When building a digital strategy, there are a few basics to get right. Starting with your website is step one, followed by a solid social media strategy. Once you’ve ticked those off the list and everything’s running smoothly, why not experiment with some channels you may not have considered before? Some don’t take much work at all and can impress your audience when they discover you there.
Spotify
Curated playlists on Spotify are a fantastic way to complement your wider digital strategy. There are so many different types of playlists you can create. Look for themes in your work you can build a playlist around, just like Mattress Online, an online mattress and bed shop who created a playlist of songs to help you sleep. You could create a playlist of songs which match a theme of a campaign, songs that appear in videos you’ve produced or even just songs your staff like to listen to in the office – there’s so much potential here. Don’t forget that you can also advertise on Spotify, which is worth looking into if you’re trying to reach that demographic.
Unsplash
Unsplash is perfect when you need a relevant image for a social post or to illustrate a blog post, but did you know you can create an account and upload your photos too? More and more brands are using it to share high-quality photos of their product for other people to use. It makes sense really. If the photos are nice enough and free to use, people are more likely to use the ones you provide than spend time and energy creating their own which might not be as good. If you’ve produced some high-quality photography for your use, why not make them available for other people to use too. Organisations who have shared their imagery for all to use include Nasa, Loewe, Square and Harley-Davidson.
Giphy
If you love a GIF as much as I do, you’ve probably spent more time than you’re willing to admit scrolling through Giphy. And whilst there are millions to choose from, you also have the ability to upload your own. Using custom/personalised gifs is a great way to stand out on social media. Creating gifs from any videos you have produced is another perfect way to make the most out of the content you have. Uploading them all to Giphy for others to use means that your branded content can be used and shared by your supporters. Remember to make sure the gifs are eye-catching and work well as reactions.
YouTube
There’s so much more to YouTube than just posting videos. If you take advantage of all the site has to offer, you’ll be giving your organisation a real step up. Why not start by searching for videos relevant to your organisation and joining in the conversation in the comment section? Fans who post positive videos about your work should be encouraged and celebrated. You could use playlists to curate videos you like from other people relevant to your work or post content to YouTube’s story feature (very similar to Instagram and Facebook stories).
If you have more capacity, why not develop an engaged community on the channel, using the community tab on your profile. You can ask for feedback on videos, post polls about what people want to see next or tease a video you’ve got coming up. This is still an area that many brands forget about so there’s huge potential to stand out from the crowd here.
Google Maps
Have a lot of location-based work? Maybe you’re running an event which is taking place at a number of areas, or maybe you’ve got a printed campaign out and you want people to know where they can see your billboards. There are many reasons why you’d want to share a map with people and Google have made it so easy to design custom maps. MyMaps from Google allows you to add your own pins to locations, draw lines and routes and add things like photos and videos onto the map to make it fully interactive. Google also allows you to collaborate on a map so why not ask your audience to contribute pins to a map? The opportunities here are endless.
Let me know what you think about my suggestions below. Got any more that people might not have thought about? Share them in the comments!
Looking for more digital marketing advice for your business or charity? Check out my marketing advice tag to view all blogs on the subject.