Larry Gilbert Promoted to "Executive Office Stuffer"

After years of hard work Larry has recently been awarded the internal title of “Executive Office Stuffer."

Seen here in his natural habitat, utilizing his skills to stuff 4,000 Easter eggs.

“He really has a talent. I am glad that he is finally getting recognized for his stuffing abilities.” - Amy Landin, Art Director

“I find my new role very eggciting.” - Larry Gilbert, Executive Office Stuffer and President

We're getting ready for all of our clients' Easter activities and it's been nothing short of uneventful here at our office. 😉 Click here to read entire post!

The Importance of Hashtags & When to Use Them

Hashtags. They're more than just a nuisance. In fact, they play a crucial role in developing interest and gaining exposure for your social media accounts.

What are hashtags?

Hashtags are keywords that relate to your content, preceded with a hash symbol (#). Hashtags enable users to categorize their posts and facilitate a search for it.

Image via Shutterstock

Why are hashtags important?

Utilizing hashtags can assist in increasing your social media presence, reach audiences who are interested in your niche, and create a more recognizable brand image. Ultimately, hashtags help by leveraging your exposure among users and categorizing your content.

Fun fact: In a 2014 study by Simply Measured, they found that Instagram posts with at least one hashtag averages 12.6% more engagement than a post with no hashtags

When and how should I use hashtags?

Although hashtags seem like the answer to all of your problems, proceed with caution. With great power comes great responsibility. Sound familiar? #Spiderman.

Choosing the right hashtag can actually be pretty difficult. If done incorrectly, hashtags defeat the purpose of you using them in the first place.

Hashtags should be used strategically. 

Keep your hashtags short. No one likes seeing #ExtremelyAndUnnecessarilyLongHashtags.

Use hashtags that relate to your content and company. Think of a hashtag that YOU would search for.

Don't overuse hashtags. Stick to an average of two hashtags per post.

Ultimately, how you use hashtags can determine your amount of exposure to your target audience. Research shows that hashtags are effective when used correctly. In other words, don't be a hashtag monster. Use them strategically! 

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Important Brand Personalities All Companies Should Foster

We love to feel personally connected to what we're consuming. As advertisers and marketers, it is our duty to create an atmosphere of inclusiveness between our audience and our brand. We want to create an everlasting brand feeling that people recognize and associate with our business. It all starts with authenticity and responsiveness with consumers.

In a study by Sprout Social in 2017, researchers found that consumers positively respond most to responsiveness from brands. That means, responding to questions or comments on your content, engaging with followers by liking or commenting on their content, or doing contest giveaways with followers.

Consumers appreciate the extra effort that companies take to personally reach out to them because we all love feeling special, right? Right.

On top of being able to immediately connect with consumers, social media allows companies to create communities with their followers. We are given the tools to have computer mediated communication (CMC) and foster relationships with consumers - something that would be unheard of a decade ago. Social media provides consumers with a specific type of immediacy that they may not otherwise get through other platforms.

In the same study by Sprout Social, they said that, "Brand personality is what connects your products to its consumers." Consumers reported that they prefer to see the honest side of companies more than anything.

Companies are able to gain trust with their consumers when they are authentic, and one of the easiest strategies for this is to be transparent with your consumers on social. Creating an authentic and honest brand personality on social is something that all companies can achieve (and should achieve).

Advertisers and marketers need to take advantage of the relationship-building platform that social media provides. There is beauty in fostering a community and creating authenticity around your brand because not only does that establish trust between the company and consumer, but it also means more revenue.

Moral of the story? Just be yourself on social (but maybe a little less dog obsessed and a little more timely).


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The ROI of Social Media

It's one of the most frequently asked questions by clients at Gilbert and Associates. In fact, it's probably the most frequently asked question among all businesses who are focusing more on their investments in social media.

The big question: What's the ROI (return of investment) of social media?

People want to see the measurables, especially those who are a little skeptical of implementing social media into their business plans.

Social media ROI can be seen in various ways, depending on what your company wants to achieve. Achieved social media ROI objectives can be seen in actual revenue generated or in audience reach, engagement, and site traffic.

I can go on and on about the value of social media, but frankly, talk is cheap and stakeholders and clients want to have the ROI of social media in measurable and specific outcomes.

Social media facilitates your business with gaining exposure and meeting those goals.

Using your social media wisely can result in reaching a wider audience in the matter of seconds, keeping in constant communication with your clients or customers, and generating a greater revenue.

Yes, the world of social media is always transforming and progressing. And sometimes it's difficult to keep up with current trends. Using the right tools can facilitate you in keeping track of your social media ROI.

There are so many resources that can be used to analyze data from your social media accounts. Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Facebook Insights, to name a few. Familiarize yourself with those platforms and learn how to recognize what's successful and what needs improvement on your social media accounts.

Analyzing the metrics will really help in gaining social media ROI. The nature of social media is constantly evolving, so don't be surprised when one tactic worked last week and isn't working out so great this week. ROI of social media can be extremely rewarding, you just have to be a little patient and flexible to the nature of social media. Click here to read entire post!

Behind the Scenes with a Social Media Manager

Sure we're a full-service agency with a broad skill set. And no surprise, in recent years that skill set has evolved to include the use of social media for the bulk of our clients. But we still occasionally run into folks who think social media management is little more than the occasional 140-character chatter.

Check out this brilliant infographic from SocialCast. It pulls the curtain back a bit and offers some insight on the life of a social media manager.

And while we feel "refuel with java and peanut M&M's" is a glaring omission, the snapshot is mostly spot-on.

One colleague, however, did note that not all of us get a full five hours of slumber. Click here to read entire post!

Face the Nation: Who Owns Facebook?

True or False? Bono owns Facebook.

The topic of Facebook's ownership came up not long ago in water cooler conversation and, after consulting almighty Google, we were admittedly a little surprised to see the list of stakeholders.

And then along came this awesome infographic.

So who's profiting from the behemoth social networking service that boasts 600 million+ monthly active users?

Noted in this chart:

• Facebook staff: 30%
  
• Co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg: 24%
• Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz: 6%
• Co-founder Eduardo Saverin: 5%
• Napster’s Sean Parker, Founding President of Facebook: 4%
• Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm: ~10%
• Goldman Sachs: ~0.8%
• Goldman Sachs’ clients: ~3%
• Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm: ~1.5%
• Meritech Capital Partners: ~1.5%
• Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and Clarium Capital president: ~3%
• Elevation Partners (yep, that includes U2's Bono among others): ~1.5%
• Other investors: ~9.7%

Other stakeholders not listed include Microsoft (1.6% stake) and Hong Kong billionaire Li-Ka Shing (0.8%).

Interesting infographic. And such pretty colors. Click here to read entire post!

Let's Get Social

Check out G&A's latest promotion collateral for our social media services. We're debuting the piece at the Maui Hotel & Lodging Association annual member lunch today and wanted to float it to our blogosphere buddies as well.

Feel free to tweet it, digg it, blog about it, put it on your wall, and so on.

We love being social. Click here to read entire post!

New Study: Be Social, Make Money

Heard of Starbucks? Google? Microsoft?

A new study from ENGAGEMENT db shows a measurable correlation between higher levels of social engagement and superior financial performance. Specifically, companies that are both deeply and widely engaged in social media (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace just to name a few mediums) significantly surpass their peers in both revenues and profits.

Read another way: The most successful businesses in the world have passionately embraced social media marketing tactics.

And while it's no surprise that these thought leaders are at the marketing forefront yet again, the important thing to glean from this is that these business behemoths aren't doing anything the average company can't do.

Especially when considering more than 85% of US online consumers will be reading or interacting with social content by the end of 2009 (Forrester Research), it's challenging to find a reason not to leap into the social media sphere.

For marketing geeks like us, full PDF report "The World's Most Valuable Brands: Who's Most Engaged?" can be downloaded here.

Or if you're already a social media maven, hit the "SHARETHIS" link below and spread the gospel. Click here to read entire post!