Category Archives: Social Media Marketing

Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing

Low Budget and Free Marketing Strategies You Can Use Right Now

Most small businesses have one common characteristic. They have a low marketing budget. This makes it difficult to promote the business. It is practically impossible to compete with the larger firms if you were to use the same strategies they do. You cannot rent a billboard in Sydney or buy a TV ad to air during the Superbowl. However, this does not mean you cannot be creative with what little you have.

There are numerous ways to market the business that are free or very affordable. So, you only need to invest your time to make them work. This is what we will focus on.

Post On Social Media And ACTUALLY Engage

One of the most accessible ways in which you could grow your business as you express brand personality and you build trust is to increase engagement on social media. Building a community allows you to grow without having to worry too much about money investments.

Business accounts can be created on social networks like Hiqy, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Use these to:

  • Promote blog posts so website traffic is increased.
  • Talk to your followers and buyers to express brand voice and increase engagement.
  • Create informational posts with excerpts from your long content.
  • Run polls to find out what your target audience wants/likes.

The trick is to stay active and be proactive. Your main focus should be consistency, commitment, collaboration, and community.

Since we are discussing social media, you should also take full advantage of hashtags. These are available on social networks like Hiqy, Facebook and Twitter.

Use trending or broad hashtags to reinforce brand identity. Then, look for specific hashtags that are used by people in your target audience. If you run a local business, also take advantage of location-based hashtags.

Take Full Advantage Of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social media website that is almost always underutilized by small business owners so we should highlight it. They simply add some network connections and share posts from time to time. Instead of taking this approach, think about how you can start conversations with those connections. You can join forums and contribute to them and you can share the high quality content of others (and tag them).

When you enable others and you educate potential customers, you gain respect and trust. You also build the brand.

Tag Brands And People On Social Media

Tagging is a feature on social media that most small businesses do not even think about using. You can tag brand evangelists, loyal customers, and neighboring companies. You can even tag your vendors to broaden your organic reach and potentially reach a brand new audience. This can help you to grow your exposure and you might even get some new clients.

Besides you tagging others, you can also encourage followers to do the same with your accounts.

When you tag someone else on social media, you expose the brand to the network of that specific user. This is actually a very effective way to grow your followers and engagement without having to pay anything for it.

Do Your Own Local SEO

Contrary to what you might think, for many SEO tasks, you do not need to hire someone else. You can do it yourself. Local SEO is an example of that. You can do several things for free, although it will take some of your time. However, if you keep working on it, you get long-term benefits that can be really important for small businesses.

You do not have to do everything that local SEO entitles. You can simply focus on the most important tasks, like:

  • Using location-based keywords to headings, titles, and inside body content. For instance, if you run a coffee shop in New York, you can add keywords like “New York coffee shop”. You can be more specific and use highly-targeted keywords like “Brooklyn coffee shop”. Even adding the street where your business is located can help.
  • Get your site listed in relevant local online directories. Just make sure you add identical information about your address, phone number, and business name everywhere.
  • Publish blog posts and even social media posts that are very specific to the areas your business serves.

Speaking about local SEO, make sure you create your Google My Business account. This is a free listing that lets the business appear on Google Maps. You can look online to see how to optimize the profile and verifying your ownership is very simple.

Create A Solid Email Marketing Plan

With email marketing, it is easier to engage your visitors and maintain closer relationships with current customers. While this strategy is not new, it is still very reliable and effective. And you can get started for free. After the email list you build grows, you can start investing a small part of your budget and then gradually grow.

In your email marketing plan, you need at least a few basic elements. They are:

  • Your subject lines – Try to stand out and put creativity to good use in subject lines since they are the most important part of the email you send.
  • Call to actions – Every single email you send needs to encourage readers to take some sort of action.
  • Performance tracking – In order to reap the benefits of email marketing, you have to track the performance of the emails you send. You should also run A/B tests so that you can fine-tune your messages for increased conversions.

Obviously, email marketing is very complex. But, you do not have to do everything. Some very simple ideas to consider include:

  • Create bonus content or a discount campaign that could only be accessed by new newsletter members.
  • Nurture subscribers with emails until they become customers. Do this slowly and never push your products.
  • Start promotional email campaigns by using free services. For instance, MailChimp is completely free until you reach a larger number of subscribers. By that time, you should have more money available to grow your email marketing plan.

Use Free Ad Credits

It is close to impossible for small businesses to run large ad campaigns. So, business owners make the mistake of completely neglecting ad networks.

What you should be aware of is that there are several coupons and discounts you can take advantage of. For instance, when you sign up for Google AdWords, you receive free credit you can use to advertise your business. And when you buy a web hosting service, you might receive some advertising discount codes.

If you are to use ad credits though and you do not have experience, make sure to start small. Test your ads and see what works. Spending your entire budget fast without fine-tuning ads is just a waste of your money.

Consider Applications For Business Awards

In most industries, there are business awards that you can win. This gives you an official online badge that can be placed on the site. It will boost your credibility and can lead to increased sales.

When you cannot find awards to sign up for, you can always host your own. This brings in attention from other businesses in your industry. They will apply and as a result, you get brand new connections you will be able to use in the future.

Start PartnershipsWith Other Industry Businesses

One of the most effective ways to grow your small business is to team up with other industry businesses that are related while not being a direct competitor. You can start joint projects with them that would benefit both sides involved. Do this locally or even offline with an event. Promotional giveaways and webinars can also work.

The great thing about partnering with another small business is that both get more exposure.

With the use of industry partnerships, smaller business owners can access the technology, customer bases, and know-how of others. However, it is very important that the partnership is profitable for both parties. You need to clarify expectations, choose complementary businesses, see how they can work together, and then make things official through a contract after several conversations.

A simple example of a profitable partnership is when you run a workout supplements store and you start working with a nearby gym. The gym can refer customers that need supplements and you can refer gym members. This type of deal can be highly beneficial for both the gym and the supplements store and can be combined with extra strategies, like discounts.

Post Videos To Help Your Target Audience

The world is slowly but surely moving towards video content as the most popular content medium available. The problem is that creating professional videos is expensive. Fortunately for small businesses, hiring professionals is not always a necessity. In fact, it is very easy to start a DIY video marketing campaign. There is a huge possibility you already have all the tools you need.

The great thing about videos is they can demonstrate how to use your services or products. They can also show many other things that are related to your business. However, in order for your videos to work, you need to create a connection with the target audience. To do this, focus on:

  • How-To videos
  • Instructional videos
  • Product demos
  • Interviews with industry experts
  • Interviews with staff members
  • Behind the scenes footage to show what happens during your events or at work
  • Informational slideshows

When you create the video, make sure to add some sort of unique personal message or branding message. Stay transparent and always use a call to action at the end of the video. Then, distribute all videos you create wherever you can, like on YouTube, Facebook, and even on your site.

Recycle Old Content

Even if the business is small and new to the market, there is a very strong possibility it already created a lot of content. And when you have something that was effective in the past, it can be repurposed.

As an example, you can turn your webinar into a series of video tutorials. You can also transform related blog posts into eBooks to hand out to new newsletter subscribers.

Re-promote and mashup old content. This is usually free to do and only requires some time. Just make sure that what you create is fresh and respects all core small business values.

Attend Networking And Industry Events

Smart business owners realize the fact that networking was and always will be a great way to meet new people who would help achieve growth goals. Even so, the number of people participating in industry conferences or trade shows is going down. This is a shame since such events bring several business minds together. You can easily find brand new marketing strategies to use to grow the business.

Industry events are also very good to meet people like you. Use them to develop B2B contacts. And you can even sharpen your skills with the use of seminars held at these events. New information about promoting businesses is always available when you just attend and you keep your ears open while you network.

Create A Simple Customer Referral Program

This is one of the simplest and most effective ways to get more customers. And you can easily use it regardless of how large the business is.

The premise is simple. You just offer some sort of free service, a free product, or other rewards for when someone refers a new customer. Word-of-mouth marketing is so much more effective than what many think. Customers who will be referred by others will be friends and have a very high value.

Remember that referral marketing is a very effective low-budget tactic. Three quarters of customers see word of mouth as the main factor they take into account when they make a purchasing decision. Also, those referred by friends are actually 4 times more likely to end up buying something.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, you do not need a large budget to promote a small business. Ideas like the ones above can always be used and bring in very good results. And there are many others to consider. Just keep your eyes on new ways to promote your business and you will find marketing options to consider.

Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Facebook Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing

How Social Media Can Improve Search Engine Ranking

There has always been a discussion regarding the link between social media and SEO. Regardless of its relationship, both marketing strategies are valuable for businesses nowadays.

Businesses are eager to build their presence on both search engine ranking and social media. That means one cannot be ignored to gain more on the other.

In fact, when it comes to digital marketing, almost every form is connected with one another. Content marketing works with social media, SEO, SMS marketing, and so on. Therefore, marketing experts make it a frequent habit to implement one strategy with another.

However, not every marketing form has a direct relationship with other forms.

Social media and SEO are two types of marketing strategies that can work independently. But it has an indirect relationship with one another too.

With almost 3.78 billion social media users worldwide, social media can incidentally affect other marketing strategies.

To learn more about how social media can improve search engine ranking, read further.

We will focus on how social media and search engines work and strategies to improve your social media marketing for search engine ranking.

What is SEO?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a marketing technique that increases the visibility of a business or website on search engines like Google, Bing, and more. It aims to be on top of the search engine for it to gain more attention, bring more traffic to the website, and turn the audience into paying customers.

How Social Media Improves Search Engine Ranking?

Although there is no direct correlation between the two, social media can impact SEO marketing when properly used.

It Boosts Content Performance

Creating interesting posts and articles on your website’s blog and optimizing it for search engines can help boost your presence online. However, trying to be on top of search engines takes time. It doesn’t happen in one night.

Using social media to build your online presence and get more traffic can help. Although, it doesn’t mean that it will push your content on top of the search engine.

When you share your work on social media, it can gain more attention over there. With millions of daily active users, you can somehow get noticed. You’ll gain a wider audience than simply posting on your website.

Sharing your content will allow people to click on the link and visit your website. It means it adds traffic and signals search engines regarding the audience that visits your site.

It Helps in Gaining Backlinks

One way for web content or websites to rank higher on search engines is to gain backlinks. The more quality backlinks your site has, the more chances of ranking up on Google.

However, writing a blog article and not sharing them can leave your valuable content unreachable and unseen. The best way is to use social media for more opportunities.

Sharing your content on social media can reach plenty of people, and some may find it valuable. Hence, they’ll share your work with others.

As your content spreads on different social media platforms, the more chance that people will link back to it. In return, it will inform search engine bots that your content is trustworthy and valuable to readers.

Social Media Matters to Search Engines Too

Like your website, your social media account matters to Google and other search engines. It shows that social media profiles do influence search engine results.

When you search for a brand, most of the time, Google shows a list of social media profiles. Although the website of a company shows on top, most of their social proof is included too.

Social channels are ranking on search engines because most people use social media, and it’s a place where companies can show more about their brands’ personalities.

Make sure to keep your business’s social profiles updated. Include interesting content that is fun and engaging for your audience to interact with.

It Guides the SEO Content Creation

Having the right content on your website can help boost traffic and conversion rates. You’ll know if the content is working when checking on metrics like click-through, bounce rate, time on page, and so on. All of these metrics influence the content you create to maintain relevant traffic. The same goes when using social media.

Marketing professionals use social channels to test and measure what content works. They use the insights from social media platforms to see which content works the most. It’s also a way for them to test which title is best, what content is valuable and more.

Social media can indirectly help create titles, content, meta description, and others for your website. Using social media insights when creating content can help businesses focus on valuable and engaging content for their audience.

It Builds Trust

Businesses with their own website project authority and can inform people that they are professional and legitimate. But websites are not the only source of building trust anymore.

With plenty of competition out there, you need to make sure that you show that your brand can be trusted. If you want this to happen, you need to stay active and be present online.

Social media profiles are the best way to gain trust. By posting regularly on your social accounts, you let potential customers see what your business is all about. Also, your business’s social channels can be a place for customers to review your products.

When people read about positive comments, they’ll immediately want to buy from you.

Building trust with your audience can bring your business a long way. It will drive in more potential customers to your website, which indirectly affects your ranking on search engines.

It Delivers Traffic to Your Website

Every time you add a new page to your website, you need to find a way to bring more traffic to it for search engines to get familiarized with its content.

Social media is an excellent tool to drive traffic to your website. You can post relevant content to get noticed on social media. Another way social media can bring traffic to your website is by investing in social ads.

Social media ads can help target relevant audiences that will visit your website. The more traffic that enters your website, the more search engines will boost a page or website.

It Gets Content Index Faster

When you create new content, sharing them on social media can help index faster on Google or other search engines.

As social media makes your content visible online, it can drive more traffic to new content. In return, it signals search engines to index the page and move it slowly up the search engine page result.

Great Place to Do Keyword Research

Aside from using social media insights to create blog content and title, social channels are excellent for searching for the right keyword.

Keywords are crucial when you want to rank on search engines. There are tools you can use like Ahrefs, Moz, and more to do keyword research. However, social media can play a role in conducting the right keyword for your business.

Using social media trends to find keywords for your profile and content can simply drive people to your platforms. Discovering what people want to read and engage in can help in driving traffic to your website.

Don’t forget, use only keywords that are related to your industry. You can’t choose various keywords not related to your content or industry. It won’t help with the conversion of your site.

You can use your keywords on your blog content, social media bio, and posts. Together with keywords, you can utilize hashtags on your posts on social media to gain attention.

With the indirect relationship of social media and SEO, you can build your presence online and start to gain relevant traffic to your website.

Social Media Platforms for SEO

There are popular social media platforms that can impact search engines indirectly. They appear on search engines whenever you search for a company or use a keyword. Also, people use social media as their way to learn about a brand. So using social media channels can give customers an idea about your business.

Furthermore, social media provides real-time results. Marketing experts can use insights from social media to create content and plans. It will help in finding the target audience and forming buyers’ persona.

Hiqy

The best platform for gaining more traffic to your website is Hiqy. It’s an excellent tool for promoting your website, Products and Services.

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social media platform, and it has the most number of users in the world. You can post and share media of different kinds – images, videos, links, and text.

Marketers use Facebook to share their website content as search engines crawl Facebook and links on it. That’s why they appear on search engine result pages.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the best and most effective social channel to generate leads. That’s why marketing professionals are keen on using LinkedIn when sharing their content.

It’s an excellent social media platform used by B2B businesses. Content posted on LinkedIn can also be indexed by search engine bots. That’s why when using the right keyword, it appears on the search result page.

Twitter

The best platform for gaining more traffic to your website is Twitter. It’s an excellent tool for promoting your website and content online.

Twitter can promote brand recognition by using hashtags that are relevant and trending. In return, it drives traffic to your website.

Grow your Twitter following and find ways to make your tweets recognizable. Google indexes tweets that have a significant number of retweets and a large number of followers.

YouTube

YouTube is the second largest search engine platform. Using YouTube to promote your content can drive traffic to your website.

If you are lucky enough to work on a niche that needs to create videos as content, don’t hesitate to use YouTube.

With video being the most dominant media online, YouTube can help you gain attraction from the right crowd. So as long as you optimize your content and use the right keywords.

Furthermore, Include all your details in the description box for people to visit your website.

Pinterest

If you have an e-commerce shop, Pinterest is a great choice to promote your products. It is a social media platform that mainly focuses on images. However, videos are also welcome on this site.

The most crucial tip is to use high-quality images to attract customers to click on the photo that contains the link. Pinterest also has an option to link your shop. So when people find your product interesting, they can easily check out and buy the product.

Quora

Interestingly, most businesses don’t use Quora for their marketing strategy. It is best to invest in it as most people use search engines to ask questions.

When people search for a query, Google or other search engines often suggest answers from Quora.

You can answer questions and share your website link. If you have content that’s helpful to those whose question your blog content can answer, then promote your content. It is also possible to create original content on Quora.

Medium

It is an online platform that’s great for writing blog content. Anyone can write on Medium, so long as it adds value to readers and it’s not all about ad content.

Medium has a large following on its platform. Therefore, contributing on Medium will help drive traffic to your website if readers find your content useful.

Tips on How You Can Optimize Social Media for Search Engine Ranking

Here are simple tips on how you can use your social media platforms to affect your search engine ranking.

  • Don’t forget to fill out your social media profile. Make sure that every part has answers, from the About Me section to your business’s address.
  • Use industry/niche-related keywords on your social profile and posts. Make sure that your keywords must also be relevant to your content.
  • Add links to your post and profile.
  • Post engaging content. Instead of writing lengthy captions or text, why not add media like short clips, images, or infographics to make it interesting.
  • Use hashtags. They act as keywords on social media platforms, driving traffic that is interested in your content.
  • Include a clear call to action. It will inform your readers what to do. Some CTAs to use,  “Share this post,” “Leave a comment,” or “click the link.” But remember, you don’t have to add CTA all the time.

Conclusion

Digital marketing like social media and search engine optimization are just a few strategies that a business can implement. Using the right marketing strategy and combining them with others can help benefit a company. To effectively plan and start creating content that will sell to your audience, you’ll need to work with multiple techniques as you can. Although social media and search engine ranking aren’t affecting one another directly, both need each other for a campaign to succeed. So do other digital marketing strategies too.

AUTHOR BIO

VANESSA VENUGOPAL Vanessa Venugopal is a passionate content writer. With four years of experience, she mastered the art of writing in various styles and topics. She is currently writing for Softvire Australia – the leading software eCommerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand.

Instagram, Social Media Marketing

Top 7 Instagram marketing tips you must follow

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The days when brands distributed flyers or seminars for advertisings are long gone! Ever since social media marketing’s popularity rose to the skies, businesses have been hopping on the trend rapidly. It is popular, helps you reach audiences far and wide, increases your overall traffic, and budget-friendly! 

Instagram is one of the precious gems in the world of social media. It used to be a site where people postered pictures of aesthetically pleasing food and fancy travel destinations, but now it has become much more than that! With over 800 million monthly users and new features being added every other month, Instagram has turned into a worldwide business platform! 

According to stats, 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business account. And the remaining 10% must have come across at least two to three ads while scrolling through their feed in leisure! This site also carries a mind-blowing number of influencers who have a massive fanbase.  

There are plenty of marketing opportunities on Instagram, and if you adopt the right methods, you can watch your business grow in no time! In this article, you will come across seven must-follow Instagram marketing tips! Read further and learn more! 

1. Use a Business Profile 

Before you begin strategizing and plotting your yearly marketing plan, make sure your Insta profile is switched to the business format. The several benefits that come along with using a business account.  

Your Instagram account turns into a business website, and followers can contact you by pressing the message button in your profile. Like Facebook’s advertising tools, you can access and publish the Instagram Ads feature. 

It is also super handy, as you can keep track of your analytics and insights and gain information about your impression statistics and audience reach. All these free perks must not be let free, so switch to a business account now! Here’s how you can do it. 

Sign up for an Instagram account and search for the hamburger icon on your profile. Click on it and choose the Account option from your settings. Then tap “Switch to a professional account,” and you are done! 

If you already have a general account, head to your settings, and switch to a business account from there! 

2. Make visually pleasing content  

Instagram is all about the eye candy; if your content visually captures, you are in for more than a handful of perks! Leave behind the straightforward, informative content and try some photography! However, you don’t have to use the best DSLR out there necessarily! Grab your smartphone and use it to capture your products or service options and edit to make them sharp, crisp, and straightforward. Instagram has a bunch of eye-catchy filters so that you can incorporate them too! 

If your post is animation-based or uses video-style infographics, make sure to use bold captions. The message in your video should stand out, and you can complement it with music! 

To make your brand or business seem more loyal and user-friendly, you can post some behind the scenes videos or pictures. These include the manufacturing process or some story-telling sessions. You can also implement authentic user-generated content or programs. 

If your videos are longer than 60 seconds, use the IGTV feature to share your content.  

3. Write well-thought, fun captions 

Instagram is a visual medium, but astonishingly, people pay attention to the post captions too! The caption is where you get to show the people your brand’s voice and visions. You can talk about the post and also give the audience an insight into what your business does. If your caption and post are interesting enough, they might head to your profile page, and you can earn a follow! 

If humour or creative thought is your strength, don’t be afraid to incorporate some of it in your post captions. Your tone affects the brand’s image so, make sure it is positive and compelling. 

Instagram captions can include up to 2,200 characters, so use the space! Write to them according to your target audience’s style and pay attention to the grammar. If possible, add in some information about your other products and services similar to the one in your post! 

4. Use accurate hashtags 

Hashtags are one of the best ways to increase your reach and get exposure from new audiences. When people type in keywords of what they want on search engines, Instagrammers use tag searches. Consequently, an easy way to get discovered is by followers who are interested in your niche. 

The social media platform allows users to use up to 30 hashtags, but it is ideally not recommended to use all of them. They clog up your caption and make it look irrelevant and bothersome. They make it seem like a spam post, and that may turn off some followers or customers. 

Instead, you can go for seven to nine hashtags for a small and simple outlook. Also, make sure they are entirely relevant to your content or business like escape rooms so that the seekers can find what they are precisely looking for.  

You can also incorporate trending hashtags, as that brings larger audiences to your page or post. If your brand has a good following list already, you can start a trend or hashtag that complies only with your brand. In this way, you can make a statement and earn a steadily growing brand reputation. 

5. Hop on the Reels! 

Ever since the popular video-sharing platform, Tiktok was banned in several countries globally, and Instagram came up with a similar feature called Reels. The tool allowed users to create 15-second video clips with in-built editing, audio tracks, effects, filters, and themes. Ever since the feature made an appearance, it was widely accepted and cherished as much as the starkly similar app, Tiktok. 

A few of the initial brands that hopped on to reels for campaigning and advertising were Louis Vuitton and Sephora.  

Although the video content is as short as 15 seconds, Instagram teams it up with so many tools that make a space to create excellent content. Informative, entertaining, or simple, your videos will shine on reels and attract hundreds of customers! 

Another advantage of this option is that while Instagram posts usually show up on the follower’s feed, reels are displayed to everyone! So, that is a fantastic way to increase your reach and engagement on Instagram! 

The engagement rate is also much higher than Tiktok, and viewers can easily access your profile. 

6. Sponsored Ads 

If you are looking for growing brand exposure, website traffic, generating new leads, and moving current ones done the funnel, you can try sponsored ads through paid advertisings. Put in some money behind your posts, and Instagram will advertise your brand to your target audience. 

With concern to the costs, it is not possible to give you an accurate number, as they are based on various external factors.  

According to Andrew Tate from AdExpresso, these ads’ cost depends on the audience, and the feedback received. He found out that Instagram ads are slightly pricier than Facebook ads, and they may cost around $5 per CPM (cost per click). Fortunately, advertisers have control over their advertising budgets as businesses can choose between a daily budget and a lifetime budget. 

7. Influencer marketing  

As mentioned before, Instagram has a large base of influencers who work as outstanding marketers! Instagram fashion models, lifestyle bloggers, and artists are now a thing, so you can partner with them to introduce your product or service to their follower list. 

If you find an influencer who promotes a similar niche as your brand, they can advertise your product in their content in return for a paid partnership. You can also carry this out by free product compensations or affiliate compensations. 

This strategy builds a persona for your brand, and influencers can use their creative freedom to promote your business. This organic method is also great for getting up and personal with your audience. The reason for their success is the genuine and authentic product endorsement that comes along with it. 

While looking for influencers for your brand, make sure they have clear communication skills and genuinely love your products. If they have these qualities, the advertisement naturally becomes authentic and genuine. 

Conclusion 

On Instagram, millions of likes are being handed out to the other Instagrammers every minute and hour of the day. It is home to 2 million advertisers and 25 million business profiles, and they keep growing with every passing minute! In the last year, the market has increased dramatically by 76 million people! 

The user-friendly tool also has loads of other features like reels, filters, AR effects, and music! The platform has so much to give; all we have to do is receive! So, if you want to see your brand flourish, you will have to make use of this golden opportunity in the best way!  Implement these essential marketing tips in your Insta-business strategy, and with consistency and effort, you will see the results!

Author Bio

Charlotte Lin is a content creator at escaperoom.com. She’s a passionate young woman, mother to an amazing nine-year-old and an avid reader. Over the years, writing has helped her explore and understand the world as well as her own self. She loves to travel, meet new people, and spend quality time with her daughter. You can find her on LinkedIn.

Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing

7 Social Media Marketing Tips You Should Follow

Social Media marketing world’s largest platform to get the best traffic to your post, blog, images. Below you can read 7 Social Media Marketing Tips You Should Follow.

What is Social Media Marketing?

The term social media marketing media or social marketing ( SMM ) refers to all activities and measures used in social networks to generate business opportunities, increasing the reach and customer loyalty. Nowadays, due to being active in popular social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, WhatsApp, many marketers use different techniques to make their products reach the right customer.

Why Social Media Marketing Is Important

If your business is small or growing, social media marketing helps you popularize your business brand, helps you find new customers, and, most importantly, helps in increasing the selling of products or services.

Today the use of social media is increasing very fast, and you should take advantage of social media marketing in your business. Social media marketing can be done in less money; in this way, there are many more reasons to do social media marketing.

Tips for Social Media Marketing 

These are tips which one must follow if he/she is using social media marketing for their product branding.

1. Planning of Social Media Content:

Planning of social media content is very important. When we do keyword research and competitive research, we get a lot of ideas so that we can create good content, and our audience likes it very much. You should use good images, advertisements, videos, blog posts, has tags, and other content for social media marketing.

2. Consistent brand image: 

Not only do photos and videos matter on Instagram. How can you do it to get more interaction? Combine original images with stock photos and infographics: each high-quality image, related to your promotion plan, should communicate an attractive idea to your audience, at first glance. So, use original material as well as royalty-free images with keyword-optimized phrases and combine this content with infographics.

3. Remember that the Call to Action is important to your plan:

In addition to generating high-quality content on social networks, it is also important to include CTAs that invite the public to take certain actions to meet the goals of the plan. These can be the download of electronic products, take advantage of discount coupons, visit the eCommerce to make a direct purchase, or go to a landing page to provide your data, which will be used in communication via email.

On Instagram, for example, just include a link on your profile and invite followers to visit it. On Facebook, link your CTAs in the comment boxes so that the public naturally comes to them after appreciating the content. In the same way, include them in YouTube descriptions and Twitter links.

4. Create promotions: 

Giving some benefits to users who follow your social networks will earn you points and get more followers. Who doesn’t like to receive something in exchange for the simple gesture of sharing or following an account? This is the easiest way to expand followers, offer promotions, or some type of contest on certain dates such as Christmas, Father’s Day, or special holidays, attract new users, and reinforce the loyalty of those who are already convinced of your business.

5. Learn to use hashtags in networks: 

The most successful social media profiles have learned to handle the whole thing about hashtags or labels. These platforms allow you to monitor the content of the hashtags and determine which ones are the most popular.


6 .Organize contests: 

Organizing promotions and contests are a great method to engage your followers. For this, you can choose the latest topic in which you think your users get inserted. 

7. Know your statistics on Social Networks: 

To know if your communication objectives in Social Media are working as you expect, it is essential that you obtain a return of your performance in each Social Network. Basically, it is about being able to analyze what your content is best received by the audience and at what times, so that you can perfect your publication strategies with that reference. For this, you can consult analytical tools such as Facebook Insights of your Fan Page, Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics, and others.

  Different Social Media Marketing Platforms

In this age of today, social media has the best platforms for any business to reach new customers in the market. To use the social media platform, we must find out which platform our customers or viewers use so that we can focus on that platform and fulfil our target.

Today there are many social media platforms using which we can do social media marketing of our products or services. So let’s know below the best social media marketing platforms.

1. Facebook

A great social media marketing platform to do social media marketing is Facebook. Yes, there are more than 2 Billion active users on Facebook Monthly.

Therefore, Facebook is a great social media platform to engage and advertise its targeted customers and viewers. The Facebook business page has become essential for all big companies today; because most people read information about the company’s products on the company’s business page, see the product.

2. Instagram 

Instagram is a photo-sharing social media platform, using Instagram to make your brand popular or to identify your brand, Instagram is a great platform.

If you are a reseller, then Instagram is a great platform to increase the selling of your products. On Instagram, you can share photos of your products by creating a Business Page of your business, and you can show your products to more and more people buy upyog of a Trending hashtag.

3. YouTube

YouTube is also a great platform to do marketing of your business or product. However, where YouTube cannot be a social media platform as it is a video sharing website. You can create your customers through videos from YouTube because there are more than 1 Billion active users on YouTube monthly, you can advertise products or services through videos on YouTube. There is a good platform for giving tutorials and reviews of products through YouTube videos.

4. Pinterest

Pinterest is also one of the best platforms; if you have an e-commerce business, then it is a great place to promote your products or to do social media marketing of your products.

5. Twitter

Monthly there are more than 300 million active users on Twitter. With Twitter you can build a brand. On Twitter, you can share your business information with people, and you can share the link of your business blog post. Twitter is also a good platform for social media marketing.

These were some of the top social media marketing platforms that can prove to be helpful for you to do Social media marketing in your business.

Conclusion: 

If you manage to position yourself within the topics of the moment, in addition to getting your followers to identify with hashtags that you have created, you can take your promotion to the next level.
When you have chosen the right platform, then you have to determine what kind of content, the post you will put for each platform, how much content you will add throughout the day, and you have to decide your target.

Author Bio:

Nishil is a passionate writer, hungry for new innovation. New trends fill him with tons of enthusiasm to uncover hidden topics.Speakaudible covers a wide range of subjects related to audiobooks. Check our latest popular audiobooks on  speakaudible.

Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing

Return on Investment for Various Digital Marketing Strategies

4 Comments

John Wanamaker, the pioneer of modern-day marketing once noted that half of his advertising budget went to waste. The religious leader, merchant, and political figure like many business owners of the day, also recognized that could not tell which half of his ad budget went down the advertising drain. John Wanamaker’s fledgling business eventually grew from a successful department store to become part of Macy’s.

The prolific entrepreneur that John was would be very much at home with the modern-day digital marketing practices. Digital advertising usage has dramatically increased since late 1994 when the first known banner ad flashed on HotWired.com. The launch of Google AdWords and Google Ad Sense in the early 2000s followed by Facebook Ads’ release in 2007 quickly turned the tide against traditional advertising methods.

They have given the marketer fantastic benefits, which include the accurate and precise measurement of advertising return on investment (ROI).

What is the ROI of Typical Digital Marketing Strategies?

The return on investment of any business process is an outcome of two main measurements; the cost of the process and the resultant outcome generated. The measure of costs and impacts is not a straightforward process in advertising. Consequently, large organizations utilize composite ROI formulas that factor in their multiple costs and impact variables. The ROI of traditional advertising, therefore, remains highly undeterminable.

The analytics of data in modern digital advertising, on the other hand, can reveal the minute details of ad campaigns and their ROI. So, how much should you expect from your online marketing efforts? The digital advertising ROI is a product of its revenue to marketing value ratio. The only question that you need to answer with your digital ad channels is, “how much am I generating for each dollar that I spend on marketing”?

A typical revenue to cost ratio for digital advertising is 5:1.  Therefore, a dollar spent on advertising should bring in a five-dollar revenue. If your advertising efforts can produce a 10:1 ratio, classify your online advertising efforts as top of the range.

How Can a Good ROI Be Improved in Digital Marketing?

Some of the costs that you have to factor in when calculating your ROI are;

  • Media spend
  • Pay-per-click costs
  • Cost of content production
  • Display ad clicks
  • Digital Marketing agency costs

Your ROI should cover all the costs of product processing and its marketing at the bare minimum. To cater to all these costs you need to place data at the center of your operations. Data-driven marketing can improve your ad ROI. Unfortunately, over half of all marketers do not collect or analyze digital advertising data. 

 87% of marketers that work with organizations that collect this data feel that this critical information is the business’s most underutilized asset. If your executives do not take data as a top priority for your business, then your ROI could remain in the dumps for a long time. To improve your ad ROI, 

  • Change your strategy and become a marketing driven organization that explores customer data in detail. These practices will bring new customers and keep loyal clients contented.
  • Set up SMART or ROI goals that have Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time goals such as an ROI of 5:1. These goals should factor in your business’s cost of production, industry, and structure.
  • Place an emphasis on data metrics that have a direct impact on your ROI. Overvalued metrics such as social media likes will not affect your ad ROI but will improve your SEO.
  • Use your data to identify new and old business opportunities.
  • Embrace predictive modeling’s ability to increase and measure your ROI
  • Use marketing automation tools to manage complex advertising campaigns that have tight budgets.
  • Keep experimenting and adjusting your strategies to reap the highest benefits from digital adverting.

How to Improve Your ROI through Digital Marketing Strategies?

Search engine optimization

SEO will optimize your website and enhance online visibility via an improved position in organic search rankings. Good SEO will direct more traffic to your site and increase your revenue. This practice will also bring in long-term benefits such as sustainable rankings, keyword targeting precisions, brand flexibility, and credibility. One other fantastic benefit of SEO is that it is an affordable and efficient way to boost your ROI.

Search engine marketing

These advertising strategies can rank your business ahead of its competition via sponsored ads. It is a source of short-term ROI improvement since it brings in quick leads. Nevertheless, SEM has the potential for long-term benefits such as increased visibility, audience development, precise targeting, and high-quality lead generation.

Content marketing

Providing value to your online audience can increase traffic to your website. Content marketing is therefore central to SEO. This practice has long-term benefits such as increased visibility, trust, reputation, and lasting value. 

Social media marketing

A good social media marketing strategy will increase your bottom-line by building your brand’s online reputation. Paid social media ads can significantly influence your ROI. Its benefits are that it is a low barrier entry, effective and affordable brand awareness tool.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a sure bet in ROI increase. Data shows 67% of all businesses consider it as their topmost source of digital marketing revenue. Email marketing utilizes promotional offers or newsletters to build subscriber lists.  

This channel will keep your customers loyal to your brand and attract new leads as well. This simple and affordable digital advertising strategy has the benefits of traceable data and an ROI focus.

Video marketing

This is currently huge in terms of getting users engaged and converting. Video builds trust quickly. And when well done, it can win you some loyal fans. Use a free video editor like InVideo to create awesome videos. Take advantage of royalty-free music if you want to play something on the background.

Conclusion

Digital advertising has risen on the back of online inventions in the display, search, programmatic and native advertising giving you a wide range of opportunities that can take your brand to its next level of growth. Promotional content in digital advertising is brought to the attention of your target market via digital and online channels. 

These may include email, social media, mobile apps, search engines, websites, or affiliate programs. Unlike the traditional methods of advertising in Wanamaker’s time that had a spray and pray outlook to ROI determination, digital advertising is data-driven. Data makes it easy for you to increase your digital advertising ROI and to grow your business.

Author Bio

David Freudenberg is apart of the Public Relations team at DJO Productions a multi-platform production website where videographers, producers, artists, marketers, and more can download SFX&Music, VFX, Media Elements, Graphics, 3D images, and more. When he is not building relationships at DJO Productions he enjoys fishing, boating, and hanging with friends.

Digital Marketing, PPC, Social Media Marketing

Even A Small Business Needs Paid Advertising – Why?

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Captain America had the shield, and Mister fantastic had his wit, but what do great entrepreneurs have?  – I’ll tell you: it’s arobust online presence. Advertising has always been a preferred way to market any product or service to a broad audience worldwide.  These days, every online business want their websites rank #1 on Google. Afterall, it is an effective way to increase brand awareness and skyrocket your business traffic & revenue.  However, many small businesses do not consider paid advertisement just in the name of saving money and time. 

So, does your story depicts the same picture? Well, here are the key reasons why it is the right time to include paid advertising in your marketing mix. 

High Conversion Rate

We are in the digital age where people do not look in the yellow pages of the newspaper for their needs or even pay attention to billboards.  Instead, around 90% of users go to a search engine and search for product information before making any purchase.  For businesses, the right time to advertise is when users are searching for products online.Paid advertising helps companies to reach the right customers at the right time.

Increase the Credibility of Business

Many times, marketing experts witness new products gaining a reputation among customers. So, how do small businesses build so much credibility even when they are in their initial stages? Well, it is due to the combination of paid advertisements and the quality of products or services.  Many small businesses take the approach, “fake it till you make it” to increase goodwill and brand perception in the eyes of the users.  When users see advertisements of a brand, they assume that business has adequate funds, which means the business is doing good.

Pay Only when Your Ad is Clicked

Paid advertisement is a quick and effective way to increase traffic and revenue.  With the help of a paid advertisement, a business can set up and launch a campaign within a couple of minutes. The best thing is that companies can optimize the campaign at any time. Businesses start getting sales within 24 hours of launching the campaign. PPC is also budget-friendly because businesses only pay when the ad is clicked. Moreover, there is no charge for appearing in the search results.

Target the Advertisements Correctly

Facebook, Google, and Instagram are top sites with access to billions of data. Therefore, they can easily put your ads in front of the right audience. It means that their algorithms aren’t going to show an ad for a house to someone who’s searching for online shoes.

Due to the adequate data of users, these platforms can help small businesses target the right user base without much hassle. Google takes care of displaying the right advertisements to the right users so that they end up buying the products. For small businesses, it is a surefire way to generate a good return on the investment.  

Monitor the Progress with Powerful Tools 

With the help of digital marketing funnel in London, businesses can monitor the steps users take from being a prospect to a customer. Similarly, Google’s AdWords and Facebook Ads Manager let small businesses track their progress and check the success of the campaigns in real-time.  In order to reach the audience more accurately, a business can have a look at the demographic information.  You can also get insight into the time of the week or month when ads get the most response. 

With paid advertising, entrepreneurs can propel their businesses to the new heights of success. Here are the top three platforms for online businesses. 

Google PPC Ads

As per studies, PPC is the preferred choice of around 45% of small businesses. There are two types of paid ads through Google AdWords, including text and display ads.  Text ads appear on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), while display ads pop up while browsing sites. Small businessesare increasingly investing in Google ads because they only have to pay when users click on the ads.  It is a cost-effective method to get your business noticed and drive traffic to your website. 

Facebook Ads

The Facebook platform has over 1.13 billion daily active users. Similar to pay-per-impression, Facebook ads run on the same idea. Due to a vast amount of users’ information in Facebook’s database, it helps businesses to be detailed with the targeting.  Users’ information, such as sex, age, location, and interest, are used for the filter of the ads.  What makes Facebook Ads stand out from others is the affordability.  When combined with a solid strategy, Facebook ads can help small businesses reap maximum benefits.

Instagram Ads

Instagram usage boomed faster than the supernova in the past few years. With over more than 600 million active monthly users, this platform allows small businesses to market their products and services effectively. Due to high user engagement, this platform has named “the king of social media.” Nowadays, many businesses are jumping on the paid advertisement bandwagon left and right.  Instagram is among the best platforms to get the most bang for the bucks. 

The Endnote The paid advertisement has become the need of the digital world. For small businesses, it is the must-have marketing tactic to add in the digital arsenal.  So, if you are a small business owner, it is the right time to give paid advertisement a chance and witness the number of customers and sales soaring high.

Author Bio

Harry Smith has over a decade of experience working as a digital marketing agency. As a digital marketing veteran, he takes immense pride in having specialization in Web analytics, marketing strategy, competitor analysis, marketing management, and budget management. Writing isone of Harry Smith loves, and he contributes todigital marketing blogs constantly. He has been helping small businesses achieve new heights of success.

Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing

Ideas to Run Ads on Facebook in 2020

5 Comments

The year 2020, based on the dazzling number of technology predictions, is going to be one heck of a year. By the year of 2020, most of the people will have to move on with the smartphone and they are going to use the internet in a liquid way. The entire social media platform will be available on the hands of the citizens at the year of 2020. Social Media advertisements are going to escalate your business in future.

Since social media advertising is a vast area, you can move with some tips that will help you to encourage your business through this link:

In the case of Facebook, there are lots of ideas and strategies to run advertisements in the way of promoting your products. Now let us move on with the ideas to run ads on Facebook by the year of 2020.

Enhance your Facebook ads experience

Social Media marketing allows small size companies to reach large target audiences using Facebook Marketing.

Already have experience in running ads on Facebook? If yes, you can enhance your ad experience through this discussion. One of the major things you are expecting from running ads on Facebook is getting more conversions.

The ads might be in any type that gets more views, involving e commerce related actions, promoting your business page and so on. In such a case, getting more conversions is important related to your Facebook ads.

In this scenario, let us discuss some new ideas to run ads on Facebook in 2020.

Ideas to run ads on Facebook in 2020

Make use of Facebook pixel

A Facebook pixel is an effective tool that includes a code that you can add on your website. The Facebook Pixel is used to track your website visitors. Through getting this visitors list you can retarget those visitors with the use of Facebook ads in future. You may predict what they are doing on your website and when they are returned.

All the above process allows you to gain more depth insights of your audience as well as track the effectiveness of your paid social media advertising efforts.

Facebook pixel is used to identify your custom audience in the right way. Custom audiences are known as the audience who are all having the previous connections with your landing website.

Already if you are having the database of your related audience then it does not matter. But if you are not having that such database with you, then if you are installed Facebook pixel, it will track all the movements of any audience on your website who are simultaneously logged in to Facebook.

Also it will record the audience visit which page of your website and when they visit. Using this kind of data, you can create a targeted group of people. These people are known as custom audiences. After framing custom audiences then you can advertise on Facebook. Here you can also fix the time frame between like one to 180 days of visiting time.

Like this Facebook Pixel options, Facebook contains a larger number of unique features. You can see the best features of Facebook here:

Make use of video content

By the year of 2020, video will account for 85% of the total Internet traffic. According to the studies your brain can process images 60,000 times faster than it can be conveyed through words. In the case of videos it can be multiplied more times.

Now you may understand the importance of video content in case of Facebook ads. Organic reach is also possible by the case of video Facebook ads. Also, the audience believe that videos can give them more confidence about the product when they purchase through online.

Videos can be very useful to elaborate your content with your audience. For example if you are producing any innovative new product such as washing machine with low cost, in that case consumers may not be aware of how to use your products.

In this case if you are developing a video related how to handle your washing machine and how it is going to satisfy the customers need. If you are giving that video as an advertisement then it will reach in the mind of the audience at the higher point of purchasing. When you are producing those video advertisements then you can find the improvement in your click through rates.

And keep in mind that when you are creating video of your product/service then never forget to consider the length of the video, thumbnail clarity, sound of your advertisement also.

In the above screenshot you can see the sponsored Facebook advertisement with video content.

Make use of Geofencing campaign

The process of targeting specific people is extremely easy with geofencing Facebook ads. As a business owner, you may know the importance of targeting the specific customers who are all familiar, interested with your brand.

The ad platforms such as Google ads and Facebook ads are having a good selection of target based choice things like demographics and location. But geofencing on Facebook is used to bring a new type of targeting to the counter.

You can set some specific distance between your business/product place and customers. When you are creating geofencing Facebook ads, you can draw a virtual polygon around areas where there is a high level of chance to target your customers. When the customers visit inside your physical location that you have mentioned in geofencing, at that time they will get notifications of your product or services. Geofencing Facebook ads develop the boundary level of business.

When you are running a time-based evening restaurant with a super special variety of eatables, and you want to notify your hyper-target potential customers through ads, then geofencing is the best option for you. Geofencing employs the actions of your advertisements when the customers step inside your specified geofence. So that it will pull the audience to your doorstep easily.

In the above screenshot you may see how the specific location can be targeted through Facebook to create new audience.

Conclusion

Like any other marketing strategies, Facebook marketing also requires effort but not as laborious as other marketing strategies. You can check with the useful Facebook Marketing Tips for Online Businesses that helps you in various ways. As in all the marketing strategies execution, you must be careful when you are moving with the Facebook advertisements. Here you need to avoid some mistakes. You can have an idea about Facebook advertisements and overcome it.

Author Bio

Fazeela is a Digital Marketing Executive at Bright Bridge Infotech, A Rehab marketing company and she enjoys learning about the Digital Marketing field. She specializes in guest blogging, blog publishing, and social media. Fazeela is an avid reader and loves writing impeccable contents pertaining to digital marketing. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering.