Kettle boiled? Check.
Ready to learn? Check.
Biscuits at the ready? Check.
That’s how you know you’re back for another Tea & Trends.
We’re bringing together some of the most impactful trends and updates in digital marketing each month so you don’t have to, putting a focus on our sector speciality: pubs and restaurants.
Of course, these trends and tips could apply to any industry, really, so stay open-minded and creative! Oh, and don’t miss out on last month’s Tea & Trends…
Now let’s get into it before your brew goes cold. Here’s everything you need to know from September 2022…
1. LinkedIn videos get closed captions feature
Considering that a recent study showed a 40% increase in views of captioned videos (compared to no captions), it’s great news to hear that LinkedIn will soon be rolling out auto captions.
Granted it will only be available for English-language videos initially, and there’s no launch date yet BUT it will open up big opportunities for those without the time or tech knowledge to create and upload their own file of closed captions.
How to make it work for your pub or restaurant:
This one’s a no-brainer and won’t involve any extra work from you. Accessibility should be a must rather than a consideration. Continue to develop engaging content and auto-captions should only increase your views.
2. Increased character limit on TikTok
Got a lot to say? TikTok has increased its character limit by seven times – from 300 to 2200.
Research has revealed the platform is fast becoming the go-to news and information app for young users, and this change is surely a result of TikTok’s desire to become a visual search engine.
This extension will allow brands and news outlets to add more descriptive content, a call-to-action or important information. It will also allow TikTok to improve its ad targeting capabilities and charge brands to rank higher in results.
How to make it work for your pub or restaurant:
For now, our advice is to only make captions as long as they need to be and include relevant keywords for searchability. As TikTok develops and observes how users react to longer content, we will see new advertising opportunities become available.
3. Longer stories from Instagram
We saw this being tested almost a year ago and now Instagram has launched 60-second stories globally.
Is this a good thing?
On the plus side, it eliminates any glitches that occur between 15-second segments within a story video. However, the change may cause an issue for users looking for bite-sized content and will inhibit the ability to skip forward and back within Stories to the segment they want to view.
How to make it work for your pub or restaurant:
You don’t need to increase Stories to a full-minute but longer behind-the-scenes clips can engage users further by showing them the heart and soul of your business.
4. Thoughts on the Social Day Conference
View this post on Instagram
Senior account executive Beatrice headed to London recently to attend the Social Day conference – here’s our key takeouts…
Customer-focused content
- The customer should be front and centre of all digital content. We should be asking, “what’s in it for our customers?” when reviewing EVERY piece of content.
- Organic sales messages with CTAs such as ‘book a table’ should be delivered in a selfless and entertaining way.
- Shining a light on the ‘bad stuff’ that happens in your industry can add a human element to content, along with showing how you can solve that problem for the consumer too.
- If you ‘mess up’, the social audience appreciates brands who own their mistakes/make a joke of it rather than pretend something didn’t happen (i.e. by deleting content).
- Make people love your brand, not your product! Consumers understand the product so use social media content to make the audience fall in love with your brand. Loyalty is sure to follow.
Understanding who your competitors are
- Brands are no longer just competing with other brands – competitors now include content creators.
- Brands need to look at creators of lifestyle content along with the appropriate niche content creators to discover more about what their audiences resonate with.
Metaverse
- The Metaverse offers itself as a way to give control back to users when it comes to their data and digital environment.
- For brands, the Metaverse should be used on a H2H approach (human-to-human) rather than traditional B2C.
- Exploring the Metaverse won’t be a one-off campaign for brands, the platform will need to be considered within the overall marketing strategy.
- Check out how brands are currently using the Metaverse:
- Vans X Roblox Skatepark
- Travis Scott X Fortnite
How to make it work for your pub or restaurant:
Could we soon see a virtual restaurant / pub? Games like My Restaurant on Roblox where users can create and run their own restaurant are already engaging young people.
5. New image description tool on Twitter
Twitter will soon encourage users to add an image description when users add a photo to a Tweet.
Image descriptions help describe an image to those who aren’t able to. The purpose is to create a more inclusive experience for the visually impaired (who may be using screen readers), those in low-bandwidth areas and anyone who’d like to learn more about an image.
How to make it work for your pub or restaurant:
A better user experience should always be top of the list, make this functionality part of your ongoing considerations when writing content for Twitter. Log-in to your settings to turn on the Image Description reminder and you’ll be prompted to add some text whenever you post a picture.
Finish your brew…
That’s all for this month, but we’ll be back again at the end of September for another Tea & Trends, keeping you at the forefront of digital, from brand websites to social media innovation and everything in-between.