What is the Creator Economy, and what are its benefits?

Creator economy refers to the economy in which the audience funds directly content creators/freelancers. Content creators can be musicians, writers, graphic designers, online course providers, and video creators… By following this strategy, they are removing the old middlemen like record labels, TVs, Newspapers, and publishers from in between.

This type of economy has surged thanks to the advent of the Internet. It has provided creators with the ability to promote themselves directly online and reduce promotional costs by foregoing intermediaries. Independent creators stand a better chance of success by being visible to all generations and avoiding agents’ filters.

Creators are now able to promote digitally their craft through different e-commerce and online community-building sites. They can also sell their products such as merchandising directly through their own website and social channels like YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram…as well as fund their projects through crowdfunding sites by following these tips.

If creators are clever enough, they will craft their marketing and sales strategies according to their audience’s tastes and leverage their work by targeting different age groups through generic and/or specialised channels and platforms.

 

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Business Tips on how to use Video and Networking

I listened to two business tips’ presentations at the Local Enterprise Dublin City Women in Business Network on:

• ‘How to use Video in Digital Marketing’ with Niamh Guckian from Go Motion Academy
• ‘How to network’ with Melissa Curley from Social Bee

FirSt OF ALL, Let me start with Niamh Guckian’s presentation about developing a video strategy that works.

1. Videos create engagement

When doing an email campaign, research shows that an email with a video has a 96% increase in Click-Through Rate. Furthermore, videos up to 2 minutes get the most engagement. Additionally, 92% of mobile video viewers share videos with others.

2. Other considerations to think about with video marketing

However, when you plan your video marketing campaign, you must remember to start in the funnel by following the customer journey. Next, you need to drill down with video content and think about which type of video content would suit your business most. Do not ever do videos for the sake of it!

3. The customer journey

Indeed, when doing video marketing, take into consideration the different stages of the customer journey:

• Awareness – your product/service is unknown to your targeted audience
• Consideration – your audience has found your product/service
• Conversion – your audience is ready to buy your product/service. It’s the sale stage
• Retention – your audience is ready/open to come back and buy your product/service again.

4. Who is your audience?

This is the key question you need to ask yourself.

• Where are your potential customers?

Insider Business Tips: Statistics show that 88% of Business-to-Business (B2B) videos are viewed on a desktop. Consider as well if Social Media would a good platform for your video. Note that YouTube is very competitive.

• What do they want?
• And you, what do you want from them?
• What are the others doing in the business?
• Do you need a disposable content (punctual events) or an evergreen content (tutorials/explainers)?
• Is your content relatable (not over-emotional)?
• What is the story (curve)?
• Is your content useful/educational?

5. Choose a video genre

Once you have identified your audience and what content to go for, choose a genre:

• Ask Me Anything – responding to questions, providing an engaging expertise
• Vlog
• Video tour
• Event highlights
• Review
• Tutorial
• Explainer
• Demo
• Interview
• Live Streaming

At the end of your video, remember to add a strong Call-to-Action by asking your audience to do something. Your call-to-action must be specific (not just ‘subscribe’) and get people talking/guessing.

6. Video genre and the customer journey

Incontestably, each video genre corresponds to a specific stage in the customer journey.

• Awareness stage: A video tour or a vlog
• Consideration stage: Ask Me Anything, demo or explainer video
• Conversion stage: Event highlights or tutorial video
• Retention stage: Review, interview or live streaming video.

7. Video marketing campaign CALENDAR

In that regard, you need to know if your video will be episodic (occasional events) or if you want to stay in your audience’s mind (evergreen content).

Consequently, if you want your audience to follow you through, you will need to create between 6 and 12 videos. In other terms, you must remain consistent in your posting and sharing of videos. If you are short with time, you can start your campaign by sharing one video a week.

8. Other BUSINESS tips

Finally, if you are going for an explainer video, you must ensure it is animated and engaging enough. Other genres can be used for a more personal and authentic delivery.

Budgetwise, if you want to hire an agency to do it for you on an episodic basis, forecast a budget between 800 and 2000 Euros for several videos.

Otherwise, you can make your own videos with the following sites:

• shortcut.com
• human5.com that turns text into videos.

Then, let’s move on to the second and last presentation of the evening by Melissa Curley about small talk for big gains.

1. Why is networking a key marketing tool for business growth and success?

Foremost, we need to be interested in and curious about one another.

Why? What matters about networking?

• The creation of Like/Trust/Respect
• The importance of conversation.

In other words, networking allows you to grow your social capital before you ever need them. It’s like a social currency. To be good at it, try to have fun at it!

2. What is a conversation about?

Most importantly, a conversation is a two-way listening and talking. Therefore, you need to focus on listening to understand, not just on saying something. So, to be a good networker, you need to understand emotions and feelings about words.

3. Tips to improve your listening

Undeniably, listening means:

• Receiving
• Appreciating
• Summarising
• Asking.

4. Preparation for a networking event

Still, if you are introvert and uncomfortable with networking, don’t worry.  Remember this!  Extroverts don’t always make the best networkers, as they aren’t always good at listening and connecting with the others.

Business Tips: before you go to a networking event, ask for the attendees’ list. This way, you can organise, who you want to connect with. This will make you more focused and efficient.

5. 10 pointers to a better conversation

Now, let me share with you a few tips on how to be a better conversationalist.

• Be present
• Enter every conversation assuming you have something to learn
• Ask open-ended questions
• Go with the flow
• Have courage
• Avoid engaging in conversational narcissism
• Refrain from repeating yourself
• Don’t get tangled up in small details
• Listen
• Be succinct.

6. Networking budget

On the other hand, 50 -60% of your budget should go into your networking. Likewise, concentrate on building mutually beneficial relationships.

7. What networking is and isn’t

Thus, it’s good to be aware of behaviours to avoid or adopt when networking.

AS A MATTER OF FACT, Networking isn’t:

• Salesy/Pushy
• Fake/Insincere
• About shameless self-promotion
• Only extroverts are good at it.

CONTRARILY, Networking is ABOUT:

• Making connections
• Gaining knowledge
• Adding value before you extract it.

8. How to create an effective network

IN summary, follow these last business tips:

• Do research about people’s businesses and follow-up
• Keep in touch, nurture contacts through social media and face-to-face meetings.

All in all, did you find this blog post helpful? Do you have further business tips or tricks to share?

 

 

How to generate growth organically and through advertising on Instagram

You have your Instagram account set up but no followers yet? This post will help you to generate growth on Instagram organically and through advertising.

Instagram organic growth hacks

The first step is to connect and link your Instagram account with your other social media accounts. To do so, please log into your Instagram application on your phone and go to your profile page.

1. Click on the 3 little dots (…) at the top right-hand corner of your profile page.

2. On the ‘options’ page, scroll down the options’ list and tap on ‘Linked Accounts‘ under ‘Settings‘.

3.  Select one of the following social networks where you would like to invite your friends to follow you on Instagram.

When you select a social network, take into consideration the type of audience you are targeting. For example, if you are targeting other Businesses, it will make more sense to link your Instagram account with Twitter and Tumblr. While, if you are targeting Consumers, you may want to link it to Facebook.

Keep in mind as well where your audience is located. For example, VKontakte and other social networks that are more specific to certain markets may not be suitable if your audience isn’t there. So, do a little bit of research beforehand.

4. You tap the social network you want to have Instagram linked to. Then, you will be prompted to ‘Authorise app‘ to connect your social media accounts. For Facebook authorising, please review the steps from my previous blog post.

Once you have followed these steps, Instagram will populate all your contacts in the selected networks.

5. To invite those contacts, go back to your ‘options‘ menu. Under the ‘Invite‘ section, tap on the relevant social network.

6. When you tap on Facebook, you will get this pop-up window. Click on ‘Continue‘.

7. Log into your Facebook account through the ‘Facebook App‘.

8. Confirm you authorise Instagram to be linked to Facebook by clicking ‘Authorise‘ or ‘Continue‘ if that’s the first time you are connecting the accounts.

9. You will be redirected to Instagram and your friends’ list will be auto-populated. Click on the ‘Invite’ button next to the person you want to invite.

Once you have linked your social media accounts, you may consider these other tips to grow your account organically.

INSTAGRAM ADVERTISING

As explained in my previous blog post about cross-marketing your business on both Facebook and Instagram, you need to have a Facebook fan page set up, in order to advertise on Instagram.

Link Instagram to Facebook Advertising Account

1. Now that your Facebook fan page is now set up, you will need to log into your personal Facebook account to access it. You will need to click on this downward arrow.

2. Then select your page under ‘Business Manager‘.

3.  Then, to add your Instagram account on your Facebook page for advertising purposes, please click on this setting button on your fan page. 

4. Under ‘Business Settings‘, select ‘Instagram accounts‘. Then, click on ‘Add’.

6. You are then prompted to type your Instagram account login credentials. Once done, click on ‘Next‘.

7. After typing in your login credentials, select the Facebook advertising account to link them together by clicking in the box next to it. Then click on ‘Next ‘ and ‘Done‘.

8. Your accounts are now linked for advertising purposes.

Facebook Advertising Payment Method Set Up

As you probably know, no advertising is possible without payment. So, your next stop is setting up your payment method. It’s a very straightforward step!

1. Go to the ‘Payment’ section of the ‘Business Settings’ and click on the ‘Add‘ button.

2. You will get this pop-up window, where to fill in your bank account details and select the currency you want to use for advertising fees. Click on ‘Continue’ and submit your inputs.

ADVERTISING from your Facebook fan page to both Facebook and Instagram

So, here, the way it works is that you will advertise, promote one of your Facebook fan page posts, videos, pictures to both Facebook and Instagram. But don’t worry, you don’t need a big budget to advertise on these networks!

1. Go back to your Facebook fan page by clicking on this flag and selecting your fan page name. 

2. Then, scroll down to whatever post, video or picture you want to boost, promote. Then click on the ‘Boost’ button just below your post/video/picture.

3. You will get a pop-up window with the ad information you will set up. First, set up your objective.

Your objective will differ depending on the type of post you are trying to boost and what you want to track. For example, if it’s just a video, you will have the option to view the number of watchers, the length of video watch.

The post I selected is a link to one of my blog posts from my website. To get other options than tracking website visits, click on ‘Change‘.

4. Select the ‘objective‘ you want to track. In the case of a blog post, these are the two options available. Then click on ‘Save‘.

5. The second part requires you to think about and select the action you want your ad viewers/readers to take once they come across it.

6. To select the action you want, click on the downward arrow next to ‘No Button’. 

7. The third part is related to the audience selection for your ad.

If your Facebook fan page is very recent and doesn’t have too many followers, invite first your friends from your personal page by clicking on the 3 little dots (…) and ‘Invite Friends’ on your main Facebook fan page.

8. If you don’t have many contacts on Facebook or they aren’t your fans, then I would recommend you to select a wider audience by selecting ‘People you choose through targeting‘. You can ‘edit‘ your audience by age, gender, location, interests, behaviours, job. Even once your ad is running, you can still modify it.

9. If you had previously done an ad, Facebook will keep these settings. But you can always edit them. If you want to remove a location or interest, highlight or click on it, then you will see a little cross appearing on the right-hand side. Click on it. Always make sure that your audience is defined and not too wide.

10. In ‘Locations‘, you can either choose to target a city or a country. Try not to target the whole earth! Instead, think about where you’d like your posts to be shown and where your audience is.

For your own city, it will select the whole city. If you want to select a city outside of your own, you will get the option to select the radius range you want your post to be advertised to. Click on the downward arrow next to kms and swipe to left or right to decrease or increase the range.

11. At the bottom of this page, under the map, you can add more criteria for your ad, such as Interests, Behaviours, Demographics.

For that, type in what you want your post to show up for. You will get a dropdown list of existing interests. Select the most relevant one to your ad.Then click on ‘Save‘ at the very bottom of the page.

Once you have selected the ‘Interests’ or ‘Behaviours’ or ‘Demographics’, you will see how many potential fans you can reach. You just need to point your mouse cursor towards the word(s) added to see that. Don’t be fooled, if you select a low budget, you won’t get that many new fans or clicks!

You can also choose ‘Interests’, ‘Demographics’ and ‘Behaviours’ within the Facebook Ads mobile app, which I recommend you to use due to its simplicity. More on this towards the end of this post.

12. Then, you are back to the main ad page, where you will tick the box next to ‘Run promotion on Instagram‘ as advertising option as well as set up your budget and duration for your ad campaign.

The budget starts at 1 Euro per day and can be increased during the campaign if you wish. Click inside the budget field and type the amount you want to put in.

Click on the ‘Duration’ you want, ie ‘1 Day’, ‘7 Days’ or ’17 Days’.

13. You can then review how your ad appears on desktop, mobile and Instagram. Once you are happy with your ad, click on ‘Boost‘ down the bottom right-hand side corner.

14. Facebook will review your ad. It takes about 15-20 minutes. If your ad violates their policy, they will take it down and notify you about it.

Please note that if your ad contains too much text in the picture, you will get this notification in the ad campaign even before boosting your post/video/picture.

15. You aren’t happy with your ad or your ad isn’t performing as well as you’d like. You can still modify your ad while it’s running.

For this step, there are two options: the Desktop Facebook version or the Facebook Ads mobile application. The mobile app is, to my view, easier to use tp go more granular in your target audiences by selecting Interests, Behaviours, Demographics.

• Desktop Facebook Ads version:

Go back to your main Facebook fan page. Then click on ‘Promotions‘ in the menu. It will bring you to all your active, deleted or completed ads. There, you will be able to modify your ad.

Alternatively, go back to your post/video/picture you boosted and click on ‘Boost‘. You will be back to the ad campaign and be able to modify it.

• Facebook Ads mobile version:

First, you will need to download the application from your Google Play Store or your Apple App Store. This is how the App looks like.

Once you have downloaded it and logged into it, you will have the option to ‘Edit‘ your completed or active ads after tapping on the ad you want to modify.

Then, you will tap on the ‘Audience‘ to get the different choices of Interests, Demographics and Behaviours.

Then, you will see the options to target further your audience:

Here are the different options under:

• Interests. Tap on the relevant interest to see what options you have.

• Demographics. Tap on the relevant demographics to see what options you have.

• Behaviours. Tap on the relevant behaviours to see what options you have.

Here you go! You are now done with your first ad on Facebook and Instagram! Any questions?

Start-up: Learn How to Pitch your idea to investors

I attended on 12th June 2017 a presentation and workshop on how to pitch an idea for entrepreneurs. Not only have I learnt a great deal but also the host Adeo Ressi from Founder Institute made everyone feel comfortable by joking all the time!😂

The Founder Institute is a global idea-stage accelerator and startup launch program helping entrepreneurs ‘with the structure, training, mentor support, and global network needed to start an enduring company’: http://fi.co/users/1329971/edit

So, Adeo Ressi started his talk by stating the five most important rules to follow when pitching your idea to potential investors:

1. Show confidence. This is valid for any kind of enterprises you want to launch!
2. Don’t make excuses for not pitching your ideas!
3. Avoid superlatives/adjectives
4. Use data, in other terms, be factual. Back up your ideas by showing you know your audience needs (demographics, size, geolocation…)
5. End strong by stating clearly what your ask is! Why not leave with a slogan, for example.

He started with the basics, i.e the opening line you need to master for each of your pitch:

‘My company is [name], is developing [a defined offering], to help [a target audience] [solve a problem with the secret sauce].

It sounds easier than it is, so keep in mind these further tips when you are working on your opening line:

• Be prepared to bring up a defined offering to the table, keep it clear (articulate, especially your company name!) and short!
• You also need to specify your audience (age group, education level…) and what they truly want!
• Never lie but don’t tell the whole truth easier. Remember the point about confidence?😉

Then, Adeo went into more general tips on how to get a higher visibility and brand awareness. He advised all entrepreneurs to find a prominent lead by doing research to figure out who might need your deal and by exploiting your networking opportunities through the following sites:

• AngelList
• Linkedin
• CrunchBase.

Remember that your chosen lead must have time, money and expertise to help you out. You may need to repeat the pitching process up to 60 times to get one lead.

Now, let’s enter into the nitty-gritty of the pitching process:

1. Meet as many people as you can
2. Send invitations for coffee
3. Keep updated with news
4. Meet potential leads at online and offline events
5. Send invitations to longer meetings once you have broken the ice with one lead
6. Ask for funding
7. News update again.

Remember not to over-sell yourself and that the goal of each meeting is to get to the next meeting. You need to build relationship and trust.

Prepare a one-page agreement with those who have shown interest in investing. Remember, the real investor will be the one you come towards to and pitch your idea to, and not the other way around!

When approaching someone about to invest in your company, ask for a little less than you wanted and explicitly ask if they want to be your adviser and lead the round.

When pitching, think about what the focus of your offer/service/product is on:

1. A vision
2. Problems/Solutions
3. Traction/Interest (eg raise money for a business milestone that generates revenue).

Finally,  according to Adeo Rossi, the hardest business areas to pitch for, as investors are harder to convince to invest in due to the high risks are Travel, Music, Sports, Wine.😓 So, keep that in mind and find a complementary service that could add additional value!