editor, Author at Mediastreet

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The Problem of Consumer Consent in Marketing

October 28, 2020 No Comments

Addressable advertising relies on being able to identify users to serve them the right message at the right time. But the identifiers that marketers use to do this are coming under threat as platforms and regulators work to improve data privacy and protection practices for consumers—namely by killing the third-party tracking cookie.

Now, some marketers are looking for ways to “replace the cookie”—which could be a doomed proposition if consumers don’t want to consent to being tracked and targeted by advertisers. The ad tech ecosystem sees consumer education as the key to getting that consent, but for more than a decade, consumers have expressed concerns.

In 2009, we noted research from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of California Berkeley School of Law, and the Annenberg Public Policy Centre that found two-thirds of US internet users did not want to see ads tailored to their interests—and that their opposition increased when they learned how such ads were delivered. Almost two-thirds (63%) said they thought advertisers should be legally required to delete information about consumer internet activity immediately.

In 2010, covering other research that revealed consumer discomfort with ad targeting practices, we wrote, “Education without effective empowerment with regard to their own data may not be enough for consumers to get comfortable with targeting.”

There has never been a clear process of informed consent, or radical transparency, nor have consumers had the capability to manage their preferences conveniently. There hasn’t been even the smallest effort to explain to the public how real-time bidding (RTB) works and what it means about who processes their data. But there has been a massive increase in spending on targeted digital advertising.

According to February 2019 research conducted in the UK by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the Office of Communications (Ofcom), and Harris Interactive, consumer support for viewing digital advertising in exchange for free content dropped from around two-thirds (63%) to around one-third (36%) when survey participants were given some basic information about how personal data is used in RTB.

In 2010, we cautioned: “The fact that over time, as behavioural targeting has featured prominently in the news, Americans continue to regard it as invasive, creepy, or otherwise undesirable further suggests that educational efforts may not be enough.”

By Nicole Perrin

Sourced from eMarketer

In News

Covid-19 Brought More Consumers Online — Are Brands Ready?

October 28, 2020 No Comments

By Daniel Heer

Founder & CEO of Zeotap, a customer intelligence platform that helps brands better understand their customers and predict behaviours.

There is no aspect of life or business that Covid-19 has not affected, and advertising is no exception. In the way brands message to their audiences and also how much budget they can now allocate, everything turned on a dime in mid-March, with 2020 barely out the door.

Now, we can expect to see a staggering drop in ad investment in 2020. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (via Tasty Ad), “Almost a quarter (24%) of media buyers, planners and brands have paused spending until the end of Q2, while 46% indicated they would adjust their ad spend across the same time period. Three quarters expect the pandemic to have a bigger impact than the 2008 financial crisis.”

So where are advertisers spending their limited budgets? Well, there’s no place like home.

Shifting To The Digital Homefront

The World Economic Forum reported that as stay-at-home measures rolled out across the globe, out-of-home advertising contracted almost immediately, and print advertising also quickly declined. On the other hand, the usage of in-home media increased, with digital consumption such as social platforms, streaming services and gaming outpacing traditional media dramatically.

It’s hard to believe we weren’t already at full saturation in our digital lives, but since Covid-19, there are more people online than ever before (at the start of the pandemic, internet usage was up 70%). Consumers are buying more online rather than braving brick-and-mortar stores (e-commerce spending in the U.S. was up more than 30% from the beginning of March through mid-April compared with the same period last year), and they are staying online for longer stretches (in an eMarketer survey, 32% of respondents are spending longer on social media, while 42% of respondents are spending more time watching streaming services, and Nielsen reported a 59% increase in game console usage).

And of course, advertising dollars are following.

The opportunity for marketers to reach those people with a laser focus is the highest it’s ever been. And while the need to stretch an ad dollar in this economic climate is no doubt challenging, the upside is that marketers now know exactly where to spend it.

Building Customer Identity Is Still A Challenge

Now that digital use is at an all-time high, digital identity resolution — or reconciling an anonymized person’s behaviour across channels and devices — is more important than ever to brands. Identity in this sense should not be mistaken for collecting personally identifiable information such as name and address, but rather a unified view of a person’s behaviour across their devices while their true identity remains private.

Identity resolution is meant to be a gold mine to advertisers — and in theory, it should help them properly measure ad effectiveness and attribute business outcomes (e.g., purchases) to the correct consumer touch point, whether it’s an online ad, email, print ad or commercial. It’s also meant to be helpful to consumers because it helps with what is known as frequency capping, or making sure one person doesn’t keep seeing the same ad multiple times to the point of annoyance.

Yet according to a report published by BCG in 2019, 83% of CMOs and advertisers are still not able to make those important connections across consumer touch points and devices. The issue lies in the fact that the whole digital advertising industry was built on and optimized for third-party cookies — or pieces of code from digital providers that help track anonymized users’ browsing behaviour on behalf of brands. These identifiers were superb at recognizing web browsers, but they fell short when it came to recognizing individuals.

Now, with Google announcing the phasing out of third-party cookies on its Chrome Browser, identity resolution is becoming even trickier. And with Apple’s recent announcement in June that it will now make its IDFA (identifier for advertiser) “opt in” only — meaning a customer has to proactively enable it — identity resolution efforts took another blow.

Solutions For Brands

With all that in mind, brands are left with the task of investing in and further building out their first-party cookies (tracking code they put down themselves) and their customer login data. There are many advantages when utilizing these identification techniques: They are persistent and cannot be blocked, and they are easy to integrate with privacy notices. They can be linked by publishers to their login profiles as well. The only caveat is that they are trickier to use across websites because they only work in a brand’s proprietary or closed environment, which affects attribution, reach and frequency capping.

Now we’re getting a lot more “inside baseball,” but it would be remiss not to mention the rise of universal IDs — or the same ID used by multiple digital advertising vendors — as a way to better identify customers online and reduce all complexities. They could be leveraged along with a brand’s first party and customer login data. Google, Facebook and other tech behemoths would continue to rely on their own identifiers as they built upon their empires, so any universal ID would be limited in scale in that regard.

However, the universal ID is one of the better solutions in an increasingly challenging advertising and customer identity environment. And of course, privacy has to be at the forefront of any identity initiative — or you can be sure companies will get ensnared in regulations violations.

Covid-19 may be bringing more people online, but brands have to wade through a very complex new digital environment to reach these consumers and deliver them the most relevant and personalized messages to achieve their goals. But they can — and will — adapt. The digital marketing opportunities have never been better.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Daniel Heer

Founder & CEO of Zeotap, a customer intelligence platform that helps brands better understand their customers and predict behaviours. Read Daniel Heer’s full executive profile here.

Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Why advertisers are leaning into digital publishing strategies

October 28, 2020 No Comments

By Ashley Deibert

The world of digital advertising is undergoing a paradigm shift.

Even before Google pulls the final plug on third-party cookies in 2022, brands will be challenged to rethink their targeting and ad strategies. The demise of third-party cookies promises to accelerate the decline of third-party data, and brands will require more direct data solutions to ensure return on investment and maximize the impact of their advertising spend.

Enter first-party and zero-party data — fully consented data types that users provide directly to brands, often through their on-site actions. First-party and zero-party data have always been part of most brands’ advertising efforts, but they’re about to play a starring role as the foundation of their entire strategy.

While change is always difficult, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. First- and zero-party are more reliable than third-party data. And, since the data is provided by people who really want to interact with the brand, it’s a more reliable way to interact with individuals who are receptive to advertising and likely to become customers. Moreover, since both first- and zero-party data are provided voluntarily, they’re built on a foundation of privacy and consent that users and lawmakers increasingly demand. But to be successful, most brands will need to expand their stores of each data type.

The state of direct brand engagement

In July and August, 2020, Digiday surveyed 111 advertisers, representing 71 different brands and 40 agencies, to understand what brands were doing to prepare for a cookieless world. This research offers a snapshot of an advertising industry that is dramatically increasing its reliance on first- and zero-party data as a direct result of cookie deprecation.

The study revealed that 50 percent of marketers expect to be more reliant on first-party data in the coming year, and 49 percent will use more zero-party data. And they plan to draw on a familiar set direct engagement tactics to do so — those that have been honed by successful digital publishers.

The question is, are they making this transition quickly enough to be ready for 2022?

Direct brand engagement is emerging as a key strategy

Publishers have long understood that direct engagement is the key to increasing user investment. The more engaged in a brand’s site a user proves, the more often they’ll visit. And it’s these highly engaged users who are most likely to convert into paying subscribers, sign up for newsletters or share data on a registration page. But first, they need to see value in those exchanges, whether through access to premium content, expanded site features or some other tangible benefit.

Creating value exchanges to inspire users to become more invested in the site has enabled publishers to collect both first and zero-party data. In turn, they’ve been able to further personalize their user experiences, directly engage with their audience and provide critical data points to their advertisers to help them better target ads.

The survey results show that most brands are now embracing many of the tactics that digital publishers use to collect this crucial data. Email, already a powerful tool for brands, has become their medium of choice for new approaches. The study found that 55 percent are using surveys and questionnaires to gather customer data, and 50 percent are employing newsletter sign-ups. However, they’re also exploring subscription offers (used by 29 percent of respondents), registrations (28 percent) and gated access to site features (20 percent). When asked what they’ll be using a year from now, subscription offerings increase by 30 percent and registrations by 17 percent.

How they’re using all this data is equally notable. While direct ad targeting and broader segmentation continue to top the list of widely used data-driven tactics, 37 percent of those surveyed also plan to engage in direct one-to-one interactions with their customers.

Waiting for change will leave some brands behind the curve

The results show that brands are seeking out new tactics in the face of change. However, they also suggest that brands are moving slowly when it comes to making the big shift away from third-party data. They’re comfortable taking a wait-and-see approach, convinced they’ll have plenty of time to adapt away from their third-party data strategies when the time comes.

Among the survey respondents, 44 percent plan to start their post-third-party cookie planning in two years or less, putting them on the cusp of Google’s 2022 timeline. Meanwhile, 44 percent expect the transition to take up to three years — meaning they’re at risk of missing the deadline completely. And 78 percent don’t see any reason to hurry, assuming that they’ll be able to adapt to other data types quickly and easily at a later date.

In truth, late adopters are behind the curve from a strategic perspective. Experts, including multiple members of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3), have noted that advertisers, ad tech companies, browsers and publishers are simply taking too long to prepare for the end of third-party cookies. Much like the sluggish response to GDPR, this leisurely approach risks putting many businesses in the hot seat at a moment when they’re ill-equipped to swiftly adapt.

There’s no reason to wait. By virtue of being more clearly sourced, first- and zero-party data is actually a better alternative than third-party data, opening up the ability to target users more precisely. Still, there is a learning curve to building a strategy that revolves around direct engagement. Of those surveyed, 52 percent reported that the difficulty of creating content that appeals to their audience was a roadblock to improving direct engagement. Getting a head start now will give brands the time to test what works for their audiences, and what doesn’t.

Digital publishers have spent decades perfecting the tactics they use to build direct engagement. Brands have less than two years to do the same.

By Ashley Deibert

Sourced from DIGIDAY

In News

4 Smart Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Social Media Ad Budget

October 27, 2020 No Comments

By Zeke Cohen

By focusing on your quality score, using videos as sponsored posts, creating your own graphics, and speaking the language of your consumers, you can stretch your ad dollars even further.

The cost of Facebook ads has increased by 90 percent year-over-year. Twitter is already more expensive than Facebook. And, Instagram is fast catching up. What can we do as marketers to survive in such a hyper-competitive environment? You’ll need to learn to make the most of your marketing budget moving forward.

Here are four tips to help you get the best bang for your marketing buck.

FOCUS ON IMPROVING YOUR QUALITY SCORE

Each ad platform has a quality score that dictates your cost per click or cost per impression. Facebook refers to this as the Relevance Score, while Twitter calls it the Quality Adjusted Bid. Formalities aside, the biggest thing to note is that a higher quality score means the platform is going to show your ads to more people. Conversely, a lower quality score means you will have to pay more. The quality score is determined by engagement. So, the more your target audience clicks on, likes, and shares your advertised content, the lower you pay.

Previously, it was the norm to rapidly test out different creatives and then promote the winners. But, doing so now can be extremely expensive and ineffective. Fortunately, you can figure out which content has the highest chance of good engagement without even running an ad campaign.

Your website, for instance, is a gold mine of creative ideas perfect for your social media marketing campaign. Here’s an awesome way to find your top-performing content using Google Analytics and a spreadsheet.

(Image Source)

Your best content attracted engagement for a reason. It clicked with your target audience. Use this creative to come up with fresh ad ideas. For example, each subheading in an article can be turned into a sponsored post with a bit of work. Start with organic posts first. See which posts perform the best, then sponsor them across the ad-network. By the time you hit play on your ad campaign, you’ll already have most of the hard work done.

USE YOUR AUDIENCE’S INSIDER-SPEAK TO STAND OUT

Creatives that deliver the most value will always attract more engagement. But, you can take it even further. As social creatures, we tend to belong to cliques and groups with specific lingo. This insider-speak serves as an “Identify Friend or Foe” test, which separates the group members from the outsiders. Suffice to say, using your audience’s insider-jargon will help you break the ice and establish an instant rapport with them.

For example, Millennials and Gen Zers are more likely to use chat acronyms on social media. You can strategically insert abbreviations into your sponsored content to get it to resonate with them. Even images are awesome places to use them! Check out this US Marine Corps ad for a marathon.

(Image Source)

The ad is targeted to millennials and Gen Z since it starts with an acronym they likely know.

The same principle can be applied to virtually any demographic or audience group, be it baby boomers, coders, or artists. (Even social media professionals have their own jargon!)

CREATE YOUR OWN GRAPHIC

There’re plenty of stock photos and graphics online, which can certainly take one huge step off your checklist. The problem is, everyone’s doing it. Using stock photos or graphics comes with three deal-breaking disadvantages.

Primarily, your audience may have already seen it, so it won’t have the first-impressions effect. Second, it comes across as lazy and unoriginal. Finally, it will never completely match your content unless you write it around the picture, which is self-defeating.

There are some cases where stock photos may work, but their utility is very limited. Instead, spend some time taking your photos or creating graphics that complement your post perfectly. You will have more freedom and will be able to better express your ideas. The images don’t have to be Picasso grade either. Any basic design or photo that gets the idea across will do for the most part. For example, check out this graphic from Manly Wellness:

(Image Source)

Notice that this image doesn’t illustrate the point – frequency of contact as much as it supports it. It may seem counterintuitive, but images don’t always need to be central to your social media strategy. They can play a supporting role while letting the text do most of the heavy lifting. Images and custom graphics can be used to capture your audience’s attention before they start reading the text, and eventually, clicking the ad.

USE VIDEOS AS SPONSORED POSTS

If a picture speaks a thousand words, then a video speaks a million. The power of video is undeniable. For example, LinkedIn users are 20 times more likely to share a video than any other post. And with YouTube now being the second-largest search engine, you would not want to miss out on creating video ads.

While your chosen video depends on your marketing goals and KPIs, the following types are good places to start:

Behind the scenes videos
Live videos
How-to videos
User-created videos
Informational videos

Even so, it’s worth noting that videos don’t perform that well just because they are videos. It’s high-quality video content that accounts for most of the “video effectiveness stats” that populate the internet. And those certainly require some investment. That being said, it’s best to have a combination of different types and quality videos in your social media mix.

That’s exactly what Freshbooks does on their #imakealiving campaign. They amplified the power of video in social media through sponsored partnerships with successful entrepreneurs.

(Image Source)

These videos are submitted by the entrepreneurs themselves, therefore the production and quality vary.

It’s generally a good idea to make videos that directly represent your brand and/or product as professional as possible. But, more affordable, Go-Pro type instant and user-generated videos can be used for social proof and building credibility.

The bottom line? Running a social media ad campaign doesn’t need to cost you a lot. Most end up turning expensive solely because it takes so much rinse and repeat to find the winning creative copy, graphic, colour combo. Once that truth is established, your ads can start paying for themselves. The idea to reduce your ad spend is to do as much of the research before while keeping your ads looking spectacular.

By Zeke Cohen

SEO & Marketing Expert, Freelance Writer, –

Sourced from Social Media Week

In News

Exploratory Data Analysis – The Go-To Technique to Explore Your Data!

October 27, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from Analytics Vidhya

This article was published as a part of the Data Science Blogathon.

Introduction

Exploratory Data Analysis(EDA) is one of the most underrated and under-utilized approaches in any Data Science project. EDA is the first step that data scientists perform where they study the data and extract valuable information and non-obvious insights from the data which ultimately helps during model building.

Before you model the data and test it, you need to build a relationship with the data. You can build this relationship by exploring the data, by plotting the data against the target variable, and observe how your data is behaving. This process of analysis before modeling is called Exploratory Data Analysis.

In this article, we are going to perform a hands-on EDA on a complex dataset from Kaggle(Advanced House Prediction). The link to the dataset is given below:

https://www.kaggle.com/c/house-prices-advanced-regression-techniques/data

The lifecycle of a Data Science Project

1) Exploratory Data Analysis

2) Feature Engineering

3) Feature Selection

4) Hyperparameter tuning

5) Model Building and deployment

Let us perform on this complex dataset which has around 81 independent features and 1 target variable(sale price). It is a Regression problem statement.

EDA will contain some basic steps like analyzing missing values, numerical and categorical features’ distribution, outliers, multicollinearity, etc. We will see each one of the steps one by one.

Missing Values

Most of the time the data we obtain contains missing values and we need to find whether there exists any relationship between missing data and the sale price(target variable). Depending on that we replace the missing value with something like the median of that column.

This is the python code to capture the missing values for a large dataset in a list where we replace the missing value with 1 and replace the non-missing value with 0 and plot against the median sale price to see whether there exists a relationship b/w null values and target variable or not.

LotFrontage 0.1774 % missing values
Alley 0.9377 % missing values
MasVnrType 0.0055 % missing values
MasVnrArea 0.0055 % missing values
BsmtQual 0.0253 % missing values
BsmtCond 0.0253 % missing values
BsmtExposure 0.026 % missing values
BsmtFinType1 0.0253 % missing values
BsmtFinType2 0.026 % missing values
FireplaceQu 0.4726 % missing values
GarageType 0.0555 % missing values
GarageYrBlt 0.0555 % missing values
GarageFinish 0.0555 % missing values
GarageQual 0.0555 % missing values
GarageCond 0.0555 % missing values
PoolQC 0.9952 % missing values
Fence 0.8075 % missing values
MiscFeature 0.963 % missing values

Since there are many missing values, we need to find the relationship between null values and the target variable(sale price)

This is one of the plots which shows that null values of Lot frontage feature have an impact on the target variable as it is increasing with the sale price. So yes, there exists a relationship b/w the two and we need to replace the null values with something substantial like the median of that particular feature.

Numerical Features

Since this is a large dataset we need to visualize the different types of variables like date-time(year), discrete and continuous numerical feature, categorical feature, and their behavior with the target variable.

There are 39 numerical features in this dataset. The data type for string or a mix of string and numeric is given as an object which we can check by using the types attribute.

Date Time variable(year feature or temporal variable)

This is the python code to find the year features and see how those four features behave with respect to the target variable.

We can see here that as the yr sold increases, the cost decreases. Now, this has to be an anomaly since it is not possible so we need to do more analysis and come to better conclusions. This just shows the importance of EDA and how it can affect our conclusions.

Instead of comparing the sale price with the yr sold feature, let us compare the sale price and the difference of all year features.

Now we can compare the sale price(median) with the year built and the year of recodification and come to various conclusions like the value on the X-axis increases, the price decreases.

Discrete numerical features

Discrete variables are the variables whose values exist in a particular range or are countable in a finite amount of time.

I have kept the threshold value for unique variables in a feature as 25 and those should not be in the year feature. Now let us see if there exists a relationship b/w discrete features and the target variable.

We can see that one of the features like OverallQuality has a direct relation with the target variable.

Continuous numerical features

These are the type of features whose value can be basically anything till infinity. By using histograms, we analyze their distribution throughout the data set.

Exploratory Data Analysis

We can see that the distribution we obtained is skewed. During regression problem statements, it is necessary to convert the skewed distribution to a normal distribution as it increases the accuracy of the model.

Logarithmic transformation is one of the techniques to convert a skewed distribution to a normal distribution where we take the log of all values of that particular feature and convert it into a whole new log feature itself.

Exploratory Data Analysis

Outliers

The outlier is any data point that lies outside of the distribution of the data set.

The presence of outliers in the dataset can hamper the accuracy of the model. Algorithms like linear regression are very sensitive to outliers so it needs to be handled carefully.

The Standard Deviation method is a common method to identify and replace the outliers where any data point which lies outside the 3rd standard deviation is considered to be an outlier. Although that threshold standard deviation can change depending on the size of the data set.

Here in EDA, let us analyse the outliers in the data set using boxplot.

Exploratory Data Analysis

The black dots denote the outliers present which are away from the distribution. The lower line of the rectangular box is 25%ile and the upper line is 75%ile.

So those black dots are the values that need to be removed or replaced which we will see in feature engineering.

Categorical features

Exploratory Data Analysis

The data type for a categorical feature is an object and we can check that with types attribute of pandas.

Exploratory Data Analysis

We generally convert the categorical values of a feature into dummy variables so that our algorithm understands. This is called as One hot encoding. If the cardinality of a particular category is very high, then we do not use one-hot encoding as it might lead to a curse of dimensionality.

The feature is MSZoning and number of categories are 5
The feature is Street and number of categories are 2
The feature is Alley and number of categories are 3
The feature is LotShape and number of categories are 4
The feature is LandContour and number of categories are 4
The feature is Utilities and number of categories are 2
The feature is LotConfig and number of categories are 5
The feature is LandSlope and number of categories are 3
The feature is Neighborhood and number of categories are 25
The feature is Condition1 and number of categories are 9
The feature is Condition2 and number of categories are 8
The feature is BldgType and number of categories are 5
The feature is HouseStyle and number of categories are 8
The feature is RoofStyle and number of categories are 6
The feature is RoofMatl and number of categories are 8
The feature is Exterior1st and number of categories are 15
The feature is Exterior2nd and number of categories are 16
The feature is MasVnrType and number of categories are 5
The feature is ExterCond and number of categories are 5
The feature is Foundation and number of categories are 6
The feature is BsmtQual and number of categories are 5
The feature is BsmtCond and number of categories are 5
The feature is BsmtExposure and number of categories are 5
The feature is BsmtFinType1 and number of categories are 7
The feature is BsmtFinType2 and number of categories are 7
The feature is Heating and number of categories are 6
The feature is HeatingQC and number of categories are 5
The feature is CentralAir and number of categories are 2
The feature is Electrical and number of categories are 6
The feature is KitchenQual and number of categories are 4
The feature is Functional and number of categories are 7
The feature is FireplaceQu and number of categories are 6
The feature is GarageType and number of categories are 7
The feature is GarageFinish and number of categories are 4
The feature is GarageQual and number of categories are 6
The feature is GarageCond and number of categories are 6
The feature is PavedDrive and number of categories are 3
The feature is PoolQC and number of categories are 4
The feature is Fence and number of categories are 5
The feature is SaleType and number of categories are 9
The feature is SaleCondition and number of categories are 6

The threshold value of categories that I have chosen for this case to perform one-hot encoding is 10.

Now let us check whether there exists any relationship between the categorical features and the median of the target variable(sale price).

Exploratory Data Analysis

Multicollinearity

In any dataset, whenever the independent features are internally correlated with each other, it hampers the accuracy of the model because the individual contribution of the features cannot be obtained. This is called Multicollinearity.

This is a huge problem when it comes to algorithms like linear and logistic regression.

How to fix it?

We use the correlation matrix with heatmap to visualize the relationship of all the independent features with each other by their correlation coefficient values.

Generally, 0.7 is taken as the threshold which means if any 2 features have a correlation above 0.7, one of the two features can be dropped.

Exploratory Data Analysis

Conclusion

These were some important steps to perform in Exploratory Data Analysis and it also shows the importance of EDA when it comes to real-life projects. I hope everyone uses this technique while solving their project.

Sourced from Analytics Vidhya

In News

Boost Your Social Media Marketing With This Discounted Automation Software

October 27, 2020 No Comments

By StackCommerce Team

Postoplan allows you to automate posting across multiple platforms from one central hub.

There are unlimited ways for business owners to reach out: Keeping customers updated on Instagram, appealing to new users on Facebook, or recruiting potential talent via LinkedIn. However, all those tasks require a huge amount of time investment that could be better spent elsewhere.

It’s essential for companies to have a multi-faceted marketing plan uniquely suited to the strengths of each platform and the speed at which things can change on the internet. No one manager can do it effectively, and it’s difficult even for dedicated marketing professionals. That’s where Postoplan comes in.

The social media automation tool can have a profound impact on local brands while also easily meeting the scale of any large corporation. In fact, it already has: Reps from companies and entrepreneurs in 140 countries have given Postoplan top reviews on sites like G2 and Capterra. The key is in the functionality. With Postoplan, you can control daily posts from a central hub that lets you see what’s going out and when. Schedule posts on social media sites, messaging apps, even WhatsApp, and automate replies, redirects, and a whole range of interactions with your followers.

Having trouble with content? Postoplan provides daily idea hooks to make sure there’s constant variety. Users can get suggestions on hashtags and other relevant tagging, edit photos quickly directly in the tool, and even add multiple photos on a single post. Best of all, you can do all these tasks ad-free, an unlimited number of times on an unlimited number of accounts. It’s a hub that brings your messaging together under one umbrella.

PCMag readers can try out the service now with a special discount: Take half off the retail price of a lifetime subscription to Postoplan Social Media Automation, now available for $99.99.

By StackCommerce Team

Sourced from PC

In News

Pen Down your Mind: How Blogging can be your personal escape

October 23, 2020 No Comments

By Martha Thomas

In the age of the millennia, we are obsessed with the fast-paced, tech-driven life bringing comfort to us at every level. However, like everything comes with a price, our modern lives are being pestered due to mental health issues. Every day we wake up and move on with our lives, keeping anxiety and depression under the veil, which according to a report by the World Health Organisation affects more than 56 million people in India.

The frequent trips to counsellors, psychiatrists that take our time and money, may not be able to relieve us of the unnerving state of our mind and body. However, here’s a thing that can actually do wonders for your cognitive health, and that is penning down your mind through blogs.

The stigma attached to getting mental aid, or the time and efforts taken, etc, wouldn’t be something to worry about when you create your own journals or blogs.

Not just sharing your experiences with others, but also hearing out the stories of other people through blogs and posts, would ultimately help you know yourself better. Your writing passion, stemming from your experiences and perspective will be lifted once you start blogging.

A blog can literally be the most rewarding thing one can create. Putting your thoughts down in the form of a blog can not only prove to be cathartic but also therapeutic. According to Cross barriers, it can even inspire millions to undertake a noble cause. Telling about a particular problem or letting your readers know how a particular state or condition has been turning out for you would eventually help more people than you think. Central to the process is the chance for you to explore writing and shape your own story.

Cross Barriers’s – #MentalWellness Awareness Campaign

The benefits of indulging in expressive arts such as writing, blogging, etc have not been unfamiliar to us. Even doctors documented its psychological benefits such as less over-thinking, reduced levels of anxiety or depression, etc.

The touted healing benefits that come with writing about traumatic and stress-led experiences are profound. Not just that, write often to release any negative or positive feeling, expression that lies within you and your head starts feeling light already!

Mental health isn’t one size that fits all, rather it is multi-dimensional. A blog is your playground, where you can write about whatever interests you and stimulate your mind, snubbing the rest. Be inspirational, be yourself as a blog is just another manifestation of your personal expression.

Not only can blogging be your personal escape from the monotonous world, it can also be a medium for you to be valiant and expressive. If you want to take your flair for writing to the next level, a self-hosted blog with an authentic vision, and your own domain name is a good way to proceed. Turn it into a professional blogging platform that will help you earn while doing what you love.

Blog your way to self-fulfilment

Blogging is more than just writing, it can turn out to be your way to self-discovery. Talking about things that resonate with your mind and heart, while taking into consideration its relevance, will lead you to self-fulfilment.

The online medium has transcended borders, connecting people across the globe. With the power of blogging, you have the ability to change yourself and others around you. This also makes you feel more connected than ever before. When you feel like your voice matters, the sense of empowerment and importance is felt, which will have a great impact on your emotional as well as mental state.

Blogging gives you both options: either to create an identity for yourself or to be hidden under a pseudo-identity, with the tag “anonymous”, allowing you to express more freely. Either way, the choice is yours.

The science of better mind with blogging

Jotting and learning things help kindle your brain, providing the neurons with a much-needed exercise. Blogging can also help you stay mentally fit, hold intelligent conversations, have a good memory, etc. Also adding a more public element to your writing, it is suggested that communal communication offers additional psychological benefits. In 2013, researchers at the University of Haifa stated that writing a blog is proven to be more effective than writing in a private diary as it improves self-esteem, lessening social anxiety and emotional distress.

Whether it’s the bottled up feelings or negative thoughts, word your every emotion through blogging. It is a medium of social interaction, which can really bring amazing things to you. So start with your journey now and look forward to sharing your experiences and stories. Good luck!

By Martha Thomas

Research Analyst, Martha pursued psychology as a matter of interest post engineering and she never knew she will never go back to do endless coding at backend. Her passion got her into writing on different matters related to brains and human behaviour. Sometimes her inclination to corporate life is turned on which makes her do bit of research and analysis in different industries and its developments.

Sourced from Thrive Global

In News

29 Vintage Ads That Would Be Banned Today Show How Different Life Was

October 23, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from VELE5

In the past, ads encouraged women to stay in the kitchen, kids to start drinking Cola at an early age and much more.

It’s really easy to get your basic items these days. Ads have pretty much everything you need. The best soap, cheap trips to an exotic destination, and so many “great offers.” Things were really difficult in the past. People couldn’t get any basic goods during the Great Depression and WWII. Millions of jobless people were starving in their homes, with no electricity and clean water.

The end of the war brought joy to everyone. People could get a job and buy basic items. Advertisers used the restart of manufacturing and made some of the most hilarious ads you will ever see.

TV advertising reached its highest peak in the 1950s. There were ads for cigarette brands, alcoholic drinks, cars, appliances, and dodgy pharmaceuticals. Some of the items were pretty cool, but the ad shared a completely different story.

Today, ads look a lot different than before. Advertising companies target different groups of consumers, and social media makes everything look easy.

In this article, we have listed some of the most hilarious ads from the past. Most ads are withdrawn and deleted for good. But, some have surfaced occasionally, and people’s reaction is priceless.

We bet some of these vintage ads would definitely be banned today. Imagine releasing an ad that encourages kids to drink Cola at an early age! Women don’t leave the kitchen? Really?

One particular ad earns young women that they would always be the bridesmaid if they continued to ignore their bad breath. Another ad suggested that TV helps kids improve their behavior and school marks. An ad from the 1930s encouraged parents to buy sun-lamp and put their kids to sleep under it. Chin reducer, anyone?

Sources:

www.healthyfoodhouse.com

www.socialgazette.com

Sourced from VELE5

In News

How To Turn Your Social Media Into A Lead Funnel

October 23, 2020 No Comments

By Joel Goldstein.

In today’s competitive landscape, companies need to use every available method to increase their earnings. However, many neglect to maximize the value of their social media accounts. In my experience, platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn offer massive upsides to businesses across all sectors. When leveraged properly, they can be an almost limitless source of lead generation. Here’s how to maximize social media’s income-generating potential.

Building a social media following.

The first step toward turning your social media into a revenue stream is building a social media presence and follower base. There are certainly plenty of users to attract on the most active social media websites. Twitter reportedly has approximately 330 million users, while Facebook has an astonishing 2.7 billion users. Even if only a tiny fraction of these users are interested in your industry, that’s still a massive audience for your business.

Companies who implement a comprehensive social media strategy typically do better than ones that approach their social media activity without foresight. If you’d like to develop a better strategy for building your social media following, you should start with an understanding of your desired audience. Who are they? What do they like? What platforms are they on? Answering these questions will give you the information you need to get started.

Once you understand your target audience, you can begin reaching out to them in an attempt to win their attention. The best way to do this is by regularly posting content they find relevant. This may include interesting statistics, contests and giveaways, engaging videos, and company news. Provide your audience with high-quality content consistently to start growing your social media following.

Use social media to increase web traffic.

As you build your social media following, you’ll want to start implementing strategies that allow you to profit on the increased attention. The first step in this process is getting users to move from the social media platform you found them on to your website. They aren’t going to do this on their own, so your company needs to come up with ways to incentivize their click.

One of the most proven ways to achieve this is with blog content. Posts with snappy titles and the promise of engaging content give social media users a real reason to visit your website. You may even want to consider promoting your blog posts via social media ads to get more eyes on them. Not sure how often you should be blogging? It depends on your goals, and experts suggest experimenting with your publishing frequency to find your “sweet spot.”

Optimize your landing pages.

Once a user has reached your company’s website, it should be extremely easy for them to take the next step in the conversion process. Marketers refer to this as a sales funnel. Essentially, you want to move the users who visit your company’s website toward your ultimate sales goal, which could be signing up for your service or purchasing one of your products. To accomplish this, you’ll need to optimize your website’s landing pages.

Landing page optimization means enhancing each element on your landing page in order to increase conversions. There are a few different ways you can accomplish this. For example, you may want to use a heat map to show you where users are clicking on your website. Or, maybe you want to track each visitor’s behaviour to see why conversions either succeed or fail.

Additionally, you can optimize your landing pages by completing the following steps:

• Make your offer clear.

• Simplify your page.

• Introduce clear call-to-action buttons.

• Add contact information.

• Add testimonials from satisfied customers.

• Utilize search engine optimization tools.

Utilize social media as a public relations tool.

According to the industry report from RepResearch, sales reps value a brand’s reputation above all when deciding whether to take on a new line. Your company should also explore how social media can be used as a tool for public relations.

PR is something that every company does in one way or another. It involves deliberately managing the release and spread of information between a business and the public. Put another way, it is a strategic communications process that should allow for a mutually beneficial relationship between a company and its clients.

Social media has made PR more accessible. This presents its own benefits and challenges. When done well, PR on social media can be used to get more people interested in your business, define your brand’s image and drive more traffic to your website. These are all outcomes that have the potential to increase your company’s revenue.

One of the most effective methods of PR on social media is collaborations with other brands. This may involve curating content for other companies in your industry, or even guest posting on their blogs. Another opportunity you may want to consider here is asking C-level executives and social media influencers to publish posts that serve as PR for your company.

Remember that a new revenue stream is the end goal.

Social media presents companies with exciting ways to generate new leads and increase revenue. The most effective way to accomplish this is by using your social media posts to attract users to your website. Your business can achieve this by regularly posting engaging and industry-specific content to its feeds, as well as by engaging in PR efforts on its social media accounts.

Once a user has reached your website, continue the conversion process by optimizing your landing pages and making it obvious what you want the visitor to do. Following these steps could be just what your company needs to turn its social media into a new stream of revenue.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Joel Goldstein.

Joel Goldstein is the President of Mr. Checkout Distributors. Read Joel Goldstein’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Podcast SEO: How to Optimize Your Podcast For Search Engines

October 22, 2020 No Comments

By Aakash Singh.

Even though they have to compete with other well established content delivery platforms such as videos and blogs, podcasts have made a name and place for themselves.

The Google 2019 update also tipped the scales further in podcast’s favor by enabling them to show up in search engines. Indexing of podcasts will help show audio content directly in search engines for users to consume.

Let us look in detail at what exactly podcast SEO is and how to go about this rapidly growing platform.

Why do podcasts need SEO?

Before we go ahead, it is safe to say that your content needs to be top-notch if you ever stand a chance to rank in search engines. No amount of SEO can come to the rescue if your content is not worth it.

Ever since the Google update, podcast SEO simply means you can reach out to audiences who have never heard of you before. In fact, people who are not specifically searching for a podcast can turn up at your podcast if it satisfies the intent with which the user was searching.

Why-Do-Podcasts-Need-SEO-Digital-Marketing-Podcast-SEO

Podcasts are widely used to advertise and market products/services nowadays. As more people consume podcasts, it is becoming extremely necessary to understand and take appropriate action to get your podcasts to rank in searches.

I will cover podcast SEO in two major parts: SEO for podcasts and SEO for podcast episodes.

SEO for podcasts

#1. Focus keyword

You need to decide and then focus on the keyword with which users will look up for your podcast on Google. If your niche is super competitive and filled with podcasts already, go for long-form keywords satisfying the search intent of users.

For example, going for “how to brew a coffee at home” rather than “brew coffee” will significantly improve search queries.

#2. Podcast title

This is where you describe what your podcast is about. Your focus keyword needs to be a part of your podcast title. More importantly, your title should clearly tell the user what the podcast is about. This will only help Google to better place your podcast in search results.

If your podcast title is not clearly telling the audience what it is about, try going in for a subtitle. This will have a major impact on the ranking of the podcast as Google will know what it is about and can throw it up on appropriate results.

#3. Podcast description

Podcast metadata is super important from an SEO point of view. Not only Google but podcast platform searches such as Spotify and Apple use this metadata to better understand the context of your podcasts. This helps you rank in searches and therefore it is important to optimize.

Use your focus keyword a minimum of ONCE as keyword stuffing will only attract a negative penalty. Clearly describe what the podcast is for so it is easier for search engines to recommend when a user searches for your focus keyword.

#4. Converting to a blog post

Every time you release an episode of your podcast, release the transcript as a blog post. Also, ensure your blog post links back to the original episode. This is great for SEO. It not only helps to significantly increase the authority of your website which in turn will favor your podcast in the long run, but it also allows your podcasts to be looked up by users searching through different mediums.

If you need help converting the transcript to a blog post, you can quickly try out Wavve which will transcribe your podcast audio to a post on its own. Though Google is transcribing your episodes, it is still a developing system and will be some time till it perfects it. This is the reason why having your transcripts covered by a tool is highly recommended.

Share-Your-Audio-on-Social-Media-In-Style-Podcasts-SEO

SEO for podcast episodes

#1. Episode metrics

Once your target keyword for the episode is finalized, you need to optimize your episode around it. Each episode should have its own unique keyword as individual search results can now show your podcasts in the results.

Your episode keyword should be used in the episode title and description as it is. The title and description should convey clearly what the episode is going to talk about so users know what they are going to get out of it.

Try out Google Keyword Planner to figure out keywords around your topic for the best results.

#2. Saying your keyword

Just as on YouTube, saying your target keyword actually helps to optimize your content. Search engines listen to your content to decide if it is the best fit for a particular search term. Try to optimize your content around your keyword synonyms throughout the episode for the best results.

#3. Episode transcript

Google scans written documents far easier than any other media today. So, it’s worth it to have a transcription of your podcast. Though Google has started automatically to transcribe your podcast, it still is best to submit your own as explained before. This helps the search engine to properly understand the context of your podcast.

SEO-for-Podcast-Episodes-Blog-Bufferapp-Podcasts-SEO

#4. Promotion

Engagement on social media with your content is as important as any other point here. You need to promote your podcasts on all your social media channels to ensure there is maximum exposure and eventual engagement with target viewers. There is a direct correlation between engagement on social media and search engine rankings.

SEO-for-Podcasts-Episodes-Promotion-Podcasts-SEO

#5. Google Podcasts

Adding your podcast to Google Podcasts will greatly enhance its SEO. It will help Google to show audio snippets from your podcasts and also help you monitor rankings to further optimize your content accordingly.

Podcasts – The arrival of the future

For a long time, podcasts were deemed to be the future of content consumption. Well, the future is truly here now. Not only have podcast listeners grown 37.5% in the last three years, there is a whopping 70% increase in active podcasts in the last two years.

It is safe to assume that the trend is only going to go up and as a marketer, entrepreneur, or business owner, you can not avoid or overlook podcasts anymore.

Thanks to Google, podcasts have started reaching audiences which were never possible before and that is why podcast SEO is a game changer today.

Try out the above-mentioned tips for your podcasts and share the results with us!

By Aakash Singh

Guest author: Aakash Singh is a marketing professional & a content marketing specialist. Having over 5 years of experience working with major organizations, he is passionate about digital marketing, blogging & SEO. Aakash lives in Delhi, India & writes about digital marketing & scaling your online presence on his blog, cupofglory.com. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Sourced from Jeff Bullas