Ignore the Uproar. The Instagram Algorithm Change Is a Good Thing.

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Instagram recently dropped the news that it will be adapting a non-chronological newsfeed order, similar to its big brother, Facebook. Instead of sorting posts in a familiar linear order, the new algorithm will weigh in a variety of social signals, such as a number of post engagements. It will also consider content you liked before in an attempt to sort images in the order of “relevancy,” or as what Instagram perceives to be of most interest to you.

Instagram has already carved out its place among top networks for businesses, thanks to its almost exponential growth. What started as a teen photo-sharing app bought by Facebook in then-incredible $1 billion deal, the network is projected to rack in $1.86 billion in revenue this year as its user base growth outpaces general social network usage.

The update, however, has caused a storm of complains. It went as far as to prompt a petition on Change.org asking Instagram to leave its chronological feed alone. The outrage was mostly caused by comparing this change to Facebook’s algorithm. Notorious for discriminating business pages’ content, it upset many business owners when organic post reach plunged to unbelievable lows. In a lot of cases, Instagram was their network of choice because of its chronological order and an unlimited reach of posts.

However, the comparison of the two networks is unfair. Unlike Facebook, Instagram does not separate “personal” from “business” accounts. As of right now, a profile is a profile, independently of its use. So, this move is not discriminatory of businesses (I am looking at you, Facebook).

So let’s examine what this change in algorithm really means and whether it’s as scary as it looks to marketers.

Chronological newsfeed was truly effective only in two instances: businesses posted to Instagram every half an hour or their followers had a very limited number of handles they followed. This cannot be a widespread trend, because according to Optical Cortex data based on 20,000+ Instagram users, average number of people they follow is 822. So, for a majority of brand’s following those images most likely weren’t the first thing they saw; and that chronological order didn’t really matter anyway.

Now what really made a difference, and still will continue to do so, is getting ahead of the game with smart strategies. What you have (to continue) to do as a smart marketer is to focus on quality content that drives engagement.

Instagram was so gracious to let marketers know of its algorithm change before it kicked in. Use the little time that’s left with chronological newsfeed to jumpstart your new marketing strategy. Make an extra push to increase engagement now. Start to finally notice those comments people leave on your images! Respond to them! Use this as an opportunity to strike a conversation.

A lot of people who follow brands and celebrities will deliberately go to the handle to see what’s new. People follow Nike, Lexus or Kylie Jenner, because they know that each new post will be amazing (whatever their definition of amazing is). So, strive to make your Instagram account a mecca for striking visual content. This is the only way to ensure people won’t stop engaging with your content, whatever the algorithm is.

There are also a few other tactics you can employ to stay ahead of the curve. For example, if you are seriously using Instagram to grow your business, you already track and analyze results. You already know when your audience is online. You can still schedule your posts to go out at those times and increase visibility of fresh content.

Another reason to dive deep into analytics is to see which hashtags perform the best. Always test which hashtags improve engagement, always vary them to improve your odd of being discovered by a new group of people. Finally, constantly monitor trending hashtags (didn’t you already?) to see if any of the applicable and relevant hashtags are popular, giving you the opportunity to enjoy a remarkable rate of impressions. Yet, don’t go for an overkill. Don’t spam people with irrelevant content and thirty hashtags – that won’t increase your engagement or chances of being lovable.

Plus, while being strategic about your visual content (that has to rock their socks off), you should also become extremely strategic about your captions. It is proven that captions with a call to action are beyond effective in getting desired results. Do you want more engagement? Just ask for it! Foundr Magazine, for example, ends a lot of their captions with “double tap if you agree,” or “tag your friends.” What’s an easier way to gain numerous shares and an audience insight than to simply ask for their opinion?

Businesses that enjoy high engagement rates know their respective audiences very well. They know what type of imagery is catchy, what content needs to serve; and these companies have also figured out a context for consuming this content. They cater to their audience, so the latter wants to stick for the ride ahead.

Finally, don’t shy away from occasional boost. Employ the power of Facebook advertising capabilities on Instagram and target the right people.

So, after all, the change in algorithm might be for the better. If you post amazing content, it’ll be waiting for your followers in their newsfeed even if it was posted a few hours ago. Instagram user survey indicated that 60% of Instagrammers learn about products and services on the network and 75% take action after being inspired by an Instagram post. Now is the time to bring your A-game on.

instagram

H/T: Entrepreneur

Why Digital Marketing Trends May Require You To Hire A Digital Marketing Agency

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The digital marketing world is ever fluid, always dynamic and never dull, especially to the ever growing need to grow that CMO constantly faces. This is in part due to the emergence of new trends that are fundamentally changing the way marketers and brands reach out to potential customers. This changing landscape is essentially urging all players to step outside their comfort zone in order to attract high quality leads.

Outside of their comfort zone, traditional digital marketers are faced with a series of challenging tasks. From understanding the need to market across cross-platform devices and channels, to running customer-segmentation based messaging campaigns, these and other digital marketing trends are defining the future of marketing.

While there are plenty of growth hacking techniques available to CMOs and other marketing leaders, it might make sense to rely on an occasional helping hand.

Indeed, to help make sense of marketing trends and to capitalize on what they may mean for your business, consider hiring a third-party digital marketing agency to meet the demands and deadlines of your digital marketing to-do list.

But why would a CMO need to use an external digital marketing agency? The following points should give you some insights.

1. Stay Industry-Relevant

For starters, digital marketing agencies must follow the latest developments across digital marketing trends on a regular basis. It is part of their job description. If certain agencies fail to grasp what is happening, changing or unfolding in their industry, they will cease to be relevant. This is especially important, as current digital trends indicate that effective marketing requires brands to reach their target audience while adopting advanced omnichannel strategies. While your eye is understandably on your company and the product, digital marketing agencies are committed to keeping you abreast of all the latest developments in marketing.

2. Better Industry Storytellers

While your marketing team may be working really hard to promote your product offering, digital marketing agencies are made up of experienced professionals that can provide tangible value in defining and spreading your brand’s appeal across leading industry players. This focus can help bring about real results that can be very beneficial to your company. For instance, if your chosen agency succeeds in creatively generating positive PR about your brand’s ability to meet trend-related demands, this will improve your company’s image and naturally, help you capitalize on many marketing opportunities.

Unless you have a massive overhead budget, it’s almost impossible to hire effectively the skillsets needed to capitalize on many digital marketing opportunities. The capable talent to execute the digital strategies is an inherent part of agency culture, one that needs to be stimulated by daily deep, creative exercises. Also, today in the competitive digital landscape, brands need to limit risk, reduce human resource efforts, and purchase results by an accountable agency.

Learn more about who we are and what our Digital Marketing experts can do for you today.

digital marketing consulting

H/T Forbes.

Seven Ways to Jump-Start Your SEO Before a Site Launch

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You’re about to launch your new website. You have a fantastic idea/product and a great team. You understand the basics of SEO. But you think you cannot do SEO without a live site. It is impossible, right?

Actually… no!

It is more than possible. In fact, it is critical.

Way too often, website owners fail to do pre-launch SEO. This results in a poor index of their site. So instead of jumping up in the rankings, their site is ignored by Google and the other search engines and buried deep in the results. They then are stuck with a long climb, even, in many cases, for their branded terms.

Following are seven smart ways to jump-start your SEO before your site launch, and I’m going to show you exactly how to implement each one.

1. Create a “coming soon” page and optimize the basics

Creating a strong, optimized “coming soon” page should be one of the very first things you do as you contemplate your new site. There are lots of reasons why this is important:

  1. Search engines give older sites more authority. Remember, it takes time to get ranked by the search engines, so start doing it with your “coming soon” page to cut some wait time after your launch. Robots don’t care if there’s a “coming soon” message on the page; they care about the content, keywords and user experience.
  2. Your coming soon page is a source of leads. Include a strong call to action here and entice visitors to fill out a lead form, perhaps by giving them something like a PDF guide, a video, an entry in a giveaway or detailed infographic in exchange. Keep adding to this leads list and nurture these leads throughout the process of getting the site done.
  3. This page can help build your brand. Express all of the information on your page in your brand’s voice. Use high-quality images on the page. Make sure all messaging is on point.
  4. You can begin to connect with users, even without a full site. Connect your “coming soon” page to your social media presence. Use your growing social media circle to create buzz about the new site and your content. Engage with people to entice them to visit the site as soon as it’s launched. Let everyone know that something big is coming soon.
  5. You can showcase press mentions and make it easier for press to contact you. Include a media kit on your “coming soon” page. Your media kit should be attractive, colorful and easy to access. It should include all of the basics about your business and website, and this is yet another chance for you to optimize content on this page with rich, descriptive content. In your press kit, include:
    • logos that media contacts can download and use;
    • all contact information for you and the business;
    • your mission statement and company overview;
    • a FAQ section, bios for you and your core staff; and
    • a summary of media coverage to date.

    Update the kit frequently. Not only will this ensure that it is more complete, but it’ll lead search engines to see fresh content here regularly. Make sure to do the kit on standard web pages so that it can be linked to and ranked.

If you’re still not convinced, remember: Google has advised webmasters to use a “coming soon” page in the past.

2. Build out all your social media profiles

It is absolutely critical to start building your social media community before your site launches. You want to make sure that you already have a loyal following who is invested in your business when the launch happens.

By engaging your audience on relevant social media platforms and sharing great content, you are fostering trust in your brand and business and furthering your reputation as an authority.

Make sure you have complete profiles on all of the biggies (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+) and any of the other platforms that specifically speak to your target audience.

Connect each profile with your “coming soon” page, and make it simple for people to follow your social media presence and get updates about the launch by just clicking a button.

3. Get (at least) 10 blog posts ready

Well-optimized, actionable content will bring tons of organic traffic to your site even when it’s still very new. There is no shortcut here; you need your content to be high-quality. And while you need to keep that content coming long after the site has launched, you should already have a healthy content reserve in place at launch.

This is because the web crawlers will be visiting your site to index it right away, and you want them to have plenty of information-rich content to index from day one. Long-form content, in particular,  is going to provide a depth to your brand-new site that can’t be replaced, and it simply ranks higher in search results.

Also, in some cases, it is a good idea to start a blog pre-launch. This will allow you to do pre-launch announcements, add continual fresh content and build up a little SEO authority and buzz.

Hopefully, you will also be able to attract some links. In addition, when you start doing press releases, you will have your blog ready so that news sources and consumers can refer to it for more information.

4. Create all your pages, and make sure they are optimized

Along these same lines, you need multiple pages within your site, and each must be optimized. Include long-form, high-authority content that your target visitors will use on each page. Don’t reinvent the wheel from page to page; instead, make sure each page is focused and useful.

Remember to use keywords, long-tail keywords in particular (Your site will not rank for large terms right away), on every page and in page titles. Put your keyword database for your site to work on every page. You want to make sure you’ve created a fantastic, optimized page for every possible aspect of the business before the launch happens.

Then, when you go live, search engines will index the pages properly and (hopefully) give you some initial rankings.

5. Guest blog to build links to your domain

When I bring up guest blogging to build links to your domain, I’m not talking about spammy self-promotion. I’m talking about producing some of your best work to share with the audiences of sites you admire.

When done properly, guest blogging is a fast, powerful way to generate traffic to your site and leads for your email list. It also allows you to build your credibility and eventually become an influencer.

Search for the best guest blogging opportunities by checking the sites in your niche and finding out what kinds of guest posts they’d like to see. You can also search out the keywords and phrases that you want to be associated with to see where people read and write about those topics.

Finally, you can simply search for “guest blogging opportunities” or “write for us,” along with your niche keyword or phrase.

6. Put your site in key, niche directories

This step is critical before your launch. A directory simply lists sites and businesses and breaks them down using categories and sub-categories.

By getting your website listed in the right ones before launch, you will have built authority to your “coming soon” page that will be transferred to the rest of your pages when they go live.

If the directory is well-known and widely used in your area of business, it will be worthwhile. But don’t pay for just any directory. Make sure you know the directory is a real powerhouse in your field before paying.

7. Sign up for core sites

These core sites include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Google +
  • Yelp
  • Best of the Web
  • Bing Places

There is a great service called KnowEm, which can help you do this more quickly.

The Checklist

There are a lot of things you can do prior to launch; I have not added every idea under the sun here. But this is generally a good checklist to build upon:

  • Create a “coming soon” page.
  • Create a media kit.
  • Get 10 blog posts ready, or just start blogging one to five times a week pre-launch.
  • Create and optimize all your pages on the back end before you launch.
  • Guest blog (shoot for one to four posts a month for the three months leading up to launch).
  • Sign up for niche directories.
  • Site up for core websites.
  • Do a series of press releases (product or company updates, benchmarks and so on).
  • Create YouTube videos if relevant.
  • Send products to bloggers to review before launch.
  • Pay for pre-launch advertorials, if possible.
  • Start building an email newsletter and send out updates.
  • Get in the press. (Craft your story and pitch it to editors. Respond to Help a Reporter Out requests and promote your product.)

Post-launch bonus: Remember to use metrics to monitor your results

The time immediately following your launch is crucial to your success. This is the time you must monitor your traffic, assess your results with metrics and test/tweak your strategy. Don’t lose time here. Stay on top of it.

Watch for red flags like these:

  • unusual dips and gaps in traffic, as well as general trends;
  • losses in keyword ranking;
  • spikes of 404s which signal crawl errors; and
  • unusually slow pages on the site that may be getting missed in the indexing process.

Also, make sure you have a great launch strategy. This will be the time to really hustle.

A little more wisdom…

One of the worst things you can do is launch an unoptimized site. Ask yourself this: How many websites do you think are launched a year?

You want to stand out, and to do it right, you need to have an optimized site. And not just optimized a little, you need to really put in the time. If you are new to the online space, make sure you work with someone with experience, so you have an optimized site and a great pre-launch SEO strategy.

website-design

R/T: Search Engine Land

Google Has Confirmed They Are Removing Toolbar PageRank

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In the news: It’s official, Google has decided to fully kill off toolbar PageRank from their browser tools. Read more