Tag Archive for: Social Media

The Increasing Power of Instagram

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As marketers, we are constantly on the lookout for the latest and greatest marketing technologies. New gadgets and gizmos come and go, but few can withstand the test of time. One that has achieved this honor is Instagram.

A Brief Instagram History

Instagram’s success has been gaining ground ever since the platform launched in 2010. Only 2 months after its release, Instagram had already acquired over 1 million users. But they didn’t stop there.

Instagram continued improving and innovating itself. Users loved uploading their photos, applying all kinds of professional filters, and adding witty captions to explain their images.

The team at Facebook saw the incredible potential that Instagram possessed, and so they made a move to buy the company in April of 2012. For more information regarding the history of Instagram, please visit wersm.com.

Recent Accomplishments

Today, the social media platform boasts an enormous network of 800 million active users, according to Statista. Instagram also recently announced that more than 25 million business profiles exist through their platform.

These incredible numbers are a direct result from advertisers catching the Insta-wave. Advertisers have started to notice that there is no slowing down for the platform as it continues to increase the size of its network year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. This produces an incredible base for many different ad campaigns.

Social media marketing has been proven to be incredibly useful because it is a more native form of advertising. As consumers continue to reject pushy and annoying advertisements, platforms like Instagram become more and more attractive to them.

It is likely that businesses and marketers will continue to flock toward Instagram. As the platform goes on to increase its user base, it also increases its appeal to marketers.

Latest News From Onimod Global

Keep up to speed with the digital marketing industry by visiting our blog! Our content creation team is constantly releasing new information regarding industry trends, state of the art technologies, and expert digital marketing advice.

5 Ways To Improve Your Ecommerce Business

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It’s not much of a surprise, but the ecommerce market is continually on the rise. According to Statista, “from 2010 to 2013, total U.S. retail ecommerce sales increased from $167.3 billion to $263.3 billion. In 2014 that number jumped up to $304.1 billion.” Although this article was published two years ago, the trends tell us that the ecommerce market will continue to boom as many organizations are integrating ecommerce platforms to account for the demand. Listed below are a few ideas that will help improve any organization’s ecommerce business.

Prioritizing SEO:
As the ecommerce market continues to grow, the direct result is more organizations “fighting” for first page search engine results. Therefore, ensuring that your ecommerce site is highly optimized is very important. SEO and ecommerce essentially go hand in hand with one another. Some aspects of SEO to pay attention to are using rich keyword phrases, placing your site on directory listings, having a secure site (SSL installed), and frequently checking up on site speed.

Monitor Competition:
If you’re seeking to gain a competitive advantage in terms of ecommerce, paying close attention to competition is key. This involves researching prices, marketing tactics, and anything else competitors are doing that works. Being competitive with pricing is especially important due to the amount of options that are out there in the ecommerce world for related products. Although high profit margins are extremely important, having insufficient pricing can make or break ecommerce success.

Social Media Engagement:
With millions of users, the potential for finding consumers through social media in today’s market is huge. Many consumers enjoy the engagement that social media has to offer. Spending a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Google Plus can be rewarding in the long run. Creating engaging content, interacting with customers, and even sponsoring some posts are all good starting points to reach possible customers.

Mobile Optimization:
Due to a massive presence of mobile traffic, optimizing your ecommerce site for mobile devices is essential. According to Digital Commerce 360, trends are showing that “mobile devices will play an increasingly important role as worldwide consumer spending via mobile will jump from $204 billion in 2014 to $626 billion in 2018.” This shows the importance of mobile optimization and how if it’s not a priority for your ecommerce business, the chance of becoming irrelevant in the future is likely.

Blogging:
Related to SEO, having a blog and consistently producing content can exponentially increase ecommerce site traffic. Using relevant keywords in posts and frequently sharing on social media platforms are two aspects of effective blogging. Also be sure to add multiple call to action links that will direct readers to landing pages on your site. It’s clear that blogging takes time, yet time is the only drawback of blogging. Search engine algorithms like Google and Bing reward engaging and relevant content, therefore there’s no reason any ecommerce organization should avoid blogging.

Contact Us: For more information regarding digital marketing expertise, visit the Onimod Global Website. Check out our Case Studies and see how our clients like Vipply and Rent Letters are excelling in ecommerce.

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

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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.

Contact Us:
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!

5 Fascinating Digital Marketing Stats So Far in 2017

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2017 has been an interesting year so far in the digital marketing world, with some surprising stats and trends. Some of the stats listed are from Christopher Heine’s article in Adweek that caught our attention.

1. Yelp ahead of Snapchat in Ad Revenue:
According to eMarketer, “Yelp will make close to $720 million this year in digital ad sales in the U.S. compared to Snapchat’s $640 million.” This statistic was surprising at first considering the social media giant that Snapchat has become in recent years. Not to say $640 million a year in ad revenue is a bad thing, but it will be interesting to see if Snapchat makes any adjustments for advertisers before the end of the year.

2. Google and Facebook Dominate:
This one didn’t come as much of a surprise compared to the other stats listed. eMarketer also projected that “63% of all digital ad sales by the end of the year will come from Google and Facebook. In numbers that is equivalent to $35 billion for Google and $17.4 billion for Facebook.” This shows the dominance of Google and Facebook in the advertising world and we would expect this trend to continue if companies are experiencing positive returns on investments.

3. Pinterest Making Improvements:
Pinterest has been making some massive improvements as of late regarding their advertising options. According to Heine’s article, “Pinterest advertisers now have access to 5,000 interest categories that will roll out in the next couple of weeks.” With this upgrade from Pinterest, engagement rates are expected to increase by a significant amount and cost-per-clicks are projected to decrease.

4. Uber Lawsuit:
It’s been recently reported that Uber is pursuing a lawsuit against a mobile advertising company called Fetch Media. Heine’s article states that “Uber is suing Fetch Media for at least $40 million accusing the company of improper billing for fraudulent ads falsely taking credit for app downloads.” We’ll see how the lawsuit plays out, but this is significant because it could potentially ruin the reputations of other mobile ad companies.

5. Trouble Tracking Ad Spend:
Digital marketers losing track of ad spend may come off as a surprise, but an article from Marketing Week found this to be evident. Apparently “only 36% of digital marketers are confident that their campaigns are targeting the appropriate audiences.” They also found that “nearly a quarter of digital marketers don’t consistently track their campaigns whatsoever.” These two statistics really jumped out to us because monitoring digital marketing campaigns is essential to making sure ad dollar is used efficiently.

Contact Us:
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!

Industries Benefiting The Most From Digital Marketing Campaigns

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Although running successful digital marketing campaigns can be beneficial for many industries, there are some in particular where ROI is much more substantial. It’s almost an “adapt or die” scenario for companies within certain industries in an advertising market dominated by digital media. Listed below are a few industries that have substantial returns on investments when it comes to digital marketing efforts.

Health:
The health industry in today’s market is comprised of millions if not billions of dollars. Physicians, dentists, and any other entities involved in the health industry produce significant returns from clientele. The importance of effective search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) strategies to appear on the first page of search results is huge. The ROI is so substantial that there are some health clinics and larger hospitals that allocate millions of dollars to their annual advertising budgets. That alone shows the importance of leads and conversions and why digital efforts need to be emphasized in the health industry.

Food and Restaurant:
The scope of the food and restaurant industry has changed drastically. Businesses are always trying to find new ways to attract consumers to their venues and get customers to feel connected to their brands. Many restaurants have started to prioritize social media advertising as a way to reach target markets and new audiences. According to Toast Inc, “there has been a 20% overall increase in restaurants advertising on social media so far in 2017 compared to historical data.” Therefore, restaurants have started to pick up on the digital advertising trend and those who fail to adapt will suffer in the long run.

Law:
It’s no surprise as to how much money is involved when it comes to the legal industry. The ROI for defense attorneys and law firms is in most cases substantial. However, it was reported by Greentarget in a survey that in 2014 only one in four law firms prioritized their digital marketing plan over other marketing efforts. Although it was three years ago, this statistic is mind boggling due to the high amount of search traffic for law related key words. Essentially, in order to stay on top of competitors in the legal industry, a major online presence is needed and prioritizing digital marketing efforts is a must.

Auto:
Marketing has always played a huge role in the auto industry, but the traditional days of billboards, magazines, and radio ads are diminishing. With the majority of today’s consumers searching online for automobiles, the importance of digital marketing has increased tremendously. eMarketer  stated that “spending on advertising in traditional media by all major auto companies is following a downward trend, while spending on digital advertising is increasing every year. In fact, from 2014 to 2015, it rose almost 22 percent.” In the end, it’s clear that companies within the auto industry will continue to battle it out through digital marketing and continue to find new ways to reach consumers.

In Need Of Digital Solutions?: At Onimod Global some of the clients we serve are in these industries and we know what it takes to deliver positive ROI. If you’re associated with a business seeking improvements with SEO, SEM, Website Development, or any other digital marketing service feel free to reach out to us on our Contact Us page. We look forward to hearing from you!

Is Your LinkedIn Account Reaching Its Full Digital Marketing Potential?

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Whether we’re talking about a personal account or a company page, there are several different ways to utilize LinkedIn as a powerful digital marketing platform. LinkedIn is reported as the most effective social platform in 2017 by MarketingProfs. So, you definitely need to be asking yourself, how does your LinkedIn account compare to the competition?

Recent LinkedIn Update

Just a few weeks ago, LinkedIn introduced the “LinkedIn Audience Network”. With uncanny similarity to the Facebook Audience Network, this new product is meant to assist marketers by allowing them to reach users on apps and websites that are not currently managed by LinkedIn itself.

In short, marketers can get their LinkedIn ads in front of more people. The goal of this wider audience capability is to increase impressions, engagements, and ultimately increase conversions. AdAge released an article that includes testing results of this new LinkedIn product, which boasted an impressive 3-13% increase in unique impressions.

Helpful Hints

LinkedIn is not foolproof. There are many ways that you may be unknowingly sabotaging your digital marketing efforts through this popular platform. Christopher Heine of Adweek compiled a list of 20 LinkedIn Do’s and Don’ts, which includes first hand recommendations from highly successful digital marketers.

We here at Onimod Global decided to create a shortlist from this Adweek article of the tips that we found to be the most useful.

Do:

  • Make it Personalized: No one likes getting spammed with random messages through their LinkedIn inbox. In order to make yourself stand out and get attention, you have to give the recipient a reason to keep reading. Brittany Simpson from Site Strategics suggests, “Don’t immediately approach with an ‘ask,’ but approach with a ‘give’ of some sort.”
  • Analyze Your Target Audience: Now that LinkedIn has added more people to its audience, use it! If you already know who your target market is, great. If not, do some preliminary testing to try and narrow it down. As you move forward, Kirsten Chiala of Cisco recommends, “From that research, take it a step further and develop personas so you can customize your content to that target audience.”

Don’t:

  • Stalk Your Connections: Everyone has been in a situation where they continually ignore or delete requests from other users on social media. Take the hint, and move on. Do not waste your time chasing after connections who clearly do not want to hear what you have to say. Try to focus on generating new leads instead. If you continue down this path you will only spin your wheels, and as Rick Smith of Exos put it, “Plus … it’s kinda creepy.”
  • Treat LinkedIn Like Facebook: These platforms may be similar, but they are incredibly different from a digital marketing perspective. While you want to continually try to engage with your connections by posting content on your page, you also don’t want to take it too far and annoy them. Appearing as a pest may cause others to ignore you, or even delete you from their network. If you must post, make sure it is relevant and actually useful.

Google Partners Launches Digital Sales Certification Exam

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Google has announced that the Google Partners program has launched a new certification exam – Digital Sales. Google Partners is a program that provides agencies access to free training and exclusive tools, as well as the guidance and support to help businesses successfully advertise on Google. Advertising agencies that are members of the Google Partners program like us at Onimod Global contain certified employees and are companies trusted by Google.

According to Google, the “Digital Sales Certification Exam has been created to assess and increase partner sales representatives’ effectiveness in selling Google digital solutions to businesses.” There are a total of five parts to the exam which include planning, the open, identifying, recommendations, and the close.

The planning section involves networking, prospecting potential clients, and preparing for the pitch. The open is about delivering an effective pitch, positioning, and setting up meetings. The identification part is just about asking questions and discovering what potential clients need. Recommendations consist of delivering solutions and how to solve client problems. Lastly, the close section is about handling objections, closing the sale, and how to generate referrals.

Contact Us: Here at Onimod Global, we are a member of the Google Partners Program and all of our employees are Google certified in many areas. If you’re a business 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!

 

3 Digital Marketing Trends to Prepare for in the Near Future

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In a recent article from Forbes, there are some important trends in the digital marketing industry that marketers should be aware of. The digital world is always evolving: consumer patterns change, new platforms emerge, etc. Therefore, organizations must be prepared to adapt. The three key trends that Forbes focuses on in the article are social marketing, the talent gap, and video marketing.

Social Marketing:
If utilized correctly, social marketing campaigns can be very successful. Advertising on Facebook for example can turn a low cost investment into a high return on investment (ROI). According to the Forbes article, research has shown that “social users appeal more to offers and discounts, so even a simple 10% off to promote a product or service will greatly increase visibility.” Forbes also points out that the strategy is to “always find new mediums gaining popularity, as conventional outlets like news sites should be avoided.”

The Talent Gap:
According to the article, “the talent gap in digital marketing is the root cause of unsuccessful campaigns.” Not understanding the data, wasting money on ad spend, and not properly managing accounts are frequent problems in today’s industry. Many “traditional advertisers” don’t possess the same skill set and thinking process as the younger generation of digital marketers. Ultimately, it’s essential for organizations to find individuals who consistently deliver high ROI in a digitally dominated world.

Video Marketing:
Viral videos have a ton of power in today’s digital world, yet it’s very challenging to gain popularity online. Millions of users are streaming YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites daily. Forbes point of advice from video marketing is that “it’s not the big budgets that win, it’s the great ideas that create buzz.” If marketers can capitalize on this hot trend in video traffic, there will be high rewards.

Contact Us: 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 Important is Blogging for a Company?

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Having a company blog and posting consistently may seem like a “no brainer,” yet it’s surprising how many organizations either don’t have a blog or don’t post enough. Many times blogs just become an afterthought and businesses don’t understand the importance of posting. Listed below are a few reasons as to why having a company blog is so important in today’s world of marketing.

Enhanced SEO:
Maintaining a blog in general will only increase online visibility and fuel your SEO. Google and Bing’s algorithms reward valuable and fresh content for specific search queries. Regardless of the industry, maintaining a well written blog is one way to appear ahead of competitors in the search engine results. The use of relevant keywords and phrases in your blog content  is what makes this happen. A client of ours for example (Theory) is a sports bar in Chicago wanting to rank well for the Mayweather McGregor fight soon. As you can see in the image below, a blog post we created is ranking first and second organically for relevant searches.

Company Blogging

Driving Traffic to Website:
Related to increasing SEO presence, the ultimate goal of blogging is to drive traffic to your company’s website. It’s a common sense marketing strategy – the more traffic driven to your website, the better chance of someone becoming a consumer of your product/service. The best way to increase blog traffic is through promotion on multiple social media channels. Most notably Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and other relevant platforms. Promoting a blog is essentially free, and if your content is interesting you will gain a following and see increased website traffic over time.

Contact Us: 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!

4 Reasons Why Digital Marketing Has Taken Over Traditional

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It’s no surprise that in the past decade digital marketing has become the focal point of most organizational marketing efforts. I’m not inferring that all traditional marketing efforts have completely died out as print, radio, and TV advertising are all still in existence. However, traditional efforts are dying a slow death as more consumers continue to spend more time on the internet. According to Internet Live Stats, “approximately 40,000 searches happen on Google PER SECOND, which sums to about 3.5 billion searches per day.” Listed below are four major reasons why digital marketing will continue to take over traditional methods.

1. Data and Results are Measurable:
Many forms of traditional marketing (tv, print, radio, billboards, etc.) are very hard or sometimes impossible to figure out impressions or especially conversions. With SEO and ppc campaigns, analytics are available from any date range. Impressions, clicks, engagement rates, cost per click, and conversions are now easily traceable with Google Analytics and insight tools on all the platforms. Ultimately, we now have the ability to analyze data and this is highly valuable regarding future campaign adjustments.

2. Defined and Targeted Audiences:
Ensuring that the right people come across your advertisements should be a top priority. Platforms like Google AdWords, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, and others contain impressive targeting options that allow advertisers to hit designated audiences. Although some traditional efforts can target certain people by location for instance, the targeting features of digital marketing are light years ahead. On Facebook for example you can target by location, age, gender, occupation, user’s interests, and other relevant factors.

3. Cost Efficiency:
Depending on budgets and how much time and effort is put into digital marketing campaigns, it can still be an expensive venture. However, for the amount of traffic online ads receive compared to traditional ads, it’s not a comparison. Cpc campaigns in particular you are only charged per click, so the amount of impressions your ads receive is invaluable. Advertising through billboards, radio, and television especially can get costly. Plus as mentioned earlier, it’s very difficult to track results so figuring out ROI can be a headache.

4. Future Implications:
Digital marketing from a general standpoint is always evolving. Search engine algorithms change, interfaces update, and the expansion of mobile users is something to keep an eye on. Therefore, focusing the majority if not all marketing efforts to digital is a step in the right direction. As more people continue to spend more time online, use social media, and Google multiple phrases per day, the digital marketing world will continually reach new heights.

Contact Us: If you’re associated with a business seeking improvements in SEO, SEM, Website Development, or any other digital service feel free to reach out to us on our Contact Us page. We look forward to hearing from you!