Social media subscriptions for your digital signs are an easy content source because you likely already have everything set up in the social sphere. Social media is a “must have” for any modern organization. Not just because everyone is doing it, but because there are real, measurable communication benefits to having a social media presence:
- Drive targeted traffic
- Target and retarget posts
- Share posts to inspire dialogues
- Increase exposure and widen your audience
- Build brand loyalty and trust
- Create real relationships with the audience
- Boost SEO and SERP rankings
- Useful in generating leads and sales
- Audiences for ads can be customized
- Inexpensive (often free) portals
- Higher conversion rates
- Efficient tool for organizations of all sizes and types
The fact is your competitors are almost certainly using social media, so it can be conspicuous if you don’t join in, affecting perception of your brand. And your audiences, regardless of who they are, already use social media every day. Since modern communications is about giving the audience a more consumer-like experience, having a comprehensive social media strategy helps weave your brand into the fabric of their lives.
So, you ought to be on at least a few of the most popular social networks. But that’s not enough. You need to advertise your social media activity to promote your posts, gain followers and build community. If you have digital signs – the answer is right there on the wall. All the benefits of social media get amplified if you tie your social networks into your digital signage system.
Automated Content
Social media subscriptions are a great content resource for digital signs because they’re auto-updating, so you only have to set up your feeds once, and then they stay fresh without user intervention.
There are two main ways to do this. The first is to simply display your social media as a webpage. This works, but it’s very limited – there’s no interactivity possible and it looks very basic and simple. Plus, some social media pages (notably Instagram and other networks that are designed more for mobile) don’t look great on larger screens. And it’d be a real shame to have spent time and effort to make your digital signage content look great, and then throw up a webpage that you have no control over.
The better solution is to get a social media subscription. Your social media content looks great because you have tools specifically designed for digital signage, not the web. And you get to choose the format and design of your feeds – from pop-outs to interactive backgrounds and more. And Visix social media subscriptions for a single hashtag or social media handle cover all of your players for one low price.
You’ll also stay on top of any updates and changes in an industry that is constantly shifting. When a social network changes their API, subscription modules update automatically, so you have no downtime.
Customized Content
With our social media subscription, all of the top social media channels can be integrated into your digital signage layouts:
- Tumblr
- Flickr
How you display your social media content is highly customizable. You can show just the text of a post, text and a picture (which has far more value than just text), or just a photo. You choose the font color (any color with a hex code will work) to mesh with your brand color scheme, as well as the post color, and can even choose different colors for hashtags to make them really stand out. There are ten built-in web fonts to choose from, and you can import any font you like.
And you can play YouTube videos on your digital signage screens. Get people interested enough to go see the full-length video by displaying a screenshot or a ten-second clip, or play the whole thing. And for both videos and posts, you can choose the aspect ratio (16:9 usually looks best). If you are using interactive touchscreens and kiosks, you might alter the aspect ratio to encourage people to scroll through as a hook, getting them involved and thus interested in the content.
No matter which network you’re showing, you can use any of the attractive default backgrounds, or upload your own background image (just make sure it’s not too busy or distracting). In addition, you can add banners that are displayed above your social media posts and videos, in any color you choose. These are great for drawing attention to an important piece of information, like where an event is happening or a deadline. If you have a hashtag campaign, all relevant posts can have that hashtag displayed in a banner above the social post to really fix it in people’s minds. Banners are also great for really emphasizing your call to action.
Administrative Controls
You can moderate and fine-tune your social media offering with the filtering and analytics that come with a social media subscription. Make certain messages public or private and add rules for when they’re displayed. For example, you may have a post about the TacoTime Food Truck that’s coming on Friday, but representatives of Burrito Burro, a competitor, are coming to your facility and you don’t want them to see the post. Simply go into your dashboard and make it private while they’re in the building.
The thing about social media is that anyone can see and comment on your content. You can protect your feeds by whitelisting certain users or blacklisting others. You can even permanently block certain users and keywords, so they never show up on your digital signage screens. And the adult filter can also come in handy to block inappropriate language and content.
The subscription analytics help you look under the hood and see how posts are performing (this is especially useful for organizations that show social media on interactive touchscreens). See which posts were the most clicked on, who the most influential contributors are, and the total number of impressions for Twitter and Instagram. You can sort by date range, feed, or even by network or hashtag.
And in the spirit of computing on the go, there’s a mobile app that lets you approve or reject content in real time from anywhere, so you don’t even need to be in the office to manage your feeds.
Social media is a dynamic way to extend your brand and start a conversation with your audience. So, it makes sense to adapt your social media to the unique opportunities your digital signage offers with a social media subscription. Your content will shine as never before as you increase the reach of your content, and really get people talking.
Contact us today to add social media to your digital signage strategy.