Category: Internet Marketing

Instagram Allows Account Switching. What This Means for Digital Marketers?

August 4, 2016

Instagram is aggressively used by digital marketers and businesses to achieve their marketing goals. The application, launched in 2010, garnered instant success that Facebook bought it in less than two years of its launch. It is Instagram’s structure that lends it simplicity; the simplicity of displaying only one photo or video on the screen at a time. There are photo filters and minimalistic use of buttons that adds to its simplicity. This ability helps Instagram to avoid cluttering of visual content and provides digital marketer an opportunity only imagined in the past. It is easy to spread your message and get follower’s attention here. An effective e-commerce platform Instagram is the most effective platform for e-commerce to generate orders. However, even if a business does not have a physical product to sell, the sheer strength of this social media network lies in its ability to connect with users. Moreover, Instagram’s sponsored posts and advertising features are doing extraordinary work for marketers. Instagram’s sponsored posts naturally blend with existing images without causing any annoyance to the user. [php snippet=1] According to a study conducted by Forrester Research, Instagram has a fan engagement rate 58 times higher than Facebook and 120 times higher than Twitter. The astounding statistics don’t need explanation and clearly, signify the importance of Instagram. The new functionality: Switch between different Instagram accounts Marketers create different Instagram accounts to manage different sectors of their business. And to access each account, they had to logout and login through a different account. This limitation led to the waste of time and hassle because marketers were not able to focus on every account seamlessly. Today, Instagram has enabled easy account switching without having to logout from an account. This feature will further bolster Instagram’s image in comparison to its counterparts. Instagram’s monthly active users have shot up from 200 million in 2014 to 400 million today. Marketers have long waited for this functionality so that they can easily switch between their business and personal accounts. Users can switch between different accounts while keeping an eye on every account.  A user can add up to five Instagram accounts. This functionality is currently available on iOS and Android platforms through its latest app version 7.15 Setting up and managing multiple accounts is a fairly simple process. Your profile settings allow you to add accounts. A tap on username at the top of your profile enables you to switch between accounts. The feature is carefully designed so that you are absolutely sure about posting to the right account. It ensures that you don’t post personal images mistakenly to your business account. How does switching between multiple accounts help digital marketers? Earlier, many marketers used to mix a lot of personal content on their business account. It used to tone down their business image which was not good from the marketing point of view.  It led to the muzzling of brand’s message. Though they had a choice to operate another account, it was not convenient to operate two different accounts through one device.  There are some third-party tools that allow for easy switching of Instagram accounts, however, they have not been very effective and Instagram is soon going to restrict them. Explore different user-bases Instant switching will enable them to reach different user-bases through different accounts. More exposure to brand Brands will get a push through a new wave of vigor and vitality. It will enhance brand’s exposure. Post more content and always stay active  Marketers can now post more content on their business account without having to log out from their personal account and always stay alive and more active among their followers. Follow a unique strategy for every account It will help them to draw a line between two different accounts and reform their social strategy. How to manage multiple Instagram accounts? Social media marketing strategy forms the basis for success on social media.  Having multiple Instagram accounts does not guarantee success unless and until you put that extra effort to frame social media strategy for every account. A social media marketer must identify the target audience for different accounts. It is equally crucial to set social media goals and attribute KPIs to understand whether creating multiple accounts adds to sales revenue and generate sufficient ROI.  Use multiple accounts to create interactive content on Instagram An interesting way in which Instagram is being used by brands is through hosting interactive games.  Marketers can link a series of Instagram accounts and direct users to click through to each. Adult Swim, a major cable network company, linked 80 Instagram accounts to create a story.  The game is linked by tags in each image which links users to other accounts. The fans could choose tags of their choice and were rewarded at the end of the game. This promotional campaign was a creative way to build awareness about their new series Rick and Morty. Though this campaign may not work for everyone, it definitely highlights the possibilities of using multiple accounts on Instagram in an innovative manner.  Easier account switching will make it convenient for marketers to create interactive and immersive content by creating different experiences for on-platform users. Use multiple accounts for A/B testing on Instagram Marketers who have already been using multiple accounts on Instagram to test an idea will find it easier to do so through this new feature. Digital marketers may employ different ideas and tactics to understand their target audience. For this, they don’t have to temper with their existing marketing strategy. Digital marketers can explore many new ideas with account switching A digital marketer operates multiple social media accounts depending upon his business requirements. Different platforms that form part of social media strategy may include Facebook page, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ etc. Every platform offers a unique set of advantages and limitations. When a marketer decides to operate multiple Instagram accounts, it is adding to the list of active social media accounts.  So, marketers should be determined to put in

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Facebook Ad Trends in 2016

May 18, 2016

Facebook has grown to be the most popular social networking site on the planet and it is also one of the biggest tech companies in the world. Recently, it even outpaced ExxonMobil to become the 4th most important company in the world and its stocks are soaring. There is a reason behind Facebook’s success. Its ad platform is helping Facebook to generate a lot of money while also boosting advertisers’ revenue. People who are just started to use the Internet on their mobile phones still value Facebook as their number one resource, whether to fetch news or to find products. In fact, Facebook has almost outpaced Google in terms of usage and importance. With these facts in mind, most companies now have a Facebook ad strategy in place. In 2016, this will only continue thanks to the increasing popularity of Facebook. In this article, let us take a look at some of the trends that will likely persist in 2016 and beyond. Start using carousel link ads Carousel ads are becoming a very popular way to advertise on Facebook. The carousel format allows advertisers to showcase three to five images, headlines and links, along with a call to action. You could replace the images with videos as well. This is particularly attractive for viewers who do not want to leave Facebook but want to learn everything about the advertisement while they are still on the social network. A story can be narrated easily in the carousel format or you can showcase your products and services to discerning users. Their performance also has been vastly superior to static ad units. In 2016, carousel ads are likely to grow in importance and stature. Think of increasing your ad budget for 2016 Facebook has been gradually charging more in order to place advertisements. While this can be explained from a number of perspectives, you might also want to increase your total ad budget. It is important to do so because Facebook is one of the most important technology companies. If you are planning to reach a larger target audience, you simply might have to invest more in Facebook ads. The fact that Facebook allows direct communication with intended target audience makes it a better medium to advertise on. Certainly, it makes sense to increase ad budget so that you can optimize your Facebook ads. Use Facebook to go global and local Facebook is used across the world. It is available in local languages and even in countries where Facebook is not available; people use it using private networks. This wide appeal of the social network is a blessing in disguise for those who want to venture into newer locales. Facebook helps you with creating ads that are not only international but also local in that particular region of the world. In other words, you can make your international presence felt locally, wherever you want in around the world. This is one of the biggest advantages of using Facebook ads. Focus on building a mobile ad strategy There is no escaping the mobile juggernaut that has been set upon us. More people are accessing the Internet today using mobile devices. Whether cellphones or tablets, mobile internet seems to be the way to go forward. If you are planning to advertise on Facebook or elsewhere, it is important to have a mobile ad strategy that is in sync with times. Facebook allows mobile ads as well which are optimized to be viewed on mobile devices. This helps you to reach your audience on their mobile phones and tablets. Also called App Ads, they are likely to become very popular in 2016. Focus on where your ads are placed You can choose where your advertisements are shown. Opting to place your advertisements in the right sidebar is a great idea. The right sidebar unconsciously is where people look towards for information. Even in WordPress, people tend to click on information that is placed in the right sidebar. By focusing on where you place your ads within Facebook, you will be able to control how people are going to view your marketing communication. Placing really matters as people tend to look for certain kinds of information in certain areas of the screen. Use creative copy Whether you are focusing on mobile or desktop ads, try to get creative copywriters. Copy is going to be very important and it will probably be the most important way to set yourself apart from the rest of them. 2016 will see a lot of people using Facebook ads which means, you will have to try other ways to gain their attention. One of the best ways to do this is by writing copy that is very attractive and attention grabbing. Care must be taken to keep it short and crisp. Use other social media too While Facebook strategy obviously requires you to focus on Facebook, it makes sense to integrate Twitter or Instagram ads within your ad campaign. A concerted and synchronized approach will help you reach larger audiences and a more diverse market. It should be noted that Twitter is used by a vastly different and professional audience, thus making its inclusion within your ad strategy, a matter of high importance. Looking forward Facebook will be one of the most important ad channels in 2016. People will likely opt for carousel ads as lthey are more interactive in nature and easier to narrate a story. If you are planning to focus on advertising on Facebook, do not forget to have a mobile strategy or to have a social media strategy in general. It makes sense to include Twitter into the ad campaign while also focusing on great creative copy. All this means, you will need to set aside a larger budget for your ad campaigns in 2016 in order to remain competitive and ahead of your competitors.

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Why You Must Get Rid Of Pop-up Ads Immediately

April 22, 2016

A number of websites are very well designed and they also have great information. yet, people choose to immediately close them and move on to the next website. The main reason is, this amazing website disappointed the user with a pop-up ad. Pop-up ads are one of those annoying Internet cliches that never seem to go. These intrusive marketing communications are lauded by industry pundits as something that drives traffic, conversions and a whole lot of other clichéd business-related babble. Yet, there is no denying that the very pop-up ad that these people tout is also harming the clients more than anything else. It is also known that websites that are clean, well designed and that which make use of right sidebar and other widgets gain more views and people stay longer on the websites than on a website where pop-ups always appear. In order to understand why pop-ups are bad and why you should finally get rid of them, please do read the reasons stated below. If these reasons do not convince you to get rid of pop-up ads, we just insist, that you must. 1. Pop-ups create a bad impression Most of the times when people visit a website, they are looking for interruption-free viewing and information processing. Websites may contain useful information ad may even be well designed. However, when someone is reading about something interesting, and a pop-up advertisement pops on the website, they will be tempted to close it right away. They will neither process the marketing communication nor will they continue to visit your website. They may already have developed a bad impression about your website. First appearances are important and if one is not able to make a good impression, it is better not to make a bad one at least. 2. They make people want to leave Most people who browse dislike pop-up ads. There are no exceptions. Pop-up ads go against the human nature of being engrossed in something interesting. Getting distracted by something that is clearly commercial in nature is a huge turn-off. Almost immediately, people will want to leave the website, no matter how engrossed they were just before the ad popped up. In order to avoid people from leaving websites, it may be necessary to avoid pop-ups altogether. Certainly, no one wants to drive away visitors who may end up becoming leads or converts. It is important to grab their attention in an unobtrusive manner. 3. Pop-ups result in slower web pages This may come across as a controversial statement but pop-ups do slow down pages. Slower loading pages are known to cause SEO problems as Google and other search engines take the speed of a website into account when they rank them. Moreover, it is also important to have faster loading pages to keep visitors from changing the tab or closing it altogether out of frustration. Anything that removes the unnecessary from websites is a good idea to keep. With that in mind, keeping the plan of removing pop-ups is a very good strategy. 4. Pop-ups have a messy with user interface Of all the things that matter, nothing is more important than a good user interface. People should be able to browse through a website without having to look around where they need to click. A pop-up makes this very difficult as they sometimes block navigation bars. They may even cause the interface of the website to lose its integrity, causing visitors to get tired. If you are going to focus on user friendliness, it is important to get rid of those pop-ups. Pop-up ads also look too spammy and no one wants to click on them anyway. 5. Pop-ups are not mobile friendly When it comes to browsing on mobile devices, we need to remember that most websites are responsive today. While designing a responsive website, it is important to make sure that they are viewed easily on mobile devices. If they are not being viewed properly, that means they are not mobile friendly. With this in mind, if pop-ups always interfere with the responsive design, they obviously are doing more harm than use. In other words, pop-ups are not mobile friendly. Choosing a more mobile friendly option may be required in order attracting visitors. 6. Pop-ups make you look less credible While the design and technical aspects have already been explained, nothing says “we are not credible” than a pop-up ad. In this century, no one believes in pop-ups. They are associated with tawdry websites a questionable entity. People may even think you are going to infect their computers with Trojans and adwares. With this in mind, it is not an exaggeration if we said that pop-ups reduce your credibility and make you look questionable. Certainly, in order to attract newer clients and customers, you need to build trustworthiness. Pop-ups will not help you do that. 7. Pop-ups are outdated Pop-ups are a 1990s hangover that many companies still have not gotten over. Just like some people still tie-dye their t-shirts and look out of place in 2016, many still use pop-up ads. With MySpace and Netscape, pop-ups too should have been relegated to the murky depths of the 1990s or early 2000s. Unfortunately, they still persist. It is our responsibility to make sure that we are not part of the group that still practice outdated ad design strategies. If you still have those pop-ups, please get rid of them. Follow ad strategy best practices It is important to get rid of pop-ups, verbose and lengthy advertisements and other strategies that are known to drive people away. By adopting ad strategies that are tried and tested, you will be able to generate more traffic and revenue. Nobody wants to be mistaken for being someone with questionable intentions. By avoiding pop-ups and maintaining a clean image, you will be able to boost your trustworthiness. After all, all of us want visitors to stay longer and take home a marketing message or even better, take action

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How do you Measure the Effectiveness of Your Company’s Blog?

October 12, 2015

Companies have objectives which invariably impact every aspect of their blog. A business blog has different goals to fulfil. These may include building the brand, expanding business reach or supporting sales. However, to accomplish such goals, it is imperative to ensure that the blog is in line with your company/brand. But how do you initiate it? The foremost important thing is to measure its effectiveness on your business and audience engagement. This is referred as Marketing Performance Measurement. The metrics include indicators of the efficiency of your content supply chain. Although there are enough tools to measure your blog’s effort, it is more important to know –  What to measure?  How to measure?  What to do with the data once they’re uncovered? Before you start analyzing your metrics, here are the four most important grounds to measure first: Production of Content    This metrics will help you to manage the –  Number of blog posts planned, in the process and ready to be published  Frequency of blog posts posting  Average time to and from the idea to the publication of a blog post  Total costs involved in the production, promotion and distribution Outlining Creative Elements You tasks include-  Determine who will write the post  Ensure the blog has one consistent voice  Verify whether the content tells a story, be contextually relevant, have a point of view and sound like a real person  Check there isn’t any grammatical error  Test the color scheme, typography, post length and use of other media  Develop an editorial calendar Performance of the Content The metrics should cover  Social media link shares, likes and tweets  Unique visitors, number of page views and average time on site  Page depth and session duration  Number of visits, bounce rate, percentage of return visitors, page per visit Marketing Pipeline  You need to monitor  New leads generated and existing leads touched  Percent and money value opportunity generated, touched and won  Return on investment Here are the blogging metrics you should measure every month to best gauge the success of your blog Clicks – How Often and How Much If lead generation and how much revenue gained are your top priority, you need people to find and engage with your content. Measuring clicks provide directions to a marketer. They are the greatest indicator of who is clicking, from where they’re clicking, whether your topics are resonating with your audience and how well your post is performing in the search engines. For instance, HubSpot, marketing automation software can give you a better understanding of who is clicking and where specific clicks are coming from. Similarly, clicks on and around a publish date give you an insight into how well your posts are resonating with the target audience. You may also include a Call-To-Action button in your blog content. You can use it as a means to promote your other blog post offers and track how effective your blog is at generating leads. However, put something valuable within the CTA to inspire readers to click on it. Inbound links –  More Inbound Links Indicate Higher Rank in Search Engines If you make it a point to link other’s valuable content in your own blog post, they would also reciprocate the same in their content. It helps with your ranking on search engines. This is an indication that others have found your content helpful enough to link to it on their own website. You can use Google Analytics, Open Site Explorer, Backlink Watch or SEO profiler to measure inbound links in content. Blog Search Performance The foremost ways to measure the performance of your blog is to find out How many visitors your blog is attracting? The number will indicate how successful you are at attracting visitors to your website. You get measurements of total visitors, new visitors, return visitors and direct visitors. Google Analytics will take you a step further. This Analytical tool will show you the types of visitors viewing your blog. What is the number of subscribers to your blog? People subscribe to high-quality content. Subscribers will promote your brand and also lead to product purchases and event participation. Tools like Spring Metrics or Google Analytics helps you to measure the total number of feed subscribers. How do the visitors behave? Tool like CrazyEgg measures the user behaviour and interactions.  You get detail data about how visitors interact with the information on your page, what they actually do, how far do they scroll and at what place they stop viewing or deciding to leave comment, make a purchase or subscribe. Social Shares Take the time to discover what factors cause readers to share your post. Indeed, social media buttons on your blog post pages are a direct indicator of the level in which people find your content helpful. Research and studies show that readers share content that-  Induces happiness  They found quite valuable  Are helpful to others Social analytics tools like Open Site Explorer is effective in measuring the volume of social shares any blog post on your website is generating. With each click of the social media button, you’ll receive confirmation that readers enjoyed your content and was engaged with it. A successful content strategy is aligned with measuring the revenue generated from it. This is simple if your blog posts are aligned with the premium content like eBooks that are confirmed ways to bring in business. You may also find several free analytical tools that will help you measure the impact of your blog on the business.

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5 Effective Online Marketing Channels for Successful SEM

August 24, 2015

An online marketing channel can either make or break your search engine marketing campaign. It is important to know what one is getting into and which channel is most suited for one’s needs. On this note, it makes sense to familiarize oneself with the five most important online marketing channels that have been around for a while, and that which refuse to vanish from the face of SEM. These online marketing channels ensure that you have a good traffic driven back to your website. They also ensure that you get the kind of traffic you are looking for. In this article, let us take a look at five of the most important online marketing channels which help in optimizing search engine marketing. 1.      Search Engine Optimization done the old-fashioned way Organic SEO depends on good quality content and ethical SEO practices. This means, fixing your meta-tags, adding images in the right places, fixing broken links, weeding out spammy backlinks and ensuring that the website is administered well. It also means that you will often need to maintain the website so that error pages, slow browsing and other problems are weeded out in order to boost traffic. Organic SEO is still one of the most important sources of traffic and it is known for its high quality leads. 2.      Search engine advertising Advertising on Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines are very important to divert traffic. Paid advertising is a tried and tested online marketing channel that ensures a high rate of success, when it comes to driving traffic. There are different kinds of paid advertising and you could choose the one that will best suit your company and its products. Pay Per Click, Pay Per Impression, Cost Per Lead, Cost Per Action and other forms of paid advertising have been around for a long and will continue to be so. 3.      Referral and affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is still one of the more reliable forms of SEM. They can be particularly useful for retail ecommerce. Performance-based marketing can be very useful, and, as it makes use of the Internet to get referrals, it is one of the cheapest and most effective forms of search engine marketing (SEM). Another way of getting traffic and leads is through referral traffic. This involves capitalizing traffic that arrives from other blogs and websites. This kind of traffic depends on a number of factors and one needs to work constantly on nurturing those referral sources. 4.      Content marketing and its growing importance This is one of the most important forms of online marketing channels today. While it is not as obvious and in-your-face as a banner ad or a PPC campaign, content marketing builds referrals and helps you with organic SEO as well. In the long term, publishing great content and marketing it to the right target audience will help you to crystallize your authority and thus gain a higher SEO ranking. Ultimately, content marketing is one of the most important channels of SEM and this phenomenon is only likely to grow and increase further. 5.      Social media, social signals and social networking With the advent of social media marketing and with Google placing importance to social signals, SEO professionals have realized the importance to marketing on social networking sites in order to boost SEO. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have all proven to be important platforms to market online. All of these social platforms offer various advertising options to companies. Moreover, being active on these social platforms will help to build audience organically, which place an important role in ensuring that you rank high in search results. Looking forward Every business wants traffic that could probably lead to more sales. This means, we need to channelize traffic from sources that are reliable and targeted. We must remember that all channels are not made equal and, some channels may work great for some, while others may not work at all for someone else. With this in mind, the 5 tried and tested online marketing channels we discussed above will surely boost traffic to your website and help you with your SEM, no matter what kind of business you run.  

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How Can You Protect Your Website Against Negative SEO?

May 1, 2015

With a lot of focus on black hat SEO techniques, people often forget that there is another threat lurking around the corner. Negative SEO has turned out to be one of the most formidable forces against good link building and site administration. A number of companies and individuals have lately become victims of negative SEO, which is a term used to describe unethical practices meant to bring down competitor’s SEO rankings. If black hat SEO techniques are meant to increase search engine rankings unethically, negative SEO aims to bring down genuine websites’ SEO rankings by attacking them with spammy links, copying the website’s content and posting it all over the web so that Google thinks it is duplicating content & also crippling a website’s speed by sending across thousands of requests each second to your server. It can also mean that a potential negative SEO crook contacts of other websites who have linked to you and ask them to remove those links by impersonating you. Having a website and damaging someone’s reputation on social media also is related to negative SEO. What could be done to protect a website against negative SEO? In this article, let us take a look at a few steps that are intended to help you protect your own website: 1. Set up Google Webmaster Tool alerts First, you need to turn on the Google Webmaster Tool alerts, which will notify you if Googlebot cannot access your website or if something else goes wrong. However, by this time, the damage would have already been done to your website. Thus, it is important to keep other options in hand. It is not possible to simply rely on Google Webmaster Tool alerts. 2. Keep checking your backlinks The best way to safeguard yourself against negative SEO is to check your backlinks often. You need to create a system that will help you to track all your inbound links with the help of tools like Link Research Tools, Google Webmaster Tools or Open Site Explorer. CognitiveSEO helps you to automate this process. If you see an unusual number of low quality backlinks, there is something wrong going on. 3. Demand for bad links to be taken off Sometimes, you can directly ask those who have been troubling you to take off those links that bother you. It might not work but it is always a good idea to be proactive and search everything in our toolbox. You can also request Google to intervene when things go out of hand. At least, you will have proof that you contacted those who were linking your website with spammy links to remove them. 4. Ask Google to remove suspicious backlinks You can request Google to disavow backlinks that seem spammy. If you are not able to do so, you can try and update your disavow.txt file. You can make a list of links that you don’t want to link to your website and you can upload it to Google. Another way to do this is by using the Spam Report Form that will help Google to know which site is spammy and which isn’t. It is not clear if this trick will work but it is worth trying. 5. Engage a reputation management agency At times, it is a good idea to contact a reputation management agency, if there are a lot of unfair and negative comments about your company on social media. Sometimes, competitors leave behind nasty comments so that your company’s reputation goes down on social media. You could seek the services of a reputation management company to sort this problem out. Looking forward If you are unable to do anything at all about negative SEO, you can seek professional help. One of the other ways to tackle negative SEO is to build a website that is so awesome that no amount of unfair and unethical SEO practices would harm you. If you write content that is so authoritative and formidable that every other important site links to your website, the effect that spammers would have on you will drastically reduce. It is important to bear all these tricks in mind and protect oneself against negative SEO. It is a real threat and it is wise to contact professionals when things go too far.

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Four Best Practices to Dramatically Boost Your Social Media Presence

April 29, 2015

To have a social media presence has become one of the most important steps to achieving success. A lot more people are using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn today than ever before. In this background, companies really have to work hard to stand out from others. Only an engaging social media strategy can help companies to do that. However, it is not just enough to have a social media strategy in place and assume that everything will fall in place. You need to know certain best practices that can dramatically increase your company’s social media presence. In this article, let us take a look at what these important steps to conquering the social media space are: 1. Hybrid social sharing with automation and real-time updates It is not possible to update your social media accounts all the time. However, it is important to automate certain blog posts, images, videos and news so that they are circulated on social media in a timely manner, especially, when the traffic is high on social sites. Yet, it is also equally important to not automate everything. In order to prove that you are not an automated bot, you will have to dedicate at least 50% of your social media activity to real-time sharing. This includes answering to people’s queries, replying to complaints, solving issues, thanking people for feedbacks and actively engaging with your audience. 2. Track your social content It is one thing to be active to share posts on social media and another to track & measure your ROI. In order to do so, you have to have an effective strategy in place. You need to use tools like BuzzSumo, Hootsuite, Buffer App and others to track who shared your links, why it was shared, what were their demographics & psychographics and how best you can connect with that person. This will give you important insights about your social media strategy and help you to arrive at solutions that you probably didn’t even know existed. Tracking and measuring social content is one of the most important ways to achieve social media success. 3. Optimize your social media profiles One of the most important ways to boost your social media presence is to ensure that you make your social profiles look better. This will help people to find your social profile attractive and stay on for a longer time. If your social profiles are not uniquely designed and if they look outdated, people will lose interest in your activities. It is important to keep the target audience in mind and develop social profile aesthetics that will appeal to your chosen buyer personas. This might cost a little money in the beginning, especially, to get your profiles designed professionally. However, in the long run, it will help you to get back all that you spend and more. 4. Actively build a network As we mentioned earlier, you need to use 50% of your social media resources to engage in conversations in real-time. It is not enough to automate your social media activity and forget about it. You need to actively engage in conversations, build an intelligent network, choose your influencers and use those influencers to advocate your product. This is a very important aspect of social media marketing. Influencers are known to help people make decisions better than advertisements. If you can make a list of all those influencers with a good social media presence, your own social media presence will be boosted. Be intelligent in doing this, otherwise, you might come across as a self-promotional aficionado. Final thoughts If you follow these recommendations and best practices, you could be rest assured that it won’t take long to achieve the kind of success one wants. You might not even need to hire a professional agency, if you cannot afford one. Only, you need to follow the steps below to ensure that your social media presence receives a big boost. It will take a little patience, some hard work and a lot of creativity to achieve success.

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Social Media Myths to Overcome in 2015

April 15, 2015

Social media is seen in different perspectives by marketers. Some take it too seriously while others consider it a time waste. It is a fact that social media carries a lot of weight and plays a significant role in influencing customer decision making process. But before you choose any particular social media service, you must know if your audience is present there or not. Do you have a plan in place or you are just entering for the sake of it. How much time can you afford to spend in maintaining your social media profile? What is the source of your content generation? Are you able to connect with decision-makers and influencers in your industry? Social media is a relatively new platform for businesses. Both the network owners and business owners have realized how to exploit this potential. Networks are becoming more user-friendly and business-friendly. The most awaited launch of “Facebook for Business” in 2015, says it all. Such initiatives come for a reason. This article is written to bust the most popular myths and take a new approach on how marketers see this. 1. You don’t need a plan It is a fact that social media is easy to use and helps you to interact with your customers but for a business, one needs comprehensive planning to pursue your goals of social networking. Quite often, interaction is high in the beginning and slowly comes down to negligible. Such a pursuit is better not attempted. For instance, the reason is people join your Facebook page with the hope of learning something new but if you don’t meet their expectations, they will soon unfollow you. Determine your goals and objectives for each social network profile you have. What is the follower growth rate you have projected? How many queries do you respond every day? (This is significant when businesses start receiving a number of queries but are never answered.) Criticism spreads like fire on social media. How do you plan to handle it? All these questions need to be a part of your social media strategy. 2. Complacency about the size of your target audience Unquestionably, size of your target audience does matter and it helps you to allocate your marketing budget. But to take advantage of target audience on social media, you need a focused approach. If your focus is just on to increase the number of followers of your social media profile, without wanting to, you will fail miserably. In the end, it is not the number that matters but quality interaction with a small group of people. You can’t expect to engage in quality interaction with all your followers. Identify the ones who show more interest and curiosity than others and take it from there. If you are able to satisfy a small group, word-of-mouth will start paying you. Moreover, running a huge social media campaign requires time and resources (money and man power). For a small business that might be naïve in running a social media page, it is always safe to start at a small scale. Quality engagement with a smaller group helps you to understand your target audience better and prepare yourself for a bigger battle. 3. You need to be present on all the leading social networks It is not necessary to have a profile on every leading social network. Choose the number and the ones that you are comfortable and determined to work on for a long term. Every network has unique features and capability. There are various supporting tools and tactics to enhance the capability of every network. Why not explore one network acutely rather than dirtying your hands in all and get nothing. For instance, tools used by marketers on Twitter include Bitly, Buffer etc. Bitly allows you to shorten the length of the URL being shared and you can share the links on multiple Twitter accounts. You can also see the stats for Bitly links on your dashboard. Similarly, Buffer allows you to schedule your tweets throughout the day. 4. Use every post to talk about your business This is one of the biggest myths that need riddance in 2015. It is true that you wish to educate your target audience about your business so that they become your customers. But you can’t bore them with marketing pitch on every encounter that they have with your post. Talk about anything but business. Look for the relevant issues or trending topics that intrigues your audience. You have to look for the right opportunity to talk about business. Sense the mood of the audience before you start a discussion. Ask about their preferences and likings. Ideally speaking, social media is a place where people are relaxed and expressive about how & what they feel. Audience need not ever get an impression that you have come with an agenda to sell on social media. 5. It is okay to commit grammatical or spelling errors There has been an exponential growth in using creative spellings and very little attention to grammar by users on social media & instant messaging services. Though there is nothing wrong in doing so but such practice makes today’s generation vulnerable. However, marketers should keep away from such a practice as it does not look professional. You might be talking about casual topics that interests the audience but your audience will not take you seriously if you start a similar practice. As a marketer, you have to lead by keeping your communication professional. Casual spellings carry a risk of non-seriousness. In your effort to tune with the audience, you lose out to your competitors. 6. It’s just interaction, why measure it? It might look unimportant at first glance but measuring the statistics associated with your social media audience helps you to know your audience profile. With what they read, like, share and tag, you can design your product & marketing communication. Your content can be more focused. You can analyze audience demographics and study the differences among different groups.

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Crisis Management on Twitter

April 10, 2015

When it comes to information dissemination, social media is increasingly replacing traditional forms of media. Of all these social networking or social media tools, Twitter has emerged to be the most important for companies when it comes to offering customer service. It is increasingly being seen that Twitter is also great at crisis management, no matter what the situation is. It offers a kind of immediacy and intimacy that other social media tools cannot. Facebook, though more “personal” is not really personal when it comes to Facebook pages. However, Twitter can be very personal when you need to mention someone directly or send a direct message. Impersonal as it may seem, Twitter is a very powerful form of personal communication tool that can be used in times of crises. Twitter presents an explosive opportunity to bring disruptive change and focus on crisis management. It helps companies to address issues that previously required a lot more effort and resources. Moreover, the kind of immediacy that Twitter provides is second to none. In this article, let us take a look at how Twitter can help you to manage crises that may occur from time to time. 1. Be prompt Whenever there is crisis, it is important for you to be available on Twitter to address questions directed at you. Prompt responses to queries and anxious tweets will only help you to build a positive image. This is one example of making use of a negative situation to build your image. Always make sure to answer every query no matter how frantic, in a prompt manner. When you respond immediately to frantic tweets, you have already solved one problem. Anxious customers usually say things that they do not mean to and when you delay a response, it may soon get out of hand. Before a crisis situation goes out of hand, respond promptly and effectively. If you are unable to solve the problem immediately, give the customer or client a certain time period within which you can solve the problem. Just knowing that you read their problem will help them to calm down and the crisis situation gets deflated. If your company deals with services and products which may cause medical or legal emergencies, hire a special team for managing your accounts on Twitter. 2. Show empathy Whether it is a small problem or something huge, always be empathic. Do not sympathies with your audience but make sure that you answer their queries and really try to understand what their problem is. You need to walk in their shoes or at least imagine what it might feel like, before responding to queries or problems. Empathy usually solves a lot of problems that is usually created during times of crisis. If you are able to prove that you are not just another automated social media account that mechanically responds to crisis related queries, you have already set yourself apart. It is important to do this because not many companies handle crises effectively. When you display empathy, kindness and understanding, your audience or followers will know that you are a company that is not merely interested in profits but also in the well being of customers and clients in times of crisis. So, do not forget to display your empathic side and ensure that there is genuine kindness involved. This will take you and your brand a long way. 3. Inform and educate Sometimes, managing a crisis involves informing and educating people who are unaware that there is a crisis. You need to be as professional and kind as possible, especially if it involves breaking bad news. If it involves breaking unfortunate news, it might be a better idea to personally call up the customer. However, minor problems and issues can be announced and informed on Twitter in a quick manner. This helps clients, customers and audience to save time and take action. When you inform people about an existing crisis, you must also inform them how you are going to manage that particular situation and what role is expected of them. Usually, you should ensure that they need not do anything except being aware that there is a crisis situation unfolding and that you are at work trying to resolving it. This will keep them in loop and help you to avoid a situation where you may be blamed for not informing them about the problem in hand. Educating also involves directing your clients, customers and followers to act in a certain manner. If they need to be directed to do something, do it so in a brief manner. Avoid sending several tweets for one particular instruction as that may confuse your followers. 4. Be honest If you messed up on something, own up to it. Do not deny or hide the fact that there is something wrong. If it is your fault, all the more reason to own up and ensure that there is a foundation of honesty. An honest company will survive even the toughest of battles. You should ensure that you will be able to answer every query and every frantic tweet in a calm and composed manner. You should be honest about what the crisis is all about as dishonesty can turn into a crisis in itself. When you reveal the truth no matter how harsh it is, you will find that you are in safer hands. People are incredibly tenacious and they have the ability to withstand all kinds of crises. You just have to have the courage to break the news in an honest manner. In fact, if you are honest in your tweets, you will be respected for it and you may even earn the goodwill of your customers in spite of the crisis situation. you just have to ensure that you are not hiding anything and prove that you are trying to do what you can to deflate the crisis situation. 5. Be humble Humility is one of the most important factors of managing a

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Link Building in 2015: The Game Has Changed

April 8, 2015

SEO professionals often find it difficult to explain to their clients that link building is as important as it ever has been. Most clients often point out to the fact that link building exercises have a bad reputation and that Google has often penalized websites which engage in link building. This is only partly true. Google has consistently updated its algorithms in order to ensure that malpractices are not encouraged and that every website has a fair opportunity to be displayed in search results. Which is why, when Google senses that something is amiss and that a company is aggressively building links, it penalizes that particular website. Google has found a number of ways to detect websites that engage in such SEO malpractices. What most people will not tell you is that Google encourages web administrators to build links and to connect with each other. Google just wants web admins to play it fair and safe. With that in mind, ethical SEO professionals will tell you that link building is not the problem but unethical means of building links is the problem. On that note, SEO professionals understand that link building is an effective exercise to bring websites together and to create information that is compelling & worthwhile. Further, Google just wants website owners to link to websites that are relevant and eventually help in putting all information on the Internet together. With this in mind, let us take a look at how link building will fare in 2015 and what you need to know about building links this year ahead. 1. Understand what link building is One of the most important tasks is to understand what link building is. In 2015, if you believe that link building is an enigmatic exercise, which involves various SEO professionals messing with bots and algorithms, you probably have got it wrong. When we speak about link building, the goal is rather clear – we try to get desirable websites to link back to our websites and when we write compelling content, we link to authoritative & desirable websites. While it is easy for us to link to desirable websites, getting those websites to link back to us is difficult. In order to get backlinks, you need to define what your link building strategy is. If you are planning to get a backlink from The New York Times, you probably will not succeed. However, it might be possible to get a write-up published in a magazine or a newspaper where your business is located. This involves having a good PR professional or a publicist who will make your case. In fact, SEO is more about public relations today than it was a few years ago. The trick is to figure out how to get those desirable websites to link back to your content in a fair and ethical way. 2. Understand the project Whether you are building links for your own website or for your client, you need to understand the project in hand. It will take a while to understand what you are trying to do and how it actually needs to be done. You need to understand the website’s quirks, its niche, readers, visitors, clients and the target audience. Then comes the part, which involves understanding the psychographics and demographics of various entities involved. You also need to understand and analyze the unique selling proposition of the website & how it affects the way you market your own products and services. All these need to be tracked, analyzed and even measured along the way. It will take some time to get a grip over these factors but eventually you will know that link building also involves understanding the project in a deep and profound manner, as described in this paragraph. In fact, link building solely depends on understanding a given project from the grassroots. This will help SEO professionals to look for those sites, which are particularly helpful when it comes to seeking backlinks. 3. Understand the importance of content A few years ago, SEO professionals did not pay much attention to content. Content marketing was either unheard of or was in its initial stages of growth. With the content boom taking place a few years ago, blogs, social media, e-books, whitepapers and other forms of content have become very important. Whether a website will link to you or not depends on the kind of content strategy that you follow. In order to ensure that your SEO campaign goes well, you will have to probably take your content marketing plan more seriously. You will need to come up with ways to ensure that your content is worth paying for and that it is not written mechanically. Incidentally, content writing needs to be a lot more organic than SEO professionals would like to believe. In 2015, we will continue to see an upsurge in the growth of content marketing and SEO will involve understanding how to market and distribute content that is created & then, attract backlinks that are of value to the company. Thus, we can say that link building involves a lot of content marketing as well. 4. More companies are online Link building is going to be a lot more important in 2015 than it used to be in previous years. The reason for this is, a lot more companies are online and the need for building effective links to ensure visibility is much more important today. The coming months will see many more companies trying to create a space for themselves online and this will involve content marketing and SEO. If you want to survive or make your presence felt, you will have to have a very consistent and different link building strategy. It is simply not enough to write blog posts and get people to link. You will need to function as a PR team to get authoritative websites to link back and thus, help you to achieve the success you have always wanted. It is not

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