Social Media Archives - Page 14 of 37

In News

Facebook has unveiled its Clubhouse challenger and here’s what you need to know

May 11, 2021 No Comments

Facebook is looking to find its voice with the roll-out of a series of audio features over the coming months.

A new category of audio products and features serves as a battle cry to Clubhouse, the invitation-only audio platform that has generated significant word of mouth, as Facebook joins increasingly aggressive moves to bend the ear of listeners.

What is Facebook launching?

Over the coming months, Facebook will unleash a succession of audio-centric features, such as Live Audio Rooms for people to participate in live conversations – a direct ’homage’ to the popular Clubhouse app.
Reportedly ready for an April launch, the literal chat room also bears more than a passing resemblance to Twitter’s Spaces feature.
The full-throated embrace of sound waves also includes the launch of Soundbites, a utility for people to generate and share brief audio clips of their own making.
Both facilities are expected to be made available to a small number of creators in a matter of weeks with users also able to make money from either format, although Facebook hasn’t clarified if this will be open to anyone or solely established creators.
Last but not least, Facebook will also permit members to listen to podcasts without leaving the confines of the walled garden.

Why should marketers care?

Facebook’s enthusiastic embrace of a new medium of communication closely mirrors that of competitors such as the invitation-only Clubhouse app to enable natural-sounding, real-world engagements.
The resulting opportunities span the full spectrum of human speech, providing Facebook with a megaphone to amplify its utility as a home for speeches, lectures, conversations and conferences.
Calls to embrace sound have only grown louder since the imposition of lockdowns, while the rapid growth of Clubhouse has provided ample proof that public demand is rapacious.
Laying claim to his share of this growing market, Mark Zuckerberg told The Verge editor Casey Newton at the launch: ”Audio as a medium just allows for longer-form discussions and exploring ideas. You can get into topics that frankly are a lot harder to with other mediums. And audio, I think, is just a lot more accessible because you can multitask while listening.”
Zuckerberg’s ears doubtless pricked up upon hearing that Clubhouse has been downloaded 4.7m times since its April 2020 (according to Apptopia), with 3.7m of those installs occurring in the opening months of 2021.
This rush of sign-ups was further fueled by an appearance by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg on a Clubhouse talk show, further elevating its profile.
Clubhouse operates using an ad-free model but offers marketers the chance to host events and discussions of their choosing, enabling them to target very specific audiences.
This has already been embraced by Pernod Ricard, which hosted a series of themed conversations to coincide with Black History Month, joining other brands such as Milk Bar, Kool-Aid and Politico which have built a presence on the platform.
The Drum’s own Sam Scott recently delved into the opportunities presented by this soundscape for brands by exploring the opportunities and the pitfalls of opening your mouth.

By John Glenday

Sourced from The Drum

In News

20 Social Media Analytics Tools for Small Businesses

May 10, 2021 No Comments

By Samson Haileyesus

Social media analytics tools are essential to measuring social media ROI — that is, your company’s return on investment from using social media. If you are a social media manager or own a small business, you are going to need the best tools you can find. The same goes for those involved in influencer marketing or digital agencies that run social media campaigns.

Great tools make your job easier, save precious time and give you insights into each of the social networking sites that your company or clients are active on. They also help you shine in front of clients or others in your company. Luckily there are plenty of tools available. Some are free or offer a free version with limited features suitable for small start-ups. But if your needs are more robust, and you require a paid tool, many of them offer a free trial so you can check out the features in detail before you buy. We’ve included the best tools for small businesses of all sizes in our list.

What are social media analytics?

The definition of social media analytics is the systematic collection and evaluation of data that helps you measure how well or how poorly you are doing on social media. After all, resources are limited in most businesses. You can’t afford to spend time and money on activities if they don’t pay off. The analytics tools in our list help you decide where to spend time, how to maximize your efforts, and how to gain insights into your audience (see data analytics tips).

Analytics tools are different from social media management tools. There are plenty of tools that help you post updates on social media channels and even schedule content in advance. Those are not the kind of tools we mean. Below we are mainly focused on tools to understand and measure your social media performance.

Best Free and Paid Social Media Analytics Tools

We’ve assembled a list of the best social media analytics tools appropriate for small businesses. Click on one of the tools in the list below or scroll down to learn about what makes each the best in class.

Analytics Tools Provided by the Social Networks

1. Zoho Social

image: zoho

Touted as among the best Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software Zoho through its social media analytics tools Zoho Social offers some great tools to manage your social media outreach from a single platform. You can schedule publishing posts through an intuitive publishing calendar, monitor campaigns and create custom reports. The monitoring dashboard gives you the ability to easily to measure the pulse of your campaign and respond in real-time to engage with your audience. Zoho Social starts with a standard monthly billing of $10 that allows you to manage one brand across seven channels. The robust agency plus costs $300 a month and enables the management of 30 brands across a whopping 140 channels.

What it does:

Zoho Social is the part that enables you to understand your social media audience and how they engage with you.
You can listen to multiple channels from a single dashboard and respond in real-time.
You can also dig deeper into each post to measure their reach and engagement.
The integration with Zoho Desk makes Zoho Social ideal for a comprehensive social media outreach where you can create tickets from social media for your support team to see and resolve them from Zoho Desk.

What’s it great at:

It offers the complete package from managing your social media accounts,
publishing, monitoring and offering cutting-edge analytics.
It supports Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
It is compatible with mobile apps for Android and iOS.
It also seamlessly integrates with Zoho CRM for greater collaboration.

2. Hootsuite

image: hootsuite

Hootsuite is another social media management tool. As social media analytics tools go, it helps manage posts, collaboration, scheduling and analytics. With it, you can automate posts, schedule them and take key performance metrics to gauge the performance of your marketing content. The starter package is set at $19 a month with support for 10 social media channels and unlimited scheduling capabilities for one administrator. The enterprise package offers a customized solution.

What it does:

It comes with all the bells and whistles you might need for your startup or growth stage as a small business when it comes to social media analytics tools.
It integrates with all social platforms including Facebook and Instagram so your social media analytics and management are done from one platform.
Hootsuite Impact also integrates with tools like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and your ad accounts on the various social platforms.
It comes with a complete toolbox for all your social media needs which includes contact management, conversion tracking, keyword filtering, customer targeting, multi-account management, and much more.

What’s it great at:

You have the ability to monitor multiple social media streams that include Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and WordPress blogs.
It comes with capabilities that include scheduling posts in advance.
User-friendly analytics data.
Team collaboration.

3. Buffer Analyze

image: buffer

Buffer Analyze offers simple and easy social media analytics that includes comprehensive features for managing your social media streams. It helps you easily manage multiple social media accounts, allowing you to customize post-times and schedule posts. It offers a built-in social media analytics tool and gets recommendations to expand reach, engagement, and sales. The starter package for this social media analytics tool is $15 per month. And it allows you to analyse eight social channels and up to 100 scheduled content posts. The business tiered package comes at $99 per month you can analyse 25 social channels and a whopping 2,000 scheduled posts for six administrators.

What it does:

You can measure your social media performance by comparing paid and organic results.
Track engagement from social accounts.
Measure stories, individual posts and hashtags and see if you are reaching targeted audiences.
Reports can be generated in PDF or images that include charts.

What’s it great at:

Scheduling posts.
Analytics.
Cross-posting, so all your social media posting are consolidated in one place.

4. Sprout Social

image: sproutsocial

Sprout Social is a social media management tool that offers a good mix of management and analytics to meet the needs of most small to midsize businesses. This platform focuses on social management, data, and employee advocacy. Pricing for Sprout Social starts at $99 monthly and you can analyze up to five social profiles, an intuitive all-in-one social inbox, social media CRM tools, compatibility with both android and iOS mobile apps, and more.

What it des:

Sprout Social has a dashboard that helps you manage social media channels as well as your brands in one go.
The Instagram stories analytics tool comes with a series of pop-up questionnaires to help you better determine your company’s needs allowing you fashion your social media experiences.
It is backed up with a strong social CRM platform and a help desk.

What’s it great at:

Well organized dashboard.
Seamlessly works with Twitter and Facebook.
Scheduling posts.
Discovery capability in terms of your followers, interactions, mentions, and likes.
Analytics.

5. Studiorific

image: studiorific

Studiorific offers an all-in-one social media analysis platform that hosts all social management tools for scheduling engaging posts and reporting. You are able to put all your social media accounts under one roof for seamless integration of your digital content. Studiorific offers a real bargain with lifetime access to its starter package at only $29 for a one time purchase. This allows you to manage 12 social accounts, unlimited scheduling capabilities; image and video storage; a built-in image editor, analytics and much more.

What it does:

Track your social media accounts for posts performance and engagement.
Attract users in actual time.
Its analytic tool helps you optimize your marketing plan and opt to send and receive direct messages from Instagram users right from your Studiorific dashboard.
Has a photo editing tool to customize image size for all of your social media networks.

What’s it great at:

Competition analysis.
Works across several social media channels.
Post scheduling.
Built-in image editor.
Analytics.

6. Sendible

image: sendible

Sendible is a social media content management platform designed with agencies in mind. The platform brings all your social networks together into a centralized hub that helps you execute your strategy for multiple brands at scale. Pricing for this social media analytics tool starts at $29.00 per month. This allows you to analyze 12 profiles and generate eight quick reports. Sendible offers a 14-day free trial as well.

What it does:

Customize and preview posts on each social media platform and also keeps image pixel quality. Thanks to its built-in editor you can also design your own graphics using Canva.
See when your audiences are most engaged on Instagram so you know the best times to post. Collaboration is made easy with Sendible as you can set up approval workflows and keep your posts on-brand.
Use its one-click reports to pinpoint your most engaging content or choose to build and automatically send custom reports.

What’s it great at:

Competition analysis.
Works across several social media channels.
Post scheduling and auto-response.
Tracking visitors.
Analytics.

7. Keyhole

image: keyhole

Keyhole comes with a real-time dashboard that shows you how many people posted with your hashtag, along with the number of retweets, likes and impressions your campaign is generating. The dashboard captures a detailed overview of your entire campaign and mentions all details and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) you need. Keyhole’s Suite comes at $59 per month and has a free trial available as well.

What it does:

With the metrics it provides you can set your specific KPIs and measure results accordingly.
You can monitor all your campaigns in one go.
Discover and track influencers.
See the performance of the content.
Monitor brand health.
Get real-time actionable data and reports.
Gain insights on trends and conversion rates.

What’s it great at:

Real-time tracking of campaigns, hashtags, and keywords.
Influencer and new client identification.
Event and engagement tracking.
Customized alerts.
Analytics.

8. Rival IQ

image: rivaliq

Rival IQ helps deliver analytics and competitive intelligence to help your digital marketing. The solutions offered include the ability to show the data and easily make informed decisions, improve results, and better understand your competition. BRival IQ pricing starts at $199.00 per month, a free trial is also available.

What it does:

By using competitive benchmarks and comparative analysis Rival IQ sends you alerts whenever your competition posts high-performing content, such as boosting a post on social media.
Helps you move quickly to respond to and counter-messaging in actual time.
It integrates with Google Analytics to get a complete understanding of your customers’ journey.
Get a free head-to-head report against your main competitor on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter and see how you stack up.
Helps you to uncover new opportunities, identify trends, and track results across all major channels and the web.

What’s it great at:

Actual time dashboard showing how many visitors posted with your hashtag.
Tracking retweets, likes and Impressions on campaigns.
Dedicated Influencers metrics.
Analytics.

9. Social Report

image: socialreport

Social Report management platform offers solutions that include advanced scheduling, social networks monitoring, analytics, one-click reporting, smart automation, and more. When it comes to tracking performance Social Report offers everything from your Facebook pages and Twitter profiles, to business reviews, website site performance and blogs. Users can quickly and easily organize their data by customers or business. The pricing starts at $49.00 per month, you can start it all with a 30-day free trial.

What it does:

Gives you the option to not only track your own social profiles but your competition as well.
With its Smart Inbox, you have the capability to get all of your social messages across all of your social media profiles gathered and organized in one stream.
Apart from publishing content in several accounts at once, you can also send the content you schedule to your teammates for administrator approval and tracking the content.
Once you dive into the stream, you will be able to engage, join conversations, and respond directly to customers.

What’s it great at:

Advanced scheduling.
Social network monitoring.
Analytics.
One-click reporting.
Smart automation.

10. Planable

image: planableThis social management tool comes with a dashboard that helps you manage multiple social media platforms in one place. Planable’s dashboard has a great visually focused user interface that helps even the novice amongst us to easily navigate through content management, automated publishing, customer engagement across multiple accounts. Planable unfortunately does not provide analytic and reports solutions for your business. Pricing for Planable starts at $39.00 per month in addition to a free trial.

What it does:

Planable’s strong suit is creating, planning, and approving posts and it is considered among the best social media tools.

What’s it great at:

Centralized social media content management.
Planning and scheduling.
Analytics.
Social media post preview.

11. Loomly

image: loomly
Loomly offers a calendar-based social management platform for businesses. Pricing begins at $25, allowing you to manage up to ten accounts. You can start with a 15-day free trial to learn more. Solutions offered by Loomly include automated publishing and ads management.

What it does:

Helps users to engage and respond to audiences and measure outreach in terms of organic vs ads post overviews.
Offer notifications from emails, push, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.
Ideas for content in posts, trending topics, and RSS feeds
Monitor date-related events and social media best practices.

What’s it great at:

Centralized social media content management.
Planning and scheduling.
Analytics.
Collaboration.
Post ideas.

12. Sociamonials

image: sociamonials

Sociamonials has social media analytics tools that help you manage multiple social media accounts that include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google my Business, LinkedIn and YouTube. The Social Pro package comes with a monthly $19 subscription for managing up to ten social profiles including Facebook, Twitter and unlimited scheduling capabilities. A free 14-day trial is available for those interested in trying this tool out.

What it does:

Run contests, tweak content,
Find influencers and capture leads.
Analytics for traffic, brand awareness, Return on Investment (RoI) and more.
Post scheduling.

What’s it great at:

Brand tracking.
Automated publishing.
Conversion tracking.
Customer targeting.
Contact database.
Email marketing.
Multi-campaign.
Analytics.
Keyword filtering.

13. Agile CRM

image: agilecrmAgile CRM has an all in one CRM that includes automation of all your sales, marketing and service efforts in one single platform. This cloud-based SaaS service comes with a mobile-ready feature allowing you to make tweaks while off location. It has a free version for users and the starter kit comes at $8.99 per month.

What it does:

It comes with a contact management tool for all your accounts.
Analytics to track stages and milestones.
Voicemail automation.
Appointment scheduling.
Lead scoring.
Email tracking.

What’s it great at:

Social suite.
Landing page builder.
Ticketing analytics.
Marketing automation.

14. Cyfe

image: cyfe

Cyfe offers an all-in-one social management app that helps you easily monitor and analyze all of your business data in one, organized place. Cyfe has a free version where you get two fully functional dashboards and a 30-day history. The starter package comes at $29 per month and it includes unlimited widgets; custom logo; custom themes; and unlimited data exports.

What it does:

Users can connect and pull data from their advertising, email, monitoring, sales, finance, SEO, social media, support, and web analytics accounts- all in one go.
Cyfe’s unique selling point is that it helps you make business decisions by automating all of your business data into a single and highly-organized view thus saving you time from gleaning over spreadsheets.
See performances on your social media, analytics, marketing, sales, and support together.
The choice of reports in various formats including PNG, JPEG, PDF, and CSV formats

What’s it great at:

All in one monitoring.
Collaboration.
Monitor multiple campaigns.
Scheduling.
Analytics.

6 Analytics Tools Provided by the Social Networks

The third-party social media tools above have many advantages, not the least of which is a centralized dashboard to see stats from multiple networks in one place. However, don’t overlook the networks’ own analytics. While you can only get statistics and insights from that particular network, they can be very useful especially for those who spend most of their time on just one or two platforms. Here is a review of what six social media Networks provide for free:

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights helps you track likes, page views, and more. This gives you valuable insights to help you track and measure your outreach efforts. With Facebook Page Insights you get access to detailed analytics for your Facebook Page where you can see which campaigns are working well and those that need more tweaking. You also learn how your audience interacts with your content and improve your results over time.

This tool helps you understand your Facebook audience so that you can create better-targeted ads and create more compelling content. You can see actions on your page; the number of views; likes generated by your content; fan source responsiveness followers; negative feedback; and orders. Facebook even has a dedicated resource center including free tools for small businesses that help you boost your online engagements both for Facebook and Instagram.

Instagram Insights

Instagram offers insights to help you learn more about your followers and page performance. You can learn about the demographics of your Instagram audience and track the performance of your Instagram posts and Stories. Instagram Insights lets you can view your audience’s engagement with specific posts, stories and IGTV videos. It is a free tool that gives you a great overview of your page’s performance in terms of the number of accounts reached, content interactions, followers, and approximate earnings. Each of these Instagram metrics comes with a detailed breakdown.

LinkedIn Analytics

With LinkedIn Analytics you gain valuable data regarding the performance of your LinkedIn page. It includes the receptions towards your updates including videos posted. The tool also provides a breakdown of visitors and followers including the number of likes, shares, comments, and mentions. Additional analytic tools include LinkedIn Career Pages, as well as access to Talent Brand analytics that help you measure your talent pipeline, talent flows, talent attraction, and application behaviour. With the Pipeline Builder analytics, you can see metrics based on timelines ranging from the past seven days to 12 months. You can also customize the timeline to suit your particular needs.

Pinterest Analytics

With Pinterest’s Metrics tab, you will be able to track the number of pins created from your website to help you glean the average amount of daily content pinned from your website. You can also look at the number of repins users have used from your website on to their own boards, which helps you increase the exposure of your content to people who are not currently following your account. At the same time, you can also see the daily average number of people who saw your pins for both pins and repins. All in all Pinterest’s analytics come with a total of six metrics: pins; repins; most clicks; most repinned; visitors and visits; and reach.

Twitter Analytics

Twitter analytics uses graphs and reports to show the performance of important metrics. These include your top tweet, top mention and top follower(s). Additional insights include the number of tweets sent; number of visits your Twitter profile received; the number of mentions your account received; followers gained and tweet impressions received over a period of time. These also come with the number of impressions on videos, tweets, video completion rates, audience insights, and conversion tracking.

YouTube Analytics

YouTube analytics provides you with data about your videos’ performance including watch time, viewer demographics, traffic sources, impressions, subscribers and revenue. This comes in handy if you want to understand whether audiences like the content you produce, and what can be done to improve your videos’ performance. You can also segregate the data based on the playlist, time period, devices where your video was viewed, comments, and shares to decipher the nuances of your visitors.

What should small businesses look for in social analytics tools?

Depending on which social media analytics you decide to use here are some of the essentials you should be looking for:

Comprehensive analytics: Besides looking for a social media analytic process that crank out numbers, look for one that gives you further insights. This includes engagement, likes, demographics; conversations, hashtags, and even competitor’s performance. So there’s no need to flip through different systems just to get the results you need – these come in handy for tweaking your outreach. If your social media analytics tool integrates with Google Analytics it would help in building robust reporting.
Integration across social media platforms: Look for a solution that offers analytics for social media across the board that measures Instagram, Facebook and other data. This will help you get a good perspective on the performances on your various social media handles.
Offers customized team tracking and collaboration: Besides how you measure your social media analytics it should help you customize how you share, plan and collaborate across teams.
Multiple reporting options: A key component in analytics is in the manner in which reports are generated. Look for the best social media analytics tools offering data and reports in multiple formats this could be in PDF, JPEG, PNG or even .xls.
Additional tools: In addition to analytics look for tools that help you edit pictures as well as integrate with other Customer Relations Management System (CRM) solutions. Particularly integration with a CRM system will help you convert your engagement into leads thus helping you go up the ladder of engagement.

Finally, if you run a marketing agency or are starting a social media business, look specifically for agency features. These include the ability to track performance results by client, deliver white-label reports with your brand, or offer multiple client logins. Whatever your needs, make a list of your top requirements so that you don’t miss any as you evaluate the options.

Image: planable

By Samson Haileyesus

Sourced from Small Business Trends

In News

Despite Often Low Public Opinion Of Social Media, It’s Still Where Businesses Need To Be

May 4, 2021 No Comments

By Lisa Montenegro

Social media has long been in the spotlight; however, over the last few years, the giants have been under fire for numerous reasons. Pick your platform — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. They’ve all been embroiled in problems and scandals, with public and political outrage often the result. Yet many of us still flock to them in droves. And where the public goes so do businesses and marketers. If public opinion is often so low for social media platforms, why do we still use them?

A good start to answering this is remembering what exactly the giants of the industry have done, and there’s no better one to start with than Facebook. The social media behemoth has more than 2.7 billion monthly active users and by 2025 is expected to be used by just over 69% of the U.S. population. Yet even those who have no time for social media or have little care for the news likely know about at least one of the multitude of controversies the social media giant has found itself in. Tax avoidance, censorship, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and how the platform handles users’ data are just the start of the dizzying list. Then there’s the scrutiny it has come under for shirking its responsibility to monitor what is posted on the site, such as hate speech.

And this is not to say the other major social media sites have not been in similar trouble. Instagram, YouTube and Twitter have all been accused of not being proactive enough when it comes to regulating what people post online, as well as a whole array of other problems, like taking a rape threat and making it into an advertisement or fake Twitter accounts trying to sway public opinion. Such controversies have been met with public disgust and anger, prompting politicians to move toward more regulation.

All of the incidents above have been major controversies, but social media platforms also have made smaller moves like algorithm and design changes and the infamous Instagram shadowbans, which, aside from being a mild irritant to daily users, have created major hurdles for marketers and businesses. In early March, many Instagram users suddenly found that likes were no longer shown on their posts. This turned out to be a trial of a feature that accidentally included too many people. But here in Canada, this is how it has been for two years now. Add in changes to Facebook’s algorithm to put friends and family first, and suddenly you’re likely dealing with a loss of impressions, reach and likes.

You would think with all of this that social media platforms would be losing millions of followers, right?

Facebook actually saw its U.S. and Canadian user bases decrease toward the end of last year, but the drop has done little in the grand scheme of things. The social media site still recorded huge revenue and gained more new users in Asia and the rest of the world. Instagram has over a billion monthly users, and that number is predicted to continue rising. Twitter has over 322 million users and will likely continue gaining them. And TikTok set a record for app installs last year after surpassing 2 billion downloads. Despite all the outrage and dislike of social media sites, people still flock to them in the millions and billions. But why?

The simple answer is that they connect us. It’s been over a year since the Covid-19 pandemic began, and lockdown measures closed stores and cut off our usual social interactions. The importance of sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and many others for keeping people connected not just to the people they are close to but also to strangers or people in need of support has truly been shown.

We live in an age when we can publish a post in Boston that can be seen within seconds in Berlin. We can communicate with friends around the world in an instant, and often the main way we do this is through social media. We can connect with those with the same interests. We can find jobs and network. And businesses can connect with audiences on a larger scale and reach more potential customers. Social media is a major part of how we stay connected. Last year proved that.

But what does that mean for those of us in marketing and PR or running businesses trying to connect with our audiences? We must go where the customers are. But this leaves us at the mercy of algorithms and major platform changes. When Instagram decides to tweak its systems again or a social media site finds itself grappling with a government, what can you do? Major changes can have serious effects, and before you know it, your reach and interactions can drop drastically. So how do you work around this?

To use an old phrase, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversifying between multiple social media platforms may mean posting in more places, but it can offer many benefits. The main one is that you are not dependent on a single social media site. If one is hit by regulations or changes its algorithms suddenly and accidentally takes out your page, you have others to fall back on. It also can provide you with a much larger reach. While a large section of your audience may be on a single platform, that doesn’t account for all of them. With a presence on other social media platforms, your brand can reach more people and possibly a wider range of demographics.

It will be interesting to see from here what happens to the social media giants with regulations and their relationships with audiences. For those of us in Canada, it would be nice if Instagram could let us see the number of likes on our posts again.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Lisa Montenegro

Founder & President at Digital Marketing Experts – DMX Marketing, a Premier Google Partner Agency located in Toronto, Canada.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Did Facebook Just Take a Step Toward Connected TV?

April 29, 2021 No Comments

By Jeremy Bowman

A new ad product could help unlock a valuable new revenue stream for the social media giant.

Connected TV is probably the fastest-growing advertising sector out there at the moment.

The transition from linear television to streaming has unleashed a boom in streaming-based digital ads, also known as Connected TV, which offer better targeting than traditional TV ads and give both the media publisher and advertiser much more data about who is watching.

A November 2020 report by eMarketer.com forecasts that the CTV market will grow 40% in the U.S. to $11.36 billion this year, and the market should continue to expand rapidly as a number of new services have just entered the streaming TV market.

And it now appears that digital advertising kingpin Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) could be the latest company to have its eye on the CTV prize.

Dynamic ads for streaming

On Monday, Facebook announced a new ad product: dynamic ads for streaming. The tool allows Facebook and Instagram users to click on an ad for a streaming service and see personalized, relevant titles based on their own interests on Facebook and Instagram. The solution replaces the old way of doing business, in which a streamer would have to advertise individual titles to show off their content. Now streaming advertisers can set up their campaigns once and automatically generate unique ads for each title, rather than having to create individual ones for each time.

James Smith, head of entertainment at Facebook, explained, “With Dynamic Ads for Streaming, advertisers no longer have to manually create new campaigns for each individual title. Once an advertiser uploads their content catalog to Facebook, the dynamic ads deliver personalized recommendations, giving people a similar personalized experience they’re used to seeing from their streaming services.” Advertisers that have tested the new product, like Brazilian streaming service Globoplay, have seen strong engagement so far.

It’s unclear if Facebook has a goal with these ads beyond their current implementation, but they could serve as a beachhead to build relationships with streaming services from which the company can further expand into streaming and Connected TV. The company’s user data is unique, and no other social platform can identify users’ streaming content preferences the way Facebook can — and that’s a valuable asset to streamers. Additionally, the company’s user profiles offer considerable value for ad targeting, so an account obtained through a Facebook ad could potentially have more value than a direct sign-up.

An old idea

Facebook made a play for the CTV ad market back in 2016, but it eventually shut down its audience network for the category in 2018. Part of the reason was that Roku, the leading streaming device maker and a powerful force in CTV, blocked Facebook from selling ads on its platform, as it saw advertising as a valuable business.

There were other challenges as well. Facebook didn’t separate its streaming ad inventory on the audience network, and advertiser awareness of the CTV option seemed to be too low. Additionally, Facebook’s base of advertisers didn’t align well with a product that users can’t easily click on. CTV tends to be more suitable for “brand advertising,” or brand-awareness-building campaigns, rather than the kind of performance marketing with easily trackable data that Facebook typically serves.

However, the Connected TV market was much smaller in 2018, and Facebook may have a different experience today. Since it pulled the plug, ad-based services like Hulu, now owned by Walt Disney, have grown significantly, and a number of others have hit the market, like Comcast‘s Peacock, ViacomCBS‘s Paramount+, and Discovery Communications’ Discovery+. In other words, CTV has reached a tipping point over the last year, so it’s not surprising that Facebook might want a piece of the market.

The company is at a disadvantage against fellow tech giants like Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon, all of which offer their own streaming devices and services — and Facebook Watch, which was billed as the company’s answer to YouTube, has underwhelmed since its 2017 launch. But the dynamic ads product is a reminder that the company can do things with customer targeting that none of its peers can, and that could give it a unique inroad into streaming ads.

It’s still unclear if the new product will lead to anything more than just a convenient way for streaming services to attract new users, but it’s a reminder to investors that even as the stock is priced for slowing growth, Facebook has plenty of optionality in its arsenal — including in VR/AR, e-commerce, payments, and new ad products like dynamic ads for streaming.

It’s a good bet that at least one of those emerging businesses will pay off big down the road.

Should you invest $1,000 in Facebook, Inc. right now?

Before you consider Facebook, Inc., you’ll want to hear this.

Investing legends and Motley Fool Co-founders David and Tom Gardner just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now… and Facebook, Inc. wasn’t one of them.

The online investing service they’ve run for nearly two decades, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has beaten the stock market by over 4X.* And right now, they think there are 10 stocks that are better buys.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images.

By Jeremy Bowman

Sourced from The Motley Fool

In News

Important Digital Marketing Shifts for 2021 and Beyond

April 21, 2021 No Comments

By Ted Rubin

1. If brands are hoping to stay relevant and keep up with the content creation phenomenon, 2021 needs to be the year of Empowering Employees to Power your Brand. It is plain and simple—employee censorship on social channels is a disaster for brands. We can no longer control the message folks. The social framework is “bigger and stronger” than our puny frameworks. Instead of fighting it every step of the way, USE it to your advantage, or you’ll pay a steep price in diminished return… especially during these times of change and uncertainty. Your employees are the best way to humanize and personalize your brand… and truly the best way to scale relevant, contextual content creation

Did you know that employee created content (ECC) receives eight times more engagement than content shared from the company itself? On top of that, employee content extends brand messaging by over 500%. Crazy, right? So why aren’t more companies getting employees engaged in content creation? It’s well known that companies with engaged employees outperform their peers; involving employees in content creation can help to create a sense of common purpose.

The truth of the matter is that the social evolution is a business evolution. Only by changing our old frameworks can we possibly hope to keep up—because social media and the way communication is evolving, along with so many other applications during the pandemic, have completely altered the business landscape. #ROE… Return on Employees.

2. Changing shopper behaviour creates a land grab for retailers and brands alike. Established brands like Nike are making huge strides to connect directly with shoppers, preparing for a future where a good portion of retail is direct. Upstart brands including AllBirds, Warby Parker and Dollar Shave Club have been pushing incumbents to embrace more flexible channel strategies as well, and the trend is expanding exponentially in 2021. Incumbents and challengers alike are exploring all kinds of channel mix combinations although with a common tactical thread… all brands are seeking direct relationships with shoppers instead of relying on third party retailers… especially with how the #Covid19 pandemic has dramatically altered shopping behaviour.

3. Customer Experience with our Marketing… we worry all the time about customer experience with our employees, product, purchase, and service, BUT we have overlooked a critical part of the customer experience, and that IS how “our” marketing affects “them.” We’ve got data coming out of our ears, so tracking the results of our marketing efforts in terms of dollars and cents is becoming easier and easier. However, all these efforts only measure the upside of banging consumers over the head (how many more clicks, shares, engagements, and ultimately sales, do we get). No regard is given to the downside numbers. What we are NOT tracking is the point at which our customers turn from just annoyed, too fed up with our bot stalking and algorithm tweaking.

I think we need to spend as much time finding ways to track the negative effect of our marketing efforts as we do the positive ones. Every brand that continues to bang your customers or followers over the head again, and again, and again – without regard to the damage it is doing to brand equity – is going to suffer as we move forward in this customer, “my media, my commerce, my way”, world.

Marketing will truly win when humans control the machines, instead of the machines controlling the humans.

By Ted Rubin

Sourced from Ted Rubin Straight Talk

In News

How to Use YouTube to Market Your Business

April 16, 2021 No Comments

By Bob Buckley

If you aren’t getting enough customers in the door for your business, it might be time to try a new marketing strategy. Tapping into the growing trend of video is a great place to start. YouTube is the second largest website on the internet by monthly web traffic, according to data from Ahrefs. This makes it an awesome place to get into video and potentially drive a ton of business your way.

How to Use YouTube to Market Your Business

Start a YouTube Channel

In case you don’t have money to invest in paying for advertisements, you can still do something with the potential to be just as effective. The great thing about starting a YouTube channel is that there are no barriers to entry.

Contributing content to any website typically involves an application process. You can’t always get feedback if they don’t think your content is a fit, either.

To start a channel, all you really need is an email address. We will get to the other things required to grow it, but, the most important step besides signing up is deciding what your channel will be about.

Pick a Topic

You will need to pick a topic for your channel to focus on. It usually makes sense to go with one related to your business, so you can promote it in each video and include links to a website in the description.

Staying focused on your topic is important – it wouldn’t work very well for building an audience if you had a finance YouTube channel where every third video upload was cooking-related. Maintaining consistency will also make creating each video a little easier and faster.

Set Up a Filming Space

Depending on the types of videos you plan on making, you might want to set up a consistent filming space. This can be as simple as using your office and filming at your desk. It should be somewhere that’s blocked off from a lot of noise and interruptions.

That may just mean coordinating with your assistant (if you have one) to hold calls and avoid coming into your office while you are filming. The same goes for the family if you work from home.

Get Filming Equipment

The nice thing about today is that you probably already have a nice camera. A lot of phones have been able to film in HD and even 4K for a couple of years already. In addition to a camera, you will want a tripod, lights, and probably a decent microphone.

The tripod is crucial and you can pick one of those up for around $20 or $30 on Amazon. If your filming space has reliable natural light through a window, you could stick with that in the beginning.

The phone’s microphone should also work, at least at first. If you decide to stick with this marketing strategy, you can get all of the other equipment for under $200 later on.

Get Video Editing Software

Depending on your computer, you may already have some video editing software installed. If you use an Apple, iMovie is free and a powerful program for editing. PC users also have a variety of free options that can make high-quality videos.

I use Lightworks for our YouTube channel and it works pretty well on my older laptop. OpenShot is another free, open-source program that works well and can create videos up to 4K in resolution.

Get Comfortable on Camera

It’s pretty normal if you feel a little uncomfortable getting on camera. Pretending to talk to someone when you’re really talking at a tripod will always feel a little weird. One strategy that I’ve found works pretty well for dealing with that is to have an audience.

As long as they don’t make a ton of background noise, having someone sit behind the camera can help you focus more on making the video sound conversational. If you really can’t see yourself on-screen, consider working with someone who already has an established channel.

Work with YouTube Influencers

Working with an influential YouTube personality could be big for your business. When some of them command audiences in the hundreds of thousands, one shoutout on a popular video could (maybe) pay for itself many times over.

Every social platform has influencers, but ones on YouTube are especially powerful. Instead of written posts or pictures, they routinely speak directly to the people you want as customers.

Make A List of Relevant Influencers

There are going to be at least a few influencers you could approach that cater to your market. They will have a pretty wide range of subscribers and a number of views on their videos.

You can make a list in an Excel spreadsheet or Google sheet and organize them in order of highest to lowest subscriber count (or vice versa). It also can’t hurt for you to watch a few of their videos. That will help you make sure there isn’t any content you would want to avoid associating your brand name with.

Costs of Paying for Mentions

The cost for influencer marketing will vary depending on the number of followers someone has. Everything will still be negotiable, but data from eMarketer shows a few standard rates.

If you approach someone with 500 to 5,000 subscribers, expect to pay around $315 per video. The costs can go all the way up to $3,857 for channels with 500K + subscribers.

Measure ROI Before Spending a Ton

If you’re not careful, you could end up putting a lot of money into influencer marketing without seeing much in the way of results. Just look at the story of the Instagram star with 2 million followers who couldn’t sell 36 t-shirts.

Depending on your budget, you should take caution in paying for videos ahead of time or anything like that. Additionally, consider starting with a smaller YouTube personality.

Data from this study shows that micro-influencers are actually more effective along with being less expensive. In case influencers seem too risky, you can always look at the old-fashioned (but still effective) way of getting your business’s name out there: advertising.

Getting into Advertising on YouTube

There are a handful of different types of advertisements you can run on YouTube. If you get everything ready for starting a channel and decide you don’t want to do that, you will still be in a great position for making video ads. In addition to video ads, you have the option of display ads, overlay ads (ads that show at the bottom of a video), and sponsored cards.

The Video Ads

Most of the other social platforms offer video ads now. However, on YouTube, people are expecting to be watching a video so it’s a lot more likely that someone will already be engaged when your ad pops up.

There are a lot of marketers out there that you can look at for low-budget video ad ideas. Take the Dollar Shave Club’s video from a few years ago, for example. They just filmed their founder walking around the warehouse saying funny things and it was wildly successful.

This and other low-budget videos helped propel the 2011 start-up to unprecedented (couldn’t help using the word!) growth and being acquired for $1 billion in 2016.

Different Types of Video Ads

There are a few different types of video ads to consider using. You will need to decide which one makes the most sense and structure your video around the way it functions for optimal results.

The ones you might be most familiar with are skippable video ads, which allow users to skip to their video after the first five seconds. These can be inserted at the beginning, middle, and end of videos. Then there are non-skippable ads, which can go up to 15 or 20 seconds in length, according to Google.

The third ones to consider are called “Bumper ads” and are non-skippable, running for up to 6 seconds. All of these are compatible with desktop and mobile devices, maximizing your reach.

Tying it all Together

YouTube is not showing any signs of slowing down, especially with the current stay-at-home state of the world. You can leverage a few different strategies to get your business known on the platform.

It’s worth dabbling in all of them a bit to see if one really stands out as effective. Consider starting your own channel, working with influencers, and making video ads to reach the masses.

By Bob Buckley

Bob is a 2021 CPA candidate and the founder of thiscollegelife.com.

Sourced from readwrite

In News

How to Find Trending Hashtags

April 14, 2021 No Comments

By Prestige Media

In this article, we discuss an effective strategy to help you find trending, high-quality hashtags for your social media networking, and we also talk about why trending hashtags are important.

Hashtags across all social media networks these days are a powerful tool for brands both big and small. Using relevant hashtags on your social networks can serve a number of different purposes for your company.

Using trending hashtags can help you reach your target audience more, attract more followers to your networks, and increase your overall engagement.

Statistics show that social media posts that have more than one hashtag associated with them receive more engagement than posts that don’t include any hashtags.

However, it’s not simply about the number of hashtags that you use on your content, it’s about the quality of those hashtags. It used to be more about the quantity, but these days quality prevails, and the relevance and quality of your hashtags can significantly influence their impact.

In this article, we discuss an effective strategy to help you find trending, high-quality hashtags for your social media networking, and we also talk about why trending hashtags are important.

We will also share the best hashtag generator in the industry right now, Task Ant, and talk about why they can help you not only find the best hashtags for your content, but you can get help organizing them so that you keep your hashtag strategy unique, creative and varied.

Why Hashtags Are Important

Hashtags are basically the sorting mechanism for any social network out there, like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. What’s interesting is that hashtags don’t really have too much of an impact on Facebook these days; they are more relevant to networks like Instagram and Twitter.

Hashtags determine the social media reach of your content, and how discoverable that content is. They connect categories to your posts, which helps you to reach a wider audience.

Most social networks these days like Instagram and Twitter have millions of people posting new content every day. This makes it really difficult for most people to connect their content with the right people.

Hashtags make your content a lot more discoverable, especially by people who are actually going to be interested in your niche and industry. This is why hashtags are considered the most efficient tool if you are wanting to grow your social media network successfully.

On a fundamental level, hashtags are used to categorize your content more efficiently. They link you directly with your target audience and help your target audience find you as well, which is exactly what you need to do well with your social media profiles.

When you use hashtags on your content, you are more likely to have people interacting with your posts, because it includes content they are on the network looking for. It is essential that you understand that you might not always get the interactions that you want just because you have included some popular hashtags on your posts.

Millions of users out there make the most of popular hashtags, which means that you will be competing with a high number of others to rank well for that particular hashtag. This is why it’s important to narrow this down and get as specific as you can with your hashtag topic, which we will talk about a little bit later.

On social media networks like Instagram, you are allowed 30 hashtags in your caption. You need to be smart with the words that you choose to include, because you don’t want to go over this number, but you also don’t want to include too few as well.

Why Trending Hashtags Are Important

Trending hashtags, in particular, are important for your social media networking in general because they connect you with the relevant audience for your content right now.

Your brand’s ethos and products might not change too much over the course of a few years, but your audience will. This is why if you plan on investing a lot of time and money into social media marketing, you’ve got to constantly keep up with what’s happening in your industry.

When you use hashtags that are trending within your niche, you are giving your content a good chance of being seen by your target audience, and you are keeping up with what people are finding interesting right now.

Your products might not be changing all that much, but how you connect with your target audience through social media will change and switching up your hashtags to fall in line with what’s trending is really important.

Are All Trending Hashtags Good for Your Business?

With trending hashtags in mind, are all of them good for your business? There is a relatively short list of popular and trending hashtags that users make the most of all around the world.

Influencers on Twitter and Instagram make the most of these hashtags because they help them build their audience. For example, using the #likeforlike hashtag is a popular way to encourage people to like your content. The most popular hashtag on Instagram is #love.

When you use popular and trending hashtags on social media networks, this allows your posts to appear in places where there are millions of people that could potentially be interacting with your content. However, there are some aspects of trending hashtags that you need to be aware of if you choose to use them.

Might target the wrong audience: If you choose to build your audience with some of the most popular hashtags in the world because you are competing against millions of others who are also using that hashtag, there’s every chance that you might be targeting the wrong audience. Additionally, if you use hashtags like #likeforlike, while this might encourage people to interact with their content, it might not be for the right reasons. They might be simply liking your content because you’ve asked them to, and not because they are genuinely interested in your content. If you want to find the most relevant users for your content, then you need to get specific with the hashtags that you use and try not to be too general.
Hard to stand out: when you use hashtags that are really popular, this means that you are competing for attention with millions of other people and their posts. It means that even those posts that you have put a lot of time and effort into are going to quickly drown in the sea of competition and will wash up with a mix of content that doesn’t even fall into the same category as yours. There are some experts out there that believe that if you share a post with a hashtag that has more than 10 million posts associated with it, your post is going to appear in someone’s feed for only three minutes, before falling down the visibility list again.
Could end up using irrelevant or inappropriate hashtags: If the hashtags that you use for your content are too popular, they could potentially be irrelevant to your content, and not even trending in your industry. What’s more, they might even be considered inappropriate by Instagram, as Instagram has been known to ban hashtags in the past. When you are trying to find the right hashtags for your content by yourself, is difficult to know whether that hashtag has a history of being banned or not, and you could get yourself into hot water as a result.

How to Know Which Trending Hashtags to Use

So, we’ve talked a little bit about the downside to trending hashtags, but this shouldn’t be enough to put you off. You have just got to know what you are getting yourself into and understand how to use trending hashtags to your advantage so that you can stick to relevant, targeted hashtags that connect you straight to your ideal audience.

Becoming successful with hashtags happens when you are able to maintain a strategic approach towards using them. Even though some of the most popular hashtags out there have been used with millions of posts, this doesn’t guarantee that your post is going to get a lot of interaction.

So, instead of trying to find the most popular hashtags out there, we recommend that you find trending hashtags that have an active community behind them, and are highly relevant to your target audience and industry.

So, how do you find trending hashtags like this? Well, we think that one of the best ways is to see what hashtags are being used by your competitors, target users, and industry leaders.

Remember, when you narrow down the scope of your hashtag, the more engaged your audience will be. When you start researching, you might be surprised to discover the kind of hashtags that are being used by your rivals.

Let’s take a little look at how to determine the best trending hashtags for your content.

Understand your audience

There’s no way that you are going to be able to find the best trending hashtags for your content on social media without learning all about your target audience. As we already talked about, including random hashtags on your Instagram posts is not going to increase your followers.

First, you need to do a bit of research, and figure out what hashtags your audience is using on their content and choose ones that align with these. Most social media networks out there have a search bar, where you can search up relevant hashtags.

Just remember that your tags need to be relevant to the target users that you are actually searching for. This is why you need to include keywords that relate not only to your content, but to the people that are going to be looking at it.

Understand your rivals

While you might be a bit more excited about understanding your audience then understanding your competitors, your competitors can actually teach you a lot about what the industry is like, and how to be successful in it. If you want to do really well with your brand online, then it is extremely smart to keep a close eye on what your competitors are doing at all times.

Similar to how you can look up relevant hashtags on most social media networks, you can also find hashtags that your competitors are using. This is going to help you work out which hashtags are going to improve your engagement.

You might not always want to use the hashtags that you find on your competitor’s pages, but it’s going to definitely help you figure out how everyone else is growing their social media profiles. You might end up discovering completely new hashtags that you’ve never thought of that you can add to your list.

Understand the industry leaders

As well as your competitors, there will be some influencers and industry leaders in your niche that you look up to and wish you could be like one day. One of the most practical ways to find trending hashtags for your content is to follow industry leaders that have similar interests to your target audience.

Influencers are people on social media networks like Twitter and Instagram that perform really well with their content. You can make the most of their success by finding relevant tags to add to your content.

Make sure that you find those people that have done really well within your industry and are continuing to do really well. Because they are already strongly connected with their target audience, you will only learn good things from researching them.

Use Related Hashtags

Another effective, easy way to grow your community is to find trends that relate to your own hashtag. All you have to do is enter your hashtag in the search bar of any social network, and you will get some results.

You might even want to search for an Instagram image or video that contains a hashtag that is already working really well on your content. This is a great place to start, and it’s going to give you a lot of options that are directly related to the tags that you already use.

Look on the Explore Page on Instagram

If Instagram is one of your main social networks that you use for your brand, then you will be well aware of the Explore Page.

The Explore Page is where a collection of posts are generated by what you have previously liked and interacted with. Believe it or not, this is a great place to get hashtag suggestions, so that you can keep your content connected with your target audience.

The best part about the Explore Page is that you can access it both on desktop and mobile. The first thing that you will want to do is scroll down until you see posts that are relevant to what you’re trying to post yourself.

Click on these posts and look at the hashtags they are using. Make sure to use the ones that you think are the most relevant to your content.

Follow your favourite hashtags

If you have discovered a hashtag that is relevant to your content, try following it and seeing top posts once people share them. Looking up certain hashtags is going to help you develop new ideas and come up with even more tags that go along with the original.

All of the content that you put up that uses these hashtags will be pushed onto these hashtag pages, so you can easily follow other hashtags, and look at the top posts that fall into these categories.

Checking top posts can help you get new ideas for your hashtags and engaging with these posts can actually bring people over to your page.

Just make sure that the selection of hashtags you are including on your posts are relevant and directly reflect what your post is about. We don’t suggest that you create a crowded post that has a lot of hashtags.

Quality over Quantity

Speaking of crowded posts, let’s talk a little bit about why quality is more important than quality at this point when it comes to your trending hashtags.

If you have just started implementing certain techniques in your hashtag strategy, then you might be a little overenthusiastic about how many hashtags you include in your post.

However, if you want to do really well, and not compromise the potential of your content before it’s even out there and in front of the right people, we suggest that you take time to figure out a sweet spot when it comes to the number of hashtags that you use.

We mentioned above that Instagram has a post limit of 30 hashtags. However, we don’t think that you should use this many every time.

In fact, there are many people out there that think you should be using less than 10 hashtags per post – some people think that seven is ideal. The key here is to focus first on the quality of the tags, and the quantity will follow.

If you find three or four highly relevant, targeted tags for your content, then you won’t need to use any more than this to get your content in front of the right people. However, while you are still looking for those perfect hashtags, you might want to increase this number slightly.

One way to do this is to experiment a little bit and figure out what works best for your content and your engagement rate. If the number of tags you are using is resonating well with your target audience, then stick with this.

The good news is that your hashtag strategy can be ever-changing, and there’s always room for improvement. If you find a hashtag that you want to use, you can always add it to your existing list, or even replace one that you don’t think is as effective as it used to be.

As long as you are including more than one and less than 30, you will be able to find the right fit for your niche and industry.

Task Ant for Finding Trending Hashtags

Another way to find trending hashtags for your content is to make the most of a hashtag generator. Sometimes, you don’t have the brainpower or the time to figure out your hashtag strategy for yourself, and sometimes it seems like everyone has taken all the good hashtags.

This is where a hashtag generator comes in. A hashtag generator like Task Ant has the experience and expertise that you need to get ahead of your competition and polish your hashtag strategy until you’ve perfected it.

Task Ant has a search bar for hashtags that you will see on their homepage when you visit them for the first time. All you need to do is enter a keyword or hashtag that you use already, and they will suggest relevant tags.

The best part is that they include data and analytics around their suggestions so that you can work out which ones are relevant to your content, and which ones aren’t worth your time.

One of the things that we like the most about Task Ant is that they are willing to go the extra mile for their clients. They understand that finding relevant hashtags is only half the battle – you’ve got to keep things interesting on your content if you want to keep up with what’s trending.

This is why Task Ant helps you organize your tags into different sets so that you can apply different hashtags to each piece of content and keep it dynamic.

There aren’t too many hashtag generators out there that are prepared to do this on top of suggesting relevant tags to their clients, which is why Task Ant comes so highly recommended.

Final Thoughts

So, there you have it – everything you need to know about trending hashtags, how to use them, and what to look out for when you are doing your research. Remember that your hashtag strategy is a fluid thing – this means that it’s always changing, just like industry trends.

It’s important to keep up with the play and learn how to adapt your hashtag strategy to what’s going on with social media networks like Twitter and Instagram. Also, don’t be afraid to play around with the numbers, and try a different list of hashtags on each piece of content, until you’ve found a good match.

Mix it up from time-to-time as well so that you’re never relying on the same five or six hashtags for each post. Good luck!

By Prestige Media

Sourced from INFLUENCIVE

In News

10 Best Consumer Engagement Platforms 2021

April 1, 2021 No Comments

By TechMag

The emergence of social media and other means of communication revolutionized how businesses communicate with their consumers. Most companies have historically focused on telephone contact and e-mail to get consumers involved. Yet over the last couple of years, things have changed so much.

Consumers don’t like newsletters today. You don’t want to be in touch like this anymore. They would like to communicate via social media, video chat, and other related platforms. This is why you have to adapt to organizations like yours. How do you do it best, however?

How best can you enhance communications with your clients? Well, you need a consumer engagement system/ platform. Such a platform will assist you to connect with your clients through a variety of channels. The consumer engagement system can also give you enough customer data to personalize your marketing campaigns. In a nutshell, a customer engagement platform has the ability to revolutionize your company’s customer experience and make it more dynamic.

Best Consumer Engagement Platforms: 1Q, RedPoint, Bold360, Astute Solutions, LivePerson, Pega, Chirpify, WalkMe, Aurea CX Platform, Vivocha, Velaro, Magentrix, Avaya, Eudata, Doxim, etc.

What are Consumer Engagement Platforms?

Consumer engagement platform provides the ability to centralize multiple customer experiences. Any of the services that a website can have included social networking, webchat, personalized marketing, and CRM functions.

It is important for customer involvement platforms to empower you with what you need to interact effectively with your customers, to monitor customer actions, and to test marketing strategies. This kind of functionality can help you appreciate the pain points of your client and deal properly with them.

Consumer interaction is a business communications link through several correspondence networks between a customer and a company. This relationship may consist of online and offline response, contact, effect, or overall customer experience.

Best Consumer Engagement Platforms

Bold360

BoldChat is a market-leading live chat and customer commitment solution which allows companies to engage customers online, mobile, and socially quickly and effectively. Unleash the distinctive identity of the organization and adapt chat execution to individual deployment methods, team dynamics, and specific market requirements. We also reinforced BoldChat’s proactive chat engine effective features to target a visitor to a website with the appropriate message at the right moment to connect with a live chat conversation, which is six times more likely to purchase proactive chat.

Avaya

Avaya offers business collaboration and interaction systems globally to businesses of all types. Avaya provides centralized email, call centres, networking, and associated services. Incorporating speech, video, data and notifications, conferences, and technologies to enable real-time commitment, the organization explores messaging, conference contact, and technology solutions. When Avaya brings companies together in an environment of convergence, software, social, and cloud, it connects business people more smoothly and improves efficiency. Innovation is flourishing and customer loyalty is growing.

1Q

1Q is the best consumer engagement platform that has changed the way brands reach consumers, giving you instant access to key audiences to make quick and informed decisions. By 1Q you can reach people where they live, where they are now, where they have been and where they will be in the future. With 1Q, consumers are paid instantly, per response, in cash, cultivating an eager, honest, and incentivized member base. 1Q knows the value of consumer’s time. While other platforms not pay.

WalkMe

WalkMe is a cloud-based Communication and Interaction Platform for businesses. The context-smart platform directs and leads users to work within every online experience. The Framework anticipates user requirements and offers support when and when it is needed. WalkMe also drives consumers to behave by identifying new features and suggesting good quality products. WalkMe is a forum for improving games that simplifies the online user experience immediately. WalkMe supports marketers and product managers to maximize customer acceptance and revenues by offering a lively, effortless, and customized online interface.

Pega

The next step in evolving the consumer engagement platform is Pega Marketing. With advanced customer analysis and market rules integrated in real-time, Pega actively reviews and advises the most appropriate offers, information, channels, and actions for any customer encounter. With Pega, consumer relations with consumers can be improved and customer service management can be focussed across all platforms beyond segmentation projects. Pega delivers a consumer brain that is still online. Pega Marketing allows the users to satisfy their loyalty to their clients.

Zendesk – Cloud customer service

Zendesk is one of the best consumer engagement platforms. Build improved consumer experience with Zendesk, which is the leading software for user involvement in phones, chat, e-mail, social media, and other platforms. With the help of Zendesk, you will easily respond to your customers. Implementation, usage, and scale are simple. With this app, you can become a reliable operator and establish brand loyalty. It’s a really marvelous company support ticket scheme.

Customer engagement Features: Analytics, Checkout, Churn Management, Communication Management, Community Management, Content Syndication, Feedback Collection.

Chirpify

Chirpify is a conversation white-label platform. It offers users different features for tracking social media, such as holding tags on similar hashtags, images, check-in, and sites. Triggers can be tracked and an instant and complex response can be submitted to them when a customer sets a key. It helps users to start electoral campaigns, tournaments, gating materials, utility management, and more. The analytics functionality by Chirpify analyses consumer campaign views, posts, scope, and impacts. The functionality tests the transfer of ads and demonstrates whether clients link their social media pages to the programs of users.

Vivocha

Vivocha is a small and big company’s online customer interaction platform. In a few simple steps, the online customer service can be set up, beginning with collaboration and re-time collaboration, which allows the customer directly to reach an agent via chat. The next move is to include consumers on every website by constructive guidelines, for example, the “working time.” Pageviews and communications can then be displayed graphically by real-time analysis and reporting. The most interesting last move is definitely to design the logo using the widget designs.

Velaro

Velaro is a live chat software company that offers its customers the best living chat experience. Live chat lets consumers reach the brand’s distribution and support team directly so that Velaro offers all the major resources that the customer needs. It also gives an insight into what the guests do and from what they come to ensure that figures will still refresh the brand. Velaro focuses on Workflow and Routing, in addition to visitor monitoring, allowing the user to locate the correct person at the right time for their issues.

Eudata

Eudata is a hub for customer engagement and supports large corporations in providing value-added services for the customer base. Eudata WCS is the perfect companion for all moments of contact with digital consumers and organizations, from self-help programs to the initiative. Live or continuing contact between business executives and consumers (agents, specialists, or account managers). Organizations can use voice or video on the web or on smartphones to humanize the experience of their customer.

By TechMag

In News

6 Common Business Challenges Solved with Creative Social Media Strategy

March 26, 2021 No Comments

By Kathi Kruse

There are 3.8 billion active social media users. For context, world population is 7.8 billion. So, when nearly half of the world’s population is using social media, it stands to reason that a social media strategy to engage customers is important, right?

It makes one wonder why so many companies skip over social media strategy and focus on tactics. They use the tips, tricks and hacks they learn via how-to articles or free webinars and then wonder why they aren’t getting the results they expected.

Setting goals greatly increases the chance of achieving them, but so many companies jump into social media without determining what their goals should be.

Others bring their goals to the table with wide-eyed enthusiasm but get attached to problematic tactics. When those don’t work, they give up and say, “Social media doesn’t work for us.”

The challenge of making social media perform doesn’t vanish when you give up.

It’s important to remember that the company is on social media (whether you’re participating or not). Conversations happen concerning the company and a growing number of consumers are joining in that conversation, preferring to communicate via social media.

If you’re not engaging with customers in a meaningful way, your competitor will be.

With a well-defined social media strategy, which includes a plan to distinguish your brand/company, things begin to fall into place more readily.

Everyday problems that seemed unfixable suddenly become an afterthought.
There’s no wasting of valuable assets on efforts of little value.
Worthwhile tactics come into focus and begin to pay off.

A real-time example to illustrate how creative social media strategy clears the path for success.

A large company reached out to Kruse Control for help getting traction with a new product via social media. The company leadership was admittedly in the dark about how social media works but they recognized its importance and wanted expert guidance.

Most leaders have a preliminary plan of how their operations need to shift with the launch of a new product. Where things get murky is how best to present the product into the social space, what metrics to track, and how to budget for it.

With all the players in place, including data, we were able to provide them with a social media strategy that delivered the right message, reached the right people at the right time, and exceeded their goals by 35%.

As social media becomes even more complicated, and as skeptical consumers have growing disinterest in run-of-the-mill brands and offers, the need for social media strategy gets more intense.

If you don’t have the expertise in-house to determine actionable goals and integrate a social media strategy that works for you, contact a qualified expert to help remove the guesswork and establish the best course of action…

Creative Social Media Strategy…For The Win!

Here are 6 common business challenges that can be solved with a data-driven, creative social media strategy.

1. Challenge: Weak Brand Awareness

Social media is ideal for reaching a broader audience, however, why you post is central to success. Every post creates an impression in users’ minds.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Steps must be taken to identify what makes the company and its products valuable. Identify internally why people choose you rather than your competitor, then craft content to support that differentiation.

Refrain from promotional sales content when the challenge is strengthening brand awareness. Approach as though you’re meeting users in person for the first time. No one likes to be greeted with a sales pitch so focus on more meaningful content that personifies why customers choose you.

2. Challenge: Slow Sales

Social advertising is one of the most powerful tools to increase sales. By publishing engaging content you lay the groundwork for further engagement. The next natural step is to target would-be buyers with offers.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Facebook’s ads platform is highly adept at identifying and reaching your ideal customers. A successful Facebook Ads strategy has the following components:

Define your target audience.
Choose the right ad placement – Awareness, consideration, conversions.
Strategic ad design is crucial – ads must attract attention and compel buyers to click.
Use landing pages with lead forms to track conversions.
Test and track your campaigns.

3. Challenge: Declining Customer Retention

It costs 5 to 8 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. Social media is excellent for staying in touch with current customers…and it’s fairly cost effective!

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Treat your social channels as communities where like-minded people come to hang out. Appoint a “community manager” or who engages and supports your community by listening and being responsive to questions, needs and concerns.

A good social media relationship with customers improves perceptions and fosters offline relationships.

4. Challenge: Poor Online Reputation

Reviews are insanely influential.

90% of consumers read online reviews.
88% trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
86% will hesitate to purchase from a business that has negative reviews.
Customers are likely to spend 31% more with a business that has positive reviews.
92% will use a local business if it has at least a 4-star rating.

Don’t give online ratings sites the power to control your business. If what’s being said about you doesn’t mirror the true customer experience delivered, take action now to turn things around.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Remove the obstacles that stymie reviews.

Create a review funnel. Systematically drive customers to one conversion funnel that routes them to the review sites you care about.

Automatically ask, remind and guide happy customers through the funnel.
Recover unhappy customers before they vent online.

5. Challenge: Declining or Nonexistent Connection with Customers

We’ve been witnessing a massive shift in what it means to be effective on social media. The pandemic has shaken things up, further driving the wedge between companies and their customers. It’s time to think differently.

The big challenge that companies face is connecting with customers on an individual and personal level. Connecting with customers in meaningful ways humanizes your brand and builds genuine relationships.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Monitor all social media channels and respond authentically (aka: like a human!). Ask questions, provide insights, or offer help with problems.

Note: In the road to the car sale, this strategy is crucial because more and more customers are preferring some or all of the transaction be conducted digitally.

Leverage free or low-cost brand monitoring tools such as Mention, TweetDeck or Social Mention.
Engage with users in the comments on your social media posts.
Invest in more advanced social listening tools such as Keyhole, or Brand24.
Employees are engaging more and more with customers online. Leverage their expertise by using employee engagement tools such as Social Chorus or Dynamic Signal.

6. Challenge: Low Search Visibility

Nearly every buyer starts her or his purchase journey online. Your website is the virtual storefront of your business and not being found in search means fewer customers and decreased revenue.

On Google and Bing, and now Facebook, it’s super important to be visible when people are searching for what you sell.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: To improve search visibility on Google and Bing, focus tactics on publishing links to content that go directly to your website. Although social media is not a ranking factor, it has a link to search engine optimization. These “social signals” will increase a site’s authority, thereby indirectly improving search rankings.

To improve search visibility on Facebook, promote those links with Facebook ads. A well-researched, data driven Facebook Ads strategy is an integral part of your over all social media strategy.

A Facebook page with high engagement shows up in search more prominently and positions your company as a trusted resource.

Take action, improve business with social media strategy.

Today’s challenges must be met with today’s solutions.

Companies must develop a strong foundational social media strategy to meet customers where they are and help them buy.

If you would like advice or help with creating your company’s social media strategy, please reach out to me here. I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.

By Kathi Kruse

Sourced from Kruse Control Inc.

In News

You Need to Start Converting Your Social Media Followers Now. Here’s How.

March 23, 2021 No Comments

By Sophie Bowman

If you want your business to thrive rather than merely survive 2021 and beyond, seize the spotlight you have.

Social media followers are cool and all, but if you’re not converting those fans to customers, your efforts and investments are futile. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that the world can, and will, change overnight. So, if you want your business to thrive rather than merely survive 2021 and beyond, you have to be prepared for the worst to happen.

Imagine if TikTok had been banned in the U.S. last year as nearly happened? A lot of people would have lost these leads. What if the same threat looms over us for Instagram or other platforms in 2021? If you don’t want to be caught with your proverbial pants down, you need to start converting your followers to customers now.

Why, though?

Unless you purchased fake followers, most of your social media fans like your products or services, making them hot leads. Failure to implement a strategy to convert these fans to customers means you are missing out on sales that are there for the taking.

An increasing number of individuals and organizations have lost their Instagram accounts to hackers, unable to ever re-access their former accounts. What happens to all of those followers if you weren’t already converting them to customers? They are lost forever, and all the time and energy you invested in building your online presence is flushed down the drain.

The how

Most brands only pay attention to their post-engagement analytics. Yes, likes and comments per post are important so that you can adapt your content strategy accordingly, but what if your account gets hacked tonight? Kiss those leads you had on ice, waiting to be reeled in like little fishes on a hook goodbye. Read on to discover how to convert fans to customers.

1. Activate email subscription. Most site visitors will not subscribe to your emails unless there’s something in it for them. Entice visitors to share their information with you by offering limited-time discount codes, giveaway entry or free ebook downloads in return for their information. Offering 20-40% off a visitor’s first purchase from you is one of the most effective ways to push newbies across the finish line of your sales funnel. To get ahead of the competition, you have to cut through the online noise by offering consumers value for money over competitors. That’s the holy grail of influencing purchasing decisions.

2. Retarget, retarget, retarget! I know you’re busy and overwhelmed, but another essential step in successful conversion is retargeting those who share their information with you. It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many social media users, including some of the biggest powerhouse brands in the world, are culprits of dropping the ball at this level of marketing Jumanji.

Your email-subscription set-up should be connected to the email platform of your choice, whether that be a basic MailChimp account or a more advanced platform, so that all of your new contacts are automatically added to your email database. The more advanced your platform, the easier it will make your life, as a lot of the actions, such as segmenting, are automated. (The importance of email segmentation is a separate topic for another day.) An email database you don’t utilize is as pointless as social media fans you’re not converting. Aim to send out at least one email per month to your contacts, preferably with special offers or new products or services rather than just company news (which everyone deletes).

Case in point….

Here’s a quick summary of a case study for you. The year is 2019, and the biggest concern for brands was probably the rumours about Instagram potentially being shut down and disappearing over night. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, but we were hit with a global pandemic that no one was prepared for either.

Anyway, with the Instagram rumours in full swing, I reached out to a fashion powerhouse brand to collaborate on a giveaway with a prominent entrepreneur I was working with at the time. The result? Nearly 1,000 emails within 24 hours, and a 23% increase in sales within three weeks as I retargeted these leads via weekly email marketing.

If that doesn’t demonstrate how valuable converting your fans to customers is, then I can’t help you.

Feature Image Credit: Witthaya Prasongsin | Getty Images

By Sophie Bowman

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

TalkShopLive CEO: Retailers don’t want to be dependent on one social platform

AI Is Fueling A $100 Billion Boom In Social Commerce

5X: The five seismic shifts that will reshape communications and marketing over the next five years

What You Need to Know About the TikTok Creator Rewards Program

The Personality is Eoin Wrixon and his role is CEO of Packed.House and Wide Eye Media

Adrian Serle, Former CEO of Communicorp speaks to Mediastreet on his thoughts and experience in the Irish Radio market

Grace Aungier – Queen of Magazines

Social Media

What is Facebook launching?

Why should marketers care?

By John Glenday

Sourced from The Drum

What are social media analytics?

Best Free and Paid Social Media Analytics Tools

Analytics Tools Provided by the Social Networks

1. Zoho Social

2. Hootsuite

3. Buffer Analyze

4. Sprout Social

5. Studiorific

6. Sendible

7. Keyhole

8. Rival IQ

9. Social Report

10. Planable

11. Loomly

12. Sociamonials

13. Agile CRM

14. Cyfe

6 Analytics Tools Provided by the Social Networks

Facebook Insights

Instagram Insights

LinkedIn Analytics

Pinterest Analytics

Twitter Analytics

YouTube Analytics

What should small businesses look for in social analytics tools?

By Samson Haileyesus

Sourced from Small Business Trends

By Lisa Montenegro

Sourced from Forbes

A new ad product could help unlock a valuable new revenue stream for the social media giant.

Dynamic ads for streaming

An old idea

Should you invest $1,000 in Facebook, Inc. right now?

By Jeremy Bowman

Sourced from The Motley Fool

By Ted Rubin

Sourced from Ted Rubin Straight Talk

How to Use YouTube to Market Your Business

Start a YouTube Channel

Pick a Topic

Set Up a Filming Space

Get Filming Equipment

Get Video Editing Software

Get Comfortable on Camera

Work with YouTube Influencers

Make A List of Relevant Influencers

Costs of Paying for Mentions

Measure ROI Before Spending a Ton

Getting into Advertising on YouTube

The Video Ads

Different Types of Video Ads

Tying it all Together

By Bob Buckley

Sourced from readwrite

In this article, we discuss an effective strategy to help you find trending, high-quality hashtags for your social media networking, and we also talk about why trending hashtags are important.

Why Hashtags Are Important

Why Trending Hashtags Are Important

Are All Trending Hashtags Good for Your Business?

How to Know Which Trending Hashtags to Use

Understand your audience

Understand your rivals

Understand the industry leaders

Use Related Hashtags

Look on the Explore Page on Instagram

Follow your favourite hashtags

Quality over Quantity

Task Ant for Finding Trending Hashtags

Final Thoughts

By Prestige Media

Sourced from INFLUENCIVE

What are Consumer Engagement Platforms?

Best Consumer Engagement Platforms

Bold360

Avaya

1Q