editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

5 Trends Shaping the Future of Digital Marketing

July 14, 2022 No Comments

By Ashlee Sierra

Here’s a little-known secret about the Brafton content marketing and strategy teams: We can see the future. That’s because our company car is a customized Delorean and we have regular training sessions on navigating the space-time continuum.

Obviously, that’s not entirely true. It’s actually a Camaro because we couldn’t find a Delorean.

Regardless of how we get there, what matters is that we’re here to help you see into the future of digital marketing. Come with us on a journey to tomorrow, where we’ll explore evolving digital channels, new applications of automation and a customer journey defined by your ever-changing target audience. Just remember not to run into your future self along the way!

The Current State of Digital Marketing

Before we jump into our time-traveling Camaro, we need to have a clear view of the present. That way, we can be sure we return to the proper timeline.

The same is true for digital marketing: You always need to know what’s happening in the industry before you can make any predictions.

With that rule in mind, let’s take a look at the current state of digital marketing campaigns and their target audiences:

Social Media Habits

Social media platforms are effective distribution channels for your brand story — mostly because there are 4.65 billion social media users worldwide. That’s almost 59% of the global population.

But platforms go in and out of style depending on all kinds of factors, from local trends to mobile device software updates. According to an Semrush ranking of all websites, the most popular site overall in February 2022 was YouTube. Here’s how it and other social media platforms stacked up when compared to websites of every kind:

YouTube was #1, with 50 billion total visits.
Google was #2, with over 39 billion total visits.
Facebook was #3, with 9.34 billion total visits.
Twitter was #6, with 5.62 billion total visits.
Instagram was #9, with 3.19 billion total visits.
Pinterest was #18 with 1.43 billion total visits.

Utilization of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) may still sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but it’s a huge part of today’s digital marketing landscape. Check out these AI statistics that prove it:

40% of marketing and sales teams prioritize AI for success — more than any other department.
34% of marketing leaders say AI is the biggest game-changer in the industry.
71% of marketers say AI could help personalize the customer journey.
Chatbots were responsible for 85% of customer interactions in 2020.
Experts predict AI will lead to a 26% increase in the global gross domestic product by 2030 — an estimated $15.7 trillion.

The use of AI in digital marketing is already pretty impressive. Companies like Magnolia Market, the retail destination operated by Chip and Joanna Gaines, use augmented reality to let customers virtually place products in their homes. It’s like a test drive for home décor. Meanwhile, Unilever used AI to uncover the connection between ice cream and breakfast, leading it to develop a line of cereal flavours for Ben & Jerry’s.

Personalization Preferences

Another reality in modern-day digital marketing is the preference for personalization. Citizens of the online world are tired of cookie-cutter experiences, and now they’re demanding tailored, interactive content that appeals to their unique perspectives. This is especially relevant for your content marketing strategy, including video content, social media posts and more.

Take, for example, YouTube recommendations. With a little help from artificial intelligence, the #1 site in the world (at least according to Semrush) keeps its competitive position in the social psyche by constantly providing 2 things:

Video content we’ve already expressed interest in.
Video content we didn’t know we were looking for, but that aligns perfectly with our tastes.

Say I’ve been watching videos about the new Ford Bronco (which may or may not be true). If you were a Ford dealer, you’d be able to use this preference and YouTube automation to provide video content that caters to my off-roading daydreams. I’d be more likely to interact with this than, say, a video about a minivan.

Many social media platforms play by similar rules. Using automation and algorithms, these sites recommend content users are likely to engage with — including your brand’s social media content (if you have the right digital marketing strategy, of course).

3rd-Party Data Regulation

Although personalization is an increasingly important part of content marketing, it’s also an increasingly difficult one. That’s because consumers are taking control of their data in new ways.

A good example of this is the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which gives people more power over what they do and don’t share with a digital marketer or other 3rd party. The CCPA can be summed up in 4 basic rights:

The right to know what personal information is collected and why.
The right to delete this personal data.
The right to opt-out of the sale of data.
The right to non-discrimination when exercising the other 3 rights.

Tech leaders like Apple and Google are following suit, implementing stricter limitations on the kinds of data that can be collected, the methods that can be used and whether consumers have direct control over this.

While increased privacy may be great news for those of us who don’t want to share the number of times we’ve searched basic slang to make sure we’re using it right, updates like the CCPA are not so good for content marketing. That doesn’t mean the future of marketing is hopeless, though — your personalization and targeting techniques just need to get creative. (More on that later.)

The Future of Digital Marketing: 5 Trends To Watch

Now that you have a firm grip on the present, it’s time to take a trip into the future. Let’s hop into our time-traveling Camaro and get ready to see some of the innovative marketing techniques, trends and ideas that we expect to shape tomorrow’s digital marketing campaigns:

1. Smarter AI

As artificial intelligence gets smarter, so too will digital marketing campaigns. You won’t just find new technology — you’ll also leverage familiar tech in better, more effective ways.

For example, by 2029, search engines are expected to be capable of fully understanding the underlying meaning of queries instead of just analysing keywords. As a result, your content marketing strategy can focus more on addressing searcher intent, providing answers to implied questions and ultimately addressing a user’s real needs.

Of course, the future may also hold systems and solutions we haven’t even begun to dream of. Who knows — maybe your social media marketing will someday be run by the same automation strategy that identified the “ice cream for breakfast” trend.

2. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is already a big deal, but we’re pretty sure it’s going to become even more critical to your digital marketing strategy.

That’s because influencers help create real connections with your audience. Users show interest in an influencer’s opinions, commentary or even just their top-notch jokes — and when you leverage that interest by teaming up with the influencer, you’re delivering personalization on an entirely different level. As consumers show increasing interest in the humanization of their favorite brands, influencer marketing is likely to become key to boosting engagement.

This works in both the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) landscapes. In B2C, consumers want to know that people like them can trust your brand. B2B buyers want the same assurance, but they also need to see that you’ve served their industry before, worked with teams resembling their own, delivered on key performance metrics (KPIs) and more. That means B2B influencers can be anyone from industry leaders to up-and-coming players in the landscape.

It’s also important to recognize that influencer marketing goes hand-in-hand with video content, especially on social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Here, you can take advantage of artificial intelligence and automation to get your videos in front of the right people, all while catering to an audience that’s already looking for this specific type of engagement.

3. Thought Leadership

Thought leadership has an important role to play in any content marketing strategy, but it’s only going to become more valuable to your target audience.

Why? It’s simple: As time goes on, our favorite digital channels will continue to be inundated with content that feels repetitive, unimaginative and just plain boring. Thought leadership will stand out as something fresh — a new perspective on a familiar topic, a valuable approach to an industry challenge or even an open conversation inviting your audience to chime in.

Plus, thought leadership gives you yet another opportunity to connect with consumers on a more personal level. When you post a blog written by one of your expert employees or let someone from a different department take over your social media for a day, your audience gets to see the people behind the brand — and these days, that human connection is more valuable than ever.

4. 1st-Party Data

Remember when we talked about privacy updates wreaking havoc on traditional marketing campaigns? There’s good news: The end of 3rd-party data doesn’t mean the end of life as we know it. Instead, things are likely to get even better.

That’s because the future is likely to bring opportunities for 1st-party data — information willingly and knowingly given by your target audience in exchange for a highly tailored experience. You can gather this data through surveys, focus groups, informal chats and more, meeting customers where they are to find out what they’re really feeling and thinking.

This approach has 2 big benefits:

It gives you richer, more valuable data to guide your digital marketing strategy.
It shows consumers you’re taking an active interest in their preferences and responding to their needs.

Long story short, we expect you won’t even miss 3rd-party data once it’s gone.

5. Creative Digital Marketing Campaigns

The final — and perhaps most important — trend to keep an eye on is the progression of digital marketing campaigns themselves. As companies get more comfortable with new technologies, they’re likely to come up with new ways of leveraging those solutions to tell bigger, better stories.

The key is to embrace your role as a consumer. What social media post are you talking about with your friends? Which digital channels are you drawn to when shopping or researching products? Where do brands succeed in making you feel like you’re the only customer who matters to them? Questions like these allow you to use your own experiences as a digital marketing experiment and decide what might work for your approach.

As you explore other brand stories, don’t forget to look outside your industry for marketing inspiration. For example, maybe you have no idea what SaaS marketing even is (hint: it’s all about software-as-a-service offerings like Slack or DropBox), but you can still learn from the techniques and approaches being used in this space.

Shape Your Own Digital Marketing Future

You don’t need a time-traveling muscle car to see the future of digital marketing. In reality, that future is coming up fast, which means you have 2 options: sit and wait for it, or start shaping it yourself.

If you’re anything like us, you’re probably leaning toward the latter.

The first step in creating your digital marketing future is to understand the present. The next step is to keep an eye on trends like those we’ve covered today. But from there on out, it’s up to you — which means you’re free to blaze your own trail, tell fresh stories with new technology, try out the latest marketing strategies or change them up to suit your needs.

And if you need help along the way, just keep an eye out for a Camaro driven by a content writer — and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest on digital marketing today, tomorrow and beyond.

By Ashlee Sierra

Ashlee Sierra is a writer and editor from Boise, Idaho. When she’s not buried under her giant dogs, she can be found playing video games, telling ghost stories and having passionate discussions about the Oxford comma.

Sourced from Brafton

In News

The Miraculous Journey of the Walt Disney Logo and its adventures Over the Years

July 14, 2022 No Comments

By PJ Hoogendijk

The Disney logo is one of the most celebrated brand logos in the world, with a heritage as rich and intricate as its design. The emblem that we know today is entirely different from the one that was created in its initial days. This blog is all about the Disney logo and its journey over the years.

Whether you’re a 90’s fellow, a millennial or somebody who’s into the world of dreams, fantasies, and comics, it’s also impossible to have missed the aura of Walt Disney. Weaving magic since 1923, the Walt Disney Pictures Company is the undisputed champion of the global entertainment industry. Founded by the two brothers, Walt and Roy Oliver Disney, the company was initially a small animation studio that gradually grew to be the largest media house with its huge broadcast networks and theme parks.

Amongst other things fun and fascinating, the brand is famous for its striking visual identity and a unique brand position. From TV shows and movies to merchandise and entertainment parks, Disney has had a hand in almost every field, and it all began with a cartoon mouse. Below, we’ll take a look at the birth of the legendary Disney logo, and its role in the company’s unbeatable success.

Back to the Basics – How it all began for Disney

The Disney Corporation is the leading entertainment conglomerate, making over $60 billion annually through movies, publications, Touchstone Pictures, and theme parks around the globe. Nevertheless, the company had a rocky beginning and was affected by young Walt’s failure to trademark his work. Walt Disney, the company’s founder, who is now hailed as one of the most successful artists, film producers, and entrepreneurs of all time, wasn’t always so.

The first business venture of Walt Disney, Laugh-O-Gram Studios, was bankrupt in 1923. Disney took a second attempt at Hollywood with just $20 in hand. He, along with his brother, started producing two animated short films, Alice and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. During this time, he also created a series of cartoons starring the latter.

Although these short movies were a big hit with the audience, Disney forgot to copyright his illustrations. Consequently, as his contract with the studio expired in February 1928, he also lost his rights to the characters. Disney took a lesson from this incident and was quite cautious about copyrighting everything he created thereafter.

However, he never gave up and after much struggle, started his own studio in Hollywood. He wanted to relive the success he enjoyed with Oswald and created a mischievous little cartoon mouse called SteamBoat Willie. The first film starring Mickey was released in 1929, which was a big hit and motivated Walt to launch his own production house, Walt Disney productions, in 1929. This was just the beginning and several other Mickey Mouse movies were released later.

From thousands of films and TV shows to merchandising to running two of the world’s biggest theme parks in Disneyland and Disneyworld, there was no looking back for Disney. Their success grew by leaps and bounds, and in 2016, Disney bagged a whopping $9.39 billion, a steady revenue escalation for the seventh consecutive year.

The Birth of the Disney Logo

Being an artist himself, Disney drew the initial versions of the company’s logo. In the early days, he started working as a designer in an advertising firm, and eventually became a cartoonist, which gave him a brilliant artistic future. Although the Disney logo features on the entrances to their celebrated theme parks and is an important part of their branding, it did not have any particular sign or emblem for the first 48 years.

The audience saw “Walt Disney Pictures Presents” or “Walt Disney Presents” on the big screen. At times, they were accompanied by the Mickey Mouse figure, which was encircled and portrayed in a different colour in the animated version. In 1937, “Walt Disney Pictures” was used as a logo. While it’s still applicable in some cases, the designers have made some changes to it.

The present Walt Disney Company logo design was introduced by the company in 2011. It is an abbreviated version of the previous designs, where there’s only one wordmark “Disney”. It is also adorned by decorative towers, windows, balconies, flags, and a star that leaves an arc in the skyline.

Disney Logo from 1929 – 1937

The very first official logo was a clear picture of what the company was into. At its center, you could spot Mickey Mouse as it was drawn back then. The name “Mickey Mouse” was split into two and placed on either side of the mascot. Some of the other elements of the logo were the company name ‘Walt Disney Productions’, its location, etc.

Disney Logo from 1937 – 1948

This logo design featured the name of the founder, Walt Disney, in a creative script. It is one of the personal signatures of the founder and artist himself. An excellent combination of upper and lower case letters, the inscription was stylized and enlarged to match the level of branding.

The twisted and stylized “W” and “D,” as well as the lowercase “i” and “y,” are visually suggestive of the tail and ears of Mickey Mouse – the main cartoon character of the logo. Although the wordmark “Walt Disney” looked like a handwritten note, it did not feature an italic slope. Perhaps the only problematic element is the logo is the “t” in the “Walt”, which could be easily interpreted as “y.”

Disney Logo from 1948 – 1979

Ten years later, the logotype was modified a little to give it a cleaner, more realistic look. Unfortunately, although it looked like an autograph, it was hardly legible.

Disney Logo from 1972 – 1983

This time, the designers chose to go with the original Disney logo style. While the logotype was modified to make the wordmark legible, the word “Productions” was added in a basic sans serif font.

Disney Logo from 1983 – 1985

This time, the wordmark “Walt Disney” remained untouched, whereas the word “Productions” was swapped for “Pictures.” Fontwise, the designers chose a serif type (similar to the classic universal) and made the letters larger. However, the top inscription remained intact- it still used the Waltograph font.

Disney Logo from 1985 – 2006

The much celebrated Cinderella’s castle was first seen in the 1985 logo. Positioned above the wordmark “Walt Disney”, the castle was used as a fairy-tale icon. The palace featured multiple horizontal stripes and was enclosed by a solid arch. Each tower held a triangular flag at its top. The word “Pictures” was still written in serif font and grew in size compared to the previous version.

Disney Logo from 2006 – 2011

In 2006, the designers came up with a revised version of the emblem – a clear and refined depiction of magic castles. Here, the stripes vanished, the gates opened, and more realistic details came in, such as a shooting star. The towers, glowing rooms, and the star in the full-colour versions look very appealing and depict the most fabulous fairy-tale desires.

The text “Walt Disney Pictures” grew smaller in size compared to the castle. The word “Productions” got smaller featuring a new uppercase font, and the lettering “Walt Disney” became slightly thinner.

Disney Logo from 2011 – Present

The present version isn’t much different from the previous one, save for the wordmark. This time, an abbreviated version is used in place of the full one – the word “Disney ” replaced the “Walt Disney Pictures”. Adorned with windows, towers, flags and balconies, the emblem is full of intricate details.

The shooting star of the Disney logo leaves a long arch in the skyline. Some clouds and fireworks are also added to express the magical realism of the brand. The castle stands for love, romance, fairy tales, and everything magical. However, with the launch of Toy Story, several changes ushered in the cartoon arena. Designers started accompanying different cartoons with their version of the logo, so the picture looks in sync with the theme of the movie.

For instance, it looks a lot like a city of lights in Tron and like Cliffside Castle in Maleficent. The outstanding animation of the castle and its surrounding details show the incredible advances Disney has made in graphics, detailing, animation, audience appeal, and branding techniques.

Endnote,

The Walt Disney logo holds a rich and magical history. Since the company has released an exciting range of mythical and fairy-tale movies and cartoons, the logo rightly depicts the excitement of the fairy-tale realm. Walt Disney has always aimed at the effectiveness of the logo by constantly updating it with the changing times and developing animation technology. The company’s branding team has exhibited an outstanding capacity to adapt in the face of change without the basic concept.

By PJ Hoogendijk

PJ has a background in management consulting and software development. At DesignBro, he combines both. Personal favourite brand of PJ is Jeep.

Sourced from DesignBro

In News

5 Steps to Crafting an Authentic Social Media Presence For Your Business

July 14, 2022 No Comments

By Jonathan Riff

Here’s how to curate a unique brand identity and social media presence that will help your business stand out online.

When it comes to social media marketing, authenticity is key, but curating an authentic brand identity that helps you stand out online, helps you build trust and helps you gain visibility on social media platforms can be quite challenging.

From choosing the right platforms for your target market to posting content that starts conversations to engage with your customers, here’s how to curate an authentic social media presence.

1. Choose your social media platforms wisely

While being active on all social media platforms can help to increase your organic reach, spreading yourself too thinly is a major social media marketing mistake. So rather than attempt to post across multiple platforms, choose one to three places to promote and post and keep your activity consistent.

For example, if you’re a small business targeting local customers, focus on crafting high-quality content for one to two platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram first, before trying to expand to Pinterest, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can also repurpose content from one platform and use it on another, which will save you precious time as a business.

2. Create an authentic brand identity

Your brand identity must resonate with your unique target audience, so it’s important to get clear on who your dream customer is and what needs or pain points they have that you can address. Once you know this, consider how you want your brand to be perceived by your target market. Do you want to come across as friendly and approachable or professional and trustworthy? This will help inform the language you use, the visuals you share and the overall tone of your posts.

Post content that your customers value and reflects their existing ideas to build an instant connection with them. By showing that you understand their point of view and have common ground, you can build up a mini-community online and show more of a personality as a brand than a corporate tone of voice. You should also build trust by providing a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the daily running’s of your business. This helps to break down barriers between your business, your team and your target market.

3. Show what your brand represents visually

Colour combinations and video content can be used to reflect your brand’s values and goals online visually. Suppose you’re an outdoor/adventure brand. Your social media marketing strategy should evoke emotions of freedom, fun and excitement. Your content should energize your audience and encourage them to grasp every opportunity to explore and travel. Colours should be bright, bold and compliment the idea of outdoor adventure. Whereas a luxury spa retreat should incorporate gold, silver, bronze and ivory within their social media posts that bring to mind luxury, glamour and relaxation. This concept should be used across all social media activity and guide your choice of graphics, colours, video clips and music.

4. Start conversations online

When it comes to authenticity, you’ll need to actively engage with users online. And one easy way of doing this is by posting content that requests a response. From polls and questionnaires to debates and hosting livestreams, social media marketing can quickly become your most powerful tool to gather insight and information about your customer’s likes and dislikes. With this data, you can make better decisions as a business, tweak your social media marketing campaigns and demonstrate that you value their input.

5. Give your brand a face

Adding a human aspect to your social media presence is a smart move and can help transform your entire social media marketing approach. After all, social media is meant to be social, and your customers will appreciate engaging with another person, rather than reacting to scheduled social media posts. To give your brand a face, introduce one or two members of your team and allow them to “go live” and talk directly to your followers, answering questions, providing information and adding value.

You could also host regular webinars or podcasts and invite industry experts to collaborate with you, which will not only add value to your brand but help increase your reach online. Why does this build trust and authenticity? Well, people naturally trust other people more than they do a company, which is probably why many corporate accounts find organic growth difficult. When your brand identity includes a real person, this makes it far easier for users to trust you and connect with you.

By Jonathan Riff

Sourced from Entrepreneur

In News

How Brandon Saltalamacchia Earns $15k Per Month Using A Video first Approach For His Website

July 13, 2022 No Comments

By Colin Linnett

Play episode

Download

Today’s guest on the Niche Pursuits podcast is Brandon Saltalamacchia. Brandon is a website owner and video creator who owns the brand Retro Dodo.

The conversation starts with Brandon explaining his background and how he built a website on the back of a successful Facebook group, which he sold for six figures with an impressive 55x multiple.

This led him to Retro Dodo (his current project), which he started two years ago.

Fast forward to today, the project receives page views in the hundreds of thousands, makes around 18 thousand dollars from display ads, and between 14-30 thousand dollars per month from affiliate income.

The interesting thing about Brandon’s approach is that he does things a little differently by taking a video-first approach to building a brand, which he explains during the interview.

You don’t get a step-by-step approach to launching a Youtube channel or any other basic stuff, but rather advice on thinking about video and adding it as a component to your website.

In addition, Brandon Saltalamacchia talks about how he is future-proofing his brand to last the test of time and offers lots of pearls of wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Some of the things discussed By Brandon Saltalamacchia include:

The types of videos he creates
Things that make his videos unique
What makes videos successful
Understanding the Youtube & Google algorithm
His website and how it gets hundreds of thousands of page views by using video
How to rank videos
Keyword research
How he got 250k followers on his Facebook page organically
His Backlink strategy, which is different from the norm
Building a brand that people trust and eventually want to purchase
The mistakes people make when launching a video
Ranking on Youtube for a product you don’t own
Building a community with video
Plus more

If you ever wanted to add a video component to your website and your online brand and discover the best way to go about it, this interview is perfect for you and will answer this and much more.

As always, sit back, take notes, and enjoy the episode.

Links & Resources Mentioned During The Interview:

This Episode is Sponsored by: Rank IQ and Ahrefs.com

Watch the full interview:

Play episode

Read the full transcription:

Jared: Welcome back to the niche pursuits podcast. My name is Jared Bowman. Today. We are joined by Brandon Saltalamacchia.

Brandon: Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for having me on Jared.

Jared: I was so nervous about staying here last day. I forgot to, to say hi and welcome after

Brandon: that. yeah, I bet you cut out the, uh, the snippet before this practicing.

Hey.

Jared: Yeah. Well, we didn’t record the practicing. I was sitting here going through it, like I was going to my ABCs.

Brandon: you, you nailed it. You nailed

Jared: it. I D nailed it, but, but Hey, you know, 80% is good enough. Right? So, um, Hey, I’m really glad we’re able to do this. I’m really glad to have you on today. We have a live website we can kind of talk about in the flesh and go through how you’ve built it.

Your success is, is really great. So, um, I’m really excited to hear all the details about how you built this brand that, that you have right now, before we dive in. Of course, though. Can, can you just bring us up to speed? Tell us about who you are and your backstory.

Brandon: For sure. Um, I’ve only really been doing this for three years, three years ago.

I’m still working full time for a media company in the UK. Um, but it all started with my love of, uh, campervans. I started a, a van life Facebook page, so to speak. I always had a background of creating video and social stuff. That was always what I was paid to do. Um, and so I worked with a lot of startups doing that and I decided to, you know, try it for myself, try and build something that brings in.

I think my target was something like $300. I was just like, you know what, 300 quids to spend on some beers, go out with friends. I’ll be happiest days with that. And, um, I started with a Facebook page. I knew how to grow that. I quickly grew it. So I think something stupid, uh, like a hundred thousand followers in six months, organic, just using video.

Uh, and when I got to that point, I was like, okay, I let’s look at some strategies on how to monetize it. So I came down the, the niche blog route, uh, and that’s when I started just creating small, uh, blogging content on there. And I was really, really bad at it, really bad actually, um, to a point where I didn’t even know what keyword research was.

So I had this really powerful Facebook page that got to. Quarter of a million followers on Facebook. I started creating the blog and then I started doing YouTube content and the YouTube content picked up. I think that got around 50,000 subscribers in about a year. So I would fly to America, uh, because you guys have incredible expos over there with huge four by four rigs.

So I went a bit gorilla. I just, I just said, you know what, I’m gonna take my camera, go over there, get a $500 return ticket and just film as much as I can. And I remember filming like maybe 15 to 20 rigs. I would just go up to people and say, Hey, I wanna film your, your rig, your camera van. Can I do a tour?

This is my blog. And it’s got like 30,000 visits a month and that kicked off the YouTube channel. So after about a year and a half, two years, I had this cool little brand basically. And, um, the pandemic hit, I was a bit strapped for cash and thought, you know what? I’ll see what I can sell it for. And the multiples were.

Ridiculous. This is the first time I started looking into how you could sell niche websites. Mm-hmm , you know, it was a typical, I think, like 30 to 40 times multiple. Um, and I managed to get around about 55 X because of the, the whole social branding and the whole, you know, the Facebook following the YouTube account.

I think our Instagram had maybe 60,000 followers because that’s what I was always good at the social side, growing it, doing a bit of growth, hacking collaborations, and it all tied into a really cool brand, but the SEO strategy was, was Bo. So it was terrible. 30,000 visits a month was, was pretty bad after a year and a half doing it.

But, um, I managed to sell it for six figures and that is what launched me to leave my full-time job and start what is now known as retro, which is my only website that I’m currently working on. So that’s basically it in a nutshell, really.

Jared: I have so many questions, uh, and I don’t wanna spend the entire episode on your backstory, but I, I, I have to ask a bit and I, I think it’s really relevant because so many people listening might have the opposite story of you.

They focus entirely on SEO. They spend all their early days, maybe keyword research, picking the perfect topic, writing the perfect article, all that you went about the exact opposite. I mean, you mentioned that your Facebook page was kind of your launching point and got to about 250,000, uh, followers organically.

And that was just three years ago. I mean, the algorithms had already changed pretty dramatically. At that point. It was really hard to get organic reach with, with Facebook. What was, if you could just give us a little, a little insight into what caused it to be so popular so quickly.

Brandon: It was quite simply snackable videos around about 60 seconds.

You probably remember, but like a couple years ago, your feed was constantly, you know, 60 seconds square videos with text over it, crappy music, maybe a little bit of a storyline. And that is what drove the, the, the growth really. I think I put out, uh, three to five videos a week to, to, to gain the, the follow followership.

And then I kind of force fed the articles through that. So I think it was somewhat silly. Like 80% of my traffic was social. Um, so I’ve kind of seen both sides of the fence, how you can build a brand without SEO. And now I’m on the, the complete opposite. I’m trying to build a brand with SEO now. Um, and social, as you can see.

Yeah.

Jared: Yeah. Well, clearly you had a, you said you had a background in video and you used video with the Facebook page. You used video then on the YouTube side of things, and then translated that into some, some of the, uh, some of the SEO traffic, they ended up getting what was successful from an SEO standpoint on that van camping life.

Like, was it, um, one to one, like some of the YouTube topics that did really well organically also did well organically or did, was it completely different? Were you writing completely different topics to get those 30,000 pages a month?

Brandon: Yeah, because of the large following I had to force. Social based articles on the Facebook page.

I did the typical, you know, you’re affiliate at your best X of 2020, um, your best van life products, the kind of, you know, the basics to getting the money. But what was big was the, the social side of it. So check out this $1 million rig that you can buy, check out this handmade campervan, uh, from someone who had only had $500 that kind of, uh, force feeding of traffic through social is what made it very popular.

And it did get some good links because of the YouTube channel growth. Um, I think we had a few big back links of people, uh, embedding the video, which was yeah, the, the million dollar camper van, uh, which were like huge RS with like six, six wheels and two living rooms and then three bedrooms. It was pretty crazy.

So that’s what kind of drove the brand and did a bit of SEO in terms of back links there. But in all honesty, I was pretty terrible. SEO back then.

Jared: So I’m curious. I actually, um, uh, bought a trailer within the last year for my family to go, you know, I’m wondering if I’ve watched some of your videos without even knowing it.

maybe, maybe I, I have to admit though I was not searching for million dollar trailers or a van . Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you talked about how the site ended up selling for a really great multiple, like he says, like 55 X, I mean, could you give us a ballpark in terms of the, the rough dollar figure you end up selling that for.

Brandon: Yeah, it was over a hundred thousand dollars. So I think I sold it for around about 120 grand, um, is what I is, what I got for it being open. Yeah.

Jared: That’s thanks. Thanks for sharing. That’s great. Your first, uh, your first project ended up in a six-figure exit that’s that’s I think anyone would take that at this

Brandon: point.

Yeah. yeah. In honesty, I didn’t know what I was building. I was just having fun and pissing about and getting to travel. We had a few big sponsors, uh, because we built a big social brand, um, and it all just kind of combined into a really cool side hustle. Um, but when I sold it is when I really saw the, the, the, the opportunity of niche websites and how to build a niche SEO powerhouse alongside.

A really cool social brand and that’s what I’m kind of building now. I’ve kind of, you know, put them together to, you know, invest in writers and really cool written content where I do the whole social side. I’m on the YouTube channel. I’m managing, I’m doing the Instagram stuff, so I haven’t outsourced everything.

So you’ve kind of caught me in a weird time where growth has been good. Um, but I do need to outsource everything. That’s on my plate. I still do a lot, unfortunately. Um, but I guess that’s the next step, isn’t it from turning it into a hobby slash so that you piss about with, to a sustainable passive business, I guess.

Yep.

Jared: Yep. Yeah. It’s you don’t just wake up one day and it’s, it’s just snap your finger and everything’s running itself and. And whatnot. It’s a process. So, well, let’s talk about that, about that those early days of this site. And again, you shared the site, retro dodo.com. So if people are watching or listening, they could follow along.

If they’re not, you know, in the car at the gym, bring it up or, or bookmark it and come back to it. Um, and it’s, it’s a side back about gaming. I, I did my homework a little bit ahead of time. nice. But yeah. So what was the impetus for this site when you exited your last project and then focused on this, how did you settle on the topic?

How did you settle on what you wanted your next, uh, project to be?

Brandon: It was simply passion. I’ve always been highly passionate about games. I’ve been working in the gaming industry for. Probably five years. And that was my full-time job before, uh, retro Doda. I would work with big companies, uh, big brands like PC gamer games, radar tech radar.

I was doing a load of video stuff for them. Um, so I just naturally had a, a passion for gaming and more specifically retro gaming. So like the old classic game boys, one that I’ve got here for those watching on video, you know, the old game boy advance that kind of stuff. And I thought, you know, what the dream would to be, to, to piss about with game boys and get paid for it.

So I decided to create retro Dodo. I did have a personal YouTube channel that I was playing around with this stuff, doing unboxings. Um, so I thought, you know, if I can build a website. Growing traffic. I can then kind of interlink and rebrand my personal YouTube channel into that to create a social brand.

And, and that, I think I launched the website maybe two years ago. Um, and now it’s sitting around about half a million page views a month. Uh, and the YouTube channel just after the YouTube, channel’s probably a bit older, maybe five years. That’s at about quarter of a million subscribers. So it’s got a substantial following now on Instagram, we’re at about 60,000.

Um, so I’m kind of trying to grow the SEO side of it. And in honesty, I’m quite new to the, to the, the SEO side of building niche websites. Um, so it’s all very new to me, keyword research and stuff, but we’ve been doing that for about a year now, like proper keyword research and we’re seeing some, some decent growth.

Jared: Ah, so. Those numbers are, are, are, are amazing. They’re mind blowing. Um, and it sounds like you, you know, continue to bring your, your video excellence or your video background to the table with this site. Um, did, did, when you started this project years ago, was it another, another play, like the last one where you were focused on the video side of things and then looking to slowly build out the website in the SEO components, or did you take a different approach two years ago when you went into this from an SEO standpoint, as it, as it kind of relates to video.

Brandon: Yeah, my, my strategy is always, um, work on your advantages. However, you can have an advantage on anything. If it’s building a niche website or a social brand, do what you’re good at to, to hopefully beat the competition. And me working in the media industry with websites that have tens of millions of visits a month, I saw a, a, a back door to, to, and I saw what they’re not doing very well.

And that to me was community in the video side. So I just thought maybe I should try putting video first in everything I do now, uh, because not only is it my advantage, it’s what a lot of these media companies aren’t doing in my personal opinion. And that was the back door to grow traffic, grow community.

And hopefully get ahead. And I’m not saying, you know, retro is this huge website because it’s got, it’s got a lot more growth to, to do, but I really do think that me putting video first and building a, a social brand it’s what’s catapulted. Back links, awareness. A lot of people that want to work with us.

And, uh, recently we’ve, we’ve launched a book. So it’s, it’s all it’s I, I guess it’s not your typical SEO strategy that you you’re probably used to on this YouTube channel. I, I’m not very good at it. So I’ve kind of relied on my other advantages, but now I’ve over the last year, I’ve seen the, the advantages of putting SEO second, I guess.

And then seeing how that goes. I

Jared: was gonna say, seems, seems to be working let’s you kind of, you, you, you teased it perfectly. Let’s say that the typical person listening right now has a website and is looking to start to build out the video side of that. Mm-hmm , they’re looking to add video components for engagement, for social, build out a YouTube channel, et cetera, et cetera.

What are some of the mistakes you see people making when they are adding video on to a we’ll call it a niche website or an SEO focus website.

Brandon: Oh, that’s a good question. Mistakes. ,

Jared: I’m trying to think of, you know, launching that, launching that video brand and getting things wrong. And what are some things that people do wrong that they might be able to learn from you on that, that, that they can avoid?

Brandon: I think having a personality in a, in a video is, is undervalued. There’s a lot of, you know, text based videos. I see on these niche websites with, you know, your standard music, maybe nobody’s talking over it, you, you have to take a step above what the average person is doing. In my opinion, that’s something I’ve always done.

You, you see what the average niche website is doing and to succeed, you need to be one step ahead of them. And I think in video, if you can get your face on there, if you can get your voice or your hands, something along those lines to give it some personal touch, I would say that’s a good advantage to, to start with.

But it’s hard because a lot of niche website operators are quite introverted like myself and they kind of don’t want to do that, which is fair enough. But I think, uh, doing so with your voice or your face puts you one step ahead of someone who isn’t doing it, does that sense?

Jared: It does make sense. Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s the, the blessing and the curse of, of, of building websites is you can hide behind them if you want, but yet at the same time, it’s also perhaps the greatest limiting factor you might have with your website’s growth.

Brandon: For sure. You know, it’s, it’s a scary thing, but bigger, the risk, bigger the reward sometimes. And I think if you are planning to launch, um, you know, a YouTube strategy, yeah. Try, try your face, try your hands to start with. And it’s always, YouTube’s good because it’s another, um, income, you know, on top of your, your display advertising and it’s also, uh, another place to hold your community.

If something ever happened to your site, God forbid you’ve then got YouTube to, to fall on as a, as a, is a yeah, it’s a backup.

Jared: Talk about how you’ve built community inside of video. And I don’t wanna jump, say community inside of YouTube, but maybe that is where your community lives. Mm-hmm , what’s, what’s, what’s different about building a community with video versus just publishing maybe really good or really relevant videos.

Brandon: It’s definitely the, the personal touch. I think what takes, I always see when you build a website is what does your average page look like? If it’s, if it’s all text, you know? Yeah, that’s good. It will rank. But then if someone, even just two, um, sections down from you has a video of them on it. I feel like you’re gonna remember them more than the previous one.

And over long term, perhaps you’re doing this, the building the website for five years, and you’ve got a couple hundred videos they’re gonna come back. And I think there’s that brand awareness, which video gives you an advantage in, and we’re in this time now where your, your typical article doesn’t really need a video, it probably doesn’t need a video to rank.

Well, we’ve seen it on, you know, the top, top results that a lot of these don’t have videos, but I feel like in the next five to 10, it’s gonna be quite important and giving it that personal touch is it’s just a human interaction, which causes a small bit of dopamine, which. Hopefully will help. Yeah. As long

Jared: as you, long as you’re a personality that, that, uh, that, you know, you present

Brandon: well and whatnot, as long as you’re good at it.

And it’s not like staring at a rock , that’s the

Jared: secret that, you know, maybe we don’t mention sometimes when we talk about these things, but you have to be somewhat mildly interesting, I suppose.

Brandon: yeah, yeah, yeah,

Jared: yeah. So you launch this brand and, uh, certainly brought a video focus to it, but also a, a SEO focus.

How quick was the ramp up? I mean, we’re two years in, you’re already getting 500,000 page views, which by the way, you’re downplaying your SEO skill sets, but. That’s phenomenal. You’re I took notes 250,000 subs on YouTube. You’re already at 60,000 subs on Instagram. What was the ramp up like, did this just hit right away or was it a slow build?

Um, talk about that first year,

Brandon: uh, the first year was really hard. Like I think like anyone launching a niche website, it’s just crickets, isn’t it? It’s, you’re just throwing darts, a dart board and nothing sticking, but that’s, I see it as that’s Google’s test that’s that’s Google’s test to get rid of 99% of the people that are just doing it for profit.

They want to get rid of the lazy people. And the 1% that, that get through the Google sandbox, uh, they’ll reward you with rankings. And the first year was terrible. The second year it ramped up considerably, uh, the recent product reviews, uh, update did really well with us because I’ve always been quite white hat.

I always think what. What I’m doing needs to please Google now. And it needs to please Google in five years. So I do everything. It takes me a lot longer. I’m probably paying a lot more protical than your traditional person. Um, but I feel like in the, in the long run it’s, it’s worth it. And the product reviews update did great things for our website because we had, you know, authentic video with the product and I’d rip.

Uh, the, the, the voice over for that to create an article, I do custom images. I would link it to not only, uh, other competitors, um, comparisons, but also ours, internal linking as well. Uh, just to make it look like, well, just to please Google quite simply. And I think the product reviews with the custom videos and the custom, um, images, Google read that and was like, Hey, this is authentic.

This is natural. They’re, they’re doing some good internal linking. They’re doing a lot of outbound linking as well. Um, I just think that that’s what helped us over the last probably year, I think.

Jared: So you gave us some snapshots of where the traffic is at, um, with whatever you’re comfortable. Can you share, um, some revenue numbers, and then maybe I can ask some follow up questions about, you know, what types of articles you have and, and, and, you know, the size of the website and whatnot.

Brandon: Yeah, for sure. So typically, so in October, I moved from Azo to media vine, which was quite literally life changing. I document it, documented it on my YouTube channel. Um, that took my blog from about $5,000 a month to, you know, five digits. So over the last six months, the average has been around about $18,000 a month just through display advertising.

Um, a lot of our revenue is affiliate stuff as well. Cause we do a lot of product based reviews and comparisons. And the video side, the YouTube side’s so good at driving affiliate commission so much better than your traditional article, in my opinion, or if that’s the, that’s the data I’ve seen, just cuz of the personal touch we were, we were talking about there and it gives us a bit more of a honest vibe in my personal opinion.

So, you know, the best month over the last six months been around about $30,000. The worst was in like February and I think overall it was about $14,000. Okay. So we’re in that, we’re in that ballpark,

Jared: in that ballpark? Yeah. What kinda affiliate relationships are you engaging in? Is it Amazon? Is it private affiliate?

Um, do you have a lot of private affiliates or maybe just one or two that drive the bulk of it?

Brandon: Um, it’s a bit of everything. Um, because we traditionally it’s eBay actually. Okay. Uh, just because of the niche I’m in retro gaming, you can’t go and buy Pokemon red. You just can’t. If it’s just impossible, you can’t go into a store and buy it.

So the only way to buy it is second hand through eBay. So a lot of our, uh, Philip stuff is through eBay. We do have a handful of partnerships, um, but I don’t tend to have any more than five just cuz it gets complicated and I can’t be bothered to, to track all that. Um, and then yeah, another large part is Amazon.

So I’d say Amazon eBay and a couple of custom, you know, third party affiliate stuff.

Jared: And you, you, you said YouTube drives so much better affiliate conversions than a website. Talk about that a bit more cuz I don’t think people maybe are attuned to that.

Brandon: It’s a, uh, yeah, so it’s a lot more of an investment for sure.

Um, traditionally, you know, SCA, you’ve got your long term kind of growth of traffic where YouTube’s typically this huge spike for maybe three or six months, and then it’s, it’s, it’s dead. But, uh, one of our biggest drivers is, you know, 10 best retro handhelds. I get them all in. I’ve kind of made the brand an authority on that, you know, game boys, anything new, um, and people will literally wait for the video.

They, they, they count down the days we’re doing premiers. They’re waiting for, you know, the, the half year, best retro handhelds that I do in June. And they all kind of wait for it. We’ve, we’ve kept like this almost like FOMO. Um, I dunno how I’ve done it in honesty but people will just, just wait for the videos to come out.

And I don’t know. I think a lot of my community are more video driven than, than. Reading in my personal opinion or the ones that stick around the ones that follow you, traditionally, you stick around with video and then you get the odd, um, person that comes in that have just kind of stepped through your door through SEO.

Um, the benefits there in terms of video, I think is just you, you have a higher click through rate in honest opinion. Um, and it has that, you know, personal, honest touch to it.

Jared: Yeah. It seems like if, if you’re, if someone’s watching you with a personality and you’re actually holding the product, it’s just gotta, it naturally makes sense.

It’s a better experience than someone reading text on a page, not necessarily seeing the product, not necessarily seeing the interaction with the product. It just makes sense. People are gonna be more engaged with what you’re doing and then the follow up action they want to take then maybe reading it on a, on a piece of paper.

Brandon: For sure. Yeah. It backs up your, your opinions of it as well for like, if I had this, if I was reviewing this handout here, and this was a bit too cliquey, it’s hard to show that in an article, whereas a video, I just did it then even in audio format that your audience probably heard that it’s just you, you’re giving people a more honest, authentic introduction to your review, which I think drive, well, I know it drives more clickthroughs and more affiliate commission.

Jared: You made me think of a quick little story. I took my car into the shop the other day. Just, I just picked it up yesterday. My, and one of the things that was wrong with ’em my seat was stuck. Just wish they wouldn’t make these automated seats. So I could just move my seat. Oh God. But yeah. Hundreds of dollars of LA later, but, uh, the mechanic who I’ve been taking my cardio for years, I, I actually trust.

And he, he said, yeah, I didn’t have to take the seat out to fix your, um, switch for your seat. He’s like the manual says to take it out. And I was reading a little bit online. It says to take it out, but then I just decided to pop over to YouTube and I watched a guy change the switch without taking the seat out.

So I just

Brandon: did that. There we go. There we go. I bet that save that’s my mechanic.

Jared: This is what he does for a living. Yeah. But he saw someone do it without him to take out the seat. And so that was engagement for him to do it that way.

Brandon: For sure. And YouTube’s coming out with chapters now. So what, whatever he was searching now, like how to, how to change a seat in the Google search engine.

Now they will literally take the snippet, the 32nd snippet of him taking out the chair. And sometimes that’s like the first snippet you see when you search these things. So, uh, YouTube and Google are definitely pushing video first for certain terms. And that was probably a, you know, a good example. Mm-hmm of how, how to take out the chair, bang, just some Geer on YouTube, slide it out.

And you, you don’t have to read the manual and find the bloody page. It’s it. All Google wants is to please the user, whether that’s videos, snippets, uh, audio, or written, and it’s our job to find the easiest way to do that through any terms and any pieces of content. And sometimes I think video is the best way to do that.

Yeah.

Jared: Yeah. Like you said, it probably did chapterize it probably went straight to it. Probably popped up 45 seconds later. Who’s probably like, oh, I know exactly what to do versus the, yeah. We all know the experience of trying to find something in a manual. Sure. When your dishwasher breaks or whatever. But anyways, so now that we’ve talked about video and talked about how great it’s, let’s actually do a little bit on your SEO strategy and what you’re doing with SEO, you said it was a slow build into SEO and you’re still kind of getting there, but what does the SEO component of, uh, of retro Doto look like?

Um, and, and maybe talk about how you find topics, how they relate to the topics you, um, you make videos about, uh, keyword research, those sorts of topics.

Brandon: Yeah. So as mentioned, I’m still learning. So everyone listening, please take this with a, a pinch of salt because, uh, just recently I decided to change the change, the homepage of our site and Jesus Christ.

We dropped about 20% traffic and we’re still sustaining that. So not sustaining, um, picking up the mess, uh, so to speak. So I do make a lot of mistakes. I’ve gone through life, you know, failing many times, but you learn from your mistakes. Mm-hmm . But traditionally my keyword research is, uh, and for my writers is to do 20% of what they want to write about.

And then 80% of the stuff I want them to write about. And all that is typically a lot of, you know, keyword research using a HFS, um, a simple Google search will give you lots of terms to write about. So it’s, it’s a mix of stuff I’m seeing, you know, a HFS, typically their digits are. Over exaggerated. So sometimes I want to target something.

That’s, let’s say a thousand searches a month and it comes in, you get place one and it’s a hundred. Um, so typically it’s quite simply that for the writers to have a bit of fun with what they’re writing, but then my keyword research is do this, do this, do this using HFS, and also being on reps. And also, you know, being honest is looking at competitors and simply finding a way to write better, even if that’s simply, you know, doing a similar structure, but embedding a video or a podcast or custom images.

It’s the small things which will just slowly, slowly add up. Um, I dunno if that’s the most authentic way, but I can imagine, you know, it’s as a strategy to see what your competitors doing, see what they’re doing poorly and just, just do it better. Mm-hmm

Jared: a typical article. Is it going to be kind of a, a buying guide, a Roundup review?

Is it, are you going after more informational topics? How, how, how long does these articles end up being when you kind of write them and create them the way you talk about.

Brandon: Typically, we always aim for about 1500 words. Uh, a lot of it is best X of 20, 22, you know, best PlayStation games, best Nintendo games.

But, uh, I really do think there’s this fine line of pushing too much affiliate content in Google, not liking it. So I try and go like 50, 50, maybe. So if, if you, if you post 10 affiliate articles this month, make sure you get it out. You know, a handful of news posts and then a handful of info, um, posts too.

Yeah.

Jared: You, you mentioned, you talked about how the affiliate updates, uh, the product review updates by that Google’s made have been very kind to you. I was gonna ask you if you thought it had anything to do with the amount of affiliate content you have compared to the amount of non-affiliate content, or if you think it’s just significantly more related to the type of affiliate content you’re producing.

Brandon: I think it’s a bit of both. I think Google does not like a website that’s 80% plus affiliate driven. I just think they, they, Google will look at that and know exactly what your intention is for that brand. It’s not to really help it’s to drive revenue. So you need to find this middle ground of being informational and, you know, driving your revenue up.

So I think there’s definitely a middle ground for that. In quality, it comes down to, you know, you, you, you could have two websites that have very similar written content of a review because typically reviews are quite similar. It comes down to personal preference, but when you get down to the tech specs, it’s pretty similar.

But the, the niche website, you know, creating custom images, maybe embedding a YouTube video, maybe even creating a YouTube video, they’re the ones that are gonna, they’re gonna flourish in my opinion, just because Google’s gonna see that, Hey, they’re taking the step extra there’s authenticity here. They’ve got the product in their hands.

They’ve got their watermarked images. It just makes sense. And maybe now we’re not seeing that, but I do think in the next couple of years, Google’s gonna push these review updates even further, and they’re gonna want authenticity.

Jared: Well, clearly you’ve done it well so far with the type of affiliate content you’re producing.

Um, let me ask you a question for someone who is looking to bring the same type of approach that you. To building a brand, I’ll say a brand because it’s more than a website. Like somebody wanting to build both video media content, along with a web based, um, article style content. Mm-hmm do you think it’s better is a really high level question.

You think it’s better or easier to kind of start with the video in mind and then pull the concepts of the article from the video? Or do you think it’s better and easier to start with the article in mind and then build a video from the concepts that you wrote about?

Brandon: So that’s great. This is, this is how I’m trying to work.

I’m trying to be more or, um, what’s the word efficient with my reviews and I actually start. With a video in mind, but I’m writing the script. For example, if I was reviewing this, I’d write a, a video script. Um, and then I’d basically turn that into the article. I’d also read it on the, on the, uh, the video.

So it’s almost, you’re killing two birds of one stone. Not only is it your video, uh, article your script, sorry. You can also convert that into word and you create the video. And then from that video, you take screenshots for the custom images. So you it’s, it’s very efficient when you get down to it and you start getting into the, into the, into the flow.

Um, but I always put video first, if I’m reviewing, for example stuff,

Jared: this might sound like a dumb question, but I’m wondering if people listening might have it in the back of their mind. Can you just take a transcription from a really great video you make and publish that and will it rank, do you think, or does it need that as maybe the outline the basis, but it really needs to be cleaned up and made into an actual article.

Brandon: I think you can. Yeah, I think we’re gonna see more of this over the next few years. People are gonna just make a video off the whim. Like this one, for example, you could take the transcript, but you will need to, you know, put the headers in the right place. Uh, put the images in the right place. Maybe do a bit of.

Clean up. And I think this is gonna be the most efficient way of creating both video and written format. And we’re gonna see this more and more. And I think the ones who really get into the flow of it, uh, are gonna master, you know, both a written article and a video that combined together are gonna rank really, really well.

Jared: that’s. Yeah. You’re right. You and stuff.

Brandon: What’s that it’s time consuming. It’s, it’s expensive. Like the camera equipment here. I know you can do it on your phone. Uh, but I do always, uh, mention to just, but put a little bit of money into like audio quality in a, in a cheap light, just to give it that, that little upgrade that it needs, but it is an initial expense for sure.

And that’s why a lot of people don’t do it. They would rather just, you know, write wherever they want and, um, doing video and written format together does keep you less nomadic for sure. If I wanted to create a video, I have to be in my office. I can’t be nomadic at all.

Jared: Right. Yeah. You can’t be sitting in a, a loud coffee shop with, uh, no, unless you’re a, a, a coffee brand, I guess.

yeah, yeah, exactly. That maybe it works. Um, Hey, so here’s another question. I I’m wondering if people have, um, mm-hmm do you think it’s possible to rank well on YouTube to, to, to have a video that both drives, uh, engagement and conversions, do you think it’s possible to do it without buying the act, all the product that you’re reviewing say, or that you’re making a video

Brandon: on?

So you want to rank for a product review without having the product? Is that what I’m hearing? Yeah.

That’s a tough one. I think now you could, in a few years time, no, you could, you could talk about it. You could do like a news update post that, go through their website and show ’em what you think of it. Yeah. You could rank there, but Google’s quite smart. Knowing in, in reading the frames of a video to, to understand what it actually is.

So I would say yes, you can now, but I think if, if you, we hop on a podcast again in a couple years, probably. Probably not. Yep.

Jared: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously, I mean, we all know that, you know, clearly it’s, it’s easy to see if you have the product in your hands, you’re talking about the comparison or the specific product itself.

It’s gonna be better. Mm-hmm but I think people still grapple with the fact of, you know, um, do I need to actually buy the product, use the product before I make a video on it. And, uh, and whether even though it’s meant not be the best scenario, is it practical or is it an approach that could even work? So,

Brandon: yeah, I think.

I think people need to start putting longevity into the mix when they create a piece of content we’ve seen time and time again, people, uh, you know, write articles that rank well for, let’s say six to 12 months. And then all of a sudden an Ango update comes and all of their product reviews are gone. You know, you, you, I always advise doing content.

Well, yes, it might take bit of extra time. Yes. You might have to create a video, but I’m certain that if you’ve done everything, honestly, you’ve got the product in. You’ve done everything. How Google wants to, they’re gonna keep your, your article in the search results for far longer than these people using stock product images and stock tech specs, all that kind of stuff.

So mm-hmm, I always recommend always go one step further than the average person in your niche and you should, should be okay.

Jared: When it comes to the, um, when it comes to the content on your site, you talked about a community that you created with video. Has that video, or has that, uh, community translated over to, uh, anything on your website or is, is it harder to create community on your website, at least specifically with your brand?

Brandon: Oh, it’s really hard to build a community just for written format. And I understand why a lot of, uh, niche website builders struggle with it because it is hard. There’s, there is a connection, but a lot of people come to, to just read and, and they chip on, whereas video, you know, Instagram, they, they are there subconsciously to build a relationship.

And a lot of things have come from me doing or building the YouTube channel to core of a billion subscriber. It’s not just, you know, brand awareness. It, hasn’t probably really driven a lot of traffic at all, really. Um, but things come from it like a lot of back links, a lot of really good back links, a lot of connections.

I’ve met a lot of people in the industry, in the gaming industry, just through the YouTube channel, you know, I’ve been to their offices all around the world. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve shaken hands with some of the, some of the people behind the biggest gaming website. So there’s, there’s. That side of it, which builds connections and grows your business.

Um, and a community, obviously like we’ve just launched, we crowdfunded a book. Um, yeah. With what I ask you about that. Yeah. This was, you know, I’ve always wanted to build a book for people that are into, to retro gaming. And I didn’t think we’d be able to do it, but because of the community, we’ve actually driven over a hundred thousand dollars of, of backing before we’ve even made it.

So now that’s going into production. I personally put that down to the community. I could not have got that funding just through written format. I don’t think I, I can just, not that skilled. Um, but the, the pros of building a community through video and on socials, that there is power in a sense that you can do other things like build a physical product, like meeting people in the industry, um, that doesn’t necessarily equals dollars.

But I, I think in the long run, it probably probably will.

Jared: You mentioned that YouTube has been a great source of back links to your website. Now I’m curious how that works, cuz I mean, again, just I’ll I’ll, I’ll be the one to ask the, the questions that might come across as being a little dumb. But it seems to me like if someone is going to link to my video, won’t they link to the YouTube link, which doesn’t necessarily help my actual website or do I have that wrong or how is that play itself out in terms of back links to your.

Brandon: You’re right. It’s definitely not a dumb question. Cuz typically you just put in a, a YouTube video, but you want to create a VI and it’s hard. This is what we’re getting into. Like the expert video content. Now there’s your traditional

Jared: left. That’s fine. Field’s we’re 40 minutes in here. We can go a little expert.

That’s fine. Hell yeah.

Brandon: The, the people here are staying on now are definitely, yeah.

Jared: Anybody’s left. Wants to hear this kind of stuff.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so that you’ve got your YouTube strategy of building content for your articles in hopes that it, it ranks for. But there’s also this side of YouTube where you just want to create a buzz.

You want people to talk about something? So for example, oh, I don’t, I can’t think of as, yeah, I can, there was a fake PlayStation that I found on a, on a Chinese marketplace for $10 and I simply titled. I found a $10 fake PlayStation. Holy shit. You have to click that. Right? You have to $10. I want to give that to my uncle or my brother just to piss him off so you get that initial spike of people coming in and then your, your hope and your, your goal is for these other gaming websites or other people in your niche to link that and create a whole article on it.

That’s where you get the back link traditionally. Yeah, I would say 80% of people that embed your AR your video. They’re not gonna link to you at all. They’re not gonna. Add your video and then hyperlink to your website. But if you’ve got a really, really cool video that it is just a, an opinion or a talking piece, sorry, they’re likely going to, um, uh, link to you.

And that’s why I’ve had success. Some of the crazier videos that just don’t make sense. They’re a little bit click B. Yeah, I I’ll I’ll admit that. Um, but it gets people talking and hopefully it gets people, uh, linking to you. Cause all you really need is one person to share that on Twitter. And it just go to the right person who writes for the right website and bang.

You’ve got a 80 Dr. Link. It’s that simple. And I would, I would keep doing that. Just keep making cool videos in hopes that one day someone crazy at Huffington post will see it and link to you, you know? Right. Cause it’s worth, it’ll be worth it.

Jared: Oh, for sure. For sure. The, um, the approach you take the video is, is it a little bit like article writing where we, we know.

Generally speaking that say 80% of the articles we write won’t drive the majority of traffic, but one in five will hit, will rank number one. And so the majority of our traffic will probably come from 20% of our articles. I’m being very, very, uh, you know, kind of stereotypical here or very top of the funnel.

But with video, when it comes to your, your views, your watches, your subscribers, and how you grow that channel, is it similar? Are you just hoping to crank out some videos and, and one in five will just will hit? Or is it much more, uh, average in terms of the topics and the amount of, uh, views and subscribers?

They, they generate.

Brandon: Yeah, it’s definitely hit and miss. So I’ve been doing YouTube for, for, for six years now, probably. And I would never rely on it. I would never rely on it as an income just because their algorithm, it changes more than I have hot dinners. It’s all over the place. One week, something works next week.

You know, fidget toys are everywhere. You’re just like, how do I even keep control of this? So you’re right. If I had to put a number on it, I’d probably say one in 25 is when it pops. Wow. Which is okay. Is crazy. When you think about it, the amount of time and money and effort, it takes to make a video. But those 24 are slowly chipping at building a community.

And there’s more of like a higher chance of your, your one in 25 popping off. But. Yeah, YouTube’s a different ballgame. It’s, it’s, it’s very competitive, but when done right and done consistently in, in, in a cooperation with your website, I think that’s when Google will start really, uh, pushing your website further, just because your competitors aren’t doing that.

But if you’re solely doing building a YouTube channel hopes to drive a load of revenue, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be hard. The, the plus side of YouTube, as well as sponsorships are, are far more, um, uh, easy to come by, uh, affiliate stuff you’re gonna, you’re gonna hit the now on the head there. Um, so, you know, there’s, there’s good and bad with YouTube.

The sponsorships is definitely something. I think the traditional niche website builder overlooks, and that’s the, the pros of building a brand. You know, cuz they may want to, uh, sponsor YouTube video and then you can package that in with your Instagram and your website and then you get the affiliate commission as well.

That’s when you get some serious, uh, just extra cash really

Jared: well it’s good feedback because I think, you know, for people listening to who might kind of dive into creating a YouTube channel or maybe some people listening to have dabbled with YouTube video or with video on YouTube in general and maybe done five or 10 and none of ’em had taken off.

I mean maybe, you know, don’t get too down on yourself. You just might still need to make that one video that goes somewhere. But like you said, you don’t really know which one’s gonna go somewhere until you publish say 25 and see which one it is that, that ends up taking off.

Brandon: Yeah. It’s always the ones you least expect and this and this, the, the same goes with a YouTube channel.

You know, you need to do it for at least a year. I say, uh, to really start seeing. Traffic. Um, not that there is a good at a YouTube sandbox there isn’t, but YouTube just likes to see consistency. So even if you could do one video a month, that’s a, that’s a really, really good start.

Jared: Mm let’s say that. Um, I’m putting myself in these shoes.

I have a website that, uh, I don’t have any video content on my own on, uh, and I, I’m looking to, to dive into creating a video side of this website. Um, what’s the best place to start. Should I. Just go and, and really do my own research on YouTube for topics that I should make, or should I go maybe to my top performing posts and build videos out of, out of my top performing post or maybe a different direction that I, that I didn’t even bring up, where would be the best place to start thinking about adding a video component to an existing website.

You think

Brandon: I’d probably start with your top 20%. You, you might not wanna start on, on your articles that are ranking place one, but let’s say you’ve got a few articles that are in position two and three, and you just can’t squeeze anything more out of them, perhaps it’s best to go. Hey, I’m gonna take that written article.

I’m gonna turn it into a five minute script and then I’m gonna try and get, you know, B roll or if you’re unboxing something as simple down camera with you just reading the script is, is, is good enough to put your article that step forward in my personal opinion. So I would probably say, yeah, try and tweak your top 20.

Which might be, which might sound a lot, but you know, give yourself a good year or two to do that.

Jared: Yeah. And I didn’t even think about you’re right. All the benefits you could probably get back onto your actual article by just producing a really high quality video. That’s exactly on point for what your articles about that could be.

What pushes you from spot three to spot two from spot two, to spot one

Brandon: or something. For sure. And Google hasn’t came out saying, Hey, we know, uh, we, we link your YouTube video to your article that they’ve said they can only read if a video is in your article. They can’t technically read what’s in that video within your article.

So you could embed anything. But I really think if you want to, uh, look long term in the next two to five years, there will be some kind of connection there saying, Hey, retro, dodos written this review. And there’s a retro YouTube channel. That’s also had that review and I can see their embedded call.

That’s that’s good in our eyes.

Jared: Yep. Okay. Okay. Um, as we start to kind of come to a close here, and I’m just looking at some of my notes, um, one topic that we’ve danced around and, and, and talk, talk talked a little bit about, uh, from a video standpoint, but let’s talk about it from a more website standpoint.

That’s back links. You haven’t really talked about building back links. And so my guess is that you don’t spend a lot of time building back links. Um, how has the site grown from a link perspective? Do you spend any time on, you know, backlink building as it were, and you know, where do you think that has played into the success of the site in the last couple of.

Brandon: Yeah, good job. I, I completely missed that now. I’ve I’ve never spent a penny on backlinks. I’ve never, uh, tried getting them or outsourcing or whatever, sourcing them. Mm-hmm , I’ve never, it’s just been a hundred percent organic only because I haven’t needed to. I’m quite happy with the growth, admittedly. I dunno what I’m not doing.

If I was to, you know, source more backlink and do a strategy, maybe the website would be further on than it is now, but I haven’t needed to do it as of yet. And there’s there’s back ways like back doors to, to getting links, you know, like the book, for example, a lot of big websites picked that up and not only am I earning money from the book, I’ve got huge back links.

So don’t always think that, Hey, I have to spend X to get these back links. Think, think something crazy. You know, think like the $10 PS five or something. If you want to, if you wanna get a good backlink there’s ways to do it without. Spending your hard earned cash. I think it just comes down to quality content.

And I, I being in this niche for the past couple of years, there’s always been this, uh, thing of people, you know, trying to buy back links, but I just, I just haven’t been there. So I dunno if I’m the best person to ask that, cuz I, I dunno, I just haven’t needed to as of yet.

Jared: Well, your site is clearly doing very well and I mean, you know, it’s uh, yes, your video side is doing well, but I would, you know, clearly your, your content side is also doing well.

I mean, you’re in five figures from ad revenue alone and then, you know, you add on the affiliate side of things. So, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s an ever evolving topic. I always like to ask about it because people have very differing approaches to it. Mm-hmm but certainly we, you’re not the first and won’t be the last guest who’s come on here and kind of said the same thing, which is.

I’m not saying backlinks, don’t help. I’m just saying I haven’t had to do them yet. And I take that time and I put it elsewhere in an area. I think maybe has higher ROI.

Brandon: It’s hard because there’s no real answer to it. People, you know, when we, when I say, and I hear it all the time. Yeah, it’s organic. I don’t do anything.

I just get these back leaks. It doesn’t really answer the poor bugger’s questions. Who’s asking how the hell do I get more back leads? And everyone says, just build great content where I think you need to go a step further, create a cool brand, you know, maybe do the YouTube videos, invest in doing some, some crazy stuff.

If it’s like launching a book or a product in trying to get it on other websites, uh, uh, content there’s there’s ways around it. And unfortunately, I can’t give you a straight answer, but yeah, I wouldn’t shell out for, for buying a ton of back links. Um,

Jared: it’s a good distinction because. And I think it’s fair to state kind of.

So everyone kind of gets their mind around it. Like you’re not investing in a backlink strategy. You’re not building backlinks actively, however you are. And this is what the whole podcast interview has been about. You are investing on a more unique approach to building content and you’re going to great links to build content that is better than what’s out there.

Right. We’ve talked about the video, we’ve talked about the custom imagery. We’ve talked about the way you review the products. You’ve you’ve so you’re building content that is better than what’s out there. Thus attracting back links. Yeah. Thus, you don’t need to build back links. So don’t just listen maybe to Brandon saying, well, I don’t build back links.

Look how successful I am. Yes. But there’s more to that story. Right. And so for someone who’s just building generic content and it’s maybe ranking, but it’s not compelling. They might not have the same backlink success or storyline that, that you do.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. And you, you, you, you said it perfectly, there it, the, the, if you want back links, the goal is to create a, an awesome or a crazy piece of content that gets these news outlets to talk about you or whoever, whatever that may be for, like, for example, if you are in the, the, I don’t know, you’ve got a blog about.

Dentist or keeping your teeth healthy. For example, I would create a video on buying a one, like comparing a $1 toothbrush to a $500 toothbrush. And just that in itself was gonna get people looking at it, clicking on it. And if you do a good comparison, perhaps someone on a news outlet will linked to that say, Hey, this guy has reviewed a $1 tur brush that literally breaks in his teeth, splits his gum open.

And now we’re looking at this $500 tur brush that makes you a cup of tea while you do it. Hey, let’s, let’s leak him. And all you’ve spent on that is $501. Admittedly, you’ve got the equipment and stuff, but I would put $500 on that video rather than going out and buying a back link. If you did have a back link budget, you know, there’s just, that’s me saying that because I’m quite a creative person.

Uh, and it would be hard for someone to think of that if they, they weren’t creative, I’ll be honest, but. If you want to get those back links, you gotta do some crazy stuff that gets people talking. And

Jared: now you have a $500 toothbrush.

Brandon: There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Paid for itself. And it’s making you a cup of tea.

Lovely.

Jared: And it’s making you a cup of tea. I mean, sign me up, babe. Where’s this, where’s this $500 toothbrush.

Brandon: You see, you’re clicking on the video already. I am.

Jared: I’m curious. Well, I’m just blown away by the idea that there could be a, by the way, there probably is a $500 toothbrush. I mean, used to be right.

All joking aside, but there probably is a $500 toothbrush. Well, I think that’s the perfect segue as we close out. Um, if you remember anything from today, Nope. Um, Brandon, this has been really good. Uh it’s it’s so cool to see succeeding so well in a platform that maybe we’ll call is a shoulder niche of webs, older niche of website building, right?

Like it’s everything we talked about is totally doable for a website owner as an additional strategy, but things that probably a lot of website owners are ignoring. And so, uh, this was a really fun hour that flew by really quickly. Thanks for all you had to, you brought in short, uh, Yeah, thanks for all you brought and shared.

Brandon: no worries. Like there’s, there’s definitely, you know, the time I spend on making videos and creating this content, you’re probably, if you, if your only goal is to make money and flip a website, I’ll be honest. You’re probably better at putting that into even more, uh, articles. But for me, I’m looking at building a brand that I can piss about with have a load of fun with, and hopefully it will sustain me and my lifestyle for five to 10 years.

And I think going the step forward, um, going above and beyond with YouTube and your custom images, maybe even starting a podcast that you do once a month, that’s gonna put you. In what I call a safe place, you know? Um, so if I had to give advice to anyone is just, you know, have fun with their, with their niche projects and just do something your competitor isn’t.

Jared: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the website is retro doto.com. Where else can people follow along with you? I know you’re active on Twitter. I’ve we’ve connected there, but where else do you wanna direct people to, to keep in

Brandon: touch with you? Uh, hit me up on Twitter. If they want any advice. I’m, I’m on open book, as you can tell with my earnings and my website, uh, and stuff.

I do have a YouTube channel that I just kind of document there. Um, okay. But yeah, Twitter is probably the best place.

Jared: We’ll put a link in the show notes for that. Um, and. Thank you so much for coming on. I, uh, very, uh, I’ll say invigorated is the wrong word. I’m very intrigued by the prospects of adding a video component.

And I think the most, the most intriguing thing, I think you said, and I know you’re being, uh, forward thinking it, but how it it’s really, not only do you get all the benefits of what you talked about today in the here and the now, but the future proofing concept of building a brand and the, the impact video can have on people.

I think that was my favorite part about what you talked about today. So thanks for coming on board and, um, hopefully we’ll, we’ll stay in touch and connect again soon.

Brandon: Thanks for having me. I appreciate.

Jared: Again, a big thanks to ah, refs for sponsoring today’s podcast. HFS is an all in one SEO tool set. They help you get more traffic from Google by helping you understand what you need to fix on your website.

Now you could hire this out to a high, a costly consultant, or you could go and hire an expensive audit agency, or you could use the power of ATFs webmaster tools. It’s a free resource. That’s gonna help you prioritize those optimization opportunities on your site. In the long run, that’s going to lead to more traffic from Google, which is a good thing.

it? Uh, the tool helps you see which keywords your pages are ranking for. Helps you understand how Google is seeing your content and helps you discover how making changes can blow up your traffic. Imagine what this could do for you in the long run. So again, thanks to HFS for helping us with the podcast today.

And you can learn more about this free tool by visiting a hfs.com/webmaster-tools. Again, that’s a hfs.com/webmaster-tools. Have you been frustrated with your Google traffic lately? Are you tired of tools that make you search through millions of keywords and require a math degree to figure out there’s an SEO tool called rank IQ that can help.

they’re ranked number one on G2 for both ease of use and customer satisfaction. Rank IQ gives you a list of the lowest competition, high traffic keywords in your niche, and they’re all clear winners. When you choose one of their handpick keywords, their AI takes over and gives you a simple report telling you what Google wants you to cover in your blog post.

Whether you have a new site or have been around for a while, rank IQ will take your Google traffic to a whole new level. Go to rank iq.com/niche pursuits to lock yourself in at 50% off their monthly. I’ll put this special link in the episodes of description.

By Colin Linnett

Colin Linnett is a seasoned copywriter and certified content marketer who helps entrepreneurs and bloggers by creating engaging content to woo their readers. He spends most of his time writing blog posts, emails, and researching the latest marketing trends online.

Sourced from NICHEPURSUITS

In News

Need a passive income stream? Here are 7 ways to make money online

July 13, 2022 No Comments

By Aly Yale

Inflation is currently at a 40-year high, sending prices on just about everything upward. While cutting corners and careful budgeting can help, for some Americans, it might not be enough.

If you’re in this boat – or you just want to reduce some financial stress, you might want to consider creating a second, passive income stream. Fortunately, the internet makes this easier than you’d think. There are dozens of ways to make money online — without any special training.

Are you looking to create a passive income stream? Here are seven ways to make some extra cash.

1. Start a blog

Blogs aren’t just for fun these days. They can be quite the moneymaker when done right. The key is to pick your niche, build your audience and then monetize the blog. You can do this through affiliate marketing, which earns you a commission when someone clicks a monetized link or buys a product that’s promoted on your blog. You could also try selling and displaying ads on your site. You can use a tool like Google Adsense to get started with the latter.

2. Take online surveys

Giving your opinion and taking part in market research can also be an easy way to make money online. Some of the more popular survey sites include Survey Junkie, Swagbucks, OneOpinion, Opinion Outpost and Ipsos iSay. Keep in mind: These won’t bring in huge earnings. Swagbucks says its members earn about $1 to $5 per day. That’s why it’s important to do your research before you get started or commit to participating in any online surveys.

3. Start an online store

If you’re the creative type, you can start up an Etsy shop. Etsy sellers offer everything from jewellery and clothing to artwork, invitations, yard signs and more. If that’s not your style, you can start a drop-shipping store. With this strategy, you essentially operate a storefront. When a customer makes an order, you order that product from a third party (typically a manufacturer, vendor, or a wholesaler) and ship it directly to the customer. Shopify has a whole dropshipping walkthrough you can use to get started (and you can use their platform to create your store, too).

4. Sign up for a gig-working platform

There are several platforms designed for online gig work. For example, Amazon Mechanical Turk is a place you can take on small tasks for businesses across the globe. They might include moderating content, taking a survey, or transcribing audio. Clickworker is another similar platform, or if you have a specific skill – like copywriting, editing or graphic design – you can use freelancing platforms like Fiverr, Freelancer.com and Upwork to connect with potential clients.

5. Start a YouTube channel

YouTube creators can make a lot of money – and it doesn’t necessarily require a lot of expertise. You can create how-to or explainer videos on virtually any subject or go more personal and put yourself in the videos. You can interview subject matter experts, provide tips and tricks, or even just show yourself playing various video, mobile or board games.

The important thing is to find a niche and build a following. You can then integrate Google Ads, become a YouTube Partner, and even make money off memberships, live chats and subscriptions.

6. Become a transcriptionist

If you’re a fast typer, you might consider doing some online transcription for cash. You’ll simply need to listen to audio files and then type out what you hear. You get paid per piece, so the faster you can type, the better – at least, financially speaking. Rev.com, GoTranscript and TranscribeMe are just a few of the sites where you can find online transcription work.

7. Test websites and apps

Fancy yourself the tech-savvy type? If so, you can get paid to test out new websites and mobile apps and hunt down any glitches. At UserTesting.com, for example, you get to test new sites and products from brands like GoDaddy, Hello Fresh, HP, Subway and Canva. You just need to have a reliable WiFi connection, a microphone, a computer or mobile device and you can get to work. BetaTesting.com, UserZoom and Userlytics are other similar platforms.

More ways to earn quick cash

If none of the above seem like a fit, you can also become a virtual assistant, sell your photos on stock photography websites or become a social media influencer if you can drum up enough followers. There’s a side gig for everyone. You just need to figure out your perfect fit.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Aly Yale

Sourced from CBS News

In News

Brandingbyexperts.com Promises To Increase Sales, ROI and Organic Traffic By Using Sponsored Posts

July 13, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from Marina Times

Before understanding how building brand equity can increase your sales, let us first understand what exactly is brand equity and what does it mean for your brand.

In the world of marketing, brand equity is something that refers to the value of a brand which is predominantly determined by how your customers perceive your brand. It can either be positive or negative. It’s all about how you present your brand or how you advertise it to the world. If your branding is good, and it is pretty famous among the customers and they regard it highly, then your brand equity is high, and thus positive.

But if not that, then it is termed negative. Meaning that if a brand fails to consistently deliver, fails to live up to the expectations of the customers, and also manages to get loads of negative word-of-mouth it has a lower brand equity or lower brand value. So, to put it in the simplest words, brand equity is the reputation of a brand. A good reputation garners good equity whereas a bad reputation garners negative equity.

What is Branding?

Branding is basically the way in which you characterize your business to yourself, to the business partners, and to your clients. Marketing alludes to giving an extraordinary character to your business that is substantially more than only addressing your organization’s name and logo. The brand character characterizes what’s really going on with your business and how it makes an incentive for other people. With a market that has developed brilliant enough to see through glossed over promoting methodologies, the requirement for a solid and veritable brand character is clear.

Branding is huge in expanding deals for a business. It works as a booster for the growth of revenue. If a brand customizes the experience for the clients, the clients associate with the brand emotionally. A solid brand personality increments client dedication and trust which thus builds the deals for your business.

Here are the key factors that influence how buyers see a brand. At the point when you dial in this large number of pieces, you can further develop brand discernment, drive deals, hold clients and increment references:

Brand message:

How buyers see your image relies a ton upon what you say and how you say it. Ensure you’re reliably conveying your brand image’s worth, vision and novel selling recommendation in a way that reverberates with your objective market across all client touchpoints.

Extraordinary items or administrations:

Make sure your items are top-notch and pertinent to your optimal clients.

Client support:

Try and establish good and strong connections with your group of clients across all channels (e.g., email, telephone, web-based entertainment, visits). This will fundamentally affect how they see your image. Convey a consistent and predictable client experience that lines up with your brand image across all touch focuses.

Trust identifications:

When selling on the web, fabricate trust and believability with customers. Sites with trust identifications cause clients to feel more certain while sharing their data (e.g., during checkout).

Virtual entertainment:

Offer client assistance via web-based entertainment stages. Furthermore, many ask their companions so that suggestions or search via virtual entertainment might see what others are talking about a brand.

Brand Equity Increasing Your Brand Sales Value

Good brand equity increases your sales. Brand equity is nothing but the financial or commercial worth of your brand based on the perception of your brand name amongst consumers or clients. If you build a good brand by indulging in various branding methods and techniques your brand equity rises and thus your sales rise as you are able to sell your product at a higher value.

Your painstakingly built brand makes a visual, profound, and social association among clients and your organization and thus builds trust. A consumer is always ready to pay a comparatively higher sum if he/she trusts the brand.

There are many examples of brands that have built a name and inculcated a trust factor amongst clients thus generating higher brand equity which in turn increased sales.

BrandingByExperts

Branding Experts , as the name suggests a branding agency run by experts in the fields of digital marketing, PR and branding. The company is dedicated to learning and understanding your business. By building a relationship with each of your clients, the company ensures that they build a marketing strategy which focuses solely on the nature of your problems and then on solving them. Each of their marketing campaigns is built with the client’s needs in mind to solve all the marketing obstacles.

The team’s expertise lies in building brand equity and formulating a reliable sponsored posts strategy to add up to the advantages of the client. This causes your sales to boom right up and increases your market value. The agency uses analytics to bring about a positive metamorphosis for your business.

The company builds your brand by distributing a press release to prominent outlets such as many local news affiliates. They give your brand in-content white hat links by reaching out to bloggers with high traffic and reach.

For more than 15 years, the platform has been providing branding solutions for businesses wanting to expand their online presence, increase leads and grow their revenue.

If you too are waiting then your wait ends here. Reach out to BrandingByExperts.com today and increase your sales by leaps and bounds.

Sourced from Marina Times

In News

Web3 101 for brands: here’s your cheat sheet

July 12, 2022 No Comments

By Lauren Griewski

Web3 could revolutionize the relationship between brands and their customers. Here’s an introduction to what marketers need to know.

When the internet first went live, publishers would create content and users would consume it – a period known as web1. A decade or so later, web2 took over with the emergence of web apps and social networks, which made it easy for everyone to create, share and engage with content.

Fast forward to today, and the novelty of web2 has largely worn off. Some of the most impactful web2 companies – such as Meta (Facebook), Google and Apple – have made a killing by leveraging user-generated content (UGC) to engage consumers and create unique profiles for each of them, only to turn around and ultimately sell that data to third parties for advertising purposes.

The worst part? The vast majority of those users had no idea this was taking place – and none of them gave their permission to allow it to happen.

If advertisers want to rebuild trust with consumers, they need to take an open, transparent approach and ask their audiences for their permission to collect data. And this is exactly what the web3 opportunity – a new era of the internet characterized by decentralization, transparency and autonomy – enables.

What are the core principles of web3?

Ask 10 people to define web3, and you might get 10 different answers. But at a high level, web3 is a new iteration of the internet powered by blockchain technology and token-based economics, and it’s also governed by three central tenets:

Decentralization. In web2, companies own platforms. In web3, platforms are decentralized. No organization has control over any content; users do
Transparency. Thanks to blockchain technology, all users on peer-to-peer networks and decentralized apps (dApps) will share open, unalterable databases that they can verify with their own eyes
Autonomy. Ultimately, users will be able to control their own digital destiny and have the final say in whether their data is collected and how it’s used

According to a recent study, 96% of consumers don’t trust advertisers. This is exactly why brands should be incredibly excited about the web3 moment.

With the right approach, digital advertisers can rebuild the trust they’ve lost during the web2 era – connecting with consumers on a meaningful level and in an open and honest way.

Web3 is here – it’s time to prepare for the tectonic shift

Though we’re still early, the web3 moment has already arrived. Unfortunately, advertisers that wait to adapt to this reality will learn the lesson the hard way.

In the not-too-distant future, users will demand a cut of the revenue generated from the data they create. As an internet-native currency that is incredibly divisible, crypto is the easiest mechanism to deliver incentives that users can immediately put to use.

As the world gravitates toward the web3 standard, user data will increasingly be held on the blockchain or in decentralized storage solutions, which will give users more power over their data than ever before. As a result, they will be able to choose exactly which brands they consent to share data with, what data they wish to share, and for how long.

Advertisers that don’t prepare for this tectonic shift and adapt their methods to offer a real value proposition in exchange for interacting with user data will be left behind.

By offering tokenized rewards – whether that’s fungible crypto coins or non-fungible tokens (NFTs), an on-trend, blockchain-based, one-of-a-kind digital asset – advertisers can tap into the web3 ethos while exciting users about what they have to offer. Plus, they get to take advantage of the magnificent properties that come with blockchain technology, such as:

Immutability, or the permanent, unalterable nature of a blockchain ledger
Validation, or the way in which users can verify transactions are legitimate
Disintermediation, or the absence of intermediaries between advertisers and users
Profound security, made possible by cryptography and decentralization
Ease of transfer, which makes it simple and quick to send and receive tokens

How crypto can help advertisers thrive in web3

One of the easiest ways to reward users when they give their permission to share their personal data or perform specific actions is by issuing crypto rewards. For example, you can give them rewards when they watch videos, view personalized ads and opt to receive content from brands.

By offering an opt-in value exchange – where they’re willing to part with their data or their attention for tokens – advertisers can begin building long-lasting customer relationships and regain trust while ensuring regulatory compliance.

Though cryptocurrency remains in its infancy, adoption continues to increase; today, some 27 million Americans own crypto. With steady growth over the last decade, it’s only a matter of time before crypto usage reaches critical mass. The sooner advertisers embrace the inevitably of crypto, the faster they’ll be in a position to capitalize.

Since the future of digital advertising will be fuelled by permission and digital rewards, brands need to start looking for a purpose-built crypto-rewarded advertising platform that will guide the journey ahead. Strategies that enable aligned incentives – where all participants, including users, advertisers and the platform, benefit from the permissioned sharing of data – will lead to victory in the web3 era.

With the right approach, the lopsided relationship between brands and consumers suddenly evens out, and both parties engaging with each other is more of a partnership than anything else.

Feature Image Credit: Adobe Stock

By Lauren Griewski

Lauren Griewski is chief revenue officer at Permission.io.

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Why Earned Media Is Crucial For Thought Leadership Brands

July 12, 2022 No Comments

By Jodi Amendola

To gain recognition in the marketplace, companies execute integrated marketing campaigns across PESO (paid, earned, social and owned) media channels. In today’s digital landscape with so many channels, marketing and communications professionals sometimes overlook the “E.” Don’t make that mistake.

Earned media is content that is published by a third party that a brand has not paid for, such as an article in a national media outlet, a guest appearance on a podcast or a by-lined editorial published in trade media.

Earned media represents a valuable route for brands to share their messaging and promote their thought leaders—in part because audiences generally have placed greater trust in established third-party media outlets that have, in some cases, spent decades building credibility and name recognition with the public. (For tips on how to create compelling thought leadership content, see my previous article on the subject.)

Following are four reasons why earned media should be an essential part of any thought leadership brand’s marketing mix.

Drives credibility: Earned coverage from media and analyst reports delivers instant credibility and publicity, often illuminating a brand’s key differentiators compared with competitors. Engaging, relevant stories are key to driving placements that can be leveraged for multiple social media and marketing channels. Media and analyst relations are nuanced and can be full of pitfalls, so be sure to work with an expert team with experience to guide your way.

Reaches target audiences: Savvy marketers develop personas, which are fictional representations of customers with similar motivations, goals and buyers’ journeys. Brands can reach these customers and decision-makers through account-based marketing (ABM) and other focused digital marketing approaches. But these customers also consume lots of other content from trade publications and general business media. For example, if your target customers are chief information officers at large hospitals, target trade media outlets with content, messaging and customer success stories that will grab their attention.

Broadens reach for content: In a crowded digital marketplace, virtually every company has its own media channels—websites, blogs, social media and the like—and many brands and businesses think they can reach their entire audience through these owned channels. Owned media is a start, but it shouldn’t be the end for your content. Too many brands adopt a “one and done” approach to content marketing, in which they conduct a webinar, for example, then post audio or video of the event on a largely forgotten YouTube channel, then call it a day. It’s a missed opportunity if you don’t maximize the reach of quality content.

Instead, mine thought leadership content from your owned channels, collecting the newsworthy nuggets and repurposing the content with the media, particularly the trades. Task your marketing and communications team to review blog content regularly, and continuously keep the team abreast of strategic content in the works.

Leveraging this approach, brands get a bigger bang for their buck to stretch valuable content across multiple channels to broaden their reach and work more efficiently. Plus, you ensure consistent strategic messaging and storytelling across all PESO channels, too. Strategic content should be leveraged in as many ways and media as possible.

Delivers much-deserved recognition: When executives see their companies’ stories and messaging shared by credible third-party outlets, such as local business journals or trade media outlets, the recognition creates a positive feeling. Earned coverage, the E in PESO, from third-party publications or analyst reports simply feels good. This is particularly true for an early startup with a disruptive idea that can take some time to drive business. It can positively influence a company’s culture.

Business is all about relationships and credibility. To successfully leverage earned media, brands need both. Getting started on the earned media path isn’t easy, but after you’ve made some progress, you’ll see the benefits of broadening your reach through greater awareness and recognition among your target audiences.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Jodi Amendola

Jodi Amendola is CEO of Amendola, an award-winning healthcare and high-tech public relations and marketing agency based in Scottsdale, AZ. Read Jodi Amendola’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

TikTok Is Going to Get Even Bigger, According to a New Study. Here’s How to Win the Video App

July 12, 2022 No Comments

By Xintian Tina Wang,

TikTok is expected to beat YouTube in average user time consumption this year.

As more people bookmark TikTok, the short video app is expected to surpass YouTube, by the end of the year, for the first time in terms of time spent by their respective adult users in the U.S., according to a report released on eMarketer last week.

The report indicates that TikTok users will spend an average of 45.8 minutes per day on the video-sharing platform, in contrast to the 45.6 minutes they’ll tune into YouTube. Despite emulating TikTok with short-video features like Instagram Reels, Instagram accounts for an average of 30.1 minutes per day.

The difference between those stats on YouTube versus TikTok may be negligible, but it harbingers a turning of the tide. And for business owners, the ByteDance-owned app has huge potential to engage new consumers.

Here are three ways to capitalize on the app’s newly minted engagement stats:

1. Be authentic.

You’ll hear this a lot in reference to TikTok: In many ways, TikTok and Instagram are polar opposites. Whereas picture perfect tends to rule the day on Instagram, TikTok users, rather, crave authenticity. So on TikTok, don’t sugercoat, and stick to videos that can spark an emotion in the viewer.

“If brands are authentic on TikTok, they are not just perceived as advertisers, but seen as members of the community who understand what’s happening around them,” says Lyle Underkoffler, chief marketing officer at the New York City-based social ad automation platform Smartly.io.

Evan Horowitz, CEO of creative agency Movers+Shakers in Santa Monica, California, agrees with this strategy. He says TikTok users prefer content that “feels low stakes.” Horowitz explains that videos that have a strong advertorial value usually won’t perform well on the platform.

2. Don’t jump on every big trend.

While you should attempt to post regularly about your products–and do so in a consistent manner–avoid jumping on every hot topic, which can range wildly from cute dog videos one minute to the “I am not meant to work” trend the next. Consider whether a trend is a fit with your business. A party outfit trend, for instance, may not be suitable for an energy saving company’s marketing campaign.

Further, “entrepreneurs and small-business owners should find the most relevant hashtags for their brands, which may not necessarily be the most popular ones,” Jason Galloway, marketing consulting practice lead at multinational accounting and consulting firm KPMG, tells Inc. He adds that brands should also consider collaborating with smaller influencers for partnerships and product placement. “Speed and natural fit is far more important than polish, so focusing on trending content that fits the brand is the main strategy,” Galloway advises.

3. Embrace “live” interactions.

Last week, TikTok announced it will test out a new function, dubbed TikTok Live, to allow creators to generate recurring revenue via payments through livestreaming. In a statement, TikTok says that the function aims to bring brands and viewers closer.

You can also now invite your best customers to a “VIP Room” by way of Live Subscription. TikTok’s monthly subscription for people to show their appreciation for their favorite Live creators grants brands the opportunity to grow their community and get exclusive offers for VIP customers. When the subscriber-only chat is turned on, advertisers and their subscribers have exclusive access to one another. Brands can build a personal network globally through livestreaming.

“It’s increasingly important for brands to be relatable to their new and existing consumers,” advises Underkoffler. Regardless of how you engage, the point is to just start–and be authentic. “When advertising on TikTok, creating a genuine connection and interacting with the audience are critical,” he adds.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Xintian Tina Wang,

Sourced from Inc.

In News

What Web3 Means for Marketers

July 11, 2022 No Comments

By Alexandra Bower

Bridging the gap between fandom and ownership

Are you curious about what Web3 is and what it encompasses in its early stages? Wondering what the next era of the internet includes? What is an NFT, anyway? How do you get to the metaverse? Avery Akkineni, president of VaynerNFT, Allison Sturges, head of strategic partnerships at Genies and Rachel Webber, chief brand and strategy officer at Playboy, formed a panel at Social Media Week to break down what Web3 means for marketers.

Unlocking a monumental technology shift

According to Webber, deciding to enter Web3 was easy for Playboy. The brand saw several similarities between its mission and the mission of Web3.

“We really saw an intersection of the core values of Playboy around free expression, serving as a platform for artists, anti-censorship, giving people an ability to participate and feel part of a community,” she said.

Playboy entered the space through the art lens for its first NFT drop, a collaboration with the artist SLIMESUNDAY.

“We gave him access to the Playboy archive to create new original work utilizing previous art and typography that we had,” Webber explained. “We loved the ability of NFT drops to reinvent and show the regenerative nature of an archive and the power of art and photography and the ability to turn that into new collectibles and new consumer experiences.”

Webber said Web3 was an instrumental tool in fostering deeper, more meaningful connections between the Playboy brand and fans.

“For us, access to the Playboy archive, access to a Playboy party, are very much getting access to the Playboy lifestyle, and that’s authentic to the type of experiences that we believe Playboy can offer.”

Bridging the gap between old and new

According to the panellists, Web2 and Web3 work together, and they should be used mutually to help bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3.

“With anything within marketing and social media, you have to understand which metrics are living on which platforms,” Sturges said. “For us, we’ve been able to establish the fact that Twitter and Discord are where the NFT natives are spending their time. So, we leverage both of those platforms to build out our platform. Discord has been a way for us to create directly with our users and get product feedback. It’s a great tool for us to connect and build actual relationships with our users.”

According to Sturges, the ethos of Web3 is all around giving back ownership and freedom as marketing bridges the gap between Web2 social and Web3 ownership.

“I think for brands and marketers, finding ways to provide that ownership and freedom for your users, fans, and customers is key,” she said.

“Back in January, Genies announced we would give full ownership to our creators, users, and talent — really allowing them to have full commercialization rights of any of the creations they create within our ecosystem. That really gives a true sense of their identity. They created this; it’s a part of the digital IP they’re building. And they also have that ownership in what they want to do with it and how it can be leveraged. I think that’s really important as we move into the next stage of the internet.”

Feature Image Credit: Sean T. Smith for Adweek

By Alexandra Bower

@alexandra_cc1 Alexandra Bower is a freelance writer for Adweek.

Sourced from ADWEEK

editor

The Current State of Digital Marketing

Social Media Habits

Utilization of Artificial Intelligence

Personalization Preferences

3rd-Party Data Regulation

The Future of Digital Marketing: 5 Trends To Watch

1. Smarter AI

2. Influencer Marketing

3. Thought Leadership

4. 1st-Party Data

5. Creative Digital Marketing Campaigns

Shape Your Own Digital Marketing Future

By Ashlee Sierra

Sourced from Brafton

Back to the Basics – How it all began for Disney

The Birth of the Disney Logo

Disney Logo from 1929 – 1937

Disney Logo from 1937 – 1948

Disney Logo from 1948 – 1979

Disney Logo from 1972 – 1983

Disney Logo from 1983 – 1985

Disney Logo from 1985 – 2006

Disney Logo from 2006 – 2011

Disney Logo from 2011 – Present

Endnote,

By PJ Hoogendijk

Sourced from DesignBro

Here’s how to curate a unique brand identity and social media presence that will help your business stand out online.

1. Choose your social media platforms wisely

2. Create an authentic brand identity

3. Show what your brand represents visually

4. Start conversations online

5. Give your brand a face

By Jonathan Riff

Sourced from Entrepreneur

Some of the things discussed By Brandon Saltalamacchia include:

Links & Resources Mentioned During The Interview:

Watch the full interview:

Read the full transcription:

By Colin Linnett

Sourced from NICHEPURSUITS

1. Start a blog

2. Take online surveys

3. Start an online store

4. Sign up for a gig-working platform

5. Start a YouTube channel

6. Become a transcriptionist

7. Test websites and apps

More ways to earn quick cash

By Aly Yale

Sourced from CBS News

What is Branding?

Brand message:

Extraordinary items or administrations:

Client support:

Trust identifications:

Virtual entertainment:

Brand Equity Increasing Your Brand Sales Value

Sponsored Posts Strategy

BrandingByExperts

Sourced from Marina Times

What are the core principles of web3?

Web3 is here – it’s time to prepare for the tectonic shift

How crypto can help advertisers thrive in web3

By Lauren Griewski

Sourced from The Drum

By Jodi Amendola

Sourced from Forbes

TikTok is expected to beat YouTube in average user time consumption this year.

1. Be authentic.

2. Don’t jump on every big trend.

3. Embrace “live” interactions.

By Xintian Tina Wang,

Sourced from Inc.

Bridging the gap between fandom and ownership

Unlocking a monumental technology shift

Bridging the gap between old and new

By Alexandra Bower

Sourced from ADWEEK