Our Top 4 Learnings in 2023: 3 Predictions for 2024
December 26, 2023  

REFLECTING FORWARD: 2023’S TOP LEARNINGS AND 2024’S PREDICTIONS

Originally published on LinkedIn

As the year draws to a close, we at SocioSquares take a moment to reflect on the lessons learned from our 250+ days of collaboration and growth. This article highlights 4 key insights that stand out, each a testament to our shared experiences, from late-night brainstorming sessions to breakthrough moments.

4 DIGITAL MARKETING LESSONS THAT STOOD OUT IN 2023

#1. KEYWORD VOLUME SECRETS

What do you do when your agency tells you that your website is ranking on the Number 1 position on Google for 40 Keywords, but you are getting no leads?
This happened with 2 prospects this year and when we checked the combined search volume of ALL those keywords in the trailing 12 months was less than “100”…

Yes, you read that right. If only 100 people are searching for the keywords you rank for, you are not going to get ANY calls.
Learning: Focus on Relevant Keywords and get the search volumes from Google Keyword Planner.

#2. BEYOND GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK LEADS

For our client set i.e. B2C Small businesses, Google, Facebook, and Instagram are leaders in lead generation, but this year we cultivated a diversified approach by incorporating other popular search engines like YouTube, Yelp, Bing, and Nextdoor. The results didn’t scale as they do for the industry leaders, but these platforms did help us keep the overall cost per lead manageable as they can provide up to 10-15% of leads at a much lower cost than Google Search.

#3. KEYWORD DISCOVERY: UNCOVER THE UNCONVENTIONAL

Wikipedia has been a reliable platform for info for 10+ years, but this year we started using it for keyword research for SEO, and for industries new to us it turned out to be a hidden gem. Way better than Google Keyword Planner, as it provides a well-rounded source of industry-specific terminology with all relevant keywords and related topics.

And when it comes to staying updated with the latest trends Reddit is our go-to coffee shop chat. Picture it as a buzzing marketplace where you get a real-time pulse of community discussions that offer insights into current trends by potential customers in their language. So, if you’re looking for a more insightful kick-off, Wikipedia and Reddit are the way to go!

#4. GEN AI ELEVATES THE GAME, BUT HUMAN TOUCH WINS THE GAME

Gen AI is really shaking things up in digital marketing. There are loads of tools now for SEO, social media, ads, analytics, and more. But we’re not at the point where you can just ask GenAI to handle your Facebook page and expect it to do everything perfectly. It still takes a skilled person, a strategist, who knows how to use these tools effectively and devote the time needed to really market a business online.

2024 PROJECTIONS: SHAPING THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL MARKETING

#1. MULTIMODEL GEN AI CHATBOTS

We have seen Intelligent text chatbots for several years now. Looking ahead to 2024, we’re anticipating a major evolution in chatbot technology as they go way beyond what Siri or Alexa offer. These Multimodal chatbots will be able to interact through voice, images, and video. They’re expected to handle lengthy, detailed conversations – much like chatting with a real person. This advancement is predicted to revolutionize customer service, providing in-depth support, thorough responses to queries, sales, and improved lead qualification.

#2. LESS EMAIL SPAM AND THE RISE OF ZERO-PARTY DATA

Remember how in 2022, nearly half the emails we got were spam? Like many of you, we’re still sifting through them daily. But, there’s a hopeful change expected in 2024. Google and Yahoo are setting new email policies from February 2024, and we are optimistic that these changes could cut down on spam by more than 50%.

Meanwhile, in the world of online advertising, a different set of rules is kicking in, these will make those persistent, follow-you-around ads less common. Advertisers will likely shift towards relying more on information that customers share directly – zero-party data – for more personalized and less intrusive marketing.

#3. PERSONAL GEN AI ASSISTANTS

We’re excited about what’s on the horizon: the rise of personal AI Assistant software(s). These tools are set to build on current Gen AI capabilities improving it significantly for specific industry verticals and jobs, helping professionals with both routine and complex tasks. These assistants won’t be Free and won’t just boost productivity. At Socio, we have already created budgets to equip every team member with the best AI assistants. This way, we can do our jobs better and faster for our clients.

In addition, we’re actively working on developing our own Gen AI Assistants, specifically tailored for the Retail and Mortgage industries.

In our commitment to be an AI-First Agency, we are offering a free AI tools learning session. Seize the opportunity to be 2024 ready with this Exclusive Offer. Connect the dots between AI and your day-to-day work and learn at least 5 AI tools you can use today to boost productivity. Book your complimentary 30-minute AI Learning Session today.

Book Club at SocioSquares
March 13, 2023  

Give your employees a life-changing tool. Books.

A house without books is like a room without windows, said Horace Mann – a renowned American educational reformer from the mid-1800s. At SocioSquares, we’d like to offer our version of this quote for today’s fast moving digital world. A workplace without books is like a mobile without access to the internet.

Being a learning focused organization, we introduced an activity during the pandemic era to not only enable our remote-working employees to upgrade their knowledge but to also find a forum to socially interact. The SocioSquares Book Reading Club. The agenda was simple. Every week, enlisted members would gather in an online room to share their views about a book that’s set as a common read. While initially, the club got people to increase their interest and commitment to reading books, eventually the weekly exercise began unfolding benefits that no one had even imagined possible.

Take the story of Nimmi, the head of HR at our digital agency and a key driving force behind the club. She discovered the concept of writing goals in one of the reading sessions. A learning that got her setting goals regularly and even achieving them within the set timeframes, and this includes finally owning that home that she always dreamed about. Another reading session led her to try thinking positive at all times, a practice that enabled her to defuse tense work situations on quite a few occasions, which invariably would have led to conflicts. She also ingrained the importance of forming habits and started a routine of walking which she has been able to upgrade to cycling and eventually, exercising. There’s also a lot more that she has the book club to thank for. She found a community of co-workers who shared interests that were similar to hers. She found a space where employees could bond freely over experiences and even share solutions for problems that went beyond the scope of the workplace. She found a platform that encouraged her to finetune her abilities to communicate and express. To sum up, she found a world that enriched her in some distinct way, every time she stepped in.

In a world that’s all about change, books hold the power to catalyze some of the most significant changes in every sphere of our life. At SocioSquares, we have only just begun introducing our employees to the life-changing power of the written word. If you’re an organization that’s always looking for ways to bring out the best in your employees while also helping them better their own daily lives, try the tool we’re recommending. Try starting your own book reading club.

2023 Business Goals
January 10, 2023  

How to stay on track to your goals this 2023

The start of a new year is not too different from the start of a marathon. A lot of people and businesses set out with oodles of enthusiasm and a rush of wild energy. Soon enough, both end up running out of steam and lagging behind other better-planned runners or businesses.

An experienced marathoner himself, Gaurav (Rav) Mendiratta (Founder, SocioSquares) understands the perils of getting into both, a challenging new year and a marathon without following the right process and finding the right people.

The right process. In a marathon, this will enable you to set and alter your pace in a way that ensures you keep moving forward without burning out earlier on. In business, this will help you move towards your goals without having to stop, slow down or go off track for reasons that could have been avoided. 

The right people. Who you run with makes a difference to how well you run; choose a group that’s fast from the get-go and you increase your chances of an early burn out. Choose a group that begins slow and picks up the pace at all the right times, and you stand your best chance of not only making it to the finish line but also setting your personal best along the way. Likewise, in business, the people you surround yourself with play a role in determining how smoothly your business progresses toward its goals. Choose people with the right skills and experience and you’ll find yourself maintaining a steady momentum, on the path to success.

So how do you get your business to the finish line this 2023? At SocioSquares, we believe the answer lies in making business processes more efficient and functional teams more aptly skilled to ensure excellence in the services delivered. It’s a strategy we believe will prove helpful in getting your business to your goals. May you have a successful year ahead.

December 7, 2022  

How to keep stress from escalating in virtual workplace environment

Stress has always been a side-effect of pursuing ambitions and chasing goals in a relentlessly fast and competitive world. The impact of stress at work could range from mild signs like forgetfulness and occasional irritation to more severe manifestations like anxiety, depression and withdrawal from interactions and responsibilities. It was at a time when organizations had barely gotten round to addressing stress issues within their environments that a new catastrophe struck. Covid. With lockdowns and restrictions on even the smallest and simplest of freedoms, this unprecedented phase elevated an already existing problem to even more devastating proportions.

Like the world, at SocioSquares we too were impacted by the Covid phase. In fact, we continued being impacted even after the world around us slowly started getting back to their physical work environments. Because we’re primarily a virtual workplace, we had no choice but to keep our employees operating in a virtual space. Unlike other employees, our employees couldn’t get back to brainstorming with colleagues in conference rooms, enjoy chats in the pantry or sit across in person with HR staff or department heads to share their concerns or problems. With nowhere to go except Zoom meeting rooms, the stress in our employees was palpable, and we realized something had to be done, and fast.

This is when we introduced the activity of virtual stress tests for all our employees on a weekly basis. Every week in a collective virtual session, each of our employees would be invited to anonymously answer a simple question on their screens “How stressful has your week been?” At the start of this exercise, we discovered close to one-third of our employees were falling within the severely stressed category. We took immediate measures in the form of initiating counseling sessions with our HR staff and/or department heads. These sessions helped us understand an overstressed employee’s problem which enabled us to provide stress alleviating solutions in the form of reduced workloads, altered responsibility profiles, extra team support, sanctioned work breaks, and so on. With ongoing problem identification and resolution over the next few months, we were able to bring down the population in the severely stressed category to 0. And it has remained so since, although we do end up with an entrant or two in this category occasionally. However, we are now quickly able to defuse an overstressed employee and mitigate them to a stress category that is healthier and definitely more manageable. 

Stress is perhaps the greatest productivity killer at most workplaces. At SocioSquares, we believe though stress is unavoidable in a severely competitive world, it can be controlled and prevented from damaging an organization’s fabric. Early detection and remedy of stress is key to cultivating a workplace that employees like being at, and where they are more favorably inclined to collaborate, learn, perform, grow and lead.

July 8, 2022  

“Marketing For Your Future” with Gaurav Mendiratta from SocioSquares

Cindy: Hello, and welcome to another episode of marketing for your future. I’m your host Cindy Ashraf from the daily ad brief coming to you from New York City. And on the other side of the country, from the San Francisco Bay area, we have Gaurav Mendiratta, and he is from sociosquares. 

Hello, Gaurav.

Rav: Hi, Cindy, thank you so much for having me.

Cindy: Oh, my goodness, we are so thrilled to have you on the show today. Tell us a little bit about your business.

March 11, 2019  

Highlights from Day 3 at SXSW 2019

The past weekend at SXSW 2019 has been all I hoped it would be. From attending some extremely informative sessions and meeting new people to just being part of the absolutely electric atmosphere, I’d be crazy to rate it anything less than stellar.