Discord: The communication center

Discord is a free communication platform that was originally developed for gamers. It enables text, voice and video chats and offers server-based structures on which users can interact with each other. These servers can contain different channels for different topics, allowing for organized and specialized communication. Discord has now established itself beyond the gaming community and is used by a wide range of interest groups, including educational groups, study groups and social clubs.

5 advantages of Discord for marketers

1. Communication platform for text, voice and video chats
2. Popular with gamers and communities
3. Offers server and topic-specific channels
4. Supports bots and integrations
5. Free of charge, with premium options (Discord Nitro)

TikTok: The king of short videos

TikTok is a social media platform that allows users to create and share short, creative videos. It is particularly popular with the younger generation and has quickly become an important marketing channel. TikTok offers numerous filters, effects and music options to make videos unique and appealing.

5 advantages of TikTok for marketers

1. Short videos, ideal for quick consumption
2. High engagement and viral trends
3. Popular with Generation Z
4. Easy access to influencers
5. Diverse advertising opportunities

Discord vs TikTok: Which one suits you better?

Both platforms offer unique opportunities for marketing, but which one is right for you? Here are some considerations:

Target group – comparison 1

If your target audience is mainly gamers, educational groups or special interest groups, Discord is the better choice. However, if you want to reach the younger generation who are interested in fast, entertaining content, then TikTok is ideal.

Content type – Comparison 2

Discord is ideal for building communities, regular interactions and in-depth discussions. TikTok, on the other hand, is perfect for creative, visual content and short, viral videos.

Engagement – Comparison 3

Discord provides a platform for continuous engagement through chats and regular events. TikTok enables fast, often short-term engagement through viral videos and trends.

Advertising opportunities – comparison 4

Discord offers partnerships, sponsorship and creative advertising opportunities through bots. TikTok offers a variety of advertising formats, including in-feed ads, branded hashtag challenges and collaborations with influencers. Another advantage of TikTok is that you can link directly to the TikTok store, which brings more conversion than the jump to classic e-commerce in some areas.

Conclusion: using both platforms effectively

Why not use both platforms to get the best of both worlds? Use Discord to build an engaged community and interact regularly with your users. Use TikTok to create creative, viral content and reach a younger audience. With these tips, you can use Discord and TikTok effectively for your marketing and build a strong presence on both platforms.

Discord: The communication center

First, let’s take a look at both systems if you are not yet familiar with Discord or YouTube in detail or do not use them for your marketing.

Discord is a free communication platform that was originally developed for gamers. It enables text, voice and video chats and offers server-based structures on which users can interact with each other. These servers can contain different channels for different topics, allowing for organized and specialized communication. Discord has now established itself beyond the gaming community and is used by a wide range of interest groups, including educational groups, study groups and social clubs.

5 advantages of Discord for marketers

1. Communication platform for text, voice and video chats
2. Popular with gamers and communities
3. Offers server and topic-specific channels
4. Supports bots and integrations
5. Free of charge, with premium options (Discord Nitro)

YouTube: The number one video platform

YouTube is the world’s largest video content platform, allowing users to upload, watch and share videos. It is particularly popular with content creators and brands and offers a wide range of content, from tutorials to vlogs and music videos. YouTube offers numerous features such as live streams, premiere videos and monetization options to support content creators.

5 advantages of YouTube for marketers

1. Largest platform for video content
2. High engagement through subscriptions, likes and comments
3. Popular with all age groups
4. Easy access to influencers and content creators
5. Wide range of advertising options, including video ads

Now to the question: What to do?

Discord vs YouTube: Which one suits you better?

Both platforms offer unique opportunities for marketing, but which one is right for you? Here are some considerations:

Target group – Fact 1

If your target audience is mainly gamers, educational groups or special interest groups, Discord is the better choice. However, if you want to reach a broader audience interested in video content, YouTube is ideal.

Content type – Fact 2

Discord is ideal for building communities, regular interactions and in-depth discussions. YouTube, on the other hand, is perfect for longer, visual content, tutorials and creative videos. For companies, the question arises as to whether the lengthy setup is worth it compared to direct YouTube video marketing or YouTube ads.

Commitment – Fact 3

Discord provides a platform for continuous engagement through chats and regular events. YouTube enables high engagement through subscriptions, comments and livestreams.

Advertising opportunities – Fact 4

Discord offers partnerships, sponsorship and creative advertising opportunities through bots. YouTube offers a variety of advertising formats, including video ads, sponsored content and partnerships with content creators.

Conclusion: using both platforms effectively

Why not use both platforms to get the best of both worlds? Use Discord to build an engaged community and interact regularly with your users. Use YouTube to create longer, creative videos and reach a wider audience. With these tips, you can use Discord and YouTube effectively for your marketing and build a strong presence on both platforms.

However, I tend to lean towards YouTube Marketing if you don’t have an explicit reason for using Discord.

What to do? Let us analyze your company and find your strategy. Write and or call: Contact

Psychological background

A call-to-action is intended to take away people’s uncertainty and basically guide them step by step through the website. Clear announcements are perceived as helpful and informative. CTA is therefore an advertising psychology tool to get customers to do what the marketer wants them to do. It is important not to be too pushy.

Tips and recommendations for CTA

Here you can see tips and recommendations for successful CTA:

• Place CTA buttons visibly
• Increase the effectiveness of a CTA with appropriate images
• Work with different colors and designs for longer pages
• Use non-binding calls to action in areas where there is not yet an intention to buy

CTA quickly explained

CTA briefly explained:

• Call to action
• Button or similar, which animates the customer to act

Instagram Insights stats

Here you can see which statistics are displayed on Instagram Insights:

• Demographic data
• Current highlights with the most important performance increases
• Overview with content interactions, total number of subscribers and accounts reached

Insights quickly explained

Insights briefly explained:

• Analytics and performance statistics in the Instagram app
• Insights on follower demographics, post reach, when followers are most likely to be online, and content interactions

Example: Interaction options by platform

Here you can see examples of interaction possibilities depending on the platform:

• Instagram: Likes, comments, saves and replies
• Facebook: Likes, comments, reactions, clicks, shares
• Twitter: Follows, Favorites, Retweets, Clicks

Advantages of social engagement

Check out why social engagement is important here:

• More website traffic by referring external content to social media
• Create trust and increase purchase probability through positive presence on social media
• More intensive customer relationships through rapid personal exchange

Social engagement quickly explained

Social Engagement explained in brief:

• Interaction between social media users and content from social media channels
• Interactions depending on platform

Create Facebook App for use

Tip! Here you can find our XXL Guide to the topic Facebook Ads. In this article you learn:

1. Create Facebook App for use
2. Comment Generate and embed comment code

If you have not yet created your own application in facebook for developers, this is your first step. Just sign up here and create an app:

• Facebook for developers – Create registration and app

Comment Generate and embed comment code

In the next step you generate your own code. It is important that you get it into your header.php. This usually works in two ways with WordPress.

1. The best way is to include the code in your theme backend. Most themes support embedding directly from the backend. Then you don’t have to make any changes to the theme. You place the code where, for example, the code from Google Analytics is located.
2. Directly in the theme via your WordPress backend via Design > Editor. Then open the header.php and insert the code cleanly, best directly after the tag.
3. Recommendation! Better go over your Child Theme and change a copy of the header.php, then you will have no problems with the theme update.

Here you can generate your code:

• Facebook comments for website / WordPress – Get code

This is what the generated code looks like. The appID is your individual ID.

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_DE/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.8&appId=1453051238274088";
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>

Screenshots of the developers tutorial

Here once again all steps in individual screenshots:

Exchange WordPress and Facebook comment function

Besides the script you will also get a small div box for embedding in the front end of the page. The procedure here is similar to the script. Only that you edit the single.php. If you are working with a theme, the code may also have to be placed in comments.php or similar. Like in my example. You can include the code everywhere in your page or only on single pages. We replace the comment function directly. If you want the comments on single pages, just insert the code directly into the blog posts, etc. This is how you change the comment function globally.

Importantnt, you have to replace your URL (in my case http://lukinski.com) for the global variant with :

< ?php echo get_permalink(); ?>

1. Directly in the theme via your WordPress backend via Design > Editor. Now open the single.php and replace the WordPress code or exclude it.
2. Recommendation! Do the same with your Child Theme and change a copy of the single.php.

<div class="fb-comments" data-href="< ?php echo get_permalink(); ?>" data-numposts="5"></div>

Voila.

Screenshots of the code exchange

In my example the comment code was not in the single.php but in a single comments.php. I copied this into my child theme and replaced the whole comment code with the new Facebook comments. If you work in the single.php, make sure to remove only the comment code. In the example the whole comments.php was replaced.

Facebook comment function in the blog

Ready the whole thing looks like this!

Tip: You can find more tips here: Social Media Software

Hootsuite – Cheapest supplier

Identify, win and retain customers. Get more out of your social media activities with Hootsuite.

• Hootsuite
• Price from 25 Euro / Month
• For 10 social media profiles and 1 user

Zoho Social

Zoho Social is a complete social media management platform for companies and agencies. Manage multiple social networks, schedule an unlimited number of posts, monitor keywords, and collaborate with your team – all from a single dashboard.

• Zoho Social
• Price: On request (individual)

Agora Pulse

Plan contributions in advance, get reports and of course check the engagement of your followers and fans, Agora Pulse can do everything.

• Agora Pulse
• Price from 89 Euro / Month
• For 10 social media profiles and 2 users

Sprout Social

• Sprout Social
• Price from 99 Euro / Month
• For 5 Social Media Profiles

Sprinklr

• Sprinklr
• Price: On request (individual)

EClincher

• EClincher
• Price: From 59 $ / month
• For 10 social media profiles and 1 user

Sendible

• Sendible
• Price from 24 Euro / Month
• For 12 / 192 services and 1 user

Social Report – Most Social Media Profiles

• Social Report
• Price: From 49 $ / month
• For 5 users and 25 social media profiles

Digimind

• Digimind
• Price: On request (individual)

ClaraBridge

• ClaraBridge
• Price: On request (individual)

Brandwatch

• Brandwatch
• Price: On request (individual)

Brand24

• Brand24
• Price: From 49 $ / month
• For 5 keywords and 5 users

StatusBrew

• StatusBrew
• For 10 social media profiles and 3 users

Nuvi

• Nuvi
• Price: On request (individual)

Reputation

• Reputation
• Price: On request (individual)

Increase range with tags

Markers attract attention in another community. That’s what makes them so valuable. If, for example, a large influenza virus marks a certain brand, it will be registered by a large number of users and, of course, a large number of users in their own community will click on the company’s social media channel.

Of course, it works in the same way for anyone who wants to become a blogger or influencer. That’s why blogger meetings are so popular, where smaller bloggers can get together and take photos together. Your own community will always be aware of the others and of course the other communities will also be aware of you.

This is so effective because the communities often have very similar backgrounds, i.e. interests, hobbies, age, preferences… Marking is a bridge and bridge building has always been a connecting element.

Community and Image Transfer

Tip! If you are posted on other social media channels, they will actively want you to be tagged. Even for small channels with 1000 or 10,000 fans, this marker brings a steady flow of users who can then be converted to fans.

Furthermore, they can of course provide their smaller social media channel with an excellent positive image by, for example, tagging very large, international brands. The classic would be, for example, the Apple Notebook, marked with one of the most successful corporations in the world. If you are wearing something fashionable, you can also link Hermés, Prada or Dior. A meeting at Starbucks? Mark directly! Positive image transfer.

Mark people and places

Of course, you can not only mark people in other photos, but also places. Another is the means to create a positive image. If you only post a photo with no reference to geographic data, it has less value than a photo with the mark New York, Starbucks, Berlin,… This also allows them to show proximity to certain locations, proximity to certain brands or even to a certain lifestyle.

Examples and best practice

In the following we would like to show you some practical examples, which show the topic, marking of persons and places. Here’s Instagram Postings.

On the first photo you see a completely marked picture. Here both persons are marked, and brands are presented here.

On this photo you can see a typical picture of two bloggers marking each other. Both have published a similar photo at the same time. The communities of both become aware of the other channels.

This photo shows a typical brand cooperation, a so-called sponsored posting. Brand ambassadors are very important in social media marketing because recommendation marketing in particular plays a central role in the promotion of products and services in social networks.

Automation in social media marketing: cost efficiency

Gradually converting one’s own processes into automatic processes saves a great deal of time, depending on the software. The main focus is on performance improvement of reach, communication and interaction. Of course, not only such communicative processes can be automated, there are also smart solutions for advertisements and e-mail communication with influencers. Basically for most companies it is about the typical interaction and reach, the first step to build your own community.

One of the most important tasks, especially for start-ups and young companies, regular posting. It is often difficult, because even large companies with 100 years of tradition have their difficulties to operate social media consistently. One of the central factors for the relevance of one’s own channel is the regularity of postings. The easiest way to describe it is with the typical news broadcast in the evening; everyone has their favourite source of information punctually at 19 or 20 o’clock. Not only in the classical media world, but also in the new media, regularity and consistency are written in capital letters. What’s the matter with you? The easier the user’s access to media is made, the fewer barriers there are, even temporal, the higher the satisfaction.

How often should you post on social media?

• Instagram – 3 to 7 postings a week, plus 1 to 10 stories a day
• Facebook – 3 to 7 postings a week
• YouTube – 1 video a week
• Tiktok – 12 postings daily
• Twitter – at least 2 postings daily

That’s the ideal case. In order for social media managers to have sufficient time for content creation, but also for community maintenance, certain steps can be taken by semi-automated or fully automated processes.

Automation for posting

As we showed in our big social media software test, there are many good programs for planning postings in advance on Instagram, Facebook and Co. That’s why we’re not going to go into individual software programs here anymore. If you want to read all about the big check, you can find the article Social Media Software here.

As a social media manager, you can plan postings for days, weeks, months and even years in advance. The various software products all function relatively similarly. Just like in the social media apps, individual media content can be uploaded. You can add a description but also markers and place names. In addition, however, software offers the option of planning media in advance. As a clever social media manager, you can produce a lot of content at once and then plan the content for weeks and months ahead. This saves a lot of time in your daily work!

Vacation days, holidays, weekends, from all these parameters they are independent with the pre-planning of content.

Advantages:

• Regular publications
• Permanent input for users
• Independence from vacation days, holidays and weekends
• Social-Media-Manager can take care of other tasks
• Editorial planning can be processed directly
• Increase range permanently
• Cheap cost, usually only $10 to $20 per month

Automation of interaction

From the semi-automatic publishing of content, since it still has to be maintained by the user, it now goes to the fully automated publishing of likes, comments, and for some, the following and development of people. Why do they do that? Attentively, you get that by Impressions . Impressions are individual sightings, i.e. everyone who sees a certain picture, reads our brand name,… many social media managers browse the individual social media apps and look for suitable content to link to or comment on. Each time this happens, a user and possibly his followers or friends will become aware of us. Perfect! Perfect! The small disadvantage of having a talented person, like a social media manager, spends his or her time likening and commenting on photos and videos. There are certainly much more demanding tasks for your company, which is exactly why these simple interactions are automated by software solutions.

Here, too, we had already tested various software, e.g. Instazood and Combin. Two of the typical programs, here in the example for Instagram, for the three types of interaction:

• Automation of Likes
• Comments automatically post
• Follow / entfolgen for attention

These three aspects can then be used fundamentally in the programmes. The Likes are always assigned on the basis of filters, e.g. one can adjust, how many Likes a picture should have, so that one excludes bad pictures and naturally also pictures, which get so many Likes, that our channel would receive no attention. In addition, you can also select competitor channels, for example, so that you only distribute specific Likes to fans of your own competition. After all, they are already interested in our product class, the change from brand a to brand B, possible. That’s why we like to work with comments in automation, because every positive comment under a picture ensures that the person either reacts directly to it with another comment or the person clicks directly on our profile and gets to know our brand directly.

Excellent opportunities to build the interaction and also to win interested parties for us who otherwise would not have heard of us.

A third option that almost all social media tools offer is to follow and unfold people. Here the tools follow people, who in turn are selected by previously set filters. After a certain time the software unfolds to the persons again. Again, the principle is quite clear in the arousal of attention. Because social media channel B now follows social media channel A, social media channel A will become aware of him and maybe he or she will follow social media channel B.

With all the thousands of likes and comments, unfold and follow, who still keeps track? Who has the time? This is exactly where the advantage of automation lies. By the unique adjustment and installation as well as the definition of the own filters, the work runs in the next weeks, months and years completely automatically. It’s like having a hard-working 24-hour social media manager 7 days a week.

Automation of communication

Here, too, there are various means and possibilities. Therefore a small view or insight into the world of automation radio communication. On the one hand, the previously briefly discussed regular comments offered by the social media. That’s how it works:

Create communication through comments on hashtags

On the one hand, communication can be established specifically through the use of hashtags. A small example of best practice would look like this:

• In best-practice we are a food company, e.g. a supermarket or our own product like a healthy smoothie
• We set the automation so that the social bot reacts with the hashtag #veganleben on every posting
• For each posting, the social bot comments with a spun (i.e., always new) text
• Comment 1: Mega delicious ?
• Comment 2: Yummy ??
• Comment 3: ? #ilike
• Comment 4: ? delicious if you are looking for some more recipes, check out our blog @food
• …

With every new comment new social media users become aware of their social media channel. Of course, the parameters of the socialbot can be set to comment only postings that had at least five likes but a maximum of 100. Why do you do that? By refining the parameters, photos are excluded that are so bad that I don’t like them at all. At the same time photos are excluded from the algorithm, which have a lot of likes, here our comment would probably hardly attract attention.

Chatbots for start Communication

Many companies, firms and brands have frequently asked questions. These questions are asked by users very gladly over social networks, since the ways are very short here. Anyone can write, comment or rate directly from their mobile phone. For the example of chatbots, we would like to look at a fashion company as best practice. At this fashion company, questions about trends frequently come up, e.g. the brand Nike, Adidas or Fila.

• Many users ask the question, do you have this or that special Nike model in the store?
• As soon as the keyword Nike falls, the chatbot automatically sends a product overview of the Nike shoes with the comment, “Check out the online shop, maybe you’ll find your model here”
• The two messages are sent with a time delay of 7 seconds so that it looks like real writing work

Conversation, small talk and interactions

What does conversation look like in successful social media concepts? In particular, it”s about having constant small talk with your own community. Every comment will be answered by our Social Media Manager. No matter if it is just a little heart (❤), a short statement like “”I like it””, or also detailed questions, criticisms or suggestions.

Many social media managers ignore small comments, they are not responded to. Why not? Each comment was made by a potential buyer or interested party.

Do you have to answer comments?

Let”s go back to the local specialist shop as best practice. Today we do not develop at our server or online shop, we stand in the shop and have our visitors, that is our customers around us. Life there are currently 25 visitors to our website, so we could say 25 visitors are watching our Instagram Postings or 25 customers are in our store right now! 3 of these customers are looking for a conversation and say to us, “”I like it”, it looks great”. Now comes the crucial question, would you:

• A – “ignore the customer and continue working”
• B – “start a small conversation for you to sell the product”

The answer should be clear to everyone. Of course one would look for the short conversation to inform the customer, perhaps even to sell the product. Anyone who leaves the customer standing in an unusual way risks choosing something else or even leaving the store again. Similarly, in social media networks, any comment from a user should be actively answered by us. Here”s another tip, they speak of “we”, “”our community””, “strong that you are there””, they build up such a connection, depending on how detailed the previous comment was, from the little heart to the detailed suggestions for our brand.

Take the time to get involved with us, you should always reward us for that. This not only creates the community idea with them and the person they interact with, of course other users will also perceive the conversation. Not only their fans, but also friends of the person with whom they interact. Further potential new prospective customers or also customers, which they reach completely without Media budget (advertisement). The much-praised organic growth.

What do I do at Shitstorm? Key point crisis management

Our tip in advance, always focus on the 99 out of 100 people who love your product or service and not on the 1 out of 100 who criticizes.

Shitstorm, that can happen. Companies that are provocative, but also companies that do not attract much attention. Shitstorms can happen to any company and they should be handled soberly and objectively. Everyone may know the familiar saying, sleep a night over it. The saying goes that if you have problems, you should sleep on it for one night first, because the next day they are much less threatening. Who has already been through two, three Shitstorms in his life, he also gets used to it. Ultimately, the communication possibilities of Web 2.0 and the changed communication structure, here referred to as the sender receiver model, have changed the possibilities for private individuals. While you used to have to go to the pub to get some air, today you can do it comfortably from the sofa.

But how do you react to a Shitstorm? Of course, there is no answer that fits every situation perfectly. For negative comments, you should always take some time. Negative comments that are constructive, critical or show a really qualitatively measurable amount should always be received with goodwill. If you like, free market research, free reviews. Not every user expresses his opinion, so constructive criticism is worth a lot. Accordingly, one should take this consequence seriously and answer it, depending on the quantity even with new actions to ensnare. E.g. by recording several criticisms and answering them in a statement.

Shitstorms that go below the belt line should be treated consistently. This usually means deleting a comment. If someone were standing outside their front door, someone right outside their office or agency, they wouldn’t want negative, unjustified comments to be read every day. Of course, they’d expel him. Ultimately, there will always be individual negative opinions. How much space you have is up to you. Our recommendation, delete comments that are unjustified or do not contain constructive criticism. If comments are constructive, be frank with them. Anything below the belt will be erased. Don’t worry, you have more important things to do, e.g. answering comments! Conversation with the 99 out of 100 people who love your product or service!