reach on your messaging, increasing brand awareness. This will also allow you to easily monitor any discussions around your event or business.

For more information on getting the most out of your event using social media call 0161 731 0048, email info@hoopla-marketing.com or visit www.hoopla-marketing.com

Don't miss out on our Social Media for Business training course! 14th July 2015 - Book your tickets here

Wednesday, 8 April 2015

8 Things to Ask When Choosing a Social Media Agency

Its essential that you pick the right Social Media Marketing Agency when doing your research. A lot of agencies will say they do social media marketing however will only actually just do a few posts and run without getting involved in the technical side of social media marketing. Here are the things you need to ask when looking:

1. How long have you been in business?

This is really about establishing credibility and understanding the agency's experience. Companies that have been in business for a few years will have the experience and would have seen channels evolve so that they can make effective strategic recommendations to achieve your goals.

2. How many people work at the agency?

A larger agency will just push out content and lose that personal touch where a smaller agency will enable you to develop a closer relationship but there is the risk of the workload becoming too much.

3. What is your team's resume?

Social Media marketing is a key channel when used with other channels so look for agencies that have people who have worked in marketing, web development, PR, and advertising since all of those disciplines can be leveraged to manage a killer social media campaign.

4. Does my company need to be on every social channel?

It depends completely on your goals - for example an insurance company does not need to have an Instagram account but should be using Facebook or Twitter if that aligns with company goals. Agencies that automatically want to put your brand in every social channel will not effectively understand your objectives.

5. What makes you different from your competitors?

A lot of companies wont be able to answer this one as they're just posting in your social channels and making your brand "look" active. However Hoopla Marketing utilises a full scale social media strategy focusing on your objectives, ROI, and engagement.

6. How do you define success in social?

Success is defined by meeting your overall company objectives! It should never be focused on vanity metrics such as followers, tweets etc but instead traffic to the website, engagement, leads and sales!

7. What's your process for reporting?

Poorer agencies will avoid this question like the plague as they will want to hide the lack of engagement of wont know what to do. Reporting is your social media scorecard for the month and agencies that aren't measuring progress or helping your company achieve real goals don't want to review what they did or didn't do for you. Hoopla Marketing produce a monthly report which goes into detail of each channel so that you are fully informed and happy.

8. What's your current client list look like?

Find out who they're currently working with and check out their social media channels to verify the agency is doing good work. Ask for case studies and examples of the work they've done with these clients. Case studies are easy to find as they are all accessible through social media! Hoopla Marketing has a range of happy clients from small local businesses to global brands.

For more information on social media management packages then email info@hoopla-marketing.com