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Six Reasons Why Video is The Most Persuasive Form of Content Marketing

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There are several reasons video marketing is a very effective content marketing strategy to relay your business story and messaging.

Highly Engaging

One of the most powerful advantages of video marketing is the fact that it is highly engaging. The human brain is programmed to pay more attention to moving images and sound.

Have you noticed times when you are talking to someone and think they are paying attention, but they aren’t? Instead, they are actually looking straight past you at a television screen behind you?

Even if the sound is off, the moving images on the screen still draw in their attention away from you.

They usually aren’t doing this on purpose; it is just human nature to look at moving images.

Think back to your youth when you were in school. Remember those days when the teacher would show a movie or video in conjunction with a lesson?

Even when the topic wasn’t something particularly interesting to you, just the fact that you were able to watch it, drew in your attention.

This is a powerful reminder to business owners to utilize this advantage of video marketing to attract the attention of their target audience.

It’s Passive

Watching videos doesn’t require the viewer to do anything and requires no effort. This means it is a passive act of receiving information.

Once exposed to a video, especially those that play automatically, you are immediately drawn to look at it.

How long a viewer stays and watches the video, depends upon how engaging and compelling it is.

It is up to the business to make sure that once they grab the attention of their target, they can keep them watching long enough to see or hear your message.

Establishes Your Authority and Creates Relationships

Using videos is an excellent opportunity for your business to create a relationship with and develop your authority with your target market.

Even though it is common knowledge that videos are a powerful marketing initiative, not all businesses utilize them.

There are many reasons why not all companies use videos, including not having the time, money, or expertise to create them.

Put your brand in front of your competitor’s by making sure that you are doing video marketing.

Stand out from the crowd in your niche by including videos on your website and sharing them on the social web.

Cost-Effective

Not all videos are created equal. Simply throwing anything on your website is not going to help you.

In fact, poor quality videos can actually hurt your brand by making you look unprofessional and sloppy.

Creating videos doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. If your company has a large budget and can afford to hire a professional videographer to come to your office and take live footage and use professional narration, go for it.

If, however, you have a limited budget, there are numerous ways to create quality videos. You can use high-resolution imagery or video animations to deliver your business message.

Highly Persuasive

Your first job is to capture your audience’s attention and impressed them with your professional videos. However, the onus is on the business to make sure their message is persuasive enough to keep them watching.

Remember, you are talking directly to your target market. It is your chance to explain to them. Whether you are speaking your message or letting animations do the talking for you, why you are the answer to their problem.

Use your brand’s personality in any video you create. Some companies choose to use humor as part of their brand, while others prefer to be more business-like.

Many Ways to Use Video

Another use of videos in marketing is to educate. Not all videos should be about selling your products or services. Doing so can turn off your audience.

Some other ways your business can use videos are:

  • Messaging: Blogs are abundant on the web. Try creating a video that relays the same type of helpful or relevant information as a blog post. You can even re-purpose blog content into a video.
  • Culture Videos: This is a great way to show your companies personality by showing videos of events in your office. Some examples are:
    • Employee interviews
    • Office pranks
    • Birthday parties
  • Interviews: Conduct interviews with others who are either in your niche or a complementary one. You can leverage their knowledge to provide value for your target audience and create content for you.
  • Tutorials: Showing your target market how to do or use something that they find helpful, will keep them coming back for more.
  • Events: Take a video at your next holiday party and share it with your potential and current customers. The next time you go to or exhibit at a trade show or conference, take candid video shots and share them.

Don’t forget about the power of music in eliciting emotional responses. Adding music to your videos will draw in the viewer even more and will appeal to their human side via emotions.

Any message delivered in the video format is received better than plain text. Provide value in the form of helpful information, tips and tricks, or any other relevant message that will contribute to your target market seeing you as a trustworthy source and an authority in your niche.

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How To Use Strategic Partnerships For Faster Growth

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By Stephanie Burns

When my business partner, Jody Greene and I were in the infancy of creating Chic CEO, we found out very quickly that when we leveraged partnerships – things moved a lot faster. I credit Jody for this growth strategy, as she was a master in creating partnerships.

Organically, we’d meet lots of people who had their own following and offerings, most of them synergistic to the female entrepreneurship space we were in. Jody was able to spot that synergy quickly and propose a partnership plan that helped grow all of our businesses. By partnering up with like-minded entrepreneurs, we could use our collective networks to fill events, gain subscribers and offer new products. Our email list grew faster and our events were easily filled.

We created so many partnerships that we developed a framework of how we selected partners and how we proposed our partnerships would work.

Aligned Target Markets

When we proposed a partnership, or were evaluating a partnership proposal that was pitched to us, the first thing we needed to assess was target market. Making sure that it made sense to the people we were serving. For example, we partnered with Dress for Success, Inc. to collect workwear for women at our networking events. In turn, Dress For Success promoted our event. We both served professional women in different ways. Our networking event brought together their women to connect, and look for new opportunities, while our network of women brought donations they very much needed. They helped us fill our event, and we helped them get more donations. Win win.

Getting a partnership proposal from a company that builds backyard swimming pools wouldn’t make sense. It doesn’t have anything to do with female entrepreneurship or the professional world for women. So we would wish them well, but pass.

Assess the target market to see if it aligns with yours, otherwise, you may end up confusing your community and customers. The purpose of a strategic partnership is to help get your business in front of more potential customers, so be diligent here. Putting in the effort to create a partnership just to have your message/product/event placed in front of people who aren’t your potential customers is a waste.

WIN WIN WIN

When we considered a partnership, we assessed it to make sure it benefitted everyone. Benefitted Chic CEO, benefitted our partner, and benefitted the Chic CEO community. Any offer of partnership that came through must benefit everyone. Conversely, if we were proposing a partnership, we only did so if we could make it a win win win for everyone.

If a potential partner wanted us to promote an offer for a discount on their product to our community of 100,000 entrepreneurs, we considered that a win win lose. The partner wins by getting their product promoted, the community wins by getting a discount, and Chic CEO lost due to dedicating time and resources without being compensated. Everyone needs to win.

Exchange of Value

Every partnership should have an exchange of value. It doesn’t have to be money, but something that you both find valuable to your business. There are lots of ways partners can be valuable to each other. For example, an email swap with another business that isn’t a direct competitor, but has the same target market. Fresh eyes that may not have heard of your business is quite valuable to you both.

We never proposed a partnership without adding value first. If you are proposing a partnership, it’s important to address what’s in it for your partner before ever asking for anything. The value exchanged should be balanced, fair and benefit you both.

Memo of Understanding

Lastly, if a partner agreed, we created a Memo of Understanding. This isn’t a contract or something legally binding, it was simply a document that outlined what we’ve both agreed to so everyone is clear on action items, due dates and responsible parties. It keeps everyone on the same page so all details are clear and documented.

Everyone appreciated this level of clarity and it kept our team organized. We never wanted to drop the ball on what we promised a strategic partner. Our partners were very important to us.

Working with partners helped us rapidly grow Chic CEO. We loved helping other like-minded businesses and creating creative ways to work together. Identify a few strategic partners in your space and develop a way to work together where everyone wins and value is exchanged. You’ll see a big difference!

By Stephanie Burns

My company, Chic-CEO.com, is an online resource for over 100,000 female entrepreneurs. As a startup, we had to get scrappy in order to hit our goals and make an impact. When we started asking for the impossible and getting the green light, I knew we had stumbled on something magical – something I call ‘Unreasonable Requests.’ I write about female entrepreneurship and how to brand yourself. I live in beautiful Ozark country with my amazing husband and two brilliant children. Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Sourced from Forbes

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4 Social Media Strategies That Can Help Bring in 23 Percent More Profits

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By Linda Orr

Everything you need to know about effectively and efficiently targeting your audience through social media.

40 percent of the world’s population and 69 percent of Americans aged 18-29 are active users of social media. Social media has revolutionized how companies communicate with, listen to and learn from customers, much like TV advertising did in the 20th century.

A marketing strategy involves identifying a target market, establishing actions to reach that target market and continual analysis and adjustments. A social media strategy, on the other hand, educates engages, and excites your customers and builds brand loyalty. Excited and engaged customers bring in 23 percent more profits. Through video sharing sites customers can quasi-experience products as well, making a purchase more likely. Here are four areas of social media that all entrepreneurs should know.

1. The power of blogging and content marketing.

According to the book M: Marketing, 78 percent of customers prefer to get to know a company through articles rather than ads. Content marketing has six times higher conversion rates and has the potential for a 7.8-X boost in web traffic than other social media tools. In 2018, U.S. adults spent an average of 3 hours, 35 minutes per day on smartphones. Most of this time lends itself towards content marketing. For example, customers spend 11 percent of this time on personal productivity and finances. Customers want content marketing about personal finance management. They want to read it.

If you sell medical devices, you should have articles about any health issue surrounding the problem that your product solves. If you sell makeup, you should have how-to articles about makeup application and likely skin care guides. If you own a restaurant, provide information about food trends, dieting, or perhaps event planning.

To start a content campaign, figure out what your customers might care about and start writing. Local experts may be happy to provide articles because that is free social media advertising for them. Also, content marketing generated toward a political or charitable cause is impactful because 73 percent of all customers want to buy from companies that communicate upstanding moral philosophies.

2. Read and respond to reviews and complaints.

84 percent of customers trust online reviews. Ask your customers to review your company. You can manually check sites, like Google, or use reputation management software to track online comments and reviews. Respond to comments on social media rapidly! 53 percent of customers from all sites and 72 percent of Twitter customers expect a response in one hour, according to M: Marketing. Social media is now the number one place where customers want their complaints handled. No response or a template response are bad responses. Someone inside your company should personally address each complaint.

3. It’s not just about Facebook anymore.

All other social media channels should be used based on your specific target market. 68 percent of Americans use Facebook. Overall Facebook usage has been slowly declining and may be unprofessional. If you have a good webpage, there is no reason to have a Facebook page. It can confuse and overwhelm customers.  A local farmer’s market announces events, like strawberry picking dates, on different sites like Facebook and Twitter at different times. Confusion and added time searching turn customers away. 32 percent of Americans not on Facebook will give up as well. Stick with a robust homepage.

M: Marketing says that the average cost per click on a Facebook ad is $1.72. There is a 0.77 percent conversion rate on these clicks. That means that it costs $223.37 to gain a customer from Facebook plus the cost to create and manage the ad. You will likely not get a return on this investment although there are exceptions.

Two hundred sixty million people use LinkedIn each month; 40 percent daily. Use it for business-to-business content marketing! LinkedIn users prefer more word count per article than other sites. The most read articles, by more than a factor of three, were articles over 1,900 words. LinkedIn also has the highest conversion rate of all the sites. The lead to conversion rate is 2.74 percent versus Facebook (0.77 percent) and Twitter (0.69 percent).

Since Google bought YouTube, it shows up prominently in searches. Seventy-three percent of Americans use YouTube, the highest percentage of all social media forms. With video, you can engage emotion and excitement better. You can post a how-to and other useful videos. Even incredibly professional companies like the Cleveland Clinic use YouTube to demonstrate their innovations and accolades.

Dr. Dre launched “Beats by Dre” using social media. Instagram was influential in building brand awareness, attracting approximately 2.5 million followers. 35 percent of Americans use Instagram. Instagram, like YouTube, is a place to build excitement quickly.

Sites like Twitter and Pinterest have an audience of less than 35 percent of Americans. Pinterest is a great place to show home décor products and vacation pictures and would be helpful in those markets. Twitter can be a low investment place to respond to user comments rapidly.

Third-party bloggers are like a combination of content marketing and online reviews. Disney is famous for its use of Disney Moms. A group of 1,300 select moms receive perks, but not compensation, to visit and blog about their experiences. The moms talk about real issues, like dealing with food allergies or what to pack for a day in the park. Third party blogs are more credible and relatable.

4. Use data to learn, analyze and adapt.

An advantage of social media usage is the available data. You can use social media metrics to gauge attitudes, preferences, and trends. Available metrics are hits, page views, bounce rates, click paths, conversion rates and keyword analysis. There are numerous software packages available to examine each metric. Do not put too much weight on keyword optimization. Google regularly changes its search algorithms so sites should never be designed to game the Google system.

Use social media strategically. Make sure you know your target market. Use the tools to communicate in an engaging, informative, and caring way. Content marketing and responding to online reviews are the most important social media tools. Use the available metrics to revise your actions.

Feature Image Credit: jayk7 | Getty Images

By Linda Orr

Dr. Linda Orr is a Marketing Professor at the University of Akron. She has taught marketing and sales courses for over two decades and is the author of five books and many articles. Dr. Orr has experience in the record, restaurant and finance industries, along with numerous consulting experiences.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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4 Things You Find In Every Successful Marketing Plan

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By Nurdin Budi Mustofa

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been going for a while and you’re considering expansion, your business needs a solid marketing plan. If you don’t have a clear strategy that outlines how you’re going to keep your existing customers and attract new ones in the future, your marketing efforts won’t have a direction and they’re not likely to be very successful. If you think that your marketing plan needs an overhaul or you’re just about to write your very first one, these are the key things that you need to include.

Identify Your Target Market

You can’t run a marketing campaign if you don’t know who it’s aimed at, so understanding your target market is the first thing that you need to do. The best way to do that is to use master data management. What is master data management, you may be wondering? It’s a process that you can use to bring together all of the data that you hold about your customers from sales and marketing, accounts, and social media. By looking at the general trends in your customer data, you can get an idea of exactly who they are. This is essential if you’re going to create a marketing campaign that really resonates with them. If you don’t understand your customers, you can easily end up wasting resources on a marketing campaign that doesn’t connect with them at all.

Understand Your Marketing Goals

The next thing that you need to do is think about what your marketing goals are. If you’re just starting out, you should be aiming to get your first customers and promote your brand identity. If you’ve already been operating for a while, you might be focused on a new product launch or perhaps trying to break into a new market segment. Whatever your goals are, it’s important that you’re clear on what they are from the outset so you can focus on them and not waste resources on other areas.

Research Marketing Tactics

Different marketing tactics have their own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important that you do some research. For example, if you’re trying to increase sales to the older generation, advertising on social media might not be the best route. You will probably have more success with traditional marketing techniques. Think about what your goals are and who your marketing campaign is aimed at and then look at which techniques are best suited to those things.

Set A Budget

The biggest mistake you can make is going in without a budget. If you don’t have a cap on your spending, it’s so easy to keep funneling money into marketing campaigns indefinitely. But it’s important that you’re weighing up the cost of marketing with the return on investment that you’re seeing. If you spend more on the marketing campaign than you get back in sales, you’re losing a lot of money. That’s why it’s essential that you set a realistic budget and stick to it when you’re running marketing campaigns.

If you can include all of these things in your marketing plan, it should be a huge success.

By Nurdin Budi Mustofa

Sourced from Digital Hints

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Why The Best PR Works Hand In Hand With Sales

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By Leslie Licano

You might think that public relations and sales are two separate facets of your business, but you may be surprised to hear that PR works best in direct collaboration with sales to create one congruent experience for your customer. Here are a few ways in which PR and sales can work together.

Sharing Information: Your sales team is out in the field every day getting tremendous feedback and insight into your target market. Why let all that good information remain siloed? Let your sales team help inform the PR strategy by sharing insights, such as what your target market cares about, what they’re reading and what resonates with them. This might help develop a pitch, drive story angles and even identify new media outlets.

Exposure Is Good For All: It’s hard being a salesperson, especially when initially getting in the door to introduce the company. However, PR can lay the groundwork by helping your company get exposure. Instead of getting, “You’re calling from where?” from customers, how refreshing would it be for your salespeople to reach out to a target market that’s already familiar with the brand?

Building Credibility: Thought leadership is the name, and credibility is the game! When your leaders are featured in reputable publications, it can open the door for sales, as it proves that the company is at the top of its game and knows what it’s talking about.

Following Up: Coming up with a reason to follow up can be a struggle for your sales team. However, a PR win, such as a placement in a publication or thought leadership feature, can be a great lead-in to reopening a conversation. Sales teams can forward these wins with a note saying they thought the client might be interested in the information.

Creating Social Content: PR wins are also a great item to promote on social media. Because they provide such valuable third-party credibility, most companies will share their media placements online to increase exposure for wins. Many also invest in “boosting” the posts to reach specific target audiences or decision-makers. Right message, right audiences, right time.

Website Content: Any articles that don’t secure placement in a publication can be featured on your website. This type of content can become a part of the lead generation funnel, guiding potential customers to your website, helping to collect emails and providing more leads for your sales team.

As Seen On: When a PR firm secures a placement that has a big name attached, such as being featured in Oprah’s magazine or on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the company will be able to include that in their marketing. This can be a very high-performing strategy that can really help the sales team tie everything together for the customer.

PR And Sales, Unite!

Gather the team, and start generating some business. These are just a few ways in which PR and sales can work together to help grow revenue and build business. Make sure that your sales team knows what placements are at their disposal and how they can use PR content to their advantage. Additionally, any insights your sales team would like to provide will surely be appreciated.

By Leslie Licano

Co-Founder of Beyond Fifteen Communications, a SoCal PR and communications firm known for taking clients beyond their 15 minutes of fame.

Sourced from Forbes

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2 tips to increase traffic to your website (without spending money)

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Sourced from Alison Wolf.

Getting organic traffic to your website firstly takes time and patience to do. You will NOT get any overnight success with this!

By being consistent and having a long term strategy, you can start to see you ranking on the search engines and have more traffic to your website.

Top two strategies to driving traffic to your website are:

1. Social Media Marketing

2. Content Marketing

Here I will dive into how both tips can work for you and what steps you should be taking.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is a popular way of targeting specific groups of people. But it is also a way of truly engaging with them and turn them into high-quality leads.

92% of small businesses use social media as they consider it an important part.

When it comes to using social media, unless you are a large business with large teams of staff, only stick to 1 or 2 platforms and dominate them.

Every platform is targeted to different segments of society, so you need to be strategic in choosing which platform is best for you.

– Facebook Targeted towards B2C and generation Y and older (so people born no later than the mid-1990s)

– Twitter Used by a whole variety of different segments of society. Though some businesses will find Twitter more useful than others. To find out if Twitter is a good path for you to take, look at your direct competitors and your target market.

– Instagram A mainly visual platform that is mainly used by Millennials. As a business, you can take advantage of this by using ‘influencers‘ to market your product.

– Pinterest Another mainly visual platform, where you can post a picture that gets redirected to your website. Pinterest is also great for SEO, as Google images show Pinterest images.

– LinkedIn The ultimate B2B platform, where businesses are networking with businesses. If you are in the B2B industry then LinkedIn is the only platform you should be taking advantage of.

Don’t know where to start?

My business partner Josh Turner has done for you LinkedIn campaign management services. You will get a pipeline of clients consistently full of 10-15 appointments every month with high-end clients.

Content Marketing

Content is all about creating content for your target market that they will love and want to use you as their go-to resource, then eventually buying from you. The biggest trick to content marketing is to stay consistent, give value and be useful!

Here is a little guide to how you CAN do content marketing in your business.

– Keyword Research

Keyword research is a must done starting point for any content creator. To do keyword research effectively look at Facebook groups and forums with your target market in and look at what the hot topic of discussion is.

– Blog or Vlog Regularly

Blogging or vlogging (video blog) regularly then you will start to attract regular visitors to your website. Make sure you optimize your blog or vlog with specific keywords (in the vlog description).

– Optimize Your Meta Description

Meta descriptions are the small piece of text under the site title on Google search results. Adding the keyword in the meta description so that you rank higher for the keyword. Using a tool such as Yoast SEO (a WordPress Plugin) will help you to do this effortlessly.

– Linking (internal and external) To Create A Structure

What Google loves the most is when websites have a structure. Google wants to see you linking to other pages or posts within your website. Also, Google wants to see you linking out to other websites. Using external websites to back up what you are saying in your post or an affiliate link is the normal method to do external links.

Those are my top 2 tips for driving more traffic to your website. If you have enjoyed this post then please share it on social media or comment below.

Looking for a blog writer in the B2B niche, then send me a message by clicking here

Sourced from Alison Wolf

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Facebook pulls Conservative Party adverts for breaching rules

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By Neil Shaw.

“Good. My thoughts on this kind of stunt are unprintable.”

Facebook has taken down Conservative Party adverts which used edited versions of BBC content.

The corporation told the social network that the adverts infringed on its intellectual property rights, after claiming they could “damage perceptions of our impartiality”.

“We have removed this content following a valid intellectual property claim from the rights holder, the BBC,” a Facebook spokeswoman said.

“Whenever we receive valid IP claims against content on the platform, in advertising or elsewhere, we act in accordance with our policies and take action as required.”

One of the adverts the BBC was concerned about included an edited clip of BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg saying “pointless delay to Brexit”, followed by newsreader Huw Edwards stating “another Brexit delay”.

It also used a caption, saying: “A hung parliament = gridlock. Stop the chaos. Vote Conservative.”

Mr Edwards welcomed the move, tweeting: “Good. My thoughts on this kind of stunt are unprintable.”

A spokesman for the Conservative Party said last week that it was “clear” the footage was “not edited in a manner that misleads or changes the reporting”, adding that viewers can “judge for themselves”.

The move comes at a challenging time for Facebook, as the tech giant faces pressure to ban political adverts altogether in the midst of a General Election.

It’s rival, Twitter, has banned political advertising on its platform, while Google has said it will no longer allow voters to be targeted by advertisers based on their political affiliation.

Last month, the Conservatives edited a video of Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer to make him appear unable to answer a question on Brexit.

In the minute-long video which was posted on the party’s Twitter account, Sir Keir was questioned on ITV’s Good Morning Britain by Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid over Labour’s Brexit policy.

The video ends with Sir Keir staring at the camera after being asked by Mr Morgan: “Why would the EU give you a good deal if they know you are going to actively campaign against it?”

However, in the original interview Sir Keir replied to the host.

Feature Image Credit: Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaking at a press conference in Millbank Tower, London, while on the General Election campaign trail.

By Neil Shaw

Sourced from WalesOnline

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Tips From A CEO and Top Influencer On Developing A Best-In-Class Influencer Program

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By Kimberly A. Whitler

One of the most enjoyable parts of shifting from practitioner (GM/CMO roles) to professor has been the opportunity to connect with a variety of people I would not have otherwise met. Once such person is Tamara McCleary, CEO of Thulium and a leading influencer of CMOs (see here). As somebody who works with firms around the world and has amassed a very strong social following (@TamaraMcCleary – 307,000 twitter followers), she is an expert with deep insight. I have had a series of discussions with McCleary regarding her perspective on influencers and “influence” more generally. Below, McCleary provides advice to CMOs on how to develop an influencer marketing program for their brand. To read Part 1, which identifies the six different types of influencers and how to spot a “real” from a fake influencer, see here.

Kimberly Whitler: What tips can you provide a CMO who wants to develop a best-in-class influencer program?

Tamara McCleary:

1. Have an outcome for success defined before starting the program. What do you want to achieve? How will you measure success? When I consult with brands, I reverse engineer success by clearly identifying desired outcomes, understanding executive-level expectations, and evaluating KPI’s the program will ultimately be measured against.

2. Do your due diligence when seeking out an agency to help you organize a successful program. Obtain multiple bids (get a second or third opinion, you may be surprised). Look at various companies and don’t just settle on the first one that comes to you. In order to not only make your initiative successful, but secure a bigger budget for your next round, engage with companies that have demonstrated success. Don’t go for the least expensive (or the most expensive), but rather, go with the one which can prove and has demonstrated success and which you are most comfortable with.

3. Think through the compensation structure. Paid, unpaid or hybrid? Are you going to pay your influencers to be involved with your program or just provide inside knowledge, invite them to special events, etc.? Will you go with a hybrid approach where many of your influencers are unpaid but a limited number are paid for their participation? There are a variety of different ways to go when it comes to working with influencers.

4. Understand the process. Make sure the company you decide to work with explains their process thoroughly, and get your results in writing. If the company you are considering is not utilizing analytics in the selection of influencers beyond vanity metrics, you’re not working with pros and abort mission. At my organization, Thulium, we employ a heavy emphasis on engagement metrics to weed-out the false appearance of influence. Remember the purpose of an influencer program: you deserve substance for your spend, so don’t settle for empty fluff.

5. Have a plan for your influencers. Do you know what you want your influencers to do? Do you have a clear strategy for utilizing them? One of the biggest mistakes organizations make when bringing in influencers is a lack of focus and specificity. You run the risk of not getting the most bang for your buck if you leave it up to the influencer to know what you expect of them. Clarity of vision, and focus, paired with a well-defined strategy and most importantly solid execution and continued follow-up are mission-critical to the success of any influencer program.

6. Think long-term. It’s important to look at an influencer program as a long-term relationship-building program. A long-term program will allow your brand to create true brand advocates, powerful brand evangelists, and raving fans.

In prior articles I’ve written about why U.S. marketers are losing the influencer battle, what marketers can learn from top CMO influencers, and mistakes marketers make when working with influencers, there is a common theme—relationship development. The more marketers approach influencers with a partnership mentality versus a transactional/legal mentality, the more likely they are to generate authentic influence. And this is one place where the east is beating the west (see Harvard Business Review article here and HBR podcast here).

Join the Discussion: @KimWhitler and @TamaraMcCleary

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Kimberly A. Whitler

Sourced from Forbes

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‘Facebook support is like going to the DMV’: Confessions of a frustrated media buyer

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By Kristina Monllos

Ad buyers have a lot of gripes about Facebook’s ad platform, but it still reigns supreme because it offers targeting and efficiency buyers say they can’t find elsewhere. But for ad buyers that temporarily lose access to it, the biggest problem might be how disconnected its sales, support and product teams are. One media buyer, who buys media for his e-commerce business as well as for other brands, discovered recently that his account was disabled and access to advertising tools revoked and has been unable to speak to a human about the issue.

In the latest edition of our Confessions series, in which we trade anonymity for honesty, we hear from the buyer who details how difficult it is to navigate Facebook’s support team. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You’ve been having trouble running ads on Facebook. Tell us about that.
I’ve been running ads for seven or eight years. I’ve run ads for fashion companies, my own companies and spent multiple millions of dollars on Facebook ads. This year, I got disabled. I wasn’t running ads at the time. I thought it was done in error. I submitted an appeal and got an instant response that it was final. The next day, I got an alert that not only was that account disabled but I’d lost access to all advertising tools. It’s been a while since that happened. It’s a bummer, considering I make my living through running Facebook ads for other people and/or managing some of our ads for our company.

What have you done to try and fix the issue?
I have some friends at Facebook that I’ve reached out to and asked about it, but that hasn’t been much help. Other than that, I don’t feel like I’ve gotten a human reply. Their live chat is kind of a joke. It’s just a person who responds back to you and links you to their support forms. They don’t have access to do anything on behalf of you. They can just tell you where to find information. If you already have the links, it’s a dead end. Also, when you’re disabled, you’re not able to submit appeals anymore.

You said Facebook support isn’t helpful. Can you elaborate?
Their support team doesn’t talk to salespeople which doesn’t talk to the policy and compliance teams. All of that makes Facebook’s support a black box and a shit show. If you have an ad rep and you’re spending enough money, it doesn’t matter. You can send a text and all of a sudden you have your stuff fixed and it’s restored within five minutes. If you’re not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month [you don’t get that kind of response]. Also, during this whole process, I’m still getting calls from Facebook marketing experts like, “Hey, Q4 is around the corner. It would be really nice to increase your budgets.” I’m like, “This is the third time you’ve called me in seven days and I haven’t had ad access. I would love to spend some money, but I can’t.” They still call me, and I also get automated emails from Facebook for an advertising account that’s disabled and linked to a profile that’s unable to use advertising tools.

What would you like them to do?
All I’m trying to do is get in touch with a human to understand why I was disabled in the first place. I believe it was in error, but if I did something I’d like to know what I did so I can not do that again. But if this is a final decision, maybe the internal team should share that so their products aren’t sending automated emails or suggesting people who are banned or disable to try new things. They should talk to each other, but none of them do. Facebook support is like going to the DMV.

This is a problem specific to your account. Have you heard of other people dealing with similar situations?
I know it’s not just me. There are Facebook ad buyer groups and media buyer groups where people are also confused about if they’ve gotten banned in error, if it’s automated or if it’s scrutiny in the media or if they’re trying to tighten the grip. And I follow a lot of the media buyers on Twitter, and they have similar issues. I don’t have a lot of faith in getting my account back. I don’t know what the next steps are. Do I get a new IP address? New credit card? New legal entity? New Facebook profile? All just to run Facebook ads. If there’s any relationship to the future account, entity, Facebook address could be instantly revoked if the account is somehow connected with your old one. That’s what one of the reps from Facebook suggested to me: “In the meantime, if you want to spend money for Q4, I would suggest making a new profile.” You work at Facebook, and you’re suggesting that I make a new profile?

Do you think it’s scalable for them to have more human contact?
It’s hard to scale it, for sure. At the same time, if it’s hard scale [how do you have] marketing reps calling people five times in a row while they’re banned? Obviously they can scale trying to get me to spend money. I can’t spend money. I would’ve already been spending money on the first call. You’ve wasted their time and mine. Equip the marketing experts, the people who are doing the outreach with the same level of elevated access or permissions as someone on the policy team. Or have them looped in immediately [on the shutdown of an account] so they’re not wasting their time.

With all of the trouble you’re having on Facebook, have you considered other channels? 
We have, but Facebook has been the best way to target people and the best solution. It’s where we’ve spent the majority of our marketing budget over the last year, about 85%. Twitter doesn’t really have the optimization tools or the targeting tools. At least, they aren’t as sophisticated. Every time we’ve tried there, it’s just been a massive waste. Within Google, we tried recently and the CPC was just so high. It’s like $30 a click, whereas we’re paying $2 or $3 a click, for example, on Facebook. It’s just not feasible.

By Kristina Monllos

Sourced from DIGIDAY

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How To Create A Marketing Plan For Social Networking

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By Mitrovman Mitrovski

Need to Build a Marketing Plan for Social Networking? That’s not an easy task. Many of us have difficulties in understanding what it is. Let alone making one from scratch.

Simply put, every action you take on social media should be part of a broader marketing strategy. This means that every post, response, like, or comment should be guided by a plan directly geared toward achieving business goals. That may sound complicated, but if you take the time to build a comprehensive social networking strategy, the rest will come naturally. Anyone can do this if they properly approach that matter.

What is a social media marketing plan?

img source: hubspot.com

It summarizes everything you plan and hopes to accomplish in your business by using social networks. The plan should include checking your orders, where you want them, and what tools you will use to achieve this. In general, the more accurate you are in creating a plan, the more effective you’ll be in implementing it. Try to be concise. Do not make a plan that’s so broad or demanding that it is virtually unattainable. The plan will guide your actions, but it will also be a measure to determine whether or not you are moving towards success.

You can follow this simple plan to create your strategy.

1. Create your social network goals

img source: martechtoday.com

The first step in any strategy on social networks is to set the business goals. When you define goals, that allows you to react quickly. Especially if the campaign you are running doesn’t meet your expectations. Without goals, you don’t even have the means to measure success or proof of return on investment (ROI). The goals should be aligned with your broad marketing strategy. That way, the efforts you make on social networks go directly to the realization of your business ideas. If your social media strategy is proven to support your business goals, you are more likely to pay back and make new investments. Go beyond benchmarks such as likes or retweets. Focus on advanced metrics like leads, conversion rates, and web referrals. It would be a good idea to keep track of your goals by using the SMART backbone. This means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound.

2. Check your social networks

Before creating a marketing plan for social networks, you should evaluate their current benefits and the way you use them. Therefore, using Content, Strategy & Branding literature is a fantastic read.

This means you need to find out who you are connected to, then what social networks your target audience is mostly using, and what your social media presence is like compared to your competition.

3. Create or improve your accounts

img source: jakpost.net

When you’re done checking your accounts, it’s time to refine your online presence. Choose the one that best fits your business goals. If you still don’t have an online profile that you should focus on the most, create one having a wider audience and goals in mind. If you have one, maybe it’s time to update and improve it. This will give you the best possible results at the end. Remember that every social network has a unique audience. Therefore, each of them should be treated differently.

Profile optimization helps you generate more web traffic to your online business. Cross-promotion of accounts on social networks can increase the reach of a post. Profiles should be completely populated, and images and text should be optimized for the particular network.

4. Create a content plan and an announcements calendar

img source: fireflydigital.com

Good content is certainly essential for success on social networks. Your social media marketing plan should also include a content marketing plan, consisting of content creation strategies and the announcements calendar. Your social network content plan should answer some of these questions:

  • What kind of content are you going to post online?
  • How often will you post content?
  • What is the target group for each content type?
  • Who will create the content?
  • How will you promote the content?

Your announcement calendar will include the dates and times when you intend to post on Facebook, Instagram, Tweeter, etc. Create a calendar and schedule announcements, so you don’t have to do it every day.

5. Test and analyze your marketing plan

img source: courses.aiu.edu

To find out what adjustments you need to make in your marketing strategy better, you must constantly test it. Use every opportunity to test the actions you take on social networks. Analyze both successful and unsuccessful campaigns. That way, you can tailor your marketing strategy to your goals. Research is also a great way to measure success. Ask your followers for their opinion on your work. This kind of direct approach can sometimes be extremely effective.

Feature Image Credit: villagebriefing.com

By Mitrovman Mitrovski

Sourced from Chart Attack

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