Are you using Instagram for your business? Want to get more from your marketing efforts? Improving your Instagram content and boosting engagement can be as simple as adding a few tactics and tools to your marketing routine. In this article you’ll discover nine tips and tools to improve your Instagram marketing. #1: Tailor Images to […]
This post 9 Instagram Tips and Tools for Marketers first appeared on Social Media Examiner.
Social Media Examiner - Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
People still don’t get it…
Twitter has been an influential social network for a long time now, but there are still marketers who don’t quite understand its power (or how to use it).
This is especially true when it comes to growing a big list of followers.
With a few small tweaks to your Twitter strategy, you can be well on your way to gaining loyal followers who will actively engage with your content.
Note of warning: Since quality is always valued over quantity, be sure to steer away from buying followers or adopting any other “unethical” methods of increasing followers.
Buying followers might look good on the surface, but if they never engage with your brand – what’s the point?
By gaining followers organically, you will access a group of highly engaged users who are more likely to convert and buy your product or service.
Here are 5 Twitter management tips that can help you build a long list of followers organically.
Twitter is all about having casual conversations with your followers, and being as personable as you can be. Some brands that don’t really get the hang of how Twitter works often make the mistake of only talking about themselves, and posting jargon in each of their posts.
But in order to increase your number of Twitter followers, you need to bring yourself into the light by conversing with your existing and potential followers. Keep these conversations natural and free of any promotional content.
There are a few brands out there that are doing it right. Here’s an example from Olay:
Olay, the popular skincare brand, replies to questions and comments from consumers without fail. This tactic pays off down the road, and can get you more followers who truly want to engage with your brand.
There is also a lot of give and take on Twitter. When someone follows you, be sure to check out their profile and follow them back if what they do is relevant to your business. Also, when you reply to a particular tweet, mention the user’s name in your post.
Re-tweeting is another great way to show courtesy on Twitter. If you see a post on Twitter that is related to your brand or to the services/products you provide, retweet it. You can also add your own short comment to the post to personalize it.
Brands that publish informative content on a regular basis have a higher chance of increasing their number of loyal followers. People love reading new information, and the more informative you share, the more engagement you will get on your Twitter page.
Keep the 80/20 rule in mind when you are publishing posts. Around 80% of the content that you post should be purely informative while the remaining 20% can be promotional in nature. Also, try to alternate between text and visual content from time to time. Visual content can be quite appealing and draw more eyeballs to your posts.
Here’s one of Charmin’s tweets. The brand often posts tweets with creative images and subtle promotional content:
At times, you might not have the bandwidth to create fresh content or look for content that might be interesting to your followers. In these situations, it is good practice to use a content discovery tool for that extra bit of help.
Here are a few tools you can use:
The little pound symbol on your phone is now part of a huge tech culture. Hashtags are used to categorize the endless stream of content on Twitter, and can also make your tweets easy to discover. Using the right hashtags in your post can be very beneficial as they help put your tweet on other users’ radars.
To be able to use hashtags successfully in your posts, keep an eye out for trending hashtags that are relevant to your brand. While publishing your content, include a few hashtags in the post – emphasis on a few. Do not overdo it.
Also look at trending topics and try to publish posts that acknowledge specific events that are happening in your vicinity. This way, your followers will know that you are also involved in what goes on around you.
In June, JetBlue Airways sent out several tweets with the #LoveWins hashtag when the Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage. Here’s a tweet by JetBlue Airways:
Using hashtags in your posts can be a great way to raise awareness around an upcoming event, product launch or a contest as well. You can also create and promote your own hashtags through your Twitter posts. Just remember to align them with your marketing objectives.
Find influencers in your industry and reach out to them via Twitter posts. Mention them in your posts, and engage them in conversations that relate to your brand. These thought leaders will in turn share your content, giving you more exposure to a larger network of users in the Twitterverse. If you are not quite sure about how to find influencers, the ‘Who To Follow’ lists on Twitter are an amazing resource for all to use.
If you can get an influencer to endorse your products/services, or mention them in a Twitter post, it can have a massive impact on the number of registrations or downloads you get for your product. According to a survey conducted by Augure, Twitter is the best channel for building working relationships with influencers in your industry.
However, it is important to be polite and give back. If an influencer does mention your brand, be sure to drop them a reply thanking them, and of course, retweet the post to your connections as well.
One of the simplest ways to gain more followers is through the publicity of your Twitter handle. Create an eye-catching Twitter profile with an attractive header image, and a relevant profile picture. Yes, this means, your pet dog or cat can’t be on your profile picture!
Etsy’s cover photo on it’s Twitter page sums up pretty much everything that the website is about, and is also quite appealing.
Put up your Twitter details wherever it is possible. The best places are of course your own company website. You can also include your Twitter handle at the end of your blog posts and also embed a live Twitter feed on your blog page.
It doesn’t just stop there. You can also use offline marketing to promote your Twitter handle. Print it on company newsletters, brochures and business cards since this type of printed material gets circulated often. You can also include your Twitter handle in your email signature to give it more exposure.
Twitter provides a sea of opportunities for people who want to market themselves or their brands. The key is to manage your Twitter account properly and be on the lookout for new ideas and trends that can be used as part of your marketing strategy.
Keep these 5 Twitter management tips in mind as you embark on your mission to gain more followers. Post engaging content, be courteous and give back to the Twitter community, get involved in conversations and discussions with your followers and influencers, and watch your number of followers grow!
Guest Author: Apurva Jog is a Content Writer at DrumUp, a social media management tool. She has penned down several articles related to social media management and content marketing. When she is not writing, she is usually catching up with anything that is trending in the social media sphere.
The post Top 5 Twitter Management Tips to Increase Your Followers Organically appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.
Do you have a content strategy for your Facebook Page? Want to know which types of content work best? A deep dive into Facebook Insights helps you identify which content drives people to engage. In this article I’ll share how to find your best content using Facebook Insights. Why Use Facebook Insights? Many people are […]
This post How to Use Facebook Insights to Improve Your Engagement first appeared on Social Media Examiner.
Social Media Examiner - Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
If you’re in the mood for holiday cheer and a little inspiration for your PPC and online marketing plans, look no further than our holiday planning guide for digital marketers.
Our insights team has been delving deep into a treasure trove of search data and 3rd party research to bring you candy cane nuggets of wisdom that will help you ace your marketing efforts this holiday season.
If you’ve only just started your campaigns or you’re a little late to the party, it’s not too late! Now is the perfect time to start presenting your products and services to searchers through your PPC ads, as research from The National Retail Federation tells us that 40% of consumers start shopping before November and over 80% of consumers have started buying presents and checking their lists twice before December even starts.
Here are some of the highlights from our holiday planning guide that we hope you will cherish from Black Friday until New Year’s Eve:
Last year our data showed that more people searched on Cyber Monday, followed by Black Friday and then December 2nd.
These shopping days get a lot of media coverage on TV and radio which may account for the spill over to the day after Cyber Monday. Consumers are probably in a mad dash through the snow once they realize there are only a couple of weeks left to order gifts and have them arrive on time.
While many of you might already be mobile ready, some might not have thought about all the ways to capture a consumer’s attention when they are on the go.
In 2014, the smart folks at eMarketer told us 45% of holiday shopping was done on mobile devices, which was 111% up from the year before.
Triple check you are giving your business the best chance of mobile marketing success by optimizing your site for mobile, creating an easier check out process to mitigate abandoned shopping carts and utilizing all PPC tactics available like Call Extensions, Location Extensions and Location Targeting.
Our holiday planning guide has a bunch of useful charts which show trends of when people are searching across retail sectors and also click-through-rates and CPCs over time.
Much of the data is broken down by device as well, giving you easy access to insight you can put to use immediately to get one step ahead of your competition.
The holiday season is going to be busy. Every online retailer will be out for a piece if the holiday pie, so how can you stand out from the crowd?
Our data scientists have analyzed ad copy and CTR data to bring you our ad copy heat maps. These maps show the way to finding top performing Ad titles and descriptions. Make sure you know what words will be on your customer’s list. For more resources on how to get ahead during the holiday season, visit our Bing Ads Holiday Insights for Digital Marketers site and take a peek at the SlideShare below:
This article, "More Sales & Better PPC ROI with The Bing Ads Holiday Planning Guide" was first published on Small Business Trends
Imagine yourself as an artist, social media as your canvas, and your quizzes your paintbrush.
Your job is to create an impactful work of art on that blank canvas known as social media.
Let’s face it, social media has become the most effective way of advertising digitally.
With Facebook at the forefront, businesses today allocate at least 28% of their spending towards social media advertising. It’s an investment, no doubt, but it’s an investment worth making.
This kind of investment will help boost the activity of your quizzes which in turn will generate traffic to your website.
With over 25,000 quizzes under our belt at Interact, we’ve come up with a comprehensive three-step plan for promoting your quiz and using it to bring in targeted leads using Facebook advertising.
The initial step you have to take in effectively promoting your quiz through Facebook would be to select the kind of audience that you want to target based on your company’s marketing goals and values.
Ask yourself these questions:
What kind of audience do I want to attract?
What is my audience interested in?
Who are my lookalike audiences? (more about this later)
What are my audience’s thoughts on similar companies?
These are the important questions that you have to keep in mind. This will give you a better understanding on the kind of audience you want to attract.
Here are some ways to select your audience:
Targeting your audience based on location allows you to reach customers in key locations by country, state/province, city and zip code. Pretty convenient isn’t it?
This information is based on the location of an individual’s Facebook Timeline. You can even exclude certain cities or zip codes you’ve already reached.
Targeting an audience based on demographics allows you to refine ad’s based on the information your audience has shared about themselves. This includes their Facebook profile, their age, their gender, their relationship status, their level of education and their type of employment.
Using things like hobbies and the pages they’ve liked on Facebook allows you to target an audience based on their interests. All of this content is collected from an individual’s timeline.
The same information is also taken from keywords associated with the pages they’ve liked and the apps they’ve used. It also takes ads and similar sources that they’ve clicked on into consideration.
Maybe you want to target your audience based on their Facebook activity. If that’s the case, targeting your audience based on behavior might be up your alley.
Behavior also takes into account purchase history or intentions (like wishlists) along with travel preferences. This information is retrieved from someone’s activity, both online and offline.
If you’re interested in targeting your audience based on connections, you’re looking to attract the people based on who they are already friends with. This information is based on mutual family or friends and the similar interests they share.
Advanced targeting refers to custom audiences, lookalike audiences, and custom audiences from your website.
Custom audiences target existing customers based on information you already have.
Lookalike audiences are people that are similar to the customers you already have, so they share the same interests and ideas.
Custom audiences from your website are simply people on Facebook that have visited your page already.
Let’s take a closer look at how to create a lookalike audience.
Go to your “Audiences” tab in your Ads Manager.
Select “Create Audience,” then choose “Lookalike Audience.”
From there, you can select a Facebook page, Custom Audience or conversion pixel.
Once you’ve chosen your customer group, select your audience size. You can start off by optimizing your Lookalike Audience for Similarity, which will show your ads to a smaller, more precise audience. You can then experiment with optimizing your audience size for Reach, which will show your ads to a larger audience.
After selecting your audience size, your Lookalike Audience will be ready for use in ad targeting within 6-24 hours.
Once it’s been processed, go back to the Ads Manager and click the Audiences tab.
From there, you’ll find your Lookalike Audience. Click “Create Ad.” Select your ad objective in the ads create tool and set up your ad. It’ll now be targeted to your Lookalike Audience.
It’s a good rule of thumb to look up what your Lookalike Audience “Likes” on Facebook. This will give you an idea of whether they’ve selected the right audience or not.
Through trial and error, you’ll be able to find out what works and what doesn’t.
Presentation is everything in an advertisement-fueled social media platform. Facebook is all about visuals; from people’s profile images to their cover photos.
How well you want your quiz to perform on Facebook will depend heavily on how you promote it visually.
Make sure the images you use are the correct proportions; that includes desktop and mobile device viewing. Incorrect image proportions can compromise the look and feel of your page.
If one of your images on your page is displayed improperly, just imagine what a potential customer would think. We don’t want to drive people away, so avoid this at all costs.
Make sure to play around with the dimensions of your images so that they all display correctly on desktops and mobile devices.
There are a few distinct tips for promoting quizzes based on how interactive they are.
Let’s take a look.
Be informal; approach your audience as if you would anyone else on social media. Make your company’s personality stand out. You want to make the ad feel as genuine as possible while also being concise. You only have a couple of seconds to grab the attention of your customers. Make sure you include a call-to-action and make it clear what you want your customers to do.
Imagery is also important; make a visual impact to boost your visibility. Include an image pertaining to your quiz and ask questions that will potentially urge your customers to take the quiz. Don’t be afraid to ride on the popularity of a well-talked about topic, but make sure you use credible sources. The last thing we want is to divert attention away from the original subject matter.
Be controversial. Be bold. Don’t shy away from controversy, encourage it, but be smart about it. Pick subjects everyone can relate to, specifically targeting behavior, belonging and beliefs. This will draw people to either confirm or disapprove. Controversy spurs quiz popularity and splits its takers down the middle.
Go for the emotional angle. Approach your audience from different emotional angles. Playing on emotional states will deliver a myriad of results, and these results will enable us to provide for the customer based on their emotional needs. Happiness makes people want to share. Sadness enables others to connect and empathize with one another. Fear and surprise makes people desperate, urging them to find something to cling onto. Anger and disgust makes people stubborn. These emotions are what drive customers. Take these emotions into consideration and apply them to your quiz. The emotional state of a customer will play a significant role on the kind of quiz you’re giving them. The easier it is for your audience to relate to your quiz, the more engaging it will be.
The image to your quiz won’t be the only factor in grabbing your audience’s attention. You want a headline that will encourage people to take your quiz. Give your audience an idea of what they’re about to get themselves into.
Formulate titles that will target your audience, for example “Which (blank) are you?” Where (blank) is character from a movie. Another good example would be “How much do you know about (blank)?” Where (blank) could be a subject of your choosing. Sell yourself through your quiz, but keep it simple. The purpose of your quiz is to attract prospective customers, while the content you provide is meant to keep then.
One important aspect of promoting your quiz on Facebook is adding a snippet of code from your company’s website in the section that will measure your conversions. After setting up your pixel conversion, Facebook allows you to optimize it for checkouts, registrations, leads, key page views, adds to cart, and other website conversions.
Facebook is the quintessential source for social media. As a marketer, it is an essential tool for promoting your quiz to generate more leads.
Advertising on social media lets your company touch base with an audience and the social circle they are a part of. Not only are you engaging your customers through this platform, you’re converting them into prospective leads. It’s a win-win situation, and Facebook is there to help you do it.
Guest Author: JP Misenas is the content marketing director and audio/visual technician/engineer of Interact, a place for creating entertaining and engaging quizzes that generate email leads. He writes about innovative ways to connect with customers and to build professional long-lasting relationships with them.
The post How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Quizzes appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention. What’s New This Week Pinterest Improves Place Pins With Better Location Data: “Now location info will be added automatically to Pins. That […]
This post Pinterest Adds Location Data to Pins for Retailers: This Week in Social Media first appeared on Social Media Examiner.
Social Media Examiner - Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
Do you host live-streaming video? Want to hear about the latest live-casting technology? To discover more about Blab, I interview Joel Comm. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social […]
This post Blab.im: Why Your Business Should Consider Blab first appeared on Social Media Examiner.
Social Media Examiner - Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
