Instagram Archives - Page 9 of 16

In News

Brands have new ways to measure the success of influencer marketing campaigns now that fake Instagram followers are so easy to buy

November 25, 2019 No Comments

On Instagram, influencers can buy followers, comments, and likes on a post.
So instead of using these metrics to measure the success of an influencer marketing campaign, many brands are instead focusing on other metrics, like saves and comment sentiment.
Influencers also promote products on YouTube, and on that platform, many brands want to see how many viewers are engaging with a product’s website link, which points they are watching at, and where they are from.
But even with these new measurements, some influencers have figured out tricks for inflating the numbers.
Click here for more BI Prime stories.

As concerns about fake Instagram followers grow, many brands working with influencers are focusing more on performance metrics like saves and comment sentiment, which are harder to manipulate and can more accurately reflect the impact of a campaign.

Evan Asano, the CEO of the influencer marketing agency Mediakix, told Business Insider that many brands were looking at the quality of comments left on a sponsored Instagram post and the level of engagement from an influencer’s fans.

“As influencer marketing has exploded, brands are looking less and less for the biggest influencer, as they don’t always have the highest engagement or have time to engage with their fans,” Asano said. “Brands are starting to evolve their strategies to do longer-term partnerships with influencers who they consider ambassadors and love the brand. They are looking for a balance of influencers who engage with their fans, create authentic content, and partner with brands authentic to them, rather than anyone who will just pay them.”

Brands will usually come back after a campaign is over and ask for certain performance metrics from the influencer. These metrics vary based on platform, like YouTube or Instagram, and will often determine whether or not that brand will continue a relationship with an influencer.

Performance metrics on Instagram, from saves to comments

On Instagram, brands often want to see that an influencer’s followers are engaging with the post. They can measure this by asking for metrics like saves, comments, and likes.

Katy Bellotte, a YouTube creator (470,000 subscribers) and Instagram influencer (166,000 followers), earns money through a variety of ways online, with brand sponsorships at the top, she told Business Insider. In Bellotte’s experience, brands pay more for a package than a single post, she said. A package typically includes one post on Instagram, a story, and sometimes a 30- to 60-second mention in a YouTube video.

Bellotte said that after she posts sponsored content to Instagram, a company typically comes back and asks for specific performance metrics, and recently, she has noticed companies asking for how many views a story got and how many people saved the post to their personal account.

“You’ll notice there are some creators out there who are getting smart about this,” Bellotte said. “Saying, ‘To enter my giveaway, you have to save the post and then do X, Y, Z.’ Then, when brands ask for the save numbers, they have an inflated number because they’ll do things like that.”

Asano said brands were now looking at comments as a part of engagement, and if a majority of the comments are in a different language, then it’s possible the influencer bought comments. He said brands also track if followers are mentioning the company within the comments, or have any intent on purchasing the product mentioned.

Performance on YouTube, from links to viewer demographics

Another way influencers earn money is by promoting products within a YouTube video. In a YouTube sponsorship, a brand can request a timed mention (typically 60 seconds) or a dedicated video.

Dan Levitt, the CEO of the digital-talent management firm Long Haul Management, told Business Insider that he has noticed more brands tracking how many viewers are clicking on a brand’s website after a YouTube video sponsorship.

“Let’s say a creator is doing a video about new product X. In the past, the brand might only care about views, especially in the demographic they care about,” Levitt said. “Now, in addition, they might include a trackable Bitly link to the brand website to buy the product and would track how many visitors to the website the link brought, and how many of those visitors actually made a purchase.”

Mathew Micheli, a cofounder and managing partner at the influencer marketing agency Viral Nation, said brands still have a hard time understanding the value they are receiving from an influencer campaign. He said Viral Nation provides tools to measure in-depth video and post information, like which platform a viewer is watching from, where they are, and which point in a video they are dropping off at.

Other industry insiders told Business Insider there has been an increase in brands asking about the geographic information of an influencer’s audience. Typically, a YouTube manager or agent will send the brand their client’s demographic percentage from their YouTube analytics page. US brands are looking for a majority of viewers to be from the US.

Reed Duchscher, the CEO of the digital-talent-management firm Night Media, told Business Insider that brands ask his clients for channel demographics.

“Most want to see the percentage based in the US,” he said. “A few have also asked for the mobile watch time, like on apps. We get a lot of inquiries about case studies and past brand collabs as well.”

For more on the business of influencers, according to YouTube and Instagram stars, check out these Business Insider Prime posts:

YouTube creator Natalie Barbu breaks down how much money she earns from a video with 100,000 views: Natalie Barbu, a social-media influencer and YouTube creator with 227,000 subscribers, shared how much money she earns from a video with 100,000 views.
An Instagram influencer breaks down how much brands pay for sponsored posts, starting at 10,000 followers: The social-media influencer Jehava Brown spoke with Business Insider about how she determines her rates when negotiating with companies like Disney and Walmart.
YouTube star Shelby Church breaks down how much money a video with 4 million views made her: The YouTube creator Shelby Church, who has 1.3 million subscribers, broke down how much she earned in Google AdSense from a video with 4 million views.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Amanda Perelli

Sourced from Business Insider

In News

No evidence disclosure hurts Influencers: Instagram

November 13, 2019 No Comments

By Emma Koehn

A senior Instagram executive says there is little evidence that sponsored posts don’t perform as well as regular posts and transparency on partnership content is key to building trust.

Instagram fashion and beauty partnerships manager Kristie Dash has said influencers should not be afraid to label as ‘sponsored’ as more attention comes on the disclosures made by users when partnering with brands.

“Nobody wants their feeds to feel like one big ad and so, I get why there is a hesitancy [about being transparent with posts]. At the end of the day, if you’re not being transparent with your followers, you’ll lose trust over time,” Ms Dash said.

Instagram is launching its biggest marketing campaign in Australia this week.Credit:Bloomberg

Ms Dash, who is based in New York and manages the Instagram team working with beauty brands and influencers, was in Australia last week for social media workshops with local small businesses.

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald asked Ms Dash whether Instagram needed to do more to ensure adequate disclosure of business partnerships given recent news that influencers have been under scrutiny by regulators in Australia over the level of disclosure they have given to consumers when promoting cosmetic dental products like Invisalign.

She said the platform had clear tools and guidelines to guide creators on what information to give their followers about sponsored deals.

“It is our job to educate the industry on how to use those tools,” she said.

Ms Dash acknowledged that influencers may have concerns about appearing authentic when creating sponsored content. She argued that if an influencer felt concerns about being authentic and was reluctant to be clear in partnership posts, they should rethink their agreements with brands.

“That kind of speaks more to the brands that creators are choosing to partner with. And if there’s that kind of concern… if it’s a brand that doesn’t feel authentic to you, then maybe it’s not the best decision to partner with [them],” she said.

“We have no data to prove that sponsored posts don’t perform as well as regular posts and we really, really encourage creators to be transparent about labelling when content is sponsored or a partnership.”

Instagram been focusing marketing efforts in Australia in recent months, launching a multi-million campaign in the local market last month.

Ms Dash said local brands were creating compelling content on the platform, with companies like Frank Body and Go-To skin care creating strong voices and “visual signatures”.

“They have very specific or easy to identify voices that when you’re going through your feed, you can kind of quickly tell it’s a post from that brand.”

By Emma Koehn

Emma is the small business reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald based in Melbourne. Follow MySmallBusiness on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Sourced from The Sydney Morning Herald

In News

71% of Instagram Influencers Don’t Call Themselves That

November 6, 2019 No Comments

By Sandeep Rathore

If you’re struggling to spot Instagram influencers for your influencer marketing campaigns, then it’s time to change your approach. This is because most influencers have had it with the term ‘influencers’.

Creator or Influencer?

According to The 2019 Influencer Survey, 71% of Instagram influencers don’t actually call themselves influencers. Only 29% of Instagram celebrities give themselves the title of ‘influencer’.

Small Business owners with a limited budget often collaborate with micro Instagram influencers. And it goes with saying that the success of any influencer marketing campaign largely depends on finding the right Instagram influencers.

If you know what Instagram influencers call themselves, it will be easier for you to spot them. So, the next time, you should look beyond the ‘influencer’ title.

What do Instagram Influencers Call Themselves?

The survey states that the maximum number (34%) of influencers (with more than 25,000 followers) refer themselves as a ‘creator’. And 17% of Instagram influencers call themselves a ‘content creator’, while 11% of influencers label themselves as a ‘brand ambassador’.

Only 29% of influencers add the title influencers in their Instagram bios.

Are You am Instagram Creator or Influencer? — Image Source: Influencer-Agency

The finding of the survey implies that you should first search for Instagram creators if you want to reach a large pool of influencers. Then, you can look for the title ‘influencer’ to find influencers for your influencer marketing campaign.

Why Are There More Creators Than Influencers?

Modern Marketing Guru, Seth Godin, once said, “Content Marketing is the Only Marketing Left.” His words ring absolutely true.

Now, when more and more companies are putting ‘content’ in the center of their marketing strategies, Instagram influencers cannot attract brands if they don’t create quality content consistently.

Dave Leusink, the co-founder of Influencer Agency, says, “The creators that we represent are selected for the quality of their creativity. Someone from a reality show can quickly get 100,000 followers and call themselves an influencer, but the quality of their content often falls short of what we’re looking for.”

“The best paying brands only want to be presented with high-quality content. Creating relevant and engaging content costs blood, sweat and tears, and is a far cry from the content of short-lived reality stars who only post selfies. It’s not surprising that major influencers prefer to call themselves (content) creators,” He adds.

How to Find Instagram Influencers

Instagram is one of the most popular influencer marketing platforms. To leverage the true power of Instagram influencer marketing, you will have to find the right Instagram influencers for your campaigns.

Here are some proven ways:

Use tools like NInjaOutreach, Upfluence, HYPR, etc.
Search influencer directory like Izea
Scan general hashtags relevant to your industry
Search Google for relevant keyword(s) along with “site:instagram.com”

When you are making a list of Instagram influencers, you should always include those who have engagement on their posts and create quality, unique content consistently.

The Survey

The survey included 1,700 influencers on Instagram with 25,000 followers or more. All influencers who participated in the survey were 18 years or older. The influencer survey was conducted in September 2019. If you want to access the full survey, you can click here.

Feature Image Credit: Depositphotos.com

By Sandeep Rathore

Sourced from Small Business Trends

In News

Why I Removed My Children’s Images From Instagram and Facebook

November 1, 2019 No Comments

By Cillian Kieran

Who knows what these data-hungry platforms will do with the photos down the line

My wife and I recently removed all images of our children from Instagram. Like most people, I don’t trust Facebook, Instagram’s parent company very much, these days.

This fact isn’t so remarkable in and of itself, but it begs the question of why. Of course, there’s the oft-cited Cambridge Analytica scandal, but across history, brands have had various scandals that touched their users and managed to emerge relatively unscathed.

So then why do I, like so many other people, have a deeply ingrained trust deficit with Facebook and, more broadly, big tech? And is the cause of this something more serious that other brands should be observing and planning for?

This isn’t a product issue per se. On the surface, Facebook is a great consumer product. It offers a host of services, largely free, that connect us with our nearest and dearest, keeping us in contact in a way that would have been unimaginable before it existed. Sounds great, right? Yet people don’t like Facebook. Indeed, the company has a serious trust issue. A 2018 Trust Index of U.S. adults by Jebbit found that Facebook had the lowest consumer trust score (3.1) of any surveyed brand. How a company that offers such a great, valuable product could come to be disliked and distrusted so strongly speaks to the changing nature of trust in the data-driven internet era.

There are two issues at play here. The first is the lack of understanding that consumers have of just how much data is being collected about them and how deeply this is mined to synthesize incredibly personal insight. The lesson that Cambridge Analytica should have taught us is not simply that elections can be manipulated, but that we can be simultaneously susceptible to deep suggestions and unaware that it’s happening. This is covert mass manipulation.

Allowing any company to accumulate a pattern of your child’s behaviour or facial characteristics from birth to early adulthood is a treasure trove of data.

The second is a lack of understanding as to how this data may be used in years to come. The information we expose about ourselves or our children may not seem relevant today, but allowing any company to accumulate a pattern of your child’s behaviour or facial characteristics from birth to early adulthood is a treasure trove of data that, in decades to come will be mined, analysed and exploited in ways even engineers have not yet considered today. This is the risk. You’re placing your data (and faith) in a future state of technology driven by process automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence that no one yet quite has a grasp on.

Here’s a thought experiment, none of which is beyond even current technology. Suppose you have a public Instagram feed with photos of your children posted over several years. As a young adult, your child applies for health insurance. In this future universe, the systems that exist within the insurer’s actuarial armory have already scraped the photos from their childhood and noted an excessive amount of time in bright sunlight, and using skin pattern scanning, note some blemishes that may be early indicators of skin cancer. They’re denied insurance or even a human review.

The technology I’ve described above sounds frightening and sci-fi-like, but many of the technologies outlined here exist today with varying degrees of accuracy. Our images are regularly scraped, indexed and searched by systems, and various algorithms can be run on these. This is for data you can naturally see, notwithstanding the vast quantities of data you create without perhaps realization, such as behavioural traits, interests and physical location, all of which can be used to triangulate a detailed understanding of your personality, habits, disposition and socioeconomic status.

Consider as an individual, a parent or a company, how are you managing the data you create?

By Cillian Kieran

Cillian Kieran is CEO and co-founder of Ethyca.

Sourced from ADWEEK

In News

The Best Time Of Day To Post On Instagram Is More Complicated Than You Think

October 3, 2019 No Comments

By Syeda Khaula Saad

With the complicated algorithms and secrets behind hashtags, Instagram isn’t just a hobby anymore — it’s a science. And if you’re one of the hopefuls trying to break into the world of social media stardom, you’re going to want to get in on the rules. But before you even begin to delve into the art of making captions or following the right people, one of the key components to gaining traction and attention to your posts is figuring out the best time of day to post on Instagram.

With all the changes to Instagram’s algorithm in recent years, it can be difficult to keep up with who’s seeing your post and why. “Now that feed is no longer chronological, the old rules on timings are not quite concrete,” Rosanna Falconer, digital strategy and brand consultant, tells Bustle. But people like Falconer, who are familiar with Instagram and its algorithms, know how to use the platform in their favour. “To play the algorithm, it’s important you get instant, strong engagement (likes, comments, saves),” she says.

A lot of it has to do with understanding that Instagram shows other users certain posts depending on interest, relationships, and timeliness, according to TechCrunch. This means that when you see a post, you’re seeing it because Instagram determined it would be something you’re interested in because of your past likes. It also means that you’re seeing it because of your previous interactions with whoever posted it, and of course, the time it was posted. And while the first two require a close assessment of your followers and interactions, you can work on timeliness.

After analysing 12 million Instagram posts, Later.com, a marketing platform for Instagram, determined that the best time to post on Instagram was between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. EST. Even though it’s based on millions upon millions of posts, however, this answer isn’t necessarily reflective of every single user’s Instagram. Forbes, for example, determined that the best time to post is anytime between Tuesday and Friday between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m EST.

The reasoning behind these discrepancies is that when it comes down to it, the best time to post is based upon the individual user and where they’re posting from. “This will depend from account to account based on factors like demographic, age group, etc.” Falconer says. “For example, if the majority of your followers are USA-based, there’s no point posting at 7:30 a.m. GMT.”

Woman looking at publicly shared photo on social network

Molly Marshall, an Instagram marketing strategist, tells Bustle that the process of finding the best time might take some guessing and checking. “You can use your Instagram analytics to make your best guess, and test from there,” she says. “You may find a time that you think works really well for you, but it’s important to test that against something else, because you could be surprised!”

The important thing about finding the best time for your posts on Instagram is knowing your audience and their habits, which might take you a while to really catch up on. But if you pay close attention and use the guess-and-check method, you’ll be sure you find your posting sweet-spot.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Syeda Khaula Saad

Sourced from BUSTLE

In News

Instagram is the New Storefront

October 2, 2019 No Comments

Sourced from Buffer

Effective Strategies for Organic Growth and Battling the Rising Cost of Ads on Instagram this Shopping Season.

Introduction

Window shopping used to take place in malls and high streets, but now, increasingly, product discovery — and purchase decisions — happen online, especially on Instagram.

And with planning for the busiest retail period of the year getting started, we wanted to dive a little beyond best practices to learn how successful brands and marketers are taking on two of the biggest challenges on Instagram this shopping season:

Standing out organically in crowded feeds
Battling the rising cost of ads

For this report we spoke with marketers from Stance, tentree, Blenders Eyewear, The Hundreds, and Shoelace. Keep reading below to see how they’re approaching Instagram during the 2019 shopping season.

500M

daily stories users on Instagram

1B+

monthly active users on Instagram

45%

of Instagrammers say the platform is influential for shopping over the holidays

The value of organic content

Instagram is essential for retail brands that want be culturally relevant and build strong communities of customers. Here’s how direct-to-consumer marketer Nik Sharma sees it:

“For consumers who rely heavily on Instagram for their news, info, and updates, Instagram is the first place they’ll go to look up new brands,” says Sharma. “If you don’t have a proper profile, you can’t be taken seriously in today’s market. I believe every brand should have its own Instagram presence, whether or not their only goal is using the platform to acquire customers.”

For consumers who rely heavily on Instagram for their news, info, and updates, Instagram is the first place they’ll go to look up new brands.

But with algorithm tweaks and reach becoming somewhat unpredictable, how are brands navigating organic posting on Instagram this shopping season? And why does organic content still matter?

‍

Strategy #1: Create a two-way relationship with customers

There might not be as much buzz around organic posting due to the explosion of advertising on Instagram, but one thing is clear: Organic content plays a key role in helping to build strong communities and brand equity.

For Noelle Bates, SVP of Marketing & Communications at Stance, organic content is a cornerstone of marketing strategy, and it plays a key role in helping the brand to build strong relationships with customers. “Organic posting is the foundation of our Instagram strategy and our marketing strategy overall,” says Bates. “We’re lucky in that we have ‘grown up’ with Instagram and began building a community long before there was any such thing as paid content, so connecting with people was, and still is, the foundation of our marketing. And that really happens through our organic posts.”

Stance has grown its audience to **over 1.4M on Instagram**, with a further 500K followers across other accounts including Stance Basketball, Running and Baseball.

Even though our retail presence is growing, social is predominantly the only place where people can have direct back and forth with our brand on an ongoing basis. Interacting with our customers via social is really important to us, whether that means acknowledging them, answering DMs, or engaging with their content, it’s important they know we are listening to them and we appreciate them. No good long-term relationship is one-sided.

– Noelle Bates, SVP of Marketing & Communications, Stance

Strategy #2: Use Stories to drive awareness of products, sales and promotions

500 million people use Instagram Stories daily, and people enjoy using Stories as a way to connect with brands and discover new products.

In a Facebook study:

62% of respondents said they have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories
69% of respondents said that brands using Stories is a great way for people to get to know new products or services

“Instagram Stories play a huge role in many of our campaigns,” says Grace McLaughlin, Marketing Manager at Blenders Eyewear. “For promotions, we’re pumping stories the entire day to make sure we’re in front of everyone and all viewers are aware of the latest Blendz News. Not only do these organic Stories stoke out our followers, they consistently bump up traffic to our site and increase sales.”

Not only do these organic Stories stoke out our followers, they consistently bump up traffic to our site and increase sales.

For products, we leverage stories to give people the ability to sign up for first access for upcoming releases. The goal is to hype them up for whatever we have coming out while simultaneously growing our email list.
‍
– Grace McLaughlin, Marketing Manager, Blenders Eyewear

Strategy #3: Showcase your catalog

The visual nature of Instagram makes it the perfect place to showcase products during shopping season. Scrolling up and down the Instagram feed has become second nature for shoppers.

For Los Angeles-based streetwear brand The Hundreds, organic Instagram posts help to keep its products top-of-mind. “In between seasons or big releases is our slow period,” says Sandy Mosqueda, Editorial Assistant at The Hundreds. “Organic posts help us remind the people of existing pieces in the collection.”

The Hundreds also sees the bio link as a key part of its Instagram profile and uses Buffer’s Shop Grid feature to help its audience buy products featured on its profile: “Because the Shop Grid looks identical to our Instagram feed, it allows the user to feel more comfortable when shopping.”

Shop Grid enables The Hundreds to link Instagram to its online store.

‍

User-generated content is another key strategy that The Hundreds uses to showcase its products and drive traffic to its store: “Fans send us photos of them wearing our stuff in hopes that we’ll repost,” says Mosqueda. “Say if it’s a recent piece, we can use that as an opportunity to [use a] product tag in hopes that they click on the tag, and the tag directs them to purchase.”

Instagram can drive offline sales too

The eCommerce industry continues to grow, but in 2018 the $3 trillion generated from online sales made up just 15% of total retail sales. So it’s important to also think about how building your brand and showcasing products online can drive offline sales.

By using its Instagram page as a “lookbook” or “storefront” to showcase products, tentree has been able to create demand for its featured products in store:

We have always found there to be a direct correlation on what people see on tentree’s Instagram to what is purchased online and in stores. We have heard on countless occasions of people going to a store that sells tentree with a screenshot of an item found from our Instagram.

– Victoria Harding, Performance Marketing Manager, tentree

Strategy #4: Take your audience behind-the-scenes

Consumers seek connection with brands, and one of the best ways to start building relationships is to use Instagram as a way to bridge the gap between your business and consumers.

For Blenders Eyewear, this means creating content that brings consumers into their office and shares engaging narratives about the people that run the company and athletes that advocate for the brand: “We leverage organic as a way to tell our brand story,” says McLaughlin. “We balance highlighting product with spotlighting our athletes, giving people an inside look at HQ and providing content that pushes others to live life in forward motion.”

We balance highlighting product with spotlighting our athletes, giving people an inside look at HQ and providing content that pushes others to live life in forward motion.

Not only does this approach help to create lasting consumer relationships for Blenders, it also helps to encourage word-of-mouth sharing from brand advocates. “Humanizing our brand allows us to build a loyal community that is willing to positively talk about their experience with us and our product,” says McLaughlin. “Free marketing is the best type of marketing.”

At a time when brands are all competing for the real estate in social feeds, it’s important to create a reason that people follow along closely.

NIK SHARMA, DTC Marketer

Instagrammers have become accustomed to shopping on the platform and more than 130 million Instagram users tap to reveal product tags in posts each month.

Battling the rising cost of ads

Instagram ads opened up to everyone in late 2015, and now over 2 million businesses are advertising on the platform.

“Pretty much every brand is doing paid social today,” says Reza Khadjavi, co-founder of Shoelace. “The heavy competition for a limited number of ad spots has driven up the cost of acquisition radically over the past few years.”

The heavy competition for a limited number of ad spots has driven up the cost of acquisition radically over the past few years.

With rising ad spend front of mind for many brands during the holiday shopping season, what can marketers do to ensure they get the very most from their advertising dollars?

‍

Strategy #1: Take a brand-first approach to advertising

When you think about your advertising budget, it’s easy to focus on the bottom-of-the-funnel and direct conversions. But in the long run, it might be better to focus on a brand-first approach.

“Think companies like Apple, Nike, and Lululemon. Their audiences live and breath their products, and are the first in line when a new product is released,” says Khadjavi. “If these organizations took a sales-first approach rather than building genuine connections with their audience, this surreal amount of brand spectacle would not exist.”

When every other retailer is pushing sales and discounts, it can be tempting to join the pack and focus on cashing out quick sales to audiences that are craving deals. But this could have a negative impact on your brand, warns McLaughlin: “During the holiday season, it’s easy to lose your brand while strategizing aggressive marketing techniques. While this may lead to the obvious short-term positives, it can also lead to expensive one-time purchasers and potentially manipulate your loyal customer base.”

During the holiday season, it’s easy to lose your brand while strategizing aggressive marketing techniques. While this may lead to the obvious short-term positives, it can also lead to expensive one-time purchasers and potentially manipulate your loyal customer base.

This viewpoint is shared by Stance, too. “We are not interested in one-off customers,” says Bates. “We want people to engage with our brand for the long-term, which goes well beyond a one-and-done purchase.”

“Don’t rely strictly on discounts and sales to capture your audience during the holiday season,” says Khadjavi. “Instead, ask yourself how else you can convey value through your advertising experiences. This means interlacing your conversion-focused ads with content and media that will stand out to audiences when they are trying to figure out what their loved ones will appreciate the most.”

When a brand focuses too much on conversions, they risk alienating their audiences and scaring away potential lifetime customers.

REZA KHADJAVI, CEO, Shoelace

Strategy #2: Using organic insights to fuel paid strategy

Posting organically generates a wealth of data and analytics that marketers can use to fuel their growth strategies and paid acquisition plans.

tentree is always keeping an eye on its data to spot opportunities as they arise. “We ensure to pay close attention to strong-performing images and Stories on our Instagram page,” says Harding. “If we see a post driving significant engagement or traffic we will look to test it on Facebook Ads Manager.”

tentree often showcases its products on Instagram and promotes
strong-performing posts using ads.

‍

Stance also uses its organic performance as a way to decide what content should be promoted. “If it works really well on organic it will work on paid,” says Bates. “Although we don’t – and wouldn’t – purposefully architect our organic feed as a proving ground for what we do on the paid side, we can still utilize the insights to help us select what content should be promoted.”

We watch the analytics on a piece of content for a few hours after we post, then apply paid dollars to promoting the very best content. Because we post so much organic content we have a much bigger pool to glean insights from in terms of what’s resonating with people and can use those insights to help create better acquisition creative.

– Noelle Bates, SVP Marketing & Communications, Stance

Strategy #3: Pay close attention to frequency and sequencing

When you’re running advertising campaigns for shopping season, it’s important think about how frequently your target audience will see each of your ads.

“In short, frequency is an estimation provided by Facebook as to how often the average visitor sees a particular ad,” explains Khadjavi. And at Shoelace, the team recommends that frequency should be no higher than 1.5 times per day to avoid upsetting the consumer.

Frequency should be no higher than 1.5 times per day to avoid upsetting the consumer.

In order to create engaging ad experiences, Khadjavi and Shoelace also focus on a process they call “day sequencing.” In short, this means breaking down the ad retargeting experience to show some of your audience particular ads in the initial period of time after they leave your site, and then different ads the period afterwards.

Day sequencing has enabled Rhone to increase conversion rates by 12% and decrease cost-per-action by 19.3%.

‍

There are a couple of key benefits to day sequencing:

It allows merchants to leverage a mix of ads with unique objectives to build a retargeting experience that tells the story, while driving sales.
You can expose your audience to more value propositions with your brand and products than you would be able to do with a single ad.

We might show a user a dynamic product ad in the first three days after leaving the site to drive conversions, and then – if they have not converted – show them a video ad for the next three days to build brand awareness.
‍
– Reza Khadjavi, CEO, Shoelace

Strategy #4: Promote products across channels

Instagram is a key channel for many retails brands, but it’s not the only channel. For both paid and organic campaigns, it’s important to think about how Instagram fits with your overall strategy.

In order to maximize sales and revenue during shopping season, Blenders takes lessons from Instagram and applies them to other channels. “Paid is just one step in the funnel,” says McLaughlin. “If a product is crushing it on paid, we highlight said product in our organic social posts, email campaigns, as well as our site.”

If a product is crushing it on paid, we highlight said product in our organic social posts, email campaigns, as well as our site.

tentree uses a similar approach by syncing its Instagram Stories content with email marketing: “We generally create 1-2 product-focused Instagram Stories per week, in tandem with our email marketing calendar,” says Lindsay Derer, tentree’s Digital Community Lead.

‍

When it comes to preparing your marketing for the holidays, it’s best to start early — Facebook found that consumers begin planning for the holidays as early as November 1st.

Executive summary

As Instagram continues to grow, its influence on the world of eCommerce increases too.

Since the early days of Instagram, brands have used it as a digital storefront to showcase their products and brand. But now, Instagram is becoming a key source of traffic and sales for retailers.

Every retail brand is going to want a slice of the action this shopping season, so there will be plenty of competition across the Instagram feed and ads. “To be heard, it is critical for a brand to create an advertising experience that captures a bond with the customer,” says Reza Khadjavi.

Don’t rely exclusively on sales and discounts, instead focus on what differentiates your brand from the competition. “So you have a discount on this product – that still does not tell your audience why they should buy from you rather than the other hundred brands that are trying to sell to them,” explains Khadjavi.

Approaching shopping season with a brand-first mindset will help you to win lifetime customers, rather than one-and-done purchasers.

Approaching shopping season with a brand-first mindset will help you to win lifetime customers, rather than one-and-done purchasers.

Sourced from Buffer

In News

Four Reasons Why Influencer Marketing Will Thrive Without Instagram Likes

September 20, 2019 No Comments

By Jim Tobin

Instagram recently added new countries to its test in which it’s hiding the number of likes a given post gets from everyone except that post’s creator. Social networks are constantly testing new concepts, but the fact that this test has expanded indicates how seriously they are considering it, with the main goal being to take the social pressure off acquiring likes.

Some have worried that hiding likes from public view would hurt influencer marketing, as influencers are judged, at least in part, on their ability to get people to react to the content they produce. Here are four reasons why I believe influencer marketing will be just fine without the ability for the public to view how many likes their content receives:

1. Professional influencer marketers don’t look at public view counts.

All the social networks have APIs that let other software ingest the like count on the posts they are most interested in. With this ability, we can look at performance across a wide array of influencers and their posts very quickly and even make on-the-fly calculations in terms of engagement rates, cost per engagement and more. Only part-time influencer marketing folks are manually scrolling through accounts looking for the posts they care about.

2. The like isn’t going away.

Whether we should or not, humans feel a certain positive way when they get another like on their post. While hiding these numbers could certainly remove the pressure of “only having five likes” that we’ve all felt, getting those likes still feels good. Even more importantly, engagement on what we post is the fundamental signal to the Instagram algorithm of what we like to see more of. By the simple act of liking, we’re telling the algorithm who we want to see more often, whether we like video or not, and much more. Barring a seismic reinvention, the social networks can’t eliminate the “like” as the easiest way for us to give a nod back to our friends’ posts.

3. Engagement rate is relative.

While hiding public like counts will almost certainly decrease the total number of likes on the social network, influencers and content are compared against each other in terms of efficiency. So, if an average post once got 100 likes and that drops to 80 likes, the entire scale of what’s good shifts along with it.

4. We’ve moved beyond likes for measuring success.

Just a few years ago, we were reporting “engagements” back to clients as among the metrics showing the success of a given campaign. Today, however, we’re much more focused on measuring business results from influencer marketing programs. Many of our campaigns drive web traffic and measure that traffic all the way through to sales. For retail campaigns, we’re still often tracking sale lift against a benchmark period to measure success. Improvements in measuring influencer marketing are accelerating rapidly and the few left only measuring engagements are likely going to be left behind anyway.

Social networks will continue to make changes to their platforms. When I formed my company in 2007, there were no brand pages and no ways to run paid ads. You couldn’t even upload a video. Today there is another rumor that Instagram is running a test that will hide follower counts. As social networks make these adjustments in ways that favor quality content in front of people who care about it most, high-quality influencer marketing will have a place. After all, inspirational and aspirational content fosters brand discovery online and that is among the things people very much enjoy about social networks and the content we see there.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Jim Tobin

Jim Tobin is President of Carusele, a leading influencer marketing agency, and CEO of Ignite Social Media, the original social media agency.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Spotting too many ads on Instagram? Blame Facebook for it

September 10, 2019 No Comments

Sourced from The Economic Times

Facebook exerted more control over Instagram over the last two years.

If you have been seeing more ads on Instagram this year, you are not alone. Parent company Facebook reportedly instructed Instagram to increase the number of ads in the app towards the end of 2018.

According to The Information, Facebook exerted more control over Instagram over the last two years, including the move to rename the app, Mashable reports.

Facebook plans to bring Instagram’s revenue number closer to its own app, and will heavily rely on commerce to achie ..

Click HERE to read the remainder of the article

Sourced from The Economic Times

In News

The future of social media marketing

June 26, 2019 No Comments

By Alex Packham

Social media started out with Myspace and Bebo (oh the nostalgia) before graduating to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Here we are now in 2019, ‘hashtagging’ and ‘storying’ like it’s nobody’s business.

What’s next for the social media industry?

1. A shift in focus: less on feeds, more on private messages

The feed is such an integral part of social media networks that it could never just vanish overnight. Regardless, people are using social media more and more as a way to get in touch with people and have instant message conversations.

To remove the feed entirely could be problematic though. The feed is the main source of incoming for many social media networks as most people will spend their dwelling time here. It’s also used as a key space for advertising. With visual formats such as Stories and Facebook Watch gaining speed, it’s likely that advertising will inhabit these forms in the absence of a feed. After all, IGTV is in the midst of discussions on adding advertisements to the content as we speak.

We have no doubt that the feed will start to play a smaller role in the growth of social media networks, but it’s here to stay for a long while yet.

2. Despite numerous industry worries, influencers aren’t going away

2018 / 2019 has been a tricky time for influencers with a lot of bad press and finger-pointing documentaries. However, not all influencers are deserving of the bad rep.

Influencers who are troublesome in the industry will become extinct over the next few years. Their followers will lose trust and begin to diminish, while brands will ‘wise-up’ to influencer red flags and learn how to find influencers who will work more effectively with their brand.

Although social media networks are still likely to be saturated with #ad and influencers galore, it’s not really the end of the world. If trustworthy and authentic influencers are all that reminds then the odd paid promotion will be much less problematic than it is today.

One trend we expect to see more of very soon is brand marketers educating themselves more about the influencer marketing supply chain. This will enable them to only work with influencers who promote their brand effectively and actually sell their product. Watch this space for further developments.

3. Brands will be making more of an effort to plan their content and be more consistent across channels

As social media continues to be an incredibly saturated space, the quality of content must also rise.

Brands that are smart will invite a social media specialist to take a look at what they’re currently doing, as well as give advice on where social media (and the internet in general) is headed. This will enable them to get a leg-up on future trends and plan ahead for the next five years.

Brands not able to identify what works for their business will lose customers to their competitors.

Plan, execute, analyse and repeat what works.

4. Small communities will trump big networks for most businesses (even more than they already do)

We all know that Facebook Groups and messaging apps have become so very popular over the last couple of years as a way to unite people with similar interests in thousands of niche topics. Whatever your tipple, there’s a group for it, filled with like-minded individuals posed for a heated discussion.

The general public is bored of seeing the same story over and over again. But having the context of a group changes things. A post about a new coffee shop only becomes interesting and relevant to you when it’s posted within a Facebook Group specific to your location.

Furthermore, the average person is usually more comfortable participating in conversations and sharing opinions within a smaller community, without fear of judgement from the entire world wide web. This ‘safe space’ atmosphere will continue to help groups become a hub of activity and engagement.

One thing that won’t change is that social media is the cheapest, fastest and the most scalable marketing channel available to most companies. That isn’t going away, period.

Welcome to the next five years of social media marketing.

By Alex Packham

Sourced from The Drum

In News

How To Use Instagram To Power Your Business Blogging

May 27, 2019 No Comments

By Dave Schneider

You might have heard it already…

Instagram has recently surpassed 1 billion users and has taken the social media industry by storm.

For the blogging community, it works as a gateway to find new followers and like-minded people in their niche. It has become one of the top social media marketing platforms not only for many influential bloggers but also for many major businesses.

In this post, you’ll learn why Instagram is important and how you can use it for your business to complement your blogging strategy.

There was a misconception about Instagram’s importance being limited to businesses like retailers, restaurants, or travel companies.

Not anymore!

Now, it’s increasingly important for all kinds of businesses looking to build their brands online. Despite the surprising fact that it’s been underutilized by many, Instagram is one of the best ways to use visual marketing for your business.

Industry bloggers are consistently leveraging the power of Instagram marketing to promote their brands and grow their business on a large scale.

Why?

Because Instagram is all about visual content, and visual content makes it easier to grab their audience’s attention.

After all, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual!

Image Source: Kissmetrics Blog

Why You Need Instagram For Your Business

Think about this for a moment, bloggers are always using Instagram to connect with peers and colleagues, influencers and readers.

How do you think it affects their brand and their business?

It’s simple.

Their network evolves and grows, their brand is exposed to millions of followers, all thanks to the influencers they network with.

According to Brandwatch, “48.8% of brands are on Instagram and by 2017 this number is likely to rise to 70.7%.”

Surely, you don’t want to be left behind, do you?

There are many reasons why you should consider Instagram for business. One of the main reasons is the level of user engagement you get.

The number one goal of your social media marketing strategy is to be where your target audience is engaging and spending their time.

Research suggests that the engagement on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times better than Pinterest, and 84 times greater than Twitter.

So if your business is not active on Instagram, you are missing out…big time!

How To Use Instagram For Your Business

Using Instagram to promote your business is pretty straight forward, but you need a solid strategy to get your desired results.

Remember:

Like any other social media platform, you must have a strategic plan for marketing on Instagram to gain traffic, get leads, and generate sales.

Instagram Marketing Strategy

First, you need to establish your marketing goals.

Do you want to increase your product sales?
Do you want to increase traffic to your website?
Do you want to increase your brand awareness?

Each social media network has its own features and advantages. You have to determine which of Instagram’s features match best with your marketing goals.

Next, you should be asking yourself –

Who is my target audience?
Having a well-defined target audience is critical. You cannot say that your target audience is “anyone who is interested in my products or services”!
Your target audience should be a specific market that is more likely to engage and buy from you. For example, single moms over 30 who speak English as their first language. This is a more effective and efficient way to reach your potential clients.Check out this detailed guide by Neil Patel to understand how to define and reach your target audience.
Which part of my audience is most active on Instagram?
After you have a clear idea of who your target audience is, next you need to find out which part of your audience is most active on Instagram; men and women of different age groups, college students with different taste and styles – who is actively using Instagram?
What kind of content do they love to engage with?
Find out what kind of content your target audience is mostly sharing, liking, and commenting on. This will help you create content they’ll love to engage with.

As you can see, doing market research is an important part of your Instagram marketing strategy.

You need data to find out what other brands, businesses, and competitors in your niche are doing on Instagram.

Use this data to evaluate what is working for them, and to find things they are missing out on, as well as things you can implement better than them.

High engaging visual content is the key for Instagram marketing so your goals and strategy should reflect that.

Your Instagram marketing strategy should involve –

Strategizing what you should post on your Instagram.
Finding out how often you should post.
Creating a well-maintained content calendar.
A strategy to get more engaged followers.

Instagram Marketing Tips

Tools: You can use tools like Hootsuite, Later, ScheduGram to schedule your Instagram posts in advance. Schedule your posts at your audience’s most active times.
Hashtags: They play a very vital role these days in social media. It’s the same with Instagram too! Using hashtags the right way will allow your target audience to discover your content easily. So choose them wisely!
Tagging people: This is a powerful technique and can play a huge part in your Instagram marketing strategy. Tag influencers, brands, or businesses featured in your posts and it will show up in their profiles.
Following influencers on Instagram: This will keep you updated on the latest industry trends. You can also find interesting, engaging and inspirational content ideas for your own posts.
Monitor and Analyze: Monitor and analyze your marketing strategies and see what is working and what is not. Adopt new tactics when necessary.

Image source: Social Media Examiner

Use tools like Iconosquare to measure your performance and optimize your strategy. Some other tools similar to Iconosquare are Dash Hudson, Simply Measured, and Sprout Social.

When you are setting up your Instagram marketing campaigns, pay very close attention to your target audience and what they are interested in.

Make sure you are engaging with them by liking, commenting, replying to their mentions and direct messages in a timely fashion.

Eventually, you will find what types of content and strategies are working for your business.

By Dave Schneider

Dave Schneider is an expert on Blogging. Dave is the cofounder of NinjaOutreach, an innovative new blogger outreach software for marketers based in Boston, Massachusetts. He writes about blogging for businesses, entrepreneurship, and has a love for travel, having visited over 40 countries. Dave can be found at lesschurn.io and daveschneider.me.

Sourced from Neal Schaffer