Ah, the subconscious mind - it's a mysterious and amazing tool! It stores, sorts, and retrieves data, and it processes the information we absorb through our senses. In fact, according to Psychology Today, many of the elements needed for our brains to make judgments and decision-making are processed outside of awareness.

The machinery at work in the subconscious mind also plays a big role in influencing our habits and moods – often for reasons we don’t fully understand – and that can be observed in something as simple as how we perceive and react to colors.

 

Why do certain colors make us feel calm or happy while others invoke anger or anxiety? Why might warm colors stimulate a more energetic response, while cooler colors can lead to feelings of relaxation?

Creating social media with enough value to share might seem complicated, but it’s not that hard to do if you have some excellent ideas. After taking a look around some of the most shared posts of 2017, several things became apparent. Here’s a rundown to get you going.

 

From Hemingway to every other self help book ever written, there's a recurring theme of the value of listening. As marketers, we can get too focused on the messages that we are trying to put out into the market, but the reality is that messaging isn't a one-way street anymore: brands grow and thrive because of advocates and evangelists (not static outbound messaging), consumers demand transparency and expect change to follow feedback. We need to get back to the basics of communication and listen to the feedback, the criticism, the jokes, and the trends. What we call social media listening is the process of hearing what is being said and responding to it, from replying to a tweet to rolling out a new app. 

 

During the past year, we have seen in an unprecedented way, how much influence social media can have. From the White House to #metoo to #TakeAKnee, the breadth and depth of the reach of social media is expanding … and expanding … and expanding. There is now no denying the importance of social media and no excuse for not putting it to work for your business and your brand.

 

Complaints and negative comments are a perpetual reality online. No matter how large or small, every bank or credit union will receive negative feedback online. Some institutions will delay or avoid engaging with the public on social media for fear of opening a Pandora's box of complaints. Others feel intimidated by the human power required to manage multiple social accounts, respond to direct messages, and tweeted questions that could be easily answered by searching your website. We're here to tell you it's not only doable, but that social media complaints are an opportunity for your institution to develop its brand, increase customer loyalty, and win new customers—if you follow these best practices. 

 

UPDATED: 5/10/17, 9:24 a.m.

 

Wendy’s is well-known for their sassy, saucy social media presence, but there was no sass necessary for this viral Twitter outbreak. Thanks to Carter Wilkerson, an average 16-year-old, Wendy’s is back in the spotlight.

 

The hashtag, #NuggsForCarter has become an online phenomenon. On April 5, Wilkerson tweeted “Yo @Wendys how many retweets for a year of free chicken nuggets?”, to which Wendy’s official Twitter account replied, “18 million”.

 

“Consider it done”, he said.

 

 

 

BREAKING: Facebook Business, the marketing and advertisement creation platform for ads on Facebook, has just announced that they will now be offering Split Testing in ads, apart from the traditional A/B testing that has been important for marketers in the past to understand which of their ads perform best.

 

Fact: people love free stuff.

 

Another fact: a well-designed and executed social media contest or sweepstakes can grow your business and capture customer attention with little overhead cost.