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Category: Social Media

  • How To Pick The Right Influencers For Your Brand And Your Campaign

    How To Pick The Right Influencers For Your Brand And Your Campaign

    With consumers becoming increasingly wary of ‘traditional’ advertising, social platforms and online conversation can now have substantial sway over how people spend their money.

    This being the case, influencer marketing has become one of the most effective tools for marketers hoping to reach a large audience.

    However, with the likes of Instagram now boasting over 1 billion monthly users, it’s hard to know which influencer is the right one.

    When choosing an influencer, it can be difficult knowing where to start. But, it’s important to get this choice right.

    After all, any influencer marketing campaign can only be effective if both the brand and influencer are on the same page. 

    Picking an influencer to work with doesn’t have to be a long, arduous process – simply being clear on your brand’s aims as well as what you want to achieve with the campaign can go a long way in helping you understand which influencer is the right one. 

    On that note, let’s take a look at some tips to help you choose the right influencer for your brand and your campaign. 

    Understand your aims

    Launching and running an influencer campaign will be a lot easier if you’re clear from the start about what you hope to achieve.

    Before you even begin searching the expanses of the internet for the perfect person (or people)  to represent your brand, the first step is to come up with a comprehensive set of goals for the campaign.

    Not only will this clarify which metrics should be focussed on when it comes to measuring the actual success of the campaign, but it will also simplify the process of choosing the best influencer for the job. 

    Starting out with clear objectives will make it easier to pick an influencer who can achieve these aims for you, and will also allow you to be more transparent with them.

    Having pre-set goals in mind means you’re able to communicate your expectations to any prospective influencers at the selection stage, giving both parties an early indication as to whether the partnership will be a successful one. 

    Likewise, it’s important to bear in mind some longer-term goals in terms of your brand and brand image.

    You should have a sound understanding of what your brand is by the time you’re ready to launch an influencer campaign, but you should also have an idea about what you want it to be in the future, and how any influencer might help you achieve this. 

    Compile a good short-list of options 

    Once you have outlined the objectives of the campaign, it’s the right time to start looking for a short-list of influencers that you can narrow down based on your requirements.

    It can be daunting knowing where to find the right people, but a good influencer marketing agency will provide suggestions about potential influencers and advise on a marketing strategy to ensure you target the right people on the right platform.

    A  natural starting point is understanding which type of influencer will be the best fit for your brand, and then going on from there. 

    There are 3 main types of influencer: 

    • Micro-influencers – a person who produces niche content and tends to have a smaller following, but a highly engaged and devoted audience
    • Maco-influencers have a larger fan-base and are regarded as experts or trendsetters in their particular industry 
    • Celebrity influencers –  big names who have the largest, most diverse audience and will have content on a broader range of interests (but often come with a substantial fee!)

    Your brands’ aims (and your budget) will dictate which type of influencer group you should target. The important thing to remember, however, is to make sure their content and audience match your brand and whatever it is you’re hoping to market. 

    Look at their portfolio of work

    Having a familiarity with an influencer’s previous work allows you insights into their content and personality in order to see if working with them will be a good match.

    Look at their portfolio of work and see who they’ve worked with previously – and, indeed, how successful the campaign turned out in the end.

    This way, you can gather if they’re likely to agree to a brand partnership in the first place as well as whether they would agree to work with a brand similar to yours.

    Working with an influencer who has the skills and knowledge to achieve your aims means nothing if their content isn’t a fit for your brand and they don’t share like-minded values.

    Remember, any association you make with an influencer will reflect back on you and your brand so you want to make sure it’s a good one.

    Go after influencers who are well-respected within their particular community so they can bring a good level of credibility to the product or service you’re offering. 

    Likewise, when the time comes to working with your chosen influencer, remember to allow them some creative influence – after all, that’s why you brought them on board in the first place.

    Audience and Metrics

    When you’ve narrowed down a short-list of options, it’s a good idea to start monitoring their audience and taking a look at some important metrics. In terms of audience, ensure that their follower base is in line with your target demographic, whatever that may be, just so you can be sure any content you produced will be relevant.

    Once this has been established, look into their activities. For example, look for how often they interact with their followers and see how responsive are they in return. This kind of information will give a good indication of the sort of relationship an influencer will have with a consumer-base.  

    The number of followers is a factor, but it’s not the only one. Also pay attention to how many likes and impressions the influencer has, as well as how engaged their audience seems to be.

    Bear in mind it’s not always about having a large fan-base – micro-influencers actually tend to have a more engaged following, often leading to more effective campaigns. 

  • 10 Creative Ways to Gain Twitter Followers

    10 Creative Ways to Gain Twitter Followers

    Twitter claims to have 126 million daily active users. With numbers like this, it only makes sense that some of those people should follow you.

    The trouble is, you don’t know how to attract them to click that “Follow” button.

    We’ve got the inside tips you need to boost your audience.

    Here are ten creative ways to get Twitter followers.

    1. Don’t Neglect Family & Friends

    They might not be your target audience, but they will become loyal followers. Don’t overlook them just because they are family.

    2. Use a Directory

    With a directory of social media users, you can find ways to feature your Twitter account for next to nothing. It’s the best way to implement display advertising and doesn’t take much effort.

    You want to work with a company that allows you to target by country and interests. Otherwise, you will get lumped together solely by location, which isn’t going to work.

    3. Get Active

    No, we aren’t suggesting you start exercising, although that won’t hurt. What you need to do is have an active Twitter account. 

    Now, let’s get clear, you can quickly start spamming if you don’t purposefully tweet. It’s time to be a responsible tweeter.

    Otherwise, you could end up in Twitter jail. Trust us; you don’t want to go there.

    Make time to tweet every day. Every time you do, you increase your visibility. It doesn’t even take that much time; simply retweet a few things while consuming your morning coffee.

    We recommend that you tweet a few times throughout the day – try not to do it all at once. Drip-feed the tweets over your day. You can also schedule the tweet times to make sure you are following a routine.

    4. Run a Twitter Contest

    It doesn’t get any easier to run a twitter contest. Just make sure you have a stellar prize.

    It also helps if you put a little effort into the planning. Sure, you will have some people that unfollow you when the contest is over, but what you gain will be worth your energy.

    5. Live-Tweet an Event

    Have you ever dreamt about being a reporter? Pick one local event and start covering it live on Twitter. 

    It could be a political speech, conference, PR event or sports game. There is really no limit to what you could cover. 

    If the access is exclusive, you will have a more significant following for the coverage. You also want to choose something relatively popular.

    If you are planning to cover Merfest in North Carolina, you are only going to gain followers that are fascinated with mermaids.

    Once you find the awesome event to cover, watch your followers grow. Just make sure you are using the right hashtags to promote the event. Otherwise, you are just rambling and no one is listening.

    In the process, you do want to be careful of your existing followers. They might not appreciate the tweets. 

    6. Host a Twitter Chat

    Think debates, interviews, Q&A’s, creative polls and panels. Pick one willing victim and start a chat.

    You want to select the person carefully. They must have tons of followers for this to be effective.

    Of course, you won’t want to look stupid, so make sure you brush up on your debate skills first.

    7. Start a Tweetup

    That’s not a typo. A Tweetup is just like a meetup, but better.

    You want to target people with the interests your audience should have. Then, create a fun meeting for them to join in with.

    While there doesn’t have to be a compelling reason to join in, it won’t hurt to have one. For example, if you want your audience to love sports, then create a Tweetup at the local game. 

    During that event, you might even be able to persuade a local player to stop by and say hello. You can encourage them to visit if you promise them some new followers as well. 

    8. Networking

    Before social media, companies had to network to get business. These methods still work today, even though we all attempt to avoid dealing with real people.

    Find a networking group with the people that fit your target audience.

    As you mingle, hand out your cards, complete with your Twitter @handle. Then, reach out to your new friends and ask them to follow you.

    Of course, you will turn up the charm and make yourself irresistible in order to get results. 

    9. Tell a Story

    If you are a pro, then you already know this tactic and probably don’t need to read this post in the first place. If you aren’t, you must know that you can get massive engagement if you are willing to tell a story.

    Aim to create one good thread each week. If you have time for more – go for it.

    Focus on creating high-quality content, which is much more valuable than quantity.

    For example, take a look at this story about railroad tracks. Once you are done learning a little something, check out how many retweets and likes it received. Stunning!

    10. Don’t Buy Followers

    We know this is a how-to guide, but this one is too important to exclude.

    Never buy followers.

    You may not know the difference between fake and real paid-for followers, but Twitter does and you will lose them all. There’s never a reason to pay for a certain number of followers.

    It won’t work and it’s against the rules. Whose rules? Twitter.

    Some sites claim they can boost your followers if you just give them your password. Does this sound like a good idea? No, it’s not.

    They lure followers with mass churning and follow-baiting. Basically, they will follow 100 people, wait for them to follow and then simply unfollow them.

    Guess what? Twitter knows this is going on and is ready to suspend your account for it. 

    Those companies can also DM spam your followers, sometimes with malware links.

    You Can Find Creative Ways to Gain Twitter Followers

    It’s possible to gain new followers every day without shady practices. Sure, some of them will require time or some money, but it will be well worth your investment if you do it right.

    Start experimenting and see what works for you.

  • How To Make Your Business Successful Using Social Media

    How To Make Your Business Successful Using Social Media

    Social media is an essential tool for any business in the modern world. However, as with any tool, it must be used in the correct manner if it is to work well. You have to get to know your audience and what they are looking for.

    Here are some effective ways to promote your business be more successful with social media:

    Plan your social media strategy

    A scattergun approach will not be as effective as planning will, so work out a social media strategy. You need to identify what your audience will be looking for, and what will grab their attention. Look for the keywords that they are likely to search for, and work on ideas for content that they will want to read.

    Consider the most useful ways of reaching your target market, conveying your message, and persuading potential customers that they need your product or service.

    Engage with your followers

    An effective social media account encourages followers to engage with the company. Give them opportunities to ask questions, and respond when they tweet to you. Encourage them to provide you with feedback, and make them feel as though you are really interested in them.

    Social media is a great opportunity to find out what your customers want, so run polls, look at what gets the most significant number of likes, and see what your followers are posting about. Take as much interest in their ‘negative’ posts as their positive ones. It will show you what is not working in their opinion, and allows you to improve your service or products.

    Giveaways and competitions can be hugely useful if you ask people to share the giveaway in return for being entered into the draw. It can also help you gain more followers quickly.

    Use a social media manager

    Not everyone uses a social media manager, but for larger companies, in particular, it is a necessity. Your decision to use one may depend on whether it would repay the investment, and whether there is sufficient work to justify employing someone for this role.

    However, a social media manager will have the knowledge necessary to run effective campaigns.

    With a smaller business, it will allow you to focus on other aspects of the company instead of having to update your profiles. The decision is yours, but you may be losing money if you’re being diverted away from other tasks.

    Delegating responsibility for your social media activity to someone else might also allow you to concentrate on building your business, as well as enhancing its reputation.

    Create great titles

    A great title will have an impact on your followers. Yes, it’s click-bait, but you want people to read your content or click through to your website, don’t you?

    A title that is eye-catching will be far more effective than a factual but boring one.

    Consider the following:

    Vegans live longer than meat-eaters
    or
    Vegans: healthy, happy, & heading for 100?

    The first title may be referring to studies that suggest vegans live longer, but you’ve already summed it up in the title. There’s nothing that will really draw the reader in. The second title, however, is asking questions that could make the reader want to know more.

    They will wonder if turning vegan will help them live longer and healthier lives, or if there’s any truth to the claim. It will make them want to read more to see what the conclusions of the article are.

    Keep your brand strong

    Your social media style and the content you post should always conform to the style of your brand and your reputation. Posting content that is witty and entertaining, but that has little or nothing to do with your brand, can detract from the message you want to give.

    Bear your brand in mind at all times and make sure that your content fits in with it.

    Make use of images

    It goes without saying that Instagram is for images. But you should also make use of them on the other social media platforms, as images increase engagement. Videos can also be immensely effective. Of course, they need to be relevant to your brand if they’re going to work well – don’t just post an image because you like it.

    Concentrate on the platforms that are more ‘profitable’

    When you first begin to use social media for your company, it’s better to start with one or two platforms and build your social media up once your business grows.

    Eventually, you should aim to have accounts on every social media network. The bulk of your time, however, should be spent on the platforms that offer a greater reward for the time invested, and that best fit the profile of your target customers.

    Customize your content

    You may be posting essentially the same material on each platform, but the same approach may not work for each one. Tailor your material to suit the platform, For instance, Instagram and Facebook offer greater scope for visual material, whereas Twitter is largely a written medium and should be used to encourage your followers to click through to your website as well as share your content.

    Twitter is also a great way to present a ‘human’ side to your company, but try to keep it appropriate to your business.

    Be consistent

    Changing your posting style could be very confusing for your followers, so try to be consistent. In addition, if you start off posting several times daily and then slack off, your customers may forget about you or grow tired of waiting for new content.

    Consistency is best. It’s better to post less frequently, but regularly than to switch between posting all the time and hardly at all.

    Have a LinkedIn profile

    A LinkedIn profile is essential for any business nowadays. It’s a good way to connect with people who could be useful to your business, and explain what it is about.

    Use a social media content calendar

    As essential as social media may be, maintaining so many accounts can be stressful and demanding. The answer is to have a social media calendar. It will allow you to organize and plan your social media for the coming days, weeks, and months, decide who will be responsible for each task, and when each task should be carried out.

    Pick the best time of day to post

    The time of day you post can be crucial. If your company is based in the US, but a lot of your customers are in the UK, you need to bear in mind the time difference when you post. If you post while your clients are asleep, you risk your posts being lost in their timeline. Check when your followers are online and schedule your tweets or posts to be sent during that time period.

    Monitor what people are saying

    For a business, using social media is an essential tool for ascertaining what your customers are saying, both about you and about other companies. Negative publicity can quickly spread and damage a company’s reputation, so you need to be monitoring your social media continuously.

    The sooner you are aware of a problem, the sooner you can act to reduce the impact on your business. Equally, responding to appeals or customer queries can quickly gain you extensive positive publicity. There have been many examples of companies that delight children by replacing lost toys.

    Keep an eye on your competitors

    It’s not just your customers that you need to monitor; you should keep an equally close eye on what your competitors are saying and doing. This will allow you to keep ahead of them and be forewarned about their plans. It will also show you what customers think of them; for example, if they’re receiving negative press, you could seize the opportunity to jump in and offer a superior service.

    Ensure your social media activity is positive

    We’ve all seen examples of a business social media account getting into a very public argument with a disgruntled customer. This nearly always reflects poorly on the business and should be avoided. In fact, it is possible to turn the situation to your advantage if you politely accept that the customer is upset and offer a solution that will mollify them.

    A business that argues with a customer on social media will give a negative impression, whereas one that does everything it can to demonstrate a willingness to keep their customers happy can win itself a great deal of public goodwill.

    It’s not enough merely to have a social media presence; it must be used in the most efficient manner. Reputations can be made or ruined thanks to the rapid response enabled by social media.

    You can be entirely sure that a bad experience will spread much faster than praise will. So, good management is essential. You should also keep up with changes in the social media field, and adapt your response accordingly; what worked last year may be entirely unsuccessful from now on.

  • Blending Social Media Marketing With Your Traditional Marketing This Holiday Season

    Blending Social Media Marketing With Your Traditional Marketing This Holiday Season

    It’s November, which means it’s time to get into holiday marketing mode if you have not started already.

    In a former life, I worked in print advertising. This time of year was our busiest (still is) and most profitable for the newspapers I worked at.

    Businesses crammed to get as many ads as possible into the paper and spent more money than they did the rest of the year. It seemed they saved all their marketing dollars for the last 2 months of the year.

    Enter social media marketing and the whole holiday marketing game has changed.

    Newspaper advertising (and pretty much all print advertising) is on the decline due to advances in technology, aka social media.

    Do I think you should completely scrap your traditional marketing plan and advertising?

    No, for this one reason: not all of your market is online. I know I typically recommend not advertising via traditional methods, however, during the holiday season, more people will look at newspapers and such to find the best deal.

    This is the one time of year it’s okay to use some marketing dollars on traditional advertising.

    There are some great and creative ways to blend your traditional marketing with your social media marketing.

    Doing this will give you the best coverage this holiday season.

    Here are some ways to mix it up…

    1. Cross-promote

    Are you having a social media contest? Promote in your print/radio/television ads.

    Hang signs up in your storefront (if you have one).

    Encourage people to follow you on social media when they come into your store.

    2. Leave breadcrumbs

    Put forth an advertising campaign that leads your social media community to your print ads and vice versa.

    For example, if you are having a contest, encourage people via social media to visit the store to enter or look for a special code in a print ad to enter.

    Give them just enough info to know what to do, but they either have to visit you in-person or follow you on social media to participate.

    3. Make sure your social media links are everywhere – on print ads, television ads, flyers, brochures, etc

    The more places you can tell them and the more places they will see it, the better.

    Something I learned in advertising a long time ago is that it takes someone, on average, to see something 3 times before they act on it.

    4. Make information exclusive to your social media community

    For example, in print ads, say “Like us on Facebook for exclusive discounts.” Tease them in print ads and give them a reason to follow/like/circle you online.

    Encourage your customers to sign up for email newsletters.

    There are many more ways to mix and blend the two. Social media, in some form, is here to stay.

    Traditional Marketing and Social Media will continue to evolve and blend as digital marketing grows and evolves.

    Since not everyone will be online, traditional marketing will always be around in some form. It’s important to not forget about your offline community.

    That’s why every business should have a well-balanced marketing plan mixing the two together.

    How do you blend traditional and social media marketing together?

  • How to Transform Your Brand in 30 Days on Social

    How to Transform Your Brand in 30 Days on Social

    What if you could transform your brand in 30 days, using the resources and skills you have as a social media marketer today?

    Thirty-day transformation isn’t just for bikini bods, folks–your brand can have its epiphanic moment sooner than you think. Here’s what to do.

    Day 1

    Conduct an audit. Run analysis on where your brand stands this year vs. last year on social:

    • By engagement level, sentiment level, and business value contribution
    • Broken down by active social channel

    Conducting this audit will give you a clear overhead picture of where you are today and what your trajectory looks like.

    Day 2

    Use the analysis from Day 1, and drill down on the spikes in engagement, positive sentiment, and business value you’ve seen.

    Create a “one source of truth” list of your greatest moments of success, whether intentional or unintentional and deepest moments of failure to meet expectations, too.

    Day 3

    Using the data you’ve gathered as guideposts showing you what to do and what to avoid, start planning a new campaign that will span at least a six-month period, to give your messaging a chance to really saturate the market and your target audience.

    This campaign should tie into your brand’s larger marketing messaging and should have strong visual and video components. Think about it this way: this campaign should become what your brand is known for in the year to come.

    Day 4

    Look at your earned social media content–how people mention your brand and target topics on social in conversations with their nearest and dearest. This is great fodder for your campaign.

    What you find out about how people think of your brand and industry should be your campaign’s bedrock and inspirational force.

    Day 5

    Once you’ve put together your campaign, it’s time to get buy-in from key stakeholders.

    Outline the following for your key stakeholders:

    • The resources you will need
    • The benefit this campaign will have on your company at large (I recommend going beyond “generating awareness” here)
    • The KPIs (Key Performance Indicators–how you will know you are succeeding or not, i.e., metrics)
    • The timeline

    Then ask for feedback.

    Day 6

    Take this day to incorporate feedback into your plan, and send a revised version to key stakeholders.

    Day 7

    While you’re busy planning your big, game-changing campaign, don’t forget to conduct your weekly review of the social media metrics that matter to your business.

    Knowing what your goals are and which KPIs are significant will give you a wonderful foundational benchmark to work from when you do launch your campaign.

    Day 8

    Don’t forget experimentation: make sure that your plan includes at least one “emerging” social network or platform feature, like Snapchat or Instagram Stories.

    This will challenge you to keep innovating and freshening your brand identity. It can also drive web traffic from people who already love your brand.

    Day 9

    Put together a detailed social media editorial calendar to share with other departments/personnel you will need resources from during your campaign. This will also keep you sane during the busier moments of your campaign.

    Day 10

    Schedule as much of your content as you possibly can before you launch. This will free you up to run analysis as you go along and make the optimizations and pivots you need to make.

    Day 11

    It’s launch day! Time to put all your plans into motion.

    Day 12

    As your campaign unfolds, take some time to look at your competitors’ social performance.

    What are your competitors doing well? What does their social performance look like? How does it compare to yours?

    What can you learn from their competitive social data, and how can you weave these lessons learned into your campaign?

    Remember that your campaign isn’t stagnant, like a statue you build and leave alone. It’s more like wet clay, which you can keep changing and creating better and better shapes from as you go along.

    Day 13

    Are you leveraging influencers as a part of your campaign and brand transformation? If you are, it’s time to check in with your influencers and see if they’re on track with their deliverables and/or need any help.

    If you are not leveraging influencers, you should be, no matter what you sell. Well-chosen influencers help you reach a broader audience that is likely to be interested in and buy your product. They also give your brand more clout and authenticity in front of these audiences.

    Day 14

    Expand your perspective. Do some research on social media trends. Pew is a great places to start.

    Day 15

    Make sure you’re clear on who your target social audience is for this campaign, and for your brand generally. You can do this by:

    • Finding out who your most engaged users are
    • Searching your top hashtags, both owned and general
    • Discovering who follows your competitors

    Day 16

    Get conversational. As mentioned in my overdone statue metaphor above, social media marketing isn’t a “set it and forget it” business. Make sure you’re responding to folks who are mentioning your brand and campaign content as quickly as possible, to keep that conversation going and keep your brand top-of-mind.

    Day 17

    It’s time to check your visual consistency across all your brand’s web and social properties.

    Do your graphics on the social networks you have accounts with–even the ones you don’t use that often–mirror one another? Is the experience that a social follower has coming from Twitter to your website seamless, or will he or she be startled by the difference in messaging and visual approach?

    Work with your web/content team to make sure your social followers have a consistent experience–and, ultimately, convert to customers.

    Day 18

    At the end of day 18, your campaign has been alive for seven days–a full week! Go, you! Now it’s time to see whether you’re on track to hit the goals you’ve set for the campaign.

    If you’re right on track: Yay! Keep doing what you’re doing.

    If you’re behind: Don’t worry. Take a deep breath. Look at the most well-received posts in your campaign right now. Double down on posts of that nature, or promote those very posts more aggressively. Remove low-performing posts from your queue. Learn from what’s happened this first week, and tweak future planned content in the campaign accordingly.

    Day 19

    Run your brand through the “Big Four” checklist of successful digital brands:

    1. Do you know your buyer? What does he or she care about (beyond your industry/product type)? What do these demographics look like? What keeps your buyer up at night?
    2. Do you have a unified strategy? Is every part of your organization up to speed on your campaign, how it’s going, and what your projected results are?
    3. Are you a full-funnel player? Do you know how your social media content is affecting buyer movement in the funnel?
    4. Are you setting goals and measuring results? Have you fallen behind on keeping tabs on progress?

    Day 20

    It’s time for continued education. Watch a webinar targeted at marketers in your industry or field.

    Come prepared with questions you want to be answered, and ask them during the Q&A section of the webinar. Integrate what you learn into your campaign.

    Day 21

    Time for a check-in with your boss. Make sure you’ve refreshed your reporting system, and are including these elements when you inform him/her on transformation progress:

    • Trends, not tactics and endless metrics: Your boss wants to eat the food, not go in the kitchen and make it him or herself. Be prepared to answer specific follow-up questions, but no need to include every little tactic and metric in your report.
    • Conversion rates FTW: Your peers serve up conversion rates to indicate success or failure.
    • Own your losses: Are things not going according to plan? Explain why, and do it using the data.
    • Leave ’em with an action plan: Not your setbacks. Analysis is only as useful as it is action-oriented.

    Day 22

    Bring an unexpected guest onto your Facebook Live, Snapchat, or Instagram Stories.

    Day 23

    Send out an email soliciting UGC via your strongest social channel (so as not to dilute the power of the responses), and offering a chance to win a prize.

    Day 24

    Get to know your digital neighbourhood through social.

    Day 25

    Your second weekly review has arrived! Follow the same recipe as Day 18!

    Day 26

    Solicit internal UGC. Ask your employees to submit campaign– and brand-relevant content for social, and offer a prize for published submissions.

    Day 27

    This is your boost day. Check your progress towards your 30-day goal. Are you just a tad behind? This is your day to pull out all the stops: post more frequently, host a giveaway or impromptu Twitter Chat, get a surprise influencer/partner on your Facebook Live.

    Challenge yourself to blow past that finish line on day 27–this will force you to get more creative than ever before.

    Day 28

    Take a marketer you know and admire out to lunch, or approach him or her on social and ask for a quick chat. Come prepared with a set of questions, as specific as possible.

    We recommend choosing a particular campaign you were floored by and digging deep to find out what you can learn for your own brand.

    This information will help you on day 30 when you take a look at how far you’ve come and where you need to make major modifications.

    Day 29

    Round up your influencers for a group chat to discover how they’ve perceived your campaign, and what kind of feedback they’ve received from their respective audiences. This information will help inform your 30-day review.

    Day 30

    It’s time for your 30-day review. You’ve built a campaign that will keep going, but what have these 30 days taught you? You’ve gotten agile.

    You’ve learned a lot about which content your audience will consume, and which they decline or ignore. You have a good idea about whether or not your messaging is on the right track.

  • Top Strategies for Generating More Traffic to Your Website with Pinterest

    Top Strategies for Generating More Traffic to Your Website with Pinterest

    It’s the fastest-growing social media channel by overall member growth. Its popularity is totally surpassing Twitter and it brings in 3X the traffic of Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit combined.

    So, what is this marketing wizard?

    It’s Pinterest, of course!

    It used to be that the only way to pull in traffic to your website was through paid ads. Not only are those days long gone, but often you’ll now find that PPC ads are a big turn-off to your potential readers.

    Nowadays, it’s all about the power of social media referrals.

    Believe me: I am the biggest advocate for the use of Pinterest as a marketing tool.

    In fact, I’ve been generating 30K unique visits per month from Pinterest alone, and it’s time for you to do the same.

    The Pinterest 411

    Before we get started, it’s important we set out the basics. There are a few things you ought to know about Pinterest before diving in.

    • Understand your target audience. That way you’ll reach more of the right people. Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes: what would they be searching? Design your title and captions accordingly.
    • Don’t focus on followers. Pinterest is the only social network where followers really don’t matter. It’s all about re-pins, likes, and comments: basically, it’s about the engagement.
    • Pinterest is a powerful search engine. Especially with new updates such as Smart Feed, Pinterest tailors the way pins are viewed on a user’s feed to help provide more relevant content based on their Likes, Interests, and Boards they follow.

    Got it? Awesome. Now let’s get your Pinterest pumping!

    #1 – Amp Up Your Pinterest Profile

    It’s simple, really: the better designed your Pinterest profile, the higher your number of referrals. By optimizing your profile in every way possible for your visitors, you’ll receive more engagement on your posts and, consequently, more jumps over to your website.

    Sounds good, right?

    So let’s start at the beginning. Some of these are going to sound simple. Yet, you’d be surprised at how often they are overlooked.

    And as Pinterest continues to expand, these starter steps will become more and more crucial.

    • If you have a personal account, convert it to a business one. It’s free and easy to do, makes you look more professional, and opens you up to many more services than you’d receive on a personal account (just like Pinterest Analytics, where you can track your performance).
    • Add keywords beside your name. For example, instead of writing your name, add a keyword you’re known for. Take a look at how I did mine: Pauline Cabrera – Web Designer. Whenever people search for the word “Web Designer” my profile shows up in the “Pinners” list.
    • Look Savvy. Build trust by completing your profile. Make sure to include links to social networks, verify your website URL, create a custom URL, and upload a profile picture relevant to your industry.
    • Add important keywords to your bio. This can help boost you up in Google search rankings for people searching for those keywords, as well as pinners using the Pinterest search engine. Every little bit helps!
    • Add your location. This will help you boost local traffic, if that is a priority for your brand.
    • Turn off your “Search Privacy” settings. You want your boards and profile to appear in search engine results, right? Then you need to make sure you turn off this setting within your Account Settings.
    • Don’t abuse keywords. You’ll just look spammy. Make sure your keywords flow naturally through your profile.
    • Put your best boards in the top row. As a general rule, you should always keep your most attractive or important content “above the fold” on your website (the part of the screen that is first visible to visitors). That way, visitors are more likely to stay on the page and scroll down to see more. These could be your most popular or updated boards, or those relevant to current events.

    #2 – Create and Optimize Your Boards

    Next, it’s time to get creative and boost your visibility. Having a visually appealing and powerfully communicative set of boards will grab your visitor’s attention, hold it, and drive visitors towards your website. You’ll need to optimize your boards to make sure you reach your target audience.

    Now we’re getting to the fun part.

    • Prettify your boards. Clear, organized boards with gorgeous cover photos make for a Pinterest account that is irresistible to follow.
    • Use descriptive titles with keywords. Your Pinterest board could show up in the first pages of Google’s search result if it’s optimized for the search. So, make your boards as descriptive as possible. The more specific, the better.

    When you search for “30th Birthday Ideas,” a Pinterest board shows up in the first page of the search results. Amazing, right? So when people click that, the owner would send traffic to the pins added in it.

    • Create more relevant boards using targeted keywords. For example, I’ve created a general board called “Social Media Marketing,” but will also create targeted ones such as “Pinterest Marketing for Bloggers” and “Facebook Marketing for Small Businesses.”

    Create a spreadsheet where you can brainstorm keywords that are relevant to each other and refer back to it for inspiration. You can even use the Pinterest search suggestions to find the keywords that regularly crop up together! (For an even more advanced approach, give these tools a try: http://keywordtool.io/ or https://ads.google.com/intl/en_uk/home/tools/keyword-planner/

    #3 – Pin Like a PRO

    Building on this, you’re now ready to get pinning. And remember: it isn’t as easy as just pinning images here, there, and everywhere. You need to be on your A-game if you truly want to harness the marketing potential of Pinterest.

    • Use large, tall, eye-catching images. All your images should be 735 pixels wide by 1102 pixels long: if your images are smaller than this, they’ll be overlooked by a Pinner’s home feed. I use Photoshop to resize, or Canva if I’m in a hurry (a great resource for non-graphic designers!).
    • Write a detailed and thoughtful description with your main keywords.Avoid stuffy descriptions. Use keywords that make sense alongside genuinely interesting content.
    • Add the correct URL’s. Always use the actual URL rather than the main one. Pinterest doesn’t allow URL shorteners like bit.ly, so avoid using those.
    • Use search-friendly file names for images. Google can’t read images. What it can read is your image file names. When you’re saving the images you want to upload, use file names with one or two keywords. Basically, don’t save with the default numbering from your camera: change it to something like “chocolate-wedding-cake.jpg,” or whatever it is your image features.
    • Implement rich pins. Rich pins are gold for businesses: these “super” pins allow you to include additional information (such as price, availability, and location) about the image, pulled directly from your website. So they automatically update as your site does, standing out and make shopping and finding information far easier. Find out how to add your own here.
    • Use a catchy title. Pins that feature “How-To’s,” checklists, and infographics always work well for me. The key is to not give all the information away in the image, to help you get more click-throughs.
    • Avoid hashtags in the pin description. Pinterest has officially announced that if you use too many hashtags in your pin description, it could demote your pin’s search ranking. Why? Because they see it as spammy. So, avoid it like the plague.
    • Use different images and titles. It’s important to find out which works best. For me, I like to experiment with various visuals to see if one outperforms the other. It’s paramount for your own market research to find out what your audience finds most attractive. Here are some examples. Based on Pinterest Analytics, the left one sends me more traffic than the right one. 

    #4 – Pin Strategically

    You wouldn’t implement a business plan without a strategy, so why should your Pinterest marketing be any different? A strong strategy for your Pinterest activity will enable you to maximize your return by attracting a higher percentage of viewers and, as a result, more traffic to your website.

    But how do you do that?

    • Pin regularly. As with all social media, an active and consistent presence will increase your chance of generating traffic and make you a trustworthy source. Courtney from Bufferapp found that between 5 and 30 pins per day is optimal. The best times to post are 2:00 – 4:00am and evening hours every day, as well as 5:00pm on a Friday and 8:00 – 11:00pm on Saturdays. It’s also worth making use of Pinterest scheduling tools such as Tailwind or Viraltag. They’ll help you figure out the best times to post throughout the day.
    • Schedule your pins. It helps you avoid flooding your followers’ feeds, spacing out your content and keeping it fresh and continuously updated. Again, use Tailwind or ViralTag to schedule your pins.
    • Pin multiple types of content. I’m talking infographics, GIFs, and videos, as well as straight-up images. Show variety and keep your page exciting and dynamic.
    • Re-pin your best pins to different boards or group boards. Maybe some new pinners haven’t seen your best content yet? This is a great way to bring it to their attention. You may use the Pinterest Analytics or Tailwind analytics (if you have one) to find out your top pins.
    • Track your performance. Use Pinterest Analytics to see how people are describing your pins and what they are pinning alongside your content. This can be useful in knowing how to arrange your boards. You can also track the demographic of your audience and that can be useful in planning the type of content to post in the future.
    • Avoid self promotion. Pinterest has said that it is “…designed to share content you love, so don’t use it purely for self promotion.” And that means no selfies.
    • Don’t just pin the same content on two boards at the same time. At least give a few hours’ delay between the two.
    • Fix broken or dead links. Pinterest focuses on the quality of user experience, so if you’re not managing dead links or expired pages, expect consequences. You can use tools like Board Booster or Pin4Ever for help with this.
    • Share pins related to current trends and events. It’s been reported that pins based on trending topics receive a 94% click-through rate… so it’s worth staying current.  

    Still not sure what’s the best content to be pinning? Check out these interesting stats on how to determine what to pin:

    • Over 80% of pins are re-pins. Be that extra 20% that gets re-pinned daily. Pin as much directly from your website as possible, or upload images on their own.
    • Different days of the week have varied “most popular” topics. Mondays are best for fitness, Tuesdays for tech, Wednesdays for quotes, Thursdays for fashion, Fridays for humor, Saturdays for travel, and Sundays for food and DIY crafts.
    • Tutorials, guides, DIY, and recipe pins receive a 42% higher click-through rate than other pins.
    • Medium-light images receive 20 times more re-pins than those that are dark.
    • Images without faces get re-pinned 23% more than those that contain faces.

    #5 – Delete or Optimize Underperforming Pins

    This is a tricky one. While it’s important to only hold onto boards and pins with high engagement (as this helps your profile scores–and hence your website traffic–shoot up), it can be difficult to know when to cut the ties. Why? Because there’s always the risk that you’ll delete a pin too soon and lose out on sudden traffic.

    It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It can take time for your pin to make its way around, due to Smart Feed.

    So how do you get around this?

    For me, I always try to optimize my pins with low engagement (think those with 1 – 2 pins or comments). Then, get promoting.

    One way to do this is by joining some “pinning” trains on social media (Facebook and Google+ groups) where admins post threads encouraging members to pin other people’s pins. Give it a few weeks and see if you gain any response.

    If your pins are very old and outdated with really low engagement, delete them. And if they look spammy, get rid of them!

    Here’s another handy method for you to quickly get rid of your low level content using Board Booster:

    • Create a temporary public board in your Pinterest account. This will be the new home of your low-engagement pins.
    • Using Board Booster’s Pin Mover, set the query to move all pins with less than 2 re-pins to the temporary board. Set tool to search multiple boards and duplicates (this could take any anything up to a few hours!)
    • Run the search. Keep in mind that Board Booster will charge 1 cent for each moved pin.
    • You’ll now see that all the pins in your temporary board have less than 2 re-pins. Delete the board and the pins in them.

    #6 – Make Your Website Pinterest-Friendly

    What’s the use in making your Pinterest the most superbly optimized network ever for your brand if your website isn’t doing its bit?

    You need to make sure that your site is perfectly geared-up to complement your Pinterest. The two need to work hand-in-hand.

    • Use Pin It hover buttons on your content. Remember: the higher engagement on your pins, the more visible you are to Pinterest. This is down to Pinterest Smart Feed, which shows the “higher quality” pins (AKA, those with larger levels of engagement) at the start of a search. Drive engagement on every platform. Take a look at the featured image on this blog post; see how I have the “pin” button? That shows up when people hover over my images. I’m using SumoMe for this.
    • Add a follow button. The more followers, the more chance you’ll receive new re-pins.
    • Include “pinnable” images in every blog post. You know the drill: visually enticing, tall, and with text.
    • Fill out the ALT tag on your images. This is the information that Pinterest pulls in for the Pin description. It needs to be short, interesting, and keyword-rich. Don’t bother repeating the post name. Instead, give an engaging introduction or ask a question to your viewers. Here’s a tutorial on how you can do this. See the ALT text part?

    #7 – Get Social

    As with all digital marketing, community management is vital in raising engagement and boosting traffic. You need to keep it as social as possible and really put the time in to spread the word about your brand.

    • Be responsive. Reply to your comments and like pins of people who have re-pinned your content. Remember to tag their names when responding to comments. Just dedicate about 10 minutes to this per day. It’s totally worth it.
    • Follow people in your niche. In particular, influencers and those who post quality pins.

    #8 – Link Up with Established Pinners

    It’s a foolproof Pinterest tactic. By collaborating, you’ll find it easier to not only curate boards, but also grow your own followers.

    You can do this by:

    • Creating your own collaborative boards and getting others to join you.
    • Joining high-value group boards. Check out pingroupie.com to find some cool ones!

    #9 – Use Promoted Pins

    Promoted pins bring attention to your most important content and helps you to create traffic and engagement campaigns. But if you’re investing money in those pins, you need to make sure you are amplifying their effectiveness.

    Ready for the good news? It’s easy as pie!

    • Use your most compelling images with a text overlay.
    • Include detailed descriptions with a call to action.
    • Promote images with the vertical aspect ratio – the bigger and more dominant, the more noticeable they will be on pinner feeds. The result? More click-throughs. 

    #10 – Keep Up With Changes

    We all know that the Internet is constantly changing, and nowhere moreso than in the world of social media. Now you’ve put in all the leg work, it’s important that you keep on top of it. Be sure to track any changes in Pinterest by monitoring the Pinterest blog. That way, you’ll always be able to react and keep your content fresh and relevant.

    And, hey, presto! You’re now ready to truly harness the power of Pinterest in bringing traffic to your website. With these simple tools, you can now maximize the benefits of this up-and-coming social channel.

    And don’t forget to let me know how you get on in the comments below!

  • 15 Pinterest Ideas for Great Social Media Posts

    15 Pinterest Ideas for Great Social Media Posts

    For small business owners, Pinterest is commonly one of the most valuable social platforms online. With upwards of 291 million active users, Pinterest stands out as a popular, high-traffic, and high-converting site for small business owners and marketers in various industries.

    What’s more, since 55% of U.S. shoppers call Pinterest their favorite social media platform, it’s a great place to make sales and earn more clients.

    The only tough part of using the platform is coming up with Pinterest ideas to drive that engagement.

    Fortunately, we’ve got 15 fool-proof formats that will make it easier to come up with Pinterest ideas and use them to your brand’s advantage. Read on.

    15 Pinterest Ideas to Help Your Brand Stand Out Online

    Whether you’re new to the platform or you’re just looking for some simple ways to improve your presence on Pinterest, these 15 Pinterest ideas are a great place to start:

    1. Develop and share how-to posts

    How-to posts make up a large percentage of Pinterest’s total posts.

    Ranging from information on how to cook a whole chicken to video tutorials that demonstrate the construction of pallet chairs, these how-to posts feature a winning formula: they’re engaging, in-demand, and informative.

    As such, how-to posts, guides, and tutorials have a 42% higher click-through rate than any other type of pin on the platform. How’s that for success?

    2. Create various boards relevant to your brand

    Pinterest is a highly visual platform, and it looks best when it’s fleshed out with multiple boards, options, and images. As such, it’s smart to create multiple boards for your company’s Pinterest presence.

    In addition to giving you more chances and places to grab a reader’s attention, these boards also make your profile feel cohesive and professional.

    For best results, keep your boards related to your brand or product, but have fun with them. For an excellent example of a company that does this, check out General Electric.

    The company’s “Hey Girl” board is filled with science-centric “Hey, Girl” memes that are enough to make anyone fall in love.

    3. Interact with other accounts by repinning

    Pinterest can’t exist as a one-way street, and one of the most critical things you can do on the platform is to interact and engage with other brands. When you come across a company you relate to on Pinterest, re-pin their content onto one of your boards.

    In addition to shaking up your content and giving your visitors something fresh to interact with, this also helps build relationships with other brands and strengthen your Pinterest web, so to speak.

    Plus, since 80% of all the Pins on Pinterest are re-pins, you know there’s a high likelihood of your re-pin promoting another re-pin. For best results, use the search bar on the Pinterest home page to search for other content by keyword.

    4. Create custom cover photos for each board

    If you don’t set the cover photos for your various boards, Pinterest chooses them for you. In many cases, these auto-populated photos are poorly cropped or irrelevant to the board itself. As such, it’s critical to put in the effort to choose the images yourself.

    Editorial calendar company CoSchedule does this by creating custom images for each of their boards. Ideal for creating a cohesive Pinterest presence and making your boards visually appealing, custom graphics are a must-have for anyone who wants to grow online with Pinterest.

    5. Play with the shapes of images on your boards

    When it comes to your Pinterest boards, don’t feel like every image you create or re-pin must fall into a cookie-cutter shape. Again, Pinterest is a highly visual platform and adding square, rectangular, and elongated images to your collection is a great way to keep people interested.

    For best results, include a mixture of traditional, square images, and tall images (which research has proven are more eye-catching than wide images).

    6. Make your images more colorful

    Today, images that feature more than one dominant color earn 3.25 times as many repins per image than visuals featuring a single dominant color. This means that, if you’re going to create Pinterest graphics, it’s in your best interests to develop a brand color scheme and stick to it.

    Remember, however, that while color can be an exciting touch, too much of it can easily get overwhelming.

    7. Collaborate with other users and collect Pinterest ideas on group boards

    What’s the point of a social platform if you’re not going to get social with it? One of the biggest benefits of Pinterest is that it allows users to create group boards.

    Once created, these group boards can be used to collect pins, share Pinterest ideas, and create a more dynamic content environment that appeals to readers more closely.

    For best results, only partner with other pinners or brands who complement your company and can add something without making your marketing message seem muddled or confusing.

    8. Use a posting app to schedule your Pins

    While Pinterest might seem like it’s all fun and games, there’s some science involved in the platform, as well. To get the most traction possible from your pins, consider using a post planner or a posting app to post them at the most rewarding times.

    CoSchedule reports that the best times to Pin on Pinterest are Saturdays between 8-11 p.m. and Fridays at 3 in the afternoon. Beyond that, you can also pin between 1-3 p.m. on weekdays, 8-11 p.m., or 2-4 a.m., all of which should promote a spike in your engagement rates.

    9. Use Rich Pins to make interacting with content easier

    Easily one of the biggest things to hit the world of Pinterest in the last few years is the Rich Pin. Unlike traditional pins, which only comprise an image and a snippet of text underneath, Rich Pins feature additional information within the pin itself. To date, there are six different types of rich pins:

    • Place: Place-focused Rich Pins feature the name, address, map, and phone number of a particular place.
    • Product: Product Rich Pins feature availability and “where to buy” information, as well as real-time price.
    • Article: Article pins feature a description of the story, a headline, the author’s name, and an option to save the story for future reference.
    • Recipe: Recipe pins include cooking time, ingredient lists, and serving information so people can decide what to make and when.
    • Movie: Movie Rich Pins contain information like reviews, cast members, and ratings right in the pin.
    • App: App pins allow pinners to download an app without navigating away from the Pinterest app. They are compatible with iOS apps only.

    Bear in mind that, to access Rich Pins, you’ll need to get started by prepping your website. You’ll also need to test your Rich Pins on Pinterest before they go live. It’s a simple process, though, and Pinterest offers support if you get stuck.

    10. Run Pinterest ads to boost engagement

    While few marketers think of advertising on Pinterest, the platform can be a valuable place to do it. Pinterest ads have tremendous potential to increase engagement and draw people to your website or products. To develop your Pinterest ad, you’ll need to follow these steps:

    • Choose one of your best and highest-performing pins. This pin will be seen by a wide selection of people, so it’s critical to choose wisely.
    • Target your pin. When you launch a Pinterest ad, you’ll be able to decide who sees it by setting up targeting, so the right people see it at the right time.
    • Set your budget. Next comes the time when you get to choose whether you’ll pay based on visits to your site or engagement.
    • Track your results. Once you’ve set up your ad, track it to find out what’s working and what’s not.

    11. Put the “Pin it” button on your website and blog

    The best way to make use of social media is to connect your social platforms to the places where your other content “lives,” like your website and blog. To do this, you’ll need to add the “Pin it” button to these places.

    Simple to install and easy for users to interact with, the “Pin it” button allows you to widen the reach of your content by enabling users to share content from your blog or website to Pinterest. This, in turn, makes your audience larger and helps leverage all your content, not just the material you’re physically posting on Pinterest.

    12. Include CTAs in your pins

    To create a pin that gets lots of shares, repins, and engagement, include a CTA within the pin itself. One great place to see examples of this is with financial pins. Check out this example to get a feel for what an in-pin CTA looks like.

    By telling people what to do right inside the pin, it’s easier to promote engagement and spike curiosity.

    13. Create list posts

    List posts are incredibly relevant, valuable, and engaging – wherever they appear. To make the most of your Pinterest content, be sure to create a fair number of list posts. The beautiful thing about these posts is, in addition to the fact that they immediately create reader interest, they’re also relevant for companies in virtually all industries.

    For best results, focus on list topics that showcase the benefits or drawbacks of something. These create emotional responses in your readers and help create an exciting reading experience.

    14. Keep your pins cohesive

    While it’s a bit tougher to adhere to a color theme or design trajectory on Pinterest than it is on another platform, like Instagram, where you have more control, it is possible. Except for the content you re-pin, aim to ensure that the content you share and create adheres to a certain design standard or features a particular color scheme.

    These small considerations, when observed faithfully, create a cohesive and beautiful presence that helps your customers recognize your brand anywhere it appears on the web.

    15. Pin frequently

    There’s no way to rise to the top with Pinterest if you’re not pinning frequently. Experts in the Pinterest engagement industry typically recommend pinning ten times a day.

    While this may seem like an overwhelming number, it can go a long way toward improving your overall presence and giving your followers something to look forward to.

    Plus, the more you pin, the more relevant you’ll be in the fast-changing Pinterest universe!

    Bonus: Create Pins Around Trending Topics

    Once you’ve absorbed the above 15 tips, remember this final thing: trending topics are critical on Pinterest.

    Research shows that creating pins related to trending topics can boost click-through-rate by 94%. Keep your eye on Pinterest’s “popular” section and pin similar content to help your Pinterest presence grow.

    Pinterest Ideas to Help You Grow

    For companies that want to build their online strategy, Pinterest is a great place to start. Simple to use, highly visual, and made for the mobile era, Pinterest represents the new face of marketing, and it will only become more important in the coming years.

    While it can be tough to come up with fresh, new Pinterest ideas that will help your company grow, these 15 are a great place to start.

    From developing pins that focus on trending topics to creating custom board covers, collaborating with other Pinterest users, making your images more colorful, and publishing informative, how-to posts, there are dozens of fantastic ways to stand out on the Pinterest platform and help your brand get noticed.

  • 9 Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Need to Stop Making

    9 Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Need to Stop Making

    It’s literally impossible to market effectively without a heavy social media presence these days, and for some businesses, social media can be enough of a platform to fulfill all marketing goals.

    No matter what you’re looking to market, you absolutely can’t afford to make social media marketing mistakes in an increasingly connected world, so follow these tips to get your message across as effectively as possible!

    #1 Client Comes First

    This is really important to remember. You might want to expand your client base or focus on different products, but remember that your current clients are your followers, and to keep them as clients then you will need to speak to them too.

    This doesn’t mean you can’t market your new stuff and reach out to more people, but never forget to post content directed at your loyal customers.

    #2 Keep Your Word

    To be successful in any business, you need to do what you say you’re going to do, or your client will lose faith, and you will lose them. On social media, this is even more important, as everything is time-stamped and what you said is right there on their screen. If there’s a competition, an announcement, vlog, or new product that you say you will post on Friday, then it really does need to be there on Friday.

    #3 Focus!

    This encompasses a lot of factors. Focus on what you want your customer to do, whether that is to ‘like and share’ or add something to their basket, or sign up for something.

    Don’t ask them to do all three.

    Also, focus on information relevant to you, don’t post random things that are irrelevant, and never forget your target audience in your post – focus on them or your message could be lost.

    #4 Know Your Audience and Engage With Them

    You need to know what your audience wants, and social media is a really great way to get to know them and make them feel valued.

    Respond to comments, like other relevant pages and posts, link back to yourselves on relevant posts so your audience really feels like they know you, and that you care.

    #5 Always Have a Plan!

    Having a plan is essential, followers won’t just come to you. Decide how much you’ll invest – if not in money, but in time – in social media marketing, and stick to it. Plan your content, have a clear strategy, don’t rely on likes for random posts, as those likes may not be from your target audience, or anyone interested in your product.

    #6 Use Tech To Track

    Use everything at your disposal, though google analytics is normally the first step, to see what time, day, and content is attracting the most content, and try to build on that.

    Figuring out what times and whether articles, videos, gifs, or whatever is driving traffic is a great thing to know and build on.

    #7 Use the Right Platform

    If the majority of your users are finding you on Facebook, then focus on that, you don’t need to be on every single platform to be effective.

    There is no use using Snapchat to get through to people on Instagram, you are wasting your time and energy when you could have a time-saving and effective strategy.

    #8 No Fakes

    Everyone can tell when your followers are fake, it’s very simple when your base and your likes are so drastically different. While it may be harder, having an organic base that has supported you and interacts with your feed looks way better to the public.

    #9 Make Sure You Proofread!

    The public in general on social media are extremely unforgiving when it comes to grammar mistakes, and factual errors are so easily checked by google that you will be called out straight away.

    And when you’re looking to market something, whether it’s yourself or a product, you need the trust of a customer, they need to feel that they can put their faith in you.

    That is unlikely to happen if your posts are accompanied by a bunch of negative comments regarding your accuracy.

    You need to appear smart, competent, and reliable, and a great way of doing that is making sure your content is perfect before you post.

    There are some amazing online resources specifically designed to ensure your content is awesome, and there is no good reason not to use them!

    Some of the best ones to ensure grammatical correctness are:

    • Ginger Software– this app is really great for non-native English speakers, as it includes a dictionary, grammar checker, and will even help rephrase complex sentences to ensure your writing is clear and high quality
    • Hemingway App – this is an amazing site for marketing as it emphasizes strong writing styles, removing adverbs, overly long sentences and other awkward features that may appear in your work
    • Type my essay – some people, however, will always prefer a real person looking over their work and providing suggestions, comments, and improvements. For a personal touch from an expert, you can try the following online writing tool.
    • Readability-score – it’s essential to write your marketing posts with your audience in mind. Check the reading level of your text with this website to make sure you’re not treating doctors like thirteen-year-olds or vice versa
    • Edit Minion – this is a new site, but really effective at analyzing short passages and picking up on the common mistakes that spelling and grammar checkers often miss. This is super quick and completely free
    • Assignment help – here experts will review your work and will be able to improve your language and strengthen your message.
    • Autocrit– is an awesome way to review your texts in an in-depth way, that picks up on mistakes a human often doesn’t – like too many adverbs or the passive voice
    • Word count tool – if you’re not using word, this little site is a handy way to monitor the length of your content – you should be aiming for at least 300 words per post, and this can make sure you’re hitting those targets.
    • PhD writers – the tool suggests a professional to look over your work and pick up writing errors that a computer can’t, and offer helpful suggestions.

    As all of these resources are available online, and many of them ae actually free, it would be madness to not utilize all the help you have available to you, and produce the most effective social media marketing ever.

    There are no excuses for inefficient or ineffective social media marketing – follow the above steps and success will follow you.

  • How To Get More Engagement For Your Youtube Channel?

    How To Get More Engagement For Your Youtube Channel?

    Do your research

    YouTube has a great tool, the YouTube Keyword Tool, which reveals the phrases people search and how often. The word “how to” is search over 8 million times a month in Australia!

    This tool will give you some ideas about what the people want and how often they want it. This information is gold when it comes to content planning and video optimisation (see point 2).

    Video optimisation: being as descriptive as possible

    Videos & channel pages can show up in YouTube & even Google search results – if done right, this could lead to heaps of additional exposure!

    To do this, we need to give the YouTube robots as much information as possible so that they can understand our content. Use the research from point 1, do following:

    Write snappy titles

    Try and summaries your title in a short, keyword rich 1 liner. I.e. “VW Gold GTI 2014 Australian Review”. Don’t be afraid to tweak your existing titles

    Write a comprehensive description

    Explain what your video is about. Try to write about 150-300+ words per video.

    Firstly, write a short paragraph which summaries the entire video.

    Then secondly, create additional meatier paragraphs.

    Thirdly, add links to anything relevant such as the official webpage – we do this to try and help user continue their journey once finished.

    Completing this step, will also help improve your chances of being shown as related video. Remember, a picture tells a thousand words and you are talking to a robot – it can’t see what you can see!

    Feature your sparklers!

    If something really cool or someone really famous appears in your video make sure you mention it in your description. Robots won’t know this till you tell them. If you’re talking about a product mention the full name. I.e. ‘VW Golf 2.0 GTI 2014 Review’ is waaaay more descriptive than ‘VW Golf Review’.

    Accurately describe your channel

    Your channel page is like your homepage, it is the gateway to your video content and kind of acts like a content page would in a book.

    With that in mind, it is really important to include a keyword rich description on your YouTube About page as it will help YouTube understand what your channels theme is.

    Encourage users to subscribe

    Subscribers are like votes; the more you have the more important you are. To get more subscribes we need to communicate the value that you have to offer. What’s the benefit if they subscribe? Why should I follow you? You can do this in 3 ways.

    Verbally prompt users at the end of your video to subscribe. Eg. “For more weekly XXXXX tips press subscribe”

    Show an annotation at the end of your video prompting users to subscribe. Do this inside your video manager

    If you have a website or another Social channel then add the ‘YouTube Subscribe Button’ to your website and post regular prompts on your social channels. Be sure to highlight why we should subscribe.

    Be 100% Complete

    It’s all about experience. YouTube channels with 100% information on their profile perform better than those with less. Create an about page. Fill in all your fields. Be as descriptive as you can.

    Engage commenters

    YouTube users love to comment. YouTube knows that higher quality videos tend to have more comments. Therefore, videos with more comments tend to get more exposure.

    Often, channel owners or companies negate to reply as quickly (if at all) as they might on a Facebook page.

    This often leaves users feeling under appreciated. If someone asks question or critiques your content you should engage with them.

    Tag with pride

    YouTube can better understand your video if you write tags that are really relevant to your content. Try to think; what questions does my video help answer? Include these as part of your tags.

    Create lots of short ‘How to’ videos

    We saw earlier how the phrase ‘How to’ was one of the top searched queries on YouTube. The beauty of phrases such as these are that they happen all year round (evergreen).

    If you have the skills to answer a common question then you should look to create a quick video about it.

    Try to do one video per question. For example; ‘How to jump start a car’ or ‘How to pot a plant’, ‘How to re-wire an Australian plug’ or ‘How to clean a Playstation’. Views from videos like these will quickly add up, driving more exposure.

    Build relationships influencers & competing channels

    Try to collaborate with other YouTube users who run similar channels. Comment on their videos and try to offer some extra value with your own knowledge.

    Where appropriate, link to your videos but be careful not to spam – YouTube & the channel manager could remove your comment.

    Post your content on websites & forums

    Outside of YouTube you should also look to be sharing your content in relevant communities such as forums or blogs.

    As a rule of thumb, in forums try to answer questions instead of creating new threads/subjects. To find relevant posts use the ‘search’ function.

    Post regularly & consistently

    YouTube uses a complicated algorithm which probably looks at thousands of factors. One of those is ‘dormancy’ or frequency of update. Where essentially channels which aren’t updated often enough gradually become buried or no longer trusted. Keep your channel regularly updated.

    Try to post weekly, or bi-weekly.

  • The Importance Of Instagram Videos And How To Use Them For Your Business

    The Importance Of Instagram Videos And How To Use Them For Your Business

    Are you wondering how to set up Instagram videos and how you can make your business more visible?

    Are you wondering how to make images and videos work for your business? Then let me tell you the importance of Instagram videos and how to use them for your business.

    Instagram is not only for those in the food or fashion industry; it is for all businesses big or small.

    It is one of the many social networking platforms that you could use for your business to take pictures and videos then share them on Instagram or other social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and the likes. Learn more about this social platform and you will see the importance of videos marketing and how to include it into your marketing strategy.

    Instagram is centered on visual content where users can edit or post photos and short videos of up to 15 seconds but no text updates like what is commonly used in Facebook or Twitter.

    How to Create an Instagram Account

    Before you sign up for an account, you need to download the app to your mobile device since Instagram is a mobile-only app. It is a free app and can be found in both Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. There are two ways of signing up; one is by connecting through Facebook and your personal information is automatically gathered by Instagram which includes the email you used for Facebook and your profile picture. And the second is by putting in your email address which is preferred by some to keep personal and business information separate.

    Just like most social networking platforms, you would have the option to edit your profile information and the likes. But in this article, we will focus on making Instagram videos and how to use them for your business.

    The first thing you need to know is how to navigate the app. It is pretty simple since at the bottom of the app are the five buttons where you need to go, and these are the Home tab, Search tab, a Camera button, an Activity tab and, of course, your Profile tab.

    How to Create an Instagram Content

    As I mentioned earlier, Instagram is all about photos or videos. Just tap on the camera button and it will ask you if you want to take a new photo or a new video, or simply select something from your phone’s gallery. After you tap on the next button, you can already start editing your photos or your video.

    The next tab is for the Filters, Lux, and Tools. Filters are where you can scroll through photo filters that are available to you and help you to change the colors of your images, making them more attractive. Clicking on the desired filter will automatically change your photo, so it is easier to choose the right one. When you tap on the name of the filter, it will show you a slider to adjust its transparency. This is how the #nofilter came to be because it shows your true photo without being enhanced by Instagram filters.

    The Lux will adjust the sharpness or exposure of your photos. The Tools section, however, has several options like Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Highlights which are all self-explanatory. And there is an Adjust feature which straightens or rotates your images. Vignette will darken your photo’s edges and Tilt Shift will blur the outside of the images.

    Instagram videos are a bit similar to the options for your images but with slight differences like instead of 3 options, Instagram videos have 4 options.  The first option is still about adding Filters. Second is how the video will fit on the screen. Third is choosing a cover frame. And fourth is all about the audio if you want to mute it or not.

    Now, why is learning to put an Instagram video so important for your business? Because of the ways you can interact with your target audience and your subscribers:

    #1 Instagram Direct – lets users interact privately. Just go to Instagram’s homepage, that’s where you can find Instagram Direct. It lets you send a photo/video which you upload from your gallery. And if you want to send a message instead, you can choose the Send Message option, and you will be taken to a chat screen where you can type your message.

    #2 Mentions – just like in Twitter, Instagram lets you @MentionSomeoneHere which can call the attention of whomever you “mention” on your Instagram post.

    #3 People Tagging – just like in Facebook, Instagram allows users to “Tag” a certain photo or video to widen the scope of your image or Instagram video.

    #4 Liking Photos or Instagram Videos – is the simplest way to connect with someone in Instagram. But instead of the “thumbs up” sign of Facebook, Instagram has a “heart” symbol to show you like the photo or the Instagram videos you’ve come across with.

    #5 Instagram Comments – lets you comment on photos and videos via a simple tap on the comment button which will take you to a text box where you can type your message, then hitting the Send button will complete the Instagram comment.

    #6 Hashtags – lets other users find your #Instagram content like what’s being used in Twitter and Facebook already. These #hashtags let you check out the competition or those on a similar niche as your brand.

    #7 Photo Locations – allow users to add their location which will automatically map out where you’ve been and generate local followers and of course gain additional interaction. You can also see nearby locations which could attract more customers.

    How to Advertise on Instagram

    Another way that you can use Instagram for your business is through advertising which will appear on the users’ home feeds. Advertising on Instagram can be done with Photo Ads, which allows you to posts photos. But since it is used in advertising, there is an added option to “Learn More” about the “Sponsored Label” found in the photo.

    Instagram videos can also be used as Video Ads which is similar to the Photo Ads since it has the “Learn More” button and shows the “Sponsored Label”. The difference between a standard Video post and an Instagram Video Ad is that the Video Ad has now a 60 seconds length, while your usual video post is only 15 seconds long.

    If you want to use multiple photos, you can use Carousel Ads where users can swipe through the photos and see more of what you are trying to advertise.

    Creating an Instagram content could be challenging at times, but your photo or your Instagram videos can reach a wide array of your targeted audience which is great for any business or brands. It allows you to share a visual story which could get your subscribers wanting more. Instagram can showcase your creativity which can lure your target audience to your business.

    Instagram could give your business that much needed boost because with these photos and Instagram videos, you can disseminate information about ongoing events and promotions. Or even embed these Instagram posts on your website to show your followers and subscribers that your brand or business has an Instagram account, and they are more likely to follow you there too.

    Do remember that links do not work on Instagram. It will only work on your profile, so no use of putting it in the captions or photo comments. Instead add a note on the Instagram video captions or on the photo comments that the website link can be found on your profile. This can help your audience to a specific webpage.

    Wrapping it Up

    After creating an Instagram account, be sure to learn how to fully navigate it properly so that you can abuse the full potential of Instagram and how it can help your business. Use Instagram Direct, Mentions and People Tagging to maximize the reach of your photos and Instagram Videos. Be constant in liking photos or videos to interact with your audience.

    Links don’t work in Instagram comments or captions, and best to put it in your profile instead. Use #hashtags and steer clear of the 30 hashtags allowable in Instagram. Keep it to a minimum. Don’t be a hashtag abuser.

    Make use of the photo locations options to entice local subscribers to your brand or business.

    If you’ve got the resources, then delve into the world of Instagram advertising and explore even more possibilities to broaden your reach.

    Use other social networking platforms to share your photos and Instagram videos. Use automation if you have and if you can. Be diligent in sharing; schedule it if you know how. Hope you’ve seen the importance of Instagram videos and how to use them for your business.