Category: Digital Marketing

The Best SEO Practices for eCommerce Industry

March 27, 2015

With eCommerce stores mushrooming and people gradually making a shift of paradigm when it comes to making purchases, it is becoming increasingly important to focus on the search engine optimization factor of eCommerce websites. With the kind of growth that we have seen in online stores and with people preferring to choose ordering products on their phones, tablets and desktops & laptops, we need to ensure that the content on our eCommerce websites are properly indexed and made available for search engines to index. It may take a while to get a grip over all the rules that dictate SEO for eCommerce but it is not difficult to understand or practice. In this article, let us take a look at some of the best practices which help in optimizing SEO for eCommerce websites. 1. Avoid black hat techniques and plagiarism When it comes to SEO best practice, it is quite similar to what you follow on other websites. Strictly speaking, avoid all kinds of black hat SEO. ensure that you follow only white hat methods and do not indulge in backlinks purchases and other unethical means to reach success. Google will only penalize you for it. Secondly, do not copy and paste product descriptions from the manufacturers. Google considers this plagiarism and that you are duplicating content. Instead, build a healthy social environment and ask people to leave comments, user-generated opinions about the product and so on and so forth. This should take care of keeping your SEO practice clean and tidy. 2. Focus on buyer personas When you create content on your eCommerce website, write for your buyer personas. Understand where they are coming from and what they need. When you feature products in the side bar or on the home page, understand what is driving traffic to your website. If it is the Christmas time and you deal with books, ensure that Christmas or church-related books appear on the front page. It goes without saying that you need to know what is happening and you must feature products that are in demand at that particular time. Also, focus on building your social media pages, engage in email marketing and purchase display ads. All the three sources are great ways to build and increase traffic to your website. 3. Create content that is relevant and fix error pages Websites do not exist in islands. They need to be accessible from various search engines. If you have outdated products or products that are no longer in supply, weed out those pages, instead of having “not available” page. IT is important to hire people who write product descriptions that are different from what the manufacturer has given you. This ensures that the content on your website is unique and that you will rank higher in Google search results. As you may already know, duplicate content will attract penalties. If you want to improve your SEO, try and build a community of sort which will help people to leave comments and thus add to the content ecosystem within your website. 4. Category pages and alt tags Make sure that all your products are listed under appropriate categories. You must develop deep links from your category pages that lead to product pages. This will help users to experience a sense of cohesion and unity. Moreover, it also helps you to build internal linking, which is important in SEO. Alternate text or alt tags are important to ensure that your photos are optimized for SEO as well. If you have a number of images for the same product, tag those photos with alt tags and ensure that people get what they want even by looking at images and hovering their cursors over the image. This helps to build a good level of SEO as well and is good for traffic in the long term. Final thoughts Most of the eCommerce websites today either have incomplete product pages, duplicate product descriptions, just images in place of text, products that are no longer in stock still being displayed and a host of other problems. With these issues in mind, it is becoming clear that we all need to follow certain SEO best practices, when it comes to the eCommerce industry. If you follow the best practices listed above, you will ensure that your ecommerce website is SEO optimized.

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Content Marketing – The Biggest Game Plan to Execute in 2015

March 20, 2015

Content marketing has gained a lot of limelight in the previous year but it is about time when it needs to be taken seriously as part of a larger plan. Today’s educated consumer is selective in consuming the content. Quality and consistency are the integral characteristics of content marketing. Well, what is content marketing? How does it matter for a small business? Content marketing is a way of creating and sharing valuable content with your target audience to convert them into your customers. If you keep your customers happy by sharing more relevant information, they’ll be loyal to you. It is important to note that content marketing does not give you instant results like other marketing campaigns. You have to work persistently to fulfill your marketing goals and it definitely fortifies your relationship with the audience unlike other marketing campaigns. Furthermore, it is always the best practice to document a content marketing strategy. As a small business owner, it is the first thing you need to pursue in 2015 to generate lasting benefits for your business. Challenges in content marketing Customers are increasingly engaging with digital content through various interfaces. A digital marketer needs to understand the role of digital content, search engine optimization, social media and mobile to get maximum exposure to its content. As a start-up company, it is natural that you have some idea about digital marketing. However, if you are working for a small company in business for a long time, the owner might not be aware of the magic of digital marketing. In such a case, you need to advise and convince the owner about the role of content marketing. Owner’s involvement will ensure that you have necessary resources in place including employee support and money. The chase for content marketing does not guarantee success. Moreover, content can be created in many forms and you are the best judge in deciding what forms to choose and experiment with. Some of the various forms include e-books, case studies, newsletters, infographics, whitepapers, videos, content curation, webinars etc. How to get started? Content marketing can never begin without following the fundamentals. There are two aspects to it – a clear understanding of your goal and following your mission statement. Why do you want to create content? There has to be at least one core reason for that. The possible reasons could be to create awareness about your brand, build an email list, increase conversion rate, increase traffic to your website, increase sales volume per customer and so on. Your reason would become the deciding factor for content creation. The content will be focused to fulfill those goals. Another important factor is following your mission statement. Following your mission statement keeps you from digressing. As a marketer, it is fundamental for your business to have a target audience but in content marketing, you focus your content towards your core audience. Content marketing takes a lot of effort, time and money to consistently create quality content and you don’t afford to go unheard. What kind of information are you going to provide to educate your customer? What action do you want your audience to take after content consumption? Clarity on all these matters will go a long way for your business. What more you need to do? Chart out a clear strategy Content strategy is formed by understanding your core audience, goals you wish to achieve and optimizing content for all the digital channels you wish to exploit. Understand demographics to gain insights into your customers’ content preferences. Conducting surveys for your visitors on blog, website and social media pages helps you to fine tune their choice. Content marketing is not a single man’s job. You need to have dedicated team members who write content for you. It can be in-house or external depending upon your resources. As a small business owner, it is advisable to first start in-house content writing and gradually outsource it under close monitoring. Close monitoring is necessary till the point writers understand what exactly you expect. However, engagement and follow-up has to be in close association with your team members under your supervision. Create epic content Content engagement is not necessarily meant to be educative. It can be used to entertain, inspire, inform and convert your prospects into customers. The content can ideally be created in four forms including texts, images, videos and podcasts. Furthermore, it can be unique content, curated content or crowd sourced content. Unique content – Creating original content is definitely a great step but doing it continuously becomes a major challenge for small-scale marketers. It needs a lot of inspiration, time and skill. Content curation – Content curation is the art of locating quality content for your audience and doing value addition to it through your interpretation. This exercise saves a lot of time for your consumers as they get a lot of information through a single source. Crowdsourced content – Suppose you start a discussion on your social media page and your customers share their valuable views on it. In addition to it, customers love to share their photos, videos and links if given a chance. The content so generated will be termed as crowd sourced. Explore every possible avenue for marketing your content It is wonderful that you are able to get a continuous stream of quality content flowing through your writers. What next? Your content needs right avenues for marketing. Expand your reach on social media networks. Use different social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. to interact and share content with your audience. Invite your customers through email to visit your website. Offer them a free e-book once they register with your website. Optimize your content for search engines to drive more traffic to your website. Build relationship with blog owners who influence your customers and request them to publish your content. Social media – A powerful medium for content marketing Social media is an epicenter for sharing information with friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Consumers

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The Real Need for Syndicating Content

March 19, 2015

Content syndication is the act of publishing content, which is already published on your website, to other websites. The content so published on third party website with your due permission can be either full or a portion of original content. Syndication enhances reach of your content and improves visibility on search engines. In contrast to syndication, guest post is when you write content to be published on a third party website but do not publish the same on any other website including your own. Many content marketers believe that syndication harms their content by lowering search engine ranking and raising questions about plagiarism. This article will bust that myth and highlight the real need for syndicating your content. Why do you need to syndicate? Syndication is an excellent way to give wings to your content. It lets your content get exposure through superior third-party websites. Your content can be viewed by well-established audience of other websites who share common interest with you. For a growing business, this is crucial, as you want your content to be viewed by as many people as possible. Higher the viewership of your content, the better it is for your brand. A site with higher viewership and superior reputation will in turn garner respect for your content. This clearly indicates that your content is qualified enough to be published on a superior website. If your content is being liked by the audience, the demand for your content will increase. It will further increase traffic on your own website. Thus, as you might have noticed, without putting in extra labor, except of course building relationship with owners of other websites, you are able to create tremendous exposure for your content. You need to also be cautious while selecting a third party website. It need to score high on reputation, quality of content posted and most importantly relevance to your business. How does it help a small business? While content syndication has numerous benefits for marketers, it is interesting to see how it helps small business owners for whom frequent content creation becomes a challenge. There is nothing to lose in content syndication, contrary to the thoughts of many marketers. Once you publish your content i.e. write up, photo or video on another website, audience of that website starts engaging with your content by sharing, liking and commenting on it. Because you can use the links that drive the visitor back to your website, content syndication gives you a much needed impetus. Sharing buttons to social media pages, blogs, website and links of your landing page or website, all help you to take the credit of your work. The multiplication of content across the deserving websites will highlight your business ultimately. The reposted content always contains a postscript saying this content was originally published by so and so person or brand. Even if the postscript is overlooked, you still can use embedded links, sharing buttons and hyperlinks that direct the visitor back to pages owned by you. A number of websites focus entirely on syndicated content. You can look for relevant websites in your industry. Uploading RSS feed on your website is another good way for alerting your followers that you’ve published a new piece of content. Any third party website interested in your content might choose to publish the content on their website. Many social media profile owners like to share interesting content with their audiences and they look for website like yours to use content on their website. It is a win-win situation for both you and the publisher. You can also approach blogs in your industry to publish your content. While this is a free content syndication strategy, another way of going about it is paid syndication strategy. Paid syndication involves websites which go out in the market and syndicate content for you on the topmost websites in the industry. The right time to go ahead with content syndication is when you have built enough audience for your own website. It is essential because by this time you are able to strike a chord with your target audience and create content actually liked by them. You can experiment with your content. Whether it is blog or social media profile, don’t abandon it ever. Always do the necessary follow-up and answer to the queries generated. A loyal audience comes really handy as they share the content further. With necessary experience and credentials in content publishing & visitor engagement, it becomes easy for you to approach other websites. As a small business owner, it is evident that you can’t spend your entire time and energy in creating & managing content. After all, it is not your core business. It is always better to select a team of individuals who work towards developing content. Even if you have a remote content developer, it is better to keep a back up option. Appoint a manager to take charge of content syndication. All syndication efforts of your company need to be directed through him/her to avoid confusion for others. How to be selective? Syndication efforts need to be driven safely. You just can’t go overboard and syndicate whatever you like or whatever you publish on your site to other sites. Such an attempt diminishes the purpose of content syndication itself. Choose to syndicate selective content that intrigues the visitors to explore the details. This leaves room for visitors to pay a visit to the original content publisher. Apart from that, you always want your loyal website visitors to get the maximum information from your website. As a beginner, you need not prefer to withhold content, rather spread it as much as you can on “carefully selected websites.” Once you build the reputation as an exemplary content publisher, you might choose to redesign your syndication strategy. SEO consideration while content syndication Content syndication bolsters your SEO strategy as your content gets more recognition and credibility through publishing on renowned websites. Without having to write more content, you can leverage

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Mobile Devices – The Greatest Influencer of Search Marketing

March 18, 2015

Time is not so far when mobile apps would be the dominant computing tools for users across the world. Google predicts that mobile searches which are currently at 85.9 billion will soon exceed desktop searches by the end of 2015. In fact, 81 percent of conversion starts from mobile searches with 2 billion Smartphone users expected to grow globally by the end of 2015. Organic search trends are drastically changing with the rapid use of Smart devices and their varied applications. What role does mobile search play in consumers’ life? Consumers’ searches are ever-changing. However, the basic that they want are: Simple navigation Appropriate call-to-action buttons Easy access to products and information The facility to communicate in real time They’re always in search of new apps that can identify their exact wants. They want the apps to present them with the right set of functionalities and options at the right time. In a nutshell, consumers demand proactive and relevant information and services from their smart devices. And mobiles help to accomplish their goals. -Mobile search With the increasing number of mobiles and its varied apps, life is easy. Right from streamlining grocery lists, payment of bills, online shopping, maintaining calendars, making travel plans or collaborating with co-workers, consumers associate mobile devices with productivity. They consider apps as convenient, faster and very easy to browse. The optimized design, functionality and ease of use have leaded to an enormous growth of mobile user satisfaction and engagement. Accordingly to Google, 85 percent of users prefer mobile, especially mobile apps, for search. -Local search Local search on mobile devices creates moment of interest connecting the local business and the searchers looking for their preferred products and services. Interestingly, it has been found that local searchers on mobile devices ultimately make a purchase. Local search opens new opportunities for businesses and creates greater visibility for the potential customers. The primary motives behind mobile search The reasons behind exhaustive use of smart devices can be listed under the following categories: The ‘ME’ time – Seeking relaxation through entertainment Self-expression – Participating in interests and hobbies Discovery – Seeking news and information Shopping – Seeking new products and services Preparation – Planning for forthcoming activities Socializing – Interacting with others What actually drives device market performance? The ease of use, the user interface, countless apps and the quality of design win consumers’ heart and mind within a wink of an eye. More and more companies are launching advance mobile devices and apps across the globe. Practically, they’re with us everywhere and every time as and when we need them. Users are more reliant on mobile apps for needs discovery and exhaustive search. According to Statista report, worldwide mobile app download which is currently 179.628 billion in 2015 is expected to reach 268.692 billion by 2017. The majority of the customers actually spend 89 percent of their time in apps and 11% browsing the web. However, mobile search strategy involves creating unique mobile keywords approach. Mobile searchers use different keywords when they’re on their mobile devices. Moreover, there are three important limitations that marketers need to keep in mind: Searchers search on small screens Searchers have different needs Searchers do not have keyboards Based on these observations, marketers should use analytics at disposal and think like consumers to find out what search terms mobile users use to find specific products and services. Digital consumption is going mobile Mobile device is fast becoming the preferred medium for searching content, reading them and sharing it with others. Searchers spend more time accessing social media from mobile devices. Almost 8% of the total activities of mobile users include searching and sharing content. The majority of the consumers are more likely to click and share content on social media networks through their smart devices compared to the desktop users. The following social media mobile statistics show its importance in today’s world… 71% uses social media from mobile devices 76% of Twitter users access from mobile 1.1 billion Facebook users use social media on mobile The advancement of mobile technology Besides the equipped mobile phones, all mobile devices with internet access and video viewing capabilities have aided the promotion of search marketing. These allow businesses to promote with multimedia including audio, video, and images, which are effective in grabbing customers’ attention. With the app-based QR Codes, location-based SMS or mobile search ads, mobile technology is the biggest drive behind the low cost of mobile advertising industry. People are so infused with mobile technology that if any company is not taking the supreme advantages of mobile marketing, they’re surely way behind the competition. As already predicted in 2013, the mobile marketing will generate $400 billion sales in 2015. Industries across the entire world are eventually realizing the significance of mobile search marketing for their business.

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Crowdsourcing – Your Next Best Business Partner

March 6, 2015

The future will not slow down and so won’t the information. The amount of information available to people are expanding radically. Every individual voices their judgement about products and services. So, obtaining mass ideas and opinions is not a difficult job for the businesses in today’s world…and this is what they called ‘crowdsourcing’. The power and wisdom of crowds can be harnessed to produce solutions beyond the capabilities of individuals. Crowdsourcing – A Powerful Marketing Tool When I was working day and night to get the best infographics for my client, my problem was solved within a day when the job was assigned to a crowd of best designers. When you have collective ideas handy, you can always pick and choose the best ones. I realized the quality of the chosen ideas matched my requirements as expected. I no longer had to use focus groups, surveys and expensive research programs to collate ideas & form strategy. No wonder, my marketing landscape is seeing a drastic change in terms of innovation, efficiency, speed and relevancy. My business is no longer restricted to a particular audience, skillset or culture. I can source creativity from the experts across the world. However, you need to strategically carry the crowdsourcing market. Stuck for Ideas? Pull in the Best Experts from Different Parts of the World; That’s the Fun of It… Crowdsourcing minimizes labor expenses and maximizes productivity. When an organization can leverage resources and creativity of its audience in promoting its service, it is its biggest asset. Researching on new products, designing campaigns or solving complex business roadblocks, collective ideas can do wonders for everything. Crowdsourcing tool artfully manages the work of your creative team but from a distance. The team can dig deep into the issues and use the analyzed information to make improvements. Engage the best talents to acquire expert advice for your projects. No Violation of Regulations A well-designed crowdsourcing plan will never compromise on the ground of violation of information, data protection and company’s reputation. The Big Brands and Their Stories… It is not just Google and Microsoft but several other traditional firms like General Electric or Coco-Cola are using crowdsourcing techniques. Recently, Google announced a new proposal that aims at using collective ideas to improve translation. Google’s Translate Community is now open to all, especially, for those who speak more than one language to provide their own translations and validate the existing translation. In addition, Google has also promised to offer the ability to match and compare translations. Gradually, the company is giving users more visibility when it is a matter of their valued contribution. Google has also launched a new feature in Google Translate that will allow everyone to contribute their own translation, in case of any mistakes. Similarly, of late, Coca-Cola Company in China has asked for creative videos on crowdsourcing platform to show what coke tastes like. The company has categorically mentioned about creative point of views about the taste and not ads for coke. The whole idea is to check the coke taste experience of the consumers across the world. They want to see the creative expressions of people, especially, when they will try to explain the taste of coke to someone who has never tried it before. Besides the content, the company is expecting a thorough impressionistic market research to improve the brand. However, you need to know the tricks behind crowdsourcing your marketing movement. There is No Free Lunch… There is no dearth of investors seeking to finance a new product idea or company. The crowdsourcing platforms are doing remarkably good at drawing investments to get their job done. According to World Bank, by 2025, the global crowdfunding market would reach to $90 – $96 billion. Investors are more likely to assist entrepreneurs and NGOs as they see the potential of these platforms to reach the untapped markets. I did submit a request on an online crowdfunding platform stating what I needed, how much I needed and when I needed it by. This is a clever way of saying that only the best ideas will receive money. If you want high production value, offer a good return. Crowdsourcing is the best practice to accelerate return on investments and enables real time conversation between consumers & brands.

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Easy Tricks to Measure Your Twitter Marketing

February 25, 2015

Twitter has almost become a cultural phenomena but it is also a very effective marketing tool. No marketing strategy is complete without using Twitter on a consistent basis. However, measuring your Twitter marketing strategies is also very important. On that note, we should have a basic knowledge of how Twitter works, what it is, what it is not and how you could analyze your Twitter campaigns. In this article, let us take a look at some of the tricks with which you can easily track your Twitter campaign and measure it as well. At the end of the day, if you are unable to measure a campaign, it is not going to fetch you the ROI. Some tricks to measure Twitter campaign Measure your retweets: Measuring the basic metrics in Twitter gives you a lot of information about the impact of your marketing campaign. Measuring retweets is a good way to know the effectiveness of your message. It tells you how influential your message is that leads your followers to share it with their followers. The more retweets you get, you are being read more often and more attentively. It also means that your messages are spreading far and wide, to the followers who follow those who retweet you. Count those mentions: Mention is used by people when they are talking about you on Twitter using @ symbol. It helps you to understand the perception of the audience. If you track all the mentions you have been getting, you will be able to know if people are talking about you in a positive or a negative way. If someone has a complaint about your product or service and has just mentioned you, address that immediately. Track those links: If you are sharing a link from your website or blog on Twitter, it is a good idea to know how many times your link was shared. LinkTally is a simple tool that helps you to know that. It is always good to know where the traffic is coming from. It will also help you to write tweets that get you more clicks. Get on the list: If people are putting your name on the list, it really means that they want to hear everything what you say. The more number of times you get added to a list, the more people think you are a valuable source of information. This explores the idea of tweeting about things that are related to your expertise. For instance, if you make polymers, try to tweet about the polymer technology often as well. You might get listed under “manufacturing”. Watch those followers: Tracking your follower growth is another good sign to know about your progress on Twitter. If too many people are unfollowing you, you are obviously saying all the wrong things. On the other hand, if people begin to follow you more often, that means you are doing it the right way. Also, notice who your followers are and what they tweet about. Based on that, you will be able to understand your own target audience. Focus on your return on investment (ROI) The success of your marketing effort can truly be measured by determining return on investment. To determine ROI, you need to figure out gain from investment and cost of investment. There are a number of free tools that help you to do that including Google Analytics. Using closed-loop marketing tactic, you can track the person from first click on your Twitter link to becoming a customer. Your cost of investment is the man-hours devoted by you or your marketing manager to devise a Twitter marketing strategy. In case you are using paid ads, your cost is further added up. A negative ROI determines that your marketing strategy needs a rethink. Twitter tracking is easy and effective Tracking your Twitter campaign is an important way to ensure that your marketing budget is not wasted. It helps you to know what kind of blogs you need to write, what kind of tweets you need to tweet and what you are getting back at the end of the day. Twitter is a very simple but very effective tool; and the charm of using Twitter is the ease with which we can measure our marketing campaigns.

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WhatsApp – A Crucial Member in Social Media Marketing Family

February 24, 2015

Our super busy life demands instant upshots. Everything that can be seen and done within a wink of an eye are highly acceptable in today’s world. Consequently, marketers would need to think out of the box to showcase their brand in this competitive market. And one such instant cutting-edge method could be the comprehensive use of ‘WhatsApp messaging service’ – the new social media marketing member in the family. Well! the social media family is getting bigger and as it is rightly said- ‘the bigger the better’. No wonder this instant messenger was Mark Zuckerberg’s first choice to encourage more conversations on Facebook. However, this little app has successfully spread its wonder all over the world. But have you ever thought of making this messaging service a direct marketing tool? It Is The Right Time… With 600 million users, WhatsApp is one of the most important communication tools. It is the leading mobile instant messaging application that is being checked over 100 times a day. Yes, you heard it right! This quick and easy to use app can effectively engage and enrich your customer experience. Even content marketers are finding it a powerful weapon to engage their customers. All you need to know is ‘How’? Here you go… Discovering The Profit Gained Through This Multi-purpose, User-friendly, Connectivity Application… #Broadcasting WhatsApp allows users to form a group and send messages at once without revealing the recipients to one another. The direct messages sent to the recipient’s phone are treated no differently than those sent by friends and family. It is an instant way to reach audiences, as messages are opened and read within a few minutes, rather than hours. You can instantly feed your clients about latest announcements of your business. Initially the recipient’s capacity of Broadcasting was 50; however, it has increased to 256. Oxford mail readers can now receive the major breaking news alerts directly to their mobile phones with WhatsApp service. Oxford Mail chose this instant service because it works across all smart devices and is such a natural fit. However, they used the broadcast function to keep reader’s details confidential. #Customer Engagement Customers simply hate to see the influx of messages in their inbox. Neither do they like the inflow of SMS in their phones. It is not just messages but plethoras of other interesting things like images, videos, audios, GPS map location, emoticons, and vouchers which can be send to the clients via Whatsapp. Unlike emails which have all kind of filters, WhatsApp messages are received directly by the person you send it to. Most recently, it has also announced WhatsApp video calling feature to streamline communication. You have the best way to delight your customers and conduct business with a greater ROI. #Cost-effective Brand Management Businesses especially small ventures keep minimum budget for branding and online marketing. And this where WhatsApp can be used exhaustively. It becomes an effective communication medium to stay in touch with the customer’s changing preferences. Integrating WhatsApp service with your branding strategy is beneficial for brand positioning and management. #Expanding Facebook’s Advertising Reach WhatsApp has more room to grow its user base. WhatsApp will get access to all Facebook’s tools for selling advertising. It enhances the power of the current platform that delivers three important things – frequent interactions, convenience, and emotional connection. The Growing Popularity of Instant Messages An instant message is a form of personal interaction which can provide a benefit of learning more about customers on a closer level. With an expected 2 billion Smart phone users by 2015, WhatsApp is becoming the leader among the wave of Smartphone-based messaging apps. This evolution in online marketing is sweeping across the entire North of America, Asia and Europe highlighting its value across the masses. The platform has become bigger than Twitter’s 284 million and Instagram’s 300 million users till date.

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How to Dominate LinkedIn Publishing

February 17, 2015

LinkedIn recently announced that it has opened its publishing platform to all English-speaking countries. Publishing was a privilege that it initially gave to the likes of Richard Branson and President Obama. Later on, it started to give the opportunity to publish to active and influential users of LinkedIn. Today, there are more than a million posts and publishing will soon be open to more than 230 million English-speaking users of LinkedIn. How are LinkedIn posts different from status updates? Posts are not the same as status updates. Status updates are meant to be used to share your thoughts, views and opinions in a short and concise manner. Status updates can also be used to share links, which can again drive traffic to your own blog or website. On the other hand, posts are proper articles and blog posts. If you’ve never used a blog before, the LinkedIn publishing platform provides an extremely simple way to share your story with the world. You do not have to worry about writing on another website or deal with complex things like launching your own site. The publishing process is extremely intuitive and easy to understand. In fact, when you want to publish a post, all you need to do is click on the pencil icon in the status update box. It takes you to a WordPress-like page where you can write and edit your article. LinkedIn has also promised that publishing will be made available to all members and languages in the coming months. Publishing articles on LinkedIn may help you to gain a very influential and important audience on LinkedIn. In this article, let us take a look at how you can maximize LinkedIn publishing to your benefits. Align your content to the likes of popular channels LinkedIn works specifically as per the content of your post. Keep your content focused for it to show up often. Writing consistently in that area will highlight your post and make your presence more relevant on LinkedIn. Before you start posting content, figure out your content strategy. LinkedIn members only look for professional, niche and original content. Avoid posting vague information which is not supported by facts. If you are posting a link on an important topic, curate the content by doing some value addition. It could be your personal opinion as well. Content related to social media, productivity, company culture, success and leadership are some of the most popular topics. Be focused and regular An important trick to remaining relevant is to actually be relevant in its real sense, which means, you have to show up. If you do not publish regularly, your presence will be forgotten. Use a blogger or a content provider to post on your behalf if you are unable to write posts on your own. It is perfectly to all right to outsource writing LinkedIn posts. It is common to notice people who get all excited and post a few articles and after sometime, the pressure of having to come up with ideas and the drudgery of writing takes a toll. Thus, people simply give up. This is true in the case of blogging but is now going to be true on LinkedIn as well. The more you write on LinkedIn regularly, the more you will dominate the scene. Whether you blog or not, take up LinkedIn publishing If you’ve never used a blog before but want to improve your professional branding, you might as well start publishing on LinkedIn. As a company or a professional, you can leverage LinkedIn’s new publishing platform to boost your social media presence if you are not willing to take up blogging full time. If you are already a blogger or a content creator, it is still a great idea to publish unique content on LinkedIn so that your own articles on LinkedIn drive traffic to your own blog. In other words, it is actually a great idea to continue blogging on your website while also publishing unique posts on LinkedIn that may be of interest LinkedIn demographics. The more focused and regular you are with your LinkedIn posts, the greater the chances of you finding better leads on LinkedIn.

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What’s the Buzz about Facebook Video Ads

February 9, 2015

Sometime around last year, Facebook announced that it was testing Premium Video Ads to help advertisers reach their preferred target audience. The company stated that it was designed for those advertisers who wanted to reach a large target audience with the help of “high-quality sight, sound and motion”. Each of these videos would be 15 seconds long, it stated. It was designed to be non-intrusive. Moreover, if people scrolled past the video, it would stop playing as that would indicate a lack of interest in those ads. One could also tap on the video ad so that it expands full-screen and sound would begin to be heard as well. Over a period of few months, Facebook began to roll out these video ads in various places and garnered various reactions. Most digital marketing professionals believe that Facebook Video Ads are a great way to showcase a product or a service and not be intrusive. A video ad that does not play sound unless being clicked upon is a revolutionary idea. Most of us know how unpleasant it is when video advertisements begin to play without our permission, causing us to reduce our volumes. Facebook certainly has recognized this problem as offered video ads that only play sans audio until a person chooses to click on the video himself or herself. Growing importance of Facebook Video Ads The Age recently reported that “the amount of video on Facebook’s news feed has more than tripled”. It also reported that many advertisers are yet to discover the option of Facebook Video Ads. As more advertisers realize its presence and the valuable platform that it provides for companies, more businesses will begin to use them to market their products and services. In this article, let us try to understand what Facebook Premium Ads are and how they are going to benefit your business. How are Facebook Video Ads bought and measured? You can purchase and measure Facebook’s video ads just like how TV ads are bought and measured. If you have heard about TGRP (Targeted Gross Rating Points), it is applicable in the case of Facebook Ads as well. Facebook Video Ads are bought based on TGRP as well and the delivery is measured by Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR). Facebook also had mentioned that it was working with a company named Ace Matrix to ensure that the video ads suit the content that people see in their news feeds. Facebook also announced that it acquired LiveRail, a startup that will help ad publishers to be more efficient. Every video ad is to be reviewed and assessed before it gets live on Facebook. Some of the criteria that will judge the Facebook Video Ads are emotional resonance, meaningfulness and watchability. The idea is to ensure that there is a certain level of quality when it comes to Facebook Video Ads. Facebook does not want just any video ad to appear on people’s newsfeeds. This will also help advertisers to work on better video ads so that they get the maximum return on investment. Initially, Facebook limited the video ads to high quality advertisers, a euphemism for some luxury brands and top tech companies. Slowly, the service is being offered to others as well. Facebook Video Ads are becoming more acceptable Facebook Video Ads are slowly but surely changing people’s perspectives. People still have a negative view about video advertisements, mostly because of the intrusive way they play on some websites. By addressing this problem, Facebook has ensured that people are not intruded by sound from video ads, even if they play in the background. This presents advertisers and companies with huge opportunities to reach the right target audience. With more people joining Facebook and with Facebook acquiring better technologies, it is going to get easier to target the right kind of audience with video ads that are entertaining, informative and attention-grabbing. With the right marketing strategy and creative thinking, Facebook Video Ads can be used to generate leads and increase sales in the long term. If you would like to learn how Facebook Video Ads can help you, do contact our digital marketing professionals.

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10 Techniques to Drive Clicks from Twitter

January 26, 2015

Marketers use Twitter to promote their brand/event, take customer feedback and suggestions and naturally converse with their followers. The goal of your business could be to drive sales, increase awareness about your brand or a social cause, subscription etc. Twitter helps you to achieve everything what you desire, provided you follow a thought-out Twitter strategy. Random tweets here and there are harmful for your brand & your customers are unlikely to take you seriously. To sustain your Twitter image for a long time, you need to work consistently towards it. There are a number of simple techniques that simplify your Twitter agenda. This article will highlight the ten most common techniques used by businesses to drive more clicks. 1. Offer something compelling Users get curious if a brand offers them something unique. The tweet does not have to mention the details of the reward. Phrases like participate to win, click here for your gift, goodie inside etc. are some tactics used by brands to generate clicks. Users come across hundreds of tweets on a daily basis. Once you start offering something interesting periodically, users will start keeping a track of your tweets. Keep your offers timely. A timely offer is the one that is well-suited and moves ahead of your competitors. If you are planning to offer something entirely different, create excitement around it. 2. Use image and videos The option of posting images and video links has been available for a long time. The problem with it was that users had to click the link to see the image or the video behind. The click-through rates were less as it depended on whether the user is driven by the short description to click on the link; but last year, with the introduction of inline image with Buffer’s browser extension, Twitter users are capable of seeing the image with the tweet itself. This has greatly influenced brand engagement by increasing click-through rates and retweets. A link to your store or website can be embedded in the image to increase the respective visits. Likewise, you can also use videos to drive more clicks. 3. Create a sense of urgency The best thing about tweets is they are short and function in real-time. A short message can be used to show a sense of urgency. So, when you are tweeting something to get instant clicks, mention the validity of your offer. If you are offering a special discount for first 10 buyers, mention it explicitly to thrill the audience. If your offer is valid for a day only, tell your followers not to miss it and share the link of your store. Besides that, you can also use Twitter for urgent public causes like blood donation, organ donation and other similar causes. Tying up with a hospital to spread the message through your tweet will help your brand build a strong image. 4. Engaging people with well-written tweets Tweets have to be informative and need to relate with target audience. Try to figure out what your followers want. Would they be interested in retweeting? Use witty one-liners to draw more attention. The tone of your business needs to match with customers’ expectations. There is no room for making a marketing pitch with your tweets. Your tweets need to sound like a regular conversation with your customers and not be very formal. Be receptive to both positive and negative feedback. Reply to all your feedbacks by using a personal “@” symbol to express a genuine regard and consideration for their valuable feedback. 5. Using viral words and phrases You would always want your tweet to be original and resonate with your brand’s voice unless you are quoting someone; and if you incorporate viral words that instantly grab viewers’ attention, you will definitely get retweets. It is astonishing to note that 78% of user engagement with a brand’s tweets is the form of retweets. Using words like here, like, see, look etc. attract readers’ attention and phrases like click here, know more, make you, amaze you, the best, the most etc. are all used frequently to engage their attention & get clicks. Use of “how to” phrase to educate or teach a skill is another interesting way to engage your Twitter followers. 6. Powerful hashtags Hashtags are an interesting way to generate clicks from Twitter. They act as powerful motivators for consumers to explore more content. Big events and brands use their own hashtags to begin their campaigns; and they do turn out to be successful, provided they are created with a strategy in mind. If you are tweeting about a social cause, find the most relevant hashtag being used for that cause. You can tie your hashtag with a contest as well. It can be a hashtag with an actionable language. Don’t try to use your brand or product hashtag until you have a huge list of followers as it will reflect your desperation to start your own movement. Look for viral hashtags around your idea. 7. Optimum length of a tweet Twitter provides you a space of 140 characters for writing your twee; but it is observed that using every single space to express an idea does not increase engagement. The best length for tweeting is 70-100 characters. These medium length tweets add a lot of value to your tweets, especially, if you are tweeting frequently. The probability of retweet increases and the readers are likely to add commentary to your tweet. Thus, it is generating more clicks. Furthermore, short and crisp tweets take less time to read & have an instant impact on the reader. 8. Are you tweeting at the right frequency? Higher frequency does get a higher exposure but your tweeting frequency, actually, needs to depend upon the content of your tweets. As a business user, if you are publishing 10 tweets a day, it is considered to be reasonable. Followers do like to hear you when you are sharing interesting content with them. A combination of tweets,

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