24 – 06 – 2020

Words by Caitlyn & Emma-Kate

four of four

A Social Media Series

“Alright stop, 
collaborate and listen!”

 You can’t tell us that you didn’t read that in Vanilla Ice’s voice.

When it comes to building an account on social media, one of the most powerful tools we can use is the power of collaboration. This means coming together and working as a team to produce incredible results!

Great things happen when brands unite to create something special. Collaboration is a positive tool to bring additional exposure and growth to your social media accounts! It creates a space where new relationships can be formed, builds trust, curates an environment of innovation, and is a great way to learn from others.

There are many avenues within collaboration that brands can take to ensure that the partnership is equally beneficial for all parties involved. It’s important to hear each other out and see what everyone would like to achieve through working together. It’s good to adopt the mindset of “we all need to win!”

Collaborating with the right brands will also connect you with customers within your target market that you may have not reached before your partnership. Before you start working with other brands, make sure that they align with your vibe and style to make sure that your project looks and feels authentic and true to your brand. Don’t wait to be approached, reach out to other business owners who you would like to be associated with, and propose a collaboration. You never know ~ they might just say yes!

Here are some tips, tricks, and suggestions to run an effective collaboration:

1. Join forced with brands who are in a similar field as you, and work together instead of competing with each other.
2. Run a giveaway where entrants have to follow all parties involved. This is a super helpful way to gain some following! (Just ensure that there aren’t too many parties involved. The list can sometimes get a bit too long.)
3. Work alongside someone who is an influencer and get them to do a review of your products!
4. Ensure that you and all parties involved are all benefitting from the collaboration.
5. Create a collaboration piece with a brand! Bring your skills together to create something beautiful.
6. Propose & pitch your collaboration well. It’s always good to go into a collaboration knowing what you want to achieve, and be clear about it with the brands you are working with.

One way we love to collaborate with brands is to help remove the pressure of them having to handle their social media, and give them the freedom of growing their brand to where it needs to be! We are all about working together to achieve the best results. 

As Conceptual Creatives, we want to make sure that you are getting the most out of your social media accounts. Collaboration with a team of people who want to take your brand’s online presence to new heights. We collaborate with you to curate authentic social media content that expresses the core of who you are. Social media can be a lot to handle, especially when running collaborations with brands. 

We hope you have found this post helpful! Why not brainstorm a collaboration idea and give it a go? The worst thing that could happen is someone could say no, and then it’s the perfect opportunity to learn and try again!

All our love,

The Conceptual Team

09 – 06 – 2020

Words by Caitlyn & Emma-Kate

three of four

A Social Media Series

We have covered the importance of having social media, how to clearly communicate your brand’s values, and the importance of planning ~ so what’s next?

Curating an online presence is one thing, but how do you build your brand’s social media to become a force to be reckoned with? It may not be as easy as 1 2 3 but there are a few simple steps to creating healthy habits that create a strong, authentic, and growing presence. There is no universal formula for growth, and while planning and creating content will get the ball rolling, engagement is going to accelerate the growth of your community (i.e. all the people you need to build you up!)

You may have a successful Instagram page with tons of followers, but if you aren’t reaching out to the occasional olive branch, your page will start to feel like it is missing something! Even if your brand is focused on looking sleek and professional, there is a human element to social media that helps accounts thrive. 

Utilising each of these simple functions will help let people know that you’re not only present on your brand’s page but that there are actual people behind it all, that care! Your potential and current consumers want to feel like they know you, can rely on you, and are a part of the team. You can’t build this trust or community if you aren’t communicating on a smaller and individual level than just your posts. Each person wants to feel heard and be soon and it’s as easy as;

Like

Comment

Respond

Too simple? We don’t think so!

LIKE

Use that little heart button to your heart’s content! Double-tap on posts that you are tagged in, posts of those who are in the same industry, and those of your customers. Liking is a simple way of keeping your brand at the back of people’s minds and in their notifications.

COMMENT

Comment on content that you see on your timeline. Keep it short, encouraging, and fun! Commenting is a great way to interact with other brands and clients showing them your support and interest. It may seem simple, but a short and sweet, “We adore this beautiful photo!” can go a very long way.

RESPOND

Respond to all your messages and comments (except spam, we are not here for spam!) When someone pops you a message regarding your products or services, make sure to shoot one back. There is a not-so-nice feeling that comes about when you reach out to a brand that you have supported, and they leave questions unanswered or praise unappreciated. Make sure you are keeping your genuine connections alive with responding and reacting to tags, comments, and messages. Also, check your requests (they’re easy to miss, we know!).

Engagement takes work, but it’s work that’s worth investing your time into. Dedicate time every day to engaging with the people on your feed. A daily dedication to this means you keep ahead of the algorithm while building the reach of your brand!

Like, comment & respond.

27 – 05 – 2020

Words by Emma-Kate & Nica

two of four

A Social Media Series

On a scale of 1-10, how organised would you say you are? 1 being the classic, “I roll with the punches, I don’t know what day it is (ever) and I still can’t find the planner I bought 3 years ago,” and 10 being, “I know where everything is, my to-do list is always ticked off task by task, and my house is spotless.”

For the 1’s out there, we salute you! However, one thing we can be sure of is that organising your social media is one of the most helpful ways to ensure that you are effectively using it. This week we are diving deep into our first C – connection (read our first blog post of the series to learn more about the 3 C’s of social media). To grow your social platforms, you first need to know who you want to build a connection with. How can you appeal to your target market if you don’t know who they are?

Every time we work with a new client on social media, branding or web design project, we ask them to describe their target audience. It helps us understand exactly who we are designing for – their likes, dislikes, age, gender, and more. If you haven’t completed any market research, you won’t know who you are creating content for. Once you can identify who your target audience is, where to find them, how to attract, speak, and create content for them to engage with your business.

With a few simple tips and tricks, you can ensure that you are having a maximum impact with your socials without the hassle of coming up with a caption every single day. Trust us, you will thank yourself later!

Here are some helpful ways to get your social media accounts organised!

1. Plan Ahead

2020 has proven that things don’t always go to plan however, it has also taught us to plan for the things we can control. For instance, we may not know what the state of Covid-19 may be next month, but what we do know is we would like to reach 800 followers more. What we can also plan is a general idea of what we would like to put out. Working on your content ahead of time also helps to keep you focused on your target audience and making sure you are creating posts of value. If there is no goal/reasoning behind your posts and you are simply posting to post chances are your target audience will pick it up.

For an example:

Say you are a skincare brand. You know that in our southern hemisphere climate, June is a cold month and a lot of people struggle with dry skin in the winter. Due to this problem, you can know that you are going to need to market some heavy moisturisers during this time. 

2. Pre Write Your Captions Where You Can

It may feel mundane and slightly excessive, however, when you are posting consistently and constantly putting content out, it becomes difficult to keep your captions (or copy) original and punchy. A great tip for writing captions is to use an online thesaurus to help you find some original ways of saying the same thing (don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone!) Make sure you’re keeping your captions short, to the point, and punchy! However, there is also room for lengthier copy. Whatever feels right for your brand, head in that direction. Remember to make use of call to actions and regularly ask for feedback in your captions.  

3. Schedule Your Posts

If you are posting all of the content yourself (and not utilising a social media manager) we would suggest scheduling your social media posts. There are many free tools like Later & Hootsuite to help you schedule and plan your social media posts! Scheduling helps you save time in the long run, and also keeps your posts at a consistent posting time. Once you have scheduled everything, the most you will need to do is check that your posts have actually gone out!

4. Look At Important Dates And Plan Accordingly!

Planning your month in advance will help you stay aware of public holidays, special occasions, and events that are coming up that you can use to engage with your target audience. This will help you create relevant marketing campaigns, plus it will assist you to wrap your head around the content you would like to share!

We hope these tips help you stay organised, build stronger connections with your dream target audience, and have some fun with your social media! Planning may seem like a mundane task, but it will truly help you get the absolute best out of your social platforms.

20 – 05 – 2020

Words by Emma-Kate & Nica

one of four

A Social Media Series

Do you remember creating your first Facebook profile? Choosing your profile picture, and posting that first status that could have been along the lines of, “I Luv FaCeBoOk XD*”. It was truly the era for literary gold. Perhaps Myspace was your first dive into an online community. Whichever platform it was, social media has been around for a very long time.

Since creating our first Facebook profiles, the social media world has transformed from completely personal to a hub for marketing, networking, and brand awareness. In our day and age, it seems like social media is more of a necessity than a luxury. Of course, it’s an incredible mechanism to stay in touch with friends and family from afar, but why is it important for a business to utilise social media? Is it that essential? 

Our short answer; yes. 

But here is our longer answer.

There are 3 C’s that help us understand why social media is as important to businesses as it is.

Connection

Community

Collaboration

Connection ~ as in, connecting with customers on a relatable and down to earth way. We all have social media profiles, and it can be a super simple and easy way to curate authentic relationships with the very people who are helping keep your business alive. When we create an authentic and genuine connection, we are creating opportunities to have long-lasting relationships. Social media isn’t just about broadcasting what you want people to know about your business – it is about building relationships. Once you have done that you can save your business a lot of money by communicating to your target audience directly and asking the questions needed to take your brand to new heights. There is nothing better for growth than direct feedback from your target audience.

Community ~ social media can be the perfect tool to help you find your people and your authentic community of like-minded business people and creatives. You can interact with those who share the same industry as your brand. We understand how competitive it can be, however when used correctly, social media is an incredible hub to ask questions, learn, and gain access to free resources that will help take your business forward. Best of all, you might even get some free user-generated content for your brand which 90% of shoppers say influenced their decision to purchase. This is higher than any other type of advertising. 

Collaboration ~ this is a great tool for brand awareness. Collaborating with brands who may not offer the same product or service as you, but are in the same sphere of influence as you, will help bring in some mutually beneficial marketing. It is a healthy, fun, and fresh way to create relationships with other brands, as well as to expand your horizons as a business. As with anything in life it is about quality and not quantity, so if you want to collab with another brand don’t just look at the numbers, but focus on how relatable they are to your brand ethos. If they have similar values than you, their followers will love you too. 

Now looking at these 3 C’s and having a slightly deeper understanding of why social media is essential to any brand, here are 3 questions you can ask yourself to help you communicate what you are wanting to showcase through your social media account.

1. What is the vision/mission of my brand? (ie. What is your product, what does it do, why do people need it?)
2. What sets us apart in the industry? (i.e. Are you a mother-daughter duo sharing a mutual love for the service you provide? Eco friendly? Find your niche.)
3. What is the language of our brand? (i.e. Friendly and conversational, or corporate and clear?)

 Once you have taken the time to answer these 3 questions, you have some direction on how you can communicate what you are marketing. Who you are, what you do, how you do it, and why you do it should be communicated through your social platforms!

Over the next week, we will dive deep into social media giving you some tips and tricks to help you grow your social platforms. 

19 – 05 – 2019 

Words by Nica Kruger 

evolve

(noun) 

Develop gradually

Artwork by Matisse

While doing brand research the word echoed through my thoughts. In every moment we will always be evolving. It is a gradual act of movement, balance, strength and pushing through.

Do we even REALLY understand what this means? Or what it takes to do this? We will always progress without even breaking a drop of sweat. It is a natural act.

As we build brands for a living this got me thinking (I mean REALLY thinking). The act of development is what distinguishes the good from the great. The secret to it lies in maintaining a balance whilst gradually moving forward..

This is true for your brand as well.

1. Start with intention 

If you do not actively choose to evolve, chances are you will never reach your full potential.  You need to lay down your brand goals and make sure your strategy is in place before you jump into the look and feel.  Know where you are and where you want to be – it makes the process easier if you understand the purpose of your brand.

CC’s purpose is to deliver value to the lives of our clients. It is a concept that has driven me personally since I can remember – the thought of working on something bigger – something that can change the lives of others. Sounds ridiculous, I know! It has been many people’s purpose before me and will always be but it drives me. I diligently work for the smile and the thought of playing a part in contributing to the endless evolving of brands that I believe in.

3. Strength

In order to play an extraordinary part in the endless process you will need to persist. All businesses have their ups and downs and let me tell you, you will at one stage or another feel like you have had enough. You will wish that you had your free time back and question if your brand is worth all the effort. Drink a glass of wine, take a nap and continue on course in spite of the difficulty.

Now that we have covered personal strength, let’s talk about your brand’s strength.

The four factors that contribute to developing some brand muscles are perception, awareness, loyalty and association. In order to achieve new heights it is crucial to relook your strategy once in a while and ask for feedback from people (clients as well as those who don’t necessarily know your brand). Discovering what your brand’s weaknesses are is vital for growth.

Take a step back to evaluate & appreciate your brand’s progress. Become aware of your evolvement.