Tag: digital marketing

YouTube Card- The New Tool of YouTube Video Marketing

May 18, 2015

YouTube is not just a forum to watch the most desired videos; it is also an opportunity to market your business to millions of people. The platform is perfect for building business client relationships and to reap the benefits of creative marketing strategy. Most importantly, there are no big budgets. If YouTube is still not a part of your social media business marketing, it’s high time that you consider this medium for your business growth. As people are treating YouTube channels as almost like a homepage of a website, YouTube introduced YouTube Cards that allow you to add more interactive cards to your videos. The elements including custom images, titles and call-to-action text integrated within YouTube Cards add an extra layer of interactivity to your video content. YouTube Cards YouTube Cards are side bar options shown on YouTube videos. They allow users to place external links, call-to-actions and other YouTube related videos. You no longer have to anticipate whether your audience would remember your website address you mentioned or check the video description for a link. They can simply click on your video card to check for any important information. The Six Different Types of Card you can add to your Videos Merchandise Card Merchandise card helps in promoting a creator’s licensed merchandise directly from the video. Fan Funding Card This type of card allows your fans to appreciate your videos and make monetary contribution directly to your video page. Fundraising Card This card link viewers directly to the projects on whitelist fundraising sites. Video or Playlist Card This card helps in linking to another public YouTube video or playlist, which can interest other viewers of the current video. Playlist Card Playlist card helps in promoting various playlists on YouTube. Associated Website Card You can directly link your viewers to your website through YouTube card. Ensure whichever card you use aligns with the goals of your YouTube video. Features that make the card widely accepted among its users It is easy to customize the card with images, titles and call-to-actions. If you use three cards or less, you’ll have higher click-through rates. Although cards are available to open and view at any time, you can choose any particular time for the card’s teaser to appear in your video. Users can make the card icon appear and click the ‘i’ tab for getting the desired card. YouTube cards function across all mobile and desktop devices. This is a great advantage, especially, for those who gets frustrated by the lack of annotations when they watch YouTube video on Smartphones. The card’s performance can be checked in YouTube’s Analytics. YouTube is still surfacing the most relevant card teasers, based on fan behaviour, card performance and the devices users are using to watch the videos. Here’s how your business can benefit from new school of YouTube Marketing You have more audience to your website Each video you create needs to have a clear goal; and this is where the call-to-action is important in your card. YouTube Card allows you to send viewers to other pages on your website. However, ensure that you know where they need to go and what you want them to do once they get there. For instance, if your video is about ‘how-to-guide’, you can accordingly use a card and send it to your audience to discover the tips and guidance on your site. You might also add the link of your ‘how-to-guide’ video to your blog. Your audience are well-aware of your brand Video marketing is an effective way to make your prospects aware of what’s new and happening within your brand. Use YouTube card to discuss a particular topic, about products and services or answering common questions, especially, when your website has blog articles & valuable information for the viewers to read. Direct promotion of your products and services YouTube video cards are quite impressive when it is about promoting your products. One great way of showcasing your products is by creating and publishing a series of short videos for your viewers to know who you are. You might also create a video that demonstrates what you’re selling or how to use your products. Once you’re done with your video, incorporate a YouTube card to promote the entire product and a link & call-to-action to buy them. You have your viewers’ email addresses Email list is a significant aspect of customer relationship development in your business. As YouTube video can have up to 5 YouTube cards, one of them can be an enticement to sign up for email address. Place a URL to one of your lead magnets where users will have to share their email addresses to receive it. Email marketing is crucial to stay in touch with your audience, warm them up and promote your products & services. While you offer free content in exchange for an email sign up through YouTube card, you’re actually giving your potential customers the opportunity to learn more about you and your offerings. So, here’s your chance to make your YouTube channel a destination to generate more leads.

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What You Need to Know Before Hiring an SEO Professional

May 11, 2015

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as we all know it, is not the same anymore. It is continuously evolving and is becoming more entwined with content marketing, design and public relations. With that in mind, do you really want to hire just about anyone who calls himself or herself an SEO professional? You will need to give this issue a thought before jumping into making decisions. If an SEO professional does not understand the way mobile and content systems have taken over the Internet, you probably need not be dealing with that person anyway. There are several parameters you need to consider before hiring an SEO agency or professional. With so many of them around, making the right choice can become somewhat difficult. In this article, let us take a look at what is required of an SEO agency or professional and we shall also take a look at which kinds of SEO agencies you need to avoid & which questions you need to ask before hiring them. After all, if you know and understand the murky waters you are wading through, you will be able to reach the other side of the shore much more easily. 1. Do they follow outdated SEO practices? There are many outdated SEO practices, which simply do not have a place in today’s world. Two of them are purchasing backlinks and talking a lot about SEO copywriting. Backlinks, as a matter of fact, need not be purchased. You need to get those links from various websites because of your amazing content, services and products. Unless your SEO agency helps you to understand this, they probably do not know it themselves. A few years ago, it was perfectly OK to purchase backlinks in order to deceive search engines into thinking that a particular website is probably more worthy than it is supposed to be. Thankfully, Google has put an end to all that and has continued to launch new updates in order to weed out such malpractices. Another question you need to ask yourself is whether the SEO agency or professional is speaking a lot about SEO copywriting. What this basically means is they are discussing keyword stuffing, writing content specifically for search engines and trying to play hide & seek with search engine algorithms. You really need not be experimenting with SEO agencies and professionals who discuss these things. Instead, look for an agency that helps you to achieve your goals with the help of organically driven campaigns that will take you back to the basics of marketing and advertising. 2. Are they promising too much? A number of SEO agencies and professionals are known to use their bravado to attract clients. A lot of clients fall for this kind of charm and end up in situations they wish they were not in. One of such situations is falling for promises and fast results. SEO is not something that can turn your low traffic website into a multi-million visitor drawing website overnight. It takes a lot of time and effort to see improvements & expectations need to be realistic. If the SEO agency promises you something that makes you feel really good, stop for a minute and think. Just the fact that you are feeling really good shows that it might be something unrealistic that is being sold to you. Carefully analyze your own situation and how much success you expect from an SEO contract. Chances are, you already know what you can expect and have realistic goals. Any SEO agency worth its salt will tell you that you need to be realistic in order to actually achieve success. SEO would certainly help you to make your mark online and it is important to change the way you market yourself online as the Internet evolves. However, falling for big promises and bravado will only land you into trouble. 3. Do they have references or are they very new? Another question you need to ask yourself is how long they have been around in the business. There are some SEO professionals who are still looking for their first client. You probably wouldn’t want to be their first client and endure all the experiments they will subject you to in the name of building your SEO ranking. Try and choose an agency that has been around for a while and that which has a list of clients. When you see that list, make sure that you seek permission to speak to those clients or references. References are a great source of information not because of what they say about your SEO agency or professional but also because who they really are. A lot of time, we can use the quality of the references themselves in order to judge the vendor. This requires a little expertise in the form of assessing business needs, why the references say what they really say and also to assess if the references provided are legitimate enough. When you are armed with this kind of information, you will find it easier to choose an SEO agency that will help you to achieve success. 4. Do they speak as if things are very easy? When you interview an SEO agency or professional, you might feel that they offer very easy solutions. They might behave as if success is very easy and it is guaranteed. They might also provide you with packages, which actually is doublespeak for “one size fits all”. You need to be wary of these professionals. They might lack the enthusiasm and creativity to take on complex challenges & might offer packages that will eventually land in trouble. Each client is unique and comes with a different set of requirements. We need to remember that SEO is no longer just about fixing metatags and working around keywords but it is a completely different ball game. We need to remember that SEO entails content marketing, PR and advertising in order to achieve its goals. An SEO professional who is not aware

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Maximize the Exposure of Your Facebook Ads with Power Editor

May 6, 2015

It is not new that every marketers turn to social media to accomplish their marketing goals. Social media is one of the effective ways to get the word out about your brand. To make it easier to manage your brand, Facebook introduced Power Editor to help marketers have greater control over their advertising segment. Facebook Encouraging Marketers to Spend More Time on Ads Facebook introduces Power Editor. This social media tool is used to create bulk ads and manage the same on Facebook. Power Editor is typically used by advertisers who are looking for advanced features. Advertisers, on a large scale, can efficiently manage their ads and campaigns. With these bulk ads being targeted to the right audience, marketers can definitely enhance their customer experiences. This plugin works on download and upload system with Google Chrome. So, every time when you want to work in Power Editor, you’ve to download all the data from the Ads Manager and then create your campaign, ads & ad sets within Power Editor. Take a look at the comprehensive guide to setting Power Editor. Core Features to Consider Lookalike Audience The Lookalike Audience feature helps you to reach people who are similar to your existing customers for brand awareness, fan acquisition, coupon claims or site registration. Saved Audience Demographic information is essential. The Saved Audience feature allows you to save time needed for target audience selections and apply them to future ads with a single click. Once the audience has been created, select the ‘Use Existing Targeting Group’ option within the Audience segment and automatically apply your target preferences. Fan Targeting It has been observed that targeting fans only with Facebook ads can dramatically increase click-through rates by 700 percent. If you want to expand your reach beyond your existing followers, you have to target your ads to them through Power Editor. Bulk Ad Power Editor has the ability to simplify the bulk ad creation process. The ‘Duplicate Button’ in the Power Editor’s Ad creation makes any type of campaign set-up function very efficiently. Partner Categories Partner categories represent groups of Facebook users that can be served different types of ads based on their previous online browsing and shopping histories. Conversion Pixel Conversion Pixel is code needed to follow conversions on your webpage back to the ad on Facebook. You Have Enough Reasons to Use Power Editor Here’s how Facebook Power Editor offers you all the perks: Better Management of Ad Images With Facebook Power Editor, a larger number of ads and their images can be saved in one place. It not only enables you to see which images are tied to which ad but also while creating ads, you can choose an image you had previously used. However, the most impressive feature is its ability to allow marketers to see the click-through effectiveness of each image and exclude images that do not work. Bulk Uploading of Ads The bulk uploading feature of Power Editor allows you to run multiple ads. It enables you to upload an Excel spreadsheet of your ads, download them as well as edit them. This is useful specifically when one needs to save time on large campaigns. Bulk Editing Your wide array of ads and ad sets can be easily modified with the help of bulk editing. You can apply changes to all of your ads at once and update them accordingly. Optimization of Ads You can optimize your ads for the same things available in the Ads Manager. These might include post engagement, impressions or clicks. In addition, you can also choose daily unique reach that helps you to bid on impressions. The feature ensures that your ads get viewed by people at least once a day. You can truly optimize the amount of views and engagement your ads receive. Custom Audience Custom Audience allows you to make your own contact lists with phone numbers and emails, in order to reach customers with targeted Facebook ads. Run Ads According to Different Time Zones If you know your audience is on Facebook at certain times of the day, you can progress your ad performance by showing your ads at the local times. You have the option to choose which times you want your ad to run in any time zone. Mobile-Friendly Ads Power Editor allows you to create and run ads specifically on mobile devices used by the customers. You can run your advertising campaigns for iOS or Android users. This kind of targeting can be used for luxury products, which are more likely to be used by the smart device owners. Marketers can also target the teens by running campaigns specifically for the iPod users. Run Unpublished Page Post Unpublished page post allows you to create ads with longer text. Unpublished posts look similar to regular page posts and include a call-to-action button to draw attention to the desired actions. The greatest advantage of using unpublished page post is its ability to split test ads without promoting too much of promotional content multiple times on a day. Advertise through News Feed Power Editor helps you to advertise on Facebook through news feed. It has been observed that the click-through rate for advertisements in news feed have shown great impact. Power Editor helps in analyzing what kind of audience is actually responding to the advertisements. Split Testing and Duplication You are able to do split testing on Facebook advertising using Power Editor. It is now easy to create a large number of variations of the advertisement on Facebook on the basis of headlines, images, ad text or colors. These variations can be tested and done by using ‘duplicate’ button on the Power Editor. This means, you can create an ad, duplicate it and modify as per your requirements. Here you have it…the best way to maximize the exposure of your Facebook ads.

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How to Stop Sounding Automated on Facebook Pages

May 4, 2015

There are a number of reasons why people have been using automation programs to update their social networks. The more we expect from social profiles, the more active they need to be. When customers expect too much, it becomes difficult to keep up with the demands. Thus, companies began to use tools like Buffer App and Hootsuite, which help you to automate your status updates. Even when you are in a conference, you can set up Hootsuite to keep posting on your behalf so that there is always a steady stream of updates available for your audience. But really, does it work this way? Won’t people know that you are automating your status updates if they arrive at regular intervals and you are not responding to comments left by your audience? What happens if there are comments, which require immediate attention and Hootsuite or Buffer App posts an inane status update because you didn’t see the crisis coming while you were away at a conference? All these and more difficult questions have begun to arise and people now know that it is not a very good idea to completely depend on tools that automate your Facebook page updates. On that note, in this article, let us take a look at the available options and how you can stop automating and stop sounding automated when it comes to Facebook page updates. Do you really need to automate? There are a number of reasons why people automate their Facebook updates. They may not have the time or resources to constantly update Facebook pages as and when required. They might fear that they will forget updating when there was something to share. Many people automate their Facebook pages because it is easier to track and manage what was shared. It is always better to do follow the rules of automation, if one were to do it at all. Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer App do not just automate your updates but also help you to track & measure your social media campaigns. It becomes easier to know which update received more likes and clicks. This way, these two tools are not just automation software programs but they help you to arrive at metrics and measurement. With all these things considered, it might be possible that it is not quite necessary to automate your Facebook posts. If your company is not large enough, you can probably use Facebook pages at your own convenience and update them as you like, built upon a strategy. If you fear you will not be able to do it all by yourself, there are social media agencies who will maintain and nurture a social community through lively conversations and information sharing. However, if you still want to go the automation way, there are a few things that you need to know. Divide your content: It is important to segregate your social updates according to their level of importance. For instance, a tried and tested method is to automate informative links and always stay online to respond to queries & potential leads. Understand that it is not possible to automate everything: Many people have a wrong belief that they can automate all their updates without ever having to login to their Facebook pages. This is a very common mistake that companies do. This can be worse than not updating the page at all. For example, if your company has winded down operations and your social profile is still updating the Facebook page because Hootsuite was set up to keep updating statuses, it is going to be an embarrassing mistake. The ideal way to resolve this issue is to automate certain updates and manage everything else in real-time. How not to sound automated? Whether you choose to go the hybrid way by automating partly and responding to critical queries in real-time or you choose to hire full-time social media managers, it is important to not sound automated. It is quite possible to sound automated even when you are responding in real-time. Below, let us take a look at how we can avoid sounding automated. 1. Be real and enthusiastic One of the first signs of automation is that content sounds robotic. If there is no sign of enthusiasm or motivation, people assume you are using automation tools to update your social profiles. Display enthusiasm and actively engage in conversations. Do not stick to scripts while updating your status messages. A little bit of enthusiasm will go a long way. 2. Hire a social media agency If you are unable to do this all by yourself, you can hire the services of a social media agency. When you outsource your social media tasks, you will be able to focus on your core competencies. It is, therefore, a good idea to outsource your social media management tasks to an external agency. Professional social media agencies have an army of social media experts who understand what your business is and who your target audience is. According to these factors, they will update your social media profiles, which will help you to look natural and real. 3. Participate enthusiastically When you post updates yourself, do not stop it at just leaving a message or sharing pictures and logging off. When people like your images or leave comments, engage them in conversations. These conversations help you to build long lasting relationships with your prospects. Most often, it is these prospects on social media who comment on your posts and images, who will end up using your services & products. Never underestimate the power of enthusiastic and engaging conversations. 4. Be kind and display empathy If someone has a grouse, try to show empathy. Do not wear your defensive shoes and try to explain the problem. Instead, allow people to speak and then offer your empathy and kindness. You could probably thank them for bringing touchy topics to the surface and then prove to them that you are working on resolving whatever issues they might be

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