Category: News

In light of the blurring lines between traditional “professional” corporate social media posts and the growing popularity of more casual ones that seem to resonate with Gen-Zs, it’s time to talk TikTok.

Algorithm

The ability to leverage algorithms to boost your content’s visibility isn’t exactly breaking news. To help with this, relevant hashtags and captions will certainly be of assistance.

There is, however, a noteworthy aspect of TikTok to note: its sounds. Particularly those that are trending. Whenever you post a video, consider matching it with a popular TikTok sound (and effects), so that users can also find your corporate post if they search for the sound on the platform.

Content Style

A content style is one that gets right to the meat of an article. Consider your perception of what a post from a business account should be before approaching TikTok and its audiences. Even a popular edit style, sound, dance, filter, or trend lasts only three to five days due to Gen Z’s short attention span.

Therefore, orthodox posting and content won’t attract attention anytime soon. When it comes to clawing our way to a coveted spot on the For You Page, not even the most high-quality, formal, laboriously scripted production is enough to cut it. 

Now we know what doesn’t work and we’re both on the same page, begrudgingly or not. Now let’s talk about what works. It’s been said before that overly polished videos aren’t right for this platform. It’s actually quite the opposite.

Gen Z values authenticity, so fancy equipment isn’t necessary. It also means that videos emphasizing a company’s “human side” will grab the target demographic’s attention. Also, being authentic allows brands to show their unique personality, making them more memorable in the minds of consumers and making for good branding.

This generation also gravitates towards the platform for fun content. It can be jarring to see highly formal workplace content. Here, the challenge is to showcase your brand’s message in an entertaining manner. 

Posts Contents

Would you like to see a more visual example of the above content styles? Brands can film casual office tours and a mini virtual meet and greet with office pets in order to convey authenticity. It gives users a glimpse of what it’s like to work at the corporation and can be a great way to gain and increase consumer interest in the brand even if they have no intention of working there in the near future.

Besides taking part in trending challenges, brands can also create their own to become more “relatable” to the audience.

Are you ready to take on TikTok? Why not leave your branding needs to us? With Ingrid Design’s extensive experience, you’re in good hands.

Media assets are multimedia files used by media companies. Videos, audio files, graphics, and animations are typical examples of media assets. Is there one media asset that rules them all? Social media assets can be a contentious topic! This is why we’re here to explain all the nuances of each asset and how to make the most of them.

The 3 Social Media Assets that Work Best for Your Content

Infographics insights

Infographics present information visually with cerebral depth. This media asset’s comprehensive and aesthetic qualities make it ideal for distilling data that is otherwise difficult to understand. According to a study, this media asset is shared three times more than alternative media assets. It’s best to keep them simple and repurpose them to fit different social media platforms.

Images and Graphics Galore

Posts with images perform better than those without. Instagram audiences are more accustomed to visuals than extensive copy, so these types of posts work well. These posts differ from infographics in that they convey easy-to-understand information.

Similarly to Instagram images and Instagram posts, Stories have a number of attractive features and affordances such as polls to engage your target audience. In addition, Stories are ephemeral, so audiences are compelled to interact with them quickly.

Audience engagement can be increased with interactive capabilities. It leads to twice as many conversions as passive counterparts and is a key distinguishing feature from other competitors, according to 88% of marketers. By creating interactive capabilities, posts can engage audiences more than delivering media content that they passively absorb, acknowledge and understand.

Video and Livestream

In terms of creating a lasting impression, piquing interest and building brand awareness, videos are the superior media asset. Like infographics, they can be very succinct- which is definitely a plus when it comes to capturing those short attention spans. Effective ones are short, can be watched without audio, and appeal to human feelings with comedy or heartwarming content.  

In addition, videos can establish a brand/spokesperson as an industry expert and inspire trust and credibility as they connect with target demographics. The caveat is that high-production value videos are often expensive.

Also worth mentioning is livestreaming, which has the aforementioned advantages of videos when human faces are used, plus the capability to facilitate discussion around a subject and instant feedback.

Have you been handling your social media accounts, marketing collateral, and web design, but found them ineffective? Perhaps it’s time to consider working with a creative agency!

Without having a presence or good branding in the market, your business would not have a voice to connect with your desired audience. Thus investing in a good creative agency is essential to successful marketing efforts. However, figuring out which creative agency to work with may be an overwhelming task in today’s complex marketing industry.

Consider these questions when selecting an agency:

Is The Creative Agency Well-rounded In Its Areas Of Expertise To Provide Integrated Solutions?

The marketing industry is very broad, encompassing branding, social media, content creation and others. A good agency is able to provide solutions that integrate all these marketing efforts to optimize your company’s resources for the best marketing returns.

With years of creative services, Ingrid Design has always been able to harness our various expertise to provide customised solutions for clients. And through the pandemic, we have also established a good track record for our integrated online and offline creative marketing strategies.

Does The Creative Agency Have a Strong Portfolio?

You can usually view a creative agency’s portfolio on their website, which gives you a sense of what clients they have worked with. You can also understand their style and gauge their ability to achieve your desired outcome.

Ingrid Design’s clientele includes the private as well as the government sectors. We are the approved creative agency for Pfizer and Novartis among others in the pharma industry. Others include Capitaland Mall, Singtel, NTU, Republic Polytechnic to name a few.

Recently, the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) has appointed 108 agencies to its creative roster. We are pleased to announce that Ingrid Design has been awarded a WOG (Whole of Government) contract and a Framework Agreement Communications Campaigns (Creative Services) contract and is now recognised as a WOG creative agency. We look forward to working with all government agencies to provide the best of our creative capabilities.

Is The Creative Agency Able To Meet Your Marketing Challenges?

Creative developments to support marketing strategies should be customized for each client. Creative agencies must know their client’s pain points in order to create effective copy and visuals.

Ingrid Design’s service value is to have in-depth understanding of our client’s needs before providing creative design, branding, and innovative marketing solutions. We have been doing this for more than 20 years including marketing projects for growth and regional expansion to countries like Vietnam and China. We have proven methodology to communicate with clients and get their input before crafting the final solutions to achieve their marketing and branding objectives.

If you are still on the lookout for the right creative agency to help you accomplish marketing goals? Look no further! Our experienced offline and online Integrated Creative Digital Marketing team will be delighted to help you achieve the best potential results.

It’s no secret that social media has become a big part of people’s lives. People who rely on social media are addicted to it to the point that when they wake up, the first thing they do is check their socials. As the world of social media evolves rapidly, with Facebook and Instagram constantly changing their algorithms and introducing new features, brands need to keep up with these trends and changes to stay ahead of the social media curve. They will need to review their social media strategy consistently and keep their target audiences engaged and entertained.

Here are six social media trends you need to follow and implement in your social media strategy.

Short-Form Video Content Will Continue to Gain Popularity

People today have shorter attention spans and are more distracted than ever before. Brands need to find ways to gain their target audience’s attention. This has led to the skyrocketing popularity of short-form video content. TikTok is one such example. Its videos are short yet engaging and addictive that people can spend hours scrolling endlessly on their feeds. TikTok saw nearly 383 million first-time installs as of June 2021, making it the most downloaded non-game app globally.

Live Streaming will Become the New Norm

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen businesses pivoting to stay afloat. Live events were cancelled and retail shops were ordered to close. They adapted quickly and turned to conduct live streaming to reach out to their customers. More than 100 million users watch live videos every day.

A lot of brands have jumped on the bandwagon and are going live regularly. Instagram has seen an increase of 70% in the use of the Live feature in March 2020. One such example is Lazada, which has an in-app live streaming feature, LazLive that allows users to interact in real-time. These days, the quality of products or services is essential for brands, but it’s not enough. Customers value authenticity in brands, so live streaming enables brands to connect with customers on a deeper level.

More Brands Will Adapt to Augmented Reality

Most social media users have probably come across Augmented Reality (AR) filters, whether it’s on Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok. They’re hyper-immersive, interactive and highly engaging, generating a lot of traction online. In 2019, Instagram has introduced Spark AR Studio, where people can create and publish their AR filters for Instagram Stories (). Recently, TikTok followed suit and has launched TikTok Effect House in beta. Brands also leverage AR filters to enhance their brand presence or promote a new product to provide a better shopping experience for customers. This helps keep the target audience entertained and engaged and even gain new customers. For example, users can try out colours from Kylie Jenner’s Lip Kit collection without having to put on actual makeup.

Ephemeral Content Is Here to Stay

Ephemeral content is content in video or photo format that is only available for a limited period. A powerful way to keep your audience engaged is to condense your content down to 60 seconds or less. There are over 500 million Instagram accounts using Stories every day. According to Hootsuite, 58% of users became more interested in brands and products after seeing them in Stories. Brands should include IG Stories in their content strategy. It allows them to engage followers via polls, quizzes, mentions, etc. It also humanises your brand as the content tends to be more informal. For instance, showing a day in a life of an employee in an organisation is a perfect example of ephemeral content.

Influencer Marketing will Help Grow Your Brand

Influencer marketing has been around for a while now and many brands have used influencers as part of their digital marketing strategy. By 2021, influencer marketing will be worth $13.8 billion. 

Influencer marketing isn’t about the number of followers an influencer has anymore. It’s about engagement and authenticity, that’s why many brands tend to work with micro or nano influencers. While they may have a smaller following, they tend to have a highly engaged audience, thereby lowering the cost per conversion. They don’t charge as high as influencers who have a large following.

Influencer marketing has evolved from exclusively collaborating with one to two influencers to working with a whole network of smaller, relevant influencers. These influencers are much more relatable and their content is perceived to be more genuine than mega or macro-influencers.

User-Generated Content Enhances Customer Experience

User-generated content (UGC) has always been a viable strategy for brands to build relationships with their customers. Before purchasing a product or engaging in a service, customers want social proof and reassurance that a brand is credible. UGC is considered more authentic and trustworthy than branded content, which helps to build your brand’s image. It is 5x more likely to convert customers compared to non-UGC. Brands also save time and resources when planning and executing campaigns.

Airbnb, for example, focuses mostly on UGC. In addition to sharing UGC from around the world, Airbnb asks questions and offers suggestions to their followers every day. It facilitates discussion with wanderlust travellers regarding booking with Airbnb.

Social media is constantly evolving, in terms of both how social media platforms add or change their functions and how people use them, so these trends can help to elevate your social media game. It is important to recognise social media trends today so that brands can strengthen their presence in the future.

In this day and age, video marketing has evolved on various social media platforms over the years and it is more crucial than ever for your marketing strategy.

According to Hubspot, 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, as compared to 63% over the last year.

But before diving right into the types of marketing video that people love, let’s understand what exactly is video marketing.

Video marketing is using videos to promote or market your brand, product or service, reaching out to your target audience and giving them the opportunity for engagement on digital and social media platforms.

Businesses can communicate their message through videos in a creative and engaging way, delivering valuable content customised for your target audience. 

Here are the 5 types of video content that people love watching.

1) Animation Videos

Animation videos are a great way for brands to explain technical products and processes that are challenging to demonstrate in real life.

It can help to break down information that is more bite-sized, digestible which will be fun and memorable for viewers.

2) Email Videos

We receive thousands of marketing emails every year and to be honest, more often than not, we will only open them up if it catches our attention.

According to Campaign Monitor, videos can increase open rates by 19% and click-through rates by 65%.

Here are some tips to create engaging video emails:

• Include a strong call-to-action
• Keep it short
• Include video captions

3) User-Generated Content

Getting users to create videos for your brand is a smart and effective way to gain traction in social media and build brand loyalty.

Consumers view user-generated content (UGC) to be authentic as they trust the user’s recommendations and opinions.

To level up your brand’s UGC game, you can run a UGC contest and encourage people to participate and send in videos of them using your product.

Another way would be to engage influencers. 

4) Product Videos

Product videos are a must for brands to stay on the competitive edge, as they can show and convince how your products or services can benefit consumers.

Good product videos are relatable and shows honesty and evokes emotions.

It also should be succinct and interesting enough to keep the viewer’s attention and bring across the product’s attributes and benefits.

5) Webinars

I’m sure webinars are no stranger to us since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many businesses have turned to hosting webinars since large group gatherings are still not permitted.

The types of webinar can include inviting a few industry experts for a roundtable discussion or reviewing a product with existing customers.

Webinars allow for high levels of interactivity amongst viewers with a Q&A session to answer viewer queries.

What’s more, they can be edited into bite-sized videos and repurposed for marketing content.

To conclude, creating captivating marketing videos should be done regularly as part of your marketing strategy.

It serves as a great opportunity to engage with your target audience and stand out from your competition.