Saturday, March 10, 2018
Video Marketing | Social Media Marketing
Top Tips For Using Video In Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
You only have seconds to stop someone’s thumb from scrolling and to grab their attention. Think of your video like a funnel and you will win. Grab their attention, deliver value, pitch them and then convert.
Use An Attention-Grabbing Thumbnail
With the speed consumers scroll through their social media feeds, you have to do something that grabs their attention to get them to stop on your video. Some tactics that have worked well for me are banners in video thumbnail that have a question on them similar to: “Do you want to grow your business?” or a banner with a statement like: “Don’t miss this opportunity!” Emojis in banners or an out of the ordinary picture can get people’s thumbs to stop scrolling.
Understand Why People Are Watching
When a user clicks to watch your video content, you often have as little as 10 seconds to not only grab their attention but reassure them that your video will live up to their expectations. That’s pretty difficult, considering the number of distractions and competition on social media platforms nowadays. When creating a video, it’s important that you understand your audience's goal. Why are they watching your video in the first place? Do they have an issue or problem they are trying to alleviate? Do they have an issue they might not even know about, but will?
Don’t force your product or service on them. Again, knowing the reason they are watching will help you better shape an opening. Whatever you do, you need to connect to their specific needs or issues. So start by introducing the issue or pain point they may be experimenting with direct language like “you” or “your company.” I usually ask them questions or set up a story that capitalizes on human emotion and walk them through the issue.
SEO - Backlinks | Social Media Marketing
4 SEO Mistakes That Are Costing You Traffic (And How to Avoid Them)
Do backlinks still matter in 2018? What’s with all the hype surrounding internal linking? Should you spend more time publishing long-form content?
If you’ve pondered over these questions while doing your recent site audit, then we’ve got some answers for you.
Optimizing your website for search engine result pages (SERPs) still remains a priority for most marketers. With new search engine algorithm updates and changing user perspectives, it’s important that we as marketers stay on top of the trends and constantly evolve our SEO methods and practices to rank higher in SERPs.
Having said that, some optimization techniques tend to do more harm than good, especially in the long run. To that end, here are 4 most common SEO mistakes and what you can do to avoid them.
1. Prioritizing Social Media Over Link Building
Many publishers turn to social media when they’ve just published a fresh piece of content in an effort to get more clicks, likes, and upvotes. Once the article gets the desired number of shares, it’s often tempting to abandon the link building quest completely and move on to the next piece of content.
But sadly, despite social media being a highly useful tool to promote articles, there is no proven correlation between social media shares and improved search rankings.
On the other hand, link building takes time and effort, but can help you gain more organic traffic in the long run. In fact, backlinks from authoritative sources continue to be one of the primary factors to rank high in search engines.
According to a recent study by Backlinko where they analyzed over 1 million Google search results, it was revealed that the number of domains linking to a page correlated with rankings more than any other factor.
How to Avoid it?
The quality of backlinks play a huge role in determining search engine success. If you’re able to earn backlinks from high domain authority sites, your organic rankings can improve in a matter of days. On the other hand, if you obtain links from bad neighborhood or indulge in black hat practices, your site may get penalized by Google into obscurity.
SEO Strategy - SEO Tips
5 Ways to Bootstrap SEO When You're on a Tight Budget
Every business should be implementing SEO strategies in order to improve their website’s search engine rankings. But unfortunately, there are a lot of marketers and small-business owners who are not. Why? Many of them use the “it’s out of my budget” excuse to justify their decision to ignore SEO. However, SEO is more cost-effective than many other forms of marketing, including pay-per-click ads and social media marketing. And while not every business will have the budget to spend thousands every month on an SEO campaign, there are some simple things that you can do to get the most search traffic possible on a tight budget.
1. Google My Business.
Small businesses and brick-and-mortar businesses should focus on gaining local exposure instead of trying to target potential customers located throughout the country. One way to improve your business’s local SEO is by optimizing its Google My Business page, formerly known as Google Places and sometimes called a Google Map listing.
Start by making sure you own the page and have access to make edits to your business' listing. Then move on to filling in any information that is missing on your page. Be as accurate and descriptive as possible, and don’t forget to incorporate a few keywords as well. When choosing categories to describe your business, it’s best to be specific. For example, if you are a personal injury law firm, choose “personal injury attorney” instead of simply “lawyer” or “law firm.”
Take advantage of all the fields, making sure to add your business hours, photos and as much other information as you possibly can. It only takes a few minutes to make these changes, but they can pay off in a huge way. After the page is complete, your business will have a listing on Google that will appear in local searches.
Data Science - Marketing ROI
Data Science Is The Key To Marketing ROI - Here's How To Nail It
This year alone, the U.S. is projected to absorb a shortfall of 190,000 data scientists — and that’s not even counting the 1.5 million more analysts and leaders needed to make use of the information big data supplies.
This is an especially terrifying prospect in the marketing world, where data science provides the signals that let marketers know their decisions have paid off. “In the end, the analytics won’t tell you the next big creative idea,” Elea Feit, assistant professor of marketing at Drexel University, says. “It will tell you when the next big creative idea is working.”
Data scientists can use data points and trends to help strategize content, tweak content to meet demand, and measure the outcomes of the actions taken by marketers. They combine the science of statistical models with the art of creative work to go past the “gut feelings” of the “Mad Men” era and into a space where marketers can not only see a payoff today, but also a payoff tomorrow.
What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
Having a wealth of knowledge is a huge advantage — until your knowledge surpasses others’ understanding. If people don’t know how to apply a significant piece of information, that data is useless.
This is why data science is so essential to the marketing equation. “ The most powerful data scientists are those who act as bridges between insights and people ,” says Kirill Eremenko, the founder and CEO of SuperDataScience, an online educational portal for data scientists and data science enthusiasts. “There’s a science behind analytics; however, communicating insights is an art.”
Friday, February 16, 2018
Small Business Marketing 101: SEO, Social Media
Small Business Marketing 101
Branding, services, promotions, products, pricing, prints, blogs, advertising, research and social media -- all of this is marketing. With all the marketing options out there, it can be difficult for small businesses to know what to do. Marketing is a concentrated effort to do push your brand across a variety of platforms and hope that enough makes it through to your customer. Customers need to hear your message several times, so brand, brand, brand! Here are some simple steps to help you market your small business:
1. Get organized. Getting an organized plan is the first step in any marketing effort. Make one. Start with brainstorming, create themes and transfer action items to a calendar or to-do list. Start small, and try to get a good ROI for everything you do. Create an elevator pitch: What can you tell people about your business, products and services in 30 seconds or less that keeps them interested and wanting more? Get customer input early -- if you are opening a storefront or restaurant, try hosting a soft opening or invitation-only event to get your kinks worked out and your mishaps and mistakes out of the way. Whatever you do, make a good first impression.
2. Get a website. In today’s technology-based world, the first thing a potential customer or employee does is Google your business. You need a website to show you’re real and to offer information about your business to potential customers. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and be sure to ask for search engine optimization. Use Google Analytics to track the traffic to your website, but be leery of people who promise you top positions on search engines. While there are lots of things that can be done to increase your ranking on various search engines, unless the developer works for Google, I would be leery of a promise to get you to the top. Remember that you get what you pay for. There are a ton of do it yourself website services, but depending on the features you need on your site, some things are better left to the experts.
3. Leverage social media. Let’s face it, everyone is on social media these days, and the majority of traffic still occurs on Facebook. If you are not using Facebook for your business, create a page today. You are leaving an opportunity on the table if you don’t. There has been a shift the past few years with more and more retirees joining the social media world. I guess they realize that if they want to keep up with their kids, grandkids, friends and neighbors, they better get with the program. In fact, retirees are often my best brand ambassadors and help promote our events.
4. Set up and claim your business online. Whether you get on board or not, information about your business is and will be on the internet. Wouldn’t you rather proactively control what people read or see about your business when they Google it? Do a search on different browsers to see what information you see about your company and then claim or create a listing for your business.
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