What I learned about Digital Marketing: it’s NOT as EASY as posting pictures and writing captions!!!

It’s Tai Again!

If you have been following my Instagram account, you would know that I have been storying around Tokyo in August and September. I have enjoyed Tokyo a lot, as a “temporary” resident of Tokyo since I go to work every week from Monday to Friday. Just like a typical “shakaijin”. Indeed, I have spent this summer doing my Internship in the field of Digital Marketing for a Real-Estate Agency named Tokyo Room Finder, based in Tokyo.

For this article, I would like to talk about what I learned about Digital Marketing after 2-month work in Tokyo. This is not my first Internship in this field, honestly speaking, but there is something very special and rewarding about this one. Probably because despite being an Intern, I was given most of the responsibility of managing my company’s Social Media accounts and the freedom to create my own Digital Marketing Strategy for the company.

⚠️Just a heads up! All of my knowledge about Digital Marketing is all self-taught and accumulated from all of my past internship experience, as well as from my interest and curiosity for the field. I am open to any comments or constructive criticisms, of course, for the sake of my self-growth as a Digital Marketer.

Brief Introduction to Digital Marketing

Don’t worry, I am not going to give you a long lecture about it though. To simply put it, digital means online, and Digital Marketing means promoting products or brand-related content online. When I talk about online, it is not just Google or Facebook. I am talking about everything from Social Media to even Email Marketing & Paid Online Ads.

For me, I am currently specialized in Social Media Marketing, creating content and establish strategies on Social Media. I also do SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as well, which simply means how to optimize your website so it can rank high on Google.

Okay, I guess that is enough for this long introduction (sorry, just want you to have a clear picture of what I am writing). SO, let’s get to the main points!

1, Create a NICHE Brand Message that is worth spreading!

Within a country, there are thousands of businesses competing in the same field, and thousands will become millions when you expand to oversea. The question is how to STAND OUT in the eye of your target audience.

The answer I have found lies in the Brand Message, or what your business has to say to the world!

When I was doing Tokyo Room Finder’s Social Media Analysis, I found that there are around 10 companies that have the same brand doing the same: a real estate agent designed for foreigners in Japan. No Japanese, No Contract Hassle and so on. As a Digital Marketer, I was puzzle right away on how to get my company out of this cliche mess.

A NICHE Brand Message means a message that reflects the work and the product your company is promoting & that is DIFFERENT. A message worth spreading is a message that UNDERSTANDS & RESONATES your target audience, and is A PART OF THEIR LIFE.

We at Tokyo Room Finder want to have a message that does not stop at finding houses like the rest of our competitors, but it has to be useful to our customers’ new life in Tokyo. The Brand Message that we go for is “Start your new life in Tokyo. Find your new house with us”. We not only support you with your new home but also your new life in Japan. We project our message through content on Social Media about tips, information, news about life in Japan, through articles contributed by foreigners who have experienced the hardship and now settled down in Japan.

With this message, we expect people to follow our brand NOT JUST FOR OUR SERVICE, but also BECAUSE IT IS USEFUL TO THEIR LIFE IN JAPAN. Our bigger mission is to promote life in Japan as more and more foreigners can make here as their long-term home, rather than short term.

Tai’s Take-Away: Having a Brand Message really helps with creating niche content on Social Media. It will become the CORE while you perform any strategies for Digital Marketing. It will make your content consistent, and of course, attract the right audience that can generate into real, potential customers!

2, Different Social Media needs Different Content

Yes, posting pictures and putting captions are not easy as it seems!

Let me elaborate more on how different Social Media networks (SNS) are in the first place. Besides the obvious network like Youtube or Pinterest, I will differentiate Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Facebook has got to be the OG of all SNSs with the most users and has already built a reputation of being the network for sales and advertisement. Instagram on the other hand, focuses more on connecting users visually through pictures, videos, and stories on both aesthetical and emotional levels. Similarly, Twitter also emphasizes user interaction with the act of retweeting.

So now that you understand the different characteristics of each network, it is inherently that we need to change content to suit each network. I will share with you what I usually do:

• Facebook: I always push posts directly related to the company’s product on Facebook. For example, if you are a Sim Card Provider, I will post only about different Sim Plans that you provide. Facebook will be the main SNS for your products and the place to answer requests from customers. With that in mind, I only focus on planning posts about Tokyo Room Finder’s available properties. Shortly speaking, your Facebook page has to be clear of what the service or product that you are providing from the get-go.

• Instagram: This is where I post content related to how the brand can benefit its customers’ life. Contents on Instagram should be intimate and relatable, in a sense. A very safe Instagram Content for Business can be about the customer’s feedback. For Tokyo Room Finder, I try to do a variety of posts about life in Tokyo for foreigners and use the Instagram Account as a way to communicate with both our current and future customers. To increase our account’s interaction with our followers, I actively use a variety of Instagram features such as Weekly Quiz about Tokyo on our Instagram Story.

• Twitter: Twitter Post Optimization is hard, I gotta admit. You have to keep in mind of the Twitter culture of retweeting and short, limited caption. Therefore, your content has to be straight to the point, short and worthy of the retweet from your followers. What I do for Tokyo Room Finder is that I share useful tips for foreigners and interesting newspapers that they can retweet for their own usage.

Tai’s Take-Away: Promote different sides of your brand message for different Social Media Platforms. Facebook is for direct product marketing. Instagram, Twitter is for the side of your brand that connects with your customers’ daily life!

3, Data & Metric Analytics as Performance Indicator

What’s great about Digital Marketing is that there is data reflecting your strategies and contents’ performance. Social Media Marketing is not about posting and that’s it. It’s about analyzing the stats and build strategies to improve the stats.

I still remembered when I just started my journey in the field of Digital Marketing as a Content Creator. It was my first Internship and all I did was creating content. I always wondered how could I gain more views for my content. I was introduced to SEO, how to optimize your blog articles for higher ranking on Google. I started to learn how to use Google Analytics by myself because I wanted to know the Conversion Rate of my content, do they lead to more page views or even inquiry?

For Social Media, the data and metrics that I am talking about is not the number of likes or the number of followers. That’s just the surface, not to mention the number of followers fluctuate like crazy.

For me, I always focus on Post Engagement Metric, which includes both likes, comments, shares, retweets and so on. Reach Metric is also important because it tells the spread of a social media conversation. The higher the reach, the more impact your post has. Of course, there are so many more metrics, but my point is data and metrics are what reflect your work

Tai's Take-Away: Don’t be afraid when the stats suddenly drop. Fluctuation is normal and if it drops, it means that you need to change your current strategy. Without the stats, it’s hard to change, isn’t it?

4, Don't let the “Digital” lead your “Marketing”

Honestly speaking I don’t think you really need to buy a book or take online courses about Digital Marketing, because everything you need to know can be searched on Google.

You will probably see that there are rules for doing SEO blogs to get high ranks on search engines, or there are ways to get your posts crazy likes on Instagram. Basically just follow the Guidelines and anybody can be a Digital Marketer. Is it that simple?

Well, yes and no. These available guidelines make doing Digital Marketing easier and even provide you with lots of knowledge, I admit. But not anyone can successfully achieve something, especially when they just follow rules like follow textbooks. At the core, you still need to be tech-savvy, understand your brand and create content that represents it.

We all know that Google changes its Algorithm frequently. Even if you follow the SEO Guidelines, there is no guarantee that your content will be recognized by Google. If you don’t provide niche, useful content that is unique and different from other existing websites, or your website does not have Google-certified backlinks, then there is no chance that you will win over other competitors.

Even for Instagram, don’t think that inputting many hashtags equals gaining lots of likes. If your hashtags are not relevant to the accompanying picture, the Instagram algorithm will never place you in the Explore section.

I hope until this point you understand what I mean by it’s not about the “Digital”, but “Marketing”. To me, “Digital” is just the basics of how to publish content online. But what matters has to be the “Marketing”, which is the content you create, the brand you spread, the important message you convey. I agree it is a balance of both Digital and Marketing, but the quality of your content still, matters the most.

Tai's Take-Away: Doing Marketing for your Brand on the Digital. Use the Digital World as the medium to spread your content and brand message. Don't let the “Digital” lead your “Marketing”

5, Never Stop Learning. Always Reinvent. Think Strategically.

Working in the Digital Marketing field is like doing creative arts. Trends come and go in a blink of an eye and you need to have the ability to see the right moment.

Never Stop Learning means learning from past successful cases, and learn from your competitors. Examine their Campaigns to see whether we can use them as an inspiration. Look at their Social Media Account to see how they interact with customers. There is no such thing as I have learned enough.

As the Digital World changes rapidly, you yourself should always reinvent. Reinvent your Strategies. Broaden your mind to new methods and apply them to yourself. What happened when, hypothetically, Instagram crashed and a new Social Media Network came to replace? Reinvent yourself, that’s the answer.

What I recently learned is to always think strategically. Strategize to make your content reaches the maximum engagement.

Tai's Take-Away: Predict new trends so you can be miles away from your competitors.

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Thank you so much for reading this article about What I learned about Digital Marketing. I hope you can learn a thing or two about this striving but competitive field.

If you have any comments or questions, I am always willing to help!