Today, it’s more important than ever to create an authentic brand that resonates with your target customers. These tips and tools will help you build a strong brand from scratch.
Your brand is essentiall your business’s identity, including factors like your logo, company colours, voice and “personality.” Having distinct branding helps customers recognize you and makes you stand out among your competition. However, it can be difficult to zero in on an identity, then implement it into a visual style and written tone. Here’s how to build your brand from scratch.
Steps to building a solid business brand
Developing a brand that resonates with your target customer is more important than ever before. In fact, 86% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding what brands they will support. These six steps will help you identify your audience, develop your brand and, most importantly, develop authenticity.
Research your target audience
In order to establish a brand, you need to know who you’re trying to connect with. While your goal may be to reach out to “everyone,” your company should have a dedicated audience as your customer base. Once you have that customer base in mind, research them and their preferences. Read product reviews and subreddits to learn how they feel about similar products and competitors, as well as what they look for in businesses.
Research your competitors
Identify your direct competitors and analyse their established brands. Pay attention to their logo and colour palette, what language they use and how they engage with their customers. Don’t copy what you like and ignore what you don’t; rather, consider what motivates their choices and how you can use that data to inform your own decisions as a business.
Define your company’s purpose and values
Your company’s purpose may be to sell products or provide a service, but it should be based on what motivates you and your employees. Think about the impression you want to leave on your customers and your community and make those values front and centre of your brand.
In order to establish a brand, you need to know who you’re trying to connect with.
Establish a voice
It’s important that your brand has a distinct yet authentic voice. Do you write your materials in a formal tone or a more casual one? How do you speak to your customers during pitches and on support calls? Choose words, phrases and a distinct tone that matches your brand.
Create your visuals
Visual representation is one of the most distinct and immediate ways to establish your brand’s uniqueness. Choose a colour palette that conveys the way you want your customers to feel about your services. Design a logo that is easy to read, visually simple and recognizable in any size, be it a website header or Instagram avatar photo.
Build a strong digital presence
With so much business done online and through e-commerce today, it’s important that your brand extends to social media. Ensure that your brand, including its visuals, voice and messaging, is consistent throughout your social media channels and other digital platforms. Through these platforms, engage with customers in a personal sense, answering their inquiries and responding to positive and negative comments.
Tools for building a brand
Creating a distinct look and voice is easier said than done. Here are some tools to help you build your brand.
Canva: Canva is a website and mobile app that turns anyone into a professional graphic designer. Canva’s tools and templates are easy to use no matter your artistic abilities, letting you create graphics for social media, presentations or any other type of visual material.
Designhill: If you need a logo but don’t know any graphic designers, Designhill is a great resource. Simply submit your ideas and logo inspirations and they’ll pair you with their fleet of freelance designers. Or, if you’d rather choose yourself, browse through their list of designers and hire one whose style speaks to you.
Hootsuite: Managing multiple social media accounts can be overwhelming, especially if you have a small team. Hootsuite allows you and your team to plan, create and schedule your social media posts across various platforms all through one easy-to-use hub.
MailChimp: MailChimp is an all-in-one email marketing tool to let you import your contacts, create email campaigns and send them to various contacts. You can even create a landing page that lets people sign up for your marketing services.
HARO: Help a Reporter Out, or HARO, Is a resource that connects journalists and media outlets with professionals who have experience to be used as sources. It’s an easy-to-use and great way to find an expert versus doing hours of search engine research.
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
Feature Image Credit: Now, more than ever, it’s important to intentionally build your brand. — Getty Images/VioletaStoimenova
Use this strategy to experience fast success after launch.
According to HolonIQ, the global EdTech market is growing at 16.3% and will grow 2.5x from 2019 to 2025, reaching a total of $404B in global expenditure. On top of that, it is expected that more than 100 education companies will have market caps over $1B by 2025.
The data confirms that the EdTech market holds great potential, and one of the best ways to grow your company is by entering new markets and expanding your business presence.
During the last four months, the StudyFree team participated in two accelerators (Berkeley SkyDeck and Techstars NYC), managed to enter six new markets, and grew threefold.
Here are seven tips based on our experience on entering a new market and demonstrating impressive revenue traction in a short period of time.
1. Choosing the market
First, you should determine the market volume (how much of your target audience is based within the chosen market), look for any initial entry barriers that can prevent your business from developing to the fullest (for example, language, legal, or infrastructure barriers), and evaluate your competition within the chosen country (including how many companies offer a similar service, and how the market is developing). Macrofactors like historical income growth, population trends in the younger demographics, penetration of the Internet, and changes in Google search requests within your segment can give you a clear picture of general trends and heightened market awareness.
In our case, we chose large countries where the EdTech market is growing rapidly (for example, the Indian EdTech market is estimated to grow from $2.5B to $10.4B in the next 5 years). We were also interested in several African countries (Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa) because we saw a huge potential upside for growth in the region as well as relatively low competition in the current market. However, both India and African countries are known for low purchasing power. To validate the scalability of the business from a revenue standpoint, we chose Brazil, which is similar to our mature market (Russia) in terms of the size of the economy and average income level.
Key Advice: Understand your goals before entering the new market. What do you want to achieve? Are you only interested in generating revenue in this market, or do you want to engage in further fundraising in the market? If you aim to fundraise, analyse the market, and look for similar companies who have already entered the market and attracted investments. These companies can be a benchmark for you to prove the market’s validity, validate your scalability, and confirm the fact that there’s a demand for your product.
2. Understanding the market
The next step is to analyse the market from different perspectives (this took us around 2 months). During this stage, you should conduct customer development interviews to understand the key customers, their pains, problems, and potential solutions. This will help you understand how to change your product’s narrative and finetune your value proposition and key triggers accordingly. These in-depth interviews should give you a more nuanced understanding of the market from the customer’s perspective.
We also recommend communicating with local companies, as well as companies who have successfully expanded to this market (the ideal benchmark is a company with the same business model and price level), to learn about potential pitfalls and bottleneck problems from the corporate perspective (infrastructure issues, paying systems, etc.).
In our case, we conducted more than 100 interviews with potential customers in each country and more than 20 interviews with the relevant companies.
3. Testing the market
After analysing the market and absorbing enough introduction data, you can then move to the next stage: testing. We choose one instrument that we are confident about and start testing the same funnel in multiple countries. Changing multiple factors at the same time is not recommended because you won’t be able to validate outcomes or the direct impact of changing the country.
Make sure you have all analytics installed, collect the data, analyse metrics, and iterate as much and as fast as possible. On average, we run 47 tests per country per month.
4. Adaptation and localization
We recommend starting by “localizing” the content and specific instruments you use: Find local copywriters and local designers during the adaptation stage. Use the platforms that are the most familiar to the end-user and track the difference.
Even though we made an informed decision not to localize the product and the funnel in terms of translation, we did work on expressing our values, offers, and messages on the landing page and in the newsletter, based on the comments we received during our customer development interviews. We then hired local copywriters who helped adapt the message and make it 100% natural for the audience. By doing this, we made sure that the product was still the same but that the tone of voice was optimized for the market.
5. Data-driven paid digital marketing
If you use paid marketing, you should collect as many relevant data points as possible: who your target audience is, what their preferences are, the communication channels they use, and the sites they visit. Then start running your campaigns and optimizing every stage of the sales funnel, going from top to the bottom of the funnel.
Regarding specific channels, we recommend using Facebook first (for D2C businesses) because its algorithms are much more advanced, and CPA is lower on average, compared to Google Ads. During every stage of the funnel, we collect engagements through pixels, registrations, conversions, etc. Once we have enough engagements at each stage (ideally from 500-1000n), we proceed to optimize every step. After reaching over 1,000 people, we then upload the data set to Facebook and Instagram and try to find similar people to optimize their process. (It generally takes 2-4 weeks to get the most qualified audience). As a result, we end up with people interested in our product – people who can go down the funnel and be willing to make the payments. Progression from the previous step to the next one goes faster with each iteration and allows not only work on increasing sales but also decreasing the cost of acquisition.
Be aware that, at this point, you have to be ready to lose money for a few months since you’ll be testing your hypothesis and collecting data points about your audience. Think about it this way: if you do not pay for a lead right away, you are paying for information that will help you to bring more leads.
In our case, the optimization was three times faster. When we eventually got enough data points, our CAC dropped three times in one week.
6. Brand awareness and trust points
Never underestimate the importance of brand awareness and the creation of trust points as they are key to fit in the market.
When you enter a new market, no one knows about you, your product, or its concept. That’s why you need to use enough channels to raise brand awareness. This can be done in multiple ways, including local partnerships, influencers, PR, local ambassadors, and feedback on your website. This is crucial because the people you are trying to reach need to see you in multiple ways — the ideal way being when someone else recommends you to them. Another great way is to encourage people to provide honest and sincere feedback on your product.
In our case, we could see the direct correlation between the brand awareness we built and the outreach. Even the most minimum brand awareness strategy can trigger sales, so it is essential to maintain good communication with your customers and continue the adaptation while using local services.
7. Potential growth
Getting those initial sales is great. However, you have to keep in mind the speed at which you can grow in this market. You might triple your budget, but you could also find yourself stuck at any given point if the market is not ready.
When you’re in the growth stage, you should prioritize the factors that will help you grow at the necessary speed. You should select 1 country, 1 channel, and 1 funnel, and double the budget to see how it goes. Don’t expect direct sales right away since the adaptation period can take time, and keep in mind that if you hit the ceiling at an early stage, you might not grow. Don’t try to understand the market passively since you will never get significant traction right away.
By following these guidelines, we have been able to expand to 6 different markets and become cash positive quite early; and even at this point, we are still running more than 47 tests in each country per month. If you ask me what the winning formula is, I will have to say openness and flexibility, a growth hacking mindset, and last but not least, sufficient data. These are the keys to enter new markets and build a truly global product.
Some influencers say the secret sauce for gaining more popularity and engagement is “unrealistic” while others appreciate the insider tips.
User engagement is every influencer’s lifeline. All tips and tricks are welcome. Especially if these tricks and tips are coming from Instagram itself. According to Business Insider, Instagram recently told several influencers how to increase user traffic and engagement with their posts.
Shared behind closed doors, these suggestions come down to a matter of math (number of posts) and timing (how many times posted per day and week). The three Instagram content creators Business Insider spoke to told it that recommendations included posting three in-feed posts every week (which also means IGTV and Reels). They should also try to post somewhere between eight to 10 Stories through the Instagram Story feature. Look, no one said full-time content was going to be easy.
On a daily basis, influencers should post Stories twice a day for engagement, Instagram reportedly advised. Reels should be posted four to seven a week and IGTV posts should be somewhere between one and three each week. The reactions to these recommendations ranged from incredulity to appreciation. One Instagram influencer said that she had to stop herself from laughing out loud at the amount of content required for more traffic, which sounds like a sensible reaction. Others echoed this sentiment, while some said the input was valuable.
Welcome to the influencer market — Love it or hate it, the influencer economy is very much alive. For years now, social media users have turned to Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and other platforms to get cues about consumer trends, brands, and products through influencers’ feeds. While the COVID-19 pandemic effectively sucked the popularity and appeal out of celebrities thanks to their tone-deaf posts, influencers — especially micro-influencers with follower numbers between 1,000 to 100,000 — gained attention and continued to find success.
Social media companies are clearly aware of the power of influencers too. They’re a lucrative commodity for networks because they drive engagement and are often the first to get access to — and show off — new features. According to the influencer marketing agency, Mediakix, at least 17 percent of profiled brands invested a separate and detailed budget for influencer marketing last year alone. There is also a growing body of literature on how to be a successful influencer, such as The Influencer Economy: How to Launch, Share, and Thrive in the Digital Age, and talks right out of Google on the same topic.
Clicks beat ethics — Of course, giving select users tips is ethically problematic. Either share with all or none. But then, this is the same industry where influencers have been known to buy empty bags to pretend they’ve been given (or bought) designer products. The Federal Trade Commission isn’t particularly fond of influencers either, as is obvious from its crackdown on influencer marketing tactics that fail to disclose advertising partnerships to audiences.
But despite the pushback, influencers continue to gain ground and fans, even in politics with the help of decidedly partisan influencers. It’s not shocking then that Instagram sees how financially viable and socially impactful they are and lets them in on a tip or two. Their success is key to its success.
Deepfakes are moving out of the darker corners of the internet. Tech experts predict positive applications for fashion.
A 2018 Zalando campaign featuring model Cara Delevingne across 290,000 localised ads was achieved using deepfake technology to produce a range of alternative shots and voice fonts. Now, as the algorithms for manipulating and synthesising media become more powerful, the fashion sector is beginning to take notice.
In the tech world, deepfakes specifically refer to media produced by artificial intelligence technology called generative adversarial networks. Deepfakes are video or audio that has been modified, such as by changing a face, the words spoken or the language used. The term was first coined on the internet in 2017 by combining “deep-learning” and “fakes”.
Zalando’s campaign ran on Facebook across 12 countries, gaining 180 million impressions across social media, according to Infinitizer, the micro-targeting specialist agency that worked on the campaign.
Advances in technology have made it harder to distinguish between real and fabricated media. Deepfakes have had a bad reputation, not least because the majority are fake pornography. Critics also point out the dangers of political deepfakes that might generate convincing fake news. “Any digital window to the real world is one that can be duped and faked sometimes,” acknowledges Sunny Dhillon, a VC who has invested in a deepfake marketing company.
Like a rising number of marketers and investors, Dhillon emphasises the “absolutely positive” applications of the technology. As Covid-19 lockdowns restrict in-person activities, and advertisers explore digital technologies, deepfakes have significant potential for experiential marketing. Face-swapping technology, which once took weeks to execute, can now be completed in minutes with a result that is “Hollywood quality”, according to Reface co-founder Dima Shvets.
Experiential marketing tends to be associated with the physical environment, like pop-up stores, but deepfake technology can bring experiential marketing online, directly to consumers, says Dhillon. Examples might include interactive fashion weeks or gaming experiences, he says.
Dynamic influencer marketing
Dynamic campaigns — the term for micro-targeted ads at scale — are becoming a key tool in a marketer’s arsenal. Deepfakes have the potential to help brands reach customers with highly targeted and personalised messaging. For influencers and celebrities, deepfakes help them to easily broaden their reach by agreeing to front a fashion ad campaign and model clothes without even turning up for a photo shoot. Millions of different deepfake ads can instantly run across platforms like Facebook, while up to 100 different influencer ads targeted at various audiences could run, says Simon Lejeune, a growth marketing consultant.
It’s not a giant leap in a world where digital identities such as gaming avatars are already overlapping with real-life identities, while CGI models are mixing with real-life influencers. Imagine a new kind of deal, where an influencer provides a brand with a sample of 15 minutes of audio content and a few video shots. Using deepfake technology, a brand can transform that content into thousands of hyper-targeted ads. “Influencers might start licensing their faces and voices to brands,” says Lejeune. “A computer can take their faces and voices and reproduce them in 16 different languages or poses, and select the most persuasive one.”
Over the past year, brands have pivoted towards acquiring licensing and usage rights to influencer-produced content and using the content as ads from their brand channels, rather than paying influencers to post on their own feeds, says Emily Hall, campaign director at marketing agency Goat, which has offices in London, New York and Singapore. By acquiring usage rights, brands can decide on captions that better match their tone of voice or produce different cuts and edits of the content to post on whichever social media they consider most effective, with metrics available. “It gives brands an element of control,” says Hall.
Organic influencer content typically costs 5 per cent more, but acquiring usage rights could cost 20 to 30 per cent more than the original fee. “It’s still very good value for money,” says Hall. “The influencers are still creating content and doing the heavy lifting for the brands.”
Dynamic voiceover and deepfake videos offer huge potential for marketers in many sectors. A 2019 malaria awareness ad featuring David Beckham speaking nine languages showed how deepfakes can broaden the reach of a public message, receiving 400 million impressions globally within two months.
Deepfakes can also support influencers and content creators who are asked to create more live content but may not be exceptional performers in all media, says Dhillon. Hall agrees: “You’re taking away that risk of a human element, while still retaining a human touch.”
Hyper-personalised advertising
Chinese tech companies are further along in using deepfakes in marketing. In a July 2020 white paper about its plans for AI, Chinese tech giant Tencent emphasises that deepfakes are “not just about ‘faking’ and ‘deceiving’, but a highly creative and ground-breaking technology”. The company urged regulators to avoid clamping down on this nascent tech trend. For fashion, Tencent cited how deepfakes can show outfits on a broader variety of models with different skin tones, heights and weights. When consumers see products as extensions of themselves, they are willing to buy more, pay a higher price and advocate to friends, Harvard Business Reviewfound.
Deepfakes can provide a route to “very quick understanding” for customers viewing new collections from a brand, says Matthew Drinkwater, head of the Fashion Innovation Agency (FIA) at London College of Fashion. He first started running deepfake experiments in 2019, when Microsoft sponsored a project that enabled his team to insert consumers in ads. “This isn’t about fit. It’s about giving you a first impression of how something might look.”
This month, Gucci has partnered with software firm Niantic to release a new collaboration with The North Face in a game of Pokémon Go. “Imagine if Gucci could take it one step further and send its top 50 clients personalised videos of themselves wearing the new collection,” Shvets of Reface AI says. In 2020, Reface AI enabled users to virtually try on Gucci clothes as part of a trial with Kering, resulting in one million swaps in a single day.
A demo of how the FIA, Superpersonal and Hanger uses deepfake technology to capture a user.
Retailers can also hyper-personalise service using a deepfaked assistant to help with online enquiries who is a customer’s exact demographic and speaks their language. Rather than talk to a faceless bot, shoppers could talk to a “real” face, which could enhance trust, says Drinkwater. “All of the indications are that if you’re able to personalise content, consumers are more likely to engage, so there’s a real practical application for the industry to start using this more widely.”
Some form of regulation is likely, notes marketer Lejeune. Potential discretion could include labels clarifying that deepfakes are not real people, he says. Dhillon adds that blockchain has potential as a future means of tracking authenticity.
Consumer data protection is another hot subject. Supporters of deepfakes say that the success of existing face-swap apps shows that consumers are comfortable with sharing their data. In 2019, AI photo editor FaceApp, which enables users to change their facial expressions, looks and age, was a viral hit. In 2020, Sway, an AI-powered app that enables users to visualise themselves dancing, became the third most downloaded app in the US during Super Bowl weekend.
The ethical implications of deepfakes have yet to be fully explored, suggests FIA’s Drinkwater. But he is convinced deepfakes are here to stay. “The technologies that surround artificial intelligence and machine learning are already critical to how brands can manage different aspects of their business, from their supply chain to marketing and communications. [Adoption] is not so much a pivot but a deepening commitment to technology and deep learning.”
I typically ask executives to share annual predictions as we head into a new year. For 2021, I sought insight regarding how marketing will change after Covid. Below is their insight.
Brands will be expected to be clear on their values. Amy Vale, CMO at Dosh
“In 2021, vocalizing your values will no longer be the exception for brands, it will be the rule, and marketers need to be prepared to stretch their authenticity muscle. We have increasingly seen brands this past year speaking up for what they believe in — from showing their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, to companies encouraging their users to vote, to increased transparency on sustainability practices. Consumers are reaching a tipping point in voting with their dollars, holding brands accountable to higher ethical standards. However, marketers absolutely must balance communicating values while avoiding a tactless stunt, especially when supporting a cause. Any social impact initiative should have one or all of the three following pillars: money (are you putting forward a meaningful donation behind your support?), time (are your brand’s executives volunteering for this initiative?) and knowledge (helping to increase awareness of the initiative).”
Brands will focus even more on expanding customer lifetime value. Bernardo de Albergaria, CCO at Airship
“For the last few years, we as an industry have focused a lot of chatter on how B2B marketing has converged with B2C — it’s just as likely for Deloitte to have apps as it is Disney. Recently, the opposite is true, where the 1:1, data-based, account-based marketing that we have often seen in B2B is becoming a focus in B2C. Personalized, even individualized, digital interactions with customers have been everything in this pandemic — no matter whether they are consumers or businesses. In 2021 we will see a much stronger B2C marketing emphasis on contextual and relevant in-the-moment customer interactions and an overt shift to focus on expanding customer lifetime value — qualities that currently are more reminiscent of B2B.”
“In 2021, businesses that sell high-stakes goods or services (auto, insurance, home improvement, etc.) will invest more in their digital experiences, but will need to be extra thoughtful about how to permeate those experiences with human touch points to make a shopper’s online experience as seamless as possible. Like many shopping behaviors, making high-stakes purchases has moved online for most consumers during COVID, despite the complexity of these purchases. What’s more, 46% of shoppers are likely to continue making these purchases online, even after stores open up widely. However, high-stakes purchases still rely heavily on human interaction. With this in mind, the most successful high-consideration business will be those that give online shoppers access to expert assistance via phone or live chat exactly when they need it — not before or after — and equip their sales reps with the data they need to provide a world-class human / automation hybrid experience.”
Brands should focus on authentic, data-driven storytelling. Scott Holden, CMO at ThoughtSpot
“The COVID-19 crisis has put pressure on every marketer’s budget. So it’s critical we shift our focus to only the most pressing needs of our customers. Now more than ever, storytelling is critical for linking the value of your product to the challenges your customers are facing. But it must be done authentically and supported by data. In this environment, you can’t make up a narrative and hunt for data to justify it. With COVID-19, data is changing so fast, we must use it to lead and shape our narratives from the outset. Every person on the frontlines of your company, whether a marketing manager, account exec, or sales engineer must be armed with data in the moment. Only then is it possible to craft narratives that reflect what’s happening in the world and are supported by evidence that will connect authentically with your customers. This marriage of data and fact-driven storytelling should be a priority for every marketer in 2021.”
Industry conferences will be online-offline hybrids in 2021 and for years after. Penry Price, VP of Marketing Solutions at LinkedIn
“Industry conferences will be online-offline hybrids in 2021 and for years after, serving people who don’t want to travel away from home as well as those who wish to attend in person. We’ve learned during this pandemic that we can communicate over digital platforms better than we thought. Whether it’s been colleagues and clients working from home, friends and family socializing during off-hours or public figures chatting it up, this once-in-a-century pandemic has inadvertently proven live video can achieve intimacy even when we cannot be together. And companies that have hosted large events in the past can be much more cost-effective and achieve better ROI because digital entails less overhead.”
Be transparent about your purpose-driven business strategy. Kevin Seller, CMO at Ping Identity
“As we look to 2021 and beyond, a main priority for CMOs is to authentically establish purpose-driven brands. Companies that clearly articulate a vision for doing good as a part of the delivery of their goods and services are ones that will succeed. We’ve seen the pandemic shift users’ preferences in more ways than one and as a result, consumers are more inclined to transact with brands that stand for societal issues that make the world a better place and are not just motivated by profits. Social goals will become table stakes for organizations that are looking to engage with consumers on a more meaningful level and establish more seamless and memorable user experiences.”
Embrace the benefits and team comradery virtual events bring. Lynn Ledwith, CMO at Ansys
“Marketing has always been about cutting through the clutter, differentiating and delivering seamless, frictionless customer experiences. The pandemic hasn’t changed that — if anything I believe it has pressured marketers to be nimble, embrace digital-only initiatives and think more creatively. Looking toward 2021, I’m focused on making marketing more of a team sport, mobilizing cross-functional teams across the company, particularly with events. This past year we hosted our first-ever virtual event, which resulted in higher levels of customer engagement and renewed purpose from employees, all at reduced costs. Physical events will not become extinct and undoubtedly will experience a resurgence, however, this still seems a ways away. Next year, I’m anticipating additional gains from this virtual event setting and will be investing in producing a steady stream of digital-content like augmented reality experiences and virtual booths to better this experience.”
At about 500 million users and growing, Telegram has become a major problem for the Facebook corporation
As WhatsApp teases users to either give their consent to sharing data with Facebook or lose their accounts after February 8, rival Telegram’s Founder and CEO Pavel Durov on Saturday slammed the social media giant, saying it is no surprise that the flight of users from WhatsApp to Telegram, already ongoing for a few years, has accelerated.
According to Durov, Facebook has an entire department devoted to figuring out why Telegram is so popular.
“Imagine dozens of employees working on just that full-time. I am happy to save Facebook tens of millions of dollars and give away our secret for free: respect your users,” he said in a statement.
At about 500 million users and growing, Telegram has become a major problem for the Facebook corporation.
“Unable to compete with Telegram in quality and privacy, Facebook’s WhatsApp seems to have switched to covert marketing: Wikipedia editors have recently exposed multiple paid bots adding biased information into the WhatsApp Wikipedia article,” Durov claimed.
“We have also detected bots which spread inaccurate information about Telegram on social media”.
Millions of people are outraged by the latest change in WhatsApp Terms, which now say users must feed all their private data to Facebook’s ad engine.
In 2019 alone, Facebook spent almost $10 billion on marketing.
Durov said that unlike Facebook, Telegram doesn’t spend any money, let alone billions of dollars, on marketing.
“We believe that people are smart enough to choose what is best for them. And, judging by the half a billion people using Telegram, this belief is justified,” he said.
Not just Telegram but another encrypted messaging app Signal has seen a surge in new sign ins after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk vouched for it.
“Verification codes are currently delayed across several providers because so many new people are trying to join Signal right now (we can barely register our excitement). We are working with carriers to resolve this as quickly as possible. Hang in there,” Signal tweeted.
“Everyone should be able to register without delay again. Thanks to all of the carriers who flipped the right switches so that people can keep switching,” the company further said.
Over 400 million Indian WhatsApp users this week received an in-app notification from WhatsApp as part of an upcoming global roll-out for over 2 billion users, asking them to either accept the changes in its Terms of Service and privacy policy by February 8 or their accounts will be deleted.
The in-app notification did not elicit much details but clicking on the links clearly mentioned the key changes in how WhatsApp will collect and process users’ information going forward, and the partnership with Facebook, its parent company, as part of a larger unification drive between the family of apps.
To recall, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in October said that the company is working hard to merge Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp so that they can start to function a little bit more like one connected interoperable system.
In a bid to allow cross-messaging among its family of apps, Facebook has reportedly started merging Instagram and Messenger chats. The social network has already integrated Messenger rooms with WhatsApp on the Web.
Fit in, or stand out? Serve existing markets, or serve those in untapped markets? As the online marketplace becomes increasingly saturated for entrepreneurs, and the amount of information available to us online leaves us feeling increasingly overwhelmed, we reach a point where we have no choice but to pull back and reassess what is important to us.
What is commonly referred to as the red or blue ocean strategy, business owners can create an offer so unique and differentiated that they can stand out in the market instead of drowning in a blood-stained red ocean.
Here are 3 ways you can stand out in a saturated market online, more so from a humane level rather than a strategic level.
Realize what is true for you, not what is true for others
It is easy for people to follow the cookie-cutter strategies of how things have always been done. But as the world, society, and humans evolve, so does the way we do business.
Many find this challenging because they lack a deep level of awareness and trust in themselves. They’re afraid that if they tapped into their own intuition and deep inner-knowing, it might not bring them the success they see everyone else achieving.
Long-lasting and sustainable success in business comes from doing what feels good to you, every step of the way. While you can achieve success following other strategies, if it doesn’t feel good to you, it will leave you feeling uninspired and unfulfilled.
Challenge the status quo of business
As humanity evolves into heightened levels of awareness and consciousness, we naturally begin to create a new paradigm of business.
Challenging the status quo is not a common desire amongst leaders. According to Harvard Business Review, 72 percent of leaders say they rarely, or never or rarely challenge their status quo in business.
Leading and serving from the inside out means we learn to know ourselves first and foremost. This can be a fulfilling journey of self-discovery for many, finding their own purpose and truth, which can become largely suppressed when we work in a typical traditional job that isn’t aligned with our highest desires.
To challenge the status quo of business comes with making one fearless and courageous decision at a time.
Find your “Zone of Genius”
Gay Hendricks identifies 4 different zones of genius in his book, The Big Leap.
In the “zone of genius,” we can zone in on and capitalize on our innate gifts and abilities that come naturally to us. In this zone, we become in flow and realize what we are uniquely gifted at, often finding ourselves skilled in a specific area more so than others.
In Hendricks’ book, he prompts you to ask yourself what you do you do that doesn’t seem like work, and what brings you ultimate joy, satisfaction, and abundance at the same time.
Ultimately, standing out in a saturated market online is about identifying what comes naturally to you and capitalizing on that unique gift and skill. We often attempt to do things that come naturally to other people, mimicking their steps and strategies while ignoring or denying our truest and inner-most skills and gifts.
To live a whole and fulfilling life, we must enjoy what we do, including how we run our business on a day-to-day basis. By focusing on what feels good to you (and not others), we can ultimately achieve the levels of joy and freedom we are all seeking.
Joe Taylor has quickly adapted to the changing environment, taking his and his clients’ businesses to new heights.
2020 has been filled with challenges and opportunities alike, with many ambitious entrepreneurs and businesses recognizing the niches begging to be filled with the increasing shift to digital trading and services. Though the demand for connectivity is great, not many of these ideas have the space or foundation to grow and thrive under these conditions.eGrowth Media, a UK based marketing agency, helps many established and developing businesses make the transition to the digital sphere, connecting brands to their audiences and increasing profits through through the effective use of social media tools.
eGrowth Media was founded by award-winning entrepreneurJoe Taylor. At only 21 years old, this driven, young businessman has found much success utilizing his background in social media management, implementing and promoting events. Fresh out of college, Joe’s events business grew to 4 employees within its first year operating and was already making waves in the corporate sector, securing contracts with established UK institutions including PA Hub, the Royal British Legion and BT.
In 2020, Taylor used the changing global economic situation to refocus his goals after the lockdown crippled the events industry. Joe decided to reinvest into himself, receiving mentoring and training from one of the UK’s top advertising specialists, Jordan Platten. Joe incorporated all of his wisdom and experiences into his already developed skillset and launched eGrowth Media with the mission of making a one-stop shop for all things social media, putting the extensive tools and strategies for growth in the hands of small, ambitious businesses.
eGrowth Media operates primarily within the real estate sector, helping property investors and developers to generate more leads online, but they also work with small businesses and entrepreneurs who are looking to increase their online visibility, develop their brands and connect with their niche. eGrowth Media achieves this through the use of specialized Facebook and Instagram advertising strategies, effective email marketing, custom content generation and social media management services. They implement results-based strategies that ensure higher conversion rates and guarantee return on investment. The wide range of services offered by eGrowth Media allow them to operate as a comprehensive resource for businesses of any size to grow further, from established brands looking to expand into new markets, to brick and mortar stores looking to establish their digital footprint.
With eGrowth Media‘s successes after less than 6 months of operation, Joe is set to scale eGrowth to consistent 6 figure returns over the next 12 months. He also has just co-founded a property investment named Eaton Taylor. Taylor is constantly honing his craft as a strategist and entrepreneur. When he is not developing new business ideas and strategies for providing value to his clients, he offers up personal insights and experiences on the podcast that he hosts, “Diary of a Young Entrepreneur” where he highlights issues that young business owners face, and dives into the understanding of entrepreneurship, meeting many talented and motivated people in their field.
Joe’s penchant for online connectivity has solidified him as a results-driven businessman and rising star to watch in the UK business sector.
Digital is becoming dominant media, but are companies and their ad agencies transforming fast enough to make a splash
ll the projections — from India and worldwide — say the same thing. That digital will drive the advertising rebound in 2021. According to GroupM’s estimates, ad revenue for digital media companies (notably Facebook and Google) will surge 14.1 per cent in 2021.
Zenith Media forecasts that digital media will command 58 per cent of total global ad spend by 2023. At nearly $360 billion, that’s no small change.
In India, ad network Dentsu’s projections point to digital media surpassing TV by 2025. It is already at the number two spot, having crossed print in 2020.
The question is whether brands have a clear digital marketing strategy yet. Where exactly will they be parking their digital advertising monies? Also, as veteran marketer Lloyd Mathias asks: “Where are the superstar digital advertising creators?” TV commercials have had their Piyush Pandeys, Balkis, and Prasoon Joshis, but we have not yet seen their digital equivalents. Mathias grouses that advertisers and brands have not fully leveraged the vast potential of digital, and only have a “post facto” strategy.
Questions abound. But first let’s explore where the digital ad spends are likely to go in 2021. Given the accelerated adoption of e-commerce, retailer media (search ads on retail platforms) is obviously going to grow. Social commerce, influencer marketing, OTT platforms are all going to see increased play. The focus will be on performance marketing, experts say.
According to Ashish Bhasin, CEO Asia-Pacific and Chairman India, Dentsu, with e-commerce becoming a part of the Indian consumer behaviour, it will be a big thrust area for brands on digital. “There will be an element of short-termism,” says Bhasin, “as in the initial months of 2021, people will look for result-oriented advertising on digital.”
As he explains, “Liquidity is the grease that keeps the economy going and we are short of the grease. So the thrust of advertising in the initial parts of the year will be performance-oriented.”
Everyone realises the benefit of brand building, but this will probably come in the third quarter of the calendar year, feels Bhasin. So far the big spenders on digital have been BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), e-commerce, auto categories, but Bhasin feels that as digital’s reach widens, it will become very attractive for FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods).
“By 2025, digital will become the largest medium in India. At the moment TV reaches about 750 million Indians. Digital reaches about 450 million people. In the next three years there will be more than 300 million new users of the Internet. Once the reach of TV and Internet start converging, it becomes interesting for categories like FMCG, which typically want mass numbers,” explains Bhasin. Especially, as he points out, with the next hundred million users coming from Tier 3 and 4 towns and rural areas.
The Formula 1 model
It’s the short-termism Bhasin talks about that fires up Naresh Gupta, COO of Gurugram-based independent agency Bang in the Middle.
We need to break the mindset of digital as a broadcast media, says Gupta. According to him, very few brands have bothered to create their own platforms on digital and instead left it to Facebook, Amazon and Flipkart to capitalise.
It’s not very difficult to build a community on digital and own it, argues Gupta. Giving the offline example of Formula One, a property co-created by auto companies that has raised the profile of auto brands, he asks why we have not seen similar communities or platforms on digital. “Why have camera brands not created a photo community on digital,” he queries. Like Mathias, who feels advertisers have not learnt to explore the vast potential of digital, he feels brands are missing the digital opportunity.
Get the digital natives
Advertisers are still repurposing traditional media offering into digital, says Mathias. Whereas the digital medium is vastly different.
So how can they harness this opportunity? “Getting digital natives should be the core of the strategy. If they get people who live their lives on digital, it will be more natural,” says Mathias. “Don’t retrofit creatives built for television and print. It won’t be seamless. That is the critical part,” he says.
Growing DIY
Long-time digital evangelist Shubho Sengupta feels that this whole talk around social, AI-driven content marketing and so on are self-indulgent statements that have nothing to do with reality. The reality is that digital has evolved from brand building to generating leads to now using digital technology for every activity a brand does.
He cites the example of the owner of a small lubricant company who has created an interesting app that tells him how much he has sold. His challenge is in getting people to download the app at a POS (point of sale) level.
The other thing, Sengupta says, is that a lot of companies are deploying in-house capabilities for digital marketing. “I get at least one or two calls every week for help with handling social media. The more the ROI (return on investment), the more the clients get involved and want to do it themselves,” he says.
Should ad agencies be worried? Not yet. But they clearly need to put a lot more creative energy into taming the beast called digital.
Feature Image Credit: Hit makers: Digital advertising still awaits the kind of superstar creatives that rocked print and TV – ISTOCK.COM
Happy new year, readers! We’re back with a brand new season of Whiteboard Friday episodes for your viewing pleasure.
First up: Moz SEO expert Cyrus Shepard shares his top 21 tips for successful Google SEO in 2021, including what to prioritize and what to look out for in the year ahead. He’s also included a bunch of helpful resources for your reference in the transcription below!
Watch and enjoy, and as always, leave your questions and your own suggestions in the comment section.
Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!
Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. I’m Cyrus Shepard. Today, so glad that you can join us. We are talking about 21 smart Google SEO tips for 2021. We’re getting ready for a new year, a new year of SEO strategies. These are 21 practical tips that you can implement that should, hopefully, move the needle on your organic traffic.
These are some of the best tips that I’ve collected over the past year. Many of them that I’m going to use myself in my own SEO strategies.
Now we have four categories: increasing clicks, content/on-page SEO tips, technical SEO, and a little bit of link building. There are 21 of these. These are going to go fast. We’re trying to do 10 to 12 minutes, so we don’t get to spend a lot of time on each one. But don’t fret. We’re going to link to appropriate resources in the transcript below so that we can keep along and explore a little bit more. All right. Ready to dive in?
Increasing clicks
Let’s start with clicks, specifically earning more clicks from Google without actually ranking higher, because that’s one of the great things about SEO. You don’t actually have to rank higher to get more traffic if you can get more clicks from the rankings that you already have. So let’s talk about some specific strategies for getting more clicks without increasing rankings.
1. Favicon optimization
First, favicon optimization.
Now I’m surprised more people haven’t talked about this in 2020. Google displays favicons in mobile search results, and they can influence your click-through rate if they’re high contrast, if they’re visible or not visible. Having a good favicon can make a few percentage points difference, very minor, but it does make a difference if you can get it right. Aaron Wall, SEO Book, wrote one of the very few posts about that.
2. Breadcrumb optimization
While we’re optimizing our favicons, let’s take a look at breadcrumb optimization. Google displays breadcrumbs in both desktop and mobile search results. They can be keyword-rich breadcrumbs, which can influence your click-through rate. Now Google gets their breadcrumbs from a lot of places. That can be your URL, your schema markup, your actual breadcrumbs on the page.
What you want to do is make sure Google is displaying the breadcrumbs that you want them to display, using those keywords that you choose. The best way to do that, make sure that you have breadcrumbs actually on your page with links, that you’re using schema markup. Ideally, it would match your URL structure, but that isn’t always necessary. So a great breadcrumb optimization audit.
3. Meta descriptions
Let’s optimize those meta descriptions. This is so old-school SEO. But a recent study shows that 30% of websites don’t even use meta descriptions. Now that’s understandable because another study shows that 70% of the time, Google will rewrite the meta description, usually because it’s not using the keywords that the user is searching for. But if we write a well-crafted meta description, it can compel users to click, and that means using keyword-rich descriptions that people are actually searching for, so when Google does use your meta description, it’s encouraging those clicks and acting as marketing copy for your website.
4. Numbers in titles
Along with meta descriptions, titles. Just shared a study recently showing that dates added to titles increased rankings for a particular brand. Numbers are generally one thing that I always test in title tags that usually produce pretty consistent results. Specifically, dates in title tags are often a winner, January 2021.
Don’t be spammy about it. Don’t include it if it doesn’t make sense and don’t fake it. But if you can include a number, it will often increase your click-through rate for any given query.
5. <Title> boilerplate
How about doing a boilerplate audit for your title tag? Tip number five. What’s boilerplate? Boilerplate are the parts of your title tag that repeat every single time.
For example, here at Moz, we put “Moz,” our brand name at the end of every title tag. We used to put “Whiteboard Friday” at the end of every Whiteboard Friday until we tested it and found out that we actually got more clicks and higher rankings when we removed it. So boilerplate, you want your titles to be unique, provide unique value. So I would encourage you to experiment with your boilerplate and see if removing it actually increases your rankings.
Tip number six: schema, specifically FAQ and how-to schema. Google gave us a huge gift when they introduced these in search results. FAQ schema gives you a lot of SERP real estate. You can’t always win it, and you can’t always win the how-to schema, but when you do, that can definitely increase or influence people to click on your result, expand those FAQ schemas out.
It’s not appropriate for every page. You want to make sure that you actually have those FAQs on your pages. But it is one way, in appropriate situations, that you can increase clicks without increasing your actual Google ranking. All right.
Content can go stale after a few years. So we launch content. You have a blog, you launch it, and you share it on social media. Most people forget about it after that. So go back, look at your top content over the last two to five years or even 10 years, if you want to go back that far, and see what you can relaunch by updating it, keeping it on the same URL. In some cases, you can see gains of 500% to 1,000% just by relaunching some of your old content with some updates.
So do a relaunch audit in 2021.
8. Increase internal linking
Number eight: increasing internal linking. Now a lot of top SEO agencies, when they need to quickly increase rankings for clients, there are generally two things that they know are the easiest levers to pull. First, title tags and meta descriptions, what’s getting more clicks, but second is increasing the internal linking.
You know that you can increase internal links on your site, and there are probably some opportunities there that you just haven’t explored. So let’s talk about a couple easy ways to do that without having too much work.
9. Update old content with new links
Number nine is updating your old content with new links. This is a step that we see people skip time and time again. When you publish a new blog post, publish a new piece of content, make sure you’re going back and updating your old content with those new links.
So you’re looking at the top keyword that you want to rank for, and going in Google Search Console or checking tools like Keyword Explorer to see what other pages on your site rank for that keyword, and then adding links to the new content to those pages. I find when I do this, time and time again, it lowers the bounce rate. So you’re not only updating your old page with fresh content and fresh links and adding relevance. You’re adding links to your new content. So make sure, when you publish new content, you’re updating your old content with those new links.
10. Remove unnecessary links
Number 10, remove unnecessary links from your content. Now this is a form of PageRank sculpting. PageRank sculpting is a dirty word in SEO, but actually it works to a certain extent. It’s not nofollow link page sculpting.
It is removing unnecessary links. Do you really need a link to your team page on every page of your website? Do you need a link to your contact form on every page of your website? In many cases, you don’t. Sometimes you do. But if you remove the unnecessary links, you can pass more link equity through the links that actually count, and those links are a major Google ranking signal.
11. Mobile link parity audit
Number 11, need you to do a mobile link parity audit. What is that? What is a mobile link parity audit? That is ensuring that the links on your mobile site are the same as the links on your desktop site. Why is that important? Well, the last couple of years Google has moved to a mobile first index, meaning what they see on your mobile site, that’s your website.
That’s what counts. So a lot of sites, they have a desktop site, and then they reduce it to their mobile site and they’re missing links. They get rid of header navigation, footer links, and things like that. A recent study showed that the average desktop page has 61 links and the average mobile page has 54 links. That means on the web as a whole there are seven fewer links on mobile pages than desktop pages, meaning a lot of link equity is being lost.
So do a study on your own website. Make sure you have mobile link parity between your desktop and your mobile site so you’re not losing that equity.
12. Invest in long-form content
Number 12: need you to invest in long-form content. Now I am not saying that content length is a ranking factor. It is not. Short-form content can rank perfectly well. The reason I want you to invest in long-form content is because consistently, time and time again, when we study this, long-form content earns more links and shares.
It also generally tends to rank higher in Google search results. Nothing against short-form content. Love short-form content. But long-form content generally gives you more bang for your buck in terms of SEO ranking potential.
13. Use more headers
When you’re doing that long-form content, make sure you do number 13: use more headers. I’m talking about H2 and H3 tags.
Break up your content with good, keyword-rich header tags. Why? Well, we have research from A.J. Ghergich that shows that the more header tags you have, generally you rank for more featured snippets. Sites with 12-13, which seems like a lot of header tags, rank for the most featured snippets of anything that they looked at in their most recent study.
So make sure you’re breaking up your content with header tags. It adds a little contextual relevance. It’s a great way to add some ranking potential to your content.
14. Leverage topic clusters
Number 14, leverage topic clusters. Don’t just launch one piece of content. Make sure you write about multiple pieces of content around the same subject and link those together. When you do that and you link them intelligently, you can increase engagement because people are reading the different articles.
You can add the right contextual inner links. I have a great case study that I want to show you in the transcript below, where someone did this and produced amazing results. So look into topic clusters for 2021.
15. Bring content out of tabs
Finally, bring your content out of tabs. If you have content that is in accordions or drop-downs or you have to click to reveal the content, study after study after study shows that content that’s brought out of tabs and brought into the main body, so people don’t have to click to see, generally performs better than content that’s hidden in tabs.
Now to be clear, I don’t believe that Google discriminates content in tabs. They seem to be able to index and rank it just fine. But I think people generally engage with content when it’s out of tabs, and maybe some of those signals help those pages to rank a little better.
Technical SEO
All right. Just a very few technical SEO tips. We’re going fast.
16. Core Web Vitals
Number 16: this is the year to invest in Core Web Vitals. These are some of the page experience signals that Google is bringing to the forefront in 2021. It’s going to be an actual ranking factor very soon. We’re talking about cumulative shift layout, hard word to say. Generally, we’re talking about site speed and delivering great page experience. Now some of these things are very technical, and Google has some tools, like Lighthouse, to try to help you to figure them out.
One tip I like to share, if you are on WordPress, I highly recommend using Cloudflare, in particular their APO for WordPress. It’s a great way to speed up your WordPress website and help you score better for some of these Core Web Vitals. It’s very low cost, it’s easy to implement, and it’s a great way to speed up your WordPress website.
17. Limit sitemaps to 10,000
Number 17: sitemaps. Sitemaps, you’re allowed to have 50,000 URLs per sitemap. This is always a question in every SEO quiz. How many URLs per sitemap are you allowed? Instead, if you have a large site and you have indexing issues, tip number 17, limit your sitemaps to 10,000 URLs. You don’t have to use all 50,000.
We have some evidence that using smaller sitemaps, compressing those into a limited URL set can actually improve your crawlability of those. It’s kind of like Google might prioritize those in some way. The data seems to support it. You also get a little bit better data out of Google Search Console. You can see what’s being indexed and what’s not.
18. Leverage dynamic sitemaps
Also, leverage dynamic sitemaps. Our friend Oliver Mason shows — that I’ll link to in the transcript below — that a dynamic sitemap is a sitemap that changes based upon what you want Google to crawl. So if you have a large corpus of URLs that you want Google to crawl, put the high priority ones in their own special sitemap.
Maybe you limit it to one thousand URLs. As Google crawls and discovers those, remove them and put in additional high priority URLs that you want Google to discover. Keep the sitemap small and tight, and let Google know that those are the ones that you want them to pay attention to.
Link building
Let’s quickly talk about link building tips for 2021, because everybody loves link building.
No, kidding. Everybody hates link building. Link building is so hard. There are some professionals and there are some great people in the industry who do love it, who are great at it. Personally, I’m not that great at link building, but I still am able to build a lot of links.
19. Passive link acquisition
One way that I’m able to do that is number 19: passive link acquisition. What passive link acquisition means is creating content that passively earns links as people discover it in the SERPs.
It means I don’t have to outreach to people. It means that when they find it, when journalists find it, when bloggers find it, they naturally want to link to it. You do that by creating the types of content that journalists and bloggers and web creators are looking for. These are generally data, guides, definitions, how to, such as this video. When you create that kind of content, it generally earns a lot of links as people find it. Passive link building is one of the most sustainable ways to earn links over time.
20. Page-level link intersect
Number 20, page-level link intersect. When you do have to do outreach, you want to do outreach to the pages most likely to link to you. Now we’ve known for a long time one of the top SEO tips for link building is find websites that link to your competitors but not to you.
I like to make that a little more specific and find web pages that link to at least two of my competitors but not to me. That means that they are generally a resource page, if they’re linking to multiple competitors but not to me, and more likely to link to me if I ask them. We have a great tool here at Moz, Link Explorer, that does page-level link intersect. I think it’s the best tool for this specific task in the SEO industry, not because I’m biased, because I actually use it.
21. Be the last click
Tip number 21 for 2021, be the last click. What do I mean by that? I mean satisfy your users. Once you earn the first click, you want to get that first click that people click, but you also want to be the last click. That means they found what they are looking for. User satisfaction is ranking signal number one. Your goal with all of this is to satisfy the user, to give them what they search for.
That’s the magic of SEO. They’re searching for something, and you’re delivering it to them at the exact moment they search for it. When you can be the last click, you’re almost guaranteed to rise in rankings and get the traffic that you deserve.
All right, those are 21 tips. That’s your roadmap for 2021. Hope you enjoyed it. Please share this video and share your tips for 2021 in the comments below.
Cyrus Shepard is the founder of Zyppy, an SEO consulting and software company. He writes/tweets about Google ranking signals, SEO best practices, experiments, tactics, and industry updates.For the latest, follow Cyrus on Twitter, or check out more of his posts on Moz.
