 Are they liking? Are they sharing? Are they retweeting? You sleep, right? You can't always respond to them, but they get that response immediately. Perfecting your social media. Welcome to The Journey. I'm Neely. And I'm Emma. And today we're talking about 10 marketing ideas you can use for your business. So let's kick this thing off. Yeah, because we've got a bunch to go through. Starting with storytelling. Yes, your story. That's what makes you unique. So telling a story about how it all began. What's your passion? Why did you open up your business in the first place? And also sharing a story of how it comes together and even share some behind the scenes while you are going day in and day out of your normal tasks and activities that bring your business to light. Yeah. And I know not everyone's super comfortable in front of the camera. You don't have to go on there and literally just start spinning out your entire story. Like Emma said, add photos, add pictures, add videos of just the things that are going on around you and your business. Another one of my favorite things about storytelling is actually getting to know you, the business owner, or the staff, the employees. Like who brings it all together? Okay, so next trend number two, chat bots. I mean, this is something that's really great. I know I see it on Facebook a lot and it's just a, it's a greet, right? They're greeting you. It's instant gratification. Hi. And that's what we're expecting more and more today. Consumers are. It is to be responded to quickly, acknowledged quickly. So that's, I think, where the inception of the chat bot began was consumer behavior. They want something there immediately to greet them. That instant gratification. Yeah. Especially on Facebook too. Like they give you the tools. So instead of having, say, a frequently asked questions, a person on Facebook can message your business and you can say, hey, do you want to know our hours? And they go, yes or why or whatever your response is, out pops up your hours. You want to, hey, what's your phone number? I'll pop your phone number. And it makes it super easy for them to get that information quick without having to actually contact you because you sleep, right? You can't always respond to them, but they get that response immediately. So that leads me to trend number three, which is e-commerce. And this is really about your consumers. They want convenience. They want it now. They want it now and maybe on the go. So having your products, whether that's music to download, bathing suits to buy, an option for them to do that all online versus offline. And I know GoDaddy offers a website builder and features to help you do this also. There's WordPress with WooCommerce, tons of flexibility and functionality. So that leads us to trend number four, video ads, which you could shoot your own. And there's also an option. I know my favorite Instagram. You could do a boomerang. Keep it short. Keep it sweet. But it's another great way to get in front of your audience. Plus it's the preferred way. Your consumers want video more than a photo. Right. And you don't have to be a professional. You can use your smartphone. Most phones, cameras are amazing to shoot video. And there's an app I use called InShop. There's plenty of other ones where you can edit it on your phone. You don't have to be super techie or just into that industry. You can edit your own. And also this is really powerful. Video will show up more than a photo or normal status update. Okay. So believe it or not, we are on marketing trend number five, which honestly, the extra is just in on this one. Livestream. Livestream. Livestream is becoming more and more popular. It's a way to instantly connect to your audience, right? It's like live TV. And I know Instagram has put a huge focus on live TV. I'm sure you've seen the notification of such and such person is going live and that's exactly what they're doing. Oh, that's right. They're going live. Even if I don't necessarily like get excited about that person, they're not. I'm not a huge fan. I'll tune in because there's something about live that makes it exciting. You at least pop in for a few seconds, see what's going on. You can comment directly to that person. That person can actually invite other people to Livestream with them. So you can really get a collaboration going. Oh, yeah. And I know a lot of people will use just their Instagram stories or posts just to promote their Instagram live. I don't let people know about it. Right. So like say, say you're a business owner and every Tuesday at four, you're going to go live and answer your customers questions. Now you promote that on your story, put that on Instagram, on Twitter, everywhere else. And then they know four PM on Tuesday. You're going live. You're going to answer their questions directly and in real time. I love it. All right. That brings us to trend number six, which is influencer marketing, also known as brand ambassadors. And this one's really fun for local businesses of all kinds to hop on board with because what you're doing is rather than you always promoting and selling, you can actually get your fans excited about your brand and do it for you. And this doesn't have to be a celebrity. I mean, by all means, if you know one, leverage it. But it could be a friend. It could be one of your favorite employees who just has a great following at your business. And then what you do is you encourage them to represent you and your brand. And you can even reach out to people who have a lot of followers. We all know them and offer them maybe a free product, a free, what have you ever been approached? I've been approached with skateboarding stuff. Right. Like they'll go and say, Hey, you get an exclusive discount code. It's almost like affiliate marketing, but with influencers. And if you promote that and talk about my product, you get a kickback of some sort, you get free products or swag or however that works, you're essentially promoting it for them. You get money, they get paid. It's a win-win situation. Yeah. All right. And that brings us to marketing trend number seven, perfecting your social media, your strategy, your posts. So you want to basically run an audit. How are your posts doing? You don't want to just get into this habit of, Oh, I went and I posted three times this week. I'm doing good. I'm crushing it on social media. No, check those insights, the metrics, the analytics and see how are those posts performing? Also, are people commenting your audience, your customers? Are they liking? Are they sharing? Are they retweeting? If it's crickets out there, then you need to rethink your social media strategy. So to perfect it, start with that audit. Yeah. And if you have posts that do exceptionally well, try to figure out what it was about that post that did so well and reproduce it, the posts that aren't doing so well, you probably want to move away from and focus on what's working. It's the same thing when you do with business, right? We do what's working, we get rid of what's not. All right. Marketing trend number eight, YouTube podcast. So YouTube, you're familiar? You're familiar? It's the second year you're here. Speak of YouTube. So it's the second largest search engine. So how can you get on there? Podcast, you might already have one. Now bring it to life. Put some video behind it rather than it just sitting on your iTunes. I know we've talked about this a lot because we're huge fans of YouTube, also podcasts, but bringing the two together is a great way to get in front of consumers. All right. Marketing trend number nine, offer educational content. Now you're already an expert in what you do and you're already doing this stuff day to day, so spread the love, share the knowledge. And there's a lot of great ways to do that. I mean, there's social media, there's also online courses and take that expertise, turn it into content and your customers, your patients, your clients, they're truly going to value that and you'll build rapport. Right. And I know what some of you are thinking, wait, I'm not expert enough to talk on camera or film whatever. You are an expert. You're at least a few chapters ahead of someone just starting out and they can absolutely use your knowledge, right? So that leads us to our final marketing trend that we're going to share today and that is personal interactions. We're seeing more and more of a push and a wave towards this. User generated content is a perfect example of that. Businesses leveraging what their customers took a photo of at the business or what their customers are saying on Yelp and Google and the business is now taking that and putting it on their social media because it's that personal touch. Also, if I go into your business and I mention you, you should respond to me. That's that personal touch. It's almost like you would if we were face-to-face, right? Also, another great way to really personalize your approach here is if you have photos at your business or you're doing Instagram stories, be sure to tag the people in it and it just makes it that much easier for them to go and share that content and get you more word of mouth, but also it makes them feel valuable. Yep. And that content doesn't always have to be something that they're in, but if you have some super loyal, loyal followers that just love what you do or love the new products come out, you can let them be basically the first to know by tagging them in your post and saying, hey, cool, I've got this awesome new thing. I want to be the first one to check it out. All right, that's a wrap. You just learned 10 marketing trends. Get out there, try them out. And I hope at the end of the day, every day, they help your business grow. Hey, and let us know what was your favorite tip from today in the comments below. While you're there, like this video, subscribe to our channel and ring that bell when you want to see these videos first. But hey, that's been The Journey. Thanks for watching.