Glossary terms from module 1

Terms and definitions from Course 3, Module 1

Awareness stage: The first stage of the marketing funnel, when a potential customer first becomes
aware of the product or service

Brand awareness: How familiar people are with a particular business or product

Consideration stage: The second stage of the marketing funnel, when marketers provide customers
with more detailed information

Conversion stage: The third stage of the marketing funnel, when marketers capitalize on the interest
people have already shown

Earned media: Personal or public promotion of a brand or product

Engagement: How an audience interacts with a brand on social media

Lead: A potential customer who has interacted with a brand and shared personal information, like an
email address

Loyalty stage: The fourth stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer nurtures relationships with
customers

Marketing funnel: A graphic representation of the process through which people go from learning
about a brand to becoming loyal customers

Organic social media: Any social media activity that does not require a paid promotion

Owned media: All the digital content a brand fully controls

Paid media: Any form of digital promotion a brand pays to put online

Pillars of social media marketing: The pillars that can help guide an effective social media
marketing campaign: strategy, planning and publishing, listening and engagement, analytics and reporting,
and paid social media

Remarketing: A strategy in which a marketer uses paid ads to target customers who have visited a
company’s website, app, or social media profile

Rule of seven: A marketing concept that states a potential customer must see a message at least seven
times before they’re ready to take action

Social listening: Refers to tracking and analyzing conversations and trends related to a brand

Social media: Any digital tool that enables users to create and share content publicly

Social media analytics: The process of collecting data from social media platforms and analyzing
that data to make business decisions

Social media marketing: The process of creating content for different social media platforms in
order to drive engagement and promote a business or product
Social media report: A document that presents relevant data and analysis about a brand’s social
media activities

User-generated content (UGC): Any content created by people, rather than brands

Popular social media platforms

There are many kinds of social media platforms available, each capable of achieving different goals. In this
reading, you will gain an understanding of each type of platform, and you will review examples of each type.

Common types of social media platforms

Certain social media platforms will be more appropriate and effective for your brand than others—and when you
decide which to use, you need to be sure you choose the ones your target audiences use. Even if your company
is on 20 different social media platforms, you will need to deliver content that users on each individual platform
prefer—while staying true and authentic to your brand voice.

Each social media channel (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) has a certain number of monthly active
users. Monthly active users refers to the number of unique customers who visit a platform over a month-
long span. As social media shifts and changes over time, this number can change pretty dramatically. Monthly
active users is a number you will want to be familiar with as a brand, because it may affect where you place your
priorities and focus. Visit this link for more information on each social media platform’s monthly user numbers.

Social networking

Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are known as social networking sites because they allow users to interact with
each other. Social networking is often used for both personal and professional reasons.

For instance, Facebook is a great tool for small businesses who want to keep in touch with and share updates
with their customers. It’s a great place for companies to post new products or services, sales, hours of operation,
and much more.

LinkedIn is an effective social networking site for people who want to manage their professional identity and
network with others. Companies (big and small) also use LinkedIn to share company updates and new projects,
and even engage with and/or hire other professionals.

Pro tip: The beauty of social networking platforms is that they are designed to encourage users to share
various types of content—like visuals, text, and external links—rather than just one primary type. If you’re
running a social networking page for your brand, keep your content fresh by sharing different types of content
each day.
Microblogging/Blogging

Blogging refers to self-published writing that lives online. Microblogging is blogging, but on a smaller scale.
Microblogging platforms allow users to distribute short-form content, quickly and frequently. Twitter and Reddit
are good examples of these platforms. While blogging allows you to write lengthy, in-depth content,
microblogging allows you to introduce brief concepts to users, and invites those users to interact with that
content.

Because of the way it’s formatted, Twitter is a useful platform to optimize engagement and interaction with users.
Users can use the search function to find tweets on anything they might want to discuss. Brands often use the
“trending” section strategically, by tweeting relevant content based on what topics others are talking about.
Reddit is a platform that encourages web chatter and sharing of posts to create a sense of community. Within
Reddit, there are “subreddits” which are niche online communities that cover a certain topic. There are
subreddits for all kinds of topics, such as specific TV shows, hobbies, political or religious affiliations, industries,
and much more.

Photo sharing

Photo sharing platforms like Instagram and Pinterest offer visually appealing “feeds” where you can engage with
content posted by other users, or host your own. They offer users the ability to engage with their own
community, but they also include features that allow users to engage with new users and content.

Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking platform. It’s a great place for businesses because
it includes a feature that allows brands to post photos and link the product directly in the photo, so users can
make purchases from the app. And, even if your brand isn’t creating shoppable content on Instagram, photos
are a great way to keep users interested and engaged in your brand.

Pinterest is a useful platform for brands because unlike Instagram, brands can link directly to websites or
external landing pages in the captions and replies. Users can save these posts, known as “boards.” So, if you
work for an interior design company, you may create design mockups, post them to Pinterest, and link back to
your website where users can book you for your services.

Pro tip: Photo sharing services offer users the ability to save photos posted by other accounts within the apps,
so users can always reference content they enjoyed, for any number of reasons. Those analytics are available to
the account managers, so make sure to check in and see what content your audience is saving so you can keep
delivering tailored content to them.

Video sharing

Video sharing platforms allow users to upload and share videos, and live stream their own videos to the internet.
Video sharing platforms are becoming increasingly popular within most industries because of the informational
aspects and community-building capabilities of video content. Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, Instagram
Live, and Facebook Live are great examples of video sharing platforms. Some platforms are better suited for
long-form video while others are best used for short-form video, but both have huge advantages for businesses.

YouTube and Vimeo are great for long-form videos. For instance, a fitness instructor can lead a full exercise
class on a platform like YouTube or Vimeo. A carpenter can show off their woodworking skills all while
persuading customers to buy their work in a video format on these platforms. The possibilities with video are
endless, but keep in mind that creating video—especially long-form—is one of the most time consuming and
specialized types of content you can create. So it isn’t right for everyone.

If your brand doesn’t find long-form video necessary, maybe they want to prioritize short-form videos like on
TikTok. TikTok is newer than most social media platforms, but it’s quickly becoming a huge asset for brand
growth. Brand videos on TikTok can range from informational content like short “how-to” videos, to behind-the-
scenes videos, to community-building videos like songs or dances, and so much more.

Instagram Live and Facebook Live differ from the other video sharing platforms because the content is
live, rather than created and then uploaded. These platforms are often used for question-and-answer style
videos, where users can get a feel for who you are as a brand.

Set up a professional social media profile

You may already have one or more social media accounts that you use to connect with family and friends. While
these accounts probably show a lot about who you are personally, they may not demonstrate much about your
professional interests, skills, and experience. Additionally, they likely contain personal content that you may not
want to share with professional contacts. For this reason, it’s a good idea to create separate social media
accounts for personal and professional use.

In this reading, we’ll discuss how to create a Twitter profile to present yourself professionally to recruiters, hiring
managers, and other professional contacts. Then, in an upcoming activity, you’ll create your own Twitter profile
for professional use.

Open an account
Start by opening a new account at [Link]. You can sign up via your Google or Apple account, or you can
start the sign-up process by providing your phone number or email address. You’ll be prompted through a series
of steps to provide your full name, email address, phone number, birth date, and country. Then, you’ll enter
verification codes sent to you via email and phone, and you’ll be prompted to create a unique password for your
account.
Select a profile picture

Your profile picture provides people with their first impression of who you are. Select a professional, high-quality
photo that clearly shows your face. Avoid suggestive or humorous photos or group photos. Be sure to choose a
photo in which you are wearing professional or neutral attire, such as solid colors. Also, make sure your picture
looks like how you look regularly so companies will recognize you when you interview.
Select a header

Next, select a header for your profile. The header is the banner image that appears behind your profile image.
For a professional-looking header, choose either a solid color or an image representing who you are as a
professional. Be sure that your header does not distract from your profile picture. You can upload your own
image or download a free image in the public domain from a site like Wikimedia Commons.

Create a handle
A social media handle is like a username. On a platform like Twitter, a handle follows an “@” symbol. Your
handle is a way for people to identify you and communicate with you.

When creating an account for professional purposes, your Twitter handle should ideally match your actual name.
For example, if your name is Jane Smith, your handle name could be @JaneSmith. If that handle is not
available, choose a different one that is both professional-sounding and memorable. Avoid using numbers in
your handle; instead, use underscores (e.g., @Jane_Smith). You can also include the name of your business or
industry in your handle.

Write a bio
Your bio on Twitter is your opportunity to introduce yourself and highlight your achievements, all in 280 or fewer
characters. Write a bio that describes who you are and what you do. You can include schools you have
attended, current and past jobs or internships, and even this certificate program. Since Twitter bios are
searchable, including keywords in your bio can help your profile appear in search results. This can help
recruiters find you.

Add your location

Including your location in your profile can also help people find you. If a recruiter is looking for someone to fill a
digital marketing or e-commerce position in your area, having your location listed will increase the likelihood that
your profile will appear in their searches.

Add links
Add a link to your website, if you have one. You can also add links to your blog, portfolio, or another social
media account. This allows your followers to see more of your work and increases traffic on your other sites.
Explore, follow, and Tweet

Now that your profile is set up, you can begin using it. You can:

 Explore topics that interest you by clicking on the #Explore button. Twitter curates popular hashtags,
subjects, and news updates for you, based on your activity.
 Choose topics to follow by looking through categories related to your professional interests, such as
“Business and Finance” and “Careers.” Following topics that are related to your professional interests
can help keep you informed about industry news and trends. You can also follow someone you admire
or would like to get in touch with on Twitter and then follow the people that they follow. This can help you
gain insight into their career fields.
 Tweet regularly and post content related to your career interests and goals. Content that works well on
Twitter includes breaking news, industry news, GIFs and memes, visual content—such as infographics,
images, and videos—and trending topics. Ensure all of your Tweets are professional, and avoid
Tweeting about controversial topics like politics and religion. Don't forget that social media is all about
engagement—be sure to join in with conversations that are relevant!
Key takeaways
While this reading discusses the steps to create a profile for professional use on Twitter, many of these concepts
can be used to create professional profiles on other social media platforms. You can add links to your
professional social media accounts on your resume so that hiring managers can learn more about you, and
these accounts can help recruiters find you. Professional social media accounts can also keep you informed
about industry trends and news and help make contacts that could potentially lead to career opportunities.

Build your brand identity on social media

In previous course content, you learned to create customer personas so you can create tailored content that
your customers will relate to and engage with. Think back on that content as you learn about building brand
identity with social media in this reading.

Reviewing past concepts

When it comes to branding your company on social media, there are many considerations to make. You have
learned about several of these concepts already, but use this portion of the reading as a refresher on previous
concepts you’ve covered, such as:
  Social media goals: remember that your goals should be SMART, which stands for specific,
measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.
 Customer personas: creating customer personas can give you an idea of who you’re trying to reach.
Naming them and associating a photo with each persona is a common marketing practice.
 Prioritize your social platforms: choosing the right platforms helps optimize your brand reach
and ensures you are using your resources in the right way.
Although these considerations don’t necessarily make up your brand identity, defining them is important for
building and understanding your brand identity on social media.

What is a brand position statement?

Now that you have reflected on the tasks you have completed to get here, you are ready to learn more about
brand position statements. A brand position statement outlines exactly what your company does and for
whom, and what makes you different from your competitors. Internally, it helps guide your team as you navigate
through the current trends within the marketing world. Externally, it tells customers about your brand and its
goals.

Creating a brand position statement

To create a brand position statement, you will need to know:

 Your audience
 The challenges or needs of your customers
 Your company name
 Your products, services, or differentiator (the thing that sets you apart from other brands), and
 Your company’s mission statement
When you put all that information together, you get a template that looks like this:

 For [audience] who [customer challenge/need], [Company Name] provides [product and differentiator]
because [brand promise or mission].
Scenario: EveryWay EveryWear

A company called EveryWay EveryWear manufactures professional clothing that is specifically designed to be
comfortable. EveryWay EveryWear is made for people who work long hours giving presentations and pitches
and making sales. Their customers want to maintain a level of professionalism in their dress, but they don’t want
to be stuck in a suit all day.

Knowing all of this information, how might you structure their brand position statement? It might read like this:

 For [working professionals] who need a [stylish, professional, and functional wardrobe], [EveryWay
EveryWear] provides [plush, comfortable clothes to wear in the workplace]—because [when you’re
working long hours, comfort should come first].
Now that you know who your audience is, how to find them, what your goals are, and what your brand
positioning statement is, you will want to create a look for your brand.

Designing brand identity

The next step in building a brand identity is ensuring your brand’s color palette, logos, and digital assets have
some sense of consistency on your social pages, and are visually appealing to your audience. Another important
part of your brand identity is your brand voice. A brand voice doesn’t refer to your physical voice, but rather the
distinct personality a brand takes on in its communications. Curating your voice is an integral part of creating
brand identity.

If your business already has brand guidelines, make sure your posts meet those guidelines. Use the colors,
sizes, fonts, and logos detailed in the guidelines. If your company doesn’t have brand guidelines, it may be time
to create some. After those decisions are made, follow these tips:

 Standardize your brand’s colors across social media pages

o You want people to immediately know a specific image belongs to your brand. And, if someone
visits your pages or feeds, you want there to be a sense of consistency across all the platforms
you use. Achieve this by using the same color palettes and filters for every image.
  Team up with influencers that make sense for your brand’s identity
o Influencer marketing can be a huge help in raising brand awareness, generating consideration,
and converting sales. And, as your brand partners with influencers, you will gradually define an
identity among their audiences—and your own—because when you collaborate with an
influencer, you are acknowledging your brands align with each other.
 Create a “voice” for your brand
o Social media users need to be able to identify a post based on your voice—the same way they
could identify posts from your colors, logos, and graphic design elements. Make sure to create
your voice and stick to it. It may be off-putting for your followers if you switch from a humorous to
a moody brand voice on the same day. And, this voice doesn’t just appear in your captions—it
should be recognizable in the text you use in graphics, video, photos, and any other visuals as
well.

How to acquire earned media

In this reading, you will learn how to acquire earned media. Recall from other course content that earned
media is any positive digital exposure generated through personal or public recommendations.

Examples of earned media

Earned media is important to businesses because it relies on word-of-mouth promotion from friends, family,
unpaid influencer posts, product reviews and so much more. If someone likes your product enough to post about
it for free, not only are you not spending anything to get that positive publicity, but it also means your audience
believes in you. It’s probably the most difficult marketing tactic to be successful at because you have no control
over it. Some examples are:

 Customer testimonials and reviews

 Blog posts about your product
 Shares and reposts of your content
 Mentions of your product on social pages
Effective earned media strategy
Although you can’t necessarily control earned media, there are steps you can take to set yourself up for possible
shares, reposts, mentions, positive reviews, and more. The most important thing when it comes to earned media
is to create engaging content. The more engaging your content is, the more likely your audience is to
share it. Next, nurture relationships you may have with other brands, media members, and
journalists. If you do this successfully, your brand may get positive press as a result. Next, make sure you
are providing more than satisfactory customer service to your customers. When your audience is
enjoying their journey as followers, customers, users— or whatever their relationship may be to you—they are
likely to share your brand with others. And finally, encourage others within your organization to
share, share, share. The more people you have sharing your content, the more others will see it, and the
more likely they are to share it.

Key takeaways
Earned media, which you now know is any positive digital exposure generated through personal or public
recommendations, is the most difficult marketing tactic to be successful at because you have little control over it.
If you want to try to acquire more earned media, create engaging content; nurture relationships with brands,
media members, and journalists; provide satisfactory customer service; and encourage members of your
organization or business to share your products.

Case study: How Name Glo acquires earned media

You may recall that earned media is any positive digital exposure generated through personal or public
recommendations. In this case study, you’ll learn how a real company, New-York based Name Glo, acquires
earned media through effective social media marketing.
Company background

Name Glo is a New York City-based neon light studio specializing in custom designs. It sells neon lights
business-to-consumer and business-to-business. Name Glo’s mission is to light up people’s lives by creating
personalized neon lights. Its customers purchase lights to celebrate milestones, decorate homes, create
ambiance and branding in small businesses, and simply add some light to the world. Customers often request
lights in the style of written text that spell out people’s names, business names, personal mantras, or catchy
phrases.

Name Glo’s founders Lena Imamura and Sas Simon credit a portion of their company’s success to the sharing of
their designs on the photo and video sharing platform, Instagram.

The challenge: Acquire earned media

As a small business, Name Glo doesn’t have the resources or time that a major corporation has to devote to
digital marketing. Since Name Glo is a small business, Lena and Sas are in charge of managing Name Glo’s
social media and making strategic marketing plans. Currently, all of their content and growth is organic, meaning
their social media activity doesn’t require any paid promotions. This means its posts aren’t sponsored and don’t
currently run as ads, making its success even more impressive. Name Glo’s entire strategy is to acquire earned
media.
The approach: Create a post-worthy product
Name Glo includes their customers in every stage of creation—from ideating, to planning, to creating. This
makes its customers feel like they received an experience rather than just a beautiful product. That is because
Name Glo’s customers are involved with a piece from its inception, so they feel particularly invested.

Since Lena and Sas know they won’t be paying for social media marketing campaigns, their goal is to create a
unique, high-quality product that customers will want to take photos of and post on social media. Since Name
Glo’s customers have invested in a custom neon light piece, many want to show them off in the best way
possible. This means the photos Name Glo’s customers share on their own social media accounts are often high
quality. It also means Lena and Sas don’t have to stage photos with props and lighting, saving them time and
money.

When a client posts a photo of the piece they purchased from Name Glo, Name Glo makes a point to repost
them as an Instagram story, and most of the time, their Instagram feed as well.

The results
Name Glo’s organic social media strategy has resulted in high conversions and a steady increase in clients and
sales over the few years they’ve been in business. Lena and Sas attribute this to their clients’ happiness level
with the product.

Name Glo’s growth is also due to the types of clients it has. Several of its customers are interior designers—
some with large followings of their own—which means they’ll commission pieces from Name Glo with the intent
of making a space feel extra special. The designers then post images of the space, and Name Glo reaps the
benefits of the earned media.

Sometimes, when a client loves a product Name Glo creates for them, those clients refer them to friends,
spouses, and family members who open new businesses, and Name Glo’s products end up in those businesses
as decor.
Collaboration success
Working with artists and brands has proven effective for Name Glo on a few occasions. First, Name Glo
partnered with the online plant store, The Sill, to create a neon light based on the tropical Monstera plant for their
holiday gift shop. This originally started as a giveaway, but blossomed into something much more. Every time
someone received their plant and posted an image of it, Name Glo was tagged. As a result, Name Glo had a
large increase in Instagram followers who wouldn’t have heard of their brand otherwise.

They executed another successful collaboration when they were invited to create a rainbow neon experience at
Bergdorf Goodman’s flagship store in New York City. Because of the experience they helped create, Name Glo
had an uptick in reposts of their content by 10 to 15%.

Conclusion
Name Glo is a prime example of how to cultivate growth and success without spending money on ads. The
company has had major success through relying solely on acquiring earned media. Name Glo does this by
producing a product that people feel involved in creating and that people truly love. The end result is so pleasing
to clients that they want to post it and share with their friends and family.

All brands want to generate earned media because of its authenticity. Earned media is especially important to a
brand that may have minimal money to spend on ads and marketing. An effective marketing strategy for every
brand is to try to create a lasting impression on customers through frequent communication, collaboration, and a
memorable final product. As a result, a brand’s social media following is likely to grow, and this may result in
higher conversions.

Real-time marketing
The news cycle in the age of social media is fast-paced and ever-changing. A story might break on Twitter and—
in what feels like an instant—the discussion might suddenly end. In this reading, you’ll learn how to market in
real time so that your content remains fresh and interesting to your audience as the news cycle on social media
changes.
The importance of real-time marketing
Real-time marketing (RTM) is marketing that is happening in real time. RTM is often implemented on
social media because of how quickly commentary and engagement takes place there. If millions of users are
talking about a big story on social media, brands will want to be a part of the conversation in an attempt to boost
engagement. Capitalizing on these moments can have a huge payoff for brands that do it right. Real-time
marketing is an opportunity for companies to connect with their audiences and position their brand wherever
they want in certain discussions. So, the question is, what does it take for a brand to effectively market in real
time?

Effective RTM

Effective RTM can be incredibly powerful for your brand. To successfully market in real time, your content must
be:

 Relevant: What is happening right now? What is most of the discussion about on social media at this
very moment?
 Clever: How can you package your content in a way that shows your brand’s personality and wit?
 Fresh: If the trending topic happened Wednesday and you weren’t able to turn around a piece of
content until Thursday, is it still fresh enough to get engagement?
 On-target: Is this trending topic or current event of interest to your audience?
 Attention-grabbing: What will it take for people to see your post, stop scrolling, and engage with it
immediately?

RTM strategies

Now that you have an idea of what makes a real-time post engaging, follow these tactics to capitalize on trends
and successfully market in real time:

Always be listening. A company’s social media manager will typically be the first to know about trends that
are relevant to any real-time marketing plans, so keeping communication open with the social team is important.
If you are a member of the social team, aim to be present on social media as often as possible so you can catch
any trending topics that might be worth capitalizing on.

Use your brand’s resources. If you have a design team and a copyediting team, enlist their help to create
quick, clever posts of the highest quality possible.

Leverage social media influencers. If your brand partners with social media influencers, ask them to
help amplify your RTM assets by reposting them or interacting with them.

Know where the conversation is happening. There will be moments that happen on one social
media platform that may not be a topic of discussion on others. Make sure you engage in the conversation
where people are talking about it.

Promote some of your posts. Since algorithms determine when and to whom your organic posts are
shown on different platforms, your RTM post may not reach a large enough audience in time to still be relevant
using organic means alone. This could be a good opportunity to promote the post to generate more engagement
and potential new followers. A promoted post is a social media post that you pay the platform to make more
visible.

Key takeaways
Social media users can become desensitized to current events and trending topics quickly because of the fast-
paced nature of the news cycle. The best way to stay relevant and boost engagement is to capitalize on those
moments through real-time marketing. Aim to create content that your audience will find relevant, clever, fresh,
on-target, and attention-grabbing.
Create a social media calendar
If you are taking this course in order, you may have watched the video on creating a social media calendar. The
video covers each step you should take when building and using a social media calendar. To recap, these steps
are:

 Identify social media platforms

 Review, or audit, current platforms and content
 Decide which data you want to track
 Make a content library, containing all postable materials
 Establish a workflow and review process
 Craft and schedule posts
In this reading, you will review some benefits of using Google Sheets as a social media calendar. Then, keeping
what you have already learned in mind, you will learn how to add content to a calendar using templates.

Using Google Sheets as a social media calendar

Google Sheets is completely customizable and free to use. You can create a calendar that fits your company’s
needs, especially if they don’t have a huge budget.

Below is an example of a calendar for a dog food company called Best for Dogs.

This social media calendar includes detailed information, so that anyone on the Best for Dogs team can easily
understand what should be posted that day. Information such as the concept, social copy (or caption), channel,
topic, posting date, location of postable assets, and other important information help to make the posting
process as smooth as possible.

To best understand Google Sheets, you should practice using its features. You can access this template by
clicking here. After you’ve opened it, click on ‘Use Template’ to make a copy. (To download an Excel version of
the template, go to the Resources for more information section below.)

Note: To create a new month, right click the Blank Template tab and click ‘duplicate.’ Then, right click again,
click ‘rename’ and type in the month name. You are now ready to fill out a new month!

Pro tip: Hootsuite offers its users an internal social planner that integrates directly with Google Sheets. You
can find more information below.
Social media management tools
Social media management tools can help digital marketers perform all kinds of tasks. Whether your goal is to
create content, find content to share, schedule posts, or collect analytics, there are social media management
tools to handle almost anything. In this reading, you’ll learn about some tools that can help you meet your goals.

Tools for content creation

To run social media campaigns, you’ll need to create content. These tools can help you design posts and other
content:

 Canvaoffers free and paid memberships and allows you to create your own original content or use
templates.
 Adobe Creative Cloud Expressis a free tool that offers similar capabilities when it comes to
building content from templates.
Tools for content curation
Curating content refers to the process of selecting, collecting, and organizing pieces of content. To keep your
social media feeds fresh, you’ll want to source content from other outlets, in addition to creating and posting your
own. These tools can help you find, collect, and organize content:

 Feedlycompiles news tailored to your industry and allows you to immediately repost it to all your
brand’s social accounts. If you don’t want to repost right away, you can save the content for later.
 Pocketdelivers content relevant to your interests and allows you to save it so you can repost it later.
With Pocket, you can access your saved list from mobile, desktop, and tablet.
Tools for content scheduling
Digital marketers always have a long list of to-dos. Scheduling content can help you get everything done
because it means you don’t have to stop what you’re doing to create and publish a post. This isn’t to say you will
just schedule posts and forget about them completely, but it does allow you to create posts whenever you want
and make sure they get posted at an optimal time for your audience. These tools can help you schedule and
publish content:

 Hootsuiteis a social media management tool that allows you to create social media calendars. It
integrates directly with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms so you can
schedule posts in advance.
 Bufferalso allows you to draft and schedule posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and
Pinterest.
Tools for analytics
When it comes to learning about campaign performance, you will need a social media analytics tool. If you learn
what worked and what didn’t work, you can adjust your strategy for future campaigns. These tools can help you
collect and analyze data from your campaigns:

 Hootsuite Analyticsis an analytics tool featuring a dashboard that fully integrates with all your social
media platforms.
 Brandwatchallows you to easily track brand reputation, trends, influencers, and competition.
 Mentionlyticsfocuses on tracking mentions and keywords across all your social media platforms.
Key takeaways
Social media management tools can help streamline your processes so that you save time, stay organized, and
push out quality content at times when you know your audience will be most likely to engage with it. Digital
marketers rely on these tools to have the most effective campaigns possible.

Compose and publish posts using Hootsuite

Social media management tools allow you to perform all kinds of tasks to help you organize, schedule, and track
your content. Hootsuite, for example, is an all-in-one social media management tool that enables you to plan and
create content, schedule posts, listen to and engage with customers, advertise, and collect analytics. A tool like
Hootsuite essentially enables you to address all of the pillars of social media marketing in one place.
In this reading, we’ll focus on how to use Hootsuite to compose and publish posts. Then, in an upcoming activity,
you’ll have the opportunity to practice using Hootsuite to create and schedule Tweets by linking a Hootsuite
account to the Twitter account you created previously.

Open a Hootsuite account

To start using Hootsuite for social media management, open a free student account at
[Link] You’ll be asked to enter your full name and email address and create a
password. Then, click Back to [Link].

Link your social media accounts to Hootsuite

To publish posts to social media using Hootsuite, you’ll first need to link your social media accounts to your
Hootsuite account. Add your social media accounts to Hootsuite by clicking the My Profile icon in the bottom
left and then clicking Manage accounts and teams.

The directions for how to add social media accounts to Hootsuite vary depending on whether the type of account
(business or private) you are adding, and on the social media platform type. Hootsuite supports linking to
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest.

Select accounts to publish to

One of Hootsuite’s key features is the ability to schedule and publish posts to multiple social media platforms at
once. Instead of signing in to each platform separately, you can use Hootsuite to manage activity for all of your
connected accounts in one place, which can save you time.

To create a new post, select the Create icon from the sidebar, then select Post.

Then select the account(s) you want to publish to from the Publish to list.
Compose your post
After you've selected social media accounts to publish to, you can compose your post.

In the Content area, enter the text of your post. You can also include:

 Mentions: usernames of businesses, brands, or people preceded by the “@” symbol (for example,
@Google)
 Links
 Emojis: small digital images or icons used to express ideas or emotions
 Hashtags: words or phrases preceded by the pound symbol that indicate that a piece of content
relates to a specific topic or category (for example, #DigitalMarketing)

Hootsuite copies the content of your post into tabs for each social media platform you've selected. In each tab,
you can customize the content so it’s optimized for your unique audiences on each platform. For example, you
can make the post shorter on Twitter, remove the hashtags on Facebook, or remove the link on Instagram.

Add media
When the body of your post is complete, you can add media—such as images, videos, and GIFs—to your post.
Adding media to your social media posts increases the likelihood that your audience will engage with them.
Hootsuite offers a media library of royalty-free images and GIFs that you can add to your post. Or, you can
upload your own.

 To search for media in the tool, click Browse your media. Then select Free images or Free
GIFs from the menu, type a keyword into the search bar, and select the media you want to include in
your post.
 To upload your own media from your device, drag content to the media area or click Or select files
to upload.

You can edit images in your posts using Hootsuite’s built-in photo editor. For example, you can add effects or
crop images to fit a specific platform. When you upload a video, Hootsuite automatically formats it for each
platform you’ve chosen to post to.

To make images and videos more accessible, you can add alt text—a brief, written description of an image
with the primary purpose of assisting individuals who are visually impaired—or subtitles.

Preview and publish your post

After you create your post, you can select a social media platform tab and preview how your post will look on
that platform.
When you're satisfied with your post, you can choose from the following publishing options:

 Post now: Publish the post to your chosen platforms right away.
 Schedule for later: Select a time and date to publish the post. Scheduling your posts in advance
helps you keep your social media presence active and publish your posts at high-engagement times. If
you have a paid plan, Hootsuite provides recommended times to post based on your historical data.
 Save draft: Save a draft of your post if you're not ready to publish or schedule it yet. Your customized
content will be saved for each social media platform tab.
View your scheduled posts
You can view and manage your social media posts in one place by clicking the Planner icon, which is
Hootsuite’s built-in social media calendar. Review your scheduled posts and plan new content based on what
you already have scheduled. You can create new posts in empty time slots, and reschedule, edit, or delete
scheduled posts.
Key takeaways
Hootsuite is a powerful social media management tool that you can use to save time and organize your social
media marketing content. With Hootsuite, you can manage all of your social accounts, across different social
media platforms, in one place. Hootsuite allows you to schedule and publish posts to multiple social media
platforms at once and to customize your content for each platform. And by scheduling posts in advance and then
viewing them in Hootsuite’s social media calendar, you can more effectively plan and maintain a consistent
social media presence.

Terms and definitions from Course 3, Module 2

Blogging: Refers to self-published writing that lives online

Brand identity: The combination of elements that inform how people perceive a brand

Brand position statement: Outlines exactly what a company does and for whom, and what makes
it different from competitors

Chronological feed: A social media stream that displays the latest published content first

Content buckets: Categories to group marketing content

Earned media: Any positive digital exposure generated through personal or public recommendations

Influencer: A person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting
or recommending the items on social media

Influencer marketing: Involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its
products or services

Meme: An amusing or interesting item—such as a captioned picture or video—that is spread widely

online

Microblogging: Blogging on a smaller scale; Ideal for distributing short-form content quickly and
frequently

Monthly active users: Refers to the number of unique customers who visit a platform over a month-
long span

Real-time marketing: A marketing approach that involves responding to current events, trends, or
feedback in real or near-real time, almost always on social media

SMART: A goal-setting method that can help define and measure the success of campaign goals; Stands
for “specific,” “measurable,” “attainable,” “relevant,” and “time-bound”

Social listening: Refers to tracking social media platforms for mentions and conversations about a
brand

Social media algorithm: A way of sorting posts in a users’ feed based on relevancy rather than the
order in which they are published

Social media calendar: A calendar of all a company’s social media posts

Social media target audience: The specific group of people a company wants to reach on social
media platforms

Target audience: The group of people most likely to purchase a company’s products

Terms and their definitions from previous module(s)

Awareness stage: The first stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer captures an audience’s
attention

Brand awareness: How familiar people are with a particular business or product

Consideration stage: The second stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer provides a
customer with more detailed information

Conversion stage: The third stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer capitalizes on the
interest people have already shown
E

Earned media: Any positive digital exposure generated through personal or public recommendations

Engagement: How an audience interacts with a brand on social media

Lead: A potential customer who has interacted with a brand and shared personal information, like an
email address

Loyalty stage: The fourth stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer nurtures relationships with
customers

Marketing funnel: A graphic representation of the process through which people go from learning
about a brand to becoming loyal customers

Organic social media: Any social media activity that does not require a paid promotion

Owned media: All the digital content a brand fully controls

Paid media: Any form of digital promotion a brand pays to put online

Pillars of social media marketing: The pillars that can help guide an effective social media
marketing campaign: strategy, planning and publishing, listening and engagement, analytics and reporting,
and paid social media

Remarketing: A strategy in which a marketer uses paid ads to target customers who have visited a
website, app, or social media profile

Rule of seven: A marketing concept that states a potential customer must see a message at least seven
times before they’re ready to take action

Social listening: Refers to tracking and analyzing conversations and trends related to a brand

Social media: Any digital tool that enables users to create and share content publically

Social media analytics: The process of collecting data from social media platforms and analyzing
that data to make business decisions

Social media marketing: The process of creating content for different social media platforms in
order to drive engagement and promote a business or product

Social media report: A document that presents relevant data and analysis about a brand’s social
media activities
U

User-generated content (UGC): Any content created by people, rather than brands

Case study: How EatMoveRest improves content with social

listening
You learned that one of the benefits of social listening is increased user engagement with a brand. Social
listening happens on many social media platforms through a variety of different methods. This case study
describes how Erin and Dusty Stanczyk, founders of the Omaha, Nebraska-based healthy lifestyle brand
EatMoveRest, successfully incorporated social listening to improve their content.

Company background
EatMoveRest operates under the belief that since people do three things everyday—eat, move, and rest—they
should be doing them as best as they possibly can. EatMoveRest was established to coach people to achieve
healthy and sustainable lifestyles. As part of its business model, EatMoveRest offers vegan meal planning,
plant-based recipes, expert advice, coaching, and practical tips for sustainable living.

The Stanczyks built their business on the concept of friends sharing similar interests, but since they’ve built an
online community, their social circle spans the globe. Their followers and clientele are people who are like-
minded about their health.
The challenges
Recall that social listening is tracking and analyzing conversations and trends related to a brand. Social
listening is a big task for a business of any size. However, the main challenge for small businesses, like
EatMoveRest, is there is too much feedback and not enough time to go through all the data, much less analyze
it to make business or content decisions. Here are three specific challenges EatMoveRest encountered with
social listening:

 Large volume of user comments

 No barriers or limits on expression in feedback
 Inability to reply to or address every comment
Large volume of user comments

YouTube and Instagram comments are endless. Users are free to give feedback whenever they choose, and it
can be overwhelming to read, track, and respond to it all. Sifting through a massive volume of comments is a
huge challenge.

No barriers or limits on expression in feedback

Many user comments are positive and constructive, but there are plenty of negative and sometimes hateful
comments, too. There are no barriers on expression. It can be hard to identify useful feedback from thousands of
people digitally “shouting” in strong language or bold text.

Inability to address or reply to every comment

Addressing the input from a large number of followers can be a difficult task to navigate. With the sheer volume
of YouTube and Instagram comments, it’s impossible to post replies to all users.

The approach
The Stanczyks recommend these best practices or tips for social listening:

 Identify which channel is a priority to review comments.

 Offer followers designated times to provide feedback via chosen methods.

Prioritized reviews

EatMoveRest prioritized the comments on its YouTube channel over other social media channels. The
Stanczyks prioritized reading through and responding to these comments to make their viewers feel like they are
a part of the EatMoveRest community. The opinions of these subscribers matter the most to the brand.

Designated times and methods for feedback

EatMoveRest started providing its followers designated times and methods to provide feedback. The Stanczyks
could then plan for and set aside a certain amount of time to address the collected feedback. Setting designated
times and methods for feedback enables a more detailed focus on constructive comments. Noisy and
sometimes tasteless comments can be ignored.

One method of feedback they find to be very useful is the Q&A feature in Instagram. It allows them to create a
submission box right below their posted content. Users engage with the Stanczyks through direct and relevant
messages submitted in the box. The feedback they get on their products, apps, website, recipes, and content is
in one organized location, and they can reply to users promptly.

The results
By prioritizing the review of YouTube comments and implementing designated times and methods for social
listening, the Stanczyks were able to discover two problems and address them. One issue was with a particular
style of content and the other issue was with their meal planning app.

Reversing changes to content

Much of EatMoveRest’s social media content takes the format of “a day in the life of the Stanczyk family.” Many
young families find these types of videos to be a reflection of their own lives. They appreciate the vibrant colors
in the house, the uplifting music in the background of the videos, and the positive reinforcement of their lifestyle
choices. When the music in one video was a little darker than usual, YouTube subscribers let them know they
preferred the uplifting music. The brand’s upbeat music style was validated through social listening. When Dusty
Stanczyk posted a video about animal agriculture, YouTube subscribers also let him know through comments
that this wasn’t the kind of content they wanted to watch. That video had veered from the usual positive and
uplifting content EatMoveRest was well known for creating. Thumbs down and no shares! EatMoveRest now
avoids posting any content like that on YouTube.

Improving the meal planning app

EatMoveRest also discovered an issue with its new meal planning app through social listening. After the launch
of the app, the Stanczyks started getting Q&A feedback on Instagram that the recipes displayed were old.
Although it wasn’t in the app’s design, users expected the recipes to rollover and change on a weekly basis.
Because of its savvy and dedicated social listening practices, EatMoveRest heard its users and started to
update the recipes in the app more frequently.

Conclusion
A business needs to actively listen on social media to understand how users are interacting with its brand.
Feedback will be positive and constructive, negative and biased, or sometimes contentious. Even a brand like
EatMoveRest with a loyal base of followers can benefit from making changes to its business practices or content
after receiving constructive feedback through social listening.

Popular social listening tools

Now that you’ve made your way through this social media course content, you should be familiar with social
listening. As a refresher, social listening refers to the tracking and analyzing of conversations and trends
related to your brand. Another way to conduct social listening is simply by listening to your audience. In this
reading, you will learn about the tools that allow you to conduct effective social listening. Social listening tools
can help you monitor all of your social media platforms in one place.

In these tools’ dashboards, you can check:

 mentions of your brand

 relevant keywords
 feedback through tags and direct messages
You can even post on your social accounts directly from tool dashboards, and integrate all your accounts so you
can track analytics.

Social listening tools

There are countless social listening tools on the market, and choosing the right one can be a big task. For now,
you will have an introductory look at the most popular tools out there. As you learn about each one, you can start
to form an opinion on which you might prefer when you start your journey as a digital marketer. And after you’ve
done that, feel free to browse their sites and test them out—you can’t really know which tool you prefer until you
try them!

HubSpot Social Media Management Software

For the duration of this certificate program, you will continue to learn about HubSpot and its robust features.
HubSpot does many things, but as a social listening tool, it offers integration for all types of marketing and
analytics in one place. With HubSpot, users are able to target specific audiences using the contacts database
built into the customer relationship management tool, and then track and manage the engagement their brand
gets from those interactions. And, like many social listening tools, HubSpot allows you to reply directly to any
tags, mentions, and comments directly in the interface.

Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a comprehensive social media management tool with features similar to HubSpot. It’s
comprehensive in that users can post content via their publishing tools, and users can manage social listening
and customer service needs. Users find Sprout Social favorable because it allows them to discover trends from
within their mentions and comments, and it provides valuable insights into their audiences.

[Link] + Brandwatch ([Link] is now part of Brandwatch)

Another comprehensive social media management tool that is commonly used is [Link]. [Link] allows for
direct communication between social media users and your business’s internal team members when necessary.
[Link] also includes a feature called the Engage inbox, which allows users to handle private messaging
communications effectively.

Hootsuite

Like the other tools, Hootsuite allows you to create and schedule content, monitor activity and mentions, and
manage communication across all your supported social accounts in one dashboard. Hootsuite also suggests
the best times to post, based on your data, and allows for team collaboration on all messages in Hootsuite
Inbox.

Key takeaways
Remember, these are just a few of the commonly used tools for social listening. They all have similar use cases,
but the user interface and capabilities may vary. If you have a moment, take some time and try out each tool to
help you identify which one you feel most comfortable in.

Respond to social media users

When a customer reaches out to you on social media—whether it’s via direct message, a comment on a post, or
any other type of interaction—a reply is usually needed. Sometimes, however, a reply isn’t the best course of
action. In this reading, you will learn when to reply and what kind of reply is best.

Why should you respond?

Generally speaking, replying to social media comments, messages, mentions, and tags is a great way to get
customers to engage. When you reply to users, you make them feel heard. You also appear accessible to
people who read the replies. This indicates that your brand cares about the customer experience. Whether
you’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or another platform, engaging with your customer base is usually a
good idea.

How should you respond?

 If you are responding to positive feedback, acknowledge the comment, thank them for the
kind words, and consider reposting or Retweeting their feedback. It says a lot about your brand when
people provide positive feedback about it on social media, so it’s a good strategy to ensure as many
people as possible see that feedback.
 If you are responding to questions or general feedback, reply briefly and with clear
enthusiasm. Engaging with customers should be fun and informative for both parties, and your
customers should be able to tell you’re having fun based on the type of responses you give. Don’t be
afraid to use creative language and exclamation marks, if it aligns with your brand voice.
 If you are responding to negative comments, such as when you have to resolve an issue for
users, it’s best to remain calm and use helpful, polite, and approachable language. If there is a clear
issue that has the potential to become something larger, you may have to offer refunds or promotional
codes to make things right. In these situations, encourage them to send you a direct message so the
issue can be resolved quickly and privately. However, if the response could be helpful to other people
who may have the same concerns or thoughts as the original poster, you may choose to answer it
publicly so everyone can benefit from the interaction.
 If you are responding to internet trolls, the short answer is: don’t. An internet troll is a person
who intentionally antagonizes others online by posting inflammatory, unnecessary, or offensive
comments or other disruptive content that shouldn’t necessarily be replied to. This is typically the only
time you’re encouraged not to reply to users on social media. Unfortunately, trolling is a reality of social
media, and a common one at that. The more your brand grows, the more trolls you will get. If you know
 your brand didn’t do anything wrong, simply don’t reply. If the trolling gets worse, consider deleting the
comments or hiding the replies.
Key takeaways
When it comes to interacting with users on social media, each reply requires careful thought and consideration.
Whether the comments are positive, general feedback, or negative, you’ll want to be strategic about when, how,
and where you reply. Feel free to keep these tips in mind as you move forward on your digital marketing journey,
and leverage the help of any team members who may have experience replying to users.

Influencer marketing
As a digital marketer, chances are you’ll hear the term influencer often. An influencer is a person with the
ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social
media. If an influencer recommends a product and you buy it, you have been influenced.

Influencer marketing is when a brand collaborates with an online influencer to market its products or
services. In 2021 alone, it’s estimated that brands spent $13.8 billion on influencer marketing. In this reading,
you’ll learn more about influencer marketing and the various strategies marketers use to make it successful.

Different types of influencers

Influencers span all industries and subject matters. There are influencers in the beauty, art and design, food, and
home organization spaces, and many others. Today, anyone can be an influencer—all it takes is having a large
and/or engaged social media following.

The influencer’s number of followers determines their category:

 Nano-influencers: 10,000 followers or fewer

 Micro-influencers: between 10,000 and 100,000 followers
 Macro-influencers: between 100,000 and 1 million followers
 Mega-influencers: 1 million or more followers
Importance of influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is wildly successful on social media and has become an important tactic for brands trying to
leverage social media to bring in revenue. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, 67% of brands on Instagram
use influencer marketing. In a recent benchmark report, Influencer Marketing Hub found an average return on
investment (ROI) of $5.78 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing.

Tips on selecting influencers for your campaign

Although it may seem that partnering with mega influencers would be the most effective for your brand, often,
the influencers with smaller followings have higher engagement. For instance, engagement for micro-influencers
is estimated at 3.86%, while engagement for mega-influencers is estimated at just 1.21%.

If you are running a campaign in which your aim is to increase engagement, conversions, sales, or followers,
consider using influencers with smaller followings that align with your target audience to drive higher
engagement rates. However, if your campaign goal is to hit a certain number of views or impressions, you may
want to target influencers with large followings. Regardless of your goals, make sure you’ve done your research
on each potential influencer. Run audits on their social media accounts, or reach out to them to ask for the
metrics you’re interested in.

Quick tips for effective influencer marketing

As is true with all marketing, you’ll need to be organized and detail-oriented when creating an influencer
marketing plan. After you’ve researched and selected your influencers, create a strategy, budget, and schedule.
Then, present your plan to your influencers.

Pro tip: Remember that although you and your influencer both represent your respective businesses, you’re
speaking person-to-person. Have an open conversation about the benefits of partnering, and when addressing
any concerns, be diplomatic.
As you set out to create your influencer plan, make sure to integrate it with any public relations, events, or
product releases you may have in your near future.

Key takeaways
Influencer marketing has proven itself an invaluable tool for brands on social media. Staying up-to-date on the
top influencers in your industry, remaining organized, and executing a clear strategy will allow you to have
successful influencer marketing campaigns.

Social marketing on mobile

In this lesson, you are learning about how to increase engagement on social media. To review,
engagement refers to the actions people take on social media, such as likes, favorites, comments,
shares, Retweets, saves, clicks, hashtags, and mentions. In this reading, we’ll discuss one of the best ways to
engage your social media audience: through mobile marketing.

Social media and mobile marketing

Mobile marketing is a digital marketing strategy aimed at reaching your target audience on their
smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. Mobile marketing can reach users through many channels,
including websites, email, and social media. Social media and mobile marketing go hand in hand because
people are increasingly accessing social media content from their mobile devices. For example, in July 2021,
over 98% of users worldwide accessed Facebook from their smartphones. Because of this, your social media
marketing strategy should incorporate mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing on social media offers the following benefits:

  High engagement
 Wide reach
 Increased conversion rates
 Effective user targeting
 Opportunities to make personal connections with customers
 Quick customer response time
 Access to user-generated content
 Easy-to-track results
As a digital marketer, there are several ways you can use mobile marketing to boost the performance of your
social media campaigns.

Mobile social media marketing tips

Here are some tips to incorporate mobile marketing into your social media marketing strategy:

Create mobile-friendly posts

If you create a post that looks good on a desktop, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will look good on a mobile
device. Be sure to test all of your layouts and images on mobile, and make sure any links in your posts lead
to mobile-optimized landing pages. You should also keep mobile users in mind when creating written
content. People generally don't want to read long articles on their phones, so focus on creating shorter posts.

Integrate video

Users engage more with video than they do with other types of content on their mobile devices, so include
videos in your posts often. That being said, people have short attention spans when they are on their phones.
Therefore, be sure to highlight important points or product features at the beginning of videos, and keep
your videos short—no more than 15 to 30 seconds. Live video is another engaging option for mobile
marketing. You can broadcast live from your business on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram Live, or another
platform to generate interest and engagement.

Ask customers to check in

Asking customers to “check in” at your business on social media is a great way to gain earned media.
Checking in lets customers’ friends and followers on social media know that they are patronizing your
business. Offering incentives like discounts, coupons, and rewards programs can encourage customers to
check in.

Encourage user-generated content

User-generated content, or UGC, is any kind of content created by people, rather than brands.
People enjoy content from actual customers because it feels authentic and trustworthy. Because of this, user-
generated content can help boost your social media engagement rates. User-generated content is also
convenient for customers to create and post on social media from their mobile devices. To encourage users
to submit UGC, you can run contests inviting customers to post photos or videos of themselves using your
product or service.

Leverage influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is when a brand collaborates with an online influencer to market one of its
products or services. Mobile marketing is convenient for influencers because they can promote brands
remotely. To build a collaboration with an influencer, find one who shares your target audience, uses the
same platforms as your target audience, and has a great connection with followers.
Key takeaways
A successful social media marketing strategy will include mobile marketing. Integrating social media and
mobile marketing has many benefits, including a wide reach, high engagement, and increased conversions.
The tactics discussed in this reading are just a few ways to leverage mobile to maximize the results of your
social media marketing campaigns. As both mobile and social media continue to grow and evolve, stay
informed about the latest trends to keep your campaigns relevant and achieve better results.
Mark as completed

Case study: How BLK & Bold found its brand voice
Previously, you learned that brand voice is the distinct personality a brand takes on in a company’s
communications. It’s how the attitudes and values of a brand are reflected in public content, including social
media content. This case study describes how the founders of BLK & Bold, a coffee company based in Des
Moines, Iowa, successfully incorporated a distinct brand voice into their social media content. You’ll learn about
the elements that make their brand voice unique.
Company background

BLK & Bold founders Rod Johnson and Pernell Cezar, Jr. have been lifelong friends and grew up in Gary,
Indiana. They started BLK & Bold with an idea to bring their passion and taste for premium coffee and tea to the
masses, and to do some good. They began roasting coffee in their garage, which grew into an online business
and a 20,000 square foot production facility. Today, their coffee is featured and sold in Target stores in the U.S.,
and 5% of their profits support programs for youth in need.

The challenges
In the beginning, Rod and Pernell were up against a few challenges. First was the product category. Coffee is an
oversaturated market with many brands. Second, they were going against an industry norm. Premium coffee
and tea are usually targeted at upscale consumers, but they wanted to bring them to a much larger market—
everyone. They wanted to introduce a premium product to mass retail. Lastly, they were launching a digitally-
native brand at a time when most people didn’t buy their coffee online. Unlike larger companies with well-known
coffee shops, they didn’t have brick-and-mortar stores to help drive brand recognition and online sales. On top of
these challenges, neither of them had prior experience in the coffee industry, or were high-profile influencers for
coffee consumption.

The approach
Despite these challenges, Rod and Pernell set out to build their business. While doing so, they became direct
contributors to BLK & Bold’s brand voice, the distinct personality of their brand. The main elements of their brand
voice include the following:

 Company’s name
 Inspiration
 Values
  Tone
 Attitude
Company’s name

The company’s name, BLK & Bold, is a powerful statement for their brand. BLK represents black coffee and tea
—their products—but also represents who they are as Black business owners. Bold differentiates their brand
from bland flavors, but also represents their bold representation as minority stakeholders in the coffee industry.

Inspiration

Their personal story is a source of inspiration to others. Rod and Pernell were first-generation college graduates
and found their purpose and mission as entrepreneurs. They worked hard to build their business from the
ground up and are often viewed as role models in their community.

What motivates them is their sense of purpose and mission. Their purpose is creating specialty coffee and
joining forces with community impact. Their mission is to educate coffee drinkers and give back to the
community.

Values

For an individual, nothing is more powerful than saying something that reflects your deepest values. The same is
true for brand voice. Notice how the following statements made by the founders reflect their brand voice and
related values and business practices.

 Brand voice: “Today, people shop their values.”

Underlying value: BLK & Bold respects that you have a choice in where you shop. Shop with us because you
support our mission.

 Brand voice: “Shop with a company that does more than just sell a widget.”
Underlying value: Invest in our community by returning 5% of profits to support community programs.

 Brand voice: “We connect the everyday ritual of drinking coffee and tea to doing
good in the world.”
Underlying value: Daily beverage choices make a difference and impact others.

 Brand voice: “We take the consumer-first approach.”

Underlying value: Break free from complicated coffee jargon and simply have an amazing cup of coffee.

Tone

Another element of brand voice is tone, which is how a brand’s voice is applied. BLK & Bold’s brand voice is
casual, approachable, conversational, and educational.

Attitude

BLK & Bold’s brand voice also shows an attitude of social engagement. In particular, BLK & Bold looks for
culturally-relevant opportunities to promote its brand and mission. For example, in collaboration with the
Movement for Black Lives, it partnered with Ben & Jerry’s to create an ice cream flavor made with a distinct cold
brew from BLK & Bold called Change is Brewing. BLK & Bold also produces an officially-licensed National
Basketball Association (NBA) special edition coffee. For every bag of The Warm Up coffee sold, the NBA
matches an additional 5% towards BLK & Bold’s For Our Youth initiative.

The results
With its brand voice in mind, BLK & Bold has had the most success with branding using Instagram. In particular,
BLK & Bold’s success with Instagram videos is due in large part to an ability to capture coffee brewing and
tasting sensations. One example is an Instagram video for iced coffee in which viewers can hear the sound of
ice cubes going into a glass. Ads on both Instagram and Facebook target coffee drinkers between the ages of
25 and 45. These users are most likely to have the discretionary income to purchase the equipment needed to
brew coffee at home. They are also the most likely to be attracted to socially responsible companies like BLK &
Bold—companies that are making an impact on communities with proceeds from their profits.

The following are taglines from BLK & Bold’s top-performing posts on Instagram. Can you spot BLK & Bold’s
brand voice in these?

 What started as an idea turned out to be much more than we expected.

o Inspiration (Purpose): Speciality coffee joins forces with community impact
o Value: Invest in our community by returning 5% of profits to support community programs
 It’s really the coffee experience that we’re here for.
o Inspiration (Mission): Educate coffee drinkers and give back to the community
o Value: Daily beverage choices make a difference and impact others
o Value: Break free from complicated coffee jargon and simply have an amazing cup of coffee
 Let us know if you can spot the different flavor characteristics and mouth feel of
our light and dark roast coffee by trying the roasts side-by-side.
o Value: Break free from complicated coffee jargon and simply have an amazing cup of coffee
o Tone: Casual, approachable, conversational, and educational
BLK & Bold would like to continue their successful branding on Instagram and Facebook while making better use
of Twitter to reach more customers. Because tweets rely more on text than visuals, they will continue to ensure
that their brand voice comes through loud and clear in their messages. Their tone and attitude of social
engagement in their brand voice will play a larger role when using Twitter. Their ability to capture user interest
through timely tweets about culturally-relevant events and topics will be crucial.

Conclusion
This case study on BLK & Bold’s brand voice demonstrates how well a brand voice can convey a company’s
core values and business. Brand voice elements differ for every company, but they should be thoughtfully
considered and incorporated when creating content for social media campaigns.

Design engaging content for social media

In the video that covered writing for social media in this course, you learned about brand voice, language, and
tone for social media content. You also learned that including images and visuals helps attract people to follow
you and consume your content. This reading provides additional tips about creating visually engaging content for
social media and introduces popular software tools for design and editing.

Note: Review the Make social media posts accessible reading for additional design tips to make your social
media content inclusive and accessible.

Design tips for social media content

Here are ten tips for designing content for social media:

1. Use simple graphics. Graphics that have too many details aren’t fully understood or appreciated in
a few seconds. Keeping graphics simple and elegant helps your message remain clear.
2. Use colors that drive more engagement. Even if your organization or agency has a
recommended color palette, you can sometimes include a contrasting color or tint to grab people’s
attention. However, make sure you get approval when you veer away from a brand’s approved colors.
For help choosing colors that look good together, consult a resource that provides recommendations on
color combinations. For example, try the color wheel offered by Canva.
3. Use contrast to help put the focus on key elements. It doesn’t always have to be
acolorcontrast. You can also use variations in size, texture, shape, layout, and font.
4. Use text that is easy to read. Text should be easy to read so it doesn’t distract users from the
full impact of visuals..
5. Use a variety of styles. Although certain styles clearly make a company or brand recognizable,
using the same style for all social media content gets boring. Shake it up and surprise users with a
variety of styles. Be playful and adjust text sizes, colors, and weights for full effect.
6. Use smart branding. Users should know what brand you’re highlighting without your brand being
mentioned repeatedly, or your logo visible at all times. Place branding in or near key images for users to
find when they want it.
 7. Use principles of visual hierarchy. Visual hierarchy enables users to observe overall meaning
before they gather details from individual elements. A structured hierarchy of visual components can
group elements together, place elements in a natural or predictable pattern (such as reading from left to
right), or lead to the most important elements to click on.
8. Use a call to action. A call to action is an instruction that tells the customer what to do next.
Whether it’s liking, sharing, or commenting, include a call to action in your social media content to reach
more users.
9. Use visuals across multiple platforms. Design, optimize, and re-use graphics, photos, and
videos across multiple social media platforms. For example, a photo on Instagram can be reused on
Facebook.
10. Use and create templates. Use and create templates for social media content that is successful.
Doing so enables you to create similar content with a high likelihood of success.
Tools for visual content
If you work for an advertising agency or larger company, you might use an approved set of paid tools, like Adobe
Creative Cloud which is a collection of more than 20 apps for photography, video, design, web pages, UX, and
social media. If you work in a smaller company, or work as a freelancer, you might use free tools to minimize
cost, or a combination of paid and free tools. The following is a sampler of paid and free tools so you can get an
idea of what is available.

Note: This certificate program doesn’t specifically endorse or recommend any of the products.

Photo editing

For paid software for photo editing, you can try the following products:

 ACDSee Photo Studio

 Adobe Lightroom
 Adobe Photoshop
 Adobe Photoshop Elements
 Affinity Photo
 Capture One
 Corel PaintShop Pro
 CyberLink PhotoDirector 365
 DxO PhotoLab
 Exposure Software
 ON1 Photo RAW
 Skylum Luminar AI
 Zoner Photo Studio
For free or open-source software for photo editing, you can try the following options:

 Canva
 darktable
 Fotor

Video editing

For video editing, you can try the following products:

 Adobe Premiere Pro

 Apple Final Cut Pro
 Apple iMovie
 CyberLink PowerDirector 365
 Corel VideoStudio Ultimate
 DaVinci Resolve
 Movavi Video Editor Plus
 Pinnacle Studio Ultimate
For free or open-source software for video editing, you can try the following options:

 Blender
 Clipchamp
 FXhome HitFilm Express
  Lightworks
 OpenShot Video Editor
 Shotcut
 NCH Software VideoPad
 Vimeo Create
 VSDC Video Editor
 WeVideo

Graphic design

For graphic design, you can try the following products:

 Adobe Illustrator
 Adobe Photoshop
 Affinity Designer
 CorelDraw Graphics Suite
 Gravit Designer PRO
 Xara Designer Pro+
For free graphic design options, you can try the following:

 Inkscape
 Canva
Images and graphics for commercial use
Creating original images, graphics, and artwork takes a lot of time and skill. Many organizations search online for
image libraries or stock photos when they can’t create something in-house. If you choose to search online for
images and graphics, be sure you know the difference between free and licensed materials. Free images are
offered by creators with an understanding that they are to be credited for their work. Sometimes these images
must be displayed with the creator’s logo. Licensed images for commercial use typically have a payment fee or
subscription requirement that users must abide by.

Key takeaways
Many popular software tools help you create visually appealing visual content on personal computers. Some
software tools are free or open-source. Graphic designers use tools that require some additional training to use
at a professional level. Other tools have templates and editing features that make creating graphics or working
with photos and videos much easier for everyone. If you don’t use original artwork, make sure you follow all
copyright and licensing requirements.

Make social media posts accessible

Over 1 billion people in the world have a disability. That's more than the populations of the United States,
Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil combined. A disability can affect:

 Vision
 Movement
 Thinking
 Memory
 Learning
 Communication
 Hearing
 Mental health
 Social relationships
When creating social media content, it’s important to remember that your audience includes people with hearing
loss who rely on captions, and people with visual disabilities who rely on special text that describes images. This
reading describes how you can make your social media posts more accessible to these audiences.

What is accessibility?
According to one definition, accessibility is considering the needs of people with disabilities when products,
services, and facilities are built or modified, making them usable by people of all abilities.
Make social media posts accessible
Use the following guidelines to help make your social media posts more accessible to all.

Video captioning

Video captioning assists those without hearing or with some hearing loss. Captioning also assists those whose
native language isn’t the one being used, and those who aren’t in a place to play sound as they normally would,
such as in a quiet space or crowded environment.

 Closed captions are overlaid on video and can be turned on and off by users.
 Open captions are embedded directly in video and can’t be hidden or turned off by users.
Check which type of captions are supported on the social media platforms you intend to use and design your
content to meet those requirements.

Alternative text

Alternative text, or alt text for short, is a brief, written description of an image with the primary purpose of
assisting individuals who are visually impaired. Many platforms allow you to submit alt text for social media
posts. Some platforms automatically generate alt text for images using artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
While this technology is still emerging, it might save some time if you edit the auto-generated text instead of
creating the text yourself.

Here are two tips for writing alt text descriptions:

 Because screen readers announce the presence of images with the word “image,” there is no need to
include “image” in your description. For example, instead of “image of a cup of coffee” you can use “cup
of coffee” and even add more descriptive details like “cup of coffee with foam in the shape of a heart on
top.”
  Focus on the purpose of the image as opposed to every detail about the image. For example, if an
image of a clock is used to illustrate a limited-time offer, it really isn’t necessary to include the actual time
set on the clock in the alt text. You can use “wall clock with hour, minute, and second hands showing the
passage of time” without even mentioning that the time displayed is 10:10.

Color contrast

Color contrast ratios (L1/L2) measure the luminescence (or brightness) of the lighter color (L1) against the
luminescence of the darker color (L2). Contrast ratios range from 1/1 or 1:1 to 21/1 or 21:1. White on white has a
contrast ratio of 1:1 and black on white has a contrast ratio of 21:1. For comparison purposes, red on white has
a contrast ratio of 4:1, green on white has a contrast ratio of 1.4:1, and blue on white has a contrast ratio of 8.6:1
.

For graphics in social media, use a color contrast of at least 4.5:1 for text and background color to make the text
more readable. Using this guidance, you would choose to use blue on white with a contrast ratio of 8.6:1 instead
of red or green on white with contrast ratios of 4:1 and 1.4:1, respectively.

Pro tip: WebAIM is a useful website where you can access resources for making content more accessible.
Check out their interactive contrast checker page where you can input foreground and background hex color
codes to determine the contrast ratio.

Fonts
Custom fonts may appear striking and innovative, but screen readers could have a problem identifying the text.
Be on alert because this includes italic text and other standard styles.

Hashtags

Hashtags should use what’s known as CamelCase, where initial letters of words are capitalized. For example,
use #VirtualClassroom instead of #virtualclassroom. Screen readers recognize CamelCase text as two words
and will use the correct pronunciation.

Emojis

Emojis are fun, but use them sparingly in social media posts because screen readers use multiple words to
describe them. Imagine five smiling face emojis translated by a screen reader as “Grinning Face with Big Eyes,
Grinning Face with Big Eyes, Smiling Face with Sunglasses, Grinning Face with Big Eyes, Grinning Face with
Big Eyes.” Emojis take too long to describe with screen readers and people can lose their patience.

Language

When you create social media content, avoid terms that undervalue or dehumanize people because of their
disability. For example, instead of using the term “the blind,” you could use “blind people” or “partially-sighted
people.” Additionally, just because you have heard certain phrases used frequently doesn’t mean that they are
inclusive. It is often necessary to rephrase commonly used statements with accessibility in mind. For example,
you could replace “take a walk” with “enjoy the outdoors” because people using the aid of wheelchairs can’t
walk, but certainly do enjoy the outdoors. Use inclusive language in your social media posts.

Key takeaways
Social media content casts a wide net to increase user interest in a company, brand, product, or individual. The
more accessible and inclusive posts are, the wider the audience and the greater the interest. Aim for the largest
audience possible by making your social media content accessible.

What is Canva?
Throughout this course, you’ve learned a lot about what content can do for your social media presence. In this
reading, you’ll learn how to design a post for your social media pages.

What is Canva?
Canva is an online graphic design tool used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents,
and other visual content, including videos. As opposed to other graphic design tools that require some level of
expertise, Canva is specifically laid out for ease of use, which means novice users can feel more comfortable
starting out with the tool. Canva offers a large number of pre-built templates so that digital marketers can create
on-brand posts at an expert design level.

Navigate the Canva interface

To create a new social media asset in Canva, you’ll need to log in or create a new account. To begin,
navigate to [Link] and complete one of those [Link] will be directed to provide your email address and
create a password, or log in via your Google, Facebook, or Apple account.
Next, select create a design. Select the type of post you want to create. You’ll have the option to create a
video, presentation, Instagram post or story, poster, Facebook post, logo, flyer, infographic, resume, and other
types of content. Since we are covering social media in this course, for now, select an Instagram post.

Now, title your post in the bar at the top of the page. Make sure to give your post a descriptive title. For example,
your title might include the name of the discount being offered or an upcoming holiday.

After you’ve titled it, browse Canva’s various templates by entering keywords in the search bar that
involves the specific topic of your post or business, like electronic store, or more vague terms, such as
colorful.

Note: The free templates do not have a crown icon. The items with a crown require a paid Canva Pro account.
When you find a template you like, select it to add to your post. You can adjust and edit all the
elements within the template by selecting an element. A toolbar will pop up, allowing you to make
any changes you want. You’ll have the ability to change colors, sizes, fonts, text alignment, spacing, and more. If
you want to select more than one element, you can click and drag your mouse over the elements you wish to
edit, and they’ll be selected together.

When you’re ready to add header text, go to the Text menu and select Add a heading. Move the heading to
where you would like to place it in the post. You can also click on an existing text element in the template to edit
or delete it.

Note: If you’re on desktop, Canva has a series of keyboard shortcuts you can use to streamline your design
process. These shortcuts allow you to easily complete actions like: create a new text box, bold your text, resize
your images, copy your elements, and much more. Visit this link to learn more.
To adjust text, select the text you want to edit and choose a font from the dropdown menu. To ensure
your text is accessible, avoid complicated fonts and italics, bold, or other special lettering.

If you need to add additional body text, go to the Text menu and select Add a little bit of body text.
Move the text box to where you would like to place it in the post.
Next, click on the Elements tab to find graphics, photos, videos, and more. Type a keyword in the search
bar to find relevant elements for your design. When you click on an item in the elements tab, it will automatically
be added to your canvas, but feel free to drag it around and place it where you want.

You might want to share your post with collaborators before posting your new post on social media. To share,
click the share button. Here you can set the sharing permissions from only people added to Anyone with
the [Link] can also choose what access to allow, from full editing access to view only. You can either click
Copy link or add in your collaborators email addresses.

Finally, be sure to save the work you did to complete this activity. Canva automatically saves your work, but
you can also save it by clicking File and selecting Save. After you save your work, navigate to the homepage
to the Your Projects tab, where you can find your saved projects.
After you’ve experimented with creating an Instagram post for this course, we encourage you to go back and try
to design other kinds of assets in Canva. The skills you learn in this course can be applied to any kind of social
media post.

Key takeaways
Canva can be an invaluable tool to your social media presence as a digital marketer or social media manager.
Make sure to spend time getting acquainted with its various capabilities and features so you set yourself up for
success in future roles.

Glossary terms from module 3

Terms and definitions from Course 3, Module 3

Accessibility: Refers to considering the needs of people with disabilities when products, services, and
facilities are built or modified, making them usable by people of all abilities

Alt text: A brief, written description of an image with the primary purpose of assisting individuals who are
visually impaired

Brand voice: The distinct personality a brand takes on in its communications

Brand voice guidelines: Describes the way a brand should be presented in writing

Call to action: An instruction that tells the customer what to do next

Closed captions: Subtitles that are overlaid on video and can be turned on and off by users

Color contrast ratios: Measures the luminescence (or brightness) of a lighter color against the
luminescence of a darker color

Evergreen content: Content that will be relevant over a long period of time

Follower: Someone who opts in to receive updates from a business or brand on a social media platform

GIF: An animated image

Hashtag: A word or phrase preceded by the pound symbol that indicates that a piece of content relates to a
specific topic or category

Internet troll: A person who intentionally antagonizes others online by posting inflammatory, unnecessary,
or offensive comments or other disruptive content

Macro-influencers: Influencers with between 100,000 and 1 million followers

Mega-influencers: Influencers with 1 million or more followers

Micro-influencers: Influencers with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers

Nano-influencers: Influencers with 10,000 followers or fewer

Open captions: Subtitles that are embedded directly in video and can’t be hidden or turned off by users

Promoted post: A social media post that a marketer pays the platform to make more visible

Repurposing content:The process of recreating and republishing content in different formats

Social listening: Refers to tracking social media platforms for mentions and conversations about a brand

Social listening tool: Software that helps track mentions of your brand, relevant keywords, and direct
feedback from multiple social media platforms in one place

Social media engagement: Refers to the actions people take on social media, such as likes, favorites,
comments, shares, Retweets, saves, clicks, hashtags, and mentions

Social media sentiment: The attitude and feelings people have about a brand on social media

Tone: How a brand’s voice is applied

Tweet: Any message posted to Twitter; May contain elements like text, photos, videos, links, and audio

Visual hierarchy: A structured organization of visual components that groups elements together, places
elements in a natural or predictable pattern (such as reading from left to right), or leads to the most important
elements to click on

Terms and their definitions from previous module(s)

A

Awareness stage: The first stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer captures an audience’s attention

Blogging: Refers to self-published writing that lives online

Brand awareness: How familiar people are with a particular business or product

Brand identity: The combination of elements that inform how people perceive a brand

Brand position statement: Outlines exactly what a company does and for whom, and what makes it
different from competitors

Chronological feed: A social media stream that displays the latest published content first

Consideration stage: The second stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer provides customer with
more detailed information

Content buckets: Categories to group marketing content

Conversion stage: The third stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer capitalizes on the interest
people have already shown

Earned media: Any positive digital exposure generated through personal or public recommendations

Engagement: How an audience interacts with a brand on social media

Influencer: A person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or
recommending the items on social media

Influencer marketing: Involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products
or services

Lead: A potential customer who has interacted with a brand and shared personal information, like an email
address

Loyalty stage: The fourth stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer nurtures relationships with
customers

Marketing funnel: A graphic representation of the process through which people go from learning about a
brand to becoming loyal customers

Meme: An amusing or interesting item—such as a captioned picture or video—that is spread widely online

Microblogging: Blogging on a smaller scale; Ideal for distributing short-form content quickly and frequently

Monthly active users: Refers to the number of unique customers who visit a platform over a month-long
span

Organic social media: Any social media activity that does not require a paid promotion

Owned media: All the digital content a brand fully controls

P

Paid media: Any form of digital promotion a brand pays to put online

Pillars of social media marketing: The pillars that can help guide an effective social media marketing
campaign: strategy, planning and publishing, listening and engagement, analytics and reporting, and paid social
media

Real-time marketing: A marketing approach that involves responding to current events, trends, or
feedback in real or near-real time, almost always on social media

Remarketing: A strategy in which a marketer uses paid ads to target customers who have visited a website,
app, or social media profile

Rule of seven: A marketing concept that states a potential customer must see a message at least seven
times before they’re ready to take action

SMART: A goal-setting method that can help you define and measure the success of the goals of your
campaign; Stands for “specific,” “measurable,” “attainable,” “relevant,” and “time-bound”

Social listening: Refers to tracking social media platforms for mentions and conversations about a brand

Social media: Any digital tool that enables users to create and share content publically

Social media algorithm: A way of sorting posts in a user’s feed based on relevancy rather than the order
in which they are published

Social media analytics:The process of collecting data from social media platforms and analyzing that data
to make business decisions

Social media calendar: A calendar of all social media posts

Social media marketing: The process of creating content for different social media platforms in order to
drive engagement and promote a business or product

Social media report: A document that presents relevant data and analysis about a brand’s social media
activities

Social media target audience: The specific group of people a company wants to reach on social media
platforms

Target audience: The group of people most likely to purchase a company’s products

User-generated content (UGC): Any content created by people, rather than brands