Being National Tea Day, we thought we’d have a bit of fun here at iThinkMedia! We’ve called 3pm as the official afternoon tea hour for us here in the office where we’ll be putting tools (…computers *ahem*!) down for that all important ‘ahhh’ moment. Not only that, we’ve explored the industry, to decide what is better once and for all – tea v.s. coffee!

Tea vs Coffee – the great debate

We happened to notice that when looking purely at the keywords, coffee is searched 76.9% more than tea, which gets still a respectable 33,100 searches per month.Taking it over to social channels to see what people talk about with friends and communities, we see the same trend, coffee has been hashtagged over 66 million times whereas tea has only 19 million hashtags – and that’s on Instagram alone. But when it comes to our iThinkMedia office preference, tea takes the trophy! Funny, eh?

Interestingly, tea keywords tend to have more health and natural property keywords with the type of tea playing a big role. For example green tea has a whopping 33,100 searches per month, followed by camomile at 8,100 per month. The speciality tea takes the bacon in search compared with the more traditional likes of english breakfast or earl grey – most likely due to the fact people know what they are getting so don’t need to search around the topic as much.

Not to forget, we also have terms such as afternoon tea which has over 9,000 searches per month alone in the UK. With these sorts of events growing in popularity, will tea ever take over coffee in popularity? Charlotte, digital marketing manager at afternoontea.co.uk says; “Tea has an image as being a very traditional drink. However, I believe that its popularity will continue to grow and grow, especially amongst a younger demographic.  From an Afternoon Tea perspective, we have seen an increasing interest in taking Afternoon Tea amongst a younger audience of late. Venues across the nation are always finding ways to push the boundaries on the Afternoon Tea concept by putting inventive twists on the experience such as themed Afternoon Teas etc.

These Afternoon Teas are beautifully crafted and this means it naturally lends itself well to social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. This photogenic nature has opened the experience to a whole new market. Part of the Afternoon Tea experience is selecting the ideal tea to compliment the food on offer. In doing this, people are becoming educated into what makes tea so wonderful and how it can be so interesting. For this reason, I feel the popularity of tea will only continue to rise, and who knows, maybe one day it’ll even be talked about more than coffee!”

Coffee on the other hand, is much more around the product or brand itself. Coffee may be deemed as a “cooler” drink particularly with younger generations, with the likes of Starbucks creating an amazing mix of various coffee-flavoured drinks and coffee shops popping up all over the place with a trendy edge. But with that in mind, is this the opportunity for a tea brand or shop to reinvent the wheel within this market? We’ll leave that up to you!

So who wins?

Well, as it stands hands down coffee takes it if we are going from search or social measurements. But for the tea-lovers amongst us, don’t get yourself down. National tea day is all about trying new teas, broadening your palette and recommending new finds to others. And with that in mind, for brands the opportunity to create some awesome content around this and engage users in the benefits and details of each tea is all to play for.

iThinkMedia top tip:

The key here is to understand exactly who your audience are and what type of content they would care about. This will enable you to craft your content for a specific segment of your audience to garner higher engagement.

Tea blogger top tips for selecting the perfect brew

What we love the most is how tea bloggers do just that – finding the best tea blends or tea shops that everyone simply needs to visit and recommending to their loyal audience. With that in mind, here are a couple of top tips from some of our favourite tea bloggers in the UK when looking for your next pot of tea to indulge in…

And lastly, why is a search marketing agency talking about national tea day?

Ah – great question! Well keyword research is a big part of where we start every piece of activity for both SEO, PPC and content. Keyword research shows you the keywords (whether short or long-tail) that are searched for the most per month. But for us it’s more than just these basics – ultimately keyword research helps to identify the intent of your audience’s search and the opportunities that lie within your digital landscape.

Furthermore, it’s about identifying what your audience are interested in and this starts with national awareness days such as National Tea Day for example. Take some readers like yourselves, we know you are more than likely in an office environment, perhaps have a few more cups of tea or coffee per day than is recommended!! So immediately, we know this story has relevance for you and tying it back to search makes it more relevant with a different spin, compared to other content already out there.

If your audience are interested in a story, whether for entertainment, education or news, then ultimately this means:

• Time on site will increase, a known search ranking factor
• Increase in shares, which in turn drives increased traffic to site
• You’ll be more likely to get cited online and backlinks to your content
• In turn, will improve your brand awareness overall

Harry, our Account Manager who is also a bit of a keyword research wizard says; “Keyword research is integral to any digital marketing campaign as it enables you to target the most relevant and highly searched keywords. You can’t target an audience if you don’t understand what they are looking for.”

So if you need help with identifying keyword opportunities, getting a strategy in place or even the ideation or production of your content to make you stand out from the crowd then get in touch.