Aycliffe Today Business Aycliffe Today Business issue 32 | Page 29

The magazine for Aycliffe Business Park | 29
Thrive Marketing director Rachel Townsend Green (centre)
with inbound marketing manager Sarah Burns and
inbound marketing assistant Rachael Farley.
Marketing agency outlines social media
trends for North East businesses
Thrive Marketing has been busy checking out the ‘must dos’ and ‘best practices’
for North East companies’ social media strategies.
T
he Aycliffe Business Park-based
organisation has highlighted a number
of new trends coming to the fore in
2018 as they run their new-look social media
packages for a variety of organisations.
With a focus on hospitality and leisure
businesses, the marketing agency is
targeting the B2C industry well through its
use of organic and paid social campaigns
for businesses, including hotels, pubs and
activity centres.
Inbound marketing assistant Rachael
Farley has been working to implement
innovative practices for the agency’s clients,
ensuring some impressive results:
• A 256% increase in engagements for one
hotel, allowing reach to exceed 46,000
people – for just a £10 paid Facebook
campaign
• An organic campaign for another hotel
resulted in engagement levels increasing
by 1336% - reaching in excess of 340,000
people - in one month. The efforts for
this hotel also saw page likes increase by
more than 2,650 people
Thrive Marketing director Rachel
Townsend Green said: “We’ve had some
fantastic results in 2017 for our clients and
with our new packages in place, we’re only
anticipating a bigger year for our social
media clients.”
After analysing the top trends of 2018,
the team has narrowed it down to four best
practices:
1. Start investing in paid social
campaigns
This is crucial if you want to see real
ROI on your social efforts - as long as your
campaign is set up and targeted correctly,
you will see a solid boost in reach and
engagement as a reward for your efforts.
2. Be more selective about platforms
In 2018 there is a shift in people’s general
approach to social media. With ‘digital
detoxes’ and self-imposed ‘social media
bans’ big as we begin the year, be less
vocal. If it’s worthwhile share it, but consider
if you still need a company Pinterest page
and review your metrics… Getting no
tweets? Delete!
3. Social listening is key for customer
service
Are customers unhappy or happy about
what they bought or experienced with
your organisation? People don’t always
tag your company name, so if you aren’t
actively ‘social listening’ you’re missing out.
Negative feedback can be turned into repeat
custom with the right approach and brilliant
feedback should be acknowledged.
4. Create a messaging strategy
In-platform messaging, along with the
boost in popularity of chatbots, is going
to be key particularly for B2C industries,
where excellent, speedy customer service
is becoming a requirement, rather than a
‘ni ce to have’. By building a strategy around
your social messaging, you will be able to
succeed with #3 more easily!
Rachael Farley added: “We’re at an
exciting point for social media, where the
previous, rigid approach is becoming fluid
and allowing for flexibility and creativity like
never before for brands.”
Thrive Marketing is currently offering a special offer on its new social media retainers -
find out more about what they’re offering by visiting www.thriveability.co.uk.