Tag Archive for: Social Media Marketing

Twitter Launches New 280 Character Limit: Good or Bad Move?

Twitter has recently announced that a character limit change is official – tweets can now contain up to 280 characters, but not for every user yet. It’s an interesting and risky move, as the 140 character limit is what Twitter has always been known for and is a major way they differentiate themselves from their social media competitors. According to an article from Market Land, this would mark the “biggest change to Twitter since its founding in 2006 and the biggest risk yet by the company to increase its user base.” This post will explore the potential benefits and disadvantages that could come along with an increased character limit.

Potential Benefits:
Introducing a doubled character limit (280 compared to 140) has the potential be a beneficial move for Twitter moving forward. One possible benefit of a larger character limit is that it would allow users to “better express themselves,” according to the Marketing Land article. This is a legitimate reason as a restricted character limit has forced users to limit what they’re trying to say. A 280 limit would also decrease the “loopholes” of tweeting such as screenshots of longer text and the annoying threads that appear on timelines. Another important point to mention is the increased opportunity this presents for Twitter’s advertising platform. An expanded character limit gives advertisers an opportunity to create more appealing ads, and as a result this could lead to more ad revenue for Twitter in the long run.

The Marketing Land article also quotes Aliza Rosen (Twitter’s Product Manager) stating that “Twitter is hoping fewer tweets run into the character limit, which should make it easier for everyone to tweet.” Ultimately, Twitter’s overall goal of increasing the character limit appears to be focused on making it easier for everyone to tweet and reducing the frustrations that come along with character limits.

Potential Drawbacks:
Based on all of the potential benefits above, the expanded 280 character limit seems like a brilliant idea. However, there could be some possible drawbacks of having larger character limits. A clear negative of moving away from the 140 characters is that Twitter would now be steering away from their core idea that has differentiated themselves from other social media competition. The article states that Twitter’s original thought behind the 140 character limit was “replicating the length of a text message would make the social network more inviting to people to post thoughts on the fly from their phones.”

Another disadvantage that could come along with expanding the character limit is an increase in spam. There would be nothing worse then scrolling through a timeline of spam accounts or reading 280 character tweets from irrelevant sources. In the end, it will be very interesting to see what happens with Twitter’s new 280 character limit moving forward. Based on outside research and analysis, it appears to us that the potential benefits of an increased character limit would outweigh the possible disadvantages.

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For more information regarding digital marketing expertise, visit the Onimod Global Website. We provide weekly news updates on the latest in the world of digital marketing. Enjoy!

How to Run a Successful Cause Marketing Campaign

Cause marketing is a relatively new term. What it boils down to is a campaign led by a large organization in order to help fund a charitable project. This idea began with American Express back in 1980.

Historically

The credit card company decided to launch a campaign that would donate a portion of each American Express transaction to fund the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. The results were wildly successful as the company generated over $1.7 million for the restoration project, and the card’s use rose 27%.

Since this marketing milestone, many other large businesses have followed suit, and have achieved the same success. But how do they do it? Sure, everyone loves a good cause, but that is not all there is to it. Follow along for deeper insight into cause marketing and how your business can reap its benefits too.

Find Your Cause

The first step behind a cause marketing campaign is to take a look at how your brand is associated with a certain cause.

For instance, Dawn dish soap has been partnering with wildlife foundations for years. Most notably, their soap was instrumental in the rescue of thousands of animals after the giant BP oil spill in 2010. This kind of direct link between grease-covered ducklings and dish soap is exactly what your business should be looking for.

Positive or Negative?

The outcomes from positive vs negative advertising have been debated many times over. While a review of 100+ scientific studies from Wiley found no definitive difference between the two approaches, there is still more to the story.

Certain types of industries tend to have different reactions to these two methods of advertising. Negativity tends to work very well in political situations. On the other hand, positivity relates well to humanitarian efforts.

Ultimately, the direction of your cause campaign lies in the stance that your business wishes to take. Get a comprehensive view on the situation. Do a little research. It may even be worthwhile to run short campaigns in select areas to see which message produces better results.

Social Media

The use of social media in marketing should never be overlooked. For cause marketing specifically, this rings especially true. Once it is time to start running your campaign across a variety of digital mediums, social media will prove to be very advantageous.

As in many marketing strategies, your goal in this instance is to tell a compelling story. The use of photos and videos is a great way to get this message across.

When consumers can actually see what their support it going toward and how they are changing the world, they feel much more drawn to the cause. Many social media platforms are constantly evolving to create more ways in which to share a story.

As mobile usage continues to skyrocket, we see users spending less time looking at each individual post on their social media feed. So in order to get your message across, you need to do it quickly and effectively. Continue reading more about the benefits of mobile advertising with our article “Why Mobile Matters.”

Conclusion

A cause marketing campaign should always start with your business. How can it help? What can it do? Once you find a connection, find your viewpoint. Determine how to tell your story, positive or negative. Finally, start sharing that message across every digital space you can think of to get people involved. This is how your company can achieve success through cause marketing.

5 Ways to Increase your Organization’s Impact on Twitter

Consistently posting on a business Twitter account may start to feel like a meaningless and repetitive task, yet it’s important to build a brand and keep audiences engaged. According to Marketing Land, there are “currently over 300 million monthly active users on Twitter, with 50% of these users being more likely to be consumers of the brands they follow.” Therefore, your company’s Twitter activity must be a priority and listed below are a few ways to maximize your impact on the social media giant.

1. Interact with your Audience:
It’s very easy to ignore or forget about replies and direct messages from followers. Keeping track and replying in a timely manner will make your audience feel important and connected to your brand. It’s also a facet that will set you apart from other company Twitter accounts. Look at Jimmy John’s for instance, they take pride in interacting with their customers and have gained a large following on Twitter as a result (476K followers). Ultimately, if you go the “extra mile” when it comes to interacting with followers you will get noticed.

2. Follow Trends and Hashtags:
This concept may seem like a simple task, yet many business accounts either ignore or forget to utilize hashtags and trends that Twitter has to offer. The major benefit of paying attention to trends is more visibility. We’re not suggesting to overuse hashtags, but implementing at least 2-3 per tweet will have a positive effect on your impressions, interactions, and overall visibility. #MondayMotivation or #FridayFeeling for example are two frequently trending hashtags that can easily be inserted in tweets to catch more eyeballs.

3. “Follow and Retweet for a Chance to Win”:
This is one of the most common Twitter strategies in the game, but don’t underestimate it’s effectiveness. If you’re a frequent Twitter user you probably encounter these tweets all the time. It’s simple, fun, and an effective way to build relationships with current and future consumers while growing followers at the same time. Although many users may unfollow your account if they don’t win anything, your tweet will still produce a ton of impressions and enhance brand awareness.

4. Allocate Time into Profile:
As simple as this idea sounds, many companies don’t put in enough time and effort to their Twitter profiles. Depending on the industry, tweeting at least 3-5 times per week will show consistency. Inactivity for long periods of time can be a turnoff for potential consumers. Even paying attention to simple aspects like your profile images, bio, and likes can have a major impact on your brand’s image. Setting up a schedule each week for when, what, and how much to tweet is one easy way to maintain a consistent Twitter presence.

5. Don’t Solely Focus on Products/Services:
It’s obvious that Twitter and social media in general is a large marketplace for product/service promotion, but followers don’t like being bombarded with product information. This could potentially make your account look like a scammer and you will lose followers as a result. One idea for producing content is to pay close attention to how competitors use their Twitter and make note of which types of posts draw the most engagement. Another idea is to interact about what’s happening within your community. Essentially, the overall concept with tweeting content is to be as relevant as possible to your audience’s interests.

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Snapchat’s New “Snap Map” Update: How this Impacts Marketers

A couple of weeks ago Snapchat introduced a new feature called the “Snap Map.” This feature is almost a replication of the “Find My Friends” app, which means users can now share their location with one another. This may be an invasion of privacy to some degree, yet it’ll be interesting to see how marketers will be able to take advantage of this feature. This post will explore some details about the “Snap Map” and more importantly the marketing implications it may have.

Snap Map Info:
Snapchat’s overall purpose of implementing this new feature is because they want users to have “a new way to explore the world.” What really stands out is that users not only have the capability of finding their friends, but they can now access public snaps from around the globe. As mentioned previously, the privacy of Snapchat users seems to be invaded but there is a “ghost mode” option for those who don’t want to appear on the map. Ultimately, this new “Snap Map” feature is a massive update and it’s still very early to predict where Snapchat plans to go with this moving forward. It’s definitely something to keep an eye on as there seems to be unlimited potential for this going forward.

Potential Marketing Benefits:
From a business and marketing standpoint, the “Snap Map” has a lot of potential for advertising opportunities and location marketing tools. Although Snapchat announced they don’t plan to run ads in the Snap Map stories, it doesn’t mean this isn’t a possibility in the future. Live updates across the Snap Map is one way for marketers to get involved. This allows brands to take advantage of live events as they are able to on other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Another big marketing opportunity for businesses is the emphasis on location marketing. Since the majority of Snapchat’s audience is mobile based, users become much easier to reach due to their locations being accessible. Any store or restaurant for instance would have the capability of placing paid advertisements to potential consumers near their location. It’s hard to say how this would fully operate because as a user I wouldn’t want my Snap Map to be filled with ads everywhere on a daily basis. In the end however, there seem to be endless possibilities in terms of marketing opportunities within the new Snap Map feature. In an ever-changing and competitive social media world, the Snap Map feature appears to have Snapchat heading in the right direction.

Contact Us:
With our cross channel expertise in social media management and advertising, our team at Onimod Global can help solve all of your digital marketing needs. Feel free to reach out to us on our Contact Us page to get a free evaluation today. We look forward to hearing from you!

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

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.

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

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

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

Similar items: Rich products feature on Google Image Search

Image Search recently launched “Similar items” on mobile web and the Android Search app. The “Similar items” feature is designed to help users find products they love in photos that inspire them on Google Image Search. Using machine vision technology, the Similar items feature identifies products in lifestyle images and displays matching products to the user.

Julia E, product manager on Google Image Search, announced on the Google search blog that you need to use schema.org product metadata on your pages and schema.org/Product markup to make sure your products are eligible for inclusion on these image results. Specifically:

  • Ensure that the product offerings on your pages have schema.org product markup, including an image reference. Products with name, image, price & currency, and availability meta-data on their host page are eligible for Similar items.
  • Test your pages with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to verify that the product markup is formatted correctly.
  • See your images on image search by issuing the query “site:yourdomain.com.” For results with valid product markup, you may see product information appear once you tap on the images from your site. It can take up to a week for Googlebot to recrawl your website.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1bklZQoby0o/WOufHpiDd8I/AAAAAAAACF8/LdJP6FlyohMMTeDolZt1z56oGBrpyiMaACLcB/s400/img.png

Right now, Similar items is available on mobile browsers and the Android Google Search App globally, and they plan to expand to more platforms in 2017.

If you have questions, find them in the dedicated Structured data section of their forum, on Twitter, or on Google+ or speak to a Digital Marketing expert here at Onimod global today.

Google Says it Has Now Tracked 4 Billion Store Visits From Ads

Onimod Global shares how the company says thousands more advertisers will gain access to store visits data as a result of improved measurement techniques and machine learning-powered modeling. Read more

Time to Spring Clean Your Digital Marketing?

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