Category: Social Media

How Can I Use Social Media To Improve My SEO Efforts?

Posted on by Adam Burrage

Social media has become an integral part of our lives, both personally and professionally. It has revolutionised the way businesses connect with their audience, making it a powerful tool for improving SEO efforts. By effectively utilising social media platforms, businesses can boost their online visibility, drive traffic to their websites, and ultimately improve their search engine rankings. In this article, we will explore various strategies to leverage social media for SEO purposes and enhance your online presence.

The Importance of Measuring Social Media Performance

Before diving into the strategies, it is crucial to understand the importance of measuring social media performance. By tracking metrics such as engagement, reach, and conversions, you can gain valuable insights into your audience’s preferences and behaviour. This data enables you to optimise your social media campaigns, tailor your content to resonate with your audience and identify opportunities for improvement. Tools like Google Analytics, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite can help you measure your social media performance effectively.

Optimising your Social Media Profiles for SEO

Your social media profiles serve as digital storefronts for your business. Therefore, optimising them for SEO is essential. Start by using relevant keywords in your profile descriptions, headlines, and usernames. This will not only make it easier for your audience to find you but also improve your search engine rankings. Additionally, ensure that your profiles are complete, accurate, and consistent across different platforms. Include a link to your website and use high-quality visuals that reflect your brand identity. By optimising your social media profiles, you increase your chances of appearing in search results and attracting organic traffic.

Building Backlinks through Social Media

Backlinks play a vital role in SEO, and social media can be a valuable source for generating them. By sharing your content on social media platforms, you increase its visibility and encourage others to link back to your website. Engage with industry influencers, bloggers, and content creators by sharing their content and building relationships. This can lead to them mentioning or linking to your content in return. Additionally, actively participate in industry-related discussions, forums, and groups on social media. By providing valuable insights and contributing to the conversation, you can establish yourself as an authority and attract backlinks naturally.

Engaging with your audience to Boost SEO

Engagement is a key factor in search engine algorithms, and social media provides an excellent platform to engage with your audience. Respond to comments, messages, and mentions promptly. Encourage discussions and ask for feedback to foster meaningful interactions. Share user-generated content and showcase customer testimonials to build trust and credibility. By actively engaging with your audience, you not only strengthen your relationship with them but also increase the likelihood of them sharing your content, which can lead to improved SEO performance.

Building Brand Awareness through Social Media

Brand awareness is crucial for SEO, as it influences user behaviour and search intent. Social media offers a powerful tool to build brand awareness by reaching a wide audience and showcasing your unique value proposition. Create compelling and shareable content that aligns with your brand identity and resonates with your target audience. Consistently share updates, news, and industry insights to establish yourself as a thought leader. Collaborate with influencers and industry experts to amplify your brand reach. By building brand awareness through social media, you increase the chances of users searching for your brand specifically, driving organic traffic and improving SEO.

Optimising Images for SEO on Social Media Platforms

Images are an essential component of social media content, and optimising them for SEO can significantly impact your visibility. Start by using descriptive file names and alt tags that include relevant keywords. This helps search engines understand the context of the image and improves your chances of appearing in image search results. Additionally, compress your images to reduce their file size and improve loading speed. Slow-loading images can negatively impact user experience and SEO. Finally, ensure that your images are visually appealing, high quality, and relevant to your content. This encourages users to engage with your posts, leading to improved SEO performance.

Adding Relevant Links to Your Social Media Posts

Link building is a crucial aspect of SEO, and social media platforms offer an opportunity to incorporate relevant links into your posts. When sharing your blog posts or website content on social media, include a link to the relevant page. This not only helps drive traffic to your website but also signals to search engines that your content is valuable and authoritative. Additionally, consider linking to reputable external sources that provide additional information or support your claims. By including relevant links in your social media posts, you enhance the user experience, encourage click-throughs, and improve your SEO.

Aligning Keyword Research with Posting Topics on Social Media

Keyword research is a fundamental SEO practice, and it can be seamlessly integrated into your social media strategy. Identify relevant keywords that align with your target audience’s search intent and incorporate them into your social media posts. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Moz Keyword Explorer to discover high-ranking keywords with low competition. By aligning your keyword research with your posting topics on social media, you increase the likelihood of appearing in search results and attracting organic traffic.

Leveraging Influencer Partnerships for SEO Benefits

Influencer marketing has gained significant traction in recent years, and it can be a powerful strategy to boost your SEO efforts. Collaborating with influencers in your industry allows you to tap into their existing audience, gain credibility, and drive traffic to your website. When selecting influencers, ensure that they align with your brand values and have a genuine connection with their followers. Encourage influencers to create content that includes links to your website or mentions your brand. These backlinks and mentions not only drive referral traffic but also signal to search engines that your website is reputable and authoritative.

Using Hashtags Effectively for Enhanced Visibility

Hashtags are a powerful tool for increasing the visibility of your social media posts and improving SEO. Research popular hashtags that are relevant to your industry, target audience, and content. Use these hashtags strategically in your posts to reach a wider audience and increase the chances of your content being discovered. However, avoid overusing hashtags or using irrelevant ones, as this can dilute your message and make it harder for your target audience to find you. By using hashtags effectively, you can enhance your visibility on social media platforms, attract more engagement, and improve your SEO.

Guest Blogging as a Strategy for SEO and Social Media

Guest blogging is an effective strategy to expand your reach, build backlinks, and improve both SEO and social media performance. Identify reputable blogs and websites in your industry that accept guest contributions. Craft high-quality, informative, and engaging content that aligns with their audience’s interests. Include a link back to your website within the guest post to drive referral traffic. Promote your guest posts on social media platforms to increase their visibility and engagement. By guest blogging, you not only enhance your online presence but also establish yourself as an authority in your field, leading to improved SEO and social media outcomes.

Utilising Search Demand to Inform Social Media Content

Understanding search demand is crucial for creating relevant and engaging social media content that resonates with your audience. Use keyword research tools to identify popular search queries related to your industry or niche. Analyse the search volume and competition for these keywords to prioritise your content topics. Craft social media posts that address these queries, provide valuable insights and offer solutions. By aligning your social media content with search demand, you increase the likelihood of attracting organic traffic, improving engagement, and enhancing your SEO efforts.

Sharing Valuable Content

Content is the backbone of any successful SEO and social media strategy. Create high-quality, valuable content that caters to your target audience’s needs, interests, and pain points. Share this content on your social media platforms to drive traffic, encourage engagement, and improve your SEO. Consider using a mix of formats, such as blog posts, infographics, videos, and podcasts, to cater to different preferences. Additionally, repurpose your existing content into bite-sized snippets or quotes to share on social media. By consistently sharing valuable content, you establish yourself as a trusted resource, attract loyal followers, and boost your SEO.

Adding Social Sharing Buttons for Increased Engagement

Social sharing buttons are a simple yet effective way to encourage your audience to share your content on their social media profiles. By incorporating social sharing buttons on your website, blog posts, and other content, you make it convenient for users to share interesting articles, products, or services with their networks. This amplifies your reach, increases brand exposure, and drives traffic back to your website. Additionally, social sharing signals are considered by search engines as a measure of content quality and relevance, which can positively impact your SEO.

Understanding your Target Audience

To effectively leverage social media for SEO, it is crucial to understand your target audience. Conduct market research and create buyer personas to gain insights into your audience’s demographics, interests, and online behaviour. This information will help you tailor your social media content, messaging, and tone to resonate with your audience. Use analytics tools to track engagement metrics, demographics, and user behaviour on social media platforms. This data will enable you to refine your social media strategy, identify content gaps, and optimise your SEO efforts for maximum impact.

Boosting Content Lifespan and Engagement through Social Media

Content lifespan refers to the duration of time your content remains relevant and generates engagement. Social media can play a significant role in extending the lifespan of your content. Share your evergreen content periodically on social media platforms to reach new audiences and remind existing followers of its value. Repurpose your content into different formats to cater to different platforms and preferences. For example, turn a blog post into an infographic, a video, or a podcast episode. Engage with your audience through comments, likes, and shares to stimulate conversation and keep your content alive. By leveraging social media to boost content lifespan and engagement, you increase your chances of attracting organic traffic and improving SEO.

Choosing the right Social Media Platforms for your SEO Goals

Not all social media platforms are created equal, and it is essential to choose the ones that align with your SEO goals. Analyse the demographics, user behaviour, and engagement rates of different platforms to identify the ones most relevant to your target audience. For example, if you are targeting a younger audience, platforms like Instagram or TikTok might be more suitable. If you are in the B2B space, LinkedIn can be a valuable platform to connect with professionals and industry experts. Focus your efforts on platforms that provide the highest potential for engagement, visibility, and driving traffic to your website.

Building Partnerships for Mutual Benefits

Collaboration is a powerful strategy to enhance your SEO and social media efforts. Identify complementary businesses, influencers, or organisations in your industry and explore partnership opportunities. This can include co-creating content, hosting joint webinars or events, or cross-promoting each other’s products or services. By leveraging each other’s networks, you can expand your reach, tap into new audiences, and generate backlinks. These partnerships not only improve your social media visibility but also enhance your website’s authority and SEO performance.

Conclusion: The Power of Social Media in Improving SEO Efforts

In conclusion, social media can be a game-changer when it comes to improving your SEO efforts. By measuring social media performance, optimising your profiles, building backlinks, engaging with your audience, and building brand awareness, you can significantly enhance your online presence and search engine rankings. Additionally, leveraging influencer partnerships, utilising hashtags effectively, guest blogging, and aligning keyword research with posting topics can further amplify your SEO and social media outcomes. Remember to choose the right social media platforms, understand your target audience, and consistently share valuable content to maximise the impact of your efforts. Embrace the power of social media and unlock its potential to drive organic traffic, boost engagement, and improve your overall SEO performance.

Are social pages more important than having a website?

Posted on by Adam Burrage

A question that can often come up when speaking about your website is are your social media pages more important than your website? That depends on the strategy behind your use of your website and social media channels. 

The benefits of your website over social media

One way to look at this is that your website is your home, it’s where all the main information about your business is and it’s your opportunity to sell to potential customers! This could be a sale in the sense of an online purchase, or your chance to sell your services and get enquiries via your website. Your website is where people can find out more about you and your business and ultimately decide if you’re the right fit for them.

Whilst you can control the content you post on social media, you cannot control the user experience, which is broadly the same in terms of how the channels operate – you can only control what you put out on each channel. You also don’t own the platform, you own your website. If Facebook or Instagram decide to change something and it doesn’t fit with your strategy – that’s pretty much tough, and you have to adapt to it. With a website – you own the whole thing and you can control the style and the end-to-end experience for your potential customers.

You can tailor the content on a website

You’re not limited to a certain character count or size of the image – you can do with it as you wish. With that in mind, you can tailor the content to your users to make sure they get the information they need.

Whilst you can pin a post or you can highlight certain company information on your social channels, your website content will stay the same and not move down the feed when you update the site. By their very nature, social media channels are very transient and the content moves quickly so you need to keep refreshing the content in order for the message to be present.

You can optimise your website for search

Whilst you might be able to get your social media profiles and posts searchable in a Google search, it’s less easy to control. With a website, you can do Search Engine Optimisation to ensure that your content is found in the search engines. You can tailor the keywords to your business, and ensure that your content is found and ranked highly by the likes of Google.

So are social media pages not important?

Absolutely not, I’d suggest that like with all marketing, your social media pages should work in tandem with your other channels – and that includes your website. It’s worth thinking that your social channels are a mouthpiece of your business and a way to reach new audiences, then bring them back to your “home”, ie: your website. 

If you’re wondering how to get the best out of your website, contact us for a free consultation to look at how you can improve your content and start to improve your online presence.

Digital Marketing for Small Businesses

Posted on by Adam Burrage

Small businesses need digital marketing to help them grow. Digital marketing techniques are affordable and effective, making them a must for small businesses with smaller marketing budgets. You can get excellent results from using a variety of digital marketing methods. At Trident, we provide services including search engine optimisation, email marketing, and social media to help you promote your small business online.

What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is a branch of marketing that uses digital media to reach audiences online. It’s a broad field, which involves the internet, mobile devices, search engines, social media, email, and other channels. While there are many different digital marketing channels, businesses don’t need to use them all to reach their goals and find success. Digital media is successful because it allows audiences to be reached directly. It also makes much use of inbound marketing, when customers search for what they want, rather than having unwanted advertisements shown to them.

How Digital Marketing Can Help Your Business

Digital marketing can benefit your business if you want to expand it and get noticed by your target audience. It can give you a global reach, if that’s what you’re looking for, easily trackable and measurable results, and excellent conversion rates. Using the right digital marketing methods, you can get your website to the top of search engine results, build a social following, and create loyal customers. Digital marketing allows you to easily showcase offers on your products or services, give away freebies, offer advice, and run promotions.

Digital marketing can help you to compete against bigger businesses. It allows you to target your desired audience more precisely and it ensures you’re keeping up with the habits of modern consumers and businesses.

Digital marketing is ideal for small businesses because it’s affordable and easy to scale too.

Examples of Effective Small Business Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is ideal for small businesses because it’s affordable and easy to scale too. Some of the digital marketing methods that are ideal for small businesses include SEO, email marketing, and social media. These can all help you to widen your audience and eventually increase your revenues. Not only can you use these methods to find new customers, but you can also use them to build an online community.

Make Your Marketing Budget Go Further

The affordable nature of digital marketing means that it’s ideal for small businesses. You can stretch your marketing budget further when you’re using effective marketing techniques. You can build a strong online presence for your small business on a low budget and bring in more leads.

How Trident Can Help

At Trident, we offer a number of digital marketing services. These include SEO (search engine optimisation, email marketing, social media marketing, and copywriting. We can help you to reach your online marketing goals by boosting your business’s online profile using the best methods to get the job done. We’ll create a digital campaign that promotes your business to the right audience.

Contact Trident

Get in touch with us today to find out more information about what Trident can do for you, and how digital marketing can benefit your business. We are a digital marketing agency Leicester and we want to help you.

Why is Branding Important?

Posted on by Adam Burrage

Targeted Marketing vs Mass Marketing

Posted on by Adam Burrage

Mass Marketing vs Targeted Marketing – What’s the Difference?

The simple explanation to define the difference between targeted and mass marketing is that mass marketing tries to reach as many people as possible, while targeted marketing attempts to reach a specifically defined and profiled audience. Both of these methods can be an effective route to market and can drive leads and sales for a business.

Mass marketing can be more expensive, the message must be stated in the most basic form to have the broadest appeal possible and can the result can become diluted. In the digital age, people expect to be spoken to on a personal level and a blanket mass marketing campaign could prove a costly exercise if not executed properly.

One example of mass marketing could be a direct mail door drop to a local area for a new restaurant opening in the area. They would blanket an entire catchment area and some of those residents would be potential clients for them, simply down to the postcode. Aside from the address, it’s not targeted but it could generate some results for the restaurant.

So how about targeted marketing?

Targeted marketing allows you greater flexibility, and the ability to speak to directly to your target market. This would usually be approached by learning more about your target market, their needs, wants and fears and then tailoring your marketing to speak to them directly.

Targeted marketing can potentially help you save time and money on your marketing and lead generation expenses. Instead of the expense of a high volume, scattered effect that mass marketing can often generate, targeted marketing allows you to clearly define your unique value to your target audience a more personal and effective way. Your strategy and planning must be comprehensive, great design, a clear message & great copy is essential. This means that more time may be required to create and develop very specific targeted campaigns to produce the results you require. If time is an important consideration in encouraging sales, targeted marketing planning may be prohibitive to getting your message out to your audience quickly enough.

Either method can be effective, taking into consideration the comments above, but defining the target market, getting the message right and being consistent will usually produce more consistent results.

Particularly in the digital space, we’d always recommend profiling your audience as much as possible to ensure that the digital marketing strategy, message and website design with your business and your client’s needs. Mass marketing is always an option, but it’s a lot riskier in getting the result right first time.

Coronavirus – Marketing Actions You Can Take Right Now

Posted on by Adam Burrage

As the situation with Coronavirus keeps progressing with every passing day, it’s important you keep a level head. The virus is going to cause a shock to the economy, but businesses should be increasing their marketing activity at this time.

Not all marketing activity needs to be expensive but you should consider using your budget as wisely possible to maximise your returns. Face to face selling is pretty much going to have to stop, so you need to look at ways to ensure that you’re still making sales and trading at this tough time.

Here is a list of things you should be doing in the short and medium-term.

Short Term

 

Content planning – the first thing you do!

Before you start firing off emails and social posts, plan what you are doing. Do not just start with a scatter-gun approach to your communication. It needs to be coherent and support the business needs at this time. Think about your content plans and tailor it to the current climate. Your client’s needs will be different now than they were in January. Work out what you need in terms of sales and revenue, plan that into your calendar and make sure that this happens above all else. If you have fewer meetings to attend, great – use this to ensure that your marketing is done without fail.

Email Marketing

Good email marketing isn’t free, but you should be increasing the frequency of your emails to your clients. Keep them informed on your business plans in the short term and work in your offers from your content plan into your emails. Keep positioning your business as the experts – if the virus is having an effect on your wider industry, let your clients know. They will be thankful for it.

Direct Mail

At the time of writing this (18th March), it looks like the UK will be heading into a lockdown situation and most businesses will be forced to ask their staff to work from home. If you work in a Business to Business (B2B) environment – do not plan a direct mail campaign, your clients will not be in the office and won’t see it! Now, if you work in Business to Consumer (B2C) company – your clients are almost certainly going to be at home, and some might have more time on their hands to actually read what comes through their mailbox, rather than just scrape it off the doormat on their way in to make dinner for their kids. If you can tailor your offers as B2C business to resonate with consumers who are working from home, or looking to save money due to uncertainty then this could be a great opportunity for your business.

Social Media

Face a lack of face to face contact for yourselves and your team, social media communication needs to be increased over the next few months. Use social to communicate what’s happening in your business if there are due to be delays for your customers, but more importantly – use it to market your business. Follow your content calendar and plan communication that ties in with your offers you are sending via email, set the positive agenda for your clients about how you can help them and their needs at this time. If you’re in B2C and find that your customers cannot come to your restaurant or shop – tell them you’re still here for them and will deliver and do it via social media and email.

Not all marketing activity needs to be expensive but you should consider using your budget as wisely possible to maximise your returns.

Medium Term

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) 

If your website is good in terms of usability for your audience then SEO is certainly something to consider now to exploit a medium-term gain when things improve in the economy. If your competitors are cutting back on their SEO budget, now is the time to steal their position in the rankings by spending money on SEO and pushing your own site up the ranking positions. It’s not an overnight fix – this is a minimum of a 3 to 6-month investment to gain when things get good. Don’t look to SEO to gain unless you are planning to stick with it for that time frame, you’ll be wasting your money on something that you could spend better on something else.

Website

If your website is looking tired, and you have been thinking of updating it, consider doing it now. Your competition will be cutting back on spending in all areas and if you can use this 3 month period to spend time on your business to develop your online presence via a new website, it would mean you are in a fantastic position to capitalise when things become good again. Launching with a new site will send a fantastic message that you a strong business to potential clients and it will help to drive leads and sales for you.

Events

We all know this isn’t going to last forever, and once the mist starts to clear and we know when public gatherings will be allowed to happen, events will be an opportunity to get new clients and grow your business. Keep an eye out for events that are on in your industry or other general business events and plan to book them. Event planners will be looking for customers, so there will be some deals to be had.

If You Need Us, We Can Help

We’re here to support our clients and other businesses. If you are planning marketing activity over the next few months, we’d love to hear from you. Let’s plan out your options and work with you to grow your business during this period and into the future.

Contact us or call us on 01455 557766

How to use Instagram to market your business

Posted on by Adam Burrage

In the digital age, it is important to use the most popular platform to advertise your business. Social media is an excellent way to engage with existing and potential customers, aside from relying on optimal website design. With over 600 million users [https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics/], there is no better platform to get your voice heard. Here we explain how to use Instagram to effectively market your business.

Post regular and relevant content

In order to maintain an active Instagram presence, ensure that you post regularly (preferably daily) and use content that is relevant to your business and followers. For example, if you are a clothing company, then post about the latest colour or style trends, celebrities spotted wearing your products and tutorials.

After the content is posted, be sure to engage with your followers. Respond to their comments, as this will make them feel valued as a customer. In turn, this will make them more likely to use your services or buy your products.

Host an Instagram contest

If you’re an avid Instagram user, you’ve probably seen your followers liking and commenting on major accounts in order to win a free stay at a hotel or food hamper from their favourite brand. Hosting your own contest is a reliable way to get your voice heard and it is an easy, free marketing opportunity.

Ensure that entering the contest involves users uploading your details to their story, as a mere like or comment is unlikely to be seen by a wide audience. Instagram stories are typically used to document important events, so it is sure to grab attention.

In order to maintain an active Instagram presence, ensure that you post regularly (preferably daily) and use content that is relevant to your business and followers.

Go beyond the brand

Give your customers a unique insight into what you have to offer. If you are a local clothing brand, why not show your customers a photo or video of the factory where their garments are made, or provide an image of your employees packing their order?

This personal touch sets your brand apart from others and will make your services more memorable.

If you’re looking for the best design agency Leicester has to offer, look no further than Trident. Our graphic design agency can help build social media content that will successfully engage with your clientele, as well as providing SEO services and website design.

Written By Adam Burrage
Managing Partner at Trident

Responding to Different Kinds of Google Review

Posted on by Adam Burrage

These days reviews are incredibly important for businesses as potential customers can gauge how trustworthy their services are. However, what many companies don’t realise is how they respond to reviews, whether positive or negative, is just as important. Here are some tips on how to approach your responses:

Negative reviews

Take a step back: Before rushing into an answer, make sure you’ve really understood what the customer is saying and have had a chance to calm down.

Be public: Don’t privately respond to the negative review, as this will suggest to other customers you’ve just ignored them. By publically responding, you show the world you’re attentive to customers’ needs and willing to help.

Apologise and resolve: Keep this part to the point. A quick apology and proactive solutions will be more useful to anyone reading than a long-winded, empty response. It’s also important to offer the customer a way to contact you to further resolve the issue.

Positive reviews

Personalise: It’s always best to use the customer’s name, as this makes your response seem tailored rather than a copy and pasted template.

Be grateful: Because the review is positive, make sure you thank the poster for their kind words and for taking the time to leave a review. This will encourage other customers to do the same.

Offer value: Make sure you offer the reviewer some new information, whether that’s about a new product that’s just launched or a discount they can make the most of.

Contact us

Get in touch with Trident, the number one digital design agency Leicester businesses rely on, to optimise your online presence. We offer website design services as well as SEO advice. Give us a call to make the most of our website builder and expert advice.

Written By Adam Burrage
Managing Partner at Trident

Marketing, Plastic & the Trash Isles

Posted on by Adam Burrage

Marketing is the key to campaign success. And yes, there are examples of good and bad marketing but the bad can often be related to poor planning or lack of evidence to support a particular route. Sometimes even the big brands get it wrong, just look at Mastercard’s recent blunder for the World Cup.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of supporting acts that help your activity along the way. But the most important parts of the puzzle are; research, planning and strategy to deliver on your objective. These are the integral drivers for success. If your campaign is built on solid foundations then your output and execution becomes more focused.

At it’s best, marketing is the perfect tool for building awareness. Awareness of your brand, a product, competition or a worthy cause in need of mass support. Enter the world plastic crisis.

For so long this global issue is in the “out of sight, out of mind” category until recently when an unlikely source stepped up and produced a well thought-out and executed campaign to raise the awareness to the public in a brilliant way.

Last year, LadBible teamed up with Plastic Oceans to raise awareness amongst the younger generation about the sheer amount of plastic pollution in the ocean. There is so much that has gathered in one location in the Pacific Ocean (off the coast of Hawaii) that it has amassed to the size of France…yes, France. The leading message was clear; there would be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050 if something isn’t done now. Scary.

With the power of the internet, some intelligent & creative thinking as well as the backing from a sharp legal team, LadBible launched a petition for the UN to recognise the plastic pollution as a country or more specifically, Trash Isles. If accepted, Trash Isles will be protected by UN laws and actions will be taken to clear the rubbish supported by all countries under the UN.

More specifically, as a country “All members shall co-operate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem”. Pretty clever hey!
So, they employed Ross Kemp to head up the campaign video which went viral, outlining the issue at hand and explaining how to get involved. Have a look a the campaign video below.

The campaign reached half a billion people, and search volumes on Google for the term ‘plastic pollution’ went up +154% in the nine months after launch versus the nine months before.

LadBible and Plastic Oceans submitted Trash Isles country application to the UN on World Oceans Day in 2017. An apt and well timed tactic.

Now this is a blog hailing the marketing of the campaign, not a plea to rid the ocean of plastic – but I suppose I’m doing my part to raise awareness as well. The campaign teamed up with celebrities and created ambassadors to give the campaign recognisable faces for the public to relate to, but also a sense of confidence that this wasn’t a LadBible spoof. Al Gore, Dame Judy Dench, Sir David Attenborough, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Pharrell Williams, the list goes on, were all involved and become “citizens”.

Research shows that younger audiences tend to be more political online, so that’s where the majority of the awareness activity took place through social media, video and the website. The creativity extended to designing the Trash Isles flag, currency and citizen passports all of which helped to win the Cannes Grand Prix award in the category.

Now of course, this campaign isn’t really about awards, its about awareness but then the awards it has won only furthers the awareness and message, reaching new people and influencing the issue. A perfect storm of positive PR.

The campaign reached half a billion people, and search volumes on Google for the term ‘plastic pollution’ went up +154% in the nine months after launch versus the nine months before.

Now if you’re like me then you love David Attenborough’s Blue Planet and it was his ending piece on his show that was the beginning of my own awareness with the plastic pollution in our oceans. But it also provided brands all across the world with a platform to take the message and develop it.

You may have seen our recent “campaign of the week” looking into the Mexican lager manufacturer, Corona. They transformed images of paradise on roadside billboards in Hawaii (coincidentally this is the nearest point to where the Trash Isles is as well) and sculpted elements of the photography with plastic. A powerful and creative message.

A Hawaiian style shirt was also designed which was made from Parley Ocean Plastic™ collected from the open ocean and weaved marine plastic into the thread of the shirt. A great example of integrating your marketing to create an impactful message and drive awareness of the subject.

Driving awareness for great causes such as charities or the plastic pollution crisis is where marketing, creativity and strategy really shines. These examples just show how a well planned and executed campaign can really deliver, staying focused on the objective.

That attention to detail is really important to campaign success. We like to interrogate all our briefs, not because we want to create more work or to drive project costs but to really identify what the objective we need to achieve is. Sometimes the initial requirements aren’t entirely focused on the real problem businesses want to solve. Through careful planning, research and strategy we can determine the right route in order to get results.

And that’s what we want to deliver, results. We want happy clients so we aim to delight their audience. It underpins our thoughts when we’re working on a project and that’s why we work hard to create memorable campaigns that make a difference for our clients.

Written By Adam Burrage
Managing Partner at Trident

Best World Cup 2018 Marketing Campaigns

Posted on by Adam Burrage

With only 7 Days left to the start of one of the biggest sporting events in the world, we round up what we believe to be the best or most eye catching campaigns by brands, hoping to capture the attention of millions of viewers. Although this feels like the least hyped and least marketed World Cup to date, there have been a few impressive creative campaigns worth watching. Here’s our list of best 2018 World Cup Campaigns:

1. Mastercard – Goals For Meals

Let’s kick off the list with a controversial campaign which received a lot of backlash. Mastercard released their latest campaign ahead of the World Cup looking to do something good and capitalise on the huge captivated audience around the big occasion (although not being an official sponsor, they have to be clever and careful).

Whilst I imagine when the marketing team first came up with this idea, it probably seemed like a generous message, “Let’s give away 10,000 meals for every goal Neymar and Messi score”, but honestly, if they have the funds to do something this generous why did they have to interject such a niche trigger. What if Neymar or Messi get injured? Surely it would have been a better idea to say 1,000 meals for every goal scored at the tournament? Serious own goal.

ITV – Forget

We like this advert. It captures all the sorrow, excitement, expectation, passion and glory (or lack of) that England fans have experienced in the past and will experience in this World Cup with the underlying statement: Forget.

The imagery and production is great. We’re already over excited for the tournament here but this helps us visualise what could be…come on England.

VISA – Zlatan

The aim of these monthly posts is to keep you abreast of all the weird and wonderful news and insights to come out of the world of marketing. Every month, our team will pick our favourite campaigns, brand insights and marketing trends that you can use to enhance your marketing knowledge or even as inspiration to delight your audience.

Visa have partnered with The Ego and one of football’s biggest personalities in Zlatan Ibrahimovic on their campaign as official payment services partners for the tournament.

It’s a great synergy between the two brands which will no doubt get lots of people talking. VISA’s association with a personality who claims that “A Fifa World Cup without me is not worth watching”, is much like how they themselves want to be perceived; an irreplaceable part of the tournaments enjoyment. Watch the video here.

BBC – History Will Be Made

Every World Cup has a host of iconic moments and everyone has their own individual favourite that immediately takes you back to that time and place.

In assuring us that History Will Be Made, the BBC’s 2018 campaign provides a timely reminder of football’s greatest tournament and why we love it.

The video was made using tapestry techniques by creating a dynamic film in which every single frame has been individually embroidered. More than 227,000 metres of thread were used to create over 600 unique frames of tapestry, that if laid end-to-end would measure over 1,200 metres in length.

This advert is a great show of creativity and innovation by BBC’s own in house creatives.

BWIN – Who Stole The Cup?

Here’s an ad we’re not big fans of. The betting company gathered Argentina’s Maradona, Brazil’s Cafu, Spain’s Vicente del Bosque and Germany’s Stefan Effenberg in a glitzy hotel in Moscow to create this heist style advert. The premise of the cinematic video is that at the opening ceremony of the World Cup the trophy has suddenly gone missing, and the viewer is asked to guess which one of the 4 stars of the advert is the culprit.

Although the style and star factor of the advert was enjoyable, the concept doesn’t carry through into the advert leaving us a bit confused on the objective of the advert.

Copa 90 – Snapchat

This is a social media campaign from Copa90, who are a huge Youtube channel who have teamed up with Snapchat to bring daily stories live from the World Cup this summer. The aim of the campaign is to provide a feel of the event for subscribers who couldn’t make it to Russia. Copa90 is scouring its extensive fan base to find Snapchat correspondents to report on their World Cup experience which will run for 45 days. We like this campaign because we believe the brand is using the right platform for their young target audience to provide experiential content that will leave a lasting memory.

Coca Cola – Score Prediction Cans

A list minute entry to the blog! Coca Cola just launched a range of Coke cans which will be number from 0 to 9, allowing viewers of the World Cup to predict the scores of the match they are watching, whilst enjoying an ice cold Coke. We can see this campaign being a big hit, like their “share a coke” campaign a few years back, which featured popular names on the packaging.

Well, that’s the end of our World Cup Campaigns round up! We hope you found it a good read. Which campaign was your favourite?

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Written By Adam Burrage
Managing Partner at Trident

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