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How to Leverage Paid Social Media With Retargeting

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By Amanda Robinson.

The more people engage with your ad and post, the more likely it is to be seen by people outside your target audience.

The following excerpt is from Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing by Eric Butow, Jenn Herman, Stephanie Liu, Amanda Robinson and Mike Allton, available now via Entrepreneur Press. Order from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books.

Boosting your Facebook Advertising efforts is an investment you might want to consider if social media marketing is a big part of your overall marketing strategy.

When you decide to advertise with Facebook, you can either create a new ad or use a status update you’ve already shared.

The ad fee structure is similar to Google in that you can set a daily budget, but you don’t set a bid per click. Instead, Facebook will begin showing your ads; the more interest people show, the less per click you’ll be charged. So it’s in everyone’s best interests to create Facebook ad posts that are interesting and compelling.

In addition to driving traffic, you can use Facebook ads for brand awareness and simply pay for engagement — in other words, likes, comments and shares. The more people engage with your ad and post, the more likely it is to be seen by people outside your target audience.

Unlike Google search ads, which are 100 percent text, Facebook ads can be links, images or even video. You can use a single image or a carousel of images. You can even upload multiple images and let Facebook test which one resonates best with your audience.

You can also set up a remarketing pixel (a snippet of code installed on your website) so that Facebook can track users who have been to your site and allow you to “remarket” to them with an ad specifically targeting them.

Here’s how remarketing works. Once you have a Facebook pixel installed on your site and are driving targeted traffic using Google Ads (and, of course, other means), you are equipped to amplify the illusion of frequency.

With a pixel in place, you can now create Facebook ads targeting people who have visited your site, or even specific pages or posts within your site. This is referred to as retargeting or remarketing.

You’ve doubtless experienced this yourself. Spend a couple of minutes looking at cars on an automotive site, and suddenly every site you go to is displaying ads for that brand of car. Because you showed interest in a brand or product by visiting their site, advertisers smartly wish to capitalize on that interest and keep themselves top of mind.

You can now do exactly the same thing!

When your Google ads effectively capture someone as they’re searching for you or information you have published, they register as a visitor with the Facebook pixel. If Facebook recognizes them as a user and you are running a remarketing campaign that includes someone like them, you can layer brand-awareness or added-benefit advertising on Facebook or Instagram, which will potentially be seen by someone who was already demonstrating search intent and is familiar with your brand. This is extraordinarily powerful and effective.

Couple this technique with problem-solving content, and you now have a means to reach people who you know have an issue and may need help to solve it. That help might include:

  • How-to guides.
  • Answers to frequently asked questions.
  • Case studies.

Let’s say you’re a local attorney specializing in family law. You can write a series of blog posts that answer common questions about divorce, child custody, estate planning and so on, and then use Google Ads to help people who are searching for those answers find your content. You can then place Facebook ads that encourage those people to call you for more information and assistance.

Or let’s imagine you own a wedding dress shop. Same scenario: Create content that answers common questions brides have about their special day, use Google Ads to drive intentional traffic, and then leverage Facebook to make sure those brides know about your gorgeous dresses by placing ads showcasing your latest offerings and retargeting your website traffic.

Whatever products or services you have to offer, this technique can be implemented, tested, refined and then scaled up.

Feature Image Credit: Image credit: Kornburut Woradee | EyeEm | Getty Images

By Amanda Robinson.

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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How can marketing change the world for the better?

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By Jenni Baker.

Does marketing have the power to change the world? The year 2020 has forced us all to redress the net result of the industrial revolution, which spurred mass consumption and throw-away consumerism. So, can our industry – with the abundance of talent, skill and creativity- champion for a better future for all?

The Drum and Facebook have partnered to bring together teams from brands and agencies across the globe to provide some answers to this very challenging question. The idea is to get together experts from the industry to find solutions to business and societal challenges to help create value for the people and the communities it impacts.

The creative brief

Uniting three markets under the theme of ‘stakeholder capitalism’ – with attention to inclusion and diversity – three separate teams in North America, EMEA and APAC were put together to answer the brief that involves a rethink of how small-to-medium size enterprises (SMEs) that are run by minorities operate, and how as an industry we can help create more resilient businesses especially in these unprecedented times.

Each of the three regions were given three separate briefs – The US (North America) team’s brief is to focus on women run SMEs. So how to overcome systemic social and financial challenges while starting and sustaining female-led businesses? Do they need to approach entrepreneurship differently?

For the London, UK (EMEA) team the theme was immigrant-led small business. Are immigrant-owned businesses the untapped potential? What are the challenges and opportunities of migrant founders and their businesses?

The theme for the APAC team is silver start-ups. A growing number of over-65s are now delaying retirement by starting their own firm, fueling a ‘grey business’ boom. What are their challenges, can we identify the most pertinent ones and solve those problems?

The first meet-up

Each of the teams kicked off their first virtual brainstorm session to find a campaign solution that would positively impact the lives of minority groups operating in the SME market. Each of the teams were also given mentors to help guide through the process.

Following is the list of the three teams:

Team US

  • Tom Spaven, brand director, Bombay Sapphire, North America (mentor)
  • Stephanie Walker, innovation marketing manager, Pepsico
  • Cassie Begalle, strategy and innovation brand Manager – U by Kotex, Kimberly-Clark
  • Iyanni Callender, junior art director, Strawberry Frog
  • Paola Ortega, associate strategy director, DDB Chicago
  • Michael Rodriguez, content strategist, 3 Leches Creative

Team UK

  • Arjoon Bose, marketing head- culture & brand experience (Europe-Australasia), General Mills (mentor)
  • Andre Campbell, partnerships lead, Mercedes-Benz
  • Fatima Diez, head of marketing, MunchFit
  • Shannie Mears, co-founder & talent chief, The Elephant Room
  • Jade Nodinot, former creative associate, BlackBook London
  • Emma Luxton, former senior account executive, Avantgarde London

Team APAC

  • Erica Kerner, SVP, marketing strategy & partnerships, ONE Championship (mentor)
  • Triveni Rajagopal, global digital director, skin cleansing and BPC, Unilever
  • Chandini Malla, senior manager, Diageo
  • Bryan Martin, social media executive, Reprise Digital
  • Adrianne Pan, planner, Havas Singapore

Team US: A fact-finding mission

Gender equality is at risk of being set back decades in the current climate – not just minorities in general, but especially women in it. In the US, the focus is on women-owned SMEs, looking at how female-led businesses can overcome systemic social and financial challenges, as well as addressing the different approaches that this cohort might have to entrepreneurship in order to succeed.

One such challenge was posed by keynote speaker Victoria Monsul Singolda, owner and creative director of Iris & Virgil, who discussed that though it might be true that for women-led businesses, their vulnerabilities as women and as small business owners are compounded, there needs to be a gender-smart approach because not all women-led businesses are the same.

“I never really thought of myself as a female business owner, I’m just a business owner. Maybe because my mother was very dominant in the household, she was a student, she was a business owner, she was a mum, we always saw her, we were always together. Maybe that’s why I never thought that there was something different or special being a girl.”

Headed up by mentor Tom Spaven from Bombay Sapphire, the team immediately honed into “resilience” and “impact” as the insights towards this gender-smart approach.

The team delved into discussions to align on common goals and objectives. The first step was to focus on the challenges in order to find the most creative solution – with three key take-aways that these women are lacking: Knowledge and resources to tap into; a community to help them venture into this new world; and platforms available to really share and have people learn more about.

The team then decided that the initial insight-led approach would begin with a fact-finding mission to assess the situation and the scale of the problem that the campaign needed to solve; followed by the consumer insight to understand the deep motivations and needs of the target to ultimately give the barrier they need to start to push against in order to solve the problem; and finally, culture listening around this topic – all of which would help to get a clear, sharpened brief about the real problem they are trying to solve.

Team EMEA: Move from ‘pivot to evolve’

On the other side of the Atlantic, Team EMEA, led by mentor Arjoon Bose from General Mills, tackled the untapped potential of ethnic minority and immigrant-owned founders, their challenges and opportunities.

“The last few months have been testing and I think we’ve all come up with a ton of learning. But I think we’re at that stage right now where we’re needing to move from pivot to evolve,” said Bose. “A growth mindset is what we’re going to have to need as we come out of this and prepare to get stronger and accelerate.”

After hearing from keynote speakers Sharon Jandu, director, Yorkshire Asian Business Association and director, Northern Asian Power List; and Steph Douglas, founder, Don’t Buy Her Flowers, it was clear that a heavy emphasis on networking, relationships and experiences, along with access to digital technologies, were key in bringing this community together.

“For an SME, they are so busy doing what they do that they don’t have the time or the capacity to think about what they can do – or they don’t have the networks to enable them to get the contacts to get investments or to get ideas. They are constantly running on a treadmill, trying to do and keep what they are doing alive. How can we stop them becoming so absorbed in their business that they can actually distance themselves and look at it from an aerial perspective?” asked Jandu.

The team identified the need to listen and learn directly from migrant-led business owners themselves to understand their experience, their struggles and challenges with direct feedback through focus groups and on-the-ground research. This would allow them to narrow down into one or two sectors that need the drive and support. They identified Facebook’s own small business community as a great place to start to create a questionnaire in order to gain invaluable insights to help shape their strategy.

“The opportunity that digital gives us to connect these immigrant-owned businesses with each other and provide each other with their own experience and their own knowledge can be a very valuable thing that we could leverage if it’s relevant to their challenge,” said Fatima Diez.

Team APAC: Reinventing and re-energising culture

With a growing number of over 65s now delaying retirement and fuelling a ‘grey business’ boom, the focus for Team APAC was on overcoming the challenges faced by the silver start-ups, particularly when it comes to navigating through the coronavirus pandemic.

Mentored by Erica Kerner from ONE Championship, the team was presented with a keynote talk by Jeremy Nguee, founder, Preparazzi Gourmet Catering; Batu Lesung Spice Company; who helped his mother set up Mrs. Kueh, a local sweet treat business. They touched upon some of the unique experiences and challenges of their business that they ran from home.

Hoping to learn from this experience and translate these lessons to help support silver entrepreneurs and home-based businesses through his volunteering role in the Hawkers United Facebook community, Nguee said: “I think this is going to be a very, very big market. There are a lot more home-based businesses coming up because of high unemployment in the market.”

Inspired by the talk, the team decided to focus on Singapore food culture and food service industry run by silver entrepreneurs, that has an international dimension throughout much of its history but continues to retain features firmly rooted in the locality so that the global and local are not always distinct. The team wanted to understand the different segments of businesses and the landscape in which they were working in.

“The complexities of Asia, the complexities of the segment, the types of digital, could become such a beast,” says Kerner. “My instinct is to start with the data. Starting a business now, no matter what your age is a challenge and a lot of small businesses are obviously struggling to survive. We’ve got a lot of things to think about. What aspect of this do we want to try to unbuckle?” asked Kerner. “In Singapore we are losing a lot of that Hawker culture and if we can find a way to re energise it, and bring more people back into it, it’s good for all of Singapore culture.”

The next steps

Over the upcoming weeks, the teams will continue to work on their campaign and then subsequently present the big idea for solving that problem.

The final ideas will be entered in The Drum Social Purpose Awards.

The Drum consulting editor, Sonoo Singh, said: I’m inspired to see the true power of marketing when used to promote issues that are critical to our societies, persuade a change in behaviours, and influence a positive shift in behavior that would benefit our environment. Having been involved with all the teams, I cannot wait to see the final outcome of this very challenging brief.”

By Jenni Baker

Sourced from The Drum

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To Pay for Social Media Advertising Or Not When, Why, Why Not, How!

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Sourced from B&T Magazine.

Nicola Moras (main photo) is an online visibility expert and author of Into The Spotlight, a guide to help you step up your online visibility, become a rock star in your industry and make your business thrive. In this guest post, Moras takes a look at the pros and cons of paid social media advertising…

To the uninitiated social media advertising can have the allure like that of the holy grail to Indiana Jones. Whilst the adventure may not be quite the same, put a foot wrong and BOOM! You end up falling into the abyss of closed ad accounts, pages shut down and worse – you could lose all the equity you’ve spent time building up on your pages.

I’ve heard the cries time and time again: “Social media advertising doesn’t work” and “We did an ads campaign and we got nothing from it”. The fact of the matter is this: most people who try to advertise on social media fail dismally – not because the advertising doesn’t work, but because the strategy they’re using quite frankly, sucks.

It’s tough to know what to do. We’ve all heard the success stories from using social media advertising, so why does success seem so elusive? We’re badgered by the platforms to ‘Boost to reach more people’ and to ‘advertise to reach more people’. There’s the prompts that tell you that ‘this post is getting more engagement than usual. Boost to reach even more’. Phew. No wonder everyone’s confused. Throw into the mix the adverts managers, the placements, the targeting, the creative options and what platform to choose.

Overwhelmed yet? You’re in good company. The good news is that there is a simple way to navigate it to ensure that should you choose to spend your hard earned dollars on advertising on social media, you’re going to get a return. (Otherwise don’t do it!)

1. When should you pay to advertise?

There is a golden rule to advertising on social media and that is this: Only advertise when you are generating leads and or sales. Generating a lead means obtaining a name and email address from someone. You can then stay in contact with them through your email marketing. A lead is not a ‘like’ or a ‘follow’.

The only other instance that you should pay to advertise on social media is if you are wanting to actively promote something that you are selling. For instance your event, product, program or a service.

If you are not wanting to do either of the above, then you should not be paying for advertising!

2. Why would you?

Facebook is the best social media advertising platform available to us right now. The platform has the biggest volume of users sitting at 2.45Billion monthly active users. Half of those are active daily and on mobile devices. You have the most targetable audience online sitting there in Facebook daily. Your people are on Facebook. It doesn’t matter what you’re offering, what you’re selling, what business you’re in. Your people ARE on Facebook. They may well not be on there using it the way you are. They may be using it to stay in touch with

their families, check up on what their children are doing. They may even be using it for work.

When people are on social media, their guards are down and they are more likely to be inspired by your content, your marketing and your advertising than on any other medium available to us right now.

3. But how do you do it?

Firstly, you have to know who your audience is and you need to identify a problem of theirs that you can solve. You will create something of value that you can give to them for free in exchange for their name and email address. You’ll then email it to them! (All of this should be automated, by the way!).

When you know who they are and the free item (digital ideally) you’re going to give to them, it’s time to head into the Ads Manager. Do not ‘boost’ a post from your page. You always want to use the Ads Manager facility within the platform. You can test, measure and fine tune within the ads manager. It’s very difficult to do it should you choose to create an ads campaign any other way.

From there, you’ll choose your audience targeting (you can be very specific), your creative and hit SUBMIT! Test and measure for a short period of time. A couple of days should be enough to see the leads starting to flow.

Social media advertising is the best it’s ever been…when you have the right strategy behind you.

Sourced from B&T Magazine

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What Brands Need to Know About Marketing on Social Media, Amazon and Google Shopping

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By Madeleine Streets

For most of 2020, brand marketing has been a critical way for companies to connect with their consumer and try to preserve their loyalty. But these direct communications mostly focus on existing customers or those familiar with the brand; shoppers must have already opted into email or SMS updates, or visited the brand’s site. In order to reach new customers, brands must explore shared locations like marketplaces or social media.

“Reaching shoppers on external platforms is critical because it’s your way to introduce them to your brand on their turf, rather than your turf,” said Kevin Dugan, VP of agency services at performance marketing agency DMi Partners. “As someone is browsing Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, they are actively engaged with the content and if you meet them with the correct messaging and tone, it’s a powerful way to bring your products into their world.”

Unlike other segments, retail has been given designated advertising spaces within these platforms – think the Instagram “shop now” function or Google Shopping – and this ensures fertile ground for marketing initiatives. But while these platforms aren’t new or unknown to brands, effective strategies for social media, Google and e-commerce marketplaces each require tailored approaches.

For one, competition on these platforms is tough and can come at a high price; smaller businesses that need the exposure may be the same ones that are unable to afford to market their product extensively. Moreover, the saturated space means that effective advertisements need to stand out and resonate with the right audience, in order to generate real benefit for the brand.

“The way that these platforms have evolved over the last couple of years, there’s a lot more levers to pull around targeting that didn’t exist before,” said Mike Farrell, senior director of integrated digital strategy at marketing platform Sidecar. “A thoughtful targeting strategy would allow retailers to take that limited budget that they might have and really focus it in on the highest value customers that they’re going after.”

Platforms like Sidecar are specifically focused on creating marketing for these external platforms due to their specific requirements and data-rich nature. These function as a double-edged sword: With the right support, a company can tailor its marketing to each audience and reap rewards; without the ability to leverage data and optimize strategy accordingly, brands are likely to find their messages lost amongst the competition.

Then there’s the diversity of campaigns needed within each platform. DMi Partners’ Dugan warns against brands just setting a few generic social ads live and expecting traffic to roll in. Instead, he argued the importance of identifying different consumer groups based on their experience-level with the brand.

“We are always advocating for subtle differences in messaging depending on the audience we’re reaching on these channels,” said Dugan. “We suggest at least having top of funnel social ads, for your behavioural and interest targeting; bottom of funnel ads, for your retargeting audiences; and winback ads, for your custom audience of past customers.”

From a content perspective, marketing should consider the platform it’s on. Social media sites are well-suited to discovery and brand storytelling, although Dugan highlights the opportunity of Facebook Shops for a more direct-conversion experience. Google Shopping and Amazon are the most purchase-driven; clear product imagery and information performs well for shoppers who are ready to buy.

Farrell recommends that brands use their marketing to spotlight their best performing styles but in colourways that perhaps aren’t as popular; this evokes familiarity and novelty simultaneously. As a result, brands might be able to reduce the common diminishing of sales that occurs once the preferred shades sell out and also optimize inventory, which is a challenging area for many companies right now.

Feature Image Credit: URUPONG – ADOBE STOCK

By Madeleine Streets

Sourced from FN

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Two-thirds of consumers will continue using social media to the same extent post-lockdown

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Sourced from The Drum

A report published by Influencer and GlobalWebIndex has found that two thirds of consumers think they will use social media to the same extent once restrictions are lifted. This comes as the report also finds that 72% of consumers who follow influencers in the U.S. and the UK say they’re spending more time on social media per day since the outbreak of coronavirus.

The news proves that the coronavirus outbreak has shifted the social media landscape in a potentially permanent way. The trends that the marketing industry has seen in recent months are set to have long lasting impacts, with consumers suggesting that their interaction with influencers is here to stay.

The report from Influencer offers custom research on influencer marketing alongside existing research on the coronavirus to dig into the impact the outbreak has had on consumers’ behaviors. The survey taken in May 2020, defined their audience as internet users who say they follow content creators/influencers on social media. This definition rendered a sample of 1,056 (UK) and 1,038 (U.S.) internet users aged 16-64.

The goal of the report was to unearth the effect that coronavirus has had on influencer marketing and consumer behaviours, as well as consumer relationships to content creators. This report is being used as a guide post for brands concerned with how to successfully work with creators moving forward.

Influencer’s findings proved that consumer media use has increased over the coronavirus period, largely because people have been restricted from doing their normal day-to-day activities. The report confirmed that content consumption has risen, showing that 72% of consumers who follow influencers in the U.S. and the UK say they’re spending more time on social media per day since the outbreak of coronavirus.

Gen Z already use social media at high levels, however, the research by Influencer has shown that this has increased to 84%. It was found to be only a little lower for baby boomers at 68%, showing that time spent on social media has increased across all age groups. People are using social media at higher levels across the board, and crucially, they see this as something that they will continue to do.

One of the key findings of the report was that two-thirds of consumers who follow influencers say they’re likely to continue using social media to the same extent once restrictions are lifted. The report showed that baby boomers are more inclined to say they’re likely to continue using social media to the same extent than Gen Z; 69% of boomers say this compared to 57% of Gen Z.

The findings have proven that social media use is at an all time high, and this high is set to continue into 2020 and beyond. Consumer perceptions of social media are shifting, as more people become comfortable with consuming content on social platforms.

Read the full report here: The Age of Influence: How COVID-19 has propelled brands into the era of influencer marketing

Sourced from The Drum

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Content and Content Marketing Are Not the Same. Here’s How to Frame the Top 11 Content Formats.

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By Julia McCoy.

The term ‘content marketing’ is getting thrown around a lot, but discerning marketers know what’s going on: A lot of things getting labelled as content marketing are anything but.

On the internet, content is anything that expresses thoughts, information or experiences through written, visual, or audio form.

This article is content. The 95 million photos uploaded to Instagram today are content. The 500 hours’ worth of videos uploaded to YouTube in the last 60 seconds are all content.

The internet is built with content and always has been. It also means everyone has content, and everyone creates it all the time.

That creates some confusion when it comes to content versus content marketing. A lot of content is intended to market a brand … but that doesn’t mean the brand does content marketing.

Here’s why.

What does content marketing really look like?

Content marketing is a strategic approach to marketing that emphasizes the creation and delivery of valuable content to attract, retain and convert a clearly defined audience.

In other words, it’s using content strategically to provide solutions to problems that either your business or your readers have. Great examples abound:

  • The fitness brand that creates a community and encourages its subscribers to share knowledge.
  • The home décor retailer that distributes a monthly magazine on minimalism and good housekeeping practices.
  • The SaaS platform that uses gamification to encourage users to discover and get to know its features.
  • The travel company that uses a thrilling interactive website to hint at the experiences it offers.
  • The health supplement site that publishes a vegan recipe blog.

Do you see a difference? All of these efforts position you as an authority in your industry, demonstrate your expertise in your topic over the long run and cultivate trust in your audience by putting their needs and interests first.

How to tell if you’re doing it right

You’re doing content marketing (and not just content creation or digital marketing) if your content:

  • Puts your audience first. Be customer-focused, not company-focused. You’re delivering helpful, valuable content and letting the customer decide when they trust you enough to buy from you.
  • Links back to a business goal or solution to a problem. You’ve laid out how your content works together to further your business goals.
  • Rarely, if ever, actively promotes your brand outright. CTAs are great, but you aren’t trying to push your readers to your solutions.
  • Attracts readers to your turf. You’re building authority by providing readers with a destination to which they can keep returning.
  • Gets published consistently and continuously. You’re building trust by proving you’re an expert in the matter over time rather than publishing one-offs.
  • Uses metrics to measure and optimize. You can identify what’s performing well, and where you need to improve based on data.

To master content marketing, you must master these 11 content types.

High-performing content is central to your content marketing, but the way you craft it can make or break your strategy. It’s not enough to simply create eBooks, blogs and catchy social media that provide helpful information … that’s still biased toward your brand.

People are catching on to even that now.

Yet, with all the content creation that you will still do, it can be easy to lose your focus. Here’s an overview of how to use the eleven main types of content in content marketing:

  1. Blogs. Make sure they’re optimized for SEO because they’re one of the best ways to boost your page ranks. Include a CTA and consider opening up comments for further engagement.
  2. Case studies. Illustrate your expertise by taking your readers on a journey that showcases solutions to their pain points.
  3. eBooks. They make great lead magnets, especially when you craft a magnetizing title and supply information people can’t find elsewhere.
  4. Emails. Write direct, powerful, concise copy that contains information that can change your readers’ lives. They’re a direct line to your audience and can build long-lasting relationships when done well.
  5. Headlines. Powerful, compelling headlines (that don’t sound spammy!) let your readers know exactly what they’re getting. They’re also a great way to convey brand with language.
  6. Meta titles and descriptions. Put yourself in your readers’ shoes and let them know you have the answers they’re searching for right now.
  7. Product descriptions. Optimize with keywords and describe products in terms of benefits rather than features.
  8. Social media posts. Create an experience that puts them at the center and encourages engagement. This helps your audience connect with your brand emotionally and can help you find their pain points.
  9. Video scripts. Tell your brand’s story engagingly. You can also include the script text on the page to make your content more accessible, and boost SEO.
  10. Web content. Make important or helpful information prominent, include a clear CTA, and use high-quality images to craft a powerful message.
  11. White papers. Explore relevant topics in-depth and give your target audience ideas that they can apply to their own problems or daily life.

Content making content marketing work: an example

By now, I hope I’ve demonstrated how content creation is intrinsic to content marketing. However, just because you’re creating content, it doesn’t mean you’re doing content marketing.

I want to drive things home with an example.

Let’s say that we’re growing an athletic clothing brand and looking for ways to attract more customers to our e-commerce site. We’ve decided to turn to content marketing for help. It might look like this:

1. You want to increase your brand’s presence on Google and social media, but you don’t want to constantly annoy your readers with ads. How else can you get your brand in front of your readers?

You decide that the best way forward is to start a blog full of topics that interest your readers. A few things that come to mind include clean eating, exercising at home, and personal empowerment. You can also talk about clothes, of course, but your models can all wear your brand, which eliminates the need for more direct advertising.

2. You start your blog, set up your social media and let your following know about it.

Engagement metrics indicate that readers are most excited about exercising at home. Looking through their comments, you notice that things like staying focused, finding the right space, and keeping a schedule are all major pain points that they have.

3. You respond by creating an online guide to exercising at home.

You use a combination of eBooks chock-full of challenges that are available as lead magnets, and video tutorials for exercises hosted on your site. To demonstrate how popular your guides are, you create a way for users to record their progress and encourage each other.

4. To maintain engagement, you start up an email newsletter with the latest challenges, shoutouts for people who have achieved their goals and occasionally a promo here or there.

Throughout this, you continue to grow your online community, adding more content to your blog that addresses questions or pain points. You even start a hashtag that your followers can use to highlight their fitness efforts so that they can spread the word about you.

5. At some point, you realize that you can enrich your readers’ experience with case studies and white papers.

You begin to include “white papers” about health and fitness that are relevant to your target audience. You also start to create case studies of “success stories” from your community.

6. As fitness centers start to notice what you’re doing, you start getting offers for sponsored classes and requests to sell your brand in their shops.

Your content marketing is now extending your brand’s reach into the offline world. You’ll continue all of the efforts above, as the results are feeding further content production.

Can you spot all eleven content types above? Look carefully. They’re here.

(Bonus: Do you know what brand I just described? Spoiler: This is Athleta’s content marketing strategy. Check it out at https://events.athleta.com/)

Now you know the difference between content and content marketing in 2020.

The main difference between content versus content marketing? Content marketing involves a lot more than just content creation. In fact, the emphasis isn’t content creation at all, but crafting an experience that improves the lives of your readers. If you’re putting your readers first, addressing pain points and producing exceptional quality content consistently, then you’ll grow your brand while you cultivate authority and trust. That’s content marketing.

Hopefully, I’ve left you with an idea or two about your content marketing strategy. Now, go forth and convert that target audience into passionate fans.

Feature Image Credit: sunanman | Getty Images

By Julia McCoy

Sourced from Entrepreneur

 

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3 Proven Strategies for Rapid Customer Acquisition on Social

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By Carol Sankar.

Although social media is a powerful way to get your products or services to stand out from the competition, all campaigns are not the same.

Social media can be a powerful tool for getting your products or services to stand out from the competition. But not all campaigns are created equal. While some do a great job of acquiring customers, others seem to fly entirely under the radar.

So what makes the difference? A major factor simply comes from the way account managers set up their social media campaigns. As important as witty copy and engaging images can be, they will only be as effective as your strategy allows them to be.

1. Build up your organic engagement.

Paid campaigns have become increasingly important in light of declining organic reach across Facebook and other social media platforms. But this doesn’t mean you should ignore ways to expand your reach with organic posts. While paid campaigns may help your target audience discover your brand, your organic posts are essential for keeping them engaged in the long run.

Case in point: Instagram Stories have become one of the most popular types of social media posts, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z-ers. In fact, studies have found that one-fourth of these users use Instagram Stories to discover new products and services. This organic posting method could be key in helping your brand gain new customers.

Research from Buffer indicates that brands can post twice per day on Facebook, and up to three times a day on Twitter before audience engagement starts to decrease. Rather than overwhelming your audience with a large number of posts, the key is to create highly engaging content and post it at the right times.

For best results, use your audience insights to get a clear idea of which types of posts most resonate with your customers. Digging into profile data specific to your audience will help you identify which content to prioritize for the future.

2. Reduce the number of campaigns you are actively running.

More campaigns aren’t necessarily a good thing on social media — especially if you are operating on a tight budget. Some campaigns end up targeting the same individuals over and over again, resulting in ad fatigue that reduces their effectiveness.

Research from KlientBoost has determined that most brands should run a maximum of three or four campaigns, with each campaign focused on groups in different parts of the sales funnel. In its case study, the single action of taking a client from six campaigns with 24 ad sets to four campaigns with nine ad sets led to a 40 percent increase in revenue and 20 percent more ad clicks.

Too many ad sets will spread your social media spending too thin to have a meaningful impact. Reducing your campaigns and ad sets allocates more of your budget to each campaign so they can achieve a wider reach with the intended audience.

Fewer campaigns will require less time to track, making it easier to identify whether they are performing as expected.

3. Increase the power of retargeting campaigns with Automatic Advanced Matching and Dynamic Ads.

A Little Data study of more than 1,100 e-commerce stores found that the average conversion rate sat at a mere 1.4 percent. This low conversion rate relates to a fundamental marketing truth: Customers will rarely make a purchase the first time they engage with your brand.

Because of this, your ability to successful retarget customers through your social media campaigns can serve as a powerful reminding tool that guides them through the rest of the sales funnel.

Facebook’s Automatic Advanced Matching links with its pixel tool to collect additional information from form fields on your website — even email signups or landing page forms. It leverages this information to create bigger and more accurate custom audiences, while also helping you improve campaign conversion rates.

When paired with Dynamic Ads, this tool can be even more powerful. Perfect for e-commerce sellers, these ads deliver personalized content based on the products a customer was looking at while browsing your site. This serves as a helpful reminder of the products they’ve looked at, or it can highlight similar products that they are likely to be interested in.

As just one example, a 2019 Aeropostale campaign using dynamic ads helped the company double its conversion rate and achieve 3.7 times as much revenue as the prior holiday season.

While these tactics can streamline your social media efforts, this doesn’t mean you can let social become a “set it and forget it” part of your marketing. By continuing to analyze your outcomes, introduce new campaigns, and make adjustments based on your audience’s engagement levels, you can continue fine-tuning your social media marketing to grow even more.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Carol Sankar

Carol Sankar is a high-level business consultant and the founder of The Confidence Factor for Women in Leadership–a global executive leadership firm focused on diversity and inclusion initiatives for high-achieving women. Sankar has been featured in TEDx, the Steve Harvey show, the Inc. Women’s Summit, the Society for Human Resource Management, and more.

Soured from Inc.

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Not Your Mother’s Marketing: 5 Ways Social Media Changed Marketing Forever

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By Molly Townley.

The marketing landscape has been in a constant state of change for decades – from print ads and billboards to radio, television, and then moving online to digital marketing. It seemed like all there was to say had already been said, and then – social media popped up on the scene.

It didn’t take long for marketers to realize its huge potential. These platforms reached millions, and connected everyone to…well, everyone. Anything you had to say was visible, available, accessible, and sharable to everyone else in a matter of seconds. Then came the true marketing revolution.

Here are 5 ways social media changed marketing forever.

  1. A wider reach than ever before

There are 3.8 billion users on social media, according to recent statistics. That means 3.8 billion people that one can potentially reach through social media marketing.

Never before have brands been able to capture an audience this size, or their audience’s attention for as long as they can now. Marketing used to be limited to opportunities for it – ads in a magazine, on a billboard, on TV, in-person sales pitches – and the limited amount of customers were exposed to it sporadically, only under certain circumstances.

Nowadays, social media practically allows for non-stop marketing, all day, all the time. According to statistics, people spend, on average, just over 2 hours on social media every single day. That’s 2 full hours that marketers have a user’s attention throughout the day. Imagine how many TV ads a viewer would have to watch to achieve the same kind of impact.

The marketing never stops because it’s always there, with every use, and regardless of platform. Whether it’s a post on Facebook, an image on Instagram, or video ads on YouTube, marketers can reach their huge audience at any point, and on any platform.

  1. Unique opportunities for engagement

The most effective way to get someone’s attention and create an emotional response to your brand is to engage with your audience. Since the advent of social media, it’s easier than ever before to connect with customers and followers.

The more you engage with your audience, the more you can grow user engagement on your page. That is going to achieve a couple of things. First, it establishes a degree of relatability that people enjoy in a brand. It allows them to form an emotional connection to a company and its marketing, which in turn, creates brand loyalty.

Second, it helps tremendously with “shareability” – i.e. how likely people are to share your content with others. When you’re responsive, insightful, witty, creative – that gets people’s interest, they appreciate it, and they share it. That increases your audience and your reach.

  1. The ability to target specific audiences

In the past, targeting audiences was still possible, but more limiting. Ad placement during certain TV programs and movies was – and still is – common, to capture the attention of certain audiences. Say, running ads for beer during the Superbowl, or pantyhose during daytime soaps.

Social media helps make this type of specific targeting easier, more precise, and more sophisticated. It’s possible to target specific demographics according to the platform they’re active on, the groups they’re part of or even the hashtags they post in.

A company will know that if they are targeting Boomers, they need to place on Facebook, if they want Millennials, they go to Instagram, and they use Snapchat or TikTok to capture the attention of Gen Z. They can even access interest-specific groups, like wedding groups on Facebook, in order to address users directly.

  1. Seamless marketing

And speaking of non-stop, very precise marketing, marketing on social media also enables one to do so in a very seamless way.

  • Ads

Traditional ads are still present on social media, but they’re integrated into the user interface in such a manner that they look like regular posts. You can pay for actual ads, but there are other, more subtle ways to market, as well.

  • Posts

You can also make your own social media posts marketing your product or service. The bigger your audience and your reach are, the more users will be exposed to your messaging.

  • Influencer posts

Otherwise, you can take advantage of so-called “influencers”. Over the last decade or so, marketing has transformed thanks to the rise of influencers.

They are an exceptional marketing opportunity because the content they produce is not an overt ad. It’s framed as a review or opinion coming from real people that used the products or services and are offering their genuine opinions and experiences.

To gain exposure, a brand may send PR samples for consideration. Or they may pay for a sponsorship. Influencers have large followings of loyal, trusting users, so exposure on a platform like this can be very valuable and lucrative.

  1. More effective tracking

Marketing online and via social media also has invaluable advantages when it comes to tracking and measuring effectiveness. You are likely to see the effects in real-time, by taking a look at the interest and engagement you get on a post, as well as receiving and listening to customer feedback.

You can also track what is being said about your brand specifically, to gain awareness of audience opinions and interests. Following and tracking data this way is called social listening, and it enables you to pay attention to what audiences – and competitors! – are saying and incorporate it into your marketing to increase effectiveness.

In addition, you can plan posts according to what is likely to get maximum engagement and conversions, based on the data you’ve been able to collect, either actively or passively.

Tracking clicks, conversions, and revenue on social media is much easier than with traditional marketing avenues, such as billboards or print ads. You can use tracking software for a detailed breakdown of who is exposed to your marketing, for how long, or how effective your campaign is, and adjust your marketing efforts accordingly.

Final thoughts

Social media took the world by storm in a million ways and changed the way we socialize, and the way we market. Marketing has been made easier, quicker, more effective, more precise – and its full potential has not yet been reached.

Both social media and marketing are constantly changing. Every new platform or feature brings innovation and new opportunities for marketers to leverage and create clever, inspiring, effective campaigns. You have to keep up to stay relevant and retain the valuable attention of your audience.

By Molly Townley.

(email: [email protected])

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How to Use Technology and Social Media for Business Growth

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By Zeinab Mehdi Poor.

What business doesn’t use technology? Yes, that is the unmistakable sound of crickets. But here’s another, more pertinent question: which businesses maximize their use of technology to generate revenue? The world is abuzz with technological chatter, with the noisy flux of shifting processes, incoming apps, innovative start-ups and increasingly simplistic digital tools which help us streamline our businesses and make a bigger splash for less cash.

As a business leader, you’re constantly learning. Searching for new growth strategies, emerging trends in your industry, and new products and services is a consistent part of your routine. Technology is about innovation and innovation in business is all about doing things differently so as to supply better products and solutions, and an improved service to customers.

If you are a business owner or leader means you’re constantly learning.

Researching new marketing strategies, emerging trends in your industry, and exciting new products is certain to be a continuing a part of your weekly grind. But are you furthermore may maintaining with similar changes in technology? If not, you’ll be missing out on tools which will make your life easier and your business stronger. Technology isn’t just essential for day-to-day business processes, but it also can help companies to realize growth and success when utilised effectively. Successful businesses don’t view technology simply as how to automate processes, but instead use it to open up new ways of doing business. But are you furthermore may maintaining with similar changes in technology?  technology is helping firms of all sizes fulfil their business potential. While the pace at which technology is evolving is faster than ever before, these advancements present a range of growth opportunities for business leaders.

Technologies help you reach more potential customers, around the clock.

Various types of content marketing  increase the visibility of your business far beyond your local community—often on a reasonable budget. Technology can help business owners leverage capital in smarter, more effective ways. In some cases, using technology provides greater efficiency and versatility, making it a natural progression for processes you may already have in place in your business. In others, you may need to make some adjustments to reap the benefits of tech-friendly alternatives. Use digital technologies for more effective marketing.

Businesses are now operating in an era where having a strong digital presence is essential, not only for success, but often simply for survival too. The lack of a strong digital presence is thought to be a contributing factor in the failure of many SMEs, half of which are failing in their first five years of existence. With limited marketing budgets, SMEs got to be wise about how they utilize digital technologies for max impact.

They key is to develop a clearly defined digital marketing strategy, including your aims, your tactics and how you’re going to measure performance. Many companies are digitally active, but not following a defined strategy. This can lead to resources being wasted and opportunities being missed.

Here are ways technology can help your business grow

1. Use a high-quality VoIP system

The benefits of using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) should be obvious, but if you’re still tempted to use the conventional or analog system in your office, know that you could be missing out massively. Using the internet to make calls far cheaper and means you can log in anywhere in the world, conduct videoconferences, discuss important deals, and otherwise stay on top of things as if you were in the office. Mobility, functionality and adaptability are the three key benefits of putting in VoIP, which has undoubtedly enhanced communication within the business world and led to increased productivity across the board.

2. Don’t be afraid of video

A lot of business owners are afraid to put themselves out there: to add a face and voice to the text-based voice which narrates their online story. But embracing video, whether within the sort of live videos and ‘stories’ on social media or product-, category- or topic-led videos on your website, are often a winning strategy. Not only will it help to build brand transparency, making browsers feel like they’re getting to know you, but it will help to stimulate engagement.

3. Connect with people.

One of the best features of technology is the ability to communicate and connect with other people right at the fingertips. More people in the United States are leaning towards the use of technology for connectivity. It has become an essential and worthwhile part of not only an individual’s life but also his business. Technology is a great tool to get in touch with customers and employees. Nowadays, even remote working is a theme. When it involves modern technology, sending targeted emails and newsletters to the designated customers can lead one to grow his or her business over time.

4. Technology as a mean of security.

Apart from the many benefits of using technology for business owners, the best one is how it impacts the security of the business. Technology can be used to prevent any hacking done by hackers over the original work of authorship. In this way, issues like copyright infringement and other copyright laws get easily bypassed. Usage of the proper amount of technology or rather information technology can prevent any breach of security. With active firewalls and encrypted passwords, avoidance of this particular problem, in the long run, is possible.

5. Save on IT spending

Cloud-based technologies help businesses grow with technology by providing state of the art tools without the high cost usually related to huge enterprise software programs. Web based technologies allow multiple users to collaborate during a single document or provide unlimited data storage. Cloud technologies eliminate the necessity for IT departments and therefore the solution providers perform backups, tuning and upgrades as a part of their offering. Small business owners can access their data from any location at any time. These tools are often free or pay as you go eliminating the need for long term contracts.

Social Platforms for Business Growth

Social platforms helps you connect with your customers. What are the advantages of using social media for business? Consider that there are now quite 3 billion using social networks across the world and these people are using social to interact with brands. Social networks offer you the chance to interact directly with customers and fans, and likewise give them the prospect to interact directly together with your brand.

Unlike traditional media, which offers only one-way communication, social media may be a street . If you would like customers and followers to be engaged, you’ve got to be engaged yourself. Stay active and answer comments and questions on your own social media posts during a way that’s appropriate to your brand. Here are reasons why investing in social media may be a wise business move.

1. Build Awareness

If people don’t realize your business, they can’t become your customers. Social media boosts your visibility among potential customers, letting you reach a good audience by employing a great deal of your time and energy . And it’s liberal to create a business profile on all the main social networks, so you’ve got nothing to lose. Define what you would like to urge out of social media to develop a social media strategy. does one want new customers to get your services? does one hope to bring more local shoppers into your stores? By keeping your strategy specific, you’ll determine which social media channels are the simplest fit your business.

2. Improve Search Engine Ranking

There’s a lot of debate around this subject , but rock bottom line is that, this  social media can (and will) improve your program ranking. How?  The domain authority  increases when the social media share rate increases. This results in an improved program ranking of your pages. But it’s quite just that. Many consumers visit your social media profiles before heading to your website to urge a far better understanding of your brand before they create a sale .

3. Social media is cost-effective

As more social networks add algorithms that filter what users see in their news feeds, your organic content may stray within the shuffle. cash in of the low-cost advertising features offered by the social networks to market your content and special offers.  Some social media advertising is cheaper than traditional advertising, so you don’t need to spend tons of cash to increase your audience, and grow your business.

4. Tell Your Brand’s Story

Using social media may be a good way to share your brand’s mission and share stories. Effective stories can have an excellent impact on your brand’s image. they will be simple or extensive counting on what you think that are going to be best .

5. Boost sales

No matter what you sell, social media can assist you sell it. Your social accounts are a critical a part of your sales funnel—the process through which a replacement contact becomes a customer. As the number of individuals using social media continues to grow and social sales tools evolve, social networks will become increasingly important for product search and ecommerce. The time is true to align your social marketing and sales goals.

Feature Image Credit: Pixabay

By Zeinab Mehdi Poor

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

 

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