Tag Archive for: Social Marketing

Content Marketing Tips: How to Use Live Video to Build Your Brand

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In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Salma Jafri discusses how just how important live video is in 2017.

Live video is a great to maintain a two-way conversation with your audience — something you simply can’t do when you’re reading a script — and major social networks are taking note. Snapchat is now a multi-billion-dollar company with live news feeds, Twitter has invested heavily in Periscope, and Facebook is pushing its own live feeds. So, get on board now and learn how to use this tool in 2017, because it’s going to be bigger than ever.

Time to Spring Clean Your Digital Marketing?

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Yesterday brought the official first day of spring – Now is the time to dust off the old and get your digital marketing sparkling like new! Read more

Google Search Algorithm Update February 7th

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We just had some Google algorithm update a week ago potentially targeting spammy links I believe. And now a week later, around February 7th, yesterday, it seems there was another algorithm update. This update doesn’t seem specific to links or spam but rather just a normal unconfirmed Google update where ranking changes shift based on something changing at Google.

I do not believe it is related to the mobile bug because most of the automated tracking tools only track desktop search.

There is some chatter, the chatter in the SEO community is not YET that hot but it might heat up throughout the day as people check their analytics and tools.

An ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has these posts:

SERPs movements again in our vertical. We’re seeing some recoveries from previous penguin casualties and some domain crowding. Spam STILL having a huge positive impact.

Yesterday (Tue 7th) I saw a huge spike in organic traffic, ~30% over avg, and 18% increase from previous record day in November. It’s a Canadian financial-related site. Increases from both Google.ca as well as other search engines/

Here is a post on Twitter that even caught Gary Illyes attention:

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And here are the tracking tools showing changes on the 7th, note Mozcast is well behind in terms of tracking so this might be related to the link spam update we covered last week?

Mozcast:

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SERP Metrics:

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Algoroo:

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Accuranker:

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RankRanger:

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Have you noticed any changes over the past 24 hours?

 

 

 

HT SE Roundtable

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.

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.

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H/T: Entrepreneur

Why Video is an Effective Digital Marketing Component

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Marketers are getting increasingly aggressive on the digital front. They are implementing innovative techniques to make their offerings more visible and appealing to the masses. To this end, it is time we seriously consider video as a new medium.

According to a blog quoting a comScore report, 64% of the visitors may purchase a product after watching a relevant video, while a Forbes survey reveals that 75% of executives watch videos

1. Classifying viewers

Your viewers are not going to be all of the same age and with similar interests. Your offerings, however, must be relevant to all – from fresh graduates to the veterans. So, you cannot expect one video to strike the same chord in every viewer’s mind. The trick is to understand the preference of different sections of your audience, and create different videos to target them simultaneously.

2. Getting a great videographer

A skilled videographer, who understands your requirement, is going to be your best friend in making appealing videos for your digital marketing activities. A good videographer can:

  • Capture and highlight the aspects of your offerings that your target customers should know and understand
  • Advise what kind of video you need – brand story, company introduction, customer testimonial, product demo, etc.
  • Make the video uniquely related to your offering by including actors or real people, animation or real videography, or a combination of various suitable components
  • Tell a story from the emergence of problem to its solution, and the result in the short video

3. Utilize social media to the fullest

For a successful video-based digital marketing campaign, presence on YouTube and other digital media is essential. The post says that 91% of the video snippets displayed on search result pages are from YouTube. Share your videos through Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media, with backlinks to your website brand page. Similarly, your website should offer links for sharing the video through various social media. By utilizing social media, you actually gain by leveraging every viewer’s reach.

4. Making a viral video

There is no particular trick to make a viral video. However, you can analyze all the popular viral videos to determine what makes people like them more than other videos. Presence of an influential personality is always helpful. Besides, most viral videos have an unusual or odd approach to story-telling. Focus on humor, children and/or animals, a tone; they are more likely to strike the right chord in your viewers’ minds. Besides, subtle reference to a current incident also works often.

5. Monitor video performance

Regular and frequent releases are good, but you also need to monitor the performance of your videos. Some of the common performance parameters are:

  • Number and type of viewers
  • Time spent on a particular video
  • Number of views per viewer
  • Click-through rate

6. In-house vs. professional studio

Depending on budgets and other factors, you can choose to hire a video production company or have an in-house team for the production. Usually, large organizations have an in-house team for video production. However, you can rely on video companies to produce highly appealing and effective videos for your digital marketing campaign.

So, consider videos a vital component when you think of digital marketing. All you need is to take the first step to enter this domain with conviction in order to reap the benefits.

Why Video is an Effective Digital Marketing Component

H/T: Martech Advisor