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How Omnichannel Marketing Feeds Into Stronger Customer Experiences

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By Jennifer Torres
Omnichannel marketing is the key to meeting customers where they’re at and ensuring cohesive experiences across channels and devices.

It’s midnight in Arizona, and Martin can’t sleep. He opens his iPad and begins scrolling through a collection of flat screen TVs on the Walmart website. Within ten minutes, one catches his eye, and he drops it in his cart and finalizes the purchase.

Across the country in Florida, it’s 3 a.m., and Emily is on her smartphone eyeing a set of golf clubs a local pro shop advertised in an email. With a flick and click, they’re hers.

Once relegated to after-work hours or weekends, shoppers now make purchases around the clock — while at work, lunch, during their commute, on vacation and when they can’t sleep at 3 a.m.

And they often switch between multiple devices throughout the day. There’s the work computer, a personal laptop, home desktop, smart phone and iPad. And that doesn’t account for brick-and-mortar shoppers that want an in-store experience.

Brands can meet these customers where they are by offering products and services across various online and offline channels — on a website, app or social media account, via email or text, at retail locations and public events. Companies can capture it all through omnichannel marketing.

What Is Omnichannel Marketing?

Customers desire a positive, seamless experience — no matter the path they take or device they use. Omnichannel marketing seeks to enable that desire by creating a cohesive, unified journey for each customer across all brand channels.

Cohesiveness across channels is a critical component. As opposed to multichannel marketing, which includes multiple channels that remain separate, omnichannel allows all online and offline channels to work in unison across touchpoints, devices and departments. With it, customers can bounce from smartphone to laptop to retail store and have a smooth experience.

Major Retailers Embrace It

Many large retailers have already incorporated omnichannel strategies, making the customer journey easier and more convenient.

  • Starbucks provides an app for use both online and in-store, incorporating a rewards program that allows customers to avoid lines and order ahead, gain free refills, use birthday bonuses and earn points for free products.
  • Amazon aligns its experience across a retail website, streaming service, mobile apps and connected Alexa devices and smartwatches.
  • Walgreens unifies its brand between in-store and online purchases through a customer loyalty program app that provides rewards, discounts and information about in-store events and sales.
  • Home Depot offers an app to help customers find products online and in-store, also including live chat and image search.
  • Disney app and loyalty cards allow visitors to check ride times and book tickets without standing in a long line.

Social Media Sells

With an active, integrated presence on social media accounts, brands have the opportunity to create a community.

A report from Statista predicted that by 2026, worldwide sales through social media platforms will reach $2.9 trillion — with the most influential content for buyers coming from posts made by acquaintances and connections.

McKinsey & Company reported that, with 60% to 70% of consumers researching and making purchases online and in-store, omnichannel is here to stay and will continue to grow. Their research also revealed that social media channels influence all age groups — particularly younger customers.

Outstanding Omnichannel

If the message a brand sends is unified and consistent across all channels, it better be a good one. Knowing what’s important to consumers today can help organizations create the best communications and serve to reflect their commitment to providing a positive customer experience.

Salesforce’s 2022 analysis of consumer and business buyer data revealed several factors worthy  of consideration when creating an omnichannel platform, including:

Favourite Channels

  • Phone
  • In-person
  • Online chat

Channel Surfing

  • Customers turn to an average of nine different channels to communicate with companies.
  • 57% of customers prefer to engage through digital channels, but 43% prefer non-digital channels — meaning satisfying customers generally requires great experiences both online and offline.

Loyalty

  • 83% of customers say they’re more loyal to companies that provide consistency across departments.
  • 71% of consumers switched brands at least once in the past year. The top three reasons were better deals, better product quality and better customer service.

Experience

  • 88% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.
  • 94% say a positive customer service experience makes them more likely to purchase again.

Emotion

  • 62% of customers feel an emotional connection to the brands they buy from most.

A recent Forrester report indicated that while customer experience rankings decreased for 19% of brands in 2022, the highest rankings were achieved by brands that provided customers with “high emotional quality” across their experiences.

And happy customers are a forgiving bunch — with data revealing that 54% of customers who feel happy, valued and appreciated are more willing to forgive brand mistakes.

Omnichannel in Action

Karla Medrano, a registered nurse and founder and operator of SGM Medical Marketing, said omnichannel marketing isn’t just about using every available channel for marketing, although that’s important too. It’s also about breaking down an organization’s various customer-facing channel-based silos.

“Being omnichannel is about taking a consumer-centric view of marketing tactics,” Medrano said. “In other words, the consumer’s experience comes first and your organization needs to be seamless in its branding, messaging and online and offline presence.”

When tasked with assisting AmbitCare in developing a stronger digital presence, Medrano employed an omnichannel strategy.

AmbitCare, a provider of free resources to physicians, caregivers and patients affected by rare diseases, had an inadequate social media presence. Medrano’s agency began to define content pillars and cohesive messaging across all channels to help potential patients learn about services. They also created content for the Spanish-speaking population.

After 60 days, said Medrano, the total net audience increased 81.3%.

Recently, her team implemented an omnichannel marketing strategy for a health/wellness start-up app specializing in post-partum. It’s still in the testing phase, but so far, Medrano said the results have been promising.

The app creators came to the agency with the issue of poor adherence rates; they wanted to find a way to help participants finish the program. Medrano created video content, personalized email templates and a system to respond to questions and concerns in a timely manner.

As a result of this strategy, Medrano said adherence rates improved by 40%.

“My omnichannel approach via texts, emails, video content and therapeutic communication to help moms through the program made them feel heard and supported,” she explained.

Omnichannel Oversights

According to a McKinsey & Company report, while the right omnichannel approach can potentially increase brand value, a disjointed or disorganized strategy can destroy it.

Medrano said that a few common errors in the omnichannel strategy include automating everything and thinking that being on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., is enough.

“Sometimes people need to know that there is a human on the other side so they can feel supported,” Medrano said. “A brand can have 10 channels and have rotten customer service vs. a brand that can have three channels and have quality customer service that includes a chat box, timely email responses, personalized attention, courtesy calls, flexible pay options, SMS and more.”

She said another mistake is not asking for customer feedback and not providing staff with proper training to ensure a cohesive conversation, tone and branding.

“Leadership doesn’t interact directly with customers, so they don’t always know what works and what doesn’t,” Medrano explained. “Every single interaction customers have with your brand…should help them feel heard and supported. Otherwise, you can potentially lose customers, receive bad reviews and lose revenue.”

Branding Blunders

With over 15 years of experience guiding large consumer brands to develop customer experiences that deliver shared value, Freelance CX Strategist Jenny Neilsen offered her list of the recurring mistakes brands make in their omnichannel marketing strategy:

  • Brands trying to scale their high-level brand messaging across channels without considering the devices or experience. Each marketing asset should be helping to move the prospect through the funnel, not just shouting the same tag line at them.
  • Saying they do omnichannel, but there is little coordination between in-house teams and agencies executing or designing the assets. All that equates to is running a lot of advertising simultaneously with little cohesion.
  • Not using what they know about their audiences to execute a smart campaign.

“Brands need to understand and use online and offline data points to deploy personalized experiences across channels and physical locations,” Neilsen said. “Every brand has hurdles when it comes to the shape and location of their data, so they either need to roll up their sleeves and make the data work for them manually or invest in technology to help them do it faster.”

It’s Not for Everyone

As founder of Jennis Consulting Group and co-founder of Founders Compass, a mentoring consultancy for new start-ups, Steve Jennis places omnichannel marketing at the bottom of the priority list for start-ups.

He believes omnichannel marketing is good for customer retention because customers return to places where they have a good buying experience. But for a new business, he classifies it as a “back-end operational process that comes after marketing and sales have been successful.” A good product coupled with solid marketing and sales should come first.

“Without good marketing and sales, omnichannel is useless as customers don’t have a good reason to buy anyway,” Jennis said. “As such, it’s pretty low down as a priority for a start-up unless it gives you a real competitive advantage. But better products, marketing and sales will be more effective at that than channel choices.”

By Jennifer Torres

Sourced from CMSWIRE

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5 Tips For Growing Your Social Media Accounts Organically

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By Jerry Balworth

Social media is a great tool to help business owners expand their online presence, publish informative and authoritative content, and, most importantly, engage with their customers. Having a strong social media strategy can grow your business exponentially.

Using an organic approach to help grow your social media accounts results in authentic engagement and true consumer loyalty.

But first, to grow your social media accounts, you need to master your social media strategy.

Whether you’ve recently started your own business or work in-house, here are 5 top tips to organically grow your social media accounts.

Consistent & Captivating Content

Creating content is one of the most important aspects of growing your social media account. Users tend to gravitate towards consistency. This includes consistency in the type of content shared and the frequency with which it is posted.

You will find that social media users are more likely to engage with a post if they know the type of message or branding experience they are signing up for.

Your content has got to be consistent; it has to be exciting! Whilst consistency is key; you should remember the old age saying quality over quantity.

Planning, identifying and researching one’s target audience and keeping an eye on the competitors are just a few ways to create meaningful content.

Engage & Acknowledge Your Followers

Would you keep talking to someone who never returned your messages? Probably not. The same works for customers.

Users will not want to communicate with you or follow your brand on social media if they receive no benefit. That’s why it’s crucial to interact with your followers on social media.

If you want to create a social media presence, you must turn your accounts into a community. That isn’t to say if someone comments on one of your posts, you must respond, but at the very least, you should like it.

You may also use posts to ask and answer questions and acknowledge and share user-generated content to show your appreciation to your followers and customers. Engaging with your followers will help you develop authentic relationships and boost your social media presence.

Establish Your Niche

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none” before. This is true not only in business but also in content marketing.

Defining your niche is preferable so that even your customers know your values, which helps you stand out.

Monitor Your Competitors

Other successful competitors’ social media accounts can be great blueprints for beginners. Keep an eye on accounts that have a similar audience target as you. Have a look at what is working for them? What type of posts generates the most engagement for them?

When looking to increase growth organically, there are many challenges to getting your business off the ground. However, studying what has worked and, most importantly, why it works can help you understand the best ways to grow your account.

Choosing The Right Social Media Platform

It is very tempting to be active on all social media platforms, but do all platforms benefit your business?

Knowing which social media platform works best for your business is essential. For example, Instagram/Facebook may be a good platform if you own a clothing business or sell jewellery products. Still, if you are offering a service, it may be best to use Linkedin due to its professional audience.

Another tip is to focus on the platform that delivers the best results. Although this is not something you would necessarily know when you first start using social media, you may need to give it a few months to monitor results. But once you’ve identified the platform for you, you can determine what needs to be done to organically push your social media account.

Ultimately have fun with it; social media should be used to spread positive messages and show your brand’s personality. Using these five tips, you lay the groundwork in terms of strategy, but if you find something that works, stick with it. Don’t be afraid to get involved in the conversation.

By Jerry Balworth

Sourced from Talk Business

 

 

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8 Essential Tips for Optimising Content Across Every Social Platform

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By Ian Carroll

Social media marketing may seem straightforward enough, but unless your content is optimised, your campaigns may prove fruitless. Creating killer content that connects with as wide an audience as possible requires careful thought.

Firstly, you’ll need a defined tone of voice and a firm handle on your brand’s core values. Next, you’ll need to consider the content you’re aiming to put out there and which channels are most viable for your goals.

Looking for some inspiration on how to optimise content across key social media platforms? Read on for our roundup of the most important tips to remember. 

1. Capitalise on Video Content

Social media provides the perfect platform for sharing all manner of mixed media. However, it’s the appetite for short-form video content that has exploded in recent years. Video content is particularly effective when it comes to lead generation. Furthermore, short-form videos shine on social media platforms, where impatient users may only have moments to scan for the latest content.

The good news for content creators is that short-form videos don’t require much technical ability to produce and publish. Pretty much every major social platform allows users to upload videos, with big hitters like Facebook and Instagram supporting live streaming. 

2. Embrace User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) and social media go hand in hand. In fact, you can quickly bolster your social media presence by encouraging followers to create and share photos, videos, memes, and more.

The benefits of encouraging user-generated content are obvious. For starters, you don’t have to invest time and effort into creating content yourself. Furthermore, UGC is geared specifically to your brand and curated by an enthusiastic audience. 

3. Build Brand Loyalty with Interactive Content

Interactive content is not only more likely to engage your followers, but it will also bolster your standing in the eyes of social media crawlers. If your content is receiving considerable likes and comments, it’s more likely to be looked upon favourably by crawlers. The best way to generate an enthusiastic response is to make your content as interactive as possible.

Creating interactive content isn’t that difficult. You can keep things simple with polls and quizzes, or instead roll out a promotion that pushes for shares and likes. If you’re feeling adventurous, schedule a live stream or arrange a Q&A session with industry experts. 

4. Demonstrate Your Industry Insights

If you’re looking to engage your audience, showcasing an intimate knowledge of industry trends is a sure-fire way to do so. Demonstrating that you’re an authority in your chosen industry won’t just endear you to your audience, it will also bolster your reputation as a real authority in your chosen field.

You may already have the resource in place to focus on trend forecasts and editorial pieces. If not, think about inviting guest bloggers and creators to produce one-off pieces for your social platforms. Focus on seasonal trends and important industry calendar dates.

There’s no point investing in a premium piece of content if you publish it days or weeks after your competitors. Even if users aren’t immediately convinced to buy your goods or services, there’s a good chance they’ll keep coming back for more first-rate posts and content. 

5. Take the Time to Respond to Comments

Taking the time to read and respond to comments on your social platforms is a relatively easy thing to do. Furthermore, it’s a successful way of engaging with your audience and fostering a sense of brand loyalty.

In many ways, social media has supplanted conventional customer service avenues. Nowadays, consumers choose to engage with the brands they buy directly over social media, rather than wait days for a response via email.

Neglecting queries on your social media channels is something to avoid. It not only leaves the user posting the query feeling disgruntled, but it can also damage your broader reputation. Engaging with user comments demonstrates that you’re a responsible business that cares about the concerns of its customers. 

6. Present the Human Side of the Operation

Some brands create social media platforms and leave them largely devoid of content. Social channels present a unique branding opportunity, so ditch the corporate mentality and use them to show the human face of your organisation.

The content you post should be accessible and informal, granting your audience an insight into the inner workings of your business. To keep it personable, consider rotating social media managers regularly.

It’s a good idea to introduce followers to a varied mixture of personalities, rather than a single authoritative voice. You can also think about uploading behind the scenes videos of your workplace itself. If you have more resources at your disposal, a regular schedule of podcasts or video programming is also something to consider. 

7. Establish a Clear Tone of Voice

It’s easy to lean heavily on humour when creating content for social media channels. While a light-hearted tone is all well and good when posting memes, you’ll need to rethink your angle when promoting brand values.

Even if you’ve established a corporate online presence already, your social channels are where you can truly find your brand’s tone of voice. You’re free to have fun with things, but just remember to be consistent. Your tone of voice is what encapsulates your brand’s personality and core values. 

8. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Likes and Shares

Social media makes networking easier than ever. For fledgling brands, this makes building a brand and establishing connections straightforward. Asking for a like, share, or follow via a social media platform isn’t frowned upon. In fact, it’s par for the course.

Make asking for a like or share standard practice when publishing a new piece of content. This will ensure your content gets seen by as many people as possible and serves as an effortless strategy for lead generation. 

Strengthen Your Social Media Strategy with Optimised Content

By now, you should have a clearer idea of the work involved in optimising content for social media campaigns. If you’re looking to produce punchy, captivating content, short-form video is the way to go.

You can take the further strain off content creators by encouraging your followers to produce user-generated content. Folding interactive content into your strategy is another guaranteed way to maintain engagement with your audience.

It’s also crucial you don’t neglect your social audience. If you’re inviting queries from followers, make sure they’re being read and responded to. Social channels can also be used to give your audiences a glimpse behind the scenes. Think about posting Q&As or candid videos to present the human side of your operation.

Finally, make sure you’re capitalising on potential leads. There’s a huge audience out there to engage with via social media. Asking for likes, shares, and tags is standard practice in social media circles. 

By Ian Carroll

Ian Carroll is the owner of Digital Funnel, a Digital Marketing agency that specializes in SEO in Cork and SEO in Dublin alongside Web Design. Ian and his team have helped numerous local businesses increase their online presence.

 

 

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Mistakes You’re Making in Social Media Marketing

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By Deanna Ritchie

The world is filled with billions of users on social media across the globe, and that number is growing each day; and we can watch as the issues to increase.

Social media users have resulted in social media platforms becoming among the most popular virtual places.

Traditional marketing methods, such as commercials on TV, are usually only one-way communications, delivering a brand to the consumer. But social media marketing encourages engagement. It facilitates multi-directional communication, which:

  • Businesses can interact with their customers
  • Customers can interact with the brand’s image by providing feedback.
  • Customers can connect with fellow customers via posting posts.

As a brand’s owner and marketer, you can connect with a variety of potential customers in a matter of seconds with the use of pay-per-click.

There’s plenty to benefit from using social media for marketing. However, if your efforts haven’t yielded any results, you may be making some of the typical marketing mistakes that people make. Becoming aware of these marketing mistakes can help make the right choices and avoid the following mistakes.

1. You’re Operating Blindly

One of the most costly mistakes you can make with your advertising on social networks is to shoot blindly and expect to see results. Instead, you must be sure to treat it with the same seriousness that you would for any other campaign in marketing.

Make a strategy — a clearly defined social media marketing strategy. It’s an essential ingredient in an effective social media presence.

  • An effective social media advertising plan will guarantee that you’re posting content that will help you achieve your business goals. This will stop you from investing your time and energy in a campaign that is bound to fail.

You have scheduled and planned your posts in time. Regularly posting helps you build and maintain your online presence that is organic.

How can you develop an effective strategy?

A simple plan is not enough. You require a master plan that covers:

  • What are you hoping to benefit from your social networks? New leads? Increased brand recognition? If you aren’t sure what you’re after, it’s impossible to achieve it.
  • Who do you want to target?
  • Your action plan. What type of posts will you create? What strategies will you use to promote your content to reach your desired viewers? Do you require more videos?
  • The team is responsible for the management of your accounts.
  • The time and the money you’ll invest in social media advertising.

Your most crucial performance indicators.

Find out what you want from social media — and learn how you can achieve it. Then you will be on the right track towards achieving your total capacity on social media.

2. You’re Aiming at the Wrong People

There is a plan in the right place. However, if you’re trying to reach the wrong people or not targeting the right audience, you’ll have an issue of wasting time and funds. There will be a lot of followers with little contribution to your objectives–an audience that isn’t the ideal client.

In general, Facebook is the most popular social network in the world.

But, it doesn’t suggest that you should solely focus your marketing efforts exclusively on Facebook.

Social Media Platforms

First, define your target audience. The target audience is the group of people who are most likely to be interested in your service or product. You can determine who these individuals are based on income, age or education level, location, or even behaviour.

If you’re active across multiple social media platforms, be sure to focus on the popular platforms for your targeted audience.

For example, data shows that Instagram is most popular with those aged between 18 and 29.

Pinterest is the most popular social media platform among women. While Snapchat, as well as Twitter, are popular with those aged between 18 and 29.

LinkedIn might be more suitable for you if you’re working in the B2B sector.

People tend to overlook irrelevant content. Therefore, it is best to be careful not to make assumptions about the audience you intend to reach.

Examine them and modify your content to meet the needs and expectations of your audience. Your content should be valuable to your readers and incentivize them to interact with it.

Your tone must also be appropriate for the social network platform you are using. The type of content that your viewers are looking for varies across platforms.

Facebook users, for example, will expect a casual, fun, playful, and fun tone — it is an excellent place to connect and advertise. However, LinkedIn works best with a moderately formal tone, and Instagram is predominantly focused on aesthetics and is a great place to show your diversity.

  • Increase the reach of your potential audience with features such as captions and subtitles.
  • You can watch your videos even in loud spaces, like office spaces or in noisy areas.
  • Understand dialogues where participants speak rapidly.
  • Be alert, and help you transmit your message.
  • Access your content even if you have hearing difficulties.

3. SEO Best Practices are Neglected in Your Social Media Marketing

The biggest mistake companies make is not recognizing the importance of SEO to make their social media campaigns effective.

Similar to how you’re focused on SEO when writing content for your blog, such as landing pages and other web content. It would help if you did the same thing with social media.

Engaging in SEO will aid in ensuring your profile, product, or service is ranked higher in results from searches. This increases the organic search engine traffic that comes to your website and boosts your following.

The number of shares, likes, and comments your posts receive online determines your posts’ social media rankings and reach. So, especially to begin with — you will want to post regularly and share quality and exciting content. To stay competitive, plan to always show up with info, and put out quality content. Also, set your social media up to make it easy for your readers to share your content with friends and contacts by including attractive CTAs.

Use keywords. Find the most compelling phrases and words when researching keywords for your blog posts. Then, use them in the social posts you make.

Visual content is among the most powerful SEO strategies you can employ. Use relevant and high-quality images, video, additional images of products or services, and GIFs. Use all content that loads fast — and make sure your site loads fast.

The decision to include subtitles on videos and captions on images or GIFs is also to your advantage. Google, as well as other engines, can’t view the video. However, the search engines can read the text to index and search for the content, making your content more visible.

Implement SEO strategies, and you’ll notice an increase in impact.

4. Over-the-top brand promotions with no actual content

For most people, social media is an opportunity to connect and discuss opinions, keep informed on the latest happenings, and be motivated.

So, if you’re using it only to increase brand awareness and create auto-generated backlinks to your website, you’re not doing it right.

Why are you looking to create content that sparks people’s curiosity and conversation? First, have your goal very clear in your mind.

Feature Image Credit: George Becker; Pexels

By Deanna Ritchie

Managing Editor at ReadWrite

Deanna is the Managing Editor at ReadWrite. Previously she worked as the Editor in Chief for Start-up Grind and has over 20+ years of experience in content management and content development.

Sourced from readwrite

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Effective Strategies for Entrepreneurs to Grow Their Podcast

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Sound tips on how to market your podcast and increase your audience.

Starting any new business or creative venture is one thing, but learning how to promote and grow it effectively is a completely different beast. The realm of podcasting is no different. The tactics you use to grow your podcast are undoubtedly going to vary from the methods you used when you were first starting out and only needed to make sure your podcast’s messaging and sound quality were just right. When looking to grow your podcast, you’ll have to consider factors such as your target audience’s primary demographics, how to market on a number of different social media channels, and how to implement SEO strategies.

Thankfully, there are tons of ways you can choose to promote and grow your podcast today. I have tried a number of these different strategies myself, to varying degrees of success, in growing my own podcast and brand. Though some strategies may require more time and effort than others, I’ve discovered that finding the right one is as simple as recognizing which growth tactics do or don’t work specifically for you and your podcast.

In order to help you get started, here are a few of the simplest and easiest ways any entrepreneur can use to begin growing their podcast.

Your podcast is a brand: treat and promote it accordingly

What do social media posts from other brands and your podcast episodes have in common? Simple: both are considered forms of digital content. This means that when creating audio content for your podcast, there are a number of factors to consider when looking to promote and grow it, including focusing on the quality over quantity of your podcast content, ensuring that your podcast’s content addresses (and, preferably, helps to solve) a unique problem for your audience of listeners and working as hard to promote your podcast as you do to create its content.

By focusing on creating quality content for a niche audience of listeners, your podcast is already ahead of the curve. Many entrepreneurs start a podcast for their brand or venture as a means to cast a wider marketing net, but it is often more helpful to utilize your podcast as a tool to pinpoint specific user demographics and build greater engagement and loyalty.

The greater the niche your podcast’s content can target, the greater your chances of landing guest speakers who fall within that niche of your podcast. Similarly, the success of your niche-focused podcast increases your odds of landing as a guest speaker on other podcasts in your niche area — Both of these are valuable opportunities to promote your podcast and gain additional listeners, growing your podcast’s following.

Never overlook the value of social media marketing

Today’s podcasting industry and social media go hand-in-hand, with so many different platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and others at your fingertips, each of these providing a unique opportunity to promote and grow your podcast in ways as creative as they are numerous.

For example, if you’re ready to release your latest podcast episode, try teasing it to your followers and listeners on Twitter and Facebook with a unique image to capture their immediate attention, and include a brief 15-30 second sound clip to grant a glimpse of what the episode is about. That same post can be repurposed for your podcast’s Instagram story, and even reposted for several days across your other social media accounts before the episode itself goes live.

If you also record your podcast episodes with video, this poses another opportunity for promotion and growth. Because Google’s search engine tends to value video content more than 50 times that of text or audio, recording video of your episodes, especially guest interviews, and uploading them to YouTube can provide a great boost to your podcast’s SEO and overall marketing success.

If your next episode primarily consists of you interviewing a key figure in your niche market or industry, you can simply label the video “Interview with X” in order to get more hits on YouTube and draw a greater number of listeners to your podcast on iTunes or Spotify. Annotating YouTube videos of your podcast with accurate transcripts is another way to improve your podcast’s SEO and grow your show’s inbound listener traffic.

Whenever possible, give your listeners extra benefits for free

The allure of receiving something for free, even if it’s not something a consumer necessarily needs, is a huge motivator for consumers to come to your brand. For entrepreneurs looking to grow their podcast through a larger number of five-star reviews, a free offering is a unique strategy. If you have the budget for merchandise, you can announce a merch giveaway on your podcast for listeners who leave a 5-star review within a certain timeframe. Even if you don’t have the budget to offer your listeners free merchandise, offering them discounts on future offers or even a shout-out at the end of your next episode can be all the motivation they need to help you promote and grow your podcast.

This is another area of your podcast’s growth strategy where social media can come heavily into play. Announcing your upcoming giveaway on an Instagram post can be a fantastic way for your followers to tag friends — thus adding more potential listeners to your podcast — while generating essentially free PR for your podcast and its brand. Likewise, if your podcast is looking to partner with other brands for sponsorships, these kinds of giveaways and promotions can provide an opportunity to mention the specific brands you wish to partner with for future promotions, further unlocking potential ways for your podcast to continue growing.

Whatever strategy you ultimately decide to choose in growing your podcast, remember that growth is not linear; it is cyclical. The more evergreen value, or recurring value, you can bring to your audience, the greater your chances are of maintaining consistent growth.

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Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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5 Social Media Marketing Tips to Boost Your Sales

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By Ademola Alex Adekunbi

Over the past few years, social media has grown exponentially from something only the geeky boys and girls in college spent time on to something that’s now a ubiquitous aspect of life across the world.

For businesses, it’s clear that social media can be a goldmine of leads and conversions, if handled correctly. That’s why many companies have focused their marketing budgets on social media, trying to build a following and cultivate customer loyalty as well as new buyers. Here are a few tips you can implement to make your social media marketing much more effective in bringing in sales.

1. Focus on your audience

One of the easiest ways to burn a lot of money on social media marketing without achieving much is to attempt to appeal to everyone. What you need to do is to narrow down your audience, create a customer profile and then target your marketing toward that persona’s needs and motivations. It will make your marketing much more effective than if you were taking a more general approach.

You might also need to segment your audience by different parameters to be able to target them more effectively. Essentially, segmentation will allow you to work with multiple customer profiles and tailor your marketing based on their specific characteristics.

2. Pick your platforms and optimize for them

Attempting to maintain an active presence on all the social media platforms available is going to stretch most businesses too much. Whoever is handling your social media will likely be overwhelmed and your efforts across all the platforms will not be effective. Instead, analyse your buyer persona and decide which platforms are best for engaging your target market. Two or three are good, and you shouldn’t undertake more than that unless you have multiple staff to handle them.

When you’ve selected your content, you will be able to optimize your content for that platform and thus get much more engagement. If you’re focusing on Instagram, for instance, you’ll be able to focus your resources on making quality images, since that’s what gets the most traction on the platform. On Twitter, conversely, making highly informative threads will likely see more engagement and get the word out about your brand more.

3. Create and share content

Content marketing is not just a buzzword. It actually works and the effects are visible on social media too. Publish content that’s short and entertaining or informative and you can be sure you’ll get some social media engagement. Over time, you’ll have some content (whether it’s text posts, photos, infographics etc.) that’ll go viral and bring tons of traffic to your website. Be sure to work with content creation professionals to be sure your website is up to par.

Putting your content out there is the first step to building a formidable brand, and one easy hack is to tweak your content strategy continually, so it’s aligned with topical issues. By creating quality content and using interesting captions for Instagram, Twitter and other platforms, you’ll be able to plug into trends and get your content in front of many more people, such as what brands like Vape4Ever achieved by providing timely information on marijuana laws at a time when there’s a lot of confusion and public discourse about them.

4. Promote user-generated content

People trust their friends more than they trust a company, no matter how loyal they are to the brand. You can take advantage of that by encouraging people to post content on social media that validates and promotes your products or services. One popular instance of this was the “Share a Coke with…” Coca-Cola campaign where users posted pictures of themselves with their soda bottles. You don’t have to start at that level either; with creative marketing or a small giveaway, you can incentivize people to post positive info about your product or service. For a travel service, for example, getting customers to write about their trips in a way that’s authentic and fun will provide solid social proof and encourage FOMO among your target audience, thus increasing the likelihood of conversion drastically.

5. Provide stellar customer service

Positive reviews are great, but many of your customers will also likely reach out via social media when they’ve had unsatisfactory experiences with your products or services. The solution is to be ready to engage with them and find fixes for their issues in a timely manner. Give opportunities for feedback, resolve any concerns they have and encourage them to share their thoughts with their network.

Over time, that will boost your customer loyalty, encourage referrals and the influx of new customers and also help to build a positive reputation on social media. As your followership grows and validates your products or services, your social proof will increase and more people will be attracted to your brand, thereby boosting sales and your bottom line.

By Ademola Alex Adekunbi

Founder of Tech Law Info. Kunbi is a lawyer based in Lagos and is focused on the tech industry, advising startups on regulatory compliance, market-entry and investment (PE and VC). He is also the founder of Tech Law Info, a website to provide founders with essential legal information and resources. https://www.techlawinfo.com

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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How to Get More Leads with Social Media Marketing

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Marketing used to be a thing on the street. Marketers would jump from block to block, convincing prospective customers to try their products and services.

While this traditional procedure achieved a lot of results, there’s something better and easier in town.

Social media marketing has eased the pressure of moving about searching for that customer that needs your product.

Since everyone is now on popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., you can quickly reach them with your products and services.

Of course, you are not the only one using this medium. As such, it is not just about engaging in social media marketing, but about doing it the right way.

Without increasing and converting your leads, clicks, sales, and followers on these platforms, you are not engaging in social media marketing the right way.

This article will help you improve your sales and convert more leads with social media marketing.

Why worry about social media leads?

As a marketer, your goal is beyond creating awareness about your product. Yes, you need engagements, but these are just the basics for the final destination.

Only when you collect leads can you truly find individuals interested in using your company’s products or services.

When you collect leads, it will be easier to communicate and stay in touch with individuals that are ready to use your services.

Introduction to social media lead marketing

Here is some of the essential information you need to know about lead marketing before you commence:

Social media lead generation

Lead generation refers to all activities you undergo to accumulate leads on social media.

Social media lead nurturing

After generating leads on social media, the deal is not complete. There is a need to always follow up and nurture the lead. You need to walk them through your company’s process or the sales funnel.

Social media lead conversion

Having nurtured a lead, you can then turn a prospect into a customer.

What platform can I use for social media lead generation?

Use platforms that contain prospects that need the products or services you are selling. One of the most popular options you have is Facebook. This platform offers you diverse means for successful social media lead generation.

Most-Popular-Social-Media-Platforms

Image Source: Oberlo.com

Facebook has more than 2.45 billion users every month. This population means that you have a higher chance of meeting your desired audience within the shortest time.

Most B2B marketers have also enjoyed rich results from LinkedIn. The record shows that around 80-90% of B2B marketers make use of this platform.

Hence, you need to consider the type of products and services you offer. You can then target the right audience that will help you reach your desired goal.

Understanding all platforms’ demographics will make it easier for you to pick the right one for your business.

Now, let’s get to the details!

Tips to increase and convert leads with social media marketing

These detailed tips are designed to help you with your lead generation and conversions:

Hone your profile

The first step to reaching your desired destination of generating leads is to improve your social media profile. Collecting more leads organically depends on the details in your social media profile.

Contact-Form

The basic standard is to include a medium where your prospects can contact you or gain access to your newsletter. If you sell products, you can also include a link for shopping.

Providing your contact information will ensure that customers can get support from you when needed. Valuable options include your email, your phone number, your WhatsApp contact, Messenger, etc.

Adding a call-to-action button to your website will increase your chances of generating leads. Most platforms have more than one call-to-action button. Try exploring the one that works best for your industry.

Call-To-Action

If you want to move your leads to your company’s website, consider adding a direct link to your profile.

Develop a strategy

Without having the right strategy, you can only achieve little results. You need to consider how you will reach your audience, who your audience is, and how you will get them engaged with your posts.

Before you post, be sure that you have the right content that your prospects are expecting. The sort of message sent can motivate or demotivate the reader.

Carefully pick the right platform to meet your audience, then prepare your posts with your audience in mind.

Your message cannot reach all users on these platforms. Even if it does, the chances are high that many will not pay attention to these posts. Hence, you need to be specific to your audience.

You need to know: What gender needs the service you are selling? Is your product age-specific? Who are your competitors targeting? Is your offer seasonal? When you find answers to questions like this, you can then work on reaching your desired customer.

Additionally, you can speak privately with some of your customers and seek their opinion on your products or services. Ensure that you are selecting the right audience, and the result will be optimal.

Work with clickable content

If your content is not compelling enough, lead generation will be impossible. Your business is not the only thing competing for an audience in the social media space. Your prospects are all searching for attention too.

Distractions will always come in the way of your customers. Unless you have valuable content to tie them down, they will be off in a split second.

You might need to seek the help of a professional at the onset. Make sure that your content is well-tailored and detailed to touch the mind of your prospect.

Your clickable content will yield no result if it does not hold values that compel a customer to click it. Hence, work on the details of your content.

Then add links with calls-to-action like, click here for more, learn more here, discover the secrets here, etc.

You can get the right call-to-action on most platforms. Make use of these options.

Try social lead ads

You can only achieve minimal results on your own. As such, when your organic content has generated all possible results, at least at the moment, switch attention.

Most social media platforms provide social lead ads to help you reach more audiences.

To make your ads stand out, you need to communicate in a clear and simple pattern. Viewers should understand why they see your ads.

Providing too much information for viewers who are not patient and attentive to details will do you no good. Hence, let your point be brief and stand out.

Asking a few questions and providing a clear and straightforward answer will result in generating leads easily.

Let’s talk about some of the platforms you can use:

Facebook lead ads

Lead ads provided by Facebook are delivered in several forms. You can then analyze them easily and evaluate the results. It also comes with retargeting tools that make nurturing a lead possible.

Facebook-For-Business

Instagram lead ads

Instagram lead ads allow you to collect information from your prospects. You can also use forms to seek their opinions and answer their burning/crucial questions.

LinkedIn lead gen forms

You can also engage in lead generation with the LinkedIn lead generator form. User profiles are used for pre-filling sections of the ads. Ads are presented in the form of sponsored InMail or Message Ads.

Make your landing page user friendly

If your content and call-to-action are detailed and catchy and distinct, you are likely to get frequent visitors to your company’s website.

Converting leads will be impossible if your landing page is not user-friendly. Hence, your ability to convince a prospect to click your content must also be used in designing your landing page.

The landing page needs a lot of valuable and useful content. If the details are irrelevant, people will close the page. Since other resources battle for attention, they may never consider you again.

Have you brought them to your website to see the products you are offering? If yes, ensure the landing page provides information on getting the product or leading them to the product directly.

By merely scanning your landing page, they should be able to grasp the idea you are painting. The content should not be vague. It should be as detailed as possible for your audience to benefit from.

Will they need to fill in forms upon reaching your landing page? Then make it snappy and straight to the point. Please don’t go too personal on the details. Basic information is sufficient.

A unique landing page will help you get more results from the prospects you attract to the page.

Deliver mouth watering incentives

Who doesn’t love a box of ice cream added as an incentive for buying small chops from their favourite eatery?

When your prospect sees what they stand to gain from you, they end up sharing your services with others. You need to be careful and pay attention to the type of lead you want to generate.

You can go the contest way on social media. When you host a contest, you generate leads effortlessly. You might give them a simple and essential task before they can join the contest. You can also seek their opinions on why they are joining your company’s contest.

Work with influencers and brand partners. Influencers on social media have thousands/millions of followers. They can be the key to reaching more audiences that need your product and services.

Do you know providing a prospect with a discount code for signing up for your newsletter can help you generate more leads on social media? But make sure leads generated can be nurtured and converted with follow-up emails.

Other forms of incentives include giving out whitepapers, webinar invitations, or granting them free access to closed groups. When they can see how beneficial the incentives are, the engagement improves.

Personalize your offers

A key to generating more leads through social media is by personalizing your offers. Personalizing makes reaching your target easier.

Most social media platforms offer tools that make targeting the desired audience easier. You can target them by age, occupation, gender, or social status.

Ensure that your offers are designed for each individual that comes in contact with the ads. As such, they will be able to interact and subscribe to your service.

Monitor your progress

It is best to monitor your lead generation process. There are numerous analytics tools provided by social media platforms. Do your research and find the one that works well for you and your brand.

Google-Analytics

One of the most popular options is Google Analytics. It makes tracking your leads easier and detailed. From your website, you can easily track where your leads are coming from.

It is best to start with multiple platforms. When you detect the one bringing more results, you can then focus on using that platform.

Wrapping up

Generating leads is a continuous process. Your skills and effectiveness will improve over time. The details provided in this guide will help you better understand how to get good results from your social media marketing endeavors.

Remember, your posts must be detailed and clear. They should be straight to the point. Your audience should see how it is relevant and what they stand to gain.

It’s up to you to decide the results you want. Digest the information in this guide, and you will see massive improvements.

Social media lead generation works, but it must be done the right way.

By

Michael is an Online Marketing Consultant, Tech Pr Expert, and also the COO of Visible Links Pro. He shares actionable content which assists businesses to thrive online. He can be reached on Twitter, and Linkedln.

Sourced from Jeff Bullas

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The 8 Most Popular Types of Digital Marketing

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By Scott Clark, 

Traditionally, brands advertised in the mediums of the day, namely print (newspapers and magazines), television and radio. While those mediums are still used today, the digital marketplace has opened up a multitude of new digital marketing opportunities, including:

  • Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Content Marketing
  • Email Marketing
  • Influencer Marketing
  • Mobile Marketing
  • Viral Marketing

In this article we are going to take a close look at the 8 most popular digital marketing mediums, and tell you how they can be used to your advantage.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click (PPC) is a digital advertising model that is used to drive traffic to websites. An advertiser typically pays a search engine (Google Ads, Amazon Advertising, or Microsoft Advertising) when the ad is clicked. You have likely seen PPC in action when you search for something on Google.

google crm platform search

 

 

In the image above you can see the first two results of a search for “CRM platform” are ads. In fact, the first four results are PPC ads.

Brands bid on a chosen keyword or search phrase, which then puts the ad into one of four ad spaces offered by Google, for example. The cost per click (CPC) is based on the quality score of the site and the competition of the chosen keyword. Brands typically use the tools provided by Google Ads to determine their keywords and the CPC.

Nate Tsang, founder and CEO at WallStreetZen, a stock market analysis service provider, said that pay-per-click marketing can be a very powerful digital marketing strategy when it is done by those who truly understand the practice. “You should only do this strategy if you are familiar with it or hire someone who is an expert in this field. Doing it on your own without the proper knowledge can be a waste of money,” said Tsang. “I have seen many brands waste thousands on pay-per-click campaigns because they are leading them to the wrong webpage or not being specific on what the visitor must do on the page. A successful PPC campaign must have a great and straightforward landing page so you can convert your visitors and not waste your budget.”

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art, as it were, of optimizing a website so that when a potential customer searches via Google, or to a lesser degree, Bing or other search engines, the web page will show up at the top of the search engine results pages (SERP). If a brand sells monitor speakers for recording artists, and they have a local store in Cleveland, Ohio, then SEO could be used to bring the website up in the listings by using appropriate keywords throughout the website, in the titles of the pages, in the meta keyword and description tags, and in the various headers throughout the page or site.

This is not to say that the site or page should be keyword spammed, that is, stuffed with keywords without relevant content. Content is still king, and long gone are the days when black hat SEO tactics can be effectively used. Tactics today should include backlinks to the site from all of the brand’s social media presences, and web pages should include relevant content. Content can be created about the topic, as in our example, a page that discusses the various types of monitor speakers and their use, with links to the various monitor speakers the brand sells scattered throughout the page (this is Content Marketing, which we will also discuss). Keyword and Description meta tags are still used, but content relevance is more important today. Also, especially for localized businesses, having a Google business page, which puts a brand on Google Maps, as well as a Yelp business page, will help to pull a brand up to the top of the listings.

Below the PPC ads are the organic (non-paid) results, which also include the “People also ask” section, which features pages in which a specific question is answered by the content of the page (search engine gold — this tactic is heavily used by SEO marketers).

 

A screenshot of the people always ask section of Google Search
PHOTO: CMSWire

Often, SEO is done through a third-party company that specializes in SEO, rather than an in-house SEO team or the marketing department. SEO used to be fairly simple, but continual changes in Google’s algorithms have made it more of a precise practice that involves specialization.

Ian Sells is founder and CEO of RebateKey, an online rebate provider, and like many marketers we spoke with, SEO is at the top of his list, because if customers cannot find your website, no business can occur. With so many websites out there on every possible topic, it’s challenging to get on top of the search engine results pages. “Being on top of SERPs, that is, being on page one, gives you a lot more traffic since your site gets seen by more eyes. The advantage of this is, while it takes a lot more effort initially, once your site gains the momentum, you don’t have to spend so much on it, unlike in ads where you have to continuously spend,” explained Sells.

Social Media Marketing

As one would imagine, social media marketing is when brands use their social presences, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, among others, to target their customers. This is accomplished through targeted marketing ad campaigns, “like” campaigns, and posts offering special offers and discounts. Detailed demographic information about gender, ages, locations, times on the site, and more can be used to target specific demographics and groups of people.

“This is actually very powerful since a lot of people are on social media. We’re actually revamping our Instagram strategies as well as our Facebook strategies because we’re seeing the potential of the traffic they bring to our site,” said Sells. “The disadvantage of social media marketing is, sometimes, the engagement stays there. That’s totally useless, if your conversions happen on your site. So you have to make the effort to bring the traffic from your social media handles to your site.”

Content Marketing

We briefly discussed content marketing in the SEO section of this article, when we spoke about creating pages that do not directly sell products or services, but provide information and details about specific subjects that are related to the products or services a brand sells. By providing relevant content that appeals to a brand’s target audience, brands can attract customers to their website, and this content also helps improve SEO for the website.

“Content marketing is broad. In our case, we use several kinds of videos on YouTube, primarily informative ones,” said Sells. “These are helpful to increase awareness about your brand and help people who are interested to get to know your brand, product, or service even more. Sometimes, just a little explanation is enough to convince people to try your service.”

Brad Touesnard, founder and CEO of SpinupWP, a cloud-based server control panel designed for WordPress and he can attest that the right content can be a gamechanger. “We are in the server industry and our most popular blog post compares five of the top server providers. Our experts ran tests on each provider and we shared our results in our blog post. The blog post generated a lot of interest from industry professionals who were eager to see our data,” Touesnard said. “Currently this blog post generates 23.4% of the total search engine traffic to our site and ranks on the first place of Google’s search results for its primary keyword.”

Email Marketing

While many marketers might believe that email is a dying marketing channel, the opposite is true — email marketing is still one of the most effective channels a brand can use. This really shouldn’t be surprising, given the number of email users worldwide. According to a report from Statista, in 2020, approximately 306 billion emails were sent and received each day, with 3.9 billion people using email every day. That’s half the global population! Marketers should take note that according to the DMA Marketer Email Tracker, for every dollar that’s spent on email marketing, the average expected ROI is $42.

Unlike other marketing channels, marketing emails are only sent to those customers who have given permission for the brand to do so — which means they are actually interested in what brands are offering, unlike ads on social media where they do not have a choice but to see ads.

Typically, marketers use email marketing software which allows them to automate the process, send personalized emails, and often includes performance optimization and analytics functionality. By tracking key performance metrics, brands are able to determine which email marketing campaigns are effective, and which ones are not.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is still relatively new, and relies on people who have gained a following on social media either for being entertaining, informative, or being an expert in their field. Influencers typically promote themselves through blogs, videos, and social media posts. Brands look for influencers that are connected to their customers in some way. Perhaps the influencer has a cooking show on YouTube, such as Sam the Cooking Guy. Not only does he sell his own line of cooking utensils and books, but he is sponsored by Catalina Offshore Products and Lars Remodeling and Design. In the case of Sam the Cooking Guy, these two brands recognized that Sam, who has 2.93 million YouTube subscribers, reaches many people who are likely to be interested in their products or services.

“Majority of the videos we have on YouTube by other people are not sponsored. A lot of sellers and buyers really enjoy our products. And to be honest, this is really more powerful than paid ones. People trust other people’s reviews. Videos from influencers or at least people with a following are also helpful. If influencers say your product or service is cool, people who are following them are more likely to try your product primarily because the influencer said so,” explained Sells.

Dave Herman, president of EZ Surety Bonds, told CMSWire that thanks to the constantly changing digital landscape, there are many different types of digital marketing to take advantage of, but not all of them are appropriate or effective for every business. “Influencer marketing is becoming increasingly popular these days as more and more people gain fame and recognition on social media platforms. This is why a lot of businesses are taking advantage of it. While it really helped many brands grow, not every business can get the growth they need from this type of marketing. It is also not as easy as most people think it is. You need to research the right influencer that will represent your brand and ensure that they get the engagement you need to market your products or services.”

Mobile Marketing

It makes sense for marketers to focus on mobile marketing, given the vast number of mobile users. A report on mobile usage from Statista indicated that in the third quarter of 2020, mobile devices accounted for 50.81% of global website traffic. With those kinds of statistics, it’s pretty obvious that mobile marketing can be used to reach millions of customers.

Seth Lytton is chief operating officer at The Detroit Bureau, an automotive industry news publication, thinks mobile is a big opportunity for marketers. “Millions use their phones every hour. Mobile marketing gives you access to millions at once, and many customers have their phones with them at multiple times during the day. You can accurately determine your audience with mobile marketing,” said Lytton.

That said, as Lytton explained, brands must be careful not to overuse mobile marketing, at the risk of losing their customers completely. “On the other hand, many find ads annoying on their phones,” said Lytton. “Some people go out of their way to avoid some advertisements by using ad blockers, and more still get so annoyed with advertisements that they may blacklist the company entirely.”

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing typically relies on social media networks, but unlike social media marketing, the marketing is done by customers themselves, as they spread information on various social media networks about a product, service, or brand with other people. Marketing is thought to be “viral” when it reaches the point where it’s being shared by the general public, not just the brand’s target audience.

An example of viral marketing is memes, which may include funny text written above an image. Crazy Nate created a meme that features the character Nemo swimming in the ocean, next to a box of McDonald’s fries, with the words “Watching Finding Nemo; Why I Want McDonalds” superimposed on the image. McDonalds obviously had no part in the creation of this meme, but one can be fairly certain that they definitely do not mind that it went viral.

Brands such as Wendy’s, Dennies, and McDonalds will often create funny, light-hearted videos, Tweets, or memes themselves, and post them on social media such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other sites. They will then be shared by people who found them to be humorous, and those they shared them with will also share them with others, causing the video or meme to go viral. Here is an example of a Tweet from Wendy’s roasting McDonalds:

wendys roasting mcdonalds tweet

 

Keep in mind that viral marketing is never a certainty — one cannot force something to go viral. Either it goes viral, or it doesn’t. Whatever the case, social listening should be used to monitor mentions of the brand on social media.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are many digital marketing strategies that are available to market a brand. Brands are able to take advantage of their social media presences, and use influencers to spread their message, or they can use the more traditional email marketing and content marketing techniques. PPC and SEO are still extremely useful marketing strategies, and mobile marketing has never played as large a role as it does today. Using a combination of these strategies, digital marketers are able to promote a brand’s products and services, and turn leads into customers.

Feature Image Credit: Adobe

By Scott Clark, 

Sourced from CMS WiRE

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Grow Your Instagram Following and Brand Recognition with This All-in-One Tool

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Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe.

It doesn’t take much to scale your Instagram strategy.

Instagram is one of the best tools for small businesses to grow their brand recognition and build a loyal following. But managing a social media marketing strategy takes time, energy, and often, money your business may not be able to afford. Fortunately, technology can help.

Brello is an all-in-one master tool for managing Instagram marketing from your phone. With Brello, it’s easy to scale your Instagram, whether it’s for personal or professional branding purposes.

This suite includes a growing list of tools that make it easy to manage your ‘Insta’ on the go. Currently, Brello includes a Story Creator, Post Maker, Grid Post Maker, Animated Story Maker, Analytics, Hashtag Generator, Repost Tool, Post Saver Tool, Photo Blend Tool, Bio Ideas Tool, Caption Spacer, Highlights Icon Maker, plus more tools that are added regularly. With hundreds of unique, handpicked, customizable templates for posts, stories, and more, you can quickly put together an Instagram post and use AI hashtags to correctly classify your photos for the best exposure.

With tools like the Caption Spacer, and AI hashtag generators, you’ll ensure your captions always look great and you’re reaching the biggest (and best) audience possible. Plus, Brello provides detailed account metrics like follower counts, top posts, comments, likes, and more so you can keep track of what’s going on with your strategy — all from the palm of your hand.

Start scaling your Instagram strategy without investing a ton of time and money. Normally, a lifetime subscription to Brello is $600 but you can sign up today for just $49.99 through this offer.

Prices subject to change.

Feature Image Credit: Gabrielle Henderson/Unsplash

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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The Great Debate: Instagram vs. TikTok & the Future of Social Media Marketing

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By Nikara Johns

“Should we be on TikTok?” It’s the question brands and companies in all industries are asking themselves as the platform continues to grow. TikTok is available in more than 150 countries, has over 1 billion users and has been downloaded at least 200 million times in the United States alone, according to Wallaroo Media.

For many marketing experts, it’s a no-brainer to give it a go.

“It’s almost imperative for brands to be on it because now is the time to capture that organic growth,” said Aliza Licht, founder and president of consultancy firm Leave Your Mark. “TikTok is ripe for the taking.”

What sets TikTok apart from other social media platforms is its overall virality, according to marketers. TikTok has a knack for connecting people around shared interests through discovery because it is not based on who you know or follow, but rather on the content. With that, users with small followings can often receive views in the hundreds of thousands to millions. User Anna DeCarlo, for instance, has a modest 9,000-person TikTok following and she received nearly 115,000 views on a video that showed off her shoe closet.

It’s not just about singing and dancing either, which is a common misconception. Content is created within a variety of different categories — including fashion, which is a breakout tier that brands can capitalize on.

In 2020, the app could be credited for many of the biggest style trends during stay-at-home orders — whether it was the explosion of Nike Air Force 1s or tie-dye sweat suits — and the fashion category is only continuing to grow on the platform, earning a whopping 17.5 billion views as of June 2020, according to a report by Statista.

“Fashion is unique in the sense that it is so dynamic and so tied to culture that everyone’s got a way to play into it,” Matt Cleary, director of Retail & Dining, Global Business Solutions at TikTok, told FN. “Fashion is such an opportunity for TikTok to be a force in itself, but also a huge channel for brands to either reinvent themselves or create new relationships.”

An estimated 60% of TikTok users are Gen Zers, which has been a key demographic for brands who are looking to tap a younger audience. What’s more, TikTok users are ageing up — with more millennials using the platform.

But beyond brand building, the question for many companies is: Is there a revenue opportunity? And the numbers show there is an appetite among users to shop: The popular #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt currently has 1.9 billion views, for instance, and features a variety of trending purchased product, including everything from Walmart sneakers to Aerie leggings.

The Case for Instagram

While TikTok is a fast-growing platform with a fresh take on content, Instagram remains the No. 1 tool for social media marketing. At the end of 2020, 96% of brand campaigns included Instagram influencers, for instance, compared to 6.8% TikTok influencers, as reported by Influencer Marketing Hub.

Kyle Hjelmeseth, founder of G&B Digital Management, explained that influencers have been sticking with Instagram because it is so well-established.

“Influencer talent is so ingrained in Instagram and brands are spending money there. So there’s not a lot of incentive for Instagrammers to move to TikTok,” he said. “They’re already making a lot of money. And Instagram now has Reels [videos], so we can arguably do the same thing, while keeping to your core audience.”

On the brand side, Instagram remains a safe investment: Companies already have established relationships and an understanding of how it works.

“The credibility is still there,” explained Gil Eyal, founder of influencer marketing database HYPR. “If you’re looking to build a brand reputation and you want to surround it with people who are fashion thought leaders, you’re probably going to do better on a place like Instagram. Every photo is carefully looked at before it’s posted, and your brand is going to be seen the way that you want it to be seen. If you’re looking for visibility and people talking about your brand and giving away control, TikTok is a much better place because of the nature of the platform.”

Indeed, TikTok has many advantages. Recent data from influencer marketing platform Upfluence showed much higher engagement rates on TikTok, where micro-influencers garnered engagement rates of 17.96%, compared with 3.86% on Instagram.

Eyal said, “It depends on your target audience, but if all things are equal, there’s no question that TikTok is way better than Instagram right now [when it comes to engagement]. In very straightforward terms, Facebook and Instagram have implemented algorithms that limit your viewership in an effort to get people to pay for additional exposure.”

However, Licht added that Instagram is still hugely important from a performance marketing standpoint. “When we say it’s the No. 1 platform, it is because that is what’s driving revenue,” she said. “Organic posts are tough, but paid works. So if you are an e-commerce brand, then you’re not giving up Facebook and Instagram.”

Finding a Balance

Even if Instagram is a successful platform for brands, experts say the goal is to diversify your audience, so TikTok should be part of the plan.

They suggest that brands create their own account on the platform and use organic posts as a testing ground to find what resonates. Then tap TikTok creators to make a splash for specific goals, such as a product launch.

One way TikTok is enticing brands and influencers is through it’s Creator Marketplace, which helps to establish direct collaborations and partnerships between brands and creators.

“Creators are the lifeblood of our platform” said Cleary. “When we think about how brands can participate, we generally point to creators either as a muse or as a tool for brands to leverage. They’re platform natives; they know exactly what works. They know that when they lean in to what makes them different and authentic, their content becomes very viral, and we want to make sure brands are leveraging them for that.”

Licht also advised brands new to TikTok to start small, research hashtags and not be so cautious with content. “It’s OK to make mistakes,” she said. “It’s OK not to know how to use it. It’s initiation by fire and you have to test stuff.”

But experts said one thing companies must realize is that Instagram or YouTube content doesn’t translate well on TikTok. For instance, repurposing content and cutting a fashion campaign video or runway clip into 30 seconds will not connect with TikTokers.

“We want our brands to create TikToks, not ads,” said Cleary. “They have to be comfortable taking down their traditional guardrails and testing and sourcing, listening. All the best brands, they’re listening to see how their fans are already talking about them on the platform and then leaning into those trends.”

For marketers, the success of TikTok doesn’t mean the end for Instagram. But they warn that Instagram fatigue is out there, and expectations from consumers are changing.

“It’s creating a competitive environment for other platforms to attract and maintain creators. Previously, this was less of a concern,” said Eric Dahan, CEO of Open Influence. “There’s a bigger sense of comfort with Instagram, [but] TikTok is forcing platforms to think how they cater to their influencers [and] audience.”

Feature Image Credit: TikTok/AP; Instagram/Adobe Stock

TikTok and Instagram both have approximately 1 billion active users.

Sourced from FN

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