The web and social media allow us to:

The planning of a successful digital marketing strategy follows well-defined phases:

1) Analysis

2) Definition of the Strategy

3) Creation of an operational plan

4) Measurement

5) Performance improvement thanks to the collected data

The basis of any strategy is to formulate five questions (the 5 "Ws"):

Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing are marketing activities.

Digital Marketing therefore follows the 4p, as well as any other Marketing Strategy: 

• Product
• Price
• Promotion (communication)
• Place (Distribution)

The "4p" have recently been supplemented / replaced by the "4c":

• Customer solution
• Cost
• Communication
• Convenience

These integrations shift the focus from the company (from those who propose the Marketing Strategy) to customer.

Social Media platforms are all characterized by simplicity: For example, we are all able to create a Facebook page.

The Analysis Phase allows us to understand where we are as a Brand or Company.

Now we can define the new Digital Marketing Strategies:

That is, to create an operational plan, a real document that is structured generally as a time schedule, indicating:

Measurement: this is a primary phase that occurs during the implementation of each Digital Marketing Strategy.

Generally, the following units are measured: the number of contacts and interactions with the advertisement, how many new customers have been acquired, what is the level of engagement.

All this data tells us what worked with our Digital Marketing Plan and what can be improved.

By measuring and understanding the data it will be possible to replicate successful initiatives, avoiding to repeat those that are not effective.

THE 5W + HOW METHOD: THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

For an effective Digital Marketing Strategy ...

Why: what objectives do we want to achieve: as already said, Digital Marketing is a “real” Marketing tool: every strategy must achieve business goals. So first of all you need to have clear business objectives (what does the company want to achieve?)

Goals must be realistic (if we have a small family business that produces furniture we cannot expect to reach Ikea’s sales volume).

And they must be measurable (next to each goal we have to be able to write a number that can measure it).

It is therefore necessary to consider the    long, medium and short term horizons

In fact, well-structured companies have  multi-year development plans, while less  structured ones have annual or half-yearly development plans.

In any case, in Digital Marketing it is necessary to predict long-term goals and intermediate goals.

Who: that is the people. Who are our products for?

We must therefore think about People. For example:

An English Language School caters to two categoriesof people: students who wish to improve their English and adults who need it for professional reasons.

The two categories of people have completely different characteristics, habits, expectations and interests.

A central part of the digital strategy defines these groups of people, segmenting them).

Where: This question means two things:

The Scenario (what's around the Company: trends, threats, competitors, opportunities, legal constraints).

But also Geography: the geographic, cultural market.

Where is the company based? The farther you go from our "where", the more we will have to adapt our strategies and our products.

When: the time axis.

One of the major changes that digital has brought is the speed. We are always connected, as are our customers (our social channels do not go on vacation).

The Digital Marketing Plans foresee to work on long periods (12 or more months) and short periods (for example just one week). Enlarging the time axis, you get to consider what time of day is the best for example to post something on Twitter.

What: the content itself. The Modern Marketing Manifesto emphasizes the importance of content of any kind: text, images, videos.

Contents are the heart of every Digital Marketing Strategy: they allow us to optimize the Brand, to facilitate customer loyalty and sales processes.

Digital has allowed those who were only a recipient to become content producers.

Once you share a photo or tell something, content is generated. No Content Marketing strategy is successful if it does not start with clear objectives.

How: the strategy and tools actually used. Starting with the right questions makes it easier to produce a good strategy. This takes the form of a plan which includes the tools we want to use (Website, App, Newsletter, Promotional Campaigns).

The ultimate goal is to achieve business goals and it is only possible if we integrate online  and offline.The intersection of objectives, people, scenarios, markets, times, contents, available tools and offline initiatives leads to  the strategy and to the proper definition of the online operational plan.

To make it work… People and Processes

As seen above, the skills of those who ensure the execution of a Digital Marketing Plan are the success factors. There are two options:

There are mixed solutions, with good internal skills and an external supervisor.

Keywords: gradual, simple and flexible

With the advent of social media, the power relationship typical of traditional Media has changed. Now, each individual connected to the network is able to produce content that can be conveyed globally and is therefore able to obtain the same visibility that in the past was only possible thanks to Mass Media.

The production of content, both by experts and thanks to paid tools for Digital Marketing, is subject to asymmetries: Economic availability, staff, skills.

But Digital Marketing Tools are also for free: economic resources alone do not guarantee visibility or effectiveness. Even the smallest company can achieve excellent results thanks to low budget and social channels.

The downside is that Social platforms, allowing everyone to create and publish content, cause a real overload:

It is objectively difficult for a company to conquer its spot.

Therefore, Content remains the success factor for any marketing activity.

All inbound marketing (the Company's internal marketing plans) that has the purpose of generating more traffic on the company's digital channels to acquire new customers is based on the contents and on their quality.

A 2015 survey indicates how, out of 529 marketing managers, only 3% plan to reduce their investments on content. The same survey points out that on average each company invests 25% of its marketing budget solely on content.

But what does it mean to do Digital Marketing by focusing on content?

It means structuring the Digital Marketing Plans starting from a study on the possible interests of customers that the Company already owns and on those of potential customers.

Each company must therefore be its own publisher to operate effectively in the new communication scenario.

Content is an excellent tool to generate or strengthen the notoriety of Brands, more effectively than "push" communication (the one that "pushes" its products through advertising. The opposite is a "pull" communication: this works to increase the awareness of the product, to increase interest in the public).

Again, the content must meet at least one need of its specific audience.

Get in touch with the public means doing it even after the product or service has been sold. Customer care is what enhances the shopping experience (Customer Service). From providing a free user manual to webinars, meetings, tutorials, promotions.

After having gathered as much information as possible about the audience we are targeting, we must make this information suitable for our purposes. To do this, the "Personas Model" is useful: Each Personas is a collection of consumers. Using this model means to build a "profile": a set of customers, consumers, citizens who have in common different characteristics, interests, attitudes and that can be interested in the Company's goods and services.

The information that the "profile" must contain may vary, but the "profile"must contain information such as Name, Social and Demographic Indications, Profession, Goals, Values, Interests, Use of Social Media.

Anything we target to our audiences must be relevant and follow various rules: of form, of technique, being also pertinent.

The Communicative Style is an important element. Ideally, the content promoted and published by the Company should have one uniform and recognizable communication style.

Styles and codes have an infinite variety of possible combinations.

Some elements must be taken into account when producing content:

To stimulate users to create content there are some specific formats such as contests and questionnaires but, beyond these, any content should be proposed in such a way as to produce proactive behavior from users (a like, a share, a comment).

Achieving this result must be the goal of every act of communication on Social Media (an example: the thank you page which appears to the user after he has provided his data and which invites him to invite other friends).

On Social Media, every communicative act must be thought of as a «Turn to Speak»: a conversation with the user that must continue over time.

What is the "ROI" of Social Media Activities and how is it measured?

The "ROI" indicates a simple formula for calculating the profitability of capital invested (a financial metric that, for example, answers the question "what ROI can be expected if 10% of the Department's resources are invested in Customer Care on Facebook during the next semester?)

The most common errors in the Approach to Measurement (including ROI) are for example, having a too short-term perspective: neglecting the positive effects that can have a good impact on the Company’s reputation.

But above all be guided by the metrics "imposed" by social platforms, for example the number of "followers", which in reality tells us little about the real capacity to involve our target audience. Another common mistake is not to use a framework  in which we can read and understand the actions and the results.

Another mistake is to not consider the objectives of business, considering them disconnected from the activity carried out on Social Media.

If once the Marketing believed that the dissatisfied consumer was could complain to ten other people, in the new era of Social Media a dissatisfied customer has the power to tell ten million people.

The Company loses control of the information that circulates around its Brand, on its products and services. It becomes necessary to constantly monitor your channels in order to intercept any negativity and possibly activate actions in response.

Social Media Analysis is generally divided into 3 phases supported by different technologies and skills

These phases are followed by a fourth one, namely that of managing what has been learned from Social Media: for example by producing answers to the questions posed by users, creating engagement with the latter.

Given the number of Social Media, for each source we must identify the most suitable mechanism and technology. The most common technologies are the "RSS", which are equipped for example the blogs and news sites (known for  their RSS feeds that allow you to stay updated on new comments or articles  published on the sites of interest) and the "API" of Social Networks.

2) Classification: The central phase of the monitoring process is the classification and understanding of the collected data. This requires the identification of a research domain, to circumscribe the perimeter of analysis: for example, the "Fashion Sector":

It will be necessary to identify the analysis drivers, that is the branches of the tree (in the case of fashion: brands, products, themes), in order to then be able to define "keywords" suitable for detecting all messages that are already relevant (for example: "LV ",«Louis Vuitton», «louisvuitton») to collect the messages that  speak of the known Fashion brand.

3) Analysis: the final stage in which the data is subjected to analysis. It is useful to ask ourselves some questions, for example:

Outsourcing the analysis?

Many channels and / or social media offer intuitive tools that allow the staff of any company to produce their own analysis and considerations. However, if this is

positive for a competent staff, it becomes a further obstacle for those who have little competence in the sector.

Given the current spread of Social Media, they have consequently increased the tools for their "monitoring": there are both free tools and paid tools. An example of a free tool is the simple "search engine": it can also be used for a monitoring  activity. However, the results are often not very satisfactory.

Not all messages on Social Media have the same relevance. It is necessary for every company to understand both this and useful strategies to produce the most relevant content: correct use of sources, selection of the platform, author.

Relevance is generally measured using 4 tools:

1) Who is the   subject  of the message:

If for example the subject of the message is the Brand itself (for example: «In the morning I always have breakfast with Gocciole, I like them a lot!". In this case the Brand is clearly the central subject).

Or if the user is directly involved in expressing opinions on others more general issues connected in any case to the sector to which the subject and / or the Brand belong.

2) What is the   thematic relevance  of the source: How does the content produced relate to the source it belongs to?

It refers in particular to the degree of affinity of the source with respect to the sector in analysis. For example, you can get an estimate by comparing the number of posts related to the sector with the number of posts produced by the source in question.

3) Engagement:

 4) Visibility

This parameter ideally considers the overall "audience" of the published content.

However, this data is almost never available, but we can rely on indicators such as Google Page Rank or the number of "followers" if we take into account Twitter (or number of "fans" if we talk about Facebook).

Conversations on social networks are constantly growing. It becomes therefore essential for companies to develop their own presence strategy.

What is "SOCIAL ANALYTICS" and what is it for?

     For example "Facebook Analytics":

Facebook has developed an intuitive analysis panel (it shows the "reach" of the contents: users involved, sharing). This is however possible within 92 days after  we actually published the post.

More in detail: Facebook Analytics offers us numerous metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of your Digital Marketing Strategy.

The metrics must be selected based on the objectives that have been set:

2) Total Engagement: namely the number of all interactions that activities on the page managed to produce

3) Page Engagement: the relationship between Total Engagement and fans  and / or likes. It is the number of interactions produced on average by each  "follower" or "fan": this is an excellent parameter for measuring "engagement" more effectively

4) Total Reach: number of unique people who have actually seen the contents.

All these indicators become more significant if we considerthe time variable.

Comparing multiple Facebook pages with each other allows us for example to  have an Engagement Map that relates the number of fans with that of Total Engagement, also representing the commitment actually dedicated to the management of our page.

The company under consideration is FireSec System Srl, a small business formed  by a staff of 10 people. It deals with design, installation and maintenance of fire detection and extinguishing systems. Most of its turnover comes from contracts with companies located in the same region (Lombardy) and Northern Italy. The area in which it operates is therefore a very specialized sector, precisely for this reason it is not "saturated" or highly competitive.

As is the case in most SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), the staff of FireSec System is structured in a simple way and has no employee  with specific skills for communication or marketing, distributing these functions to sales people

This company therefore has a limited online presence: only a website.

The client's goal is clear: to increase the volume by at least 15%in annual sales, thanks to the acquisition of new customers and the closure of economically significant contracts. The starting point is the examination of the online presence of the company which, as already said, it is limited to a simple website and a traditional Communication Style.

The tools used by the agency to obtain this information are:

The Agency has therefore based its analysis on the conceptual scheme that divides the channels between: owned, earned and paid.

The Agency therefore studied a new synergy between Website, Blog and Channels: the goal is to differentiate FireSec System from competitors and to position it appropriately on the net.

The first step: a new website for FireSec System structured in: Home, Company, Fire-fighting systems, Services, News, Contacts.

The second step: "hooking up" a Blog to the Website.

In this Marketing Plan, the Blog occupies a prominent position because it is home to all the contents that will also be disseminated through Social Channels and Newsletter.

You need to have a clear profile of the customers you want to address with content which must be published on a regular basis, but also of quality.

For example: call-to-action, Ebook, Webinar.

Another tool implemented is the Newsletter.

In our case a monthly newsletter has been prepared with buttons to easily share the content published on the main Social Channels.

A call to action is placed on both the Website and the Blog with an invitation to subscribe to the Newsletter.

Lastly, ADWORDS (for a fee):

The Agency's goal is to immediately bring a positive "ROI", even with an initially limited budget.

The basic idea is to simply be present in web searches, focusing on terms very close to the activity (in this case “fire-fighting systems” and similar)

Aggregates of words are created, dividing them by concept, thus identifying potential searchers. In addition, the Agency has opened LinkedIn profiles to all employees.

To summarize, which are the elements of an analysis like the one conducted for FireSec System case study?

1) Intercepting Mentions: A generic first listen with free tools like Google Alerts is a great first step along with other online alerting services like Mention.net and Google's Keyword Planner. The goal is to understand the "trends", the topics of interest, the research habits in the area of interest.

2) Listening to customers and the market: that is, to prepare tools through which The customers can interact with the Company. This also means looking at the market sector that interests us: identify sector magazines, forums, blogs (by Subscribing for example to the RSS Feeds of the Sector Content Developers).

Create a Content Marketing Plan:

How to get noticed by your potential audience? In the era not only of the Digital Marketing, but above all of the "inbound" one, our audience will be able to find us only if we provide the right content.

In other words, it is necessary to create contents that respond to precise information needs.

In the creation of the Editorial Plan to be conveyed on all the Social Channels in our possession, it will be necessary to provide for the regular publication of contents topics of relevance to our audience.

We must not limit ourselves to the typical formats of each channel (eg Twitter → tweet; Facebook → post), but all the «Content Object»: Newsletter, Post, Ebook, Infographics.

However, it is a priority to integrate Social Media into your Sales Cycle, so that more users know our company through these channels in order to generate "word of mouth“.

This is possible by listening to and tracking conversations between people in places identified in the listening phase, knowing the most used keywords on search engines, using these same keywords in tags and content, finally using the Social Channels to deepen knowledge of the Brand and attract new people.

Once the user has been reached, it is necessary to involve it with well-published content: Personalized Conversation

Respond to questions by actively interacting and encouraging customers to follow the page. So first listen to what customers say participating in discussions and joining industry forums Again: sharing information with people who now follow us by announcing previews and exclusives that lead them to "word of mouth".

The analysis of the results aims to connect the initial marketing and business objectives with the actions and results, translated into metrics and KPIs obtained on Social Media. This impact is measured by quantitative and qualitative metrics.

Taking into consideration the Social Networking platforms we have mentioned(Twitter, Facebook Business, Blog, Youtube)  for each of these there will be more appropriate measurement metrics. Overall what will be measured is:

• Exposure: how much the "reach" of the Company has grown thanks to the Social Channel
• Engagement: level of engagement (posts, comments, retweets, citations)
• Conversion: number of recorded conversations
• Advocacy: number of users who cite, advise, talk about theproduct / service of the Company in question.

Some parameters can be analyzed more accurately via Social Analytics platforms such as Tweetreach, Facebook Insight,Youtube Analytics, LinkedIn.

A digital marketing plan for small and medium-sized "B2C" companies:

An example of the «Fashion» sector.

The company in question is LouAnne S.r.l., a family-run manufacturer of women's clothing. The organizational structure includes a small Sales and Marketing office which mainly deals with catalogs.

The company's presence on the Web is limited to the Website.

First level objectives:

The specific objectives that LouAnne S.r.l sets itself are:

Identification of the "Personas":

As we have already seen, it is a priority to understand the groups of users to whom we want to contact us. We need these "identikits" to understand what there needs are, even beyond the product and / or service.

They will also help to identify the best digital places, where you can interact effectively with the audience.

For each of these "Personas" we will have to indicate which are the keyword strings with which it is possible to search for the product.

Positioning

It is necessary to think first about the positioning of the company with respect to that Online (which is a  direct consequence of the first).

The company in question has decided to renew the range of products by focusing on the range from 25 to 35 years, positioning itself in that market niche that appreciates quality with a less price sensitivity and preferring less mass production. A niche that is little exploited by the market, in which the company wants to become a leader.

We can reconstruct the digital path of the "Personas" we address, imagining which news sites they frequent through researches. We will use combinations of keywords that we think they might be used. For budgetary reasons, only the free tools are used in this case. A list of keywords is created that the "Personas" could search for and that include the name of the Brand and Products, but also needs,

Brands, competitors and their product names, information, doubts, idioms.

By entering them into Google's keyword tool, this will provide us variations on the theme useful for understanding any other related words or trademarks related to competitors we hadn't thought of.

The same search process must be carried out on public social channels that allow us to freely find the contents posted by users: Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram. This is used by the Company to understand what languages and contents are more frequent. It is not possible to do this search in Facebook Private profiles, but only in Pages by manual search.

The website and the blog will also be at the center of the digital strategy here by LouAnne S.r.l.

The Company must be an online presence that does not speak the language of the magazines, but that of the customers. The site will have to be less focused on the company and will no longer have to speak to retailers but to end customers.

The structure of the Website includes:

The strength of a small family business lies in the greater personality and uniqueness.

These traits are also defined by the content we publish, not only from products.

The contents must therefore be based on the interests of the Personas that we have identified (contents therefore based on what customers like, not derived directly from the Company's products).

For this the case study LouAnne S.rl. will no longer produce a seasonal paper catalog, but a daily and digital story that adapts to the everyday life of its customers. The distribution of these contents will then take place using platforms such as Hub, but above all Facebook as the main distribution channel.

Social Network:

Social channels are certainly those best suited to a small company of the Fashion sector such as LouAnne S.r.l. The company chooses to focus on a Facebook page and Instagram, maintaining a reactive presence on Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest and Google Plus. The effort is divided between these channels, taking into account their specific characteristics and the different capacity of these in respect to the public.

For example, the Company has chosen to actively use the Social Blog "Tumblr", edited directly by the Staff of LouAnne S.r.l. "Tumblr" welcomes fans closest to the Company and those who come to it from search engines. “Tumblr” was chosen for its ability to adapt to the site template, but also because its peculiarity is to be an highly visual Social Network.

Facebook:

The main platform. Facebook was chosen for the dissemination of "awareness" through the sharing of content by the users themselves. The company will use  the channel taking care of:

Use a daily and direct language, but also ...

• Give priority to visual content
• Encourage Feedback, stimulating the public also through competitions and calls-to-action, surveys etc.
• Use coupons and promotions reserved for fans
• Publish entertainment material
• Identify and value the "super fans"

Instagram:

Given its strong expressive and visual charge, Instagram is a basic tool in the content strategy for a company like LouAnne S.r.l.

The channel will propose:

A part of the Budget will also be used for Ads with the possibility of direct click.

Twitter:

In this case "Twitter" will be used simply to offer an additional reading aside of the Blog, publishing the same contents. The purpose of «Twitter» for a small artisan company could be above all of "listening" and data collection.

Youtube:

Due to lack of resources, the company does not intend to devote a real strategy on this channel.

Pinterest:

The Company decides not to actively manage its own profile, due to the lack of resources and considering the little use of this channel in Italy. The digital team, if anything, it will use Pinterest to find inspiration for its own content.

E-commerce:

To evaluate whether to open the e-commerce platform, several factors were considered: the traffic generated on the site, the necessary resources, the warehouse’s logistics, the advantages related to the coverage of the territory but also related to physical stores. In this case LouAnne S.r.l decides to start gradually and to publish an e-commerce platform only when digital businesses will have reached a good incidence and efficacy. On the contrary, the company chooses to direct customers to the physical stores, through Web and geo-localized Digital Advertising.

An in-depth study: INSTAGRAM

Instagram was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010 as    instrument characterized by instantaneity. This in-depth study provides references for orientation and understanding about how to find an adequate and therefore functional approach to the Instagram context: an extremely specific and far from the simple label of “fun tool” Social Media.

There were already numerous platforms for sharing images such as Pinterest, Flickr and Tumblr. The main difference of Instagram is that it is not a platform, but a Social Network.

Instagram comes out at a decisive moment: smartphones already were widespread, wireless networks and 3g were accessible, the cameras built into smartphones were qualitatively good.

Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012.

Instagram first of all offers tools for "the humanization of the brand":

Products are shown as accessible and more desirable. Instagram also offers specific features for "Reputation" and "Awareness":

Brand reputation is the consideration, the reputation of a brand, its activity.

Instagram offers a number of tools to analyze and understand our "reputation".

The Structure of a Business Profile:

The company profile’s bio is an essential part. Like a ticket for a virtual visit, it must be clear and reliable.

Its elements are:

Username and Name are fundamental fields for recognition, identifiability and subsequently "loyalty" by users. The same goes for the Profile Image: the visual content of the biography.

If the company or business has a website or an e-commerce, the link must be added in the Website field.

The Instagram contents have a format that lends itself to numerous realities, even small scale companies. They are divided into «Posts» and «Stories».

The «Post» is the published content:

3) Videos with a maximum duration of 1 minute

The Cover option allows you to choose the image to show at the beginning.

The first thing to do is to write a caption: the text that will be published under the photo. The "tag people" command allows you to mention other users. It is highly recommended to insert the "geotag", that is the geographical point where the photo was taken and / or published, for reasons of visibility.

The «Stories» were launched on Instagram in 2016 and became a part of the platform in just a few months. Stories are the heart of Instagram and their use is essential for a Business account.

Stories are made up of images and / or videos with a maximum duration of 15 seconds that are displayed sequentially for a maximum of 24 hours. Then they disappear from the gallery.

Real-time and instant sharing. The Stories last 24 hours and are not included in the main gallery of the account.

A tool for communication conceived as "in real time".

Private Messages

Private and instant messaging tool on Instagram. As already pointed out, Instant messaging is a great and important tool for a business profile, not just on

Instagram. Communicate and engage customers, invite to events and promotions directly. In short: Customer Care.

The Instagram algorithm

Until 2016, the contents of the profiles were displayed in chronological order.

Later, the Instagram developers made changes. Today the display order are:

Engagement

The word "engagement" defines the ability of a subject (for example an activity, a company) to create solid and positive relationships with their target audience.

The most important activity on Instagram is in fact the conversation, that is the activities that stimulate and encourage the involvement of the public.

There are different strategies to "generate engagement":

Clustering is also important: following and interacting with a well-defined audience, in line with our products and / or services

The project and the contents

Once we understand the Instagram algorithm, the next step is to produce andpublish quality content that is original, recognizable, memorable.

The Editorial Plan is therefore a fundamental element: content that makes a brand recognizable.

With "memorability" we mean the possibility of having an echo even outside of Instagram.

Hashtag, mention, geotag:

Hashtag, mention and geotag are the engagement functions offered by Instagram which can be associated with both posts and stories. If used correctly they can

multiply the visibility of content, outside our own circle of users who already

follow the account.

1) Hashtag: a thematic aggregator to facilitate searches on specific contents

2) Mention: direct mention to other users and accounts Hashtags are a great tool for categorizing our content. Direct mentions are a more strategic activity.

3) Geotag: geolocation

Instagram SEO:

The ability to enter a text description of the published content(images). An "alternative text" to the caption that is displayed when the image is not available.

The study of audience:

Even in the context of Instagram it is appropriate to define our target of reference, that is to study the real and potential audience, also on the basis of the geographical location and one's activity. How do you intercept this potential user?

Instagram is a Social Network, however based on visual data: images and / or videos. On average, users pay close attention to published images. Secondly, it may be appropriate to narrow down which users interact with the account and then log in to their profile to observe what kind of content they post and share. A further element could be the study of competition: to identify the accounts of direct competitors, especially those with high traffic, to understand the editorial line.

A strategy deemed effective is the use of "call to action - CTC": ask direct questions to the public, also using the tools of "Engagement" of the Stories.

This includes the use of hashtags.

Advertising:

The creation of paid ads is an activity from which no profile Business can avoid anymore.

A necessary condition is obviously the registration of a payment Method (credit card, PayPal etc).You can promote any content by selecting it and clicking on «highlight».

Once the Ad has been geolocated, you will have to choose the interests of the public: the Instagram database is very complete.

By selecting specifically, the number of users that will be reached will decline.

It is always better to "spread" the budget over several days rather than concentrate  it. Ads on Instagram work on a "merit-based" basis: more interactions produce more traffic.

Stories can also be sponsored, with some minor differences: Stories will always be available for 24 hours. Is it really convenient to do paid advertisements?

This depends on many factors, especially on what the goal is: to acquire an audience, to direct it to a specific and external web page and so on.

Recently Instagram has greatly reduced the visibility of posts and Stories not promoted through advertisements, such as Facebook. So investing a budget is the only solution to get visibility.

User Generated Content:

By this we mean the set of "spontaneous" content that one or more users can produce for the benefit of a Brand. UGCs are of great interest to companies: autonomous elements, unfunded, "spontaneous" and original. Very often companies "co-opt" users, acquiring their contact list, who presumably share the same interests. A subsection of User Generated Content consists of content created and published "spontaneously" by employees of a company in favor of the Brand. Additional elements of interest for advertising are also contests and often the "give away".

A further element could be the study of competition: to identify the accounts of direct competitors, especially those with high traffic, to understand the editorial line.

A strategy deemed effective is the use of "call to action - CTC": ask direct questions to the public, also using the tools of "Engagement" of the Stories.

This includes the use of hashtags.

Artificial growth techniques

Achieving certain goals (followers, views) is often one arduous challenge. Very often small businesses or small brands, for lack of budget and time, are unable to  produce an organic Communication Plan, nor to create a constantly growing community. Instagram is not, as mentioned, a "photo sharing" tool, but a Social Network, albeit based on images and / or videos.

This means that conversation is the element of primary importance. Bots, exchange programs, are widely used tools for speeding up the path (with some contraindications).

The Statistics and Blackout of Likes

Like any other Marketing activity, even those designed and implemented on Instagram require careful monitoring, for example by observing the data that the same platform offers through the «Insight» page of each Business account.

The option to display "Like" of posts and content of others. A choice of the developers to "ease" the pressure on users. In terms of efficiency, the lack of likes and other public data will make the evaluation of an account more difficult.

Finally, it is appropriate to keep in mind the crucial aspects of a promotional activity on Instagram: grow, engage, monetize.

1) Laurita G., Venturini R., Strategia Digitale, Hoepli 2016 (seconda edizione)

2) Di Fraia G. (a cura di), Social Media Marketing - Strategie e tecniche per aziende B2B e B2C, Hoepli 2015 (seconda edizione)

3) Di Costanzo F., PA Social. Viaggio nell’Italia della nuova comunicazione tra lavoro, servizi e innovazione, FrancoAngeli, 2017

4) F. Matteucci, Instagram non è fotografia, Dario Flaccovio Editore, 2019