That said, writing great blog posts consistently can be a bit of a challenge, especially if you’re new to it. In this guide, we give you 17 essential blogging tips to jumpstart your brand’s blog.

Let’s jump right in.

1. Choose the right niche for your blog

When you’re just starting out, it’s important to focus your efforts on one specific niche. This will help you establish a presence in said niche and build your initial readership.

Start with a broad topic that’s relevant to your business. Then break this up into more specific sub-topics so you can narrow down a niche that’s perfect for you.

For example, if your company creates various marketing tools, marketing would be a broad topic relevant to your business. But instead of writing about general marketing topics, you can focus on subtopics related to the tools you provide. This may include email marketing, social media marketing and search engine marketing.

2. Research your audience

You may be writing content that’s relevant to your business, but who are you really writing for? One of the first tips blogging tips we can share is to ensure that you know exactly who your target audience is. This will set the precedent for how the rest of your blogging strategy should look.

When you establish who your audience is, it becomes easier to understand their needs, interests and pain points. You’ll then be able to create a blogging strategy that resonates with them.

3. Draw inspiration from competitor blogs

An important blogging tip for beginners is to look at what your competitors are doing. What topics are they writing about? How are they discussing key topics? This should give you some inspiration on what to write about and which topics are performing well.

Tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and BuzzSumo give you a detailed analysis of your competitors’ content. With these tools, you’ll be able to search specific URLs and see which pages are doing well based on the number of social shares.

4. Blog about topics your audience is searching for

While competitor blogs are a great source of inspiration, don’t rely on those alone. Your competitors could be missing out on a number of topics that your audience really wants to learn about. So make sure to do some research to specifically see what your audience is searching for.

Answer the Public and Google Keyword Planner are some of the leading tools that will let you conduct keyword research for free. SEMrush is an even more robust option that offers a dedicated topic research tool. This blogging tip helps you discover topics that resonate with your audience and get actionable tips on which keywords to use.

Before creating content based on these topics, make sure you try to understand search intent. This would involve understanding the “why” behind the search.

Look up the most popular blog posts for the search term and see what others are creating. See which formats and angles seem to be dominating the search results. This can give you a sense of how you can create a blog post that satisfies the search intent for that query.

5. Create a publishing calendar for your blog

Consistency is the key to achieving blogging success. You want to produce high-quality content regularly so your readers know they can depend on you. One of the best blogging tips to ensure publishing consistency is creating an editorial calendar.

Your publishing calendar provides an outline of all the topics you plan to tackle over the next few weeks. This ensures that you never run out of ideas and that you always have something to write about. It even lays out a publishing timeline so you can stay on track with your blogging efforts.

6. Leverage data to plan your blog

Data is the perfect tool to enhance your blogging strategy. For starters, it provides valuable insights on what to write about and how often you should publish. This would involve looking at data on which topics and blog types are performing well with your audience.

Moreover, you can plan your publishing frequency by testing different variations to see what works best. For example, you might notice that maintaining a weekly posting schedule is ideal to engage your readers.

On top of this, data helps you back up your claims and create more persuasive content. This blogging tip is an effective way to boost the credibility of blog posts and gain a loyal readership.

7. Vary your blog types

Writing about the same old topics in the same old way can get boring after a while. Keep your readers engaged and intrigued by diversifying your content types.

Start by playing around with different blog formats. Here are a few ideas you can use:

• Listicles
• How-to’s
• Comparison posts
• Guides
• Mistakes to avoid
• Thought leadership pieces
• Interviews
• FAQs
• Infographics

For example, the Canva blog uses a wide variety of blog formats–from listicles to informative guides to how-to posts.

8. Take advantage of repurposed content

While we’re on the topic, it’s a good idea to make the most of content repurposing. Consider repurposing other content types for your blog. For example, you could turn your Facebook Live interview session into a blog post.

Alternatively, you can repurpose your blog posts into short videos and infographics. This will make it easier to promote the post via other platforms.

9. Create compelling headlines

The content of your blog post may be the part that provides your readers with actual value. But it’s the headline that’ll get them to read it in the first place. So writing compelling, attention-grabbing headlines is a can’t-miss blogger tip.

You can try out different formulas to find the perfect mix. In general, this would involve an adjective, a keyword and a promise. Then use the free Headline Analyzer from MonsterInsights to test the strength of your headlines. This tool scores your headline and provides suggestions on how to improve it.

10. Include visuals

No one likes to read huge blocks of text (at least not on the internet). When your blog posts only have text content, it’s easy for readers to lose interest in the middle. Try retaining their engagement with visuals to break up your text.

Data visualization is one of the best ways to include visuals in your blog posts. You can even include visual examples and screenshots to get your message across more effectively.

11. Incorporate a linking strategy

A strong linking strategy is essential to improve your blog’s authority and ranking in Google’s search engine result pages. You need to consider three main types of links for your strategy:

• Backlinks – These are links coming to your site from other websites. The best way to collect them is by writing high-quality blog posts that others would want to link back to.
• Internal links – These are links in your blog posts that connect to other pages or articles within your own website. They help to enhance the user experience by allowing them to easily explore other relevant content on your site.
• External links – These are links to third-party websites. They help to add credibility to your claims by connecting them to the original source.

12. Invest in your blog’s design

Besides the visuals in your blog posts, the overall design of your blog matters when you’re trying to engage your audience. Your blog should be easy to navigate and should be appealing to the eyes. Make the most of thumbnails, blog categories and white space to achieve this. For example, the Slack blog uses plenty of white space and attractive thumbnails.

13. Create content worth sharing

Your readers can be a powerful resource for promoting your blog content. But to make the most of this resource, you need to create content that’s worth sharing.

This would involve creating content that addresses your readers’ needs and common pain points. Back it up with actionable information and up-to-date data so readers will feel inclined to share the post with their network.

14. Write for readers but with SEO in mind

One of the most important blogging tips is to remember that you’re writing for readers first. So it’s crucial to keep readability in mind when writing your blog posts.

The easiest way to do this is by writing like you talk. Use a conversational tone so that when people read the post, they’ll feel like you’re talking to them. Additionally, use short paragraphs and break up long sentences to ensure that the post is easy to read.

At the same time, you should still keep SEO in mind when writing your posts. Follow essential SEO tips such as using subheadings and links where appropriate.

15. Promote your content

A creative content promotion strategy will contribute to your blog’s success. Promote your latest blog posts to attract more readers and drive engagement.

Email newsletters are an effective way to promote your blog content. In addition, leverage social media marketing to share your posts with a bigger audience. According to a SEMrush survey, 73% of respondents use social media to promote their content.

However, with videos and images being the most engaging types of social media content, your link posts may not get too many clicks. Consider sharing key takeaways and facts from the post through short videos and original graphics. This will help to drive more readers to your blog.

On top of this, make sure you’re posting at the right time to drive more engagements. Sprout Social’s publishing tools will help you discover the best time to post. You can even schedule your posts to automatically go out at optimal times, so you don’t miss out on key opportunities.

16. Consider updating older content

Google loves fresh content. So if you have tons of blog posts with outdated information, it’s going to look bad for your SEO.

You need to update your older content regularly to keep things fresh. This may involve replacing older data with newer ones. Plus, you should update your tips and instructions based on the current landscape and the latest industry changes.

17. Use analytics to track performance

Finally, keep a close eye on how your blog posts are performing. The data from these efforts will inform how to improve your blogging strategy.

For instance, you’ll be able to see which blog formats your readers love the most. You can then update your editorial calendar to include more of these formats in the future.

Start putting these blogging tips into action

The blogging tips we’ve shared above can give you the jumpstart you need to grow your brand. Make the most of them to build a new blogging strategy from scratch or fine-tune an existing one. Additionally, get help from Sprout’s publishing tools to support your blog promotion efforts.

The post 17 blogging tips to jumpstart your brand’s blog appeared first on Sprout Social.

As content marketing has grown over the years, it has incorporated many different types of content across platforms. This means brands need a diverse strategy to incorporate everything from SEO (search engine optimization) to social media management.

In this comprehensive piece, you’ll learn how to create a content marketing strategy and where it fits within each stage of the marketing funnel. You will also find examples of brands creating dynamic content to execute innovative content strategies.

• What is content marketing?
• Who is involved in content marketing & what do they do?
• Crafting a successful content marketing strategy
• Where does content marketing fit into the marketing pipeline?
• 3 Content marketing examples to inspire you

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable content to attract new leads and convert them into customers.

Content helps you answer relevant questions from your customers or talk about topics of interest using social media, blogs, videos or emails. This creates trust and inspires your customers to look to you for advice.

When you distribute this curated content to your customers, they know exactly what to expect from you. And during the purchasing phase, they’ll recall your brand above your competitors.

Overall, content marketing is a long-term strategy that helps you become more competitive. Some of its key business benefits are:

• Increases your online visibility when you post relevant content with frequency
• Boosts loyalty as you become a trusted source of information
• Generates more leads as you target specific customer stages
• Builds relationships with customers when your product or service solves their problems
• Creates awareness around your brand mission and values

Who is involved in content marketing & what do they do?

Content marketing is a process that involves multiple steps, from content ideation and creation to optimization and distribution. This is why you need a well-structured content marketing team that can adapt to new formats and your audience’s preferences.

There are many different ways to staff a content team, but here are the most common roles and responsibilities tied to each one.

Content strategist

A content strategist manages the content marketing strategy for a business, ensuring every piece of content supports an overall goal. They also plan, design, create, edit and publish content that aligns with their audience’s needs.

Professionals in this role handle all elements of a content marketing strategy and are supported by a team of content creators and experts. Here are some of the responsibilities that fall within the content strategist role:

• Researches and analyzes customer trends to get in-depth knowledge about industry topics.
• Develops content strategies that move qualified leads through the marketing funnel.
• Collaborates with the content team to implement the content marketing strategy.
• Measures and reports the performance of the content marketing strategy efforts with analytics tools.

SEO strategist

The SEO strategist identifies opportunities to optimize content for search engines. Their goal is to drive more organic traffic to your website. This is why they’re in charge of implementing the SEO factor into your content marketing strategy.

Here are some of the responsibilities of an SEO strategist:

• Performs competitive keyword research to identify relevant searches that target all stages of the marketing funnel.
• Creates content briefs that guide writers on the organic requirements of a content piece.
• Follows on-page, off-page and technical SEO best practices for website pages.
• Monitors metrics that summarize your organic search performance to inform opportunities for optimization.

Content creators

Content creators generate the content that fuels your content marketing strategy. They follow your instructions to create high-quality content pieces that meet your needs.

Some content creator roles and their responsibilities include:

• Writers: Create long and short-form content with proper spelling, grammar and follow on-page SEO best practices. They develop written content that combines storytelling and brand guidelines to educate, persuade or engage with your audience. Some types of content they write are ad copy, website copy, ebooks or whitepapers.
• Graphic designers: Crafts striking visuals that capture the interest of your audience. They create a variety of content (charts, logos, graphics, etc.) that line up with your brand’s visual identity to synthesize content in a shareable format that goes beyond text.
• Video editors: Edits raw video content by cutting footage and improving audio. They use storyboarding and scripts to create videos for social and other platforms.

Editors

Editors review every piece of content made by the content marketing team to ensure it’s error-free and meets a high standard of quality. They also make sure content aligns with brand guidelines to create a cohesive brand identity and experience. They’re often the key to scaling content production through freelancers, as they can maintain quality while increasing quantity.

These are some of the responsibilities of an editor:

• Checks word choice, style, tone and brand voice on every piece of content.
• Manages the editorial calendar so scheduled content is published on time.
• Collaborates with content creators to deliver high-quality content pieces.
• Edits/writes existing and new content.

Social media manager

A social media manager promotes your content marketing assets on social media channels to build an audience and direct them back to your website. They have extensive knowledge of social media marketing strategies to improve the chances of your audience engaging with your brand.

Here are some responsibilities that fall within the social media manager role:

• Monitors and reports the performance of your social media marketing efforts.
• Grows your brand’s social media community by actively posting and engaging with your audience.
• Repurposes content for social media platforms in which your brand is present.
• Studies trends and audience behavior to drive new social media content strategies.

Crafting a successful content marketing strategy

It’s important to note that before crafting a strategy, you should come up with a content marketing plan. This helps you define what success means so you can achieve specific goals.

Here are some principles to follow when creating a content marketing strategy:

• Define your brand offering and positioning: Understand what makes you different from your competition so you can structure and define your brand’s messaging. This helps you clearly communicate your value proposition, which is necessary to make your brand distinguishable.
• Identify your audience: After forming your brand personality, it is important to know who you’re going to communicate with. Knowing your audience allows you to create content tailored to their needs and interests.
• Research your competitors: When you release your content, it’s not only you and your audience out there. You have competition. Researching them helps you identify the strategies or content they’re using, so you can come up with something better.
• Measure your results and polish your strategy: Your content marketing strategy won’t always be the same. It will evolve. That’s why you have to measure your results, identify what works and what doesn’t to polish your strategy as needed.
• Create valuable and relevant content: Ultimately, delivering content that helps or educates your audience about topics of relevance to them is a vital part of a content marketing strategy. So make sure your content resonates.

Aside from these principles, here are channels and formats that will often support your content marketing strategy:

• Social media profiles: Your social media profile puts your brand out there so you can reach out to a broader audience. Initially, social media was a place for connection by igniting conversations, but it has grown to be much more. Now, social media platforms act as distribution channels for content, ideas and movements or even as a way for small businesses to promote their products against larger organizations.
• Blog: A blog provides information to your audience and builds a stronger relationship between them and your brand. Blogs are a great way to boost your brand awareness and repurpose content to use on your social media. It also helps companies stay relevant to industry topics their audience is interested in.
• Email: This is a direct line of communication between you and your audience to share valuable and personalized content. Your subscribers can get news or promotions from you in just seconds, which makes it an affordable and fast way of communication. Also, emails can be automated and scheduled to be sent at optimal times based on different time zones.
• Videos: Videos tell the viewer a story that’s often educational, entertaining and digestible. This is why it helps companies reach their audience across platforms while inviting them to engage. Video has also become an accessible format thanks to video-sharing platforms and mobile devices.
• Paid advertising: This is the fastest way to make potential customers aware of your brand and the services you provide. Paid advertising allows brands to target very specific audiences. When you use sponsored posts on social media platforms you can choose the age, gender, location or interests of your audience to make sure your content reaches potential customers.

Where does content marketing fit into the marketing pipeline?

Content marketing can fit into every part of the marketing funnel. When you approach content marketing as a strategy, you’ll want to note where each type of content fits in.

This section will cover the type of content that fits in the awareness, consideration, conversion/decision, loyalty and advocacy stages.

Awareness stage

In the awareness stage, your audience has a need, but might not know that there’s a solution for it. That’s why in this stage, you address their pain points, challenges and questions.

The best type of content you can provide in the awareness stage is informational and educative, which includes:

• How-to guides
• “What is” blog posts
• Webinars to answer common questions
• Industry reports
• Informative infographics
• Educational videos
• User-generated content (UGC)

For example, for a payment software, this content might look like an article explaining how to do your taxes or a short video with tax hacks to post on social. In this stage, content is informational and educative to appeal to a larger audience and build new connections.

Consideration stage

In the consideration stage, your audience is aware of the need and is considering different solutions. They want to make sure they’re getting a high-quality product at a good price along with great customer service. This is why you have to gain their trust.

The best type of content you can provide in the consideration stage is detailed information on how your product features can solve your customers’ needs. This type of content might look like:

• Problem/solution whitepapers
• Webinars to showcase your product

Using the payment software again as an example, you might host a webinar about using your payment software to ensure safe checkouts for customers. Also, you can record the webinar and post key moments on your social with a recap of key takeaways and a link back to the recording on your website for further visibility.

Conversion/Decision stage

In the conversion/decision stage, your leads are about to pick a product or service. In this stage, you want to make sure to convince them that you’re the best option.

The best type of content you can provide for the conversion/decision stage is social proof. This type of content looks like:

• Testimonials from happy customers
• Case studies

As an example, it can be a testimonial of your payment software from a recognized business to generate more trust.

Loyalty stage

Once you’ve made your sale, you need to keep nurturing your customers to create a stronger relationship. If you abandon your new customers, chances are they will turn to your competition.

The best type of content you can provide for the loyalty stage is instructional guides or videos so they can make the best use of your product. This type of content includes:

• Video tutorials
• Buyer’s guide
• How-to blog posts featuring your product
• Interactive content on social (like quizzes, videos or GIFs)

Going back to the payment software example, you can create an article about how to set up automatic payments with your software.

Advocacy stage

In the advocacy stage, you want your loyal customers to become advocates of your brand. A great brand experience can inspire them to recommend you to their friends. And according to The Sprout Social Index™, 39% of consumers like to see customer testimonials as they consider these trustworthy.

The best type of content for the advocacy stage keeps your customers engaged, but also rewards for spreading the word about your product. This type of content looks like:

• Exclusive content (like insider how-to guides)
• Special offers
• Contests and giveaways
• Referral programs

In the payment software example, you can incentivize your customers to recommend your software to friends by offering a month free for every friend that starts using your software.

3 content marketing examples to inspire you

Remember, content marketing is a combination of the right content, the right distribution and the right strategy. Let’s take a look at how three brands use content marketing to hit all these marks.

Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez

Rare Beauty is a makeup brand that wants you to feel good about using makeup without hiding what makes you unique. This brand leverages email and social media to increase reach and build trust among their audience with the following strategies:

• Rare Beauty uses TikTok to share beauty hacks featuring their products. This helps them reach a wider audience by introducing their brand through trending topics and interests.

  @rarebeauty

  @cynth_pop wears Liquid Touch Weightless Foundation in 320W. #foundationhack #makeuphacks #beautyhacks #rarebeauty

  ♬ original sound – Rare Beauty

• Once visitors land on their website, they can sign up for their email list and text messages with the promise of a discount. Subscribers receive promotions and cart reminders that persuade them to buy. This tactic helps Rare Beauty achieve more sales while staying relevant to their audience.
• Rare Beauty collects user-generated content (UGC) to promote their products and create trust with their audience. They invite audiences to post photos on Instagram about Rare Beauty makeup with the #RareRoutine tag for a chance to be featured on their channel. This generates tons of social proof, which they use and caption with the specific makeup products used.

Growth Hackers

Growth Hackers is a software development company that offers growth management software to collect and analyze data to scale their experimentation process. They use B2B content marketing to reach a more professional audience with LinkedIn, email and webinars while building a community of experts. Here is how they use content to excute this:

• Growth Hackers promotes events, webinars and workshops on their LinkedIn profile to meet their audience where they’re at while educating them about growth experimentation. This increases their reach and brings new members to their Growth Hackers community.
• Once potential customers join their community, they get weekly newsletters with the best content from the Growth Hackers community. Also, they can join discussions about industry topics and keep up with events where they showcase how their product and thought leadership support customers’ needs. This helps Growth Hackers build relationships of trust with their customers, as they’re part of a community. It’s also a way of nurturing customers to the decision stage and turn them into loyal customers or advocates of the brand.

Function of Beauty

Function of Beauty is a hair care brand that provides customized hair formulas based on your hair type and goals. This brand uses social media and interactive content to reach its audience while customizing their experience. Here’s how they do it:

• Function of Beauty uses Instagram and TikTok to share hair tips, news and use cases of their products. This increases their reach and positions them as an authority for hair advice. Also, they make the buyer’s journey as frictionless as possible by including “shoppable” content on their Instagram account. This increases the chances of customers going from inspired to buyer in a shorter amount of time.

• They go a step further by providing a quiz to find the perfect formula for your hair type and goals. The quiz provides a customized experience and makes customers more willing to buy a formula that was specially crafted for them.

Amplify the reach of your content with a social media strategy

Now that you understand how content marketing fits within the current marketing landscape, the next step is to execute an effective content marketing strategy.

Content marketing affects nearly every aspect of your marketing strategy, including your social media. Without compelling content to repurpose and distribute on your social channels, your audience likely won’t notice you or be encouraged to engage with you.

You need a strong content engine that produces content for social and beyond. But how do you keep it fresh? Use our free checklist to identify where your content is stalling out and jumpstart your strategy.

The post What is content marketing? An ultimate guide (plus examples) appeared first on Sprout Social.

To drive the long-term health of your business, you need the foundational tech stack to set you up for success. The right social media management platform and its actionable intelligence will help you drive more revenue, boost team efficiency, enable strategic focus and outperform your competition.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

• What a sophisticated social media management platform does for your business
• Exactly where social can make an impact in your organization—from marketing and customer care to sales and product development
• What you need to know before investing, including a checklist and essential questions to guide your evaluation
• How Sprout Social can be your partner in unlocking the full value of social

Download this guide to receive expert guidance on how to conduct a social media management platform evaluation that prioritizes ROI, efficiency and the needs that matter most to your business.

The post Social Media Management Buyer’s Guide appeared first on Sprout Social.

In a world of information overload, corporate communications is your way to expand your reach and build your brand. You need to be able to convey your message clearly and consistently across a variety of stakeholders.

It can be difficult to correlate corporate communication efforts to business impact. This article will help you position the importance of this multifaceted discipline to others. We also included examples from brands to inspire your strategy.

What is corporate communications?

Corporate communications refers to the strategies businesses and organizations use to communicate with various audiences both internally and externally. These audiences commonly include customers, prospects, employees and investors.

An effective communications strategy helps brands deliver on a compelling narrative that captures and deepens customer loyalty.

What is the function of corporate communication?

The functions of corporate communication vary according to the different audiences being targeted and the goals you need to achieve.

In most cases, companies hire specialists for each corporate communication function, such as internal communications, public relations and executive communications. However, there is often an overlap of functions across different teams. For instance, the content creation team may also handle internal communication initiatives.

In this section, we’ll look at the different corporate communication functions based on their goal and include creative examples from real brands.

Internal communications

Internal communication consists of the measures an organization takes to communicate with its workforce to maintain employee relations and streamline their work.

As companies switch to hybrid work models, effective internal communication is essential now more than ever.

There are two main aspects of internal communication: employee engagement and internal marketing. The former is to enrich employee relations, increase their productivity and retain them, while the latter is to build more awareness about the company’s offerings among employees.

Internal marketing is a strategy to help employees make an emotional connection to the products or services the company sells. Techniques such as regular email updates, company-wide newsletters and bulletin boards can be effective.

Some companies, like QAD Inc., host annual sales kickoff events to bring together employees, share best practices, product updates and get everyone re-aligned with company goals. They also give out awards to the top-performing employees and partners.

External communications or public relations

To manage and regulate the public perception of your brand, companies need to execute external communications strategies, also known as public relations (PR).

The main functions of PR are:

• Manage a company’s identity in terms of vision and mission.
• Generate awareness on new products and company milestones.
• Communicate the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts.

PR needs have undergone a massive shift in the past few years, thanks to emerging technologies and changing media landscape. Today’s public relations professionals are fusing traditional skills to work with modern tools and channels to create consistent narratives that reach varied audiences.

Here’s an example of an innovative PR campaign that went viral—Rocketlane announced their Series A funding round with a custom rap song.

Executive communication

Both internal and external channels need to be leveraged for executive communication. Internally, the leadership team engages in direct communication with other teams, while externally, executives’ strong social media presence can serve as a thought leadership platform.

Executive members of an organization typically communicate externally through social media, media appearances and talks at conferences. This aims to promote brand awareness and increase sales. In fact, 32% of consumers say CEO transparency on social would inspire them to purchase from that brand.

Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva, actively engages with her audience on Twitter by sharing company milestones and also helpful Canva tips.

In many companies, there’s a communication gap between the C-suite or leadership team and other employees. A study by Gallup found that only 13% of employees strongly agree that their leadership communicates effectively with the organization. Breaking down silos with communication from leadership can help earn the trust of employees, provide stability in the workplace and a better understanding of the company’s goals.

Brand and marketing communications

Any interaction with customers and target audiences falls under the umbrella of brand and marketing communication.

There’s a wide range of channels to conduct branding and marketing activities including social media, traditional advertising media, emails and review websites. Unlike other functions of corporate communication, marketing and branding can be directly related to the company’s revenue.

Here are the main goals that marketing communications can help you achieve, especially through social media:

• Increase brand awareness: Create content that emphasizes your brand image and values.
• Gain leads and sales: Drive traffic to your website from social media and leverage social commerce to help you get more customers.
• Community building: Nurture long-term growth by engaging with your audience directly.

Delta used brand and marketing communication to launch Faces of Travel, a free 100-image library that represented diverse travelers around the world. The goal of the campaign was to inspire creators to present a more inclusive picture of global travel, supporting increased brand awareness while building community.

Creating expensive ads is not the only way to market your brand. Leverage mediums that reach your target audiences, like social media where you can reach larger audiences, interact with them and measure the impact of your activities.

Allbirds, a vegan footwear brand, attracts conscious shoppers by spreading awareness on how harmful regular sneakers are for the planet via social media:

Crisis communications

With the prevalence of social media, all businesses are susceptible to controversies that were once reserved for big brands.

Crisis communication is how you respond to an event that potentially hurts your brand’s reputation or ability to do business. This includes product failures, criticisms, employee errors, site outages, broken links and responses to global events.

It’s essential to have a strategy in place so that you can take quick action and bring the crisis under control.

Monitoring social media frequently for a potential crisis can be a tedious task. And there’s a risk that once your team notices the issue, it might have already snowballed. A social media engagement tool like Sprout Social can identify early warning signs of a potential crisis through social listening. You can then quickly take steps to resolve the problem.

Skills required for corporate communications professionals

Corporate communications has evolved over the years, requiring more diverse skill sets to execute sophisticated omnichannel campaigns. Professionals need to have a deep understanding of the company’s business goals, culture, target audience, industry and the context in which it operates.

Here are some of the skills required:

• Hard skills: Proficiency in creating and editing written content, understanding company values and drafting guidelines, ability to analyze key performance indicators (KPIs), managing digital communication channels, familiarity with crisis communication strategies and protocols.
• Soft skills: Relationship-building skills, leading multiple teams, problem-solving and critical thinking, strong verbal communication skills and the ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously.

Develop a communications strategy and roadmap

A strong communication strategy should help you deliver a cohesive brand presence, expand reach across channels and gather audience insights.

This will help you streamline your goals and activities, minimize gaps in communication and bring everyone on the same page.

Your communication strategy should outline four major things:

• Audience: who you’re communicating to
• Distribution channels: how you will reach them
• Timeline
• KPIs

A detailed communication plan will act as a course of action and also help you get buy-in from executives.

Make sure that your communications plan is continually optimized. It should be as dynamic as the discipline itself—use data and feedback to make decisions and align your strategy with compelling narratives.

Corporate communications: the megaphone for a company’s voice in this crowded world

An effective corporate communications plan can do more than just build a positive public image—it’s an essential part of business success.

It can be a challenge to manage your brand reputation across multiple channels. With Sprout Social’s sentiment analysis and social listening features, you can keep tabs on brand health and sentiment, as well as get deep audience insights. Giving your team more time to focus on making data-driven decisions and optimizations that will impact business goals.

Ready to level up your corporate communications strategy? We’ve created a customizable corporate communication template to help you develop an actionable plan. This template can help you create a roadmap that positions your brand as an industry leader to the audiences that matter most.

Download your free corporate communications template now to maximize the effectiveness of your internal and external communications.

The post Decoding corporate communications: Functions, goals and skills appeared first on Sprout Social.

According to the Sprout Social Index, Instagram is among the “big three” social media platforms. With 49% of consumers and 59% of marketers planning to use it in the next 12 months, you can’t afford to not pay attention to the platform’s key statistics.

So let’s find out some of the vital Instagram statistics that will shape your strategy in 2023.

Table of contents

• Instagram stats to pay attention to moving into 2023
• Instagram user statistics
• Instagram usage statistics
• Instagram audience and demographics statistics
• Instagram advertising and marketing statistics
• Instagram Stories and Reels statistics
• Instagram for Business stats

Instagram stats to pay attention in 2023

• Instagram currently boasts 2 billion monthly active users. This makes it the fourth most used social media platform. And if you make use of the latest Instagram trends, you have the potential to exponentially grow your reach.
• It’s now the fifth most visited website worldwide. Although this puts it behind other platforms like Facebook and Twitter, it’s still one of the most popular social media sites.
• According to Insider Intelligence, Instagram generated $43.2 billion in ad revenue in 2022. This is a slight increase from 2021 when the platform’s ad revenue amounted to $42.1 billion.

Instagram user statistics

Understanding how people perceive and use the platform will help you devise best practices for Instagram to connect with them. These Instagram user statistics can give you a better look:

1. Almost every Instagram user uses it alongside other platforms

According to data from We Are Social, only 0.1% of Instagram users are unique to the platform. A large number of users use it alongside other social media platforms such as Facebook (82.9%), YouTube (75.5%) and TikTok (52.2%). That means having a solid cross-platform marketing strategy is crucial for your brand to succeed.

2. Only 25% of American users feel that Instagram protects their data and privacy

A study by Insider Intelligence found that trust in social media platforms dropped significantly in 2022. When it comes to Instagram, only 25% of American users feel that the platform protects their data and privacy. This makes it one of the lesser trusted social media platforms. But it’s still ahead of Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.

3. Posting/sharing photos and videos is the top activity

According to DataReportal, 69.7% of users use Instagram to post or share photos and videos. This makes it the top activity on the platform, indicating the desire for users to be creative and express themselves.

4. It’s the second most preferred platform for customer service

As more and more people turn to social media for customer support, Instagram is a popular channel choice. The 2022 Sprout Social Index reports that 35% of U.S. consumers use Instagram for customer service. This makes it the second most popular platform for customer service after Facebook.

Reviewing your brand’s customer service strategy on the platform could help you get ahead of the race and enhance the user experience.

Instagram usage statistics

How popular is Instagram in terms of usage? Let’s take a look at these Instagram usage statistics to find out:

5. There are 2 billion monthly active users on Instagram

Latest reports show that Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users. While not at the Facebook level, this is still huge for brands. It means there are billions of people you could potentially reach. With the right strategies to get more Instagram followers, these users could turn into loyal fans of your brand.

6. U.S adults spend 30 minutes per day on the platform

Over the past couple of years, video-based platforms like YouTube and TikTok have become a huge hit among social media users. At the same time, people are still spending a significant amount of time on Instagram. American adults spend about 30.1 minutes a day using the platform.

Instagram audience and demographics statistics

Looking at social media demographics helps you gauge which platforms your target audience is using. Let’s look at these Instagram demographic statistics to get a better idea:

7. Instagram is most popular among younger audiences

The platform sees the highest usage among people aged between 18 and 34. People within these age groups make up over 60% of Instagram’s user base. As such, the platform is ideal if your target audience consists of young adults and Millennials.

8. There are more male than female users

Instagram limits its gender-based reporting to male and female. And based on this data, there are more male users (51.8%) than female users (48.2%). However, the difference isn’t too drastic, meaning the platform isn’t inherently better for reaching a male audience.

9. India and the United States have the greatest number of users

Much like other platforms, India leads the way even when it comes to Instagram. The country has 229.5 million Instagram users. The United States comes next with 149.35 million users.

Instagram advertising and marketing statistics

Are you getting the most out of your Instagram advertising efforts? Is it even worth it to market your brand on Instagram? Here are a few Instagram stats to give you the answers you need.

10. Seeing an ad on Instagram gets people interested in a brand

According to internal Instagram data, 50% of users become more interested in a brand after they see an ad for it on Instagram. This speaks volumes about the power that advertising on Instagram has for your brand.

11. Feed ads have a higher click-through rate (CTR) than Stories ads

Brafton reports that the CTR for feed ads on Instagram range between 0.22% and 0.88%. Meanwhile, Stories ads have a CTR between 0.33% and 0.54%. These numbers suggest that in-feed ads have a higher potential to drive clicks than Stories ads. However, consider experimenting with different ad placements to see which one works best with your audience.

12. Instagram has the highest cost per click (CPC)

Instagram may have a competitive advantage over other social platforms when it comes to engagement. But that comes with a higher cost, especially when it comes to advertising. The average CPC for Instagram ads is a whopping $3.56 while platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest manage to keep it under $2.

13. Conversion rates range between 0.30% and 2.6% depending on reach

Brands with a higher reach on Instagram tend to see a higher conversion rate. Interestingly, the study found that reach rate is higher for brands with a smaller following size.

In fact, brands with fewer than 10,000 followers saw the highest conversion rate (2.6%). Meanwhile, some of the top-performing brands had an average conversion rate of 1%.

Instagram Stories and Reels statistics

Instagram offers a wide range of content types to choose from, with Stories and Reels being popular options. Check out these Stories and Reels statistics to see how these formats are performing:

14. Story reach rate is on the decline

According to a Rival IQ study, Instagram story reach rate declined between 2021 and 2022. This decline is consistent across all following sizes. However, smaller brands with fewer than 10,000 followers saw the least decline. Their Story reach rate dropped from 5.4% in 2021 to 4.8% in 2022.

Meanwhile, mid-size brands having 50,000-200,000 followers felt the biggest impact as their reach rate dropped to 1.6% from 2.4%.

15. Story retention rate declines as the number of frames increases

The same Rival IQ study found that the number of frames you post to your Instagram Stories determines how well you retain your audience. Story retention rate starts to dip below 75% after the sixth frame.

16. Short narrative-type Stories are the most popular format

When it comes to the types of Stories that people want to see, short narratives were the most popular. Thirty-five percent of consumers prefer these types of Stories with a mix of photos, videos and text. Stories with quizzes and polls were another popular option.

So if you’re running out of Instagram Story ideas, use these stats to brainstorm new ideas that engage your audience.

17. Reels have the highest reach rate

Unsurprisingly, Reels see the highest reach rate among all media types on Instagram. The Rival IQ study revealed that Reels boast a 14% reach rate while other media types see a reach rate between 9% and 10%.

In another study from Socialinsider, the average reach rate for Instagram Reels stood at 20.59%. This puts it far above other media types such as carousels, images and videos. In line with the Bazaarvoice report from earlier, accounts with the smallest following size saw the highest reach rates.

18. Instagram Reels boast an average engagement rate of 1.95%

In addition to an exceptional reach rate, Reels also see significant engagement. Based on the Socialinsider study, Instagram Reels have an average engagement rate of 1.95%. This puts it well ahead of other media types. So your brand could benefit from creating more Reels to attract and engage your target audience.

Instagram for business stats

So far, the benefits of Instagram for marketing your business are clear. Let’s further dive into these Instagram for business stats to really understand its value:

19. 70% of shoppers look to Instagram for their next purchase

Internal Instagram data reveals that 70% of shoppers look to the platform for their next purchase. Meaning this is where people go to find purchase inspiration and discover new products.

20. Following and researching brands is the second most popular activity

The DataReportal study from earlier found that many users follow and research brands and products on Instagram. It’s the second most popular activity on the platform with 62.3% of users engaging in it. So there’s a good opportunity to attract followers who want to hear what your brand has to say.

21. 90% of users follow a business

To further drive home the above point, 90% of users on the platform follow a business. This indicates that people aren’t hesitating to keep up with brands on Instagram.

Making the most of these Instagram stats

Based on these vital Instagram statistics, you can see where the platform currently stands and how people are using it. It’s clear that there’s no dearth of users who use the platform to follow and engage with brands. Plus, many consumers are also using Instagram to inspire their purchases and inform their buying decisions.

In short, there’s huge potential to tap into with the right strategy. Need help with this? Check out our guide on developing a powerful Instagram marketing strategy.

The post Instagram statistics you need to know for 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

According to a Q1 2023 Sprout pulse survey, 74% of consumers believe that social media has increased accountability for brands. With those numbers in mind, hitting the right notes for Women’s History Month is imperative. But how do you create content around diversity that resonates and feels authentic?

We spoke to marketers across industries to see what their brands are planning and what they’d like to see from their peers this Women’s History Month. We’re discussing both the icks and ideals for Women’s History Month social media ideas.

Why Women’s History Month Matters

In 1980, then-President Jimmy Carter declared March 2-8 as National Women’s History Week. After realizing there’s entirely too much women’s history to squeeze into seven days, Congress passed Public Law 100-9 in 1987, proclaiming March as Women’s History Month.

The month has deep importance for women, but there’s no monolithic way to celebrate. For some women, like Alexa Heinrich, Social Media Manager at St. Petersburg College, Women’s History Month is a source of energy and pride. The collective excitement makes her feel like she can do anything. As she says, “The whole month screams, “I am woman, hear me roar,” and I love it.”

Other women use Women’s History Month as a chance to slow down.

Women’s History Month makes me stop and think. Sometimes life moves fast and you don’t stop and smell the roses. For me, those roses are recognizing the hard work and sacrifice of generations of women before me, right now and after me.

Steph Hermanson
Strategic Services Consultant, Sprout Social

Women’s History Month is especially important for women holding positions that simply wouldn’t have been possible even 60 years ago, such as CEO at legacy companies like Carol B. Tome of UPS or Michele Buck of The Hershey Company. March is a time to thank trailblazers for giving women everywhere access to new opportunities. Lisa Richards, CEO and Creator of the Candida Diet, echoes this sentiment, saying, “Women’s History Month is a reminder that women have always been a force for change and that we have the power to shape the future. It’s also a time to celebrate our collective strength, resilience, and determination.”

Avoiding Women’s History Month marketing mishaps

Consumers increasingly decide who to buy from based on how a brand’s values align with their own. According to the 2022 Sprout Social Index™, company alignment with personal values is 74% more important than it was in 2021.

But it’s not enough to say you’re aligned. In an era of increased accountability, consumers want proof that businesses actually care about key issues and they don’t take kindly to lip service. Here are some tips to show your audience that you’re serious about women’s issues all year round—not just in March.

Take a look in the mirror

Have you heard of gender washing? It’s the practice of marketing your product or business as women-friendly while supporting patriarchal norms behind the scenes. Gender washing is along the same lines as “greenwashing,” or pretending your product is environmentally friendly when it really isn’t, or “pinkwashing,” which is marketing towards LGBTQIA+ folks without doing any work to stop their oppression.

Today’s savvy consumers can spot any type of “washing” from a mile away. The negative brand impact of coming across as a panderer far outweighs any benefits you may receive from making a post that acknowledges the month. As Dana Cass, the Founder of Cass Content Studios says, “Many brands would be better off not posting about identity-based celebrations if they don’t have meaningful support for that identity group.”

Before you start planning your Women’s History Month marketing, take a long look at your business. Have you taken steps to address the gender pay gap? Is your executive team and board of directors almost entirely made up of men? Do you have a solid DEI plan in place to recruit more women into positions of authority? Do you have employee resource groups (ERGs) dedicated to women in the workforce? If the answer to most of those questions is no, you might be better off sitting this month out.

If you’re in a good position to put out a message, start measuring your success. It’s not enough to say that your organization supports women in leadership. Your consumers want to know what percentage of your leadership team is made up of women, what programs you have in place to mentor early-career women and metrics for your DEI initiatives.

I want less talk and more action from brands during Women’s History Month. Don’t tell me how you’re going to support women, show me how you’re already doing that. I don’t want lip service, I want action.

Alexa Heinrich
Social Media Manager, St. Petersburg College

If you can’t back up your commitment, you’re better off not speaking to it. Gone are the days of posting a picture of Susan B. Anthony on Instagram and calling it a day. After years of lackluster appeals to underrepresented communities, audiences are tired of generic celebration posts.

Make meaningful connections with women

Tokenization, or using someone for their membership in an underrepresented community, is easy to spot in today’s landscape. And consumers see right through it. More than two-thirds of brands rate their external DEI leadership communication, hiring practices or growing diverse talent as good or very good.

Over half (54%) of marketers report seeing more internal and external communications about DEI programs. But only 21% of marketers report that their company has an established DEI team or program. Something isn’t adding up.

To make content that appeals to marginalized groups, you have to communicate with those marginalized groups. That means going to the women in your workplace and customer or brand advocate base and finding out what they’d like to see—not just for Women’s History Month marketing, but year-round. Your women and women-identifying employees aren’t props to be used one month out of the year. They’re valuable members of your team with insight that will make your marketing, and your company, stronger.

Reaching out to underrepresented groups can’t just be about hitting a quota or the visibility of doing something “right.” It has to be real and genuine to your brand. Do your homework, make a connection, and follow up. I see groups being used for reach and engagement, but then dropped off the face of the earth far too often. Make a long-term relationship.

Steph Hermanson
Strategic Services Consultant, Sprout Social

Women’s History Month social media ideas that actually work

We’ve talked about potential pitfalls for Women’s History Month but there are just as many opportunities to celebrate. This month isn’t just about women’s struggles, it’s about our accomplishments as well. We’ve established that going generic won’t pay off, so here are some ideas to get your Women’s History Month marketing plan and social media activism started.

Show your work

If you’ve taken our advice and examined your commitment to and success with DEI initiatives, you probably have some data on hand. That data can be invaluable for your Women’s History Month content strategy.

For instance, Sprout Social’s 2023 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Report shows breakdowns of the team and leadership by gender and highlights strategy and operations infrastructure efforts to move the needle. This kind of concrete content shows your commitment to women and gives a glimpse into your company culture. And keeping your customers engaged with your culture can have a big impact. Two-thirds (66%) of consumers agree that posting about company culture impacts their connectedness with the company. That connectedness directly impacts your bottom line, with 77% of consumers ready to increase their spending with brands they feel connected with.

Content about Women’s History Month — or any celebration of identity — resonates most when it comes from a company that is actually doing something to promote the well-being of that identity group. Tell me about your women in leadership or your top-tier benefits for moms.

Dana Cass
Founder, Cass Content Studios

Teach your audience something new

People love fun facts. Women’s History Month is a great opportunity to show off your knowledge and teach your customers something new in the process.

Over half (54%) of social media users who spend an hour or more online find educational content engaging, and a comparable amount (49%) are likely to share it with their networks. There’s one caveat though. The content has to be relevant to your brand and your audience. Nellie Bly was a fascinating historical figure and an advocate for women’s rights, but unless your product caters to undercover journalism, the content will just seem generic.

Reading with RIK is a kid’s reading incentive subscription box with the goal of motivating children to read more. For Women’s History Month, they’re planning on sending out books by and about women–and sharing some of those stories on their social media accounts. Ashley R. Cummings, the CMO of Reading with RIK, thinks it’s important to educate both children and families with their product and their social media presence reflects that. Their educational content doesn’t feel forced or generic since it’s seamlessly tied with their product offering.

Express your team spirit

They say charity begins at home. If that’s true, then recognizing the power of women should begin with your team. You could spend hours researching famous women who’ve had an impact on your industry. Alternatively, you could just talk to the women who make an impact on your team every day.

Over two-thirds of marketers (81%) and over half of consumers (66%) agree that brands posting about their employees positively impacts customers’ view of their company. Posting about the incredible women on your team is not only a great Women’s History Month social media idea, but it’s also data-driven. Creating profiles of your teammates’ accomplishments, strengths, goals and stories is an excellent start for your content strategy.

It’s who you know

Your internal team isn’t the only inspiration source for your Women’s History Month social media ideas. It’s a great opportunity to highlight other women in your network, whether they’re vendors, customers or partners.

Tom Leighton, COO of Sofary, a lighting business, will be featuring women who’ve broken barriers in the male-dominated industry. Their list includes manufacturers, retailers, suppliers and distributors. His hope is that seeing these stories will inspire the next generation of women and help create a more inclusive environment across the industry.

Libby Diament, Founder and Designer of Diament Boutiques in Washington D.C., highlights strong women and women’s issues on her business’s social media pages on a regular basis. But for Women’s History Month, she’s taking it a step further by highlighting women-owned businesses in her supply chain.

But you don’t have to stop at the stories of others. If you’re a woman in business, you definitely have one too. Posting about your own journey, obstacles and achievements can be just as inspiring as reading another story from the history books. You can even take it a step further by offering your time, advice and support to women who are trying to break into your industry.

I think using your own story can be extremely effective in providing inspiration. I make sure to mention that followers can reach out to me if they have questions on how to grow a business.

Libby Diament
Founder and Designer, Diament Boutiques

Reaching every woman

Women’s History Month is an opportunity to learn, reflect and celebrate. But just like any outreach attempt, it has to be authentic to your business and your audience. Women’s History Month represents a rich opportunity to connect with your customers and prospects. With a thoughtful approach, you can deepen your relationships with women across your network.

Is your brand ready to start addressing cultural moments on social? Learn more about how to determine which are right for you to act on.

The post Creating Women’s History Month social media ideas that resonate appeared first on Sprout Social.

As social becomes even more of a pay-to-play game, “organic social is dead” has become a popular catchphrase for marketing thought leaders. While organic social media definitely isn’t what it used to be, it certainly isn’t dead. 

The truth is you need an effective organic social media marketing strategy if you even want to succeed with ads.

For the sake of maximizing your reach while keeping your budget in check, a hybrid paid and organic social media strategy provides brands with the best of both worlds. In this post, we’ll highlight the strengths of organic and paid channels, and then show you how to combine your efforts to give you the most bang for your buck.

What are the differences between organic vs. paid social media?

The true differences between organic vs. paid social media lie not in the definitions but in the benefits.

But before we can get into any of that, we need to make sure we have the basics in place. Keep reading for quick primers on organic and paid social, plus details on how they benefit your social media strategy. 

What is organic social media?

Organic social media is any post shared for free without any money spent to increase reach or conversions. 

Despite the popularity of ads and constant algorithm changes, organic social media isn’t going anywhere. In fact, according to a Q1 2023 Sprout Social pulse survey, marketers rank organic social above paid as their most valuable social media tactic.

Brands can still promote themselves and their products organically. The key is to not hit your followers over the head with sales pitches post after post.

Here are three benefits of organic social media that prove some things just can’t be bought. 

It raises brand awareness

For starters, your organic presence goes hand in hand with brand awareness.

Brand awareness is the first step in any customer journey. A consistent organic social media strategy can make your business a familiar name for countless existing and future customers. It may be a long game, but that familiarity is proven to drive future sales. 

Take cues from brands like Impossible Foods. Their quick video recipes provide fans with creative ways to use their entire roster of plant-based meat products. These posts take the brand’s Facebook page from a simple promotional page to a content hub of vegan and vegetarian-friendly recipes. 

It powers your social customer care strategy

According to The Sprout Social Index™ 2022, more than half of all consumers expect a response from a brand within 12 hours of the initial message. In today’s world, the speed and quality of your service on social can be a major differentiator. 

That’s why managing customers and communities is a vital part of your organic presence. Offering an instant, free channel for people to get in touch will always be in demand, even as paid social media grows.

It drives more authentic customer-centric content

Questions and concerns aren’t your only opportunity to connect with your customers.

For example, social media is the perfect place to pick your followers’ brains for future content ideas. Also, it’s a prime place for curating user-generated content like customer photos and videos so your fans can see your product or service in action. 

What is paid social media?  

As you may have guessed, paid social media is any sponsored social advertising content that targets specific audiences. 

Running social ads allows you to go beyond the confines of an algorithm to reach your target audience. Rather than get buried beneath competing content, ads put your stuff front and center in people’s feeds.

Although goals and KPIs might differ from business to business, below are three primary benefits of paid social.

It supports targeting 

Facebook and Instagram’s respective ad platforms get ultra-granular in terms of targeting. This allows you to reach relevant prospects based on their activity, location, age and so on.

This Publix ad from Facebook is a good example. Given that their stores are only located in the Southeastern United States, highly targeted ads based on geography make sense. Furthermore, this particular ad is only for those 21+ and includes store-specific promotions in its CTA. 

It boosts lead generation

If you have a strong piece of gated content, a paid campaign helps ensure that it doesn’t go unseen. For example, this promoted LinkedIn post from Smartsheet is driving leads by enticing people to download their latest guide to project management. 

Whether it’s a case study, webinar or any other prioritized promotion, such items are brilliant ways to encourage visits from new and former fans alike.

It helps you reach new audiences quickly

If organic social is a marathon, then paid social is a sprint. A single, well-targeted campaign can bring a ton of new fans to your social profiles. It’s an ideal trick to have in your back pocket if you notice organic social media growth stalling. 

Growing engagement with social media organic marketing

Paid social media has immense value. But it shouldn’t operate alone.

In today’s shifting economy, expanding your social media budget isn’t an easy ask. And with social teams reporting bandwidth as their number one challenge (The Sprout Social Index™), you need to sustainably build your social reach and community, without causing budget or talent burnout.

An organic social media strategy empowers you to more deeply connect with your audience. It even strengthens your paid strategy by helping you understand what types of posts perform best while getting the most bang for your buck.

Plus, with less funds required, organic social efforts have a stronger ROI—which can only help you prove the impact of your team’s efforts and secure future resources.

In the “organic vs paid social media” debate, there’s no question that organic social can supercharge your strategy. Let’s cover 6 tried-and-true tactics, and how insights from a tool like Sprout can amplify your efforts.

Use popular content formats

Some content formats are just better for organic growth. In part, because of algorithms. But also due to audience preference. 

For example, short-form video is basically an organic growth hack. According to The Sprout Social Index™, 66% of people say short-form video is the most engaging type of in-feed content. 

Keep up with and try content formats that are making waves. 

Level up: Using the same content formats as your competitors helps you stay competitive. Plus, this is your chance to improve upon what your competition is doing to pull ahead.  

With Sprout’s Competitive Analysis Reports, uncover impactful insights about the formats that work for your competitors on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Use this information to uncover trends and boost your content strategy, without manually reviewing competitor feeds.

Lean on employee advocacy

According to recent Sprout research, 72% of consumers feel more connected to a brand whose employees share information about it on social media. 

This is where employee advocacy comes in. When an employee posts about work culture or company news, they spread the word about your brand to their entire follower base. Thus, helping you organically reach more people, through a trusted voice.

Level up: It can be daunting to post about your company, but 72% of engaged social users say they would post about their company if the content was already written for them. 

With a platform, like Employee Advocacy by Sprout, you can curate share-ready content and posts for employees, making it easier for them to post more often, and more confidently.

Use data to understand what your audience likes

There’s a reason that 83% of marketers said the use of social data will increase (Q1 2023 Sprout pulse survey). Data is your ticket to understanding what content does well organically.

Learn from the posts that do well. Then, replicate them, adapt them, even repost them. 

For example, Shedd Aquarium’s penguin and sea otter content has gone viral a few times. So it’s no surprise that they feature these animals often. They’re popular with new and old fans alike.

Level up: Speed up your data-gathering process to uncover audience and post insights faster. Sprout’s automated analytics and reports pull metrics across networks into one place, creating presentation-ready reports that can help you optimize your strategy.

Also use our ready-made reports, or customize your own, to prove social media ROI using the analytics that matter most to your team.

Jump on trends 

Trends like social media memes or trending video sounds shouldn’t be your entire social strategy. 

But hopping on trends when it makes sense can supercharge your organic growth—just make sure you’re staying true to your brand. 

For example, brands successfully adapted the same “it’s corn” viral trend into content that made sense with their brand. 

Level up: Trends move fast. The best way to discover trends early and avoid playing catch-up is to keep a constant ear to the ground.

A social listening tool, like Sprout’s, empowers you to do this without adding more to your team’s already-full plate. Social listening identifies trending keywords and topics across the social space, so that you don’t have to manually. 

Aside from social trends, listening also hones in on trends in your industry and audience that your business can capitalize on—from new product features, to audience-informed product use cases.

Focus on your community 

Start and join conversations with the community you’ve already cultivated. This is a key engagement driver, and engagement is a major driver for increasing post reach.

Chewy is the ruler of audience engagement. They will prompt audience participation, and then proceed to engage with as many comments as possible—not a small feat.

And they go beyond simply responding by asking their audience questions and starting a real conversation. 

According to Sprout’s #BrandsGetReal report, 55% of people say that when brands like or respond to customers, it helps brands connect with those customers. Encourage, join and cultivate conversation to strengthen and grow your audience. 

Level up: Keeping your audience engaged means responding to as many comments and DMs as possible. Sprout’s Smart Inbox funnels messages from all of your social channels into one place to ensure you never miss a chance to connect. Pair this with a custom chatbot using Sprout’s bot builder to automate answers to FAQs, lightening your team’s load.

Try Sprout’s social media management solutions free for 30-days.

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Tap into brand advocates

Creator or influencer partnerships are usually part of a paid social media strategy. But don’t rule out user-generated content you can leverage for free.

According to The Sprout Social Index™, 39% of people say they like to see customer testimonials or real customer demos from brands. Brand advocates can contribute organic testimonials, content and demos—and connect you to their audience.

Using a mix of Sprout’s social listening tool and the Smart Inbox will uncover user-generated content—even when your brand isn’t tagged. Listening can even uncover your biggest brand advocates that you may want to partner with.

Create a relationship with your brand advocates. And ask them if they’d be willing to let you repost their content on your channel. Chances are, they’ll be thrilled. 

Creating a hybrid strategy that isn’t strictly organic vs. paid social media

Now that we understand how paid and organic social media work on their own, let’s get into how they work together. 

Below are six key ways to combine your paid and organic efforts.

Budget for social media marketing efforts 

It’s impossible to maintain a hybrid organic-paid strategy if you run out of budget halfway through the year. That’s why it’s so important to monitor your social media ad budget regularly. 

Set aside a designated time to check in on the performance of your paid ads. Measure the actual costs against what was initially allocated toward the campaign. That way, you can anticipate whether it’s performing reasonably or if it’s time to pivot. 

Use this social media budget spreadsheet template to track organic and paid social media marketing expenses. Alternatively, if you’re using Sprout, you can keep an eye on your paid spend by toggling through the reports located under Paid By Network in the Reports Home. 

Set date comparisons to see how your paid performance metrics are trending month over month and make strategic decisions from there.

Determine your most popular content

If you have a particular piece of content that converts well or enters into viral territory, it might be the perfect material for an ad. For example, you can quickly boost a Facebook post to convert your content into a promotion in a matter of clicks.

Looking at your social analytics is the first step to running any successful paid advertisement. Variables such as imagery, calls-to-action and copy all deserve your attention when it comes time to whip up a paid post. Metrics such as clicks and followers earned are good starting points for spotting top content.

If you’re using Sprout, turn to the Post Performance Report to analyze your published content across all social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and TikTok.

Remember that not all promotional posts should be paid

Your social data can help you identify which posts have the potential to work as an ad, but only some high-performing posts call for paid ad spend. 

Look for content that aligns with your marketing and business KPIs to determine which posts are worth throwing some extra dollars behind. For example, if a high-priority goal for your team is to drum up registrations for an upcoming event, it makes sense to promote a big agenda announcement or a last call for tickets. 

On the other hand, if your goal is to raise brand awareness or promote a new product, rely on your organic social media toolkit. 

For some inspiration, check out the example from Auntie Anne’s Twitter profile. Combining the power of the cover photo and pinned tweet creates an eye-catching promo for a new menu item.

Use A/B testing

We’ve shared a bit about how your organic strategy can inform your paid efforts. Now let’s get into the reverse with social media testing. 

Testing on social media—whether A/B or multivariable testing—can provide meaningful insights on what works best for your audience. The only caveat? Substantial results require a substantial audience.

Think about it: Testing creative organically within a small audience won’t give you the impressions and engagement data needed for statistically significant results. Paid, however, can give your post the reach it needs to confirm or refute a hypothesis. 

You can then use these results to inform your organic strategy in the future.

Try retargeting and lookalike audiences

Retargeting via Facebook or Instagram is one of the most popular and high-converting types of social promotions. These ads allow you to create a custom audience to target former customers, site visitors, people on your email list or CRM leads. You can also create lookalike audiences to target new prospects who share characteristics with your existing fans. 

And with Meta’s latest ad roll-out, you can specifically target people who’ve previously engaged your content on either network. 

In other words, these tools give you the power to capitalize on organic interactions for more conversions down the line. 

Monitor your data and measure results

The common thread between combining your paid and organic social strategies is data.

No matter how you slice it, social ads can get pricey. For the sake of your ROI, it’s to your benefit to have a consistent pulse on your social data—before, during and after your paid campaigns.

Keeping an eye on specific metrics will ensure that your paid social media strategy is working in harmony with your brand-forward organic approach. And monitor these chosen metrics in one place. Consider adding paid metrics—like click through rate, website visits and conversions—to look at alongside organic social metrics to see how the two strategies work together.

That’s precisely why Sprout’s custom reporting options are a game changer for brands. Use it to elevate the metrics that matter most for your strategy in a single, easy-to-interpret report. 

Organic and paid social go hand in hand

Rather than thinking of it as “organic vs. paid social media,” try looking for ways one strategy could support the other. That’s how you’ll get to the bottom of what drives the best results for your brand.

Of course, double the strategies mean double the metrics. Use this social media analytics template to track your efforts. It provides a birds-eye view of your performance so you can easily tie it back to business goals. 

The post Organic vs. paid social media: A hybrid strategy that works appeared first on Sprout Social.

We’re freshly on the heels of our second acquisition, a sentiment analysis and natural language processing company called Repustate. As we welcome the Repustate team and product under our umbrella, I’ve been reflecting on partnerships and what makes them work—and what doesn’t. When done right, partnerships make your business stronger, add value for your customers and open up a new world of opportunities.

Approach partnerships with purpose

Everyone is facing economic headwinds right now. When it comes to the tech industry, that’s compounded by the fact that the era of the single-point solution is over. As companies tighten their belts and tech stacks, their expectations for your products are rising. We all know that one company can’t provide everything for everyone, so how can you ensure your solution is business critical?

Enter partnerships. Combined efforts will always be stronger than singular approaches when your potential partners are looking to achieve the same goals you are. You can get more done when you work together, even if that means working outside of your company walls.

For smaller companies, joining forces with a larger firm can give you more resources and financial solvency. Companies can hit product roadmap milestones faster with integrations and acquisitions. Marketers looking to find new audiences in their ideal customer profile can pursue co-marketing efforts with like-minded partners to widen their funnel.

At Sprout, partnerships are just the way we do business. Whether we’re working with LinkedIn to host a webinar or launching a new network integration like TikTok, our business couldn’t thrive without our rich portfolio of partners.

Corporate compatibility tests

We’ve forged enough partnerships to be able to quickly evaluate which will work and which aren’t the right fit. There are three things we look for in a potential partner.

Customer value

If you’re a customer-centric company, you always start with how any decision will impact the customer. That couldn’t be more true with partnerships. From marketing to product, the partnership has to create additional value for the end user. Asking yourself what a potential partnership will add to your customer experience or how it will address their pain points should be the first step in evaluating any partnership.

For example, we found that most of our current (and ideal future) customers were leveraging Salesforce solutions like Service Cloud and Tableau. We partnered with Salesforce to provide greater social media control and empower our customers with a 360 view of customer interactions and data–all in the tools they know and love. In the age of the product suite, partnerships are a cheat code to level up your business value.

Complementary goals

You’re likely not going to partner with your direct competitors. But no matter what you’re selling, there’s a product or service someone else offers that’ll make yours even better. Think about your current and ideal customers. Figure out what else they need. Find the businesses that are meeting those needs and explore ways you can help each other.

Another thing to consider is complementary markets. There may be another business that solves your customers’ needs, but if they’re going after a completely different segment than you are, it won’t work out. If your business is aimed toward enterprise manufacturing companies and a potential partner is pursuing mid-sized restaurant chains, it’s not going to be a good fit—no matter how symbiotic your products seem.

Mutual benefit

It should go without saying that both partners should stand to benefit from your efforts. It’s likely that one partner may be more invested or have more to gain from your partnership, but everyone needs to get something out of the deal. An uneven partnership is destined to fail.

Doing the partnership do-si-do

So you’ve picked your partner. What comes next? Navigating partnerships can be tricky but with a solid foundation, you can set yourself up for success.

Assemble your team

Every person on your team won’t be involved in orchestrating your partnership. There is such a thing as too many cooks. But at the same time, you need to loop in the right folks from the beginning. You might have to make adjustments as your plans progress, but evaluating who needs to be involved at the start will ensure a smoother transition.

If you’re pursuing an integration or a product-based acquisition, your product team needs to be involved from day one. When we evaluated Repustate, our internal product team was invaluable in helping us determine how much upside the deal presented. They know the product inside and out. They know where you’re planning to go on your roadmap. Lean on that internal knowledge.

Get to know each other

If you’ve decided to partner with another organization, you already know their product and audience are a good fit. But what about your goals and values?

Early on in your partnership, it’s imperative to sit down and find out what you have in common. How do your cultures align? Where do your roadmaps sync? What values do you both hold? The answers to these questions will be your north star throughout the process.

Be transparent

On day one, you and your partner have to be honest with each other about what you want to gain. Maybe you’re hoping to increase your customer base. Maybe you want to offer new functionality for your customers. Maybe this project is a trial run to see if you should form a longer-term relationship down the road. Whatever the case may be, you have to lay your cards on the table at the beginning.

Having an open line of communication is key to a healthy and successful partnership. You need to be honest with each other about what’s going well and what needs improvement. You need a clear understanding of which team is responsible for what and what your expectations are on cadence and speed. Transparency is what turns good partner match-ups into great relationships.

Howdy, partner

Partnerships are one of the most effective ways to grow your business, especially in uncertain economic times. Working together increases your efficiency, provides more value to your customers and creates a more robust product. Sometimes two is better than one.

Want to see partnerships in action? Learn more about the power of social media management integrations.

The post 1+1 is more than two: How partnerships can level up your business appeared first on Sprout Social.

That’s because social media management requires agility. Opportunities can come in the blink of an eye, but it isn’t easy to capitalize on them without the right tools and processes in place. Striking gold on social requires a little bit of luck and a whole lot of preparation.

Sprout offers sophisticated, intuitive fixes that result in more free time for ideation and execution. Let’s take a look at what’s possible when you streamline your social media management workflow with Sprout.

• What is a social media workflow?
• Why you need a social media management workflow
• How to streamline your social media workflow with Sprout
  • Your scheduling and publishing workflow
  • Your content approval workflow
  • Your reporting workflow
  • Your engagement workflow
• Tips for auditing your social media manager task list

What is a social media workflow?

A social media workflow is a repeatable, systematic process by which a business manages their social media presence and interactions. A standard workflow accounts for planning, creating, publishing, monitoring and analyzing social media content, as well as responding to questions and feedback across networks.

These processes are more than just checklists. Social media is a fluid space where the only constant is change. Valuable workflows center around adaptability to ensure the consistent and effective execution of a social media marketing strategy.

Why you need a social media management workflow

The right workflow can transform your online presence from the inside out. Here are the top three ways businesses benefit from adopting a scalable social media workflow:

More time for creativity

Switching between profiles and interfaces for native content creation and scheduling can take up the bulk of a workday. Add meetings to the mix and one day’s to-do list can quickly span many. That’s valuable time lost on repetitive tasks and inconsistent processes.

A workflow that incorporates both centralized profile management and automation frees up time and resources for more creative, high impact work. These are the efforts that allow your team to harness the full potential of social.

More quality control checkpoints

A few months ago, we asked our LinkedIn followers about what keeps them up at night.

The most common answers were typos, post performance and wondering whether or not a scheduled post ever made it to publish.

A consistent social media workflow backed by powerful, AI-driven technology puts these worries to rest by creating multiple quality assurance checkpoints. These security measures do more than just mitigate errors—they also play a crucial role in risk prevention and social media governance.

More opportunities for collaboration

Without the right tools and documentation, the average social media manager task list reads more like a novel. On top of that, it’s only a matter of time before a network change makes all that documentation null and void.

These inconsistent, complex processes can make it hard to train and scale a team. Eventually, the burden will fall to one or two team members with the historical process knowledge needed to run social. It’s a one-way ticket to social media burnout.

A well-crafted workflow can simplify processes and reduce reliance on any single individual. This cross-functional visibility is critical for future-proofing your team.

How to streamline your social media workflow with Sprout

At Sprout, our customers are our north star. That’s led to some pretty cool features designed to integrate social across a business. Here are a few fan-favorite workflow upgrades that our customers use every day:

Your scheduling and publishing workflow

The old way: Manually logging in and out of native platforms to publish social posts, minimizing visibility across teams.

The Sprout way: Scheduling content across multiple channels at once using a shared content calendar designed to boost collaboration.

The Sprout Social Content Calendar is feature-rich, intuitive and flexible. It centralizes once disjointed publishing workflows into a single location, equipped with smart tools that provide real-time insights into optimization opportunities.

Simply put, it supports smarter marketing decisions while still being easy to use.

There’s a ton you can do in Sprout’s Publishing section, but here are a few of our favorite social media workflow enhancements:

• Losing sleep wondering if a scheduled post actually went live? Set up tailored Post Notifications on the Sprout Social mobile app for real-time updates on the status of outgoing messages.

• Always on the hunt for third-party content to build out your social calendar? The Sprout Social Google Chrome Extension takes the Compose window with you as you browse for relevant articles to share. This is especially useful for brands that rely on industry-specific news to boost thought leadership.
• Waiting for details on an upcoming promotion before drafting and scheduling a post? Use Calendar Notes to let your team know you have the task on your radar and that you’re waiting for next steps.

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Your content approval workflow

The old way: Tagging stakeholders in a shared document or spreadsheet for content reviews and moving things over to email if they require further discussion.

The Sprout way: An in-app content approval process that can be tailored by need, department or client—depending on your business structure.

An ironed out social media approval process prevents needless mistakes while giving time back to marketers. It’s critical to a successful social media strategy. It’s also incredibly time-consuming.

I’d estimate that Sprout’s Message Approval Workflow is single-handedly responsible for preventing millions of lengthy email threads and shared document requests. This tool creates a shared space for feedback by allowing teams to create multi-step, multi-user workflows that meet the needs of their specific organization.

Here’s what it looks like in action, depending on your role:

• Director of Social Media: Tailored notification settings help you review content in a way that works with your schedule. Choose between hourly or daily approval request notifications to keep your day running smoothly.
• Legal Compliance Specialist: Let your social team set you up with External Approver access so you can review sensitive content for legal risk.

• Account Manager: Strengthen agency-client relationships by setting up a customized approval workflow for each of your individual accounts.

Your reporting workflow

The old way: Hours spent pulling metrics from native analytics solutions, making sense of them in a spreadsheet and creating data visualizations to explain your team’s impact across the business.

The Sprout way: Automated, presentation-ready reports that directly tie social activity to business objectives.

Sprout’s social media automation tools make quick work out of cumbersome reporting tasks. Our sophisticated yet intuitive solution combines templated reports with user-friendly customization options.

Of all our reporting features, Tagging has the most potential to revolutionize your workflows. Tags allow our customers to group inbound and outbound messages for more flexible reporting on content, creative and campaigns. Use Tags to automate data collection processes and say goodbye to cherry-picking specific post-level metrics for strategic insights.

Tagging is available to all Sprout customers, but for Advanced Plan users, it’s one of many automated reporting tools. Those include:

• Automated Rules: Automatically Tag inbound and outbound messages that include specific keywords or hashtags to ensure every post is recorded and reported on.

• Scheduled Reports: Schedule weekly or monthly PDF reports to keep stakeholders informed on campaign progress.
• Report Builder: Create custom reports with metrics that matter most to your executives, with text widgets that provide the context needed to capture social’s impact.*
• Link Sharing: Share real-time, interactive report links that provide all the necessary context and data visualizations needed to increase transparency with external stakeholders.*

*These features are available with the Sprout Social Premium Analytics add-on.

Your engagement workflow

The old way: Checking all your social inboxes first thing in the morning and at the top of every work hour to respond to messages in a timely manner.

The Sprout way: Centralizing inbound messages in a single stream, while automating the process of message prioritization, off-hours support and FAQs assistance.

The Smart Inbox is the key to unlocking relationship-building experiences on social. This tool tightens your social media workflow by unifying all your brand accounts across social networks to monitor incoming messages in one manageable location.

From there, you can triage response needs, assign tasks and work with your team to create a more customer-centric social media presence.

Brands managing a high volume of inbound messages can also benefit from the following Sprout tools:

• Bot Builder (Advanced Plan): Use social chatbots designed on rule-based logic to assure customers seeking support on nights and weekends that you’ll be back online and ready to help shortly.
• Integrations: Sprout offers social media management integrations with leading CRMs like Salesforce, Marketo and more. Use these connections to provide more tailored support to key accounts and prospects.
• Social Listening: Countless potential conversations are happening around your brand and industry every day. Use the Sprout Social Listening add-on to keep tabs on the market insights that can drive your business forward.

Tips for auditing your social media manager task list

The average social media manager schedule is jam-packed. Between content creation, campaign meetings and engagement opportunities, there’s always something to do.

According to a Q1 2023 Sprout Social Pulse Survey, 81% of marketers say that a regular posting cadence on social positively impacts their business goals. To reap those benefits, you’ve got to know what to prioritize, what to delegate and what to automate.

The best time to audit your to-do list is now. Review your daily work routine using the following criteria to figure out where you can win back more time.

Automate your social media management workflow with Sprout

Social media is fast paced and always on. It’s where brand-making conversations take place and consumer sentiments are forged. If you want to keep up, you need the right toolkit.

Sprout’s unified social management platform provides powerful data, flexible tools and an intuitive user-experience that helps you harness the full power of social data. Simplify your approach to social and try Sprout for free today.

The post How to optimize your social media workflow appeared first on Sprout Social.

Throughout this article, we’ll talk more about what co-branding is, the benefits of the strategy and introduce some popular examples of co-branding done right.

Table of contents:

• What is co-branding?
• Benefits of co-branding
• Examples of co-branding

What is co-branding?

Co-branding is a marketing strategy where two brands collaborate together with the end goal typically being a new, collaborative product. We’ll cover more examples shortly, but one well-known co-branding partnership involves McDonald’s and their McFlurry options.

McDonald’s has two popular co-branded McFlurry’s: Oreo and M&Ms.

This is an example where two brands (McDonald’s and Oreo or McDonald’s and M&M) have partnered together to create a new product offering for their mutual customers.

Co-branding vs. co-marketing

We’ve talked about co-marketing on the Sprout Social blog before—but it’s key to know that while these two keywords sound very similar, they’re two different strategies.

As we mentioned, co-branding is a strategy where two brands work together to create a new product with both brand names attached to it.

On the other end of the spectrum, co-marketing is a strategy where two brands work together on a one-off marketing campaign or promotion.

One example of this is Pottery Barn and Sherwin Williams. These two complementary brands have created marketing promotions that enable them to help customers find both the right furniture and the right paint colors for their homes.

Benefits of co-branding

Thinking of investing in co-branding? There are a number of benefits and advantages this type of marketing strategy can have for your business.

Exposes your brand to new audiences

Co-branding allows you to reach an even wider audience by partnering with a brand of equal or greater caliber than your own. This exciting perk makes it much easier to market co-branded products.

Improves brand credibility and reputation

When you partner with a credible brand, it inevitably increases your own brand’s credibility. Improve your brand’s reputation by working with well-known brands that have positive brand sentiment. At the same time, be cautious about working with brands that may have a negative sentiment.

Generates more sales

Co-branded products can increase sales for your business. According to data from the same survey we mentioned earlier, 43% of consumers say they’d try a co-branded product from a brand they already like—and with two audiences, that’s double the interest.

Saves costs on marketing

When you and another brand are partnering on the promotion of a new product, it usually requires less out-of-pocket marketing costs. Save on ad campaigns, branded assets and more— since you and the other brand will be splitting the costs.

Co-branding examples

There are so many co-branding examples right under your nose that you might not even have realized. Let’s walk through a few popular examples of co-branded products so you can get an idea of which co-branding strategy might work best for your brand (and its lucky future partner).

Nike and PlayStation

This Nike and PlayStation co-branding partnership is a relatively new one. You’ve likely heard of the popularity surrounding the recently-released PS5. Everyone has been trying to get their hands on one of these new gaming systems for the 2020 holiday season—and over two years later, they’re still difficult to find.

To capitalize on the hype, PlayStation partnered with Nike to create a special pair of branded PS5 signature Paul George sneakers.

These sneakers were released in mid-2021, just seven months after the release of the Playstation 5. This was perfect timing, helping to increase interest in this co-branded product in anyone interested in the PlayStation 5.

Coca-Cola and Lip Smackers

Lip Smackers—a brand originally known as Bonne Bell—kicked off its co-branding partnerships in 1975 when it partnered with Dr. Pepper to create its first soda-flavored lip balm.

However, one of their longest-lasting co-branding partnerships—that still exists to this day—is with Coca-Cola. In fact, Lip Smackers now has an entire line of Coca-Cola-flavored lip balms sold in a single collection. This includes flavors like Coca-Cola, Cherry or Vanilla Coke, Sprite, Root Beer and Fanta.

This co-branding partnership has been a Millennial favorite since the ’90s and doesn’t look to be letting up any time soon. Some brands last through the test of time—try to see if you can partner with one that seems to be just as lastingly popular.

Hershey’s and Betty Crocker

We already mentioned that ingredient co-branding types are popular—here’s another one in a similar vein. Betty Crocker is a brand famous for its cake mixes, frostings and other types of desserts that are ready to be made at home. The brand partnered with Hershey’s to create cookie mixes, cupcake mixes and cans of frosting based on various Hershey’s desserts.

As we can see below, some of the favorites included Reese’s, Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme, Hershey’s Chocolate Chunk and Almond Joy.

Because both brands specialize in sweets and desserts, a co-branding partnership like this makes perfect sense. When you consider which brands you might want to partner with, make sure it’s one with a complementary or similar product—though not a direct competitor.

For example, you’d never see a co-branding partnership between Hershey’s and Nestle because they essentially sell the same product. That type of collaboration wouldn’t make sense. But Hershey’s and Betty Crocker create a beautiful conglomeration of two different worlds of desserts—cookies/cake and candy.

Clorox and Proctor & Gamble

This is a bit of a loaded example simply due to the sheer number of brands under both the Clorox name and the Proctor & Gamble name. However, there are a couple of well-known co-branded products thanks to this partnership.

Clorox houses brands like Glad (think garbage bags) and Fresh Step (think cat litter) while one popular Proctor & Gamble (P&G) brand is Febreze. Febreze, an air freshener, has partnered with both Glad trash bags and Fresh Step cat litter to help block odors from both.

This is a smart partnership because Glad and Fresh Step both work in a smelly business—garbage and pet waste. But with the help of Febreze’s odor-masking capabilities, the two brands are able to offer a particularly enticing unique selling point (USP).

Consider your product’s use cases. Is there another brand that might help make your product even more enticing? You can still sell your standalone product—but then you can sell a co-branded product at a premium price point, making the partnership beneficial to both you and the involved brand(s).

Create your own co-branding strategy

Consider reaching out to other brands to brainstorm your own co-branding partnership ideas. Put together a list of brands that it might make sense to partner with and connect with their marketing teams.

Looking for more ideas to take your marketing to the next level? Check out our list of marketing campaign ideas that will boost your brand engagement.

The post Co-branding: What it is and why your brand should use it appeared first on Sprout Social.