How and Why Social Media Matters to Your Business

Just about every business leader has heard about it, but that doesn’t mean every business leader understands it.

Social media is no longer optional. It’s a priority in every business’ marketing portfolio and it’s been this way now for years. The reason social media drives success is because it has revolutionized the way brands and businesses communicate with their customers.

While print marketing is still a valuable form of advertising, social media goes beyond one-way communication messaging. Social media is about engagement. It’s live and it provides businesses with the tool for two-way communication with their customers.

Sadly, only 1 out of 3 small businesses use social media according to research done in 2012 by Gartner, an IT research and advisory company. Furthermore, they also report that 50% of web sales will occur via social media by 2015.

Doesn’t it make sense for every business to be a part of that?

What business owners should know is that social media is now a major part of most people’s lives. That same research shows that 79% of Facebook fans are more likely to purchase from a brand they have connected with on Facebook. Facebook says they have more than one billion users on the site each month as of March 2013.

The statistics are practically yelling about how important this business opportunity is.

This gives brands the opportunity to humanize themselves and start engaging with consumers. In the process, businesses receive the following benefits:

• Increase sales
• Increase prospects and leads
• Build brand awareness
• Improve knowledge of prospects and clients
• Improve marketing ROI
• Become the thought leader in your industry
• Launch new products or services

Here is a checklist for business owners to understand what resources they need in order to effectively manage social media:

•    Know your audience and who you are targeting: age, location, income, etc.
•    Speak AND listen. Social media is not a billboard; it’s a conversational venue.
•    Diversify your content. Post pictures, ask questions, experiment, and be fun.
•    Be professional and personable. Depending on your brand and messaging strategy, you’ll fall somewhere in the middle of the professional-personal spectrum. Make sure messaging is never too stiff or too personal sounding.
•    Know how to manage ROI or employ someone who does. Study metrics and insights and adjust content to what works.
•    Know when to get help. If you are unable to do social properly and effectively, hire someone who can. There is no value in social media if it is not done right.

It’s past the time that every business owner understands social media so they can use it to their advantage. Almost 8 new people come onto the Internet every second. Will they find you?

Contact Tray, Inc. for your Social Media Management Solutions today.

From social to print, we are going to take you places. Contact us to get started today.






The Tray Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.trayinc.com

The Print Marketing Renaissance

One topic we bring up from time to time, here, is the idea that print marketing is all about standing out from the pack. I know, it sounds ridiculous. But things have changed. The days of opening a mailbox to a flood of junk mail are over. Print marketing today is about risk. It’s about creativity, and it’s about trying something different. We’re not here to talk about junk mail, or sending out millions of generic postcards. It’s time to treat print as a non-traditional marketing source.

Business2Community has recently published an article showing 7 major events in marketing, and why they all point toward a return to the print medium. It’s a great article (which you may have seen on our Facebook page), but we’re going to go one step further. We’re going to give you a few ideas that may inspire you to take B2C’s list to heart.

Broad-Interest Publications are Leaving Print

Newsweek announced earlier this month that they would be ceasing all print publications. Dozens more general interest magazines are leaving print behind, and that means that a huge opportunity for marketers is opening up.

Does your business cater to a niche audience? Send out a brief magazine appealing to their interest. It doesn’t need to be a weekly, or even a quarterly, thing, but what could make you stand out from the crowd of catalogs better than this?

Changes in Consumer Usage Open the Door for Digital Integration

Digital integration is no longer an option for marketing – it’s a requirement. Today’s consumer demands more from marketing materials. More information, more detail, more interesting content, and more bells and whistles. For your next campaign, try including a print component that plays off of your digital efforts. Push consumers to your social media pages, or direct them to your other digital resources. Just don’t rely on QR codes to do the job for you. Innovate!

The Social Web is Crowded, Make Things Personal

Print has always been the most personal form of marketing communication. What do you think makes a better impression with a new client: A direct message on Twitter, or a hand-written ‘Thank You’ note?

Our print solutions can make all of these things possible, and print has not seen consumer interest like this in several years. Take advantage of the possibilities, and give us a call.

The Tray Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.trayinc.com

Learning From Mistakes

In today’s digital world, all eyes are on you, all the time. The critical eye of the consumer never closes, and the world of social media has created a place where even the smallest branding faux pas is a recipe for complete financial disaster. There are cases of poor taste, such as this May advertisement for Belvedere Vodka. Even worse, there are times when brands can be persecuted for things they have absolutely no control of, or involvement in.

What can you do when your brand is thrust into the spotlight of consumer criticism? Can either of those examples serve as a template for escaping a PR nightmare?

The Skittles Strategy

When details about the tragic Trayvon Martin shooting went public, Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea became unintentional icons of lost innocence. The brands were spoken of almost as often as the investigation itself. Consumers, invested in the horrific details of the killing, began to accuse both brands of profiting off of the tragedy and media exposure. Neither brand had anything to do with Martin’s death, but both were being ripped to shreds on social media for failing to respond.

 Image from Ad Week

What did they do?

Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea were forced to act, and responded with letters of condolence to Martin’s family. They said it would be the last word on the matter, and both brands stuck to their guns, refusing to give in to the public outcry.

What went wrong?

Consumers were convinced that both brands were pulling in record profits from the media hype, and demanded financial recompense. It was a bizarre and unfounded complaint, born from a collective desire for closure that court proceedings was not providing. Arizona and Skittles did their best to avoid further scrutiny by keeping silent, and they ended up being seen as uncaring and cold.

The Belvedere Vodka Strategy

In early March, Belvedere began a commendable social media effort, relying on a strategy of casual humor, and easily shared jokes, each one a clever ad for their product. Unfortunately, the casual attitude went too far, and an ad that never should have made it past editing wound up on their public-facing Facebook page.

Image from Huffington Post

What did they do?

The ad was a clear misstep, and the backlash was fast and fierce. Belvedere pulled the ad once the blogosphere had gotten wind of it, and issued a series of apologies. They attempted to save face with a donation to an anti-sexual violence non-profit, but the move was seen as a shady PR stunt, and the brand has still not fully recovered.

What went wrong?

By the time Belvedere had responded to the complaints, any response they made would have been too little, too late. Unfortunately, once that ad was made public, there was nothing they could really do to make up for the damage it caused. Even though Belvedere went one step further than Skittles and Arizona, they were still seen as a corporation saving face, instead of an apologetic brand. They owned their mistake, but it wasn’t enough.

So, what can you do differently?

Any brand of reasonable age and size is in danger of falling into an inescapable faux pas like those above. It’s an unfortunate – but unavoidable – aspect of business. The solution lies in relying on the expertise of a branding agency, and using all of the available tools you have to protect your investment. If the worst happens, you need to be able to rely on a team that is flexible enough, fast enough, and smart enough, to turn the situation around.

The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.traypml.com

The Tray Way: Does the Olympic "Brand" Mean Something New?

With the ringing of a 27-ton bell, a Chariots of Fire reenactment, an array of literacy characters and dancing teenagers (and lets not forget a parachuting queen), the 30th Summer Olympics kicked off in London this week.

When you think of the Olympics (or at least the Olympic athlete), you think of fulfilling a dream and believing in ones self. You think of a young boy or girl, watching past Olympians compete, and longing to achieve that same level of success. You think of hardwork, dedication, perseverance, all in the name of vying to be the best, representing your country, and having that medal put around your neck.

That is the Olympics that athletes and spectators alike have known for the past 29 summer games. But, like most other things in the athletic community, the Olympics is a business, and according to some, it is the second most valuable brand in the world, which has lead to unprecedented efforts to keep that value safe.

In one of the most aggressive brand monitoring campaigns ever seen, efforts have been taken to insure that no use of the Olympic name is being used for promotional purposes without consent (and sponsorship dollars). This is obviously being done to protect the major sponsors like Visa Europe, McDonalds, Dow Chemicals and others, all of whom invested around $100 million to be a major sponsor of the games, and in return, have been catered to and given sole rights to signage, advertising and even food.

We know as well as any that a brand must be protected, and perhaps in this age of communications and social media, this is the new best practice on how to do it. At an estimated $47.5 billion, there are certain efforts that have to be taken or the inherent value of a brand like the Olympics can be severely diminished (which will go on to hurt potential revenue streams at future events). However, is it a step too far in the case of the Olympics? The Olympics were meant to bring people together in one place in the spirit of competition. It was meant to be an open venue for people from different countries to meet in one of the only truly safe environments left in the world. While this feeling of welcome and positivity will continue to be viewed this way in London (and likely in Brazil four years from now), are we inching down a slippery slope of hurting the "openness" of the Olympic brand by creating an "us" and "them" attitude?






The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.traypml.com

The Tray Way: Pizza Box or Mobile Billboard?

Imagine having a client or customer come to your business, and not only take your logo with them to share with the world, but pay you for the right to do so? Not many businesses often have this opportunity, but this is the situation pizzerias encounter dozens of times a day, and yet some (primary small, local ones) don't take advantage of this unique marketing opportunity.

Turn this into a mobile billboard!!

The pizza box is among the most recognized types of containers throughout the world, and whether the pizza inside is being carried by the customer or a delivery person, when that box exits the restaurant, it represents an opportunity to market the restaurant to a wider audience. By putting a logo, menu, website, social media icons or (as our friends at the Pizza Marketplace recently wrote about), a QR Code, this simple device turns into a mobile billboard.

The first thought of many is that this is great idea for the major chains, but many smaller pizzeria's can't afford to customize their boxes (or at least don't see a reason to invest in such an endeavor). Our thought as marketing experts is that even if you are doing it on the cheap (e.g. purchasing stickers/stamps of your logo), you are at least doing something to further your brand (and if you aren't, you may be throwing potential revenue out the window).

This may seem specific to a very niche business-type, but the overall message is simple. No matter what industry you are in, think about how the public recognizes your industry, and figure out how tie your brand to it.






The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.traypml.com