Digital Marketing Archives - Fair Trade Connection

Mar 19

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The secret ingredient to B2B Success: Your website!

By Bryan Chan | Business, Digital Marketing

Have you been neglecting your B2B website?

Yes? Then it’s time you give it the attention it deserves!

While it’s no secret what a website is, what your website can do for you is a different matter altogether.

Many B2B businesses are still unaware of just what their B2B website can do for their business.

Your website is no longer just a place for your product catalog with a few images and descriptions. It has the potential to become a formidable marketing tool.

Yet, a study by clutch.co found that “As many as 29% of small businesses have not yet created a professional website.” (source)

Are you missing out on developing your B2B website into a powerful tool?

Don’t sweat it if you are! It’s never too late to start.

Here are 3 ways how a professional website can benefit your B2B business.

1. Improve Your Brand’s Visibility

Imagine the internet as a large phone book.

It contains the information of businesses from all around the world, each one of them is categorized according to the industry they belong to and the kind of product or service they offer.

How convenient for researchers!

But not having a website is akin to not having your number listed on the world’s most used phonebook.

How can researchers find something that is not there?

Your B2B website is your way into that phonebook. Setting up your site registers your business information onto the internet for all to find.

When you put in the work to optimize your website by placing relevant keywords, metadata, and creating valuable content, you increase the likelihood of potential prospects discovering your business.

So guess what happens when the next person searches for a product or service in your niche.

They find you.

It’s equivalent to having your information highlighted in the phone books.

Not only are you now listed in the world’s most used phonebook, but you have also put your B2B business in a better spot for it to be found.

2. Create a Positive First Impression

You are meeting a client for the first time, and you want to present yourself in the best way.

You put on your favorite shirt with your favorite tie, and you wear the best pair of pants you own. You get a clean shave, a haircut, and even polish your shoes!

After all, you know that first impressions are vital to making a deal.
It creates connection and trust with potential clients, and it sets the bedrock for business to happen.

That my friend goes the same for your B2B website.

These days, the first impression a client gets of your business is usually from your website.

According to a study done by Northumbria and Sheffield University, “The first impression users have of a website are as much as 94% design-related.” (Source)

“95% of users indicated that a positive user experience is the most important factor when they visit a website,” reported Econsultancy.

So dress to impress and leave no room for doubt. Design your website in a way that wins your researcher’s trust and heart!

3. Your Personal Sales Rep

Once your website is set up, it runs rain or shine.

This is a contrast to the traditional office hours of physical businesses, where researchers have to call or visit during opening timings to obtain information from a sales personnel – assuming that the line is free and the salesperson is present to take the call.

Your B2B website provides a reliable source of information and support for researchers to access wherever and whenever it is convenient for them.

With the marriage of good design and content tailored to your audience, your website becomes a capable tool that drives visitors to take action.

It’s like that fishbowl that businesses place in their shop for interested customers to leave their name cards.

Call-to-actions on your B2B website can do that too, and it can also be made to collect messages or questions or even complete an entire sales transaction
.
Even while you are asleep!

Wrapping it up

Many B2B businesses underestimate what their B2B website can do to boost their business activity and influence their sales.

No matter how big or small your B2B business or budget is, investing in a professional website is something that companies can do at all stages of their growth.

As your business grows, so does your website.

And as your website grows, so will your business.

It’s a win-win situation!

Need help from professionals to improve your B2B website?
Contact us today!

Mar 19

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Your website matters more than you think. Here’s why.

By Bryan Chan | Business, Digital Marketing

Imagine yourself going to the market to get some fruits.

There are 2 stalls, one of them located in a dimly lit area of the market surrounded by discarded boxes that block the passageway. The fruits in the booth are mud ridden and piled in an unorganized manner.

The other shop is located at the front of the market with a surrounding kept tidy by the seller. The fresh fruits are clean and displayed neatly. It catches the eye of passersby, inviting them to take a closer look.

Both sellers may be selling the same products, but we all know which stall will receive more traffic and sales.

Why Your Website Matters

The internet is a marketplace. And your website is your fruit stall.

Not a single sale happens in the B2B market without the prospect checking out a seller’s website and their social media platforms.

According to a B2B procurement study by Accenture’s State, “94% of B2B buyers conduct online research before they engage with a sales person.”

“They each do an average of 12 searches before engaging on a specific brands site,” says Think with Google.

What this means is that a strong website is essential to your business.

Investing your marketing dollars and efforts into building a better page creates

More conversions
Higher quality leads
Stronger credibility
Customer’s trust

All of this translates into higher sales.

Knowing Who Your Customers Are

If your website is your fruit stall, your web content is your fruit.

Creating the right kind of content ensures that you are attracting not just anybody, but potential buyers. To do that, you first have to understand who your buyers are and what they want.

According to a study done by Think with Google “Nearly half of B2B researchers are millennials”
This majority of B2B researchers are expected to continue growing over the coming years.

Millennials are a generation of tech-savvy people who keep up-to-date with current affairs and trends. They are intolerant of slow loading and outdated web pages.

Often, your website creates the first impression for these researchers. It is necessary to create a good impression for these researchers when they land on your page.

Putting attention to craft your website allows you to build a unique look and feel for your business that these researchers can identify and connect with.

Create a Website that Researchers Love

Researchers are generally looking for 4 things in a website.

1. Fast loading pages

In the age of fiber optic cables and 4g networks, every second count. With so much information on the internet and so little time, a slow loading website is not a situation that most B2B researchers want to find themselves in.

2. Easy navigation

You may have a great product, but if researchers are lost on your page trying to figure out where your menu bar is or how they can contact you, you can be sure they’ll leave.

3. Mobile-friendly interface

Research by Think with Google says that “42% of B2B researchers use a mobile device during the B2B purchase process”. Creating a website that adapts to a mobile interface makes it easier for researchers to browse through your content. That’s always a good thing.

4. Solution to their needs

You know the value of your product, and it is time researchers know that too. By creating engaging content and copy, you can guide researchers to realize that your product is what they were looking for.

Video sites like Vimeo and Youtube are playing an increasingly important role in the B2B buyer’s journey. It creates a more intimate way for researchers to learn about your business, your product, and the value you can bring to them.

Where You Should Be Investing Your Marketing Money

Here are three words that could make a big difference when understood correctly:

Buyer’s Pre-decision Phase

Focusing your marketing dollars and efforts in the buyer’s pre-decision phase is giving that little nudge that turns a maybe researcher into a yes customer.

Your website should give potential buyers a good reason to contact you. There is no need to invest in one more salesperson when your site doesn’t attract leads.

Remember that nice fruit stall from before?

A well set up website is like that. It brings in traffic, creates customers interest, and gives them a reason to engage with your business.

Instead of tasking your salesperson to chase prospects, it is better to invest in crafting a website that brings in prospects. Let your salesperson focus on closing the deals!

Why Your Website Is Better Than Any Salesperson

When crafted with the right content and features, your website acts as a powerful lead generator. It is a hub where all your social roads can lead to.

Regardless of which social platform profile you use; every video, caption, or image you post should convince viewers to take some kind of action. Be it buying something, reading your latest blog post, or signing up to your newsletter; every post should be created with an intention and a call to action.

These direct action will usually take place on your website. It acts as a hub where all your channels lead to for you to close the sale or drive them towards a specific action you are after.

Your website is an integral part of your business. Digitally speaking, your website IS your business itself.

It is your storefront, your store, and your product all at once. It is also your marketer, customer relation, sales personnel and more.

The only difference between your website and a person?

Your site doesn’t need to sleep or eat.

Taking time and funds to build a reliable website is an investment that will pay itself many times over. Your stall is already in the market, and your fruits are ripe and ready. It is time that buyers know that too.

Ready to Improve Your Website?

We have created a course that guides B2B businesses like yours towards creating a better website to gain more customers. We’ll walk you through the process with simple bite-sized videos that you can access and refer to whenever you need.

Mar 08

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4 Ways Digital Marketing Can Transform Your Company

By Rebecca Azad | Business, Digital Marketing

We know that one of the main challenges facing fair trade organisations is finding new buyers. A way that you can alleviate the problem is by investing time in digital marketing. So what do we mean by digital marketing exactly? Well, this includes a wide variety of tools such as creating a website, using social media platforms, online videos, email campaigns, sending newsletters – to name but a few options!

The above list may sound overwhelming, but we suggest going with online platforms that work for you. You can then build on your organisation’s online presence and work on creating and updating your chosen platforms with quality written and visual content. If you still need convincing, here are 4 reasons why digital marketing can benefit your company:

1/ Interact with a whole new demographic

Reaching out to millennials will set you on the right path! Younger people are a lot more willing to support ethical and fair trade brands – your organisation can capture this opportunity. As we all know, young people are spending a lot more time online, so if you want their attention and support, you need to be sending your messages through online channels to connect with them. If you need help with a digital marketing strategy, why not look to employ digital-savvy millennials for your company? Their enthusiasm and expertise will drive your organisation’s message to the forefront and help you reach a millennial audience.

2/ Shine a spotlight on your successes

Learn to celebrate your successes! Not only will you showcase the work that you do, but it will help lift employee morale by sharing your organisation’s achievements publicly. Be proud of your work!

3/ Attract potential clientele

You can attract potential buyers through a strong online presence. Many fair trade organisations suffer from sticking with an outdated website which doesn’t convey a feeling of professionalism. A refreshed and engaging website can work wonders to help you gain the attention of potential buyers.

4/ Encourage more people to join the movement

Fair Trade organisations can appeal to consumers who are already ethically, socially and environmentally conscious. Your organisation is in a good place to gain traction with this audience – a digital marketing strategy is a way forward to capture their attention to join the Fair Trade movement.

It’s also important to understand that it’s not enough to have a website or social media pages, but it is about what you make of it that will make an impact. Work out how to use these tools to get the attention of potential buyers and ensure buyers take the specific action you want them to take.

“Your website should cause an action, not just a reaction”

– Elle Robertson

These actions can perhaps be to call you directly, downloading a product catalogue or watching a specific video. Whatever that action may be, having a digital marketing strategy means everything from setting the goals to implementing the actions, to driving the person where you want them to be and having them conclude this specific action that will lead to new buyers for your organisation.

Can Fair Trade Connection assist you with your digital marketing strategy? Get in touch with us here and we’ll be happy to help!

Oct 25

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5 Most Common Marketing Mistakes and How to Fix them [SLIDES]

By Ronny Hermosa | Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Visual Design

We were invited to speak at the Asia Fair Trade Summit 2016 in Bangkok in front of all the Asian members of WFTO. Our presentation was part of the brand value panel and we wanted it to be very hands on for companies to have something concrete to go home with. Ronny’s presentation was a collection of real life examples of things that the fair trade producing organizations were doing wrong with their marketing. After briefly presenting the 5 common marketing mistakes, Ronny spent most of his presentation giving tips on how to fix them.

These 5 mistakes were:

You don’t have an official Visual Identity
Your Visuals are not Strengthening your Brand
You don’t have a Social Media Plan
Your Website is Outdated
You don’t Leverage Storytelling

If you wish to learn more about each of these topics, you can download a bibliography containing all the articles Ronny used to create his presentation.

Here are all of Ronny’s slides (click one to open in a gallery):

Sep 20

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FAQ about the QR Code Videos

By Diana Muñoz | Digital Marketing, Video Marketing

How do you know people will scan the QR codes?

While there is no absolute guarantee that people will scan the QR codes, our research on whether they would be an interesting marketing tool look pretty promising.

For example, US based Marketing Agency MGH has published a research called “QR code usage and interest survey”. The survey was conducted among 415 smartphone users and shows that:

65% of respondents answered “yes” to the question: “Have you ever seen a QR code before?”
56% of respondents who had seen a QR code before have seen it on a product
49% of respondents who had seen a QR code before have used one
To the question “Would you be interested in using a QR code, either for the first time or again?”, 70% of respondents answered “yes”, only 9% answered “No” and 23% answered “I don’t know”
To the question “What have you used a QR code for?”, respondents answered:
- To get a discount, a coupon or a deal (53%)
- To access additional information (52%)
- To access a video (24%)

Access the whole survey here

We also have conducted our own survey (with our limited means), we asked :

“If your favorite fair trade product had a QR Code on its packaging that could connect you to a short video telling the producer’s story, would you take 2 minutes to scan it and watch the video?”

We received 60 answers:

50 said: Yes this sounds like a great idea
7 said: No, I’m not interested
3 said: I don’t know what a QR code is

Source: Fair Trade Connection Survey on Facebook

How will you cover all the fair trade products, there are too many?

Our idea is not to cover each and every product sold by WFTO members – that would be an impossible task – but rather to create at least 1 video per producer member and ideally 1 video per product line sold by a producer member (ex. Leather, wood, jewelry, textile, … for Bombolulu Workshops).

We’ve tried QR codes with the Geo Fair Trade Project and consumers did not use them

As Inboud marketing specialist Hubspot explains: “there are a number of reasons why QR codes might be going “out of style,” but the most important is probably that they’re often misused. They’re in subway stations where there’s no WiFi, on TV commercials that have an air time of a second or two, and some of them lead to broken links or landing pages that aren’t optimized for mobile. Once a consumer is disappointed by the mobile experience behind a QR code, she may never scan one again.”

Source: “Are QR codes dead?”, Lindsay Kolowich, Hubspot

Unlike the Geo Fair Trade concept that led the QR code user to a mini website containing lots of written information, our concept leads the user to a video in only 1 click/tap. The video format allows us to present the information in a dynamic and entertaining way. But most importantly, the user can relax and enjoy the experience instead of going through the effort of reading a lot of complex information.

How will you measure the effectiveness of the QR codes?

One metric that we’ll have at hand to measure the success of the QR codes is the number of views for each videos. We should set some goals in terms of reach before launching the campaign and monitor them throughout time.

Also, in her article “QR Codes: When Do They Work?“, marketing expert Asia Matos explains that:

QR codes really, truly work when these things are present:

1/ There must be added value so great, that the user actually thinks about the opportunity cost of not scanning the code.

2/ The placement of the QR code must be perfect. There has to be enough foot traffic, but can’t be in an annoying place where people won’t want to stop.

3/ If placement is an issue, the QR code must be transportable, i.e. placing the QR code on a Taco Bell cup that the user can take with them.

Source: ”QR Codes: When Do They Work?”, Asia Matos, http://education.arke.com

We believe the videos will deliver that great value to the fair trade consumers who often are wondering “If Fair Trade is really helping the producers and how”. We also believe in the series effect and trust once a consumer will have enjoyed the experience of learning more about the producer of 1 specific product he will be tempted to scan other products to hear more stories about how fair trade is improving the producers’ livelihoods.

Because the QR code will be placed on the product directly, consumers can scan them in the shop (less likely but possible) but also in the comfort of their homes with their good WIFI connection.

Printing the QR codes on the product labels requires a big investment

Yes printing the QR codes on the product labels/packaging will have a cost. In the early stages of the campaign, this cost could be reduced by adding a simple label to the products with the QR code on it and a call to action. But we believe the campaign will be truly effective if the QR codes were fully integrated in the design of the packaging. Placing the QR code right next to the new “WFTO guaranteed member” label will improve WFTO’s credibility as a agent for change and strengthen its brand image.

You have more questions/concerns about the use of QR codes on the fair trade products?
Send us an email, we will do our best to bring you answers.

Jan 22

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Digital Marketing Training

By Ronny Hermosa | Our Trainings

IMPROVE THE WAY YOU COMMUNICATE ONLINE

Social Media has taken the world by storm and become an integrated part of the way we TEXT communicate in both our personal lives and in business. Social media is a low cost, effective way to increase the global reach and success of your company.

Unfortunately, after working with a myriad of fair trade companies, it’s clear that social media marketing and visual design are not meeting the global standard in the fair trade sector. Together, we can transform this by taking your digital marketing to a professional level that creates impact and gets people talking about your business.

OUR EXPERIENCE

We’re active and experienced in the field of digital marketing and visual design. Our social media mix includes a blog, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and Twitter. Our goals are to reach out to more people with our fair trade stories, drive more traffic to our website and generate more business opportunities across the globe. This 4-year-experience has been very interesting and today we would like to share what we have learned with you.

TRAINING NGO’S AROUND THE WORLD

We’ve been busy facilitating digital marketing trainings for different fair trade companies and NGO’s, achieving encouraging results in more than 10 countries. During these trainings, we help you develop an online marketing strategy and use Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the newest platforms to promote your organization.
You can listen to some of our customers testimonials here.

THE FAIR TRADE & SOCIAL MEDIA REPORT

In 2013 we conducted a research on the use of social media by 42 fair trade companies. You can freely download our REPORT HERE which also includes some insider tips to improve your social media strategy.

We’ve designed 8 modules covering different areas of digital marketing (average of 2,5 hours each) from which you can choose to create your customized training.

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01. Visual Design Workshop

This module focuses on building or giving a facelift to your company’s visual identity. Here is what we’ll cover:

Why is Visual Design so important?
Tips to create high quality visual content
How to build your visual identity
How to use Canva/Photoshop

02. Digital Photography Workshop

This module starts with covering theory on the following:

How to use your DSLR camera to its fullest potential
Tips to avoid classic mistakes in photography
How to take great product photographies
Visual Storytelling through photography

In the second part of the module you’ll get off your chair and start shooting photos with your camera under the supervision of our expert photographers.

03. Facebook Marketing Workshop

Facebook is the place to be for your business with 1 out of 7 human beings active on the social network, you just can’t afford to ignore it. This module aims at developping your strategy on the largest social plateform. Here’s what you’ll learn:

Build/Optimize your Facebook page
What kind of content to share on Facebook
Create a posting strategy

04. SEO Workshop

SEO means Search Engine Optimization or the science to rank higher on Google. This module is about understanding how search engines work in order gain visibility in the search result pages.
Here’s what’s on the menu:

Why bringing traffic to your website is so important?
Tips to improve your ranking on search engines
Identify and optimize keywords
How to give more exposure to your website

05. Blogging Workshop

Having a blog can help your business gain more visibility and be perceived as an authority in your industry.
This module will guide you through the basics of blogging:

Why is blogging so important?
How to set up a WordPress blog
What kind of content should I write
How to write successful posts
Generate 25 post ideas to get started
Tips to reach more people with your posts

06. Video Marketing Workshop

Fact: video is getting more attention than any other kind of content on social media!
This module is about becoming comfortable with video marketing and having all the cards in your hand to start telling your story with videos.
You’ll go through the following points:

Why do marketers give so much importance to video content nowadays?
Develop a Facebook & YouTube video strategy
What kind of videos should you produce?
How to grow your audience and spread your message

07. E-mail Marketing Workshop

E-mail is not dead! As a matter of fact, for many businesses it is still the number one lead generation tool.
This module covers everything there is to know to create successful e-mail campaigns with MailChimp.
Here’s what you’ll learn:

How to build an effective e-mail list
What is Mailchimp and how to use it?
Generate catchy subject lines to improve your open rate
Understand e-mail analytics to optimize your campaigns

08. Networking and Generating Leads with Social Media Workshop

Social media is about connecting with people, ideally the right people!
This module will teach you specific techniques to find and connect with influencers in your industry.
Here’s what we’ll cover:

How to find and connect with the right people
Find influencers in your industry and tap into their network
Use social media platforms to grow your network
How to convert your leads into buying customers

WHY BOOK US?

Here are 4 reasons why you should work with us:

We understand the reality of fair trade organizations better than anyone else
We already successfully trained 20 organizations and NGO’s on 4 continents
Our network counts both the largest retailers and producers in the fair trade industry
We adapt to your needs and deliver results

What more, we come to you! So what are you waiting for? Contact us today and together we can transform your social media communications.

Without a social media strategy, you may be at risk of hurting your online image.
The more we travel and meet fair trade organizations, the more we realize efforts need to be done in order to improve these companies’ visual identity and online marketing in general.

We’ve decided to take on the challenge and be an agent of change in the industry with our Digital Marketing Trainings. We say NO to ugly websites and NO to neglected Facebook pages.

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Nov 12

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What to post on your Facebook Page?

By Ronny Hermosa | Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing | No Comments

I’m often asked this question during our Digital Marketing workshops, so with this post I’ve decided to share some of the visual content that has been posted on FTC’s Facebook page.
This is of course not exhaustive, it is just our modest attempt to look good and publish regular content featuring the fair trade people we met on the road. There is no limit to what you can create and post on social media, be bold, be creative, be YOU!

Nov 04

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Your website hurt my eyes: 5 free and easy tools to help with visual design

By Ronny Hermosa | Digital Marketing, Visual Design

Business woman with tired eyes and stress Let’s not beat around the bush, most of the fair trade producers’ organizations I visit have a problem with their website. I’m not saying that it’s not interesting, or that it doesn’t contain the necessary information… I’m just saying it’s plain ugly! And most of them agree with me.
So I started to ask myself why these fair trade businesses (that develop and export good looking products on the other hand) struggle so much with web design and visual communication in general?

Early in my analysis I noticed a clear difference between “Northern” (retailers, fair trade federations and NGO’s) and “Southern” organizations in terms of design. Much more importance is given to visual communication in the North and as a result their website but also business cards, Facebook pages and print materials seems to be more “professional”. Southern organizations also seem to invest less time and resources in marketing and visual design, it is simply not a priority for them.

One of Fair Trade Connection’s mission is to help fair trade producers gain more visibility. We of course do that through our core business of producing videos but since we encountered so many organizations that were struggling with their brand image and visual communication, we’ve developed social media and visual design trainings that we propose along the way.
These 5 free tools have been borrowed from our training on visual design.

1/ ColorLovers
From all the tools, this one is my favorite. ColorLovers is a website that focuses on colors…as you might have guessed already.
Their main feature is their palette library. A palette is a selection of colors that match well together. Usually palettes display from 3 to 5 different colors. The awesome thing about this website is that it gives you the HEX and RGB references so that you can reproduce the exact color you are seeing in photoshop or similar softwares.

Just copy the HEX number of the color you like, paste it in photoshop… and voila!
Browse the thousands of palettes by date, popularity or number of likes. The website also features an interesting pattern library. Try it now!

2/ Color picker add-on for Firefox
This is the perfect companion for any graphic designer or anyone involved in the creation of visual designs. This little Firefox add-on will install a color picker (similar to the one you find in photoshop) in your browser. Allowing you to pick any color you like while surfing your favorite websites or social networks.
Just click on the color picker to open a small window in the top left corner of your screen, then move your mouse anywhere to receive the HEX and RGB references. Press ESC to copy the HEX. This is great to grab a color you like on the fly.

3/ Snipping Tool
This is screen capture made easy. Or super easy.
Forget the hassle of going through a print screen then paste in a photo editor, snipping tool will allow you to capture whatever is on your screen with only 2 clicks. You can also highlight or add annotations with the simple tools that are offered to you.

The best thing about Snipping Tool is that you already have it installed on your computer (if you have a windows computer).

Find it under: Start Menu/Accessories/Snipping Tool

4/ Free Fonts Sites
As a designer you’ll always need n font ew and appropriate fonts for a Facebook post, the new product catalog or that flyer that needed to be done for yesterday. Of course you could use the same old fonts that you have already installed on your computer, but there are plenty of free websites out there that will allow you to grow your font collection. The influence of fonts is simply HUGE, different fonts can totally change the tone of a piece of design. Choosing the right font is very important but not always easy. At least now, you’ll have plenty of choice.

I personally like to go through blog posts that have already skimmed the best fonts for us, doing this will save you time and spare your eyes. Indeed finding and selecting fonts is a time consuming process. Why not use the work of other people who have already done that for you. Moreover, these blog posts usually display visuals created with the fonts, which allows you to have a better idea of how they look like and what you could do with them.
Here are a few examples of posts that have done a good job selecting fonts.
If you don’t know how to install new fonts, watch this video.

5/ Social Media Design Blueprints
If you are in charge of the visual communication of your organization that means that you will most definitely post those designs on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+. But do you know the dimensions of the Facebook cover image? Or the Google+ profile picture?
Each of these platforms have different sizing guidelines and finding out about them before starting your designs will save you a great deal of hassle.

Fortunately for us, some nice bloggers out there have compiled most of what we need to know in easy to read infographics.

Be sure to update your sources regularly as social media sites keep on changing their designs. Use the keyword “Social Media Design Blueprints + date” in Google to find what you are looking for.

Feb 25

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Social Media and Fair Trade Industry Report

By Ronny Hermosa | Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized

We have surveyed 42 fair trade companies from 3 continents with the goal of understanding how they are using social media to grow and promote their businesses. Here is what you will discover in the full report (available in our shop):

Top 10 objectives companies are trying to achieve with social media
This section reveals all the major advantages marketers are achieving with their social media efforts. We have established a ranking according to their importance to the companies.

Top 5 social media platforms used by fair trade companies
Discover which tools marketers are using, for how long they have been using them and if Northern and Southern companies use the same mix of platforms.
The different strategies developed by the companies
After verifying how many companies actually had a social media strategy, we analyzed into more details where these companies focused their strategic efforts.
The time commitment
We examined the weekly hours marketers invest in their social media efforts. This analysis will be helpful for marketers just getting started or those seeking support staff.
How much money fair trade companies invest in Social Media
Find out what percentage of their marketing budget companies are investing in Social Media. Is this number consistent with the amount of importance companies give to social media?
The major problems marketers are facing
We made a list of the major problems encountered on social networks ranked by importance. This will help you realize where additional resources could be invested in order to better perform on social platforms.

Use our conclusions and recommendations to improve your social media strategy or discover how other fair traders are dealing with social media throughout 17 graphs and detailed statistics.

Sep 16

1

The Revolution Fair Trade Needs

By Ronny Hermosa | Digital Marketing, Video Marketing | One Comment

We have always believed in the benefits of fair trade for marginalized producers and were strong supporters of the movement even before starting Fair Trade Connection. Being on the road for so long and meeting so many of them has just confirmed our initial feeling that fair trade contributes to lifting small producers out of poverty and gives them more control over their lives.

We have been to the villages, talked to the artisans, shared meals with their families, visited their houses and spent hundreds of hours getting to know them. What comes out is a huge collection of testimonies all pointing out to the same reality: fair trade products are made with love and the income that they generate do create better lives.

Our job now is to tell you these stories, so that just like us, you can realize that fair trade does make a difference.

Fair Trade and Social Media
Most Western fair trade organizations (retailers and labeling organizations) have already adopted Social Media and use them as part of their marketing efforts to different extents. Social Media is now the name of the game, even for fair trade.

Organizations share all kinds of content on different Social Media platforms. Many of them provide information about the products they sell, raise awareness through advocacy campaigns, communicate about events that they organize and so on.

We believe that the positive growth of fair trade sales (12% increase since 2010 according to Fairtrade International) could be, at least partially, explained by the ever growing use of social media to promote the movement.
We see in social media the perfect tool for further connecting producers and consumers.
One tool in particular caught our attention…

QR Codes
If you’ve been in a public space in the last year or two, you’ve probably seen a QR (Quick Response) code —a small, square two-dimensional barcode that looks a bit like a miniature chess board. People who see these codes can use an application on their mobile phone to scan them and view information immediately.

In the context of fair trade, we strongly believe that the QR codes can deliver real value for retailers and consumers at the right place and the right time, offering a great medium for sharing the artisans’ story. A study shows that nearly half of all smartphone users have used their phones while shopping in brick-and-mortar stores.
Fair trade is ready for a revolution and the QR codes might bring just that.

We can make your products speak

The concept
Our concept is simple: we will use the QR code technology to create a link to the artisan’s story.
By scanning the QR code on the product label with a smartphone or a tablet, one will access a short video of the farmer or artisan who produced the product.
The aim is to connect fair trade consumers to the people and communities that they are supporting by buying the products.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynb2VGLeASk

Our Content Library
So far we have gathered around 300 interviews, mostly from certified handicraft producers (WFTO). We also met a few FLO-certified organizations, generating interviews about food products. Of course this is just the beginning and we plan on meeting many more producers in the months to come.
Our current video collection allows us to cover over 500 different products distributed by an estimated 20 Western retailers. This means that our videos could be used by most of the major fair trade retailers and producers but also supermarkets who distribute fair trade certified products.

Be a part of the QR Revolution
It is a fact that smartphones are replacing old « dumb » mobile phones at a rapid pace, so more and more people could get a QR code scanner for free. This opens a new and not yet well explored world to marketers by creating an offline-to-online experience.
It is only a matter of time before QR codes hit mainstream. Knowing how to implement them in the right way for your fair trade business will keep your brand on the cutting edge of marketing and technology.
By using QR code technology to create a connection between the producers and the consumers your business will not only answer the eternal question of the impacts of fair trade on the local communities, it will grab a competitive edge on its competitors who will stay out of the digital game.

Download the full report here: We Can Make Your Products Speak.

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Digital Marketing