But there’s more! Above pulling together this list for you, you can ensure that by partnering with any of these agencies, we guarantee that you’ll:

• Have access to advanced tools (saving you a boatload of money).
• Be backed by a team of experts with knowledge in media planning, creative development, and campaign execution.
• Have a management agency accountable for delivering measurable results, ensuring no penny is wasted.

Let’s dive in!

The Top 8 Paid Media Agencies in 2025

1. NoGood

Description: NoGood is a results-driven paid media agency with a growth squad of experts, ensuring that you get a team of experts who understand your business and are committed to rapid growth. Built on the belief that connecting the right people and ideas can achieve remarkable outcomes, NoGood operates with a no-fluff, high-impact philosophy, maximizing revenue without wasting a penny.

Leveraging insights from thousands of experiments with successful brands and startups, NoGood refines a bespoke growth playbook for each client. Their adaptable squad model ensures the team remains focused on each business’s unique growth needs. With an 88% retention rate and 65% of clients doubling their revenue within the first six months, NoGood stands out as a top agency committed to delivering exceptional results.

What Clients Are Saying: “The squad feels like a true extension of my own marketing team” – Laura Vestal, Head of Marketing, Invisibly

Office Location: New York City, NY

Year Founded: 2016

Team Size: 50 – 100 employees

Key Services: PPC Experts, Social Advertising Agency, Conversion Rate Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing, Lead Generation, Performance Branding, Marketing Analytics, Email Marketing, Video Marketing, Fractional CMO

Industries Served: SaaS, Healthcare, Fintech, B2B, Consumer, AI

Noteworthy Results:

• SteelSeries: Increased overall net sales in Q3 of 2023 by 35% through paid channels.
• Unspun: Increased revenue YoY by 55%.
• Fratelli Carli: Increase online revenue by 350% with a 6X ROAS.

2. Disruptive Advertising

Description: On a mission to reduce the 76% of ad spend that often goes down the drain, Disruptive Advertising prioritizes the partnership between brand and agency, looking to create a “unique and authentic marketing strategy” based on the equal interest of both parties in the goal(s). Driven by growth and exploration, they aim to deliver exceptional results for whatever the client is after. Communication remains at the heart of Disruptive Advertising’s operations, where unrealistic promises and ego are checked at the door.

What Clients Are Saying: “Disruptive is very transparent. We have seen an increase in lead generation since the beginning of our project. They have always been very upfront with what they can and cannot deliver.” – Erin Tellor-Chronister, MalpracticeBrokers.com

Office Location: Pleasant Grove, UT

Year Founded: 2011

Team Size: 50+ employees

Key Services: Google Ads Management, Social Media Advertising, Amazon Advertising, Facebook Ads Management, Google Shopping, Landing Page Optimization, Search Ads, Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing, Creative Strategies

Industries Served: Insurance, Healthcare, B2B, Legal, Education, Ecommerce, Home Services, Finance

Case Studies: View all case studies.

3. Radd Interactive

Description: Uniquely tech-driven, Radd Interactive deploys RaddBOT to compare data for optimization purposes, which works like a search engine. As a Google Partner with their own Google Team, Radd Interactive can provide a deep dive into problem-solving and reassess strategies that aren’t performing to push out new tactics. Radd also makes it a habit to check in with their clients monthly over the phone for a deep dive into updated data.

What Clients Are Saying: “We had a big problem when we first opened with not having enough customers coming through the door… it was very important that we showed up in search results… Radd Interactive did achieve those business goals for us.” – Speed Circuit“

Office Location: San Diego, CA

Year Founded: 2012

Team Size: 50+ employees

Key Services: Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Strategies, Amazon Advertising, Video Production, Digital Marketing Strategy, Web Development, PPC Management, Display Ads, Social Media Performance, Public Relations

Industries Served: Tech, Healthcare, Finance, Manufacturing

Noteworthy Results:

• Madterra: 220% increase in ad traffic.
• The Honey Pot: 483% increase in new users.

4. Power Digital

Description: Power Digital prioritizes consistency over “one-hit wonders,” opting instead to provide brands with sustainable growth. Serving the B2B and Consumer Marketing industries, Power Digital works to increase brand awareness and digital presence and drive revenue growth. They also use Nova, a program that uses machine learning to help with A/B testing and provides data for the Power Digital team to interpret, and DataQ, a first-party data analysis tool to uncover customer insights.

What Clients Are Saying: “The team was highly communicative, and internal stakeholders were particularly impressed with their collaborative ability and quality of deliverables.” – Sara Routhier, Director of Outreach for a lead generation company.“

Office Location: San Diego, CA

Year Founded: 2012

Team Size: 250+ employees

Key Services: Amazon Advertising, Creative Strategy, Content Strategy, Conversion Rate Optimization, Influencer Marketing Agency, Social Media Campaigns, Social Media Ads, Data-Driven Approach, Paid Media, Digital Marketing Agency

Industries Served: Travel, Foodservice, Haircare, Fashion, Manufacturing, Tech, Fitness

Noteworthy Results:

• Pura Vida: 40.63X ROAS from paid media channels over Black Friday.
• Victrola: PPC campaigns that maximized client revenue.

5. Netpeak

Description: Netpeak’s site clarifies that they exist to win for their clients. Also, as a Google Premier Partner, they specialize in efficient digital marketing. With a growth-forward mindset, their team believes in the five pillars of success to meet their goals – from a base objective to help businesses become more profitable to an overarching desire to reach the world without moving locations. Netpeak pushes for transparency, shown through their unique client dashboard, to maintain relationships between agent and client.

What Clients Are Saying: “We want to express our appreciation to Netpeak, who worked and continue working with our internet project for not only getting positions at the top of search results but also for increasing sales of our product and developing our product.” – Morpher, Software protection service

Office Location: Odessa, Ukraine

Year Founded: 2006

Team Size: 250+ employees

Key Services: Social Media Marketing Agency, PPC Management, Online Visibility, Video Production, Conversion Rate Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, Amazon Advertising, Digital Marketing Company, Video Ads, Social Media Management

Industries Served: Fashion, Photography, Cosmetics, Tech, Communications, Foodservice

Noteworthy Results:

• Ukrposhta: They reached 85% of the audience for certain campaigns & increased the conversion rate by X128.

6. PPC Geeks

Description: PPC Geeks is founded by extremely passionate specialists driven by their values, including communication, honesty, excellence, evolution, and respect. Offering free audits to ensure a good client-agency fit, PPC Geeks act on a results-oriented basis founded on mutual respect between all parties. Emphasizing brand protection, PPC Geeks clarifies that ad spend doesn’t need to be wasted through their services, prioritizing community and sustainability through growth.

What Clients Are Saying: “We have definitely seen massive growth in the sales on our website. PPC Geeks managed to implement advanced campaigns that can enable us to maximize our return on ad spending.” – Abdul Thadha, Managing Director, Books2Door

Office Location: Knutsford, United Kingdom

Year Founded: 2017

Team Size: 2-9 employees

Key Services: Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, Google Shopping, PPC Agency, Social Media Advertising, PPC Management, Digital Marketing Services, Data-Driven Strategies, Strategic Insights, Landing Page Optimization, Digital Marketing Campaigns, Marketing Plans

Industries Served: Architecture, Literature, Security, Cleaning Services, Construction, Wellness

Noteworthy Results:

• Just Go: 921% increase in CTR.
• KLC: YoY conversion rate increase of 105%.

7. Open Moves

Description: Open Moves advocates for adaptation – which, as the oldest digital agency on our list, is necessary to keep them growing in an ever-changing industry. Transparency and a welcoming attitude to change are highly prioritized with Open Moves, both beneficial to seeing effective results. Customization comes with their consultations and remains present in every strategy created for each brand, so it’s no wonder that their average client retention lasts up to nearly four years.

What Clients Are Saying: “Not only has OpenMoves boosted the client’s online presence and brand awareness, but they also provide top-notch support and guidance to help the client make better business decisions. The reliable team’s responsiveness and holistic approach to digital marketing make for a long-term partnership.” – Svetlana Kaplan, Marketing Manager, City College

Office Location: Huntington, NY

Year Founded: 2000

Team Size: 10+ employees

Key Services: Google Ads, Landing Page Optimization, PPC Agency, Amazon Ads, Social Media Advertising, Well-Known Paid Media Agency, Campaign Optimization, Email Marketing, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Conversion Optimization, Campaign Strategies

Industries Served: Arts, Healthcare, Higher Education, Foodservice, Fashion, Tech, Real Estate

Noteworthy Results:

• Vosges Haut-Chocolat: 40% growth in PPC revenue.
• Art College: 200% YoY performance improvement.

8. inBeat

Description: inBeat is a paid media agency that leverages micro-influencers to create top-performing ads. Their services maximize the benefits of working with influencers, focusing on those with 4,000 to 20,000 followers with hyper-engaged audiences. This approach is particularly practical for increasing conversions. With a vast network of micro-influencers across various social media platforms, inBeat connects businesses with the right influencers to drive growth.

What Clients Are Saying: “I have been working with the InBeat Agency team for quite some time now & I can confidently say that I absolutely love working with them!” – Jason F., Influencer

Office Location: Montreal

Year Founded: 2018

Team Size: 51-200 employees

Key Services:Influencer Marketing Agency, Advertising Budgets UGC Marketing, TikTok Marketing, Paid Advertising, Panel Recruitment, Meta Advertising, Snapchat Advertising, Data-Driven Insights, Facebook Ads, Campaign Management

Industries Served: Consumer, D2C, Healthcare

Noteworthy Results:

• Hopper: Hopper needed to scale UGC ads on TikTok to drive down CPAs.
• Hurom: Reducing CPA by 65% by leveraging performance-optimized UGC creatives.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you already have a couple of agencies in mind but don’t know how to pick the right one?

The post 8 Best Paid Media Agencies in 2025 appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

What do Michael Cera, giant tubes of Maybelline mascara, and the U.S. Open have in common? It’s not the setup to a Saturday Night Live punchline – they’re all connected by the use of trends in the digital marketing space. Trends refer to popular subjects, ideas, or posts/videos that live short life cycles online – and they’re actually really great tools to employ for those looking to get their accounts noticed.

What are social trends in business? 

When the shift to social networks began, marketing teams had to reposition themselves to form deeper connections with online communities present in the digital landscape. This meant understanding the language spoken on social media networks, and the style of video content best consumed by their target audiences on each respective platform.

What makes social trends interesting is not the regurgitation of concepts seen somewhere else, but rather the unique take of the content creators behind them in relation to their industry or niche. When used correctly, social media trends showcase the voice of a business in often humorous, nostalgic, or sentimental ways.

Which social media platform is most popular for business?

So, you’ve determined that your brand should go digital. The next question is where, and what kind of content creation to expect. The social media landscape can be tricky to navigate because each platform caters to different audiences (and by extension, audience expectations).

Brands tend to go wrong when they pour their energy into platforms that don’t help them showcase their personalities or products and/or services in the best way possible, which can rub potential customers the wrong way and alienate them before they get a chance to try your brand out.

There are a multitude of social media channels to choose from, so here’s an overview of the top 4 platforms best for brand use to help you choose where your brand will live (and thrive) digitally. 

TikTok

When you think of trends, it’s likely you thought of this platform. TikTok seemingly introduces a fresh half-dozen trends on users’ For You Pages every day, but it’s not as random of an occurrence as it may seem. When important events occur or are en route (looking at you, Reputation T.V.), trends are inspired within seconds. A

nd it makes sense – as of 2024, 60% of TikTok’s users are members of Gen Z. According to a study conducted by Microsoft, the attention spans of this age range are at a mere 8 seconds, making TikTok’s natively short-form video content easy to consume. Gen Z also values authentic content and unorthodox humor, which puts interesting twists on trends within this social platform and allows brands to not take themselves too seriously.

TikTok has recently grown more popular as a go-to search engine for younger generations while also working on positioning itself as the social commerce hub through TikTok Shop.

YouTube

When Google fails, the answer is almost always “YouTube it.” From assembling Ikea furniture to figuring out what that weird blinking light on your car is (and how to stop it), YouTube is a platform that perfectly merges entertainment with educational content. Because it is recognized as such, brands should take a unique approach to their posts there.

Audiences on YouTube are in search of experts in long-form video format, so it’s imperative that brands take on a role of authority and establish their voice as the leader of their respective industries there. In fact, YouTube Shorts are having a moment of popularity — and a great starting point in addition to the landscape-mode long-form content YouTube is known for.  

Instagram

There’s a reason you see more “elevated” brands on Instagram – because Instagram is not interested in chaotic humor and authenticity on the level TikTok is. Of course, there’s room to land a joke or show the behind-the-scenes of your brand, but Instagram appreciates high-level editing, polished shots, and perfection over the blooper reels.

If you ask us, Instagram almost feels like a redirection from existing social media platforms – it’s harder to garner new followings on this platform, but much easier if people are prompted to do so from your other platforms (TikTok, YouTube, X, etc.).  If you’re looking for a place for your content to live on, Instagram is your friend.

Don’t feel limited to repurposing blog posts in static post format – your social media marketing strategy here can be a healthy mix of short-form content via Instagram Reels, photos, and Instagram Stories, giving you a variety of ways to customize user experiences.

X (Twitter)

Similarly to TikTok, X is an incredibly reactive space. Whenever there are current events to react or relate to, you can be sure X is buzzing with responses. This makes it a great outlet for brands to take advantage of trends and really display their personalities while doing so.

Typing out a quick thought is also far less time-consuming than crafting a script, filming a video, and putting it through several rounds of edits, which can be appealing to brands – and to consumers, who don’t always want to put the effort into creating a video reply and would much rather hit retweet or comment. 

What are the social media trends in 2024?

Want to give your target customers the most engaging experience possible? Here are a few social

trend examples and why they work, along with an explanation of each main point: 

1. Mascots

These are personifications of brand logos in life-sized suits. Brands with mascots have the unique advantage of using their mascot to participate in trends instead of getting involved themselves. Because the nature of mascots is relatively silly (think of any sporting event you’ve seen recently), brands that use them generally have a lighter, more fun approach to social media trends.

•  Vikings – even Taylor Swift isn’t impervious to mascot shenanigans! The Vikings team created a staged stunt in response to social media users (and Swifties) making jokes about Blondie being rolled into her gigs disguised as equipment boxes.
• Duolingo, Scrub Daddy, and the Teletubbies – perhaps the collaboration of the century, these much-beloved social media stars held a convention (or rather, an intervention) for mascots, making light of how present they are in the social media strategy of a brand. 

2. Duets/Stitches

One of the highlights of social media networks is that brands can build social media communities through co-creation. These consist of those already loyal to your brand or looking to try it, and they’re willing to do the work for you via user-generated content or by mentioning your brand in their social media posts.

While not a “new” trend, using stitches or duets is a great marketing tool that has stood the test of time. They allow your brand to react or add on to whatever people are saying about you while also creating dialogue with an audience. People enjoy being included in conversations, not getting talked at – so it’s important to show your brand is open to chatting with its viewers! 

• Whole Foods – a cult favorite Whole Foods treat is their Chantilly cake, and when a certain reality show slandered the dessert, fans of the cake were understandably upset. So much so, it caught Whole Foods’ attention, and elicited a response (from the Chantilly cake itself)! 
• Revlon – when a wife found a lip liner from Revlon that didn’t belong to her, she made the story public and garnered attention. Of course, it reached Revlon, who posted a humorous stitch reply claiming the lip liner (and requesting their ski pants back). 

3. Influencer/Celebrity Marketing

Of all the marketing strategies for social media trends, influencer marketing might be the hardest to nail because of creator/brand fit. If the celebrity or influencer is clearly the wrong voice to speak on behalf of or in tandem with a brand, it shows.

It doesn’t matter if you choose to work with micro-influencers or names like Jennifer Coolidge (we’re still upset about there being no “Dirty Pillows” restock in sight) – curating the right people that align perfectly with your brand is the secret to collaborative success with your content strategy. 

• Michael Cera(Ve) – through the use of another popular TikTok influencer (@haleyybaylee) rumors recently spread that Michael Cera might be the founder of the beloved skincare brand, CeraVe, because of name similarity. Well, that and he was caught signing bottles of product in a drugstore and sending out PR boxes with his face on them to other influencers. When the Super Bowl aired the CeraVe ad, it came to the night that Cera was not, in fact, the founder – but part of an elaborate marketing campaign that 100% succeeded! 
• E.L.F. Judge Beauty – this is how you pick a star-studded cast of celebs. Because Gen Z is a primary target audience of E.L.F., they had to choose names recognizable to that demographic, as well as personalities they’d find interesting. Whether it’s relating to social media influencers like Benito Skinner’s antics as the court intern, showcasing pop star Meghan Trainor, or choosing the real Judge Judy to parody herself as Judge Beauty, this campaign caters to everyone’s interests while staying relevant and fast-paced. 

4. Unhinged Marketing

Gen Z are the most active users on social media, so it comes as no surprise that their humor inevitably bleeds into trends. And that humor is… unique. Because each day’s trending short-form video content is different, it allows for brands to tap into a never-ending cycle of inspiration. Smart “unhinged” brands prioritize entertainment over selling to create hyper-personalized content for their audiences, and a smart social media team will put their own spin on the latest trend.

That’s not to say that every brand can get away with creating social media content in this format. However, you might be familiar with the “silence, brand” phenomenon, where companies hop on the wrong platforms and participate in trends that align poorly with their messages – so choose trends at your own risk when planning your social strategy.

• Drumstick – would you believe us if we told you most TikTok users associate Drumstick ice cream with a werewolf? And with cats. And zebras. The list goes on, but you get the gist. Drumstick tapped into a very niche part of TikTok to provide a personalized experience for its viewers that purposefully elicits mixed responses and encourages them to engage with their posts. This makes their audience want to share content put out by their team, pushing the reach for their social media videos further out.
• US Open – though similar in tone to Drumstick, the US Open is put in a unique position to promote athletes and events instead of producing social media ads for tangible products. By combing through trends featured in creators’ personal content, they’re able to spin the trends into part of their digital marketing strategy by merging their brand with things their audience finds funny.

5. CGI

A recent trend that’s growing in popularity is the use of CGI in ads. Social media trends are ephemeral by nature, The role of social media marketers includes creating content to inspire and/or shock, which is exactly what these CGI ads do.

• Maybelline – this use of CGI was incredibly clever because it had just the right amount of realism mixed in with it. This marketing stunt actually seems like a plausible thing to have done in real life, but is just whimsical enough to make you question its reality. This isn’t the only example of giant products we’ve seen either (check out the L’Oreal Car and other examples here), and we see no sign of this trend coming to a halt anytime soon! 
• Spider-Man 2 – to promote the upcoming Spider-Man 2, a bus was seemingly saved by Paris’ friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Except there was no bus, and certainly nothing in need of saving. The rendered event looked so real it caused speculation over its authenticity and was lauded as a masterclass in marketing. 

6. The Latest and Greatest (Trends)

Pop culture, viral songs, and silly pieces of audio are all integral parts of the social media trend cycle. In fact, most of the examples you see here cannot exist and succeed without abiding by them.

These trends include everything from the Mean Girls musical remake to everyone’s favorite “we’re (abc), of course we (xyz)” and even the jazz standard “Somethin Stupid.” When applicable in a way that speaks authentically to a brand, social media managers can spin them into something unique to the company. 

• Urban Tandoor – when Emerald Fennell’s vision for Saltburn was released, it inspired a wave of social media trends, including the (re) popularization of Sophie Ellis-Baxtor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor.” TikTok-famous restaurant Urban Tandoor gained popularity for creating witty parodies to pop culture moments using nothing but staff members and a few costume pieces – and Saltburn gave them the perfect opportunity to continue their work, catering to both the Saltburn curious and the diehard Barry Keoghan fans.
• North Italia – in case social media hasn’t told you, we will: the North Sea is terrifying. But the memes that have come out of the recent online fascination with it are anything but. Most mock the seriousness of the nightmare-inducing life at sea (and creatures found there). With a single nautical-inspired drink, North Italia was able to hop on the trend and make light of it too! 

7. Face of the Company

Mascots aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, and therefore aren’t applicable in every situation. For instance, some brands may not have a silly little logo to create a character with (or in some brands’ cases, a physical product to mascot-ize).

That means leaning on what already exists – actual employees of the company. Using real people as the face of the brand on social media can help drive some of the human nuances home that are sometimes lost with mascot suits and really ensure a unique perspective from each individual. 

• Kev Kennedy – of all the law figures in the world, Kev Kennedy might be the most instantly recognizable (second of course to Duolingo’s Legal Steve). Kev’s wardrobe attracts attention instantly – with brightly colored suits and his signature ring collection, it’s really hard to mistake him for anyone else. Kev’s character is synonymous with the image the firm wants to convey – a company that can take a joke, but also take care of you. 
• Empire State Building – you’d think in a city occupied by millions, it would be hard to pick out individuals. That’s not the case with one of NYC’s most famous historical buildings. A team of 3 Gen Zers act as both social media marketers and tour guides, becoming so recognizable that when one is off-camera for the day, the comments flood with concern for their whereabouts! 

8. Short Form

Though this video format can be seen on most social media platforms, it’s probably the most important – mainly because each of the above trend examples tie into it. TikTok became the blueprint for many platforms (such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts), which included its signature short-form content.

Attention spans are shorter than ever – previously lasting from minutes to seconds. As younger demographics come of age and join social media platforms in droves, the key to brand success on these platforms will be to infuse the above examples with videos no longer than a minute. 

Putting it together

In 2024, social marketing is a crucial element for brands to firmly understand and implement. One of the hardest parts of marketing is ideation, and trends help take some of the guesswork out of putting together a standout idea. The ability to truly understand what trends you can lean into as a brand comes from social listening and keeping your ear to the ground, close to your community in order to join the conversation in a meaningful way.

Not only that, but the virality of these trends helps encourage whatever algorithm you’re working with to push out your content, ensuring more eyes on your products and/or services. Whether you don a mascot suit and dance to Taylor Swift’s latest hit or pour countless hours into a clever CGI ad that makes people’s heads spin is up to you.

Looking for someone to wear the silly mask or fine-tune that trend for your brand? We’re at your service! Contact us today to jumpstart your brand’s social media journey, and check us out on our socials to get a taste of where your brand can go!

The post 8 Key Social Media Trends for Businesses in 2024 appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

If the fintech industry is fully digital, the million-dollar question becomes this: how do you create a marketing strategy for something intangible and inspire consumer trust in catering to their financial well-being? 

Think about your paycheck for a minute. You’ve probably meticulously divided it between rent, utilities, groceries, and more. Now imagine handing your paycheck to a faceless someone on the other side of a screen that you’ll never meet in person. Sounds like a hard “no,” right? Now, think of going down to your local bank and handing that money off to an actual bank teller you’ve known for years. It’s almost relieving in comparison to using a digital financial service. 

Trust is a huge barrier potential customers face when deciding whether or not to utilize fintech services, as money can be an extremely vulnerable subject. This leaves it up to advertising campaigns to win the public’s favour. How? By curating familiarity in an educating and engaging way within your target audience, you can build trust in your brand and become the name that springs to mind when they think of a financial product. Ready to make your brand stand out? Let’s get into it! 

Best Fintech Marketing Campaigns

Whether you’re a payment processing service, involved with cryptocurrency, or part of traditional banks switching to digital, there’s a fintech content marketing strategy for you. Comedy, inspiration, and pop culture are all your friends when spinning the story you’ll present to your audiences to familiarize them with both the fintech sector and your product and/or service.

Not sure how to get started? Here’s a breakdown of our favorite fintech marketing campaigns that are brimming with inspiration! 

1. Binance/Cristiano Ronaldo

When you think of an NFT, a couple of things likely come to mind – weirdly distorted images of animals or monotone men named Chad or Kyle in Patagonia vests, to name a few. Sounds… less than exciting, right? Binance wants to change that. Collaborating with football legend Christiano Ronaldo, they found a way to make NFTs not only relevant but interesting through influencer marketing.

The campaign opens with the words, “We all have a great story to tell,” setting the tone for something inspiring. The image of a luxurious museum crafted from polished marble welcomes Ronaldo into a room of fantastic, awe-inspiring sculptures, where, with a single kick, he transforms the space into a cyber wonderland. By utilizing a well-known symbol of power (Ronaldo himself), Binance was able to sway public opinion on NFTs in a 60-second ad spot. 

2. Wealthsimple/Medusa

It doesn’t matter how old we get; we’ll be the first to admit it: filing your taxes can be nothing short of agony. Finding the pain point that customers faced, Wealthsimple created a genius campaign by marketing the unknown with the familiar – and a sprinkle of comedy. Everyone knows the story of Medusa, and her famous reptilian locks are easily recognizable.

By introducing Medusa as the main character casually listing her dependents, Wealthsimple shows its audience how painless tax season can be. If a mythological character can do it, it shouldn’t be all Greek to you! 

3. Cash App/Kendrick Lamar and Ray Dalio

Investing can be ridiculously difficult, but Kendrick Lamar wants to help you understand. The plain message behind this fantastic ad is that investing isn’t rocket science and that Cash App makes it easy for anyone to invest – regardless of whether you’re opening a local barbershop or if you’re a Wall Street mogul.

The simplicity of this campaign really sells us on the idea as well; a bare white balcony setup with a simple zoom-out sets up the vision well, and the lack of music allows viewers to really focus on what’s being said. Minimalism tells us all we need to know, and whether or not we have Ray Dalio’s experience in investing, we’ll get the gist with Cash App’s fintech app services. 

4. Acorns/Invest Like A Squirrel

Woodland puppets in suits? Something tells us Wes Anderson would love this Acorns campaign. In a buried headquarters for investing, Acorns puts the spotlight on a squirrel that breaks down how investing is a lot like… well, acorns.

If you’re patient enough to put it away for a while, you’ll find a tree grown in its place. Same with investing – and a great way to simplify a somewhat complicated topic for those interested in investing but unsure where to start. The Fantastic Mr. Fox aesthetic of this ad is not only incredibly unique and engaging but also very in tune with the brand name and voice, giving viewers something memorable to hold onto. 

5. Klarna/4 Tiny Cowboys

KLARNA FOUR QUARTER SIZED COWBOYS from Andreas Nilsson on Vimeo.

There’s so much to love about this Klarna campaign. The western theme, the comedy, and most importantly, lots of Maya Rudolph – no really, lots. There’s 4 of her, and that’s just the right amount to showcase exactly what Klarna offers. When faced with an online purchase, each tiny cowboy Maya puts in a payment to complete the whole purchase in installments over time, driving home Klarna’s “buy now, pay later” service.

We’re obsessed with the actual format of the campaign, though – there are plenty of payment installation services available, but this campaign (among others produced by Klarna) stands out, because Klarna is known for their whimsical, eccentric advertising.

This short film-esque campaign is extremely on-brand for them because aside from helping customers buy what they like without paying in full at once, Klarna can also be relied upon to entertain. 

Bringing the Customer to You

Now it’s your turn to attract potential clients to your fintech service. Don’t panic; it’s a lot easier than you might think! Here are a couple of core elements of success to keep in mind when brainstorming digital marketing strategies for your financial solutions.

Entertainment Value

In a world overly saturated with content everywhere – video, static, or otherwise – it’s difficult to show up on people’s screens and more difficult to stay without getting scrolled past. With social media marketing, your brand must pique consumer interest with its ad campaigns to avoid being pushed aside.

The previous examples showcased entertainment value in the forms of puppetry, celebrity appearances, humor, and cinematography, which are all great hooks to draw in attention. When in doubt, think storytelling first, selling second. The educational content (spearheaded by your expert insight within the industry) will fall into place once you establish that! 

Clear Product/Service Offering

Fintech marketing strategies can be tricky to craft because when you whip out terms like “financial technologies,” “financial institution,” or anything in relation to the fintech sector, it can be pretty anxiety-inducing for a person looking to get started on tackling their financial situation when they can’t speak your language.

The examples we shared really excelled in providing clarity around each brand’s services and serve as a reminder to those looking to start their own digital marketing campaigns. Make it crystal clear as to what you offer people (or just hire Kendrick Lamar to do it for you). 

Emotional Connection

A crucial approach to marketing efforts is connecting with your customers. Emotional connection removes the barrier between brand and client and creates the highly sought-after effect of community. When audiences become part of a brand community, that brand benefits enormously from their investment (no pun intended).

Companies can expect to see greater customer loyalty and engagement as their products and/or services become intertwined with their community members’ lives, driving business growth through user-generated content and word of mouth on the customers’ end. The most valuable content resonates deeply with your audience and keeps them close to you. 

Recognizability

Marketing messages mean very little if there’s room to doubt who they’re from. Social platforms are buzzing with fintech businesses fighting to boost their online presence, but a smart marketing team knows the best campaigns are the ones internet users can point out by brand name without the ad having to say it.

When building your marketing plan, it’s important to factor in things like brand mascots and/or characters, colors, and (most importantly) voice. Once these elements are established, your audience will know what to expect from you, making your brand instantly recognizable (like Klarna’s stylistic short films or Acorns’ anthropomorphic squirrel puppets). 

Getting Started 

With a plethora of inspiration for fintech marketing tactics, you’re well equipped to be on your way towards sharing your fintech app, cutting-edge technologies, or other such innovative solutions to people’s day-to-day financial needs. Need a little extra help? Whatever your fintech product is, we’ve got you covered!

Get in touch and start your financial digital marketing journey with our expert team.

The post Top 5 Best Fintech Marketing Campaigns appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

Fans and brands

Who’s your top artist on Spotify? There’s a good chance you follow them on social media, make arrangements to see them in concert (thanks for nothing, Ticketmaster), pre-order their albums, buy merch as soon as it drops, and maybe even invest in a record player to give yourself an excuse to buy vinyls. Their influence might go so far as to dictate your personal aesthetic in your home decor and clothing (forever obsessed over Lana Del Rey core). TL;DR – you’re a fan, and it shows.

Now what if we told you that companies also have superfans that are as dedicated to their brands as Swifties are to Taylor? Brand communities are the true test of a person’s loyalty to a brand. They combine a person’s love for that specific brand and/or product with their daily lives, aesthetics, and decision-making. These experiences are further enhanced by sharing them with fellow brand loyalists – be they at in-person events such as popups, shopping new releases in brick and mortar locations, or online engagement. And they can be instrumental to your brand’s success across a variety of channels.

Planet Community

Think of brand community as a planet with a central pull of gravity (aka, the brand). It’s going to have elements orbiting around it (a huge audience of community members), and the closer those elements are, the more invested they are in the brand. We can break these down into 3 different kinds of community characteristics: contributing, participating, and exploring members. 

Contributors

A strong brand community is a crucial element of success, and strong brands credit their contributing members as the foundation for their success, partially because they act as recruiters for potential customers. Brand communities represent the company’s values, products, and name wherever they go. When asked about the elements they’ve incorporated into their day-to-day lives from the company, these contributing online community members are more than happy to share every detail and recommend their lifestyle – and subsequently the brand – to those curious, providing the brand with ample advertising free of charge.

These members are the ones posting about the brand, crafting user generated and plugging the brand wherever they go, and the most welcome to being immersed in your brand’s complete community experience. We all know that obtaining new customers is exponentially more difficult (and expensive) than retaining existing customers, so the influence of the brand community can help turn those on the fence into returning clients without making a dent in the brand’s pocket. A great example of loyal customers in a successful brand community? Disney adults.

What comes to mind when you think of a “Disney adult”? You’re probably picturing an annual pass holder that sports Mickey merch, has a home decked out with subtle (or not so subtle) nods to films that inspire nostalgia and pets (or children) named after their favorite characters, attending in-person events at the parks. Seems a little excessive, right? Not to them.

They’re part of Disney’s brand community, which means their loyalty and love for the Disney brand extends far beyond just spending time in the parks, spanning even into the world of user generated content where they craft custom content built around the company. Disney is a necessary part of their lifestyle that they’ll go out of their way to incorporate or become participants in content creation whenever possible – and they’ll do it with other Disney fanatics.  

Participators

These community members are not as invested as the contributors, but carry a definite interest in the brand. Participators engage on a far lower level, only enrolling in rewards programs or signing up for push notifications/mailing lists. They have a strong potential to turn into contributors, and will even go so far as to share content from the brand. Participators in these digital communities look up to contributors as both inspiration and as a representation of the brand they’re getting into. 

If Disney adults are the diehard fanatics going every weekend, participators are the people that maybe do Disney twice a year at best. They know of the brand and enjoy its offerings, but aren’t about to obsessively plan every move they make or search for hidden Mickeys in line.

Explorers

Ordinarily the hardest genre of member to reach, brand communities make your company visible to explorers. These members passively follow your brand on social media, might look into your website, and occasionally interact with posts – but that’s the extent of their involvement. At least, it is until brand communities come into play. Explorers get to witness both participators and contributors and decide whether they want to make the leap into full-time brand representatives or if they’d like to ease their way in via participation. Either way, brand communities help bring these potential clients closer to the center of the brand’s gravity, and the closer they get, the more loyal they become. 

Explorers are not at a stage where they can see themselves spending their life savings on blue milk and mouse-shaped ice cream like the contributors, or at a place where they’ll look into amusement park trips once a year. They’re likely only going to plan a Disney outing if there’s some external factor coaxing them along. Maybe their friends are going and they want to be part of the group, or there was a discount code that helped justify them going.

Regardless of where you might fall as a consumer in the orbit of Planet Community, you’ve definitely seen widely popular examples of brand communities everywhere.

Culture and Co.

Brand communities are stronger when their foundation is built upon company culture.  You’ve seen job advertisements with descriptions like “Enthusiastic, fun work environment!” But company culture now must go much deeper than summer fridays and pizza parties. Why is it important to make your company culture part of your community-building strategy? Two reasons: 

Providing proof

Publicly demonstrating the culture goes a lot further than asking people to take your word for it. It gives audiences a glimpse behind the scenes of their favorite brands (because who doesn’t love a good BTS?) and potential new hires a sense of who you are to see if they’d determine if they were a good fit for your company.

Setting expectations

Your office’s behavior shows your audience the blueprint for what they’re getting themselves into (and what their behavior will be like if they choose to enter Planet Community)!

Strong community = Strong community engagement

Company culture is essential to your content marketing strategy and to your community building. Once you’re there, what can you expect to see from your virtual brand community on social media platforms – and how can you help encourage passionate community users to be part of your business strategy? A common theme you’ll find in seamlessly incorporating consumers into your marketing strategies is investing in your communities. 

Emotional relationships

Members of Planet Community invest their time and money in your brand – but perhaps most importantly, their energy. Putting in that much effort on their end results in customers investing so strongly, it becomes part of their social relationships. Social psychology suggests that people must find fulfillment in something – be it a loved one, a job, or even a brand! By providing your online brand communities with a sense of community, you provide your target audience with emotional fulfillment, which can increase customer loyalty. 

By establishing stronger relationships with consumers, you can convert even those orbiting in the Explorer layer into your branded community, making them passionate community users like those in the Contributor sphere.

Community experience maintenance

Having your branded community in place is one thing – maintaining it across each social network is another. There are many ways to drum up customer engagement. Adding upcoming events to your content calendar and promoting them across social network environments can get people excited to join in on the fun. Numerous communities across niches can find events like popups, new store openings, or countdowns to new product/service launches interesting. Make your community feel special by shouting out fan-created products (and using them as ideas for product creation in the future – fan products are a great demonstration of customer feedback!).

Follow popular topics and invest your time researching niches appropriate for your brand to stay up to date before trends boom. Utilize a hashtag tracker to optimize your SEO, and prioritize simple hashtags instead of overly branded ones (which don’t serve smaller brands quite as well anyways). And above all – create ample opportunities for customers to take action across all influential platforms your brand resides in.

Upstanding Community Leaders

So you know the who and the what of brand communities and company culture. Now, what does the application of these concepts look like? Community branding doesn’t have to be tricky to understand. Here are a few successful examples of brands leading the way in the brand community space for you to get inspired by! 

NoGood

We practice what we preach! If you haven’t heard of our office reality series, you’re missing out – we’re one of the most recognizable offices in New York on Instagram! By cultivating an environment where viewers can see our personalities shine, we not only get more eyes on our content but also catch the attention of potential clients and employees who want to work with us because they find us relatable (and hysterical). Check us out on Instagram to see what chaos Sarah and Chris will cause next! 

Shinesty

If you didn’t know this was a brand (let alone an underwear brand), you’d have a hard time determining that from their social media presence – and it’s actually a brilliant strategy. A key element of digital marketing is called “shoppertainment,” or shopping entertainment. Shinesty has this down to a science with their ridiculous how-to series, with tutorial topics ranging from how to text a scammer, buy a town, cheat at hide and seek, and even annoy the CEO.

When you think about it, underwear with cool patterns really isn’t the most exciting, interesting product. This is why posting about literally anything else (while demonstrating company culture) helps solve the problem – entertain first, draw attention to your brand, and sell the boxer briefs later when your audience is invested in you! 

AirBaltic

Turns out airline staff members really are just like us, and need a helping hand every so often (or to use them to figure out directions). Which is part of what makes them stand out in a sea of airline options is their relatability – because try as they might, other companies can’t match the level of authenticity and quality of video execution that AirBaltic reaches. It makes them stick out when you’re looking for a flight. 

Empire State Building

The Three Musketeers have nothing on THE trio behind the Empire State Building’s TikTok account. And they do an incredible job with it. After all, how exciting can a building really be? With their creative lens, the answer is very!

Aside from giving the actual building a personality (which is a close competitor for best brand mascot on TikTok with Duolingo), they’ve cultivated a recognizable set of faces with these three employees to have visitors on the lookout for them in real life when they’re touring there – that’s right, people don’t just go for the Empire State Building anymore, but to see the TikTokers that promote it! 

Lawyer Kevin Kennedy

We don’t know about you, but our interest in law goes as far as Legally Blonde and the rest is as fun as watching paint dry. That is, until Kevin Kennedy’s law firm started going ultra viral on TikTok. From his ultra-blinged out, colorful wardrobe to his heavy southern accent, Kev catches viewers attention with his quick legal tips.

But audiences are often gifted with a peek into the office itself, with the interns making appearances asking their boss ridiculous hypothetical questions or challenging him to recreate the parkour scene from The Office. For legal needs or entertainment purposes, we know “Kev’s got you covered!” 

KARL

This marketing agency stars Gen Z employee Juli, “bossman” boomer Alex, and everyone’s favorite coworker, the office pup Daisy. Videos from KARL mostly center around Alex’s tolerance for his young employee’s antics. Juli’s stunts are all relatable to a Gen Z audience, ranging from phone anxiety over having to call clients, crafting unhinged email signoffs, and pressuring Alex to adopt snail mucin to his skincare regimen.  

Blasting off

With that handful of standout community examples, a content marketing strategy to generate engagement, and a passport to Planet Community in hand, you’re ready to start crafting high-quality content to push out across social networking platforms to reach your new brand communities.

Feel like you need a little help? That’s what we do best – contact us to help jumpstart your community strategy today! 

The post A Guide to Using Company Culture Content to Grow Brand Communities appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

Believe it or not, the gladiators of Rome had something in common with the British royal family – both would be considered influencers of their time! Influencers are figures that others look towards to aid with their decision-making, and both queens and Romans alike fill that role. Ancient gladiators were known to promote things like articles of clothing, oil, wine, and weapons, causing their admirers to purchase from the makers of the products they associated with their champions. Fast forward a few centuries to now, where people believe Essie’s “Ballet Slippers” nail polish is the picture of elegance – because of its association with Queen Elizabeth’s manicure color of choice.

You won’t find influencers just in history textbooks or Buckingham Palace – they’re actually all around you, and due to the transition from traditional to digital marketing, you’ll mostly see them on major social media platforms. Their online presence has become so valuable that influencer campaign programs have become part of brands’ marketing strategies. So why should you be part of it, and how can you find relevant influencers to help meet your campaign goal on social platforms (and establish long-term relationships to continue your partnerships)?

The different types of influencers

First, know the numbers – there are 4 types of potential influencers to consider when searching for partners to add to your content creation plan.

• Nano. With 100-10,000 followers, these people are your “everyday users.” Their pages may look a little more like yours and mine because, as smaller-scale influencers, they’re afforded the luxury of posting “normal” content, like photos of friends and family. What nano influencers lack in numbers, they can make up in loyalty. Those investing their time in watching nano influencers’ journeys will be open to hearing what they have to say – about themselves or your brand. These influencers are also financially desirable for brands to work with, as they are more likely to charge less for content made and/or accept your service or product as payment over monetary compensation.
• Micro. These creators have between 10,000-100,000 followers. Still leaning slightly towards the “organic” vibe the nano influencers display, micro-influencers know their audience well based on what took them from nano to micro and are more careful about the content they put out. Their rates will be a bit higher than their nano counterparts but are still one of the budget-friendly options for brands looking to get content made for less.
• Macro. Users with 100,000+ followers take their brand seriously. They’ve played the experimentation game the micro-influencers strive to surpass and have since perfected their craft to churn out content they know will resonate with their audience. Macro influencers know their worth and make it known to brands, too – their services are priced to reflect their success. However, they’re also more susceptible to accepting affiliate link marketing deals because their staggering followings make it easier to earn commissions.
• Mega. The lucky few with 1,000,000+ followers fall under the mega influencer category. These can include internet personalities experiencing skyrocketing popularity and celebrity influencers who rely on and ride on their past successes to draw in crowds effortlessly. Mentions from influencers like these often hold a lot of weight because of their status – this also means it’s harder to get a hold of these creators to collaborate (and with millions of followers watching, their rates don’t go cheap).

Whichever you choose, be sure both you and your influencers are focused on the quality of content instead of getting hung up on quantity elements like followers or engagement. Social media is an ever-evolving space, and the best way to see success is through constant experimentation with quality content.

Why use influencer marketing?

The million-dollar question remains: Is influencer marketing really effective? There are certainly benefits to utilizing influencer marketing platforms – from drawing in a larger audience to boosting your return on investment. Here is what you can expect to receive from incorporating influencers in your marketing strategy.

• Overall excitement. Social media influencers have a following for a reason – they provide users with entertainment through their unique perspectives and enticing storytelling, which gives logging into social media each day a sense of anticipation for the latest drops from favored creators. When brands employ influencer marketing strategies, they become part of that excitement – helping to build towards your product launches.
• Brand credibility. People trust influencers to, well, influence their lives. They’ve made a name for themselves by proving their expertise in niche fields (such as makeup influencers testing new launches from beauty brands) or by establishing an honest, authentic dialogue with their fans that makes their opinions highly sought after. Whatever the case may be, they carry credibility – so your product and brand making a guest appearance on their page (and vice versa) links you to that credibility.
• Audience expansion. See that influencer with a million followers? All those eyes can be on your brand with a single collaboration. Whether users see their favorite influencer pop up on your page or your brand garnering praise on theirs, it’s a simple way to transfer some of their fans to you and turn them into loyal customers.
• Better business. We know you’re looking to bolster your key performance indicators, so here are the numbers. The influencer industry reportedly hit $15.4 billion last year, so it’s no surprise the stats that follow are sky-high. The average ROI on influencer marketing is debatable, but most will say you can expect 11 times (yes, 11!) more return on your investment through such collaborations. Engagement rates can flourish under the creative freedom of successful influencers as posts reach virality through shares, likes, saves, and comment conversation. Your business goals can be achieved through social media content built through influencer relationships!

Choosing the right influencer for your brand

It’ll also serve you well to know the tenets of this industry, so take some time to become acquainted with the 3 R’s of influencer marketing.

• Relevance. The right type of influencer is necessary to reach your desired niche audiences. If your brand is known for selling beef jerky, it would be a poor move on your end to reach out to a known vegan creator – their audience is vastly different from the one you want to tap into, and the influencer’s regular content would not align with your product. You’re looking for someone with a love for things related to your product and appeals to carnivores – so that influencer social media users have dubbed “king of the grill” shows promise. Just because they’re an influencer doesn’t guarantee success. They have to speak to the audience personas that your brand caters to make your marketing tactic land.
• Reach. This tenant of influencer marketing sounds like it deals only with extremely popular creators with a staggering following count. That isn’t necessarily the case! Revisiting the 4 types of influencers shows us that it’s not the quantity of followers a creator has but rather the quality. People rely on the social proof influencers provide, and if they are loyal to that creator, they can be valuable additions to your brand. The idea is that your relationships with influencers draw in their followers, which in turn can be converted into customers for your product or service.
• Resonance. This relates to the engagement a creator generates with users in relation to your brand. One of the easiest ways for influencer content to fail is if the creator chosen fails to resonate with the audience. This can come in the form of appearing out of touch, disinterested, or inauthentic. Viewers are extremely picky about the content they choose to invest time (and potentially money) in and refuse to share the time of day with anything that doesn’t hit home with them. Give your audience the credit they deserve and curate people in your influencer strategy that will connect best with them.

Content inspiration lookbook

What should your influencers be posting? There’s a variety of great content that marketers request from their influencers across many different industries and social media platforms that work well. Here are a few of the classics to get the ball rolling!

• Unboxings. There’s nothing more exciting than the unknown – giving each unboxing video the potential to look and feel like Christmas Day. Your influencers can show their anticipation and wonder upon receiving packages from your brand, and excitedly share their initial opinions. Unboxings remain a popular video format for user-generated content, and can work exceptionally well for unknown brands or for brands looking to up their social media marketing during new releases.
• Reviews and testimonials. This style of video is great not only for showcasing good reviews for your product but to drop discount codes. After seeing the positive response to the product, viewers are already incentivized to make a purchase. Seal the deal by having your influencers share a promo code to make it simply irresistible. A warning in advance, though – if the reviews or testimonials do not come across as genuine, your audience will sniff it out. Don’t risk cancellation for your influencer (like that of TikTok’s “mascara-gate”) or your brand, and ensure all feedback from listed creators is authentic.
• Demos. Sometimes, the best way to get people to read the FAQ page is to just show them. Influencers can demonstrate the use of a product (which works really well for complicated products with multiple applications or parts) to take the guesswork out of the product. If they can do it, so can your customers!
• Lifestyle application. There’s no better way to sell your product than by showing your customers how they can incorporate it into their day-to-day lives! Have your influencers pull outfits for a cool #ootd featuring your product, or show their “get ready with me’s” and daily activities, framing your brand as the central focal point.
• Creative application. Let your influencers’ imaginations run wild if it aligns with your marketing goals! These can come in the form of ASMR, pop culture references, comedic skits, or collaboration with multiple influencers.

Examples of successful Influencer Marketing Strategies

You get the concept, but it’s easier to see it in practice. Here are three standout examples of influencer marketing to draw inspiration from.

1. Parade x Micro-Influencers

Parade should be considered a leader in micro-influencer marketing because they were among the first noticeable brands to fully embrace it with a campaign in 2019 DMing 6,000 Instagram users offers of free gifts in exchange for posts about their product. Not many of these Instagrammers had amassed enormous followings, but they served a specific purpose in Parade’s marketing strategy nonetheless. The lingerie industry seems overly saturated with supermodels and other recognizable faces, which is what makes Parade different – their products grace the pages and bodies of “regular people,” making Parade a realistic, attainable, and relatable brand for fellow “regular people” to shop with.

2. starface x Pink Pantheress

If you haven’t seen starface’s newest partner, you’ve definitely heard her hit song, “Boy’s a Liar” floating around on social media (if you haven’t… we highly recommend checking it out). Artist Pink Pantheress (Vicky Beverly Walker) is the face of the green hydrocolloid pimple patch release from starface, and she’s the perfect example of a brand that did its research to select the best voice to represent them. Walker’s aesthetic as a singer blends seamlessly with starface’s product – but most importantly, her fanbase is mostly comprised of Gen Z. This demographic is known for ditching filters and embracing flaws, zits included. Because starface as a brand encourages self-love and celebration, its target audience is one and the same as Walker’s, making this collaboration a match made in heaven. When paired with the right person, influencer marketing strategies can really benefit both parties’ images and expand their reach to the right people.

3. Oaktcha x Paul Reactss

Perfume connoisseur Paul Reactss made a name for himself by building an impressive collection of fragrances and taking suggestions and questions from his viewership to recommend scent profiles, find dupes for luxury items, and review new launches. So when Oaktcha (a popular perfume company known for recreating high-end fragrances for a fraction of the price) reached out to collaborate, the scent Miss Girl was born (a tribute to one of Paul’s catchphrases). The response was immense, and the limited edition fragrance went viral – not because of the notes of sour black cherry and caramel, but because of the perfume influencer’s signature gracing the bottle creating a sense of reliability that resonated with Oaktcha’s audience.

Steps to start building your influencer marketing strategy

Now that you’re well-versed and convinced influencer marketing is a good fit for you, it’s time to set an influencer marketing budget and find social influencers. Not sure where to start? Here are a few strategies to explore to begin your influencer marketing campaign.

1. Marketing budget & goals. The inaugural step in crafting your influencer marketing strategy is to clearly outline your marketing objectives and allocate a suitable budget for your campaign. Defining your goals and setting an annual budget is crucial to maintaining consistency and coherence throughout your influencer marketing efforts. Some of the key objectives to consider encompass:
   • Amplifying brand awareness and fortifying brand identity.
   • Augmenting your brand’s social media following.
   • Garnering increased shares, comments, and likes on your content.
   • Enhancing your marketing funnel or sales pipeline through promotional activities or enticing lead magnets.
   • Facilitating a surge in consumer purchases.
   • Elevating your search engine optimization prowess by securing valuable backlinks.
   As you delve into budgeting, it’s essential to anticipate the expenditure associated with collaborating with influencers. The cost is typically contingent on their follower count and the number of sponsored posts you intend to commission.
2. Selecting the campaign approach: Once you’ve established your marketing goals and budget, the next step in developing your influencer marketing strategy involves choosing the most suitable type of campaign. The approach you select should align with your objectives and cater to the preferences of your target audience. There are various options to consider, including:
   • Guest posting: Collaborating with influencers to create informative and engaging guest posts that showcase your brand’s expertise and offer value to their audience.
   • Sponsored content: Partnering with influencers to create content that promotes your products or services, seamlessly integrated into their regular content.
   • Mentions: Requesting influencers to mention your brand or products in their social media posts or other content.
   • Contests or giveaways: Running contests or giveaways in partnership with influencers, encouraging their audience to participate and engage with your brand.
   • Takeovers: Allowing influencers to take control of your social media accounts for a specific period, offering their unique perspective and content style.
   • Affiliates: Setting up affiliate marketing partnerships where influencers earn commissions for driving sales to your products or services through their unique affiliate links.
   • Discount Codes: Providing influencers with exclusive discount codes for their followers, motivating them to make purchases on your platform.
   The key to success in this step is aligning your chosen campaign approach with your brand’s messaging and values. Your influencer campaigns should not only inspire your target audience to engage with your content but also be appealing enough to entice influencers to collaborate with your brand. By selecting the right campaign type and crafting compelling messaging, you can create mutually beneficial partnerships with influencers that drive results.
3. Craft engaging content for your campaign: After selecting your campaign type and medium, the next critical step is to develop captivating content that resonates with your target audience. Regardless of the campaign’s appeal or the product’s alignment with the market, your messaging and content play a pivotal role in captivating consumers and maintaining their interest. Here’s how to create compelling content for your influencer marketing campaign:
   • Understand your audience: Before crafting content, it’s imperative to have a profound understanding of your target audience and their preferences. Your messaging should align seamlessly with their interests and values.
   • Align with the influencer’s audience: Tailor your content to harmonize with the influencer’s audience. The more your messaging syncs with their followers, the easier it becomes for the influencer to seamlessly incorporate your brand into their content.
   • Strategic content creation: Create content that not only promotes your product or service but also offers value, entertainment, or a solution to the audience. The content should resonate with the influencer’s style and the chosen campaign type.
   • Visual appeal: Visual content such as images and videos often outperform text-based content in influencer marketing. Ensure that your visuals are attention-grabbing and professionally produced.
   • Narrative storytelling: Weave a compelling narrative around your brand or product to engage the audience emotionally. Storytelling can make your content more relatable and memorable.
   • Incorporate influencer’s voice: Encourage influencers to have creative input in the content creation process. Their authenticity and personal touch can make the content more genuine and relatable to their followers.
   • Clear Call to Action (CTA): Clearly define what you want the audience to do after consuming the content. Whether it’s to visit your website, sign up for a newsletter, or make a purchase, a CTA guides the audience’s next steps.
   • Review and feedback: Collaborate closely with the influencer during content creation. Provide feedback and revisions to ensure that the content aligns with your brand’s messaging and meets your campaign objectives.
   • Compliance and transparency: Ensure that the content complies with advertising guidelines and is transparent about the influencer-brand partnership.
4. Start the outreach process: Cold emails or DMs are a classic and sometimes effective strategy. Reaching out to influencers via direct message or email is an easy way to get in touch. These are a little risky because there is a possibility of getting ghosted or left on read, but sometimes, the most efficient path is the most direct.
5. Social media stunts: Feeling creative? Show influencers what you can offer them by creating a social media campaign centered around hiring them! Competitions, challenges, and other activities are great ways to get influencers to engage – or to have their followers persuade them to.
6. Influencer programs: Have your potential collaborators apply directly to you! An influencer program allows creators to submit their interests and qualifications to your brand directly, where you can sift through applications and decide for yourself.
7. Monitor and enhance your strategy: Continual assessment and refinement of your influencer marketing strategy is pivotal to its long-term success. Tracking campaign performance enables you to make informed decisions regarding ongoing collaborations with influencers and adapt your strategy for better outcomes. Here’s a breakdown of this crucial step:
   • Evaluate goal achievement: The initial step in assessing your campaign’s effectiveness is to ascertain whether it successfully reached your predefined objectives. Key performance indicators (KPIs) provide valuable insights in this regard.
   • Measure key performance indicators (KPIs): Use the following KPIs to gauge the success of your influencer marketing campaigns:
     • Brand awareness: Assess website traffic, the volume of social media or PR mentions, and the quality of backlinks generated by your campaign. These indicators help you gauge the reach and impact on brand visibility.
     • Audience building: Track growth in social media followers and the number of opt-ins or sign-ups resulting from your influencer collaborations. These metrics reflect the campaign’s ability to expand your audience.
     • Engagement: Analyze the level of engagement garnered by your content, including the number of likes, comments, and shares. High engagement signifies that the content resonates with the audience.
     • Sales and ROI: Examine the campaign’s impact on lead generation, new sales, and overall return on investment (ROI). Determine the direct impact on your bottom line.
   • Data analysis for optimization: Collect and scrutinize data from each campaign to identify what strategies were effective and what aspects need improvement. For instance, you can analyze whether a video reel generated more engagement than a traditional story post or evaluate the conversion rate on a dedicated landing page featuring a promo code.
   • Comprehensive variable tracking: Ensure you monitor all pertinent variables of your campaign. This encompasses influencer performance, content types, posting schedules, and promotional methods. By comprehensively tracking these elements, you gain insights into how to drive superior results in future influencer marketing campaigns.
8. Influencer marketing agencies: If influencer programs sound a little daunting to orchestrate, don’t worry – there’s an easier alternative! Influencer marketing agencies are a one-stop shop providing you with all the influencer marketing tools you could need. Have campaigns designed just for you, find creators that align with your vision, and have your content rolled out by the agency in a timely manner without having to lift a finger. The best part? We’ll do it for you through our Creator Network, which sources interested individuals with a variety of offerings, followers, and interests. Applicants are thoroughly vetted by our expert team, and the list of influencers gets matched with clients we believe will make excellent partners – you get all the benefits of being part of the influencer marketing industry with zero stress!

Let us jumpstart your influencer marketing strategy. 

The post Key Strategies to Develop Your Influencer Marketing Strategy appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

1. Short-form learning content

Gloria Mark, Ph.D., found that a human’s attention span held for around 2 ½ minutes, decreasing over the years to 47 seconds today. So how are you meant to address your audience if you only get about 50 seconds of their time at best? Lucky for you, TikTok is considered a leader in short-form video platforms and encourages users to create content that falls between the 15-second to the 3-minute mark. Keeping your content bite-sized helps your viewership stay focused and better engage with your content.

Condensing videos prove particularly effective if your brand leans more towards educating your followers on your product or service, so give short-form learning content a go instead of trying to cram information into a massive video.

2. Community

Your online presence means virtually nothing if you aren’t connecting with people there. And it means even less if you haven’t identified your key audience, who will make up your community. These people will not only become your customers but avid supporters and ambassadors, recommending you highly to others with similar interests.

Seek these users out and research who they are (highlighting key demographics), what they want, and how you can be the best provider of that desire. They’ll always have your back, knowing that you’ve got theirs.

3. Rise of UGC

UGC stands for user-generated content, and it means exactly what you think it does. UGC is one of the most valuable tools in a brand’s TikTok presence because it presents viewers with social proof – aka, evidence that a product or service is effective, as demonstrated by other users on the app. User-generated content can come in the form of reviews or testimonials, responses to challenges, responses to viral trends, etc. – and can be prompted (such as rising to the challenge issued by your brand) or unprompted (honest opinions from a review).

UGC also falls under your influencer marketing strategy – your brand can purchase the services of UGC creators, as the opinions of micro-influencers are still extremely valid to users (and more cost-effective for you than traditional influencers). However UGC manifests itself, it’s always a green flag for your viewership to see.

4. Challenges

Want to invite your community to take action (at little to no cost to you)? Issue a challenge! People love an excuse to get creative, so mobilize your audience in a way that benefits your brand, contributes to their entertainment, and piques interest in your offerings. TikTok offers two methods we like in particular to activate your audience.

Branded hashtags

TikTok found that the creation and utilization of unique branded hashtags (such as Simmons’ #Snoozzzapalooza) resulted in a 17.5% median engagement rate in comparison to other platforms. In the case of #Snoozzzapalooza, Simmons saw 1.1 million TikTokers take their branded hashtag and turn it into one of the hottest trends.

Branded effects

People might hesitate to join in on hashtag challenges because they could require props or settings not available to them, or they feel intimidated by the intricacy of creating fresh content for the hashtag challenge. Branded effect challenges can help curb that anxiety – because the effects you create provide users with everything they need to participate. Whether it’s face/hair altering, a karaoke setup, or a quiz, branded effects can help coax out those on the fence about participating.

5. Relatability

Instagram used to serve as the blueprint for social media. Social media influencers thrived in that carefully curated, decorated environment and never stepped out of line to show anything less than perfection. But on TikTok, lavish influencer lives are out, and organic, authentic creators are in.

Why? Users want to see actual people sharing their real problems and finding solutions to them. Positioning yourself and your brand as something attainable and not taking yourself too seriously reads infinitely better on TikTok!

6. Subculture TikTok

Books and social media are not two concepts generally tied together – but the hashtag #BookTok has garnered over 164.7 billion (yes, with a “B”) views and counting. This goes to prove the power of subcultures on TikTok. Brands might be fearful of not finding a niche to cater to on this platform, but there’s really no need to be apprehensive.

With over 1.1 billion users on the platform, there’s bound to be a wide variety of viewers with similar interests to your industry, product, or service, and brand. And according to TikTok itself, it’s a platform that encourages self-expression, bringing like-minded people together into tightly-knit communities that share a love for the same things.

So if you’re an athleisure brand, try speaking to #FitTok. If you’re a children’s brand, target those in #MomsOfTikTok. Do some digging and find the subculture most likely to accept your product or service and recommend it to people within the community.

7. Trust

One surefire way to get “canceled” on TikTok is to give your audience reason to doubt you. Anything from failing to follow through with giveaways or responses to making larger-than-life claims can be your downfall, as TikTok users are quick to sniff out insincerity – and quicker to expose it. Since cancel culture isn’t going anywhere soon, ensure you stay out of its clutches by making your brand voice responsive and positive and your content authentic.

8. Joy

Let’s revisit the Simmons #Snoozzzapalooza example, which went into effect during the mandated lockdown portion of the pandemic. The reason the branded hashtag served a dual purpose – to benefit the brand and to lighten the hearts of users on the app missing social events (such as music festivals like Lollapalooza, where the hashtag’s parody name is derived from).

And what results did it yield? Over 1.1 million videos. People on this particular social media app enjoy content that sparks and spreads joy, making it crucial to sprinkle elements of positivity into your content strategy.

9. SEO

@nogood.io Tik Tok is very much a search platform, learn how to have your videos rank with some Tik Tok SEO tips from our founder and CEO Mostafa’s panel T this years SXSW. #search #seo #keywords #ranking #tiktoktips #socialmediatips #tiktokseo ♬ Natural Emotions – Muspace Lofi

One of the favorite buzzwords of any social media manager, search engine optimization is a very effective way to be smart about pushing your content front and center for the algorithm. And it’s becoming more important than ever as Gen Z’s search capabilities prioritize social search as their primary source of discovering information.

Every keyword, text overlay, and hashtag enhances your chance of getting found, as well as user interaction with your videos (likes, shares, saves, the whole nine yards) – so choose wisely when editing and captioning content.

10. Value-driven

A very important question your brand should always be asking before creating or posting anything is: “Will this be considered valuable?” Filler content has no place on TikTok – everything must be intentional and well-developed to land effectively. Think about who this video could help or entertain, what concerns it addresses, how it could be found relatable (and shareable), why users might comment, etc. – because if an answer cannot be found, it’s best to let that piece of content live in your drafts.

11. Skits

We cannot stress this enough – if your content isn’t entertaining in some way, shape, or form, then no one is watching it. Time and again, TikTok has branded itself not so much as a social media app but as an entertainment platform. That’s why skits work so well there – they’re in a story format with a clear set of characters (antagonists and protagonists), an objective, and an obstacle.

And when you think about it, it makes sense why this proves more popular than “traditional” ads – if you were a toothpaste company, for example, a skit placing your brand in a funny situation about a horrible cavity villain vanquished by the top-selling toothpaste is a lot more captivating than “9 out of 10 doctors recommend,” right?

12. Timeliness

Popular trends take many shapes and forms, can often take mere seconds to produce and edit, and have a high chance of performing extremely well. Here are 5 TikTok trends to consider the next time you see viral videos you want to leverage for your brand.

Music

Viral music is extremely tricky to predict, with tens of thousands of hopeful artists trying to achieve “the song of the summer.” But viral tunes don’t always have to originate from a recent release – see the resurgence of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” thanks to Stranger Things mania and Meghan Trainor songs from early in her career refreshing her relevance.

Original clips

A lot of your favorite viral trends can be drawn back to a single original video with a witty remark or unique conversation, and sometimes the audio clip can be more popular than the original video itself. These sound bites aren’t usually long and can be quickly applied in the context of your product or service.

Dance

From the “Renegade” to “Berries and Cream” – and at present, the disco number from Barbie – creators love showing off their dance moves. There’s also a major demand for learning and teaching trending choreography as well to ensure that anyone who wishes to participate can learn and hop on the dance floor with the rest of the community. An added plus to participating in dance challenges? They often go hand in hand with viral sounds and music, adding your videos to those under that audio trend and making it more likely you’ll reach potential customers!

Situation

Almost the opposite of an audio trend, a situational trend video gives a format in which something relatable can be customized for wider use of the trend. For example, the “beige flag” trend has creators sharing things they do that would be considered strange at first or give others pause, but wouldn’t necessarily break a friendship or relationship. Individual creators can put their unique spin on this concept and create “beige flags” for their niches or subculture communities.

Templates

You’ve definitely logged in to TikTok to see 500 videos of Taylor Swift turning around in surprise at the Eras Tour with different text overlays to provide unique context. Believe it or not, Taylor Swift’s facial expressions are part of a CapCut template – another massive trend that’s a piece of cake for brands to add to their arsenal.

Simply find a CapCut template that’s trending and apply it to the context of your brand, product or service, or company culture – the options truly are endless, and they take less than 5 minutes to produce!

Key takeaways

TikTok can be a wonderful asset to your business when utilized correctly. Optimize your social media presence there by gauging which of these trends align best with your brand voice and experimenting with them – or get in touch with us, and we’ll handle it for you!

The post Top 2024 TikTok Trends to Watch appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.