08 May

Posted at 13:00h in Social Media

Where and how did it all begin?

The earliest forms of advertising included simple signs that merchants put over their doors to inform the public about what was for sale inside. Posters, pamphlets, and handbills began appearing in England following the invention of movable type in Germany around 1450. Advertising became a part of newspapers when they first appeared in England in the seventeenth century and in America at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Magazine advertising followed in the early nineteenth century.

Things tremendously changed in the mid 2000s with the introduction of the internet and social media. Brands no longer had to rely on print, radio, and television, and have found a quick and easier way to interact with consumers. But the big question they had to ask themselves was, ‘will this new approach work?’, they didn’t know back then. It was a risk for them to try this approach, but they eventually did.

How did it work out?

Well it’s safe to say that the number of social media users dictates the placement of an advertisement on social media platforms. The more users the platform has, the better for the brand. Facebook remains the most popular platform in the country, with almost 30% of the population now connected. South Africa has 16 million users of Facebook right now, with 14 million people having access to the site on mobile devices. 

Local Twitter numbers grew marginally between 2016 and 2017. Today, Twitter numbers are sitting on 7.7 million. Tweeting in South Africa continues throughout the week, with Thursday being the most popular day. Twitter users are most active in the morning between 8am and 9am, with a small peak again in the evenings at around 6pm. 

Instagram has also seen significant growth, with its South African user numbers up to 8.5% to 3,8 million users, however this is significantly slower than previous years, where local growth was in the double, or even triple digits. An Instagram page for the brand would work in their favour in a sense that most people are on Instagram nowadays and it will be easier for them to increase their market. 

Go to any platform and count how many adverts are there on each platform, that will confirm that these stats do not lie. These numbers have continued to rise over the years with advertisers now feeling more comfortable with advertising on all these platforms. Today, a lot of advertisers rely on social media to get their products to the market, and the most relieving part is that it’s not that expensive.

Social Media Pages

 

 

Advertisers were looking for a new way of sending information quickly to users at any given time. Facebook made it easier for advertisers by creating Facebook pages. Advertisers would then create pages for their products with an option for users to like or subscribe and read more information about the products their advertising or gain first preference to new product lines. Other advertisers joined the ship but still, it wasn’t enough to get more consumers. They needed other angles.

Social Media Influencers

Now the years have gone and social media numbers increased, resulting in more advertisers joining and using social media to advertise brands and products. Now this resulted in a lot of competition amongst advertisers. Advertisers had to come up with strategies to attract more consumers. So with social media users posting more of themselves and receiving positive feedback and likes from other social media users, advertisers found a way to capitalize on that. This is how influencer marketing was born. 

Say for instance you have a huge impact and following on social media. Advertisers approach you with aid of increasing more followers for you and in return increase more revenue for them. What would happen is advertisers would sponsor the individual with products and post him/herself using the products, influencing other users to try the products.

The idea of one brave advertiser using a well known individual to advertise products and brands was genius and resulted in plenty of revenue for the advertiser, to such an extent that other advertisers joined the frame. 

The Future

 

The future looks bright for social media advertising. We now have kids as young as 15 years, and adults above 45 years using social media. We have seen a whole lot of influencers coming up over the years and that has also increased the number of social media users, which made it easy for advertisers to advertise to a wider market. I believe that ten years from now, social media advertising will have a huge impact on the advertising industry worldwide, and also have more younger kids than 15 years using social media.

07 May

Posted at 13:05h in Content Marketing, Thought Leadership

Before I begin, let me warn you that this article is not going to reveal any magic tricks that would get you to the first page of Google search results overnight. These kinds of things require effort, patience and persistence.

At the same time, this post is not about any very high-level stuff. Instead, everything I’m about to discuss is super tactical and actionable. Anyone who knows the basic of using the Internet can apply these tricks. You don’t need to be a programmer or a hard-core coder to do the basic SEO. So keep reading.

Let’s face it, SEO can be hard, and it’s even harder when you read the same advice over and over again. You know the stuff I’m talking about. You must have heard of the common SEO tactics like optimizing your title tags, sharing your content on social media, publishing great content etc. These suggestions are not completely useless, but they do not rocket your site to the top of Google. Why? Because everyone with a website is following the same advice. So to rank above them, you need to do something completely different, which is exactly what I’m going to walk you through right now.

If you want a quick summary of all the strategies that I’ll be discussing in this post, you can watch the short video given below.

Find an Opportunity Keyword

Starting with step number 1, find an opportunity keyword. An opportunity keyword is like a regular keyword but better. I’ll explain. You probably noticed that Google’s first page is packed with more stuff than ever before. For example, take a look at the first page for keyword ‘SEO Tools’ in the screenshot below.

You’ve got a bunch of ads above the fold, a featured snippet, a questions box, and news results, which is exactly why now I focus almost 100% on opportunity keywords.

So, what are the opportunity keywords? Opportunity Keywords are keywords with a high organic click-through-rate. In other words, they are terms that don’t have a bunch of stuff on the first page that distracts people from the organic results.

Bottom line — look at the search results before picking a keyword. If it’s packed with stuff, consider going for an opportunity keyword that’s going to get you more clicks. With that, let’s move on to step number two.

 

Check Out the Content Competition

Okay, so you’ve found an opportunity keyword. What’s next? Well, most people whip open WordPress and start writing. But that’s actually a huge mistake. In fact, that’s what I used to do back in the day. I’d write something that I think would rank in Google. Today, I know better. Today, I analyze the first page results to see what’s already working. In other words, I check out my content competition. And once I figure out the type of content that Google wants to see for that keyword, then I start creating content.

For example, look at the first page results for the keyword ‘paleo desserts’ in the screenshot below.

As you can see, the results are lists of dessert recipes. So if you wanted to write for that keyword, you wouldn’t want to write a blog post like ‘what makes a dessert paleo or not’. Instead, you’d want a post that lists out a bunch of recipes.

Here’s another example. As a digital marketing specialist, one of my most important keywords is actually ‘keyword research’. Back in the day, when I looked at the content that was ranking for that term, I noticed that they didn’t list out tips or strategies for finding keywords. Instead, they were all huge guides. So I decided to create a guide that covered pretty much everything there is to know about keyword research, which helped me crack the top three for this super competitive term. With that, it’s time for our third step.

 

Create Unique Content

Create content that’s different or better. When it comes to creating content for SEO, you have two main options. Option number one: you can create something different. Option number two is to create something better. I’ll explain. Most of the time you want to publish something that’s just way better than what’s already out there. But sometimes it makes more sense to create something completely unique. For example, a few months ago I found the opportunity keyword ‘cryptocurrency scams’, and when I looked at the content competition, I noticed that most of the results were list posts, like ‘4 common cryptocurrency scams’. Now, I could’ve created a giant list post like ‘100 cryptocurrency scams you need to pay attention to’, but that wouldn’t make any sense. In this case, it made more sense to create something different. So that’s what I did. I spent two weeks writing an ultimate guide for ‘ tracing cryptocurrency scammers after their exit ‘. Since my content was completely different from what was already out there, it really stood out, which led to tons of shares on social media, backlinks and Google rankings.

Like I mentioned earlier, you can also just create something that’s simply better than what’s already out there. For example, a while back I wanted to rank for the keyword ‘invest in ripple’. When I looked at the content that was already ranking, I noticed that most of them were lists of ways to buy ripple. Now, I could’ve created my own list of 20 ways to invest in ripple, but I knew that that would just blend in. So I decided to create something way better. Specifically, I published this article on what you need to know before investing in ripple. At the end of the day, that post did really well.

 

Add Your Hook

This is an advanced SEO strategy, so if you’re new to SEO, you might want to skip this step. With that out of the way, here’s how it works. You probably already know that in general, pages with the most backlinks rank highest in Google. But how do you get people to link to you? Here’s a simple two-step process. Step number one: figure out why people link to the content in your industry, a.k.a. the hook. Step number two: include that hook in your content.

For example, last year I noticed that more and more marketing blogs were publishing content about voice search, and when I read that content I noticed something super interesting. When people wrote about voice search, they almost always cited stats and data, and when they mentioned a stat, they linked to the source. Bingo! So I created a post about voice search that was packed with bite-sized steps. So, how did it go? According to Ahrefs, my post has been linked to thousands of times, and if you look at those individual links, most of them reference a specific step from my post.

Now data is one type of hook that you can use. Here are three others that are working really well right now. First up we have unique techniques. Think about it, what do blogs and news sites love to cover? New stuff. And when you create something new, you’ve got yourself a hook. For example, a couple of months ago I wrote about the early education trends for 2020. The post got 184 backlinks in only 3 days!

The next hook is to position your content as an ultimate guide. This is actually one of my favourite hooks. Why? Because it’s really straightforward! In fact, when you publish a massive guide, your guide itself is the hook. Let’s take a look at a real-life example. A few weeks ago, I published this definitive guide on dealing with office politics. Now, in my opinion, this is the most comprehensive guide on the topic out there. In fact, the fact that my post covers everything there is to know about that topic, is the hook. For example, once in a while, a blogger might mention about politics at the workplace, but they’re not going dive deep into a full explanation of it and how to deal with it in a productive way. So they link to my guide as a way for their readers to learn more and find solutions to their work-related problems.

Our last hook is to include results from case studies in your content. In my experience, case studies are one of the easiest hooks that you can use. And all you need to do is feature one result in your case study. This is a lesson that I had to learn the hard way. For example, a few years ago I published a case study post on my blog, and it featured a ton of results. Some were about traffic, some were about social shares, and other stats were related to email subscribers. All these stats meant that my case study lacked that single hook that would make someone want to link to it. And that’s one of the reasons that my post struggled to get links. On the bright side, I did learn a valuable lesson from that post. If you want people to link to your case study, you need to feature one specific result.

 

Optimize Your Site’s On-Page SEO

There’s a lot that goes into optimizing your content for SEO. So instead of covering every single SEO technique on the planet, I’m going to focus on two strategies that are working really well right now. The first strategy is to use short URLs. When my team and I analyzed a million Google results, we found a clear correlation between short URLs and higher Google rankings. So if you’re URLs tend to be super long, cut them down so they’re nice and short.

Now to be clear, I don’t recommend going back and changing your existing URLs because that can do more harm than good. Instead, just make your new URLs short and sweet. For example, my URLs are usually just my article title or my main keyword plus a word before or after it.

 

Create Internal Links

Next up we have internal linking. Yep, internal links still work, but you have to do it right. Specifically, you want to link from high authority pages on your site to pages that you want to rank. Those internal links will send authority to the pages that you want to rank, which can give them a nice rankings boost.

For example, you must have noticed that I am linking a few of my other posts into this article. Since this post is brand new, it currently has absolutely zero authority. So I am linking it to other posts from my site that lots of people have already linked to, and I’ll be doing vice versa as well. That will add internal links to my new post. That’s all there is to it.

 

Apply the Skyscraper Technique

Now you might’ve already heard of the skyscraper technique. It’s a content marketing and SEO approach that went viral a few years ago. The original skyscraper technique is pretty cool, but it doesn’t cover something that’s super important for ranking in Google today, and that is search intent. Search intent is what a Google searcher is looking for when they perform a search. And the better your content matches their intent, the higher you’ll rank.

Let’s look at how this works with a quick example. When I first started my blog, Opinined, I wrote this post about 5 realistic ways to make money online. In general, this post did pretty well in terms of social shares and comments. But no matter what I did, it wouldn’t rank for any keyword, including my main keyword ‘make money online’. Then one day it hit me. My page didn’t match the search intent for that keyword. I’ll explain. Most of the content on Google’s first page for ‘make money online’ were bite-sized freelancing tips and strategies. In other words, they were list posts. My content was a high-level strategy post. People who searched for my keyword didn’t want to learn high-level strategies; they wanted a list of bite-sized tips. So I have decided to rewrite my content from scratch, which I’ll be publishing soon. Specifically, I will be rewriting it to better match search intent.

 

Work on Your Content’s Design

In my experience, your content’s design can make or break your SEO. Imagine that you just wrote the best post ever written, but it looks very dull and boring. No one in their right mind is going to link to that page, and Google searchers that see an ugly page like that are going to bounce back to the search results. That’s why I personally spend a lot of time, money and energy on content design.

If you don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on every single post that you publish, no worries. Here are three simple ways that you can make your content look awesome. First up, we have images, screenshots and pictures. I use a ton of screenshots and images in every post. Next, you can make your content look nicer with blog post banners or featured images. Post banners are those custom-made images that go at the top of your post. Now sometimes I use a 220 by the 220-pixel image in my intro and sometimes I go with a giant banner. Finally, we have charts and visuals. Not only do charts and visuals look really cool, but also they help people understand complicated stuff from your post. And they don’t need to be super fancy or expensive to work.

 

Build Backlinks

So you just published an awesome piece of content on your site. A piece of content that has a hook and it’s also optimized for search intent. So what’s next? It’s time to build links to that page. Here’s how. First, use something called the content roadshow. This strategy is all about getting your content in front of the right people. Who are the right people? The people who run blogs in your industry! With that, here’s exactly how the content roadshow works.

When you write a precious piece of article, to get the word out, try to find people who recently shared content on that topic on Twitter. Send each of these people a personalized version of an outreach script. Note that you shouldn’t sound pushy; just offer to send them a link to your post. This simple technique can land you a ton of social shares from authority bloggers.

Next, you want to use broken link building. This strategy is pretty simple. First, find a broken link on someone’s website, then pitch your content as a replacement for the dead link. If you do this by helping out the person you approach, before even asking for anything, they will be more than happy to add your link.

 

Encourage Comments and Community

A few years ago, a Google employee made waves when he said that comments can help your Google ranking. Personally, I think he meant that comments and community can indirectly help your rankings. For example, people who feel like they’re part of your site’s community are going to be more likely to share and link to your stuff.

Either way, I’ve found a clear correlation between comments and rankings. So how do you get more people to leave comments? One thing that’s really helped me is to reply to every comment that I get. I see lots of people complaining that no one comments on their blog posts. But when I do look at their blog, they don’t even bother to reply to the few comments that come in. The truth is if you want to build a community on your site, you’ve got to reply to comments.

07 May

Posted at 11:25h in Social Media

Hashtag marketing is so common now that most business owners and marketers view it as a regular thing.

However, back in the day, not many people even understood the concept of hashtags and what you should use them for.

Moreover, there were probably only several people who figured out how to use hashtags for marketing back then. To understand how it works now, it is important to know how hashtags came to be and who started it all. Here are the history and all the secrets of hashtag marketing on social media.


Short History of Hashtags

The hashtag #sandiegofire helped people to be informed about the latest news on the tragedy.

However, the term itself (“hashtag”) was coined by Stow Boyd on his blog. In 2009, Twitter officially acknowledged hashtags and introduced a code that immediately hyperlinked the word or phrase preceded by the # sign.

In 2010, Twitter started highlighting hashtags that were the most popular on its platform at that specific moment. These highlights were called “trending” or “trending topics” – two terms that became closely associated with social media.

In January 2011, Instagram added hashtag support and that same month Audi premiered its Super Bowl commercial with a hashtag campaign. Perhaps, this can be considered the first time a high-profile brand used hashtag marketing on social media.

Many other social media platforms soon followed in the footsteps of Twitter and Instagram with Google+ starting to link hashtags automatically in October 2011, Vine being launched with hashtag support in January 2013, Flickr adding hashtag support to its iOS app in March 2013, and Facebook adding hashtag support in June 2013.


Hashtag Statistics

No matter how many people keep saying that hashtag marketing is real, there will still be skeptics who claim that it’s all nonsense and there are more effective ways to grow your following on social media. Luckily, there are many statistics that prove these skeptics wrong:

  •  Using hashtags on Twitter and Instagram can improve your engagement rates by up to 12.6%.
  • Though you can add up to 30 hashtags on Instagram, the optimal number per post is 9. Other platforms
  • have different optimal numbers of hashtags according to studies.
  • The most popular Instagram hashtags is #love.
  • Tweets with 1-2 hashtags are 55% more likely to be retweeted.

 

Hashtag Marketing Secrets

Now that you know where hashtags came from and why they are important, there are some things you should know about how to use them effectively in your social media marketing campaign. Here are some tips and tricks for hashtag marketing:

  • Use the Right Number:

As mentioned earlier, it is important to know that certain social media platforms need a certain number of hashtags in your posts.          Instagram’s optimal number of hashtags per post is 9, Twitter’s is 1-2, Facebook’s is 0, Pinterest’s is 0, and LinkedIn’s is 2-3. Of course, there are not enough studies to say anything for certain, but these numbers should serve as an orienteer for you to start from.

  • Always Localize Your Hashtags:

Many brands that want to reach foreign audiences while also engaging with their local ones, so they start translating their content and posting these translations. However, remember that your hashtags should also be properly localized in such cases. You can use professional writers from an online writing service.

  • Track Your Hashtag Performance:

You will be using a certain number of hashtags in your posts with at least several of these hashtags being repeated throughout your posts. This is why you need to know how well your hashtags are performing, because if they don’t work, what’s the point in using them? There are special apps, programs, and tools that you can find hashtags and helps you track the performance of them and check if it is satisfactory enough.

  • Check Different Metrics:

This tip applies both to track the performance of your hashtags and to track the performance of your posts. There is a variety of metrics that you need to track to be able to see the full picture and understand what should be changed and what should be kept.

You need to track popularity (how popular is the hashtag), engagement or interactions (how many people interact with the hashtag and how many people engage with your post when they see it), reach (how many people see the hashtags you use), and users (who uses the hashtags you use and whether or not these people are your target audience).

  • Use Different Types of Hashtags:

There are several types of hashtags you want to be using: general (e.g. #love #spring), branded (#Nike #JustDoIt), industry-specific (e.g. #redmattelipstick #cherryfrostedcake), trending (any hashtags that are trending at that specific moment), event (e.g. #ComicCon2020 #SuperBowl2020), and campaign or ad (hashtags created specifically for your campaign). If you make sure to use all of these different types of hashtags, you will be able to reach different segments of your audience and get more exposure.


Final Thoughts

To sum up, hashtags have been around for a little less than two decades, but they have taken an important role in the world of digital marketing and are not likely to disappear anytime soon. If you know the basics of hashtag marketing, you will be able to build a strong community around your brand and grow your social media following exponentially

05 May

Posted at 21:01h in Digital Marketing, Thought Leadership

If you are new in the world of marketing, you could probably be wondering “What do B2B and B2C even mean? Believe it; these two terms are only common to marketers. 

 

To get you started, let’s define them.B2B (Business-to-Business) is the kind of marketing in which one business promotes its services to another business. It is done with consideration of the needs and interests of the customer. A perfect example is a company that supplies foodstuffs to a restaurant. The company is selling its goods to another business (the restaurant), which in turn sells the food to the final customers. The company’s process of promoting and selling its services to the restaurant is known as B2B marketing. Else ways, B2C (Business-to-Consumer) marketing is the process of promoting and selling goods and services to the final consumer. It is dedicated to the needs, interests, and challenges of the final consumer. So far, we can see that B2B and B2C are not very far from each other. The final consumer is always the target in both cases. For example, a company must supply Chinese foodstuffs to a Chinese restaurant because the clients want Chinese food. In some cases, B2B marketing can become B2C marketing and vice versa.

 

Now, what draws the line between B2B and B2C marketing?

 

Here are the differences between the two.

 

1. Decision Making Process

For any B2B transaction to be made, a decision has to be made through a long and hefty process. Two businesses have to take into perspective all the factors affecting both of them. The selling business must convince the buying business that they need their products.

Also, the buyer must weigh between buying and not buying. Both businesses aim at maximizing profit. The process of trying to determine the feasibility of the purchase may take a long time before a decision is made. On the other hand, the B2C decision-making process is straight to the point. Only one or a few stakeholders are involved to decide on purchasing a product or service.

2. Mode of Communication

B2B marketing does not involve sweet-talking and emotional conviction of purchase. It is about professionalism and formal business. The two businesses usually work towards building a long term relationship if the Return on Investment (ROI) is acceptable.

B2C customers can be convinced based on just talking and establishing a rapport. It mostly involves emotions and interests. However, it is short term. A customer can keep buying from the same seller. However, no signed agreement ties them together.

3. Motive of Purchase

Why would a web development company sell telemedicine software to a hospital? The purpose is purely for increasing efficiency in terms of service delivery to the patients. B2B businesses provide their services for expertise and efficiency purposes. Contrarily, most B2C buyers only purchase goods and services for entertainment and basic use. A consumer can buy gaming software from the same web development company for fun purposes.

4. After-Sale Maintenance

In most B2C deals, the engagement ends right after the transaction and installation. The buyer and the seller may never meet again. However, B2B businesses must follow up on their products and ensure efficiency to maintain a perfect relationship with the client business. An internet provider must keep monitoring the strength of their internet all the time to ensure that the client stays satisfied. This also applies to products like software. In case of a breakdown, the seller must fix it depending on the agreement between the two parties.

5. Period of Engagement

In most cases, B2B businesses sign contracts with their client business to provide their services for a certain period. This period can be a minimum of 6 months. Unlike B2C marketing, B2B doesn’t keep changing their sellers all the time. When the services are satisfactory, the contracts can be renewed once the period elapses.B2C customers have no long-term relationship with their sellers. Even when it exists, it’s mostly informal and not recorded anywhere.

Bottom Line

Business-to Business and Business-to-Client marketing are different although they have numerous similarities. As a marketer, you should understand them to make sure you provide quality services. Being on your company’s sales team means you need to know how to represent your company in front of other businesses and even final consumers. Do you need to market your business? BWD Advertising is an affiliate marketing company that displays the power of your business to your potential clients.

05 May

Posted at 13:38h in Advertising

The development of creative advertising is not an easy process and those responsible for its development – i.e. art directors and copywriters – need to be able to identify with the target audience.
When developing and analysing advertising ideas, creative directors, account planners and clients regularly ask the question: ‘What is the big idea?’ 
David Ogilvy once said, ‘It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night’
So what exactly is “the big idea”? This is a difficult question to answer because whether or not one thinks an idea is highly creative (or big in this context), is subjective. The process of coming up with creative ideas is not just about making advertising stand out simply because it is different. To help market a brand, creative advertising, or the big idea, must be:
  • Relevant
  • Original
  • Impactful
  • Supportive of the marketing and advertising strategies
For the purposes of this article, we will discuss the techniques developed by James Webb Young, an  advertising agency executive who published a guide in 1965 called A Technique for Producing Ideas. Although they’re over five decades old, these techniques are as relevant today as they were when first written and the book was recently re-published.

 

1. Immersion

During this stage the focus is on learning specifically about the issue. Secondly, learning about more general issues may help in the development of ideas. The internet is a valuable resource in this regard as it is often quite easy to identify subject matter that is similar, but unrelated, to the issue at hand.

 

2. Ideation

To avoid only coming up with the most obvious ideas, it is necessary to examine the problem from as many perspectives as possible and then as many alternative ideas as possible need to be generated. Using the information gathered during the immersion stage, it is useful to experiment by combining seemingly unconnected ideas. Tools that are useful at this stage are Brainstorming, SCAMPER and DEsign Thinking to name just three.
In advertising agencies, ideation is normally the responsibility of the creative teams, supported by the account planner and creative director. Once ideas have been developed, they are presented internally and evaluated before being presented to the client.

 

3. Brain Fog

There comes a time in every creative person’s work when you simply cannot think of new ideas. At this stage, the creative person can become frustrated and willing to give up. When this happens, the best approach is to step away from the problem and do something else so the brain does not get stuck on the problem.

 

4. Incubation

Incubation often leads to the ‘aha’ moment – that moment when sudden inspiration occurs unexpectedly. The reason why these ideas  often occur at unexpected times is due to incubation. When the problem is set aside for a while, the subconscious mind ‘incubates’ the problem to find unexpected, creative solutions.

 

5. Illumination

This can be described as the ‘aha’ moment, explained in ‘incubation’. This often happens when the brain is concentrating on something else, or is completely relaxed. Many creative people say that their best ideas occur  when they are in the shower, or driving. This is because the brain has been working subconsciously, trying to make connections between thoughts that might result in a creative idea.

 

6. Evaluation

Finally, any idea needs to work. In terms of advertising, an idea must be based on strategy. It needs to appeal to the target audience and it must be unexpected to gain attention. It is useful to leave a creative idea for a day or two before evaluating it as many creative people admit that often their creative ideas just do not work and sometimes the idea they thought was wonderful does not seem so great a day or two later.

 

Final Thoughts

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. Advertising agencies of the future will increasingly depend on the creativity of their members to survive. Whatever the challenge is and will be, Always strive to get your creative juices working because creativity is a function of leadership. It requires navigating uncharted territory and having the courage to face adversity to bring your vision into fruition.

05 May

Posted at 08:36h in Social Media

Gone are the days of relying on the door to door marketing, making face to face pitches to customers. Relying on television, print ads, and commercials are not enough to gain your audience’s attention. It’s the age of social media. If you want to succeed in there there are plenty of social media tools that can help you.

As the number of social media users is only going up, if you are not using one or more of these platforms to grow your business, then you are missing out on a very good opportunity.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, these are all household terms today and users are actively using and exploring these platforms.

These free platforms provide you with the opportunity to share about your brands and convert users and visitors into customers.

All social media channels are brimming with competition for more customers and you need to step up your campaigns to fulfill this goal. Moreover, this year, influencer marketing and user-generated content will be huge in the social media industry.

So, it is to gain this extra edge against your competitors that you should use social media tools to promote your business.

Here’s a list of social media tools that will help you keep your social media game strong. This list will also give you an answer to:

  • What are the best social networks managing app?
  • Which are some good tools used by social media marketing agencies to measure social reach?
  • What is a good social listening tool?
  • Which tool to use to enhance your influencer marketing efforts?
  • What are some helpful tools for marketing?

 

 Unbox Social (For Social media analytics and reporting, Influencer tracking)

 

Unbox Social is a social media analytics tool that gives you an in-depth analysis of your handles on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Using this tool is pretty easy and you can track various metrics to measure your performance. Apart from that, the metrics are also bifurcated based on an audience, stories, and posts.

This makes your analysis process easier and quicker. You can also generate social media reports for your social media activity through this tool across the above-mentioned platforms. You can customize social media reports by the period for which you want it as well as by the format.

unbox social media tool

Generate reports in the pdf, ppt, or Xls formats. 2020 will see a lot of focus on Instagram stories as a form of content. The social media reports by Unbox Social offer insights about your stories as well.

From the engagement rate and views and likes per story to average engagement and impressions on all stories, Unbox Social has it all covered for you. And the best part is, you can also schedule reports to be sent directly to your inbox.

Another feature that is a big hit, is the news feed. The home page of Unbox displays a news feed that is curated just for you, by you. Why is this so cool? Because it keeps you updated about what’s happening in your industry and you don’t miss out on anything.

 

 Buffer Reply

 

Buffer is a social media tool to drive a campaign involving different social media platforms. One of the tools that Buffer offers for driving traction is Buffer Reply.

It comes with features that make it convenient for you to manage conversations across social media inboxes through one platform. With customer service management going mainstream on social media, this tool offers just the features to help you do that.

buffer reply social media for business

You can engage in meaningful interactions with your audience through this platform. With Buffer Reply you can get full overviews of conversations with customers.

Apart from that, Buffer offers a tool called Analyze. It helps you track your performance through meaningful stats and facts on your social media marketing and get insights on which content performs best.

 

Hootsuite

 

Hootsuite is a multifaceted social media tool to drive a campaign and promote business. Also, we can count it as one of the most popular social media marketing tools. It covers almost all the major social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.

It offers an automated scheduling tool to maintain your social media presence. You can create an inventory of all the content that you want to post along with creatives.

hootsuite-insights

Set it up according to the content calendar that the tool offers and schedule the times and dates when you want to post these. This tool, in this sense, works well as a time saver.

It also offers a team management feature, Hootsuite makes teamwork a smooth process for you. It also comes with features that protect your brand from social media risks.

 

Bubochat (Chatbot For Instagram)

 

Ever since the DM or direct message feature was introduced on Instagram, people are actively using it to interact with others. This includes businesses whose products they want to use.

Sometimes the number of messages that you receive in your Instagram DM can be too overwhelming. Moreover, different people come from different places and different time zones.

bubochat

Maintaining your Instagram DM can become difficult. At the same time, you want to build a relationship of trust with your target audience.

Responding to each message that you receive from your audience is an important part of building your relationship with them.

The Bubochat Instagram DM Chatbot does all the work of responding automatically to all the messages you get on the platform. With this tool, your Customer Management System is covered on Instagram.

 

Mention

 

With Mention, you can monitor all conversations about your brand on social media as well as on any blogs, websites, forums, etc.

As a part of the constantly evolving process of brand building, you need to be well aware of when, where, and in what way are people talking about your brand.

Mention offers tools with which you can get alerts whenever there is a mention about your brand. This tool allows you to track your reputation across different social media networks.

real-time-monitor

Tracking and understanding your audience’s sentiment towards your brand is important. You can follow all the conversations and mentions about your brand across social media and the web. You can then form a direction for your social media strategy.

 

Videoshop for creating IGTV videos

 

Video content is the most sought after content today and is referred to as the ‘Future of Content Marketing’ now and then. Recently, the long-form vertical video feature made its debut on social media on Instagram. IGTV has made way for a new content type on the platform.

You can create innovative, engaging videos with IGTV. You can use Videoshop for easy, streamlined video editing on your smartphones.

videoshop

Cut out unwanted moments and parts, add subtitles, or integrate music into the app. With this tool, you can do all of these things. Add this tool to make perfect IGTV videos that will help you increase your engagement.

Not just for IGTV videos, you can use Videoshop to create content for other video type content as well.

 

Canva

 

Do we even need to reiterate how important visual content is for your business?

Visual content is a more preferred type of content than textual content. To pick up your visual content marketing strategy, Canva can be very helpful.

Canva comes with templates designed for different social media platforms ranging from Facebook to Instagram to YouTube thumbnails to Email invitations and even twitter headers.

canva

On Canva, you can also go for infographics to make your content even more insightful and interesting, with elements of bar graphs, numbers, text, pictures, vectors, etc.

It also comes with photo editing features and offers an exhaustive list of free badges and icons. You can add textures, frames, and do so much more to create excellent visual content.

From Social Media Ads to neat, eye-catching templates for your Instagram story, this tool is the best option for creating great photo content.

 

10. Planable

 

Planable simplifies your feedback process by having team members and clients discuss posts right where they are created. It eliminates those endless email threads and never lose track of important feedback. As a social media agency, it gets from planning to campaign sign-off faster and with no misunderstandings.

Now you can schedule your posts to social media knowing that the client has seen it and is happy with your work. So both of the parties will be assured of the process.

 

Bonus!

 

Apart from the tools mentioned above, here are a few more tools that help you tweak your photos, texts, and much more:

  • Crello for graphic designing with 10,000 free templates
  • Fastory for Instagram stories
  • PixelMe, the URL shortener for savvy metrics
  • Promo, for marketing videos
  • Tagwin for Instagram contests and giveaways

We hope that you have found a sense of direction with this list of social media tools to grow your business in 2020. It can be a daunting task to pick one tool since there is hardly any single tool that fits the bill. We also listed the best Instagram tools to help your Instagram campaigns.

We would only recommend you to pick different tools for different goals of your marketing campaign and go for the kill. Only to make it more convenient for you, here is a snapshot of all the tools and what each of these entails for your business:

  1. Unbox Social for social media analytics, reporting and tracking influencers
  2. Buffer Reply for streamlined conversations with your audience across social media inboxes
  3. Hootsuite for automated scheduling of content posts
  4. BuboChat for chatbot for Instagram DM
  5. Mention for social media monitoring
  6. Videoshop for enhancing video content, especially for IGTV on your smartphone
  7. Canva for enhancing photo content

So, which tools are you picking to get your social media game going?

17 Jan

Posted at 10:24h in Digital Marketing, Website Design

Everyone wants to be #1 on Google. That is the goal, or it should be the goal of everyone who owns a website. But it takes time. A Lot of time, actually. It takes much time and effort to improve your rankings and visibility on Google. Many people assume that if they build a website and put it online, it will immediately show up in the Goggle search, and they will get a flood of visitors to their website. This is especially true of eCommerce websites selling things.

This assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. The websites that are first on google are not new. It took them years of hard work to get to where they are. And they followed pretty much the same plans to get there. Some DID get there faster than others, and those developed aggressive strategies to improve their Google rankings. These strategies are things that anyone can put into place. And if they follow them faithfully and aggressively, they can improve their Google ranking. These strategies may still take time, and it could take a couple of months or even a year to have an impact. You need to keep working at it and not sit back and wait for it to happen. It’s an ongoing process that takes diligence and consistency.

Here are some proven strategies to improve your Google ranking

 

1) Start On The Right Foot

Perform a technical SEO audit on your site. Google uses many things to figure out what ranking to give to a website. Taking care of basic search engine optimization is the best place to start. If you know how to do this, then you can do it yourself. If not, there are dozens of good companies that specialize in SEO that can do it for you. Some are quite pricey, while others are pretty reasonable. It will depend on your budget.

2) Optimize Your Website For Mobile Users

The majority of people online are searching on their phones. This trend will only continue as phones become more advanced and cheaper. Make sure your site looks good on a mobile phone. And make sure your loading time is fast because people have short attention spans and will click out if your site takes to much time to load. Google also now uses loading speed to determine rankings.

3) Focus on Links

It would help if you fixed all your broken links. People do not like being directed to 404 pages. It makes for less than ideal user experience, and Google is all about user experience, so it does not like them either. Also, you should have many internal links on your site that lead to other content on your website.

4) Choose Keywords Carefully

Do proper keyword research. MOZ and AHREFS are good for that. Choose low to medium competition keywords and consider long-tail keywords. You will have a better chance of ranking for them.

5) Backlinks

Backlinks are vital for Google ranking. Google considers backlinks as authority for your website. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more authority Goggle will assign to your website. Consider Guest Posting on other websites in exchange for a backlink. Choose high authority sites. Do not buy backlinks even if it’s tempting. Poor and spammy backlinks can hurt your ranking

6) Have Amazing Content

Content is vital to rankings. Google will rank great content high. Consider putting fantastic content on your site frequently. You can even have good quality Guest Posters on your website to help with content. The more quality content you have on your site, the better!

7) Give Attention To On-Page Optimization

Be creative with your Titles and make them brief and one of a kind. Your meta descriptions should invoke curiosity and make them want to click on your site. If you skip meta descriptions, then Google does it for you, and it’s not always relevant. It’s better to do good ones yourself.

These are some great ways to improve your Google rankings. Don’t expect results overnight. But with patience and diligence, you can move up in ranking, and your website will get the traffic you want. Don’t give up after just a short while. If you hold out, the results will get there, and your site will do fantastic in Google search.

03 Dec

Posted at 06:49h in Branding, Corporate Identity

Choosing the right profile for your business design plays a vital role in leaving an everlasting impression on your clients. The company profile provides a demonstration of the potential audience about the effectiveness of the brand in meeting their requirements. It is a prerequisite to choose a catchy and attractive company profile design to grab the attention of the customers and beat the competitive edge.

 

Benefits of company profile for creating brand awareness

A company profile provides a brief look into the company to the targeted customers. It helps common people to have a general idea about the products and services, offered by the company. With the rise in the competition in the market, it is essential to have an attractive company profile to get the attention of the customers and stand ahead in the crowd. Whether you are a startup or a well-established brand, it is a must to create a profile for your brand as it offers opportunities for marketing the brand successfully. You need to present all the required information in an appealing way to entice the targeted audience.

 

Tips to create unique company profile designs for your business

If you are planning to create unique and amazing designs for the profile of your business, it is recommended to follow the below-mentioned tips:

 

Tell a compelling story

Your targeted audience can connect better with your brand as you come up with a compelling story, instead of a list of facts. If you want to make a difference with the profile of your business, you need to tell a story about your brand. However, not every brand has a great story to tell. The important point is that you need to present the information in the form of a story to stand out in the crowd.

 

Keep it simple

The company profile should not be too short or too broad as it drives away the audience. Instead, it should have all the ingredients, which are required for selling your business. Write it in a way, so that your audience can understand different specifics of your business.

 

Adding visual appeals

Adding visual appeals to the profile is considered to be a vital option to make your brand stand out in the crowd. You need to say no to traditional and corporate style photos and instead choose vibrant and appealing pictures for the profile. Make sure to keep the company profile page updated and dynamic by using the most appealing photos. However, you should ensure to use relevant pictures to your brand so that your audience can understand what you are talking about.

 

Organizing the narrative

There are three different styles that can be added to the profile of your brand. The Friendly Neighborhood perspective is considered to be a suitable option for start-ups and medium scale businesses. Here the local communities can reap a wide array of benefits from such kind of narrative. It focuses on the values of the brand when it comes to offering top quality of services and products.

 

The clean-cut and professional solution

This approach is considered to be an ideal solution for medium scale business and well-established brands which emphasizes the processes as well as the continuous development of different practices for optimization of the operations.

 

The Doer

This approach is suitable for businesses of various scales in creating brand awareness. It is considered to be highly effective in enhancing the traffic flow towards your website.

 

Adding a personal touch

If you want your business to stand out in the market, it is recommended to add a personal touch to it. It helps your customers to connect with you and strengthen the relationship with your brand.

 

Test it out

Before you are going to publish the description of the profile of your company, it is recommended to have someone else go through it. Make sure to have to get feedback and reviews from experts before publishing it.

Studies reveal that companies can find a boost in the return on investment of their business by having a unique design for the company profile. Believe it or not, but it says a lot about the brand, it represents. It is considered to be a suitable option to promote your brand among the targeted audience.

By creating a profile for your brand, you can let your targeted audience know about what your brand does, how it starts, what it has achieved, etc. It is essential to crafting it with immense care to stand out in the market.

 

06 Nov

Posted at 16:00h in Ecommerce, Website Design

Are you an aspiring entrepreneur? Or a businessman in need of expansion and success? Experience fast business growth by bringing e-commerce into play. The use of content management systems in building e-commerce websites has brought about a fantastic and positive transformation in business growth nowadays.

With the improvement in technology, web developers have created faster and simple ways to launch and run e-commerce websites within a short period in an economical way. The question behind this is, why is it that few firms still benefit from these e-commerce websites? The secret behind this is proper planning. As an entrepreneur, you need to know more about the kind of a picture your website home page will portray, the audiences, about your products and so many key factors that are essential for your potential customers to get to know about in your business. Here are some key factors to be considered.

Let your design match your products.

When designing your web page, make sure that everything visible in your site perfectly defines your website and the products and services you are dealing with. These things include images, text, color schemes among other features. Ensure that you keep your design coherent with what you are dealing with, so to bring out the overall look of your site.

Content management system choice.

Currently, the main software’s to build e-commerce websites is content management systems. Contrary to previous technology whereby a developer had to code the programs using word Pad, content management systems has ease the web editing process by enabling the users with comfortable environments to add new products, publish articles and edit an existing product without breaking any functionality or features in the process, alongside providing streamline process of creating and managing your website.

Content management systems exist in different forms. Each one of them contains unique features and different modes of operation, ranging from ease of online access to the provision of different classes of feature quality alongside payment terms. The known content management systems are;

-Word press.

-Drupal.

-Woocommerce.

-Virtue mart

-ZenCart.

-Prestashop.

-Shopify.

-Big Cartel

-Virtue mart among other CMS Systems.

Future growth.

The future growth of the business should be the factor that triggers the daily efforts of the entrepreneur. The future growth should be factored in when planning your e-commerce store. During the initial planning stages, the owner should not consider the current situation since it may affect the attention of the prospective clients and limit the possibilities of future expansions. The CMS store should be prepared to handle the current state and also long term growth, though no one can tell how fast the business may grow.

Customer Relations Management.

Some content management systems come with integrated customer relationship management solution also known as CRM solutions. With CRM solution you can gain insight into your customers’ behavior that will allow you to send automated emails, manage to follow-ups, access customer information and handle inquiries.

Guest checkouts.

Check out processes are very important especially when doing follow-ups, updating customers about changes in products and may by the introduction of new products, but its downside is that most customers do not want long processes that involve typing in personal information. Customers want to make quick and anonymous transactions ever, and the sites that require signing up and logging in before transactions may end up losing more potential customers.

Social proofs.

Clients always look for purchase evidence from your site. If your site provides or shows regular proofs of successful purchases and positive reviews from your clients, they will tend to trust getting products or services from your premises.

Web security.

Since you are handling your client’s personal and financial information, implementing appropriate cyber security measures in your site is very crucial. An e-commerce site is very vulnerable to hacking attempts than any other industry.

Purchase a domain name and hosting platform.

The basic thing you need to consider before thinking of any move is the domain name. gather information on how you are going to acquire the domain name, pricing, and any other related information.

Also, you should research hosting platform that favors your site, alongside hosting payment mode and respective hosting cost.

Get a web developer.

To have a perfect web page that sells, consider doing a perfect vetting on web development technicians. You can do these by getting information from top sites and also by referrals from friends.

Let the web developer demonstrate how they will create a stunning web by putting down a layout before the development starts. The web developer is also required to tell the time frame it will take to host the site.

Gather the required paperwork.

Get your legal business registration licenses and vendor licenses before you look for the attorney for assistance in the creation of your business. you must also finish up with your legal taxation agencies before you proceed with your site creation.

Next on paperwork, gather all information about your web content, structure and everything to be involved must be written down.

25 Oct

Posted at 09:54h in Internships

My internship here at BWD advertising has been amazing so far. This is my second week as an intern at BWD Advertising. I started this journey with BWD Advertising on Monday, October 7th, 2019, being an assignment I needed to complete from my college, Boston City Campus, where I have to at least spend 3 weeks with any agency and gather skills, gain experience, and learn how things are done in the “big leagues”. I have learned a lot I can say, and I have learned many things about myself, some I didn’t even know of. Though this journey is coming to an end soon, it’s my wish to continue with family learning more and maybe joining the family permanently. Here are some of the things I have learned in my journey so far:

Punctuality: As a soon to be marketing management graduate, I never really took the importance of time seriously. Arriving on time at the office can really work for you. As much as we seldomly arrive late for class, it doesn’t work like that in the work environment. Arriving on time makes it easier for you to be able to complete everything properly and finish in time. Respect time and Always be on time.

  • Learning company culture : We all went to school and studied, right? We have certain ways of doing our own things in our own way. I’ve learned to respect company culture and do tasks the way the company prefers them to be done. Say for instance I’m writing an article, I’d probably have my own way of writing that article, but one needs to respect how the company does their tasks.
  • Dedication: I’m so inspired by how the staff members at BWD Advertising are so dedicated to their work and achieve incredible results. Everyone does their work properly and with so much passion. The level of skill and professionalism is way above anything you could ever imagine and that inspires me to always be on top of my game when I’m around them. If you stay dedicated to your work at all times, you will achieve great results.
  • Completing tasks on time: I love the phrase they use here at BWD Advertising, “We grow when you grow”. To me this phrase means that whichever task/contract I’ll be assigned to if I give it my all and complete it to the best of my ability, not only will I improve, I get to make an impact on the client’s project.

 

I’ve learned to set a time frame for completing tasks. Here at BWD, we have to have a completed, fully functioning project in 10 days.

 

An internship is advantageous because it is in a business setting which allows the student to use the knowledge that they gained in the classroom towards practical applications. Not only do they put into practice the information and skills developed in the classroom, but they learn other skills not taught in the classroom, like particular shortcuts used in the specific industry, like electronics or accounting.  Being in a business setting also gives the student a “real-world” experience that enhances the student’s resume. This, in turn, makes the student more marketable and increases their chances of being hired directly after graduation.

I’ve put together a list of tips to help you succeed in this internship or any other internship

1. Do Your Research About the Company

Before your first day, put your Google and LinkedIn skills to work and be able to answer the following questions about the company.

  • What does the company do?
  • Who are the company’s competitors?
  • What is the name of the CEO?
  • How does your team’s work fit into the goals of the company?

2. Be Coachable

Your manager will need to invest time in you to help you be productive. How much time he/she invests will be a function of whether he/she’s seeing a return on that time. The best ways to show you want to learn is to ask for coaching (and be responsive to it), show curiosity about how things work and are committed to adding value to the team. My manager has been showing me all the ropes and how things work in the company and I must say, I’ve been learning a lot

3. Do Your Work Right

Whether it is a big project or a small task, here are questions you can ask to make sure you get it right. 

  • Do you have an example that I can look at?
  • How long do you think this should take me?
  • How/when do you want to check-in? 

Bonus points for interns who send a very, very short email update to their boss at the end of each day.  Two sentences: “Today I did X… Tomorrow I will focus on Y.” If you have a question, you can add it. That way your boss can course-correct if things aren’t going in the right direction.

4. Be Courageous. 

Every day, all day, always. Being an intern doesn’t make you weak. Don’t look like a weakling, don’t be the weakest link in the team. If there’s a challenge, tackle it head-on. Say this every day when you get to the office, “I know can do this and I will do it”.

  5. Dress Professionally

What should I wear? This is an eternal question. Your school wardrobe probably doesn’t cut it, but a new wardrobe is expensive.Invest in a few appropriate pieces, and don’t worry about wearing them a lot. In general, you don’t want your clothing to be what gets you noticed. No bare arms, cleavage, shorts, short skirts, crop tops, visible undergarments, sneakers or sandals. Jeans, if they are widely worn are okay, but not if they’re ripped.

Remember: Just because someone in social media marketing or finance wears flip flops and tank tops doesn’t mean you should.

6. Stay off Your Phone/Social Media

Personal texting, emails and the like should only happen on your lunch break or after hours. It might feel like exile to be off Instagram or Snapchat for hours at a time, but it’s expected in a professional environment. Putting your phone down or quickly changing your computer screen when someone comes up to your desk is a dead giveaway you’re focused on your own agenda and not your employer’s. Also, your company probably has guidelines for what you can/can’t post about the company online, especially on social media. Read and follow them. A nice photo of your team at your end of summer farewell, and a heartfelt message thanking them is great. Anything else probably isn’t helpful.

Most companies don’t mind if you listen to music with earbuds while you’re working but check with your boss. Ask, “I like to wear earphones because it helps me concentrate. Will that be okay here?”

7. Always Be Nice to the Admins

This is good advice for you in all your future jobs, but especially as an intern. Admins are the people who run the office, assist executives and generally keep things running smoothly. They’ll be on the lookout for any signs of an entitled attitude and having one won’t go well for you.Be friendly and polite at all times, and super grateful if they do help you. Admins are good at letting their boss know how different folks in the organization treat them. Be one of the good ones. 

As I’ve said earlier, this internship has been incredible. I would strongly recommend anyone who wants to learn about the industry to visit BWD Advertising and have insight and experience about anything regarding marketing, advertising, graphic designing and much more. Remember to be yourself and do your best.