The days of heavy filters, emoji-filled captions, and aesthetic feeds are long gone. While all of this still contributes to building up your personal brand as a small business, consumer behavior in 2019 has shifted from the idealistic, view of “This is who I want to be” to the raw, authentic stories of “This is who I am”. Even Gen Z’s trend of cringe culture shows acceptance of the not-so-perfect lifestyles that empowers them. This shift in mindset will directly affect your digital marketing and advertising strategies in the future. Here at NXTFactor, we want to give you four ways to personalize your content and captivate your audience so you can become closer to them. Below, we’ve provided some examples from our own clients.
1. Add more video content
Consumers are getting so bogged down by tons of visuals that it’s getting much harder to capture their attention. Sure, great photographs of your products represent parts of your brand but what does it all mean to them?
Videos can help make the intention clearer and stronger. According to a report by Meeker, 28% of Americans spend their time watching a digital video in 2018 and their consumption is expected to keep growing. You can even see it now with the introduction of IGTV, Facebook Videos, and the infamous viral TikTok. Start small by creating short video clips of your products or services, then start increasing the length once you get more ideas on how you want to utilize videos in representing your brand.
2. Turn your captions into micro-blogs
Captions need to be crafted well and provide value to your audiences. When you share interesting and valuable content, your followers are more likely to save the post and comment to provide further insight on your topic. (These customer actions are more valuable than simply liking and adding comments that say “Nice pic!” or “????????????”) Now, this doesn’t mean your captions HAVE to be perfect. It just means that it needs to be more relatable and if emoticons help emphasize your words, use it.
Don’t know what to write? Point out the items in your photo and add a little bit of history behind it. Answer a question to your audience and elaborate on your opinion. Tell the story about how you set up the photo or video. Share personal experiences you’ve had with the people involved in creating your content.
3. Join in the discussion with your audience
Once you’ve started getting the hang of providing valuable content, your audiences, in return, will provide valuable responses. Join in on the conversation! It doesn’t have to be a lengthy discourse but doing this will make your audience feel like they’re being heard. Joining in on the conversation will improve the chances of your audiences liking your comment or commenting back to your response. In our eyes, this is a step up on improving engagement!
4. Show your Behind-the-Scenes
Do you have a valuable, hardworking staff member that deserves an Instagram feature? Is there an opportunity for you to show how a special dish is made by a chef? Do you work hard on packaging all of your items by yourself? How many people are involved in the shoot you set up for your brand? Share your inner life with the audience and they will share their life with you. That’s just part of deepening a relationship (even a real one at that)! It’s always nice to see that your brand isn’t all just sparkles and shine. Your audiences will appreciate the nitty-gritty parts of it as well.
Have more questions on personalizing your content? Give us a call at 844-NXT-IDEA or email us at info@nxtfactor.com to accelerate your digital marketing strategy.