Social marketing is an essential tool for small businesses looking to grow their customer base and increase their brand awareness. In today’s digital age, social media platforms have become an integral part of the marketing mix, and small businesses that don’t take advantage of them are missing out on a huge opportunity.

First and foremost, social marketing allows small businesses to reach a wider audience than traditional marketing methods. With billions of users on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, small businesses can connect with potential customers from all over the world. This is especially important for businesses with limited budgets, as social media advertising can be a cost-effective way to reach a large audience.

Another benefit of social marketing is that it allows businesses to build relationships with their customers. Social media platforms are designed for interaction and engagement, and small businesses can use them to create a sense of community around their brand. By responding to customer comments and messages, sharing interesting content, and running contests and promotions, small businesses can create a loyal following of customers who are more likely to recommend their products or services to others.

Social marketing also provides small businesses with valuable insights into their customers’ preferences and behaviour. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow businesses to track metrics like engagement rates, click-through rates, and audience demographics, which can help them fine-tune their marketing strategies and better target their audience.

Finally, social marketing is a great way for any sized businesses or organisations to establish their brand’s personality and voice. By sharing engaging and relatable content, small businesses can create a unique and memorable brand identity that sets them apart from their competitors.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “But social media is for kids, isn’t it? And I am running a business, not a hobby” But that’s where you are wrong, my friend. Social media is not just for kids, it’s for everyone. And as a small business owner, you should be using it to your advantage.

Think of it this way, when you’re out at a pub with your mates, you chat and laugh and share stories, right? Well, social media is just the digital version of that. It’s a place where you can connect with your customers, share your brand’s story, and make people laugh. And who doesn’t love a good laugh?

In conclusion, social marketing is a powerful tool that can help small businesses grow their customer base, increase brand awareness, and establish a unique brand identity. So, don’t be a stick-in-the-mud, get on social media and show your customers the fun and friendly side of your business.

If you need more information and would like to find out how Rubber Duck Digital can kick-start your social media activity and marketing, feel free to get in touch.

Cheers!

Hello!

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update as we’ve all be super busy helping clients with business continuation through the pandemic and lock down, so here’s a quick insight on just a couple of projects we’ve been involved in.

Impact Mental Health is a social enterprise who provide amazing courses and programmes to help people suffering from mental health issues. They also provide support and courses for other organisations and companies who are keen to provide their staff with the tools to better manage their mental wellbeing.

We’ve worked with Impact for several years and have built up an intimate knowledge of their organisation and the courses they offer including attending their courses. Like my father always used to say, “know your product!”.

Up until the start of the pandemic, the majority of their courses were run in groups, face to face in the community and Rubber Duck Digital built their web application and course booking systems using WordPress as the core CMS. We also built their very own social media platform called BaseCamp to allow staff and members to keep in touch and provide peer support online. This has become even more important through lockdown and the pandemic.

Then everything changed. Lockdown came along and Impact were faced with a major problem. How to change everything so that courses could be run online, remotely so as to safeguard their staff, volunteers and of course, their learners.

After discussing the requirements in depth with the Impact team, we built a fully interactive Learning Management System and Booking System, incorporated live video using Zoom and Google Meets and built a small “studio” with broadcast quality cameras, lighting and video kit, including the amazing Blackmagic ATEM Mini (an awesome bit of kit for the money). All socially distanced and fully hygienic, of course.

In addition, we assisted their team in optimising local, in home networks so that video and audio would be uninterrupted and the best possible quality.

We turned everything around in few weeks so there was no down time in providing services. Something I’m exceptionally proud of.

Without the hard work and knowledge that Phil brought to this enormous challenge, we would have struggled to keep our courses going throughout lockdown.

Déanne Clark – CEO Impact Mental Health

BaySixty6 is a community skate park based in West London and is famous for being one of the few open air, but covered skate parks in the UK and has been featured in many TV shows over the years and currently features in an TV ad for Virgin Media.

They are another client who entrusted us with their digital presence several years ago. We built their current website and e-commerce application in 2017 and we’ve worked with them since to scale the app and server infrastructure over the last few years, including migration from shared a shared server to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cloudflare with Google Workspaces in the mix as well.

When lockdown came in to force we used the time wisely and worked with the B66 team to to spec and build a new registration and booking system which would prove to be vital in complying with Track and Trace guidelines and capacity limits once lockdown restrictions were eased.

The next batch of features and requirements for the application are now being worked on for release later in the year. Some cosmetic and some functional, so watch this space.

Within just a few weeks of launching the new features, and with lockdown being eased, the system had registered several thousand local user accounts with hundred of transactions a day.

Fast and efficient, Phil Evans and his team at Rubber Duck Digital have done an excellent job for BAYSIXTY6 Skate Park and we are very proud of our new website! Our traffic is steadily increasing and so too are our online sales. We thoroughly recommend Rubber Duck Digital.

David Morton

As with all our projects, I’m immensely proud of the work we do with all of our clients, but even more so with Impact and BaySixty6 and I’m pleased we were able to help them continue to provide the local communities they serve with outstanding services,

Here at Rubber Duck Towers, we’re constantly staggered by the number of websites and e-commerce sites that we come across on a daily basis that just don’t work on mobile devices and offer poor use experience.

The days of mobile browsing being an afterthought are long gone. In the UK alone,  67% of all internet traffic now comes from mobile devices. This figure will continue to rise in the next few years and that’s bad news for businesses and organisations who don’t have their websites optimised for smaller screens.

Your business or organisation needs to have a responsive website if you want to attract new customers and service existing ones well and not be left behind in the mobile gold rush.

And it’s not just about the user experience. Responsive or mobile first websites and apps will rank better with search engines and will give a better ROI on your marketing Buck, Quid or Euro.

Google and other search engines will test your site for responsive quality and will rank accordingly, so it’s super important to get it right.

“How do I know if my site is responsive?” I hear you ask.

Well, there are plenty of tools that can show you how your site looks and responds on mobile. One of the simpler ones is Responsinator, and that’s a good starting point.

Check out Google’s own PageSpeed tools and check your score for mobile performance.

Or better still pick up your smart phone or tablet and try out your site. And be brutally honest with yourself. Put yourself in your customer’s or user’s shoes, and ask yourself these questions:

1. Do your pages load quickly?
2. Is it easy to navigate?
3. Can you get to the information, product or service that you’re looking for easily and quickly?

If any of the answers are “no”, then you need help.

As we can see, there are many reasons why you should care about your site’s responsiveness. It is not only a matter of usability and good design but also search engine optimisation. If you want to get in touch with us about this or any other web related topic feel free to contact us at [email protected] or fill out the form below for a free, no obligation digital health check.