4 Digital Marketing Trends to Follow

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The world of digital marketing is ever-changing. Constant updates, innovations, emerging technology, it all makes it a bit difficult to keep up. Here is a quick highlight of current trends to pay attention to within the coming months.

Best Advertising Platforms

It comes as no surprise that Google is the premier digital advertising channel. A report by Craig Smith states that Google earns 77% of total search revenue generated in the United States. This is not to mention the other ad variations that can be created on Google’s AdWords platform.

The second largest advertiser in command is Facebook. The social media platform recently boasted its audience of 2 billion users. This immense amount of people creates the perfect kind of market for nearly any and every business. The Facebook Ads Manager also allows for very precise targeting, which only appeals to advertisers even more. Low conversion costs and high ROIs combine with these aforementioned factors to create the ultimate advertising experience.

Benefits of Native Advertising

These two strategies are limitless in their potential. Consumers have become a bit blind when it comes to obvious banner ads. However, when an ad appears to be part of the site itself, users are much more likely to engage with it. In fact, HubSpot records that these native ads are viewed 53% more than traditional banner ads.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that users don’t trust banner ads because they typically view them as possible spam tactics. Simply put, the more natural your ad looks, the better.

The Age of Mobile

Your ads are in serious trouble if they are not optimized for mobile devices. More searches are being conducted on mobile than on desktop, which includes both browsing and actual purchases. A seamless user experience is key. Without it, 53% of these users will abandon their search, according to DoubleClick by Google.

Various platforms are changing to integrate their processes into one easy action. Facebook now allows you to generate a form within your ad that will never even take the consumer off site to complete. This is exactly the kind of interaction that individuals are looking for as they make the shift toward mobile.

Influence of Social Media

If you can get a consumer to stop and take a look at your product, they are much more likely to convert. This means pulling out all the stops. In general, it is better to create content that contains an image or gif if possible. It also helps to use hashtags or mention other noteworthy people or brands in your posts to seem more legitimate and trustworthy.

The other major component to social media marketing is reviews. Consumers trust what others have to say about a product or services. These opinions weigh in heavily on the buyer’s decision making process. A trustworthy review translates to affect 84% of consumers, according to a survey by BrightLocal. This makes it imperative to include reviews in your social media.

Client Spotlight: USA Voice & Data

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Based out of Chicago, USA Voice & Data is a leading national broker of innovative and reliable business quality voice and data services. They wanted to interact with new and existing customers and share their numerous services to clients and partners; getting their messages across without the “hard sell.” With our digital expertise at Onimod Global, we have enhanced USA Voice & Data’s social media presence and their overall brand awareness.

Initial Challenge:
The variety of service offerings provided by USA Voice & Data made it difficult to concentrate on their expanding client portfolio. Internal staff was forced to do time consuming tasks like social media management instead of concentrating on more strategic work. Our client felt that they needed an additional team that could handle and oversee unique social media projects in a seamless way and in alignment to each service, product, and brand they handle.

Onimod Global Strategy:
We offered a flexible, personalized solution for USA Voice & Data’s social media solutions. We familiarized ourselves with the client and their strategies across the different social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn; and quickly went to work managing their campaigns. In addition to the pure management of social media campaigns, we were also tasked to research, collect, and suggest content that our client used for their outbound communications.

As a business to business provider, LinkedIn was the clients main area of focus for social communication.  With that as a spearhead we went all in on the social overhaul.

The Results:
LinkedIn Q1 2014 vs Q1 2016:

  • Followers +194%
  • Referral Traffic +346%
  • Organic Post Impressions +78%

Facebook Q1 2014 vs Q1 2016:

  • Total Organic Reach +195%
  • Engagement  +628%

An explosion of organic social interactions across Facebook and LinkedIn. Our social media specialists gained insight into USA Voice & Data’s business operations and industry, working to engage clients and social media followers with an insightful mix of interesting topics and blogs.

Contact Us:
If you’re an organization like USA Voice & Data seeking an upgrade in brand awareness, social media management, or any other digital marketing service feel free to reach out to us at Onimod Global on our Contact Us page. We look forward to hearing from you!

Client Spotlight: Prime Portables in Chicago

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Prime Portables Inc. is Chicagoland’s #1 Portable Restroom Rental Company. Prime Portables is a full service portable restroom rental company that provides services to the entire Chicago Metropolitan Area 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The industry is more competitive than one may think, and with Onimod Global’s digital expertise Prime Portables continues to stay ahead of the competition.

Initial Challenge:
Prime Portables, a new business only a few years old wanted to be the premier portable restroom company around Chicago. To achieve this, they needed to be different, and people need to know who they are and what they offer.

Prime Portables wanted a bold new website to tell their story, gain their reliable reputation and truly represent their presence as a trusted and quality portable restroom company in the Chicago area.

The main challenge: Long established competition. Other companies sprang up with their own models for portable restroom rentals a long time ago. The nature of the portable restroom business—hyper-competitive in the extreme—meant that Prime Portables’ online marketing strategy had to hit consistent home runs.

Strategy:
SEO, SEM, Social Advertising, Website Development, Customer Behavior Analysis, A/B Testing, Advanced Segmentation Targeting, Advanced Conversion Tracking, and Custom Reporting. All of these combined is what our Digital Synergy Service has to offer.

Our cross-channel digital marketing expertise, data analysis, precisely targeted digital marketing campaigns make sure the brand and product meets the consumer when and where they need them.

Immediate Results:
Q1 2015 vs Q1 2016:

  • Organic Leads +5,700% (116 vs 2)
  • Google Adwords Conversions +553% (85 vs 13) 
  • Organic Traffic +44%
  • Local Map Traffic +426%

An explosion of conversions from Google AdWords and organic traffic via Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Natural rankings and subsequent traffic increases due to organic SEO and local business optimization. Essentially, with assistance from our expertise at Onimod, Prime Portables continues to stay on top of the game due to their strong cross channel digital presence.

Contact Us:
If you’re a local business like Prime Portables seeking an upgrade in brand awareness, website development, or any other digital marketing service feel free to reach out to us at Onimod Global on our Contact Us page. We look forward to hearing from you!

Client Spotlight: Vipply LED Bar Shelves

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Vipply is the world’s leading manufacturer of high quality LED light shelves and light shelf tiers. Adding LED light shelves is not only a decorative upgrade to any bar or restaurant, but they have been proven to drastically increase liquor/spirit sales. The display of premium liquors with elegant under-lighting will quickly draw attention to designated bottles. Needing assistance in the digital world to overcome competition, Onimod Global has exceeded Vipply’s expectations of building online brand awareness.

Initial Challenge:
Branding, e-commerce development, data integration, digital marketing launch, ad content, and graphic design all starting from scratch. Brand new to the world, Vipply set out on a mission to dominate the LED shelving industry and needed digital experts to turn on the lights.

Strategy:
SEO, SEM, Social Advertising, E-Commerce Website Development, Customer Behavior Analysis, A/B Testing, Custom Programming, Advanced Segmentation Targeting, Reporting. In other words, the implementation of our Digital Synergy Service.

Results:
Our cross-channel digital marketing expertise, data analysis, precisely targeted digital marketing campaigns make sure the brand and product meets the consumer when and where they need them.

Q1 2015 vs Q1 2016:

  • Sales +1,498%
  • Organic Traffic +468%
  • Ad Impression +1.2M

An explosion of social interaction via custom audiences and campaigns across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Natural rankings and subsequent traffic increases due to organic seo and e-commerce website development. Product listing ads and 3rd party resellers compliment organic sales. And as a result of Onimod’s services, Vipply and its web properties now dominate placements across all major sales channels.

Contact Us: If you’re associated with a business looking for an upgrade in brand awareness or any digital marketing service, Onimod Global has proven to generate immediate and efficient results. If interested fill out a quick form on our Contact Us page. We look forward to hearing from you!

Client Spotlight: Theory in Chicago

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Theory is an upscale sports lounge located in the River North area of downtown Chicago that prides itself on being better than your typical sports bar when it comes to food, service, and comfort. It’s well known that the market for this industry is highly competitive, especially in an area like downtown Chicago. Theory decided it was time to take the next step in gaining a competitive advantage in their industry – building a strong digital presence. With our expertise and digital services at Onimod Global, we have helped Theory stay on top of the game and continue to create strong brand awareness in Chicago.

Initial Challenge:
Localization of a brand and geo-specific location via myriad digital mediums. Website development. Creating visibility for a local bar and restaurant in as saturated market as there is for this industry, downtown Chicago. Theory wanted to immediately capture new business via a new website, digital marketing and increase brand awareness while optimizing allocated ad budget.

Strategy:
Our cross-channel digital marketing expertise, data analysis, precisely targeted digital marketing campaigns make sure the brand and product meets the consumer when and where they need them.  Theory being a local business needs relevant day to day advertisements, promotions and ad content creation.

SEO, SEM, Social Advertising, Website Development, Customer Behavior Analysis, A/B Testing, Advanced Segmentation Targeting, and Reporting were some of the digital strategies implemented. This is also referred to as our Digital Synergy Service.

Immediate Results:
In the First 6 Months of Onimod Global’s ‘Digital Synergy’ campaign, Theory saw:

  • Social Interactions +538%
  • Organic Traffic +87%
  • Local Map Traffic +226%

An explosion of social interaction across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Natural rankings and subsequent traffic increases due to organic SEO and local business optimization. Ultimately, with assistance from our expertise at Onimod, Theory continues to stay on top of the game due to their strong cross channel digital presence.

Contact Us: If you’re a local business like Theory seeking an upgrade in brand awareness or digital marketing services, feel free to reach out to us at Onimod Global on our Contact Us page. We look forward to hearing from you!

Micro-Wins: The Key to AdWords Success

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There are plenty of articles out there claiming to have some sort of quick fix or tip to exponentially boost your AdWords campaigns. In certain case studies these hints may have actually been incredibly successful, but that doesn’t mean the same goes for every advertiser or every business. In reality, micro-wins are much more valuable and much more attainable by most digital marketers.

 

What Are Micro-Wins?

Micro-wins are a series of tiny improvements over a long course of time, sort of like a theory of evolution on an AdWords campaign. These changes may not look like much in the beginning, but when compiled together at the end of a year, they make a very large impact.

 

Exploration

Hundreds upon hundreds of trial and error attempts are the secret to achieving these micro-wins. It’s best to begin by trying a myriad of strategies, so as not to limit your campaign based on what you think you already know. Experiment, it’s okay to fail! This is how you determine what works and what definitely does not.

 

Refinement

Once you can see where the biggest potential lies, start trimming off the fat. Take away all of the failed experiments, and all the money they’re draining, and leave those that still hold some potential for the future.

 

Optimization

Start experimenting again. Weed out the best of the best in terms of advertisements by thinking outside of normal limitations. Do not be afraid to try something new because you can always change it later on if needed. Once completed, you’ll be left with only the highest achieving and most successful ads.

Facebook changes it’s News Feed settings to reduce spammy, ad-heavy websites using AI

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When faced with a challenge, what’s a tech company to do? Turn to technology, Facebook suggests. Read more

Facebook Pixel Is About To Get A Bit Smarter

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A change to the Facebook pixel will now pass a page’s click data and metadata back to Facebook. Read more

The Power of Social Media Marketing

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What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks.

Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let people share short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, in contrast is a full-blown social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos, joining events and a variety of other activities.

How Are Search & Social Media Marketing Related?

Why would a search marketer — or a site about search engines — care about social media? The two are very closely related.

Social media often feeds into the discovery of new content such as news stories, and “discovery” is a search activity. Social media can also help build links that in turn support into SEO efforts. Many people also perform searches at social media sites to find social media content. Social connections may also impact the relevancy of some search results, either within a social media network or at a ‘mainstream’ search engine.

As long as you think of search and social media as separate projects and place them in silos, you won’t see the maximum impact for your business. Create a cross-functional process between the search and social so that you can integrate the search learning into social media, and the social media learning into search. The search keywords, social conversations, and the target audience behaviors are some of the key information that you should be sharing between the two.

The Bottom Line

It’s vital that you understand social media marketing fundamentals. Besides increasing brand awareness and establishing the legitimacy of the brand, social media marketing can affect the bottom line of a business by increasing sales. Learning about the importance of social media for marketing should also underscore why these efforts need to be continuous and the harm it does when social media marketing isn’t up to consumer expectations. Long story short, social media marketing is something that every business needs to do and needs to do well.

An integrated social media platform can enhance marketing campaign effectiveness, help improve brand building across the enterprise, and make a real impact on sales and the bottom line. Integrated social capability brings another great benefit by keeping the enterprise updated with the latest innovations in social media. Sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are constantly innovating and updating their collaboration tools, content-sharing formats, etc. With integrating social capability, customers don’t need to change business functions in sales or marketing to catch up with these changes.

In today’s much-hyped world of social media marketing, integrated social capability can make a direct and positive impact on the business. Leveraging the power of content and social media marketing can help elevate your audience and customer base in a dramatic way. But getting started without any previous experience or insight could be challenging. Speak to an expert today at Onimod Global to learn how YOU can leverage your company’s social media marketing.

Tweets May Soon Breeze Past 140-Character Limit

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In an effort to better monetize its platform and boost user traffic, Twitter may relax the 140-character limit on individual tweets by no longer counting photos and Web links, Bloomberg reported earlier this week.

The tweak could take place within two weeks, according to the story, which cited an unnamed source who asked for anonymity because the decision had not yet been made public.

CEO Jack Dorsey hinted at the move earlier this year when he tweeted an elaborate screenshot containing more than 1,300 characters.

The company reportedly was considering expanding the maximum tweet size to as many as 10,000 characters.

Raising the character limit would make a stronger case for increasing user engagement on Twitter, Dorsey said.

“We’ve spent a lot of time observing what people are doing on Twitter, and we see them taking screenshots of text and tweeting it,” he said. “Instead, what if that text was actually text? Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted. That’s more utility and power.”

Twitter did not begin with a 140-character limit, Dorsey noted. It instituted the limit in order to fit into a single SMS message, which has a 160-character limit.

Link Letters

Links chew up about 23 characters per tweet. Eliminating links and images from the mix would encourage members to post more images and allow them to write in something that approximates whole sentences.

“The move by Twitter is a nice refinement, but not a breakthrough move,” said Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research. “It will make it easier for users to share more content, but doesn’t change Twitter’s fundamental problem attracting new users.”

The company is still having difficulty attracting new users and increasing the utility for existing members.

By not counting photos and links, Twitter will make it less cumbersome for users to post photos with their tweets, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. The tools used to shorten links often break anyway, creating more difficulty in generating traffic.

“Removing annoyances should get people to use the service more and for tweets to be more informative and more interesting,” he said.

Traffic Booster

While the move should help increase traffic and help Twitter compete against services such as Instagram, there is a downside risk that it will put a strain on devices used to read longer tweets, said Mike Jude, program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

“A principal virtue of Twitter is its small footprint and easy consumption… This will erode that to some extent, but people like photos, and I think this will be popular.”

Twitter reported an average of 310 million active monthly users during the first quarter, an increase of 3 percent from the year-ago quarter.

twitter-tweet-140-character-limit

H/T: E-Commerce Times