Digital Content for Brand

Communications

BPR329
 Week 1: Introduction to brand communication

What is a brand?
• A brand is a collection of attributes which strongly influence
purchase (Davidson)
• For the American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand is a
“name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them,
intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or
group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of
competition.”
• These different components of a brand that identify and
differentiate it are brand elements.
• Macdonald sums this up nicely in the following quote
emphasising the importance of brands: “…it is not factories that
make profits, but relationships with customers, and it is company
and brand names which secure those relationships”
• Businesses that invest in and sustain leading brands prosper
whereas those that fail are left to fight for the lower profits
 What is Branding
• Is the culmination of a range of activities across the whole
marketing mix, leading to a brand image that conveys a whole set
of messages to the consumer about quality, price, expected
performance and status
• Brand image includes products’ appeal, ease of use, functionality,
fame, and overall value.
• Brand image is actually brand content.
• There are three types of benefits of brand image:
• Functional benefits - what do you do better (than others ),
• Emotional benefits - how do you make me feel better (than
others), and
• Rational benefits/support - why do I believe you(more than
others).
• In simple form, a brand is nothing more and nothing less than
the promises of value you or your product make.
• These promises can be implied or explicitly stated, but none-
 Branding and Brands value
• “Value” has different interpretations:
• From a marketing or consumer perspective it is “the
promise and delivery of an experience”;
• From a business perspective it is “the security of future
earnings”;
• From a legal perspective it is “a separable piece of
intellectual property.”
• Brands offer customers a means to choose and enable
recognition within cluttered markets
• Branding is the business process of managing your
trademark portfolio so as to maximize the value of the
experiences associated with it, to the benefit of your
key stakeholders, especially current and prospective
 What makes up a brand?

• Effective product
• Distinctive identity
• Added values
• Trademarks
• intellectual property
• brand valuation analysis
Supported by;
• Visible symbol
• advertising
• strong Research & Development
• supply chain,
• effective selling, costs.
 What is branded
• Can everything be branded?
• The key to branding is that consumers perceive
differences among brands in a product category.
• Even commodities can be branded:
• Physical goods ( Coffee, bath soap, flour, soda, salt, chicken,
etc.)
• Services ( health, education, etc)
• Retailers and distributors
• Online products and services
• People and organizations
• Sports, arts, and entertainment
• Geographic locations
• Ideas and causes
 Week 2: Public relations, Corporate Image and branding
• Definition of image
• An image is an impression of a symbol or an icon that exists in
the head of the beholder alone.
• The image of an organisation in like manner can be interpreted
by surface observance of the corporate conduct or corporate
behaviour of the organisation.
• According to Marken (1990) corporate image, is perceived as
the sum of the entire organisation, its objectives and plans.
• Therefore, any organisation that is observed by its publics and
seen to “behave properly” is believed to have a good image
while an organisation that do not “behave properly” in the eyes
of its publics is believed to have a bad image.
• Public relations is the process of generating interest in your
product or service through storytelling, while branding is
centered on creating an identity and making a company
memorable
 Public relations, Corporate Image and branding
• PR encompasses the strategy and tactics used to get your
brand message in front of the right audience – to promote your
company, build awareness and a credible reputation, create
loyalty and fundamentally drive sales.
• It’s about creating thought, generating leads, driving traffic to
your website, getting people interested in products or services
— and then converting engagement into sales and long-term
customers.
• While the goals of PR and branding each are different, it’s a
symbiotic relationship – a partnership.
• Your business thrives when branding and PR align.
• Public relations are the way a strong brand is truly established
and advertising is how the brand is maintained.
• What you need to do in branding is to communicate what the
brand distinctively stands for using as few words or images as
possible.
 Types of Image
• Adekunle (2017) provides five types of images that can be used
to describe an organisations‟behaviour in the minds of its publics
as thus:
• Mirror image- type of image people in an organisation believe
outsiders have of them. It could be illusionary or wishful thinking.
• Current image, is the one held by people outside the
organisation based on experience or on poor information and
understanding.
• Wish image-desired image the management wishes to achieve.
• Corporate image, Is mental perception or image of the
organisation in the minds of its publics rather than the product or
service.
• Multiple image- image created that does not conform to the
image for the total organisation.
 Corporate identity

• Corporate identity ( personality/ character or make up e.g Iam

a lecturer ) and corporate image is sometimes
misunderstood.
• Wragg (1992) sees corporate identity as “… the single image
presented by a company or other organisations, giving an
impression of unity through all the various manifestations of
its activities” (p. 96).
• The word manifestation in this context refers to the sum of
items or stuff that are used to display the identity of an
organisation using objects such as motor vehicles, premises,
literature, stationery, advertising materials and products.
• Ohiagu (2015) states that, “… communication elements which
help companies portray themselves to their stakeholders form
the corporate identity”.
• Corporate identity is therefore, the physical icons used to
 Corporate identity continued
• It is also a source for recognition of the organisation by
publics simply by identifying the graphics representing the
organisation.
• These graphics come in diverse forms like, logos, badges,
coveralls, stationery letterheads, brand of vehicles,
publications, stickers, ads on billboards, lab coats, souvenirs
etc. This does not in any way discredit the intangibles
• Corporate identity therefore, is an integral part of an
organisation as it serves as a medium of cognitive
recognition of an organisation in the eyes of the publics.
• Without corporate identity, organisations will definitely be
difficult to identify.
• Corporate identities are veritable tools that convey messages
of different sorts to the publics of an organization.
 Week 3: Benefits and strategies of Branding
• Benefits of branding
• Product differentiation
• Maximizes the impact of advertising for product
identification and recognition.
• Branding leads to a readier acceptance of a
manufacturers goods by wholesalers/retailers
• It reduces the importance of price differentials
between goods.
• It supports market segmentation, since different
brands of similar products may be developed to
meet specific needs of customers.
•
 Branding strategies
There are different types of brand strategies
• Family branding
• New products are placed under the umbrella of an existing
brand e.g of a company i.e. Mercedes

• The principle advantage of this approach is that it enables the

organization to rapidly build market awareness and acceptance
since the brand is already established and known to the market
• Potential disadvantage is that the market has already
established certain perceptions of the brand.
• For instance, a company that sells low-end, lower priced
products may have a brand that is viewed as an economy
brand.
• With family branding any negative publicity that may occur for
one product within a brand could spread to all other products
 Branding strategies continued
• Individual Branding (name):
• Each product has a unique name e.g. Procter & Gamble,
Unilever, UBL, Mukwano, Movit etc.
• New products are assigned new names with no obvious
connection to existing brands offered by the company. (i.e.
century bottling company, Coca cola, Crown Beverage
company, Pepsi, Spirite
• For Individual product branding, the marketing
organization must work hard to establish the brand in the
market since it cannot ride the coattails of previously
introduced brands.
• The advantage of this approach is it allows brands to
stand on their own thus lessening threats that may occur
to other brands marketed by the company.
 Branding strategies continued
• Co-Branding: Takes the idea of individual and family branding
a step further
• Co-branding a marketer seeks to partner with another firm,
which has an established brand, in hopes synergy of two
brands on a product is even more powerful than a single brand.
• The partnership often has both firms sharing costs but also
sharing the gains.
• For instance, major credit card companies, such as Visa and
MasterCard, offer co-branding options to companies and
organizations.
• Like banks in Uganda pattern with petro stations, supper
market or popular consumer organizations to increase their
usage.
 Co-Branding Continued
• The co-branding strategy is also designed to appeal to a larger
target market, especially if each brand, when viewed
separately, does not have extensive overlapping target markets
with the other brand.
• Thus, co-branding allows both firms to tap into market
segments where they did not previously have a strong position.
• No-Name or Generic Branding:
• Certain suppliers supply products that are intentionally
“brandless.”
• These products are mostly basic commodity-type products that
consumer or business customers purchase as low price
alternatives to branded products.
• Basic household products such as paper products, over-the-
counter medicines such as ibuprofen, and even dog food are
available in a generic form.
 Week 4: Brand equity
• Brand Equity is the sum total of all the different values people attach to
the brand, or the holistic value of the brand to its owner as a corporate
asset.
• Brand equity can include:
• 1. The monetary value or the amount of additional income expected from
a branded product over and above what might be expected from an
identical (alike), but unbranded product;
• 2. The intangible value associated with the product that can not be
accounted for by price or features.
• For example, Pepsi and Coke have created many intangible benefits for
their products by associating them with film stars.
• Children and adults want to consume their products to feel some
association with these stars.
• It is not the ingredients or the features that drive demand for their
products, but the marketing image that has been created.
• Buyers are willing to pay extremely high price premiums over lesser-
known brands, which may offer the same, or better, product quality and
 Brand equity continued
• 3. The perceived quality is attributed to the product
independent of its physical features.
• Perceived quality reflects the quantum (substantial/ significant)
of goodness felt by the consumer on buying it.
• It is related to the reputation of the product and how those
brands can be differentiated from the rest of the brands, but the
quality of judgment will totally depend on the customers.
• The overall perceptions of quality and image attributed to a
product, independent of its physical features.
• Mercedes and BMW have established their brand names as
identical with high-quality, luxurious automobiles.
• Consumers are likely to perceive Mercedes and BMW as
providing superior quality to other brand name automobiles,
even when such a perception is unwarranted.
 Brand equity continued
• In short, Brand Equity is a set of assets and liabilities linked
to a brand, its name and symbol that add to or subtract from
the value provided by the product or service to a firm and/or
to that of firm’s customers.
• A brand is nearly worthless unless it enjoys some equity in
the marketplace.
• Without brand equity, you simply have a commodity product.
• One of the best examples of Brand Equity is in the soft drink
industry.
• Without a brand name and all of the marketing money that has
gone into, Coca-Cola would be nothing more than flavored water.
• Due to the company’s long-term marketing efforts and
protection, enhancement and nurturing of their brand name,
Coke is one of the most recognizable brands in the world and
Pepsi in Uganda
 How to use Brand equity for company advantage?

• Brand Equity can provide strategic advantages to your

company in many ways:
• Allow you to charge a price premium compared to
competitors with less brand equity.
• Strong brand names simplify the decision process for low
cost and non-essential products.
• Brand name can give comfort to buyers unsure of their
decision by reducing their perceived risk.
• Maintain higher awareness of your products.
• Use as leverage when introducing new products. Often
interpreted as an indicator of quality.
• High Brand Equity makes sure your products are included
in most consumers’ consideration set.
 How to use Brand equity for company advantage? Continued

• Your brand can be linked to a quality image that buyers want to

be associated with.
• Can lead to greater loyalty from customers. Offer a strong
defense against new products and new competitors.
• Can lead to higher rates of product trial and repeat purchasing
due to buyers’ awareness of your brand, approval of its
image/reputation and trust in its quality.
 Week 5: Determinants of brand equity continued

• Brand awareness,
• Brand image,
• Perceived quality,
• Brand association
• brand loyalty
• Brand Awareness
• Is the percentage of population or target market who are aware
of the existence of a given brand or company. ( Brand
awareness digital tools)
• Is the strength of a brand’s presence in the consumer’s mind.
• Brand awareness consists of both brand recognition, which is
the ability of consumers to confirm that they have previously
been exposed to your brand,
• And brand recall, which reflects the ability of consumers to name
your brand when given the product category, category need, or
 Types of Brand awareness
• There are two types of awareness:
• 1.Spontaneous (Top-of-mind awareness) ,which measures the
percentage of people who spontaneously (instinctively, freely)
mention a particular brand when asked to name brands in a
certain category, the first brand that customer recalls from his
mind is your brand, e.g. beverage group mentioning Pepsi or
Coke, etc
• 2. Prompted (Aided) awareness, which measures the
percentage of people who recognize a brand from a particular
category when shown a list .
• When you think about fast foods, Universities, hospital, Luxury
cars, etc. Which products come in your minds? Those brands
that pop up enjoy strong top-of-mind awareness in their
respective categories
 Brand Awareness continued
• Building brand awareness is essential for building brand
equity.
• It includes use of various renowned channels of promotion such as
advertising, word of mouth publicity, social media like blogs,
sponsorships, launching events, etc.
• To create brand awareness, it is important to create reliable brand
image, slogans and taglines.
• The brand message to be communicated should also be consistent.
• Strong brand awareness leads to high sales and high market share.
• Brand awareness can be regarded as a means through which
consumers become acquainted and familiar with a brand and
recognize that brand.
• Brand awareness is all about a consumer’s interest in recognizing a
product the success of a good PR campaign is largely judged on a
brand’s familiarity.
 Brand association

• Refers to the feelings, beliefs and knowledge

that consumers (customers) have about
brands.
• These associations are derived as a result of
experiences and must be consistent with the
brand positioning and the basis of
differentiation.
• While choosing a brand name, it is essential that the
name chosen should reinforce an important
attribute or benefit association that forms it’s
product positioning
 Types of Brand Associations

• Types of Brand Associations

• Brand Associations can be;
• Qualitative, e.g. it feels good after having a
Pepsi. ·
• Quantitative, e.g. a Kilo of Omo is enough to
clean a large number of clothes.
• Absolute, e.g. NOMI removes stains on clothes.
• Relative, e.g. NOMI does not provide whiteness
like OMO does
• Negative, e.g. NOMI powder fades colored
clothes.
 Week 6: Brand Loyalty
• Brand Loyalty Brand loyalty is the repeat purchase made by the
consumer out of commitment to the brand.
• Brand Loyalty refers to the commitment of consumers towards
the brand.
• Brand loyalty is the degree to which a customer holds a positive
attitude towards a brand, has a commitment to it, and intends to
continue purchasing it in the future.
• This presupposes that there is something in the brand that
satisfies both the social and psychological needs of the
consumer.
• In many cases of loyalty, marketers may do well to check if the
repeat purchases are made out of commitment or if they are
inertia (disinterest) purchases.
• Brand loyalty is indicated when the consumer deliberately
chooses a brand from a set of alternative brands.
 Brand Loyalty continued
• When you develop loyalty towards a brand you develop a
favourable attitude towards the brand resulting in commitment.
• Brand loyalty offers a number of advantages to the marketer.
• “Brand loyal consumers start building a relationship with the
brand”.
• Consumers become advocates of the brand by the positive
word of mouth. “
• Brand loyal consumers may become passionate about the
brand and form clubs which results in further strengthening the
brand”. E.g CBS FANS CLUB
• Brand Loyalty is built on Functional or Symbolic Aspects
 Functional Aspects of Loyalty
• Functional loyalty is consumers may initially become
loyal to a particular brand because of its functional
(usage) benefits.
• Loyalty across toothpastes, cars, banking services and
books clearly show that a brand has to score on
functional aspects whenever consumers use ‘search-
oriented’ products (search-oriented products are those
which could be evaluated by consumers even before
they buy/try the product).
• For instance, a consumer may go through the
ingredients of Colgate Total and derive inferences
about the benefits (evaluate it to a certain extent) and
try the brand. Loyalty on such search oriented products
gets initiated when the consumer experiences the
 Symbolic Aspects of Loyalty
• Symbolic associations may also play an important role in strengthening
loyalty to a brand ( toothpastes or Soaps are advertised on the symbolic
aspects and this trigger a certain kind of loyalty because of peer group
associations - this could happen after the brand is established).
• But even when symbolism triggers loyalty, a certain degree of benefit
should be an outcome of the brand usage.
• Symbolism can have an impact on loyalty related to products which are
consumed for sensory (fleshly) gratification - such as beer, perfumes and
cigarettes.
• A brand’s communication revolving around symbolism (status or snob
appeal or group affiliation or a personality trait) adds to the gratification
inherent in the product and results in loyalty
• In categories which are highly ‘experience related’ like hotel services or
airline services, symbolism could enable consumers try the service.
• Experience related services are those which could be evaluated only
after the consumer goes through the consumption experience.
• A hotel or an airline could bring in appealing symbolism in its
advertisements but the ‘experience’
 Brand Loyalty continued
• In categories which are highly ‘experience related’ like hotel services
or airline services, symbolism could enable consumers try the
service.
• Experience related services are those which could be evaluated only
after the consumer goes through the consumption experience.
• A hotel or an airline could bring in appealing symbolism in its
advertisements but the ‘experience’
• An ideal approach for a brand would be to use the functional route to
loyalty and then use appropriate symbolic communication to
strengthen the loyalty over a period of time.
• The basic assumption in this kind of an approach is that the brand
would constantly update its offerings (or product line) with
improvements which would result in a competitive advantage over
competing brands.
• A brand has to adapt itself to the changing environment over a period
of time (while using symbolic imagery consistent with its brand
proposition).
 Week 7: Managing Personal Brands and Brand Extensions
• Managing personal brands
• The same way that organisations possess a specific brand,
individuals do too, whether they intend to develop one or not.
• A personal brand evolves from how individuals around you
perceive you and your actions, and is influenced by a number
of factors.
• This is obvious when we consider celebrities, or individuals in
the public limelight - a quick Google search gives a fairly good
impression of their personal brands.
• It is important that modern leaders pay conscious attention to
their public perceptions, and take steps to cultivate their own
brand as they see fit.
• Your own brand can be an asset to you, or it can also be a
hindrance.
• It is your unique identity and is sculpted over time as you
establish your own image in the minds of others. This can refer
 Advantages of good personal brand
• Establishing personal credibility
• Helps in building contacts and networks
• Establishes you as a trustworthy, authentic, person of authority
• Allows others a clear view of what you stand for
• Facilitates change of your brand to match your career or
personal development
• If you do not put effort into maintaining your brand, you
allow others to take control of their perceptions of
you. Instead, you should look to develop your brand to reflect
who you are, who you want to be, and how you want others to
see you. This depends entirely on the audience that you are
pitching to, and the specific goals you have for that audience.
• It is possible to have a different brand for
both personal and professional life. Often, for a professional,
it is important that their brand reflects that of their organisation,
 Personal Brand continued
• live Maloney (2013) described 5 specific stages through which you can build and
evolve your personal brand:
• Identify or decide on your target market. Consider what you can contribute to that
market, and the reasons behind that. Are your contributions something that will
motivate you?
• Define what makes you unique. Firstly, list all of your strengths, skills or possible
areas of expertise. Then, consider the values that are dear to you - for example,
honesty, integrity, fairness. Consider how these different strengths and values could
coalesce to form a motivating and unique personal brand
• Gain an understanding of others' perceptions of you. Perhaps, share your list of
strength and values, and ask for honest feedback from your peers. Do friends and
colleagues' perceptions of you align with your own? How do they differ? Why do they
differ?
• Take actions to develop your brand. Make sure to display yourself in a way that
highlights your expertise and values. Network beyond just your immediate group -
perhaps use social media, or make sure that emails or other digital communications
reflect your personal brand.
• Regularly review your brand. This helps you retain your focus - you can see
whether your brand is contributing to you achieving your goals. Consider, has your
brand changed at all? Does it need to change to match any shift in circumstance or
values
 Brand Extensions

• What is brand extension? Is when a company uses one of its

established brand names on a new product or new product
category.
• It's sometimes known as brand stretching.
• The strategy behind a brand extension is to use the company's
already established brand equity to help it launch its newest
product
• Brand extension is the introduction of a new product that relies
on the name and reputation of an established product.
• Brand extension works when the original and new products share
a common quality or characteristic that the consumer can
immediately identify.
• Brand extension fails when the new product is unrelated to the
original, is seen as a mismatch, or even creates a negative
 Types of brand extensions

• Product-related extension also called ‘line extensions’.

• Involves introducing new products or services within the same
product category or market segment as the existing brand.
• This is typically the easier and less risky type of brand
extension, as the company can leverage its existing brand
recognition and distribution channels.
• Unrelated extensions
• Are those where the parent and the brand extensions have little
in common but for the brand name.
• This category involves introducing a new product or service in a
different product category or market segment than the existing
brand.
• Brand Licensing
• Franchise Extension
 Week 9: Trade marks, Brand Portfolio

• A trademark is an easily recognizable symbol,

phrase, or word that denotes a specific product.
• It legally differentiates a product or service from
all others of its kind and recognizes the source
company's ownership of the brand.
• Trademarks may or may not be registered and
are denoted by the and symbols respectively.
• Although trademarks do not expire, the owner
must make regular use of it in order to receive
the protections associated with them.
 Trademark
• They are used to identify and protect words and
design elements that identify the source, owner,
or developer of a product or service.
• Trademark can be corporate logos, slogans,
bands, or the brand name of a product.
• Trademarks can be bought and sold.
• Trademarks also can be licensed to other
companies for an agreed-upon time or under
certain conditions, which can result in crossover
brands.
 Trademark vs Patent vs Copyright
• A patent grants the design, process, and invention rights to a
piece of property to its inventor.
• In order to be registered, the inventor must make
full disclosure of the invention—the design and the process—
itself through the USPTO.
• This gives the inventor full protection over the product or
service in question for a certain period of time—usually 20
years.
• Anyone can make use of the invention by producing, marketing,
and selling it after the patent expires. This is common in the
pharmaceutical industry.
 Trademark vs Patent vs Copyright
• A drug company that patents a drug has exclusive rights over it
for a certain period of time before other companies can market
and sell generic brands to the public
• Copyrights, on the other hand, give protection to the owners of
intellectual property to legally copy it.
• Copyright refers to the legal right of the owner of intellectual
property.
• In simpler terms, copyright is the right to copy.
• This means that the original creators of products and anyone
they give authorization to are the only ones with the exclusive
right to reproduce the work.
• Copyright owners and those who have the authority can
exclusively reproduce the associated work for monetary gain for
a specific period of time—usually until 70 years after their
death.
 Copyright
• Software, art, film, music, and designs are just some of the
examples of work that are covered by copyrights.
• Brand names, slogans, and logos, however, are not covered.
• In order to get a copyright and prevent copyright infringement,
the filer must make an application with the U.S. Copyright
Office
• When someone creates a product that is viewed as original and
that required significant mental activity to create, this product
becomes an intellectual property that must be protected from
unauthorized duplication
• What is a brand portfolio? A brand portfolio is the collection of
smaller brands that fall under a larger, overarching 'brand
umbrella' set by a firm, company, or conglomerate. For
instance, The Coca Cola Company's brand portfolio
encompasses brands like Sprite, Fanta, in addition to its
flagship beverage
 Week 10: Digital brand tools
• Content strategy
• Content marketing is creating and sharing online materials (such as
articles, videos, infographics, social media posts, podcasts, etc.) to
attract, engage, and retain an audience.
• This strategy's key is delivering the right content at each stage of
customer awareness. To help your business reach its goals.
• Steps in developing a digital brand marketing strategy
• Step 1: Research and define goals
• This step includes researching your competitors and collecting
customer feedback to identify your business' online position and
problem you are solving
• Once the research is gathered, the next step is to set a goal to
help you realize your digital marketing goals.
• You can increase your website's SEO ranking by setting goals
such as creating quality content, building quality backlinks from
authoritative websites, and improving page speed.
 steps in developing a digital brand marketing strategy Continued

• Step 2: Collect customer information

• The next step is to collect data about your target groups.
• Communicators can do this by creating a buyer
persona( characteristics/categorization), including your
customer's preferences and behaviors online.
• A tool like Google Analytics can help you collect real-time
customer data and create more relevant content marketing
campaigns.
• Step 3: Create leads
• This step is about collecting your audience's personal data for
future contacts.
• The most common way to generate leads for websites is to give
away free ebooks or coupons in exchange for customer emails.
• Other popular methods include target ads display, search
engine optimization, social media, and influencer marketing.
Steps in developing a digital brand marketing strategy Continued
• Step 4: Nurture leads
• Once the leads are generated, the next step is nurturing those
leads into long-term relationships and potential customers.
• How can this be done?
• The best practice is to educate your customers about your
business and service in a "non-salesy" way.
• In other words, to add value to their life.
• One example of nurturing leads is to develop an email course
to help people solve a nagging problem or keep them informed
of industry news.
• Step 5: Figure out your uniqueness
• There is tough competition in the marketplace.
• Determining your uniqueness is essential to stand out from the rest.
• It provides answers to the target audience as to why they should
select a particular brand over others.
 steps in developing a digital brand marketing strategy Continued
• Step 6: Retain existing customers
• Once you have convinced the hard-earned lead to make a
purchase, it shouldn't be the end of the relationship.
• Turn in loyal customers through repeat purchase with smart
customer retention campaigns.
• Some ways to nurture relationships with existing customers
include:
• Send a thank you note ,ask for feedback, develop customer
loyalty programs, Cross-sell related products through email
newsletters and disclose your plan for future product
development
• Step 7: Identify channels: A website is the primary source of
online presence for a brand, but it is not enough.
• Identify other online channels (e.g., social media, blogs, etc.) to
use attract audience by delivering consistent messages across
channels
 steps in developing a digital brand marketing strategy Continued
• Step 7: Build marketing automation
• You don't have to do the same thing over and over time.
• Technology makes it easy to automate workflow so you can
focus on more critical tasks.
• Set up an onboarding email automation and chatbox to answer
your customers' FAQs
• Step 8: Types of digital content
• Brands use different types of content for positioning and
marketing .
• In the strategy development stage, they decide on the types of
content marketing they want to employ, i.e
 Week 11: Social media tools

• Important tools for a social media team should support

analytics, content planning, engagement tracking, team
collaboration, and campaign management to accommodate a
full-scale marketing strategy as below
• Social media scheduling tools
• Social media analytics tools
• Social media engagement tools
• Social media listening tools
• Social media monitoring tools
• Social media automation
• Facebook marketing
• Twitter marketing
• Instagram marketing tools
 Social media scheduling tools
• Social media scheduling tools
• A social media scheduling tool is software that automates your
whole content publishing process.
• Create your posts right there in the tool, pick which social
media accounts you want to hit, and set the date and time for
each post.
• How can you schedule your social media posts more
effectively?
• Choose the right platforms.
• Create a content calendar.
• Use a scheduling tool.
• Optimize your posting times.
• Vary your content types.
• Review and adjust.
 Social media analytics tools
• Social media analytics tools are websites and applications that
track and evaluate the performance of social media content.
• After publishing posts from business profiles, you can access
the tools and review quantifiable metrics for engagement.
• Social media engagement tools
• Engagement tools are the nucleus of your brand’s visibility,
responsiveness and efficiency.
• With every instant, consistent interaction with your customers
on social, you’re building loyalty.
• Social media listening tools
• Tool that tracks conversations on highly specific topics in
carefully segmented audiences.
• The goal of social media listening is to monitor relevant
conversations on social media platforms, understand the
underlying mood or sentiment and respond with a marketing
strategy that influences sentiment favorably.
 Social media listening Metrics
• Mentions. Brand mentions are extremely popular on social media
• Engagement
• Brand awareness
• Demographic data
• Influencer analysis
• Conversation share
• Sentiment score – Customer satisfaction feedback.
• Number of leads.
• Social Media Monitoring:
• Is often used interchangeably with social listening, which only does
a disservice to the respective value of each method.
• Social media monitoring tools help with the “what” vs. the “why” of
listening.
• Think of it as the searching and collecting stage gathering of data
from social conversations that will help you better understand your
understand your audience and improve how you engage with them.
 Social media automation

• Social media automation is the process of optimizing social

interactions using automated tools.
• This can include scheduling social posts ahead of time or
republishing popular articles.
• Automating social media publication, engagement and
management reduces the hours spent on maintaining and
growing brand accounts.
• The trick to helpful automated marketing is not relying too
heavily the automated tools to do what a human should, but
rather to identify the repetitive tasks that can be automated
without compromising the user experience
 Week: 13: Digital brand tools continued
• Facebook marketing tools
• With all the algorithm changes, figuring out how to boost
Facebook engagement is a priority for every social media
marketer.
• Use those media tools to plan, execute and analyze the perfect
Facebook marketing strategy.
• A Facebook dashboard is the central hub for your data and
analytics
• What can Facebook marketing tools do?
• Simplify your Facebook posting by scheduling messages to
automatically publish.
• Delegate or remove access to users to manage your Facebook
presence as a team.
• Give access to a Facebook CRM, allowing you to cater messages
to individuals.
• Report on your Facebook performance across all of your profiles.
 Twitter brand tools
• What can Twitter marketing tools do?
• Manage multiple Twitter profiles from a single location.
• Schedule months of Twitter content from a single social
calendar.
• Provide historic data on interactions with your social media
followers.
• Monitor all of Twitter for mentions of your brand or products.
• Run detailed reports on your Twitter marketing to showcase
internally.
• Instagram marketing tools
• Looking for the best apps to edit photos before sharing them
with your audience? Or maybe you need data on how well your
campaigns are performing.
• Having the right Instagram brand tools handy makes it easier to
engage with your audience, create better content and analyze
 SEO ( Search Engine Optimization) tools

• SEO ( Search Engine Optimization) tools

• The goal of SEO is to drive organic traffic to the company's
website and transform that traffic into potential sales.
• SEO is the combination of all activities to help a site rank higher
on a search engine.
• SEO practices are grouped into two categories:
• On-page SEO includes activities that focus on improving on-
page elements of a site, such as keywords, internal links, page
speed, and images.
• Off-page SEO includes activities that happen "off the page" to
improve a site's ranking.
• For example, you can write guest posts, build backlinks, and
create social media posts to drive traffic to your website.
 Email marketing tools
• If you've ever provided your email address to a company or
brand, in-store or online, you have engaged with email
marketing.
• Email marketing involves informing customers of a business's
products and services via email.
• It is also an important activity to nurture leads and generate
sales.
• One example of an email marketing campaign is to send a
weekly newsletter to inform your audience of the latest industry
news.
• This allows your brand to establish itself as a trusty source of
information and encourage people to do business with you in
the future.
 Digital brand tools continued

• Conversion optimization tools

• Graphic creation tools