Category Archives: NZ

7 Reasons Why Social Media Really Matters for NZ Businesses in 2019

Now that social media is the place where most Kiwis spend a large amount of time online, there is a very real need for New Zealand small and medium-sized businesses — and, in fact, NZ businesses of any size — to learn how to make more effective use of Social Media Marketing to reach existing and prospective customers.

Here are a few of the reasons why NZ businesses need to know more about Social Media Marketing:

1. These days, Social Media is where the people gather

Globally, a third of the world’s population has gone social.

And yes, New Zealand is right up there in terms of Social Media usage, according to Nielsen Online (December 2018), with 3.8 million regular monthly users, 88% of the population (2+).

Colmar Brunton reports that 90% of Kiwis between 18 and 39 now use social media.

And they’re not just occasional visitors, either. The biannual World Internet Project NZ data reveals that two-thirds of us (in this instance, “us” means Kiwi Internet users) visit Social Media networks at least daily.

And yeah, we’ve been known to spend quite a little bit of time pottering on Facebook et al.

2. Social Media is where you can go to join the conversation

In the introduction to his 1999 book “Permission Marketing”, Seth Godin told us:

Whether it is the TV commercial that breaks into our favourite programme or the telemarketing phone call that disrupts a family meal, traditional advertising is based on the hope of snaring our attention away from whatever we are doing.

Seth Godin calls this Interruption Marketing, and, as companies are discovering, it no longer works.

Interruption Marketing has no place in Social Media, either. It’s called “Social” for a reason — it’s all about conversations. Bring your sales pitch to a friendly chat and you’ll quickly get ignored.

Instead, be ready to listen, engage and build relationships with consumers and you’ll finally start to get somewhere.

3. Social Media is where you can hear what people think, for better or for worse

The impact of social media is stronger than ever. Users have a “voice” and can sit back and watch the comments without ever having to reveal their identity, though this has had some negative consequences, as well. A while back, Twitter had to deal with accusations about not being strict enough with their anti-bullying rules and guidelines. Meanwhile, TripAdvisor has been blamed for allowing restaurants to be rated with false reviews, as anyone has the power to “suggest” and give feedback via word of mouse.

Yet, users of digital devices have the power to influence the popularity of products and services, and access information about whatever they want, whenever they want, from other consumers.

Consumers no longer look to brands as the primary source of information – they read forums, blogs or watch tutorials in order to find a product with the perfect fit.

If you provide a lousy product or service, you’ll hear all about it on Social Media. Here, people have a voice — and they’re not afraid to let their friends (and you) know what they think.

On the other hand, if you build a wonderful product, people will happily talk about that as well.

4. Social Media is where you can actually make sales

You can actually sell stuff directly to your followers — but ONLY if you have a real relationship with them and have earned to right to (very occasionally, no more than about 10% of the time) offer them special deals.

5. It’s where consumers find out about new products

According to data quoted by Ad Week:

6. Social Media is where a great many online advertising dollars are going (internationally far more so than in NZ, for now)

Currently, around one-fifth of US digital dollars are ending up in Facebook’s coffers:

And we’re not just talking pocket change, either. In the last three months of 2018, Facebook earned US$16.9 Billion in revenues, up 33 percent from the same three months in 2017, and US$6.9 Billion of that was profit, up 61 percent from the previous year. Not a bad result, given the annus horribilis that Facebook suffered in 2018.

In New Zealand, Digital Advertising has become our most important medium, with more than a billion dollars spent there in 2018.

7. It’s become an essential component in marketing strategies

Social Media now plays a significant role in most marketing strategies, according to the 2019 Buffer State of Social report.

To help meet the needs of Kiwi businesses, especially small- and medium-sized organisations, we offer a number of social media marketing courses.

These are some of our most popular courses (click through for more information):

The Principles & Practice of Social Media Marketing

This is a thirteen-part online training course providing a comprehensive introduction to Social Media Marketing, from the Basics to detailed instructions on how to build and run a Social Media Marketing programme.

For more details of the Social Media Marketing online course, please click here

Facebook Accelerator Programme

So you have a few hundred (or a few thousand) followers on Facebook but now you want to know how to get to the next level? Our Facebook Accelerator seven-part online training course will lead you through the steps necessary to supercharge your Facebook presence and get Kiwi consumers engaging with you and your brands.

For more details of the Facebook Accelerator programme, please click here.

The Complete Facebook Marketing Course

For those who wish to master Facebook Marketing in its entirety, we’ve created a ten-week online training programme which will take you from absolute beginner on Facebook to highly effective Facebook communicator.

For more details of the Complete Facebook Marketing programme, please click here.

Mastering Facebook Advertising

This is a nine-part online training course providing a comprehensive introduction to paid Facebook Advertising.

For more details of the Mastering Facebook Ads online training course, please click here.

Instagram Marketing course

If your target audience is Under 35, Instagram absolutely must be one of your marketing options. This course will give you a solid introduction to this fast-growing social medium.

You’ll find out the details of this Instagram Marketing seven-part online training course by clicking here.

How to Prepare an Effective Social Media Brief

Even if you don’t intend to become directly involved in social media yourself, you may still need to understand the principles, practices and opportunities of social media — for example, if you need to brief someone about running a social media campaign. This online training course is designed to provide you with the insights necessary to prepare an effective brief.

For more details of the How to Prepare an Effective Social Media Brief programme, please click here.

How to Use LinkedIn Effectively – For Your Business And Your Career

This is a seven-part online training course providing a comprehensive introduction to LinkedIn, from the basics to detailed instructions on how to use LinkedIn to promote your organisation, build your personal reputation, find a job, recruit prospective employees and even make sales.

For more details of the How to Use LinkedIn Effectively programme, please click here.

NZ Social Media Statistics 2018

In New Zealand, as elsewhere in the world, social media has become one of the most significant venues where consumers spend their time.

According to 2018 research (Hootsuite/We Are Social), 3.5 million Kiwis are active social media users and they spend an average of 1 hour and 53 minutes on social media networks each day.

That’s breathing down the neck of average daily TV viewing time, which currently stands at two hours and 48 minutes.

If you’re wondering which social networks are currently the most popular in New Zealand, wonder no more. Facebook is the most popular by a country mile, with Instagram winning the hearts and minds of younger audiences.

Check out this roundup of recent statistics (provided courtesy Nielsen Online Ratings) which highlight the performance by age group of the key social media.

FACEBOOK

Facebook continues to dominate, especially with older audiences.

If you’d like to learn more about marketing on Facebook, we offer three different Facebook courses:

The Complete Facebook Marketing course, for those just starting out on Facebook
Our Facebook Accelerator course, for those who are already active on Facebook but want to improve their performance
Our Mastering Facebook Ads course, for those who’ve realised that they now need to pay to advertise on Facebook (and want to find out how to do that as effectively as possible)

INSTAGRAM

Instagram performs well with younger audiences. If your target market is under 35, you really should be actively marketing on Instagram (see our Instagram Marketing course to see how best to go about that).

Instagram is also a favorite tool for Influencers, who have become a significant part of social media marketing activities. We recommend that you check out our Influencer Marketing course if you wish to know more.

Pinterest performs really well with female audiences, especially those interested in lifestyle content such as fashion, home decoration and travel. We don’t currently offer a Pinterest course but we cover the network in detail in our Social Media Marketing course.

TWITTER

After a period of some neglect, Twitter is now regaining some traction out there. Even so, it’s not quite the phenomenon it is in the US and elsewhere. Again, we don’t currently offer a Twitter course but we do cover the network in detail in our Social Media Marketing course.

LinkedIn is of course a social network for business people. Whilst in the past it’s been regarded as primarily a place to post your CV in the hope of finding a job, it’s moved on well beyond that and has become a major networking tool, especially for B2B marketers and sales people. If you aren’t taking full advantage of LinkedIn, you’re really missing out. Take a look at our “How to use LinkedIn Effectively” course to see what you should be doing on LinkedIn.

YOUTUBE

YouTube isn’t actually a social network in the strictest definition of the term, but it does compete with the other social players for both audience and advertising, so we’ve included YouTube data here by way of comparison.

If you’d like to know more about YouTube, you’d find it covered in our Social Media Marketing course. Alternatively, if you’d like to know more about using online video for marketing purposes (including YouTube and the other social media outlets), take a closer look at our Online Video Marketing course.

SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS

The above graphs depict social media at a particular point in time in 2018. But how has the medium been performing over time?

Whilst individual networks have ebbed and flowed in popularity (and Instagram has shown significant growth over the past several years), they’ve always lived under the shadow of Facebook, which has consistently dominated the NZ social media environment for the last nine years (since it took over the crown from Bebo in 2009).

Whilst the demographic makeup of Facebook audiences has evolved over time (in particular, with younger audiences slipping away as their parents joined the social network), Facebook has hovered around the 2.5 million unique visitors per month mark for the last five years.

If you’d like to learn more about Social Media Marketing Trends, past, present and future, check out our special Social Media Marketing Trends 2018 report.

Is Your Organisation Ready for Digital Transformation?

A survey of Australian and New Zealand businesses just released [June 2018] by the Chartered Accountants Association of Australia and New Zealand has found that Technological Change is the #1 trend expected to have the most impact on businesses in the near future.

In coming years, automation, combined with economic and social factors, will cause changes to an estimated 40-60% of all jobs.

More than six out of 10 school children today will end up working in new types of jobs that don’t yet exist, according to CBS News (December 2017).

For some businesses, up to 70% of sales are of products that didn’t exist five years ago.

Those are just some of the reasons why a new book, THE BUSINESS OF CHANGE, by Ricoh New Zealand CEO Mike Pollok, is essential reading for New Zealand organisations facing Digital Transformation.

The book explores the very real digital threats and opportunities facing New Zealand right now and aims to help Kiwi organisations to cope with, and take advantage of, the new realities of business today and tomorrow.

THE BUSINESS OF CHANGE reviews many of the key technologies impacting on NZ businesses from Artificial Intelligence to Robotics, from the Internet of Things to 3D Printing to Connected Vehicles. There are scores of examples and case studies from New Zealand and elsewhere, and the book explores step by step how organisations of any size can reinvent themselves to prepare for digital transformation to avoid getting left behind.

THE CHALLENGE FOR NZ BUSINESSES

Every NZ industry, whatever it may be, is destined for disruption and destruction within the next decade. And, if you don’t do something about that, your organisation just might join the video chains, music stores, bookstores and other vulnerable industries that didn’t react quickly enough.

44 percent of New Zealand’s local business operators already believe* that the nature of their industry will be significantly changed by technology within the next 10 years.

Yet, so far, only 50 percent of NZ businesses have integrated digital strategy into their corporate strategy#. Those who haven’t are placing themselves at significant risk.

So, why aren’t more organisations actively evolving their operations?

Source: Harvard Business Review/Scout RFP 2017

In short, it’s the usual suspects: a lack of expertise, knowledge, resources, vision, time and/or money. Of those, the most damning is the lack of corporate vision. King Canute would be proud.

WHICH INDUSTRIES?

Some industries are more obvious candidates than others, as this recent research indicates:

Source: Competing in 2020, Harvard Business Review Analytic Services Report

SO HOW CAN KIWI BUSINESSES SURVIVE AND THRIVE?

1 Find out your current status
Do your homework. Launch an audit to determine the current status of your business and your industry and establish your organisation’s digital strengths and weaknesses.

2 Determine opportunities and threats
Set up brainstorming sessions with your colleagues to determine the most likely sources of digital disruption for your industry. Involve your customers as well.

3 Establish new objectives
What is your business already trying to achieve, that it would wish to maintain and expand upon in a digital environment?

4 Get support from the top
Without endorsement from top management, you’re unlikely to succeed.

5 Take action
Change is coming. If you’re not ready, you’ll be left behind.

FOR MORE ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, SEE “THE BUSINESS OF CHANGE”:

* MYOB Future of Business report April 2017
# 10th PwC Digital IQ Survey 2017

7 reasons why social media marketing is more important than ever for Kiwi businesses

You’ve probably heard that Facebook has dramatically reduced the organic (unpaid) reach of Facebook pages, so that no matter how many followers you have, only a very small proportion of those will be shown your Facebook posts.

That is true, although it is still possible for many Facebook pages to enjoy remarkable viral success.

For example, the Humane Society of New Zealand‘s Facebook page scored many tens of thousands of engagements thanks to plenty of posts of animals needing TLC and the occasional meme like this:

On a more commercial basis, Wanaka wedding photographer Andy Brown Photography is achieving excellent results in social media, with hundreds of likes for many of the company’s stunning photos:

Even if yours is one of the businesses impacted by Facebook’s actions however, that does not mean that you should abandon social media. Here are 7 reasons why social media is more important than ever for your business:

1 Your customers and prospects are there

It’s more challenging than ever to market to Kiwis. They simply don’t hang out in the usual places anymore. Newspaper circulation continues to dwindle; television viewing remains high but audiences in 2018 are spread across the free-to-air networks, tens of Sky channels and the commercial-free streaming services such as Neon, Lightbox, Amazon Prime and of course Netflix.

They can however be found in large numbers on the social networks:

Facebook has more than 3 million New Zealand members and Nielsen tells us (Nielsen Online Ratings December 2017) that 2.5 million visit that social network in a typical month (a great many of them on at least a daily basis). Average time spent on Facebook per month: 9 hours and 55 minutes.
YouTube takes second place, reaching a unique Kiwi audience of 2.3 million, who average 4 hours and 31 minutes watching videos on the site.
Instagram has 1.1 million Kiwi members, around two thirds of whom are under 35.

Collectively, social network numbers are huge. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to reach out to their audiences, especially with commercial messages; but the least the numbers are there.

2 Your competitors are there

Around the world, 2 million businesses use social media marketing to promote their products and services. No, you shouldn’t just use social media because other businesses do — but if your competitors are active and successful on social media, you owe it to yourself to at least check out your options.

3 Social Media often leads to sales

Studies reveal that 70% of business-to-consumer marketers have acquired customers through social media. And that isn’t just sales that the businesses would have required anyway: according to ignite social media, 41% of people who discovered an item through social media and then went on to purchase it said they’d just happened upon it and hadn’t previously thought of buying it.

4 Social Media drives awareness

According to AdWeek, at least once a month, 83 per cent of survey respondents heard about a brand or product on social media before they heard about it from any other source. And yes, awareness matters: it takes time to make sales and first they have to hear about you.

5 Social Media is an ideal place to engage with your fans

As your business grows, you’ll find it’s impossible to just invite your customers over for drinkies. Even if they really, really, really like you, your customers can’t just drop in to your business and find out what’s new and what’s happening. But they can stop by your establishment on social media and get all the goss — new products, special offers, behind the scenes exclusives.

If you stop thinking of your social media properties as a place to sell to people and think instead of the networks as a way to share stories, interact and engage, then you’ll really start to tap into the potential of social media.

6 Social Media is good for SEO

Search engine algorithms do seem to smile fondly on social media links as a positive signal, to boost the authority of your website and its pages. Sure, we don’t really know how fondly — like the Colonel’s secret herbs and spices, algorithmic factors are a closely held secret. But every little helps, especially if it’s your followers who are socially sharing the links rather than just you.

7 Advertising often costs less in Social Media

Chances are, you will have to pay to boost your posts in social media and ensure that your carefully chosen words, pictures and videos are seen by as many people as possible. But, at least for now, you will probably pay less than if you advertised elsewhere (online or off-line).

If you choose your posts carefully, and primarily promote those posts that are already showing signs of success, you can also benefit by having recipients share your posts (without you paying any more). Why would they do that? Because your promoted posts were (a) relevant; (b) interesting; and (c) worth sharing. So choose carefully — the budget you save may be your own.

Want to learn more about social media marketing and how to maximise its effectiveness? Check out our online training course.

Marketing Insights publication – Download Free

Marketing Insights is a new publication collecting advice and opinion from leading NZ marketing professionals, supplemented by information drawn from elsewhere and interpreted from a Kiwi business perspective.

This is a content marketing project, featuring sponsored contributions covering key topics that will have a continuing impact on NZ marketers, today and tomorrow.

Our content ranges from statistics to creativity, from strategic planning to effective briefing. You’ll note a strong focus on matters digital, an inevitability as online achieves new dominance.

We haven’t abandoned off-line marketing however—our topics also include Trade Shows, Sponsorships and of course timeless marketing principles and practices that are relevant whatever the environment.

SocialMedia.org.nz

Social Media Training Courses