Welcome to the newest show on our platform, the Digital Marketing Show! This week, we speak with Imogen Callister of realestate.com.au. She is a branding specialist with a passion for digital profiling and very powerful content. She is a trusted advisor to some of the best operators in the world thanks to her valuable insights into engagement and online audience practices. Insights, that she has shared with us, and now, to you.

Facebook–is it still relevant?

The first trend agents need to know about Facebook. A few years ago, it was the only major player we had. Every year, the social media giant just expanded and expanded until we saw its influence everywhere.

Status updates have changed so much since it first appeared in 2009. Everyone's sort of gone a little bit away from Facebook thinking that there are all these riders in different platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and the like, but the truth is, Facebook is a community of apps that actually owns WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook itself.

Organic reach–the number of people who see your posts with paid promotion–may be incredibly low these days compared to when Facebook first started, it still has the biggest audience out of all social media platforms. As of writing, there are still 16 million Aussies on Facebook! That’s no mean feat.

Especially with Facebook going into dating, Imogen thinks that there will be a resurgence back into the platform. Don’t give up on it yet.

In-the-moment content

We’re talking about stories, here. And we don’t mean the once upon a time kind, but the Instagram and Facebook stories kind. Analytics show that stories have a bigger content impact on your brand. It really is about you posting regularly, but content that are not highly or professionally produced is what’s working today. LinkedIn is also rumored to finally join the big social media players and go into stories. So, the possibilities remain high.

Imogen also says that your message does not necessarily have to be different for every platform as long as you’re targeting the audience that you want to reach.

If you look at Facebook or social media as something you can just ignore, you’re going to damage your brand in the long run. Because it’s very very hard to start from scratch.

Artificial intelligence

AI is becoming huge. A lot of people have talked about personalisation being the next trend, and while that is still something that has a lot of potential, AI can allow us to connect better with customers.

AI has many forms and one of the easiest and most simple of them are chatbots. It used to be that you can only see these on websites, but Facebook has just launched its own artificial intelligence. If you don’t have automation set up on your business page, then you need to set it up now, Imogen says. It’s very important because in this day and age, customers want to be tended to 24/7.

While having staff in front of a computer or desk 24/7 is not ideal due to the overhead and employee strain, that is not the case for AI. We live in a world where a lack of efficiency can really damage your brand. We also know that if you reply to a lead in a certain amount of time, you’re far more likely to close a sale than if you replied later.

Another form of AI is called remarketing or retargeting. So for example, one day you saw a shoe online that you really liked but something came up and you didn’t buy it. Retargeting remembers that and shows the shoe to you again at another time. So it’s a very powerful marketing technique and feature that can help you close sales because your customer already recognises and likes the product.

Contrast that with the spray and pray technique where you just send out ads without knowing if your customer wants them. There’s a very low chance of closing the sale because you don’t know your customer. Instead, chances are high that your ads will be marked as irrelevant or spam and that’s something no marketer or business owner wants.

Omni channel

Imogen says that omni is a bit of a buzzword in marketing. It is basically the idea of creating a seamless experience across all the platforms your brand is in. If you only log in to a platform a few times every month, then Imogen says you need to get rid of it. It’s not doing you any favors.

Instead, it can be harming you. If there are a lot of unanswered comments or unanswered messages on the platform you don’t use then that sends a negative message to your prospects. You need to ensure that every time a customer is researching you, they're experiencing your brand at its best.

Do likes actually matter?

In fact, there is some evidence that both Facebook and Instagram are experimenting with ways to reduce the impact and influence of likes on social media. Imogen says that it’s not about likes. It’s not that important for customers to ‘like’ your post or page, but important that they see what you’re doing and how you’re growing.

The number of impressions is a more important metric than likes are.