How social media marketing helps businesses?

 

Social Media Markting Project (Design)

How social media markting help out our clients?

Social media marketing is a strategy that uses online platforms like Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook to advertise products, engage with customers, and tap into a wider audience. It emphasizes group communication and connects businesses with their target audience. This form of marketing requires social media management skills and tools to effectively promote new products, interact with customers, and create engaging content.

Set goals that make sense for your business

Social media strategy planning starts with your goals. Whether you want to expand your team, build a larger following or a more active community, taking the time to define your social goals is the first step to reaching them.

Either way, your goals will define your social media marketing strategy and how much time and energy you’ll need to dedicate to your campaigns.

Social Media Strategy:

Define Clear Goals. This is the foundation of social media management or campaign strategy.

·      Get To Know Your Audience.

·      Choose the Right Platforms.

·      Create a Content Bank.

·      Identify Keywords and Hashtags.

·      Create a Content Schedule.

·      Set Up Social Tools.

·      Set Your Analytics.

·       Conduct a Social Media Audit

·       Keep an eye on the competition

 

Define Clear Goals:

Defining goals (and objectives) gives you direction, purpose, and will help you narrow down the main themes your content will revolve around.

Know Your Audience:

This is also one of the most important parts of social strategy. Get to know your audience demographics, but beyond that, get to know what makes them tick. Ask them what their pain points are, find out what publications they read, and where they hang out. All of this info will help you craft content that truly resonates with them, and helps you build an engaged community.

Choose the Right Platforms:

Do your research and get to know how each social media network operates, and choose the right ones for your brand. Is your target audience active in the network? Do you have the resources to create the content required for the specific channel?

Create a Content Bank:

Now that you have your objectives laid out, and you know which networks you’d like to be active on, you should look to create a content bank. Review all of your offline marketing materials and consider how you can support them online with content. Create or source content which supports your objectives. Oh, the time and headaches you’ll save yourself with this one.

Identify Keywords and Hashtags

A little more research here, but collecting a bank of the top industry keywords or hashtags your audience is using will make for easier messaging composition. Finding the right hashtags is key to reaching your target audience - there’s a range of tools you can use to help with this.  

Create a Content Schedule

After you have your bank of content you need to create a schedule. Based on your objectives and the amount of content you have, decide how often you’d like to post on social media and on what days. I suggest using a mix of live and scheduled posts for a balance of your content, and to remain current with topics in the industry or that relate to your audience. 

Set Up Social Tools

To help save time, look to utilize the various social media tools on offer. Some of my favorites are Hootsuite or Agora Pulse for planning and scheduling posts. I also use Bit.ly and Add.fly for shortening and light tracking of links. Everyone will have a preference for different tools, so be sure to try a few and go with the ones that make the most sense to you.

Set Your Analytics

Analyzing client accounts is crucial for improving social media strategies. Focus on follower growth, post reach, and audience engagement. Timing is key for extending reach and ensuring the right days and times are used for optimal results.

Conduct a Social Media Audit

Make it a habit of conducting a social media audit on your channels periodically. A self-audit can help you catch inconsistencies across channels, what campaigns worked (or not) review benchmarks, and maybe even set new goals, enabling you to consistently improve your social media strategy. 

Keep an eye on the competition

You can learn so much from watching others.

Watch what your competitors do well - and what flops so you don’t make the same mistakes. As a bonus – make sure your images are as high quality as possible, and think about creating a theme for your accounts for you more advanced users.

Role of SEO in Digital Marketing

SEO involves optimizing a website to improve its ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), which can help increase your reach to potential customers and support your wider digital marketing efforts.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an integral part of a business’s digital marketing strategy, but it can sometimes be forgotten about, or put on the back burner, in order to focus on quicker wins and greater revenue-driving initiatives. This is quite common for small to medium businesses that maybe don’t have the resources to invest in a long-term marketing strategy such as SEO. It can also be quite difficult to convince stakeholders and decision-makers of the importance of SEO because it is not easily tied to specific financial numbers. Additionally, many people might not really understand what SEO is and how it can successfully help a business’s online presence.

Objectives of   SEO

If your business does not have a website, there is a high chance that you could be missing out on all the benefits that ranking on search engines can offer your business. If you do own a website, having a distinct online presence offers more opportunities to increase the visibility of your business online, among many other benefits.

The role that SEO has in your business’s digital marketing may include:

Boost your authority and credibility online

SEO can help boost your authority and credibility online, because the higher that your website ranks on search engines, the more trusted your business will seem to both your target audience and search engine crawlers. This can boost brand reputation and encourage visitors to trust and engage with the brand.

Improve organic search rankings

By optimizing your website's content, structure, and technical aspects, SEO helps improve its ranking on search engines. A higher ranking leads to more visibility and traffic, which can translate into more leads and sales. This can be achieved through several tactics, such as keyword research, on-page optimization, technical optimization, and link building.

Gain organic website traffic

SEO can be used as a customer acquisition tool. By conducting effective SEO, you will help to drive traffic to your website, which is done by improving your visibility on search engines, or in other words, your rank position. This traffic can then be leveraged to convert these new visitors into customers, subscribers, or followers.

Enhance user experience

SEO involves optimizing a website's structure, content, and navigation, which can enhance your user's experience. Ensuring your website is accessible is something that is important to search engines, such as Google. There is strong evidence that Google rewards accessibility when ranking websites, and even has its very own Webmaster Guidelines that websites can follow as best practices. By making your website accessible, you are also making sure that everyone on the internet who lands on your website has a decent user experience, including people who may have particular disabilities. This, in turn, can reduce bounce rates, increase user engagement, and boost conversions.

Surpass your competition

SEO can help your business gain a competitive advantage over your competitors. This can include having more topical content via keyword research, greater website experience through accessibility best practices, ranking in a higher position on the SERP, greater brand awareness, and ultimately more targeted and converting traffic.

Maximize ROI

SEO is a cost-effective digital marketing strategy that can generate a high return on investment (ROI) when done right. SEO provides long-term benefits, as once you achieve a high-ranking position, you can continue to receive leads from it (as long as you’re able to compete for that top position). By driving more organic traffic and leads, SEO can contribute to a brand's revenue growth and bottom line.

Support other aspects of your digital marketing strategy

SEO can support other aspects of your digital marketing strategy, and vice versa. SEO can support social media, paid advertising, email marketing, influencer marketing, content marketing, and more.
While SEO is just one single digital marketing tactic in the grand scheme of things, it’s still so important to include it in your overall digital marketing strategy.

Types of SEO in Digital Marketing

On-page SEO

On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn greater and more relevant traffic through search engines. On-page refers to optimizing both the content of a page and the HTML source code of that page. Effective on-page SEO helps users quickly find answers to their questions. The ultimate goal of on-page SEO is to make it as easy as possible for search engines and users to understand what a web page is about, identify if that page is relevant to a search query, and find that page useful and worthy of ranking high on the SERP. Some key elements of on-page SEO include creating high-quality, relevant, linkable content, effective use of keywords, optimizing title tags, URLs,

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to optimization techniques that are done outside of your own website. The goal of off-page SEO is to get both search engines and searchers to view your website as a trustworthy source, by boosting its authority and credibility. This can be done by other reputable places on the Internet, like pages, sites, and people. This can look like link building, social media marketing, guest blogging, influencer marketing, and other promotional activities in order to help improve your website's ranking on search engines. But, building backlinks is at the heart of off-page SEO, as search engines use backlinks as an indication of the linked content’s quality. A website that has many high-quality backlinks will typically rank higher than other websites with fewer, and less valuable backlinks. When actively building links, it’s important to avoid black hat activities, and rather focus on more organic link building.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website’s technical aspects to improve that website’s visibility and ranking on the SERPs. Improving technical aspects can help search engine spiders crawl your website more effectively, and improve the usability of your site. It’s great having well-thought-out and useful content, but if a search engine can’t crawl your website, it’s likely that very few people will actually see it. A technically optimized website is fast, easily crawlable for search engines, has limited duplicate content, a wide variety of links, is secure (for example, HTTPS is implemented), utilizes robots.txt, has structured data, and more. Having an XML sitemap is a plus, and can greatly improve the way search engine spiders crawl and find content on your website. Check out the free Technical SEO Site Audit Checklist to quickly check your own website’s technical SEO performance.

Local SEO

Local SEO is the practice of optimizing a business's web presence online, to improve its visibility in local organic search results any business that has a physical location or serves in a particular geographic area can benefit from local SEO. Search engines rely on a number of signals when ranking local businesses, such as website optimization, local content, social profile pages, links, citations, local business listings, and managed reviews. Having a Google Business Profile presence is also critical if you’re serious about optimizing for local search. When done right, local SEO allows users to find information about your business quickly and easily, so it’s a benefit for both parties. It's clear that local SEO should not be ignored!

The power of keyword research

The "magic of SEO" happens because, when you know what people are searching for, you can make the answer appear the exact moment they search for it. On the other hand, if you don't know what people are searching for — and/or you don't create content for it — then you don't know if there is any demand for what you publish. It's like throwing darts blindfolded. You have no idea if you'll hit anything. Most of the time, this gamble fails. But when done right — and combined with other solid SEO processes (including link building) — keyword research helps you to produce a repeatable content process that consistently earns traffic over time.

Keyword research benefits

Ultimately, keyword research helps you understand exactly what content to create to best help your business goals and target relevant traffic. There are billions of possible keyword combinations out there, and in every language too. Even if you tried, it would be impossible to target them all. Fortunately, people tend to search for the same things — or often very similar things — for which you can group keywords together, i.e. into entities. When done right, keyword research helps you find the best keywords for your particular website.

"Winning" keyword research helps you to find phrases and topics which:

1.   Are most relevant to your business

2.   Have sufficiently high search volume

3.   Have low competition (e.g. are rankable)

Discover valuable keyword phrases and topics

You think you know what you want to rank for, but are you certain? Do you know all the ways people are searching that might lead to your website? For example, if you sell "wholesale wine glasses" this might be a good term to target. Keyword research can help you uncover other relevant terms such as:

·       wholesale trendy glasses bulk

·       cheap glasses

·       8 oz milk glasses bulk

·       Etc.

Find keywords with sufficient search volume

Truth be told, while there are billions of possibly relevant keyword combinations out there, not all of them are worth going after. In the wine glass example above, would it be worth it to create content for each of these keywords? To find out, it helps if we attach a search volume to each keyword phrase. We'll cover this in greater detail later, but "search volume" is roughly the number of times these phrases are searched for in Google each month. A higher search volume relates to a higher amount of searches for that particular keyword.

Find keywords you can actually rank for

Finding popular keywords is great, but it's a double-edged sword. That's because usually the more popular and valuable a keyword is, the more competition there is to rank #1. The key is finding the sweet spot of keywords that are valuable to your business, but not so competitive that you don't have a chance of ranking for them.

"Cheap wine glasses" may be a great keyword phrase, but because it is such a highly searched for terme, it's likely that lots of established and popular sites are also trying to rank for it. If you're a smaller site just starting out, this can make it difficult to rank for your most desirable keywords. The trick is to find those keywords with high demand and low competition. Let's look at our table of keywords one more time, but also add a column for "Keyword Difficulty."

Craft a complete content strategy from keyword research

Once you have a list of relevant keywords to target, you can create a plan for building content around those keywords. This is your content strategy or content roadmap.

With keyword research, you can start to answer questions like:

1.   What are my main topics, and what are my sub-topics?

2.   When can I target multiple keywords on a single page, and when should I split them into separate pages?

3.   What kind of content do users expect when searching for each phrase? What is the searcher’s intent?

4.   Where does each phrase fall in my visitor's journey (i.e. awareness > consideration > decision > purchase)?

How to Create an SEO Strategy

An SEO strategy aims to improve a website’s visibility in search engines such as Google and Bing. An SEO action plan, on the other hand, typically involves a combination of on-page optimization, technical SEO fixes, content strategy, link building and SEO reporting.

A strong SEO strategy will;

• Improve your website’s rankings for any existing keywords for which you are currently ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
• Increase the awareness and influence of SEO within your organization. Consider budget and resource challenges to get the most value and SEO improvements out of your team.
• Prescribe some combination of SEO initiatives, potentially including:
• Widening the scope of your ranking organic keywords through content marketing.
• Fixing any technical website issues that could be negatively impacting page load times (ex. PageSpeed), search engine crawlability or user experience.
• Increasing the number of backlinks from high quality domains to your site, through effective social amplification and digital PR strategies.
• Imply or explicitly state priorities or beliefs that guide future action — especially what you will not do.

Whether you’re a website owner that is new to search engine optimization or a seasoned SEO taking on a new project or client, creating and following a clear SEO strategy is absolutely crucial for improving your site’s organic traffic and conversions.

steps towards a better SEO strategy

Like any other kind of strategy, to form an SEO strategy you need to understand the state of the game, set attainable goals, and plan to iterate. Below is a 10-step plan for finding those opportunities and insights to get you started.

Crawl your site to identify on-page and technical SEO issues

The best place to begin an SEO strategy is by initiating a website crawl to see if there are any issues that you need to remedy in order to maximize your SEO visibility. There are many options for technical auditing tools that will emulate a search engine crawl of your website, and most SEOs have a favorite. Of course, here at Moz, we have our On-Demand Crawl. Moz’s tool will allow you to view all detected technical SEO issues on your site, and all of the impacted URLs. The data you will get from the On-Demand Crawl can be viewed within the UI of Moz, or exported into a CSV. This focuses on essentials to help kickstart your SEO strategy. Initiating your site audit is good place to start because it can take some time to complete. While your crawl is running, you can begin your competitive research.

Assess your competitors’ SEO strategies

This is crucial, and often overlooked, at least this early in the process.

Analyzing competitor SEO strategies will help you set realistic goals for your website. After completing this exercise, you’ll have a sense of your competitors’ most valuable keywords. These are some of the search terms you’ll want to compete for by optimizing your key site pages. This step can also be thought of as a “market analysis” task. You’ll also want to leverage a research tool for competitive analysis. I recommend an SEO tool that offers a “gap analysis”’ functionality, Which will be the backbone of comprehensive SEO competitive research.

Within Moz Pro, the Keyword Gap feature will highlight prominent competitor keywords for which you have room to improve in the rankings. Keyword Gap will automatically sort the results to prioritize the keywords where your site has the highest traffic opportunity if you were to overtake your top-ranking competitor. Once you’ve identified some keywords where the competition outranks you, investigate why that might be. If you were Google — or better yet, a searcher — which site would you prefer to see?

In addition to looking at the keywords that competitors are ranking well for where you have opportunity to improve, examine the types of content they are regularly producing. Do they have a blog? How much content are they publishing on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis? How are they showing their expertise? When it comes time to align the necessary teams within your organization and rally them around your SEO goals, you’ll need to understand the competitive search landscape of your company. How much effort are your competitors putting into SEO? If they don’t appear to be optimizing their site for search, you’ll have an opportunity to pull ahead. If they have been actively involved in content creation and their core technical SEO is solid (you can even audit their sites to determine what they’re doing well), then you can use their strengths to guide your SEO roadmap.

Create SEO goals and align your teams

Despite the fact that there are professional SEOs who specialize in driving business goals via organic search optimization, SEO is a team effort. A good SEO strategy builds buy-in from web developers, content teams, and company leadership, as SEOs often straddle the intersections between teams. For example, you may need to collaborate with your editorial team to create a blog post that was ideated by data-driven research, and your web development team to create the page. Or, after you conduct your SEO audit, you may realize that you need the assistance of your developers to remedy several technical issues.

As mentioned in the section above, even if SEO is not a new endeavor at your company, I recommend thoroughly investigating competitors’ SEO strategies before attempting to get buy-in from other teams. If you can frame the need to optimize your site for organic search through the lens of deficiencies your site has against your competitors, you’ll be able to make a more powerful case to your leadership and cross-functional teams.

Create an effort vs. impact matrix [FREE TEMPLATE BELOW]

Now that you’ve completed the research steps of your SEO strategy, you’ve reached a good point to create an itemized list of all of the tasks you want to accomplish. These can include on-page or technical SEO fixes resulting from the audit you did at the beginning of the process, blog posts to write, existing site pages to optimize for search, and more. Nobody knows your business better than you, so the effort required to complete each item will be highly personalized to your company. Sometimes finding the internal resources to write and publish a new piece of content can prove to be a larger endeavor than, say, fixing a redirect loop, or vice versa. Whatever the dynamic of your business, an effort vs. impact matrix can help you organize your seo strategy into tactical jobs to be done. 

More often than not, running a crawl of your site using a tool like Moz Pro will highlight a ton of SEO issues you probably weren’t aware of, which can be overwhelming. Moz Pro can offer some guidance on working through these issues by flagging certain items as “critical”.  If you’re looking for a place to get started on prioritizing your SEO action items, I always recommend looking at your site’s meta titles first. Meta titles are one of the primary factors Google considers when deciding where to rank a page, with respect to how relevant it is to a given keyword. They’re also what users read when they’re deciding where to click on the SERP, and thus can have a significant impact on click-through rates. Moz Pro will find pages for you where meta titles are missing, or below Google’s recommended 60-character length. If you’ve never optimized your meta titles, I recommend manually reviewing all of your core site pages to ensure that your titles are optimized for the keyword you want to target with each page. After you’ve done the keyword research and determined what your meta title should be on core pages, they’re typically relatively easy to update in your CMS or the backend of your website.

Build an SEO report or dashboard

After thinking through your priority list for optimizations, you’ll want to establish a baseline of current SEO performance and create a method to track your progress.

Moz’s Campaigns feature allows you to track a list of keywords for your site on an ongoing basis. Moz Pro will automatically build a dashboard for you that visualizes position improvements for your key organic search rankings. Google Analytics can also be integrated into this dashboard so that you can monitor your site traffic along with rankings and your site’s Domain Authority.

Setting up a Moz Pro Campaign will also automatically run a site crawl for your domain once a week so that you can track the number of outstanding technical SEO issues on your site as you work on fixing them.

Iterate through technical SEO fixes

The SEO process is a bit like building a house. There will be plenty of time to add window dressing and furniture, but first, you start with the foundation. Your website’s solid foundation is its technical SEO frame. Using the SEO audit you completed in step 1 and your effort vs. impact matrix, begin identifying issues that are contributing to critical crawl issues (as identified by Moz’s Site Crawl tool, for example).

This is also a good point in the process to establish a baseline of your site’s PageSpeed and Core Web Vitals (CWV) scores. After running your domain through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool, you’ll be presented with a list of opportunities to speed up your website. These can include tasks like image caching and JavaScript reduction.

Optimize existing content for search engines

Now that you have your progress tracking infrastructure in place and your list of SEO opportunities to attack, it’s time to start optimizing your content. Use the effort vs. impact matrix to guide your priorities, beginning with low-effort/high-impact items such as meta title optimization.

After completing this work, I also recommend taking a closer look at all of your sites’ core pages. A tool such as Moz’s On-Page Grader will help provide even more detail on how well-optimized a page is for a given keyword. For example, AT&T is doing an above-average job at optimizing its wireless page for the “cell phone” keyword, but there are still optimizations that can be made:

Identify new content opportunities through topic research

The best way to close keyword gaps is by publishing targeted, SEO-driven content on your site. The list of keywords that you get from a tool like Moz Pro’s Keyword Gap can be used to ideate on topic ideas.

Hub-and Spoke content model

A good SEO strategy will often use a hub-and-spoke content model. This is the practice of creating “hub” pages that will rank for high-volume keywords and convert Google searches into customers through CTAs. These hub pages will be supported by “spoke” pages containing related content, generally living on a blog or resources section of your site. For example, let’s say one you’re AT&T, and one of the keywords you want to improve rankings for is “cell phone”. Your first step is creating a URL on your site that targets the “cell phone” keyword. After this page is created, SEO focused, and conversion-optimized, you will want to create a series of supporting content pieces that link into your main ‘cell phone’ page.

Using a keyword research tool such as Moz Pro’s Keyword Suggestions feature can help you quickly identify topics related to your primary term. As opposed to guessing at topics that people might be interested in, dedicated SEO tools allow you to use data to power all of your decision making. For example, these are questions that Google searchers have related to “cell phone”.

Amplify your content on social media, and investigate backlink opportunities

Even in 2023, high quality backlinks are an important part of SEO. The number of backlinks a site is receiving from high authority pages is a major component of Moz’s Domain Authority score, which is the industry-standard KPI for measuring the overall ranking ability of a domain.

The best way to increase your Domain Authority is by creating high quality content that people want to share. In addition to creating the content and publishing it on your site, creatively promoting it on social channels such as TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, or additional platforms where your customers (and prospective customers) spend their digital time will help drive brand awareness and can increase branded search volume.

There are also ways to engage in manual link building efforts that aim to gain links to your site from high-quality site publishers. This is an especially important exercise for newer domains with low Domain Authority scores.

Measure, optimize, and test

Your competitive landscape will evolve, and so will your company. Even within the scope of a year, an SEO strategy for 2023 may involve unexpected priorities in November that you didn’t account for in March.

But despite the constant state of change in the digital world, it’s important to continually track your high-value keywords using an SEO tool like Moz Pro, and to monitor the traffic growth of your content in platforms like Google Analytics. Over time, you’ll notice areas of topical strength and weakness for your site. You can continue to play into the strengths of your site and publish content related to your strongest topics, while simultaneously identifying keyword gap opportunities and improving areas of weakness.

There are several free SEO tools on the market that can assist you in kickstarting your search engine optimization strategy. Moz even has free versions available of our own Keyword Explorer and Competitor Research, which can help you find opportunities for your site’s search engine visibility and help you set SEO goals.

Whether you’re an experienced SEO taking on a new client or a website owner approaching SEO for the first time, it’s crucial to create a roadmap of defined tasks and actionable goals. Having an action plan will help keep you focused on your goals, and prevent aimless work and incomplete projects. In search engine marketing, it pays to be methodical, yet adaptable.

On-Page Ranking Factors

While there are many aspects to learning modern SEO, the way your page is optimized can have a huge impact on its ability to rank.

What are On-Page Ranking Factors for SEO?

On-page ranking factors can have a big impact on your page's ability to rank if optimized properly. The biggest on-page factors that affect search engine rankings are:

Content of Page

The content of a page is what makes it worthy of a search result position. It is what the user came to see and is thus extremely important to the search engines. As such, it is important to create good content. So what is good content? From an SEO perspective, all good content has two attributes. Good content must supply a demand and must be linkable.

Good content supplies a demand:

Just like the world’s markets, information is affected by supply and demand. The best content is that which does the best job of supplying the largest demand. It might take the form of an XKCD comic that is supplying nerd jokes to a large group of technologists or it might be a Wikipedia article that explains to the world the definition of Web 2.0. It can be a video, an image, a sound, or text, but it must supply a demand in order to be considered good content.

Good content is linkable:

From an SEO perspective, there is no difference between the best and worst content on the Internet if it is not linkable. If people can’t link to it, search engines will be very unlikely to rank it, and as a result the content won’t drive traffic to the given website. Unfortunately, this happens a lot more often than one might think. A few examples of this include: AJAX-powered image slide shows, content only accessible after logging in, and content that can't be reproduced or shared. Content that doesn't supply a demand or is not linkable is bad in the eyes of the search engines—and most likely some people, too.

Title Tag

Title tags are the second most important on-page factor for SEO, after content. You can read more information about title tags here.

URL

Along with smart internal linking, SEOs should make sure that the category hierarchy of the given website is reflected in URLs.

The following is a good example of URL structure:

• http://www.example.org/games/v...

This URL clearly shows the hierarchy of the information on the page (history as it pertains to video games in the context of games in general). This information is used to determine the relevancy of a given web page by the search engines. Due to the hierarchy, the engines can deduce that the page likely doesn’t pertain to history in general but rather to that of the history of video games. This makes it an ideal candidate for search results related to video game history. All of this information can be speculated on without even needing to process the content on the page.

The following is a bad example of URL structure:

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt04...

Unlike the first example, this URL does not reflect the information hierarchy of the website. Search engines can see that the given page relates to titles (/title/) and is on the IMDB domain but cannot determine what the page is about. The reference to “tt0468569” does not directly infer anything that a web surfer is likely to search for. This means that the information provided by the URL is of very little value to search engines.

URL structure is important because it helps the search engines to understand relative importance and adds a helpful relevancy metric to the given page. It is also helpful from an anchor text perspective because people are more likely to link with the relevant word or phrase if the keywords are included in the URL.

SEO Best Practice

Content pages are the meat of websites and are almost always the reason visitors come to a site. Ideal content pages should be very specific to a given topic—usually a product or an object—and be hyper-relevant.

The purpose of the given web page should be directly stated in all of the following areas:

• Title tag
• URL
• Content of page
• Image alt text

An Ideally Optimized Web Page

An ideal web page should do all of the following:

• Be hyper-relevant to a specific topic (usually a product or single object)
• Include subject in title tag
• Include subject in URL
• Include subject in image alt text
• Specify subject several times throughout text content
• Provide unique content about a given subject
• Link back to its category page
• Link back to its subcategory page (If applicable)
• Link back to its homepage (normally accomplished with an image link showing the website logo on the top left of a page)

Working of tools and different platforms

A model for Loomly

Who is Loomly for?

As I hinted earlier, Loomly will fit your needs best if you’re a social media manager who needs to collaborate with team members and clients. 

It also works well if you’re a social media consultant who needs to manage social media accounts for many clients.

Loomly key features

Here are key features of Loomly to run your social media campaigns:

Loomly dashboard

When you land on Loomly’s dashboard, you may assume that it’s a lightweight tool because of its simple interface.

Loomly is that millionaire friend who prefers a Casio wristwatch just because it’s more accurate than a Rolex.

First, you’ll see your calendars. As I’ll explain later in the review, calendars on Loomly are the workspaces.

Then, the status of your social media posts and the number of posts in each state. 

Beside that, there’s “On the Radar” which shows posts on queue for a particular day.

You also have the “New Post” button at the top right corner of the dashboard.

Scrolling down the page, you’ll find post ideas for your posts.

Generally, the Loomly dashboard provides an overview of your social media campaigns and a quick way to create posts.

Loomly calendar

The calendar is one of the most important features of this social media management tool. That’s because most of the features are structured around the calendar. Put simply, the calendar is your workspace.

You can connect social media accounts to a calendar. Beyond that, you’ll see the post schedule for the social accounts. You can also access the social inbox, analytics, and media library for these accounts. If you select the list view for your calendar, you’ll find details such as format and the social channels each post will appear on.  Then, you can assign a post to a collaborator and change its status. The calendar is Loomly’s system for organizing social media accounts. So, if you run social media campaigns for clients, you can create a calendar for each client. On the other hand, if you run social media for an international company, you can create a calendar for each location. This will help you separate social media account groups and their analytics and reports.

Loomly post builder

You want a post builder that lets you create a post for multiple accounts, see previews, and add media in a simple interface.

Loomly meets these needs.

First, the post builder has straightforward steps for creating a post.

You can select the channels you want to publish on and a label for the post.

Then, you can select images or videos from your computer, Loomly’s media library, GIPHY, or Unsplash. But beyond that, Loomly provides post ideas from Twitter trends, international holidays, and your favorite RSS feeds. Once you finish your post draft, Loomly lets you edit it for each social media channel. You can see a live preview while making the changes. You can also add relevant hashtags from the hashtag manager. If you want to promote your posts on Facebook and LinkedIn, Loomly has a section to define your target audience. With the easy-to-use Loomly post builder, most of your team members will be able to create posts. Even if they’re using Loomly for the first time.

Loomly collaboration

My favorite Loomly collaboration feature is the approval workflow.It lets you bring clients or superiors into the publishing workflow. So, your clients can approve a post before it goes live on their accounts. This can prevent situations where social media posts become a PR or legal storm. Beyond approval workflow, you get most of the traditional social media collaboration features.

For example, you can invite collaborators and set their roles. But Loomly lets you do more.  You can specify a custom role for a collaborator. Here, you can select the permissions you want this collaborator to have. You can also assign collaborators to social media posts and leave comments for them. Overall, Loomly collaboration features let you work effectively with your team members and clients.  You can also get clients more involved in the publishing process.

Loomly Interactions

The Interactions is Loomly’s social inbox.

It lets you engage with comments, messages, and taggings of your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts. Each calendar has its own social inbox. So, the inbox is only for the accounts grouped together. You can reply, like, hide, and even delete comments right in Loomly. Loomly also allows you to assign interactions to team members. Loomly Interactions ensures you can engage with your audience without leaving the platform.

Loomly post ideas

Publishing social media posts every day can quickly exhaust your creative ideas. Whenever you’re struggling with what to publish, the Loomly post ideas can come to your rescue. These post ideas come from Twitter hashtags, holidays, and your RSS feed sources. By the time you go through the ideas, you’ll find inspiration for interesting content. But beyond that, you can set your own post idea. So, if you want to use a post idea in two weeks, you can set it up for that day. If you click the post idea (lightbulb) icon, you’ll see post ideas for each day in your calendar. This feature ensures you always have content to engage your audience on social media.

Loomly media library

You can upload your images and videos into the Loomly media library. You can also import photos from Unsplash. Not just that, but Loomly allows you to edit images in its editor. he Loomly media library exists for a simple reason: to make your post creation easier. So that while creating your post, you can pick an image or video from the library.

Loomly analytics 

Creating social media posts or running campaigns is not an end in itself. You do this to create awareness, drive web traffic, or achieve other goals. Getting the right metrics from analytics can help you determine if you’ve achieved these goals.

Loomly has basic analytics, This provides metrics such as:

• Engaged users
• Comments
• Clicks
• Reach
• Likes
• Shares

But there’s more in advanced analytics.

In Loomly’s advanced analytics, you’ll get metrics like:

• Days your fans are online
• Hours your fans are online
• Likes by age and gender
• Likes by city
• Likes by country

·       However, you have to be on at least the Standard plan to access advanced analytics.

·       Apart from having metrics for a period, you can also compare two periods.

·       This can come in handy if you want to see the difference in performance over two periods.

·       Loomly analytics provides an overview of your social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. You can see your best and worst performers.

·       But most importantly, you can get insights to improve your future campaigns.

Loomly reports

·       If you want to deliver analytics to your boss or client, you can use the reports feature for that.

·       By clicking on the download icon in your calendar, you’ll see the option to export analytics or schedule a PDF report.

·       You can export analytics in PDF format for your personal use.

·       However, if you have to deliver reports to clients at intervals, you can schedule reports.

·       Loomly provides the option to send monthly or weekly reports. 

·       So, all you have to do is select reports and the email address you want to send them to.

·       Every week or month, Loomly will send a report to the email address.

How to manage social media in Loomly

Here, I’ll explore 3 important aspects of social media management in Loomly.

Set up a calendar in Loomly

Everything on Loomly starts with creating a calendar. To create a calendar, click “Add New Calendar” on your dashboard. After doing this, you can create your calendar in 5 steps.

First, you have to set calendar details such as name, time zone, and industry.

On the next page, you can connect your social media accounts. Loomly allows you to add accounts from all the traditional social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. But beyond those, Loomly lets you activate a custom social channel.  This can include Tumblr, Reddit, WeChat, and more. After adding your social media accounts, you can now set up your calendar workflow. Your workflow will depend on the number of collaborators you have for this calendar.  Loomly has 3 preset workflows for no collaborator, one collaborator, and more than one collaborator. You can also create a custom workflow.

These workflows help you set the stages your posts will go through from draft to publish.

In the next step, you can set your post ideas preferences. Here, you can select the location for Twitter trends and enter RSS feeds to track.

Lastly, you can invite collaborators and select their roles. You can also set up a custom role, which I’ll explain later in this review.

Once you complete this step, you’ve created your calendar. You can now create your first post. Create a social media post in Loomly Just like creating a calendar, creating a social media post on Loomly is easy. You can follow the prompt to create a post after creating your calendar.  You can also create a post from the dashboard by clicking the “New Post” button at the top right corner of the page. Alternatively, you can go into a particular calendar to create a post. If you’re creating a post for the first time, Loomly will show prompts to guide you through the process. In the first step, you can set your post details. Here, you just need to specify a scheduled time, post subject, and select a label. Labels help you categorize your posts in Loomly. And you can also use labels to filter metrics in analytics. After doing this, select the social channels you want to publish your post on.  At this stage, you can also select other calendars the post should appear on. 

This works if you want to post the same content for a business with accounts for various locations.

In the third step, you can define your generic content. Here, you’ll write your caption and add media for all your social channels.

You can upload images (or videos) from the media library, your computer, Unsplash, or GIPHY. Loomly provides tools to edit the images if you wish to. If you want to insert a link into your post, you can use Loomly’s shortener (Loom.ly) to save space. An added advantage is that you get link metrics if you use the shortener. After that, you can edit your post and settings for each social media channel. For instance, on Instagram, you can select whether to share your posts on feeds or stories. You can also preview your Instagram post in post or grid format. When you finish fine-tuning your post for social media channels, you can move on to the next step. This is an optional step to promote your post on Facebook and LinkedIn. This step lets you set up your target audience and other details. Once you’re done, you can create your post. You have the options to save as a draft, submit for approval, schedule, or publish immediately.

Collaborate with team members in Loomly

Collaboration is one of Loomly’s strengths. And there are many places to add collaborators in the tool. The first is while creating your calendar.  In the last step of creating your calendar, you can invite collaborators.

Loomly’s preset roles include:

• Editor
• Client
• Contributor
• Viewer

Beyond the preset roles, you can also set up a custom role.  In the custom role, you can define what the collaborator can do in your calendar, post, ad, comment, post state, and ad state. This puts you in control of the permissions you want a collaborator to have. Second, you can also add a collaborator from inside your calendar. All you have to do is click the people icon at the top right side of your calendar.

After adding collaborators, how can you work together?

You can engage collaborators in your approval workflow.  Apart from the 3 preset approval workflows, you can set up a custom workflow. This lets you set triggers to assign your collaborators to take action. Once you complete your setup, you can assign posts to a collaborator in your calendar. You can also change a post’s status. Keep in mind that selecting some statuses will automatically assign a post to a collaborator. For example, if you change a post’s status to “Pending Approval,” Loomly will assign it to the collaborator in charge of approvals. If you want a collaborator to see the whole calendar, you can notify them through the people icon at the top of the calendar. Another way to collaborate is through comments. You can see this in your calendar’s list view or post view.

Loomly benefits

• Easy to use
• Robust collaboration features
• Responsive customer support
• Support for all major social media channels

Loomly customer support

Loomly offers customer support through:

• Chat
• Email
• Tutorials
• FAQs section

Conclusion

Loomly was built with the social media manager in mind. You can create social media calendars to organize your campaigns for clients. Then, Loomly integrates collaboration into most of its features to work effectively with team members and clients.  While Loomly has extensive features, it’s easy to use for even a first-time user.

SocialPilot

In a world filled with people constantly using social media every day, SocialPilot allows you to automate your social media posts on multiple platforms, all in one place. SocialPilot helps you plan, schedule, and publish your posts using advanced features, saving you time so you can build your brand more efficiently. This Getting Started guide will help you set up your SocialPilot account. Y

Connect Social Accounts

The first step to using SocialPilot is to connect your social media profiles to SocialPilot. Click Accounts -> Connect Account to connect one of the profiles listed below.

·       Facebook: Page, Group

·       Twitter: Profile

·       LinkedIn: Profile, Page

·       Pinterest: Board

·       Instagram: Profile, Business (Professional)

·       YouTube: Channel

·       Tumblr: Blog

·       Threads: Profile

·       Google Business Profile: Chain Locations

·       TikTok: Profile

Set Up Publishing Schedules

Once your accounts have been connected to SocialPilot, you can manage your scheduled publishing by creating posting schedules. Posts added to your queue will be automatically scheduled during the next available time slot according to the posting schedule you have set up.

Click Accounts -> Manage Accounts -> Select the Social Account for which you want to define time slots and start defining them.

Creating Your First Post

SocialPilot seamlessly schedules and publishes to your connected social media profiles. Posts can be made to individual social media accounts or to multiple accounts all at once. Check out a quick overview of the capabilities of SocialPilot's Post Composer:

To create a new post, click Posts -> Create Post.

If you have added a link to your post, you’ll see a preview of that post below. You can schedule it as it is, or if you want to share it as an Image post, just click on any image from the preview below, and you can select up to 4 images per post. If you don’t want to use the image as fetched from the link, you can upload it from your computer, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box. You can use the stock images available on the SocialPilot scheduler from the Unsplash integration. Simply click on the "Add media from an external source" button and search for a suitable image by typing a term in the given search bar, selecting the image, and clicking on "Add Image. You can also upload a video from your computer and schedule it to appear on the supported social networks.

SocialPilot Publisher can save your posts as drafts. The publisher can also be minimized, allowing you to access it anytime. Simply open the pop-up to edit your draft. It also allows you to add GIFs and make a design on Canva and use the same to your posts to make them more engaging. You can also add emojis, add locations for Facebook and Twitter, and target the audience for Facebook and LinkedIn. For Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you can also add a First Comment that will be scheduled along with your post. You can go to the specific platform tab and write the first content in the given field for it.

Click on the Add to Queue button when you are satisfied with your post. This will add your post to the queue and schedule your post according to your previously established schedule for your social media accounts. If you don’t want to follow your posting schedule for a particular post, you can also use one of the options below: 

·       Share Now - Will share your post immediately to the selected social accounts.

·       Share Next- Will schedule your post for an immediate upcoming time slot for that selected account.

·       Schedule Post- Will schedule your post according to a specific date & time.

·       Repeat Post- Will schedule and repeat the same post on the specified times and dates for a selected number of times.

 Visualize Your Posting Queue with Calendar

Whether you have chosen to publish content now or schedule it for later, our Content Calendar allows you to view all of it in one quick glance. You can even drag and drop scheduled items onto specific time slots provided in the calendar to reschedule them.

Click Posts -> Calendar to view your social media content calendar.

See What Works with Analytics

SocialPilot’s analytics helps you take a deep dive into your social media data. You can not only analyze the posts you make from SocialPilot, but you can also analyze other posts made on your connected social media accounts. One click and you have your easy-to-understand analytics report at your fingertips.

Click analytics and select which social platform you want to view analytics for. You can even drag and drop scheduled items on the calendar to any of the 4-time slots given at any hour of the day to reschedule them. No need to even enter the time and date again manually.

Invite Team Members

Never miss a deadline again by collaborating with your team using SocialPilot. Let them create content for your selected social media accounts, while you retain full control of post approvals. SocialPilot lets you invite multiple people into your team, be it members or clients.

Here is the flow :

1.   Log into the SocialPilot panel.

2.   From the Profile icon on the top right corner, click on Users.

3.   You'll see the 'Users' page.

4.   To add team/clients, Click on the top right ‘Invite User’

5. You'll see the 'Invite User' page.

6. Fill in the email ID of the person you want to invite. You can send an invite to up to 10 people at a time. 

7. You can choose the role for your team member as Admin, Manager, Content Scheduler, or Client. 

Enter your teammate’s name & email address -> Select the profiles you want them to manage and assign them a role (Admin, Manager, or Content Scheduler).

·       Admin can control all members' access and activities (except your SocialPilot account's membership and billing).

·       Content Schedulers can only schedule posts for selected social media accounts. The posts will be added to the queue only when a Manager or the Admin approves.

·       Managers can schedule, publish, and manage selected social media accounts. 

You can change the role of a team member at any time by going to 'Users' and then selecting the edit icon beside the team member’s name.MYou can also assign team members to select accounts directly from the Manage Accounts section. Simply select one or more accounts and add a team member. This is a useful feature when you want to assign accounts to a different user with a single click.

Go Mobile with Apps and Extensions

Tackle your social media on the go with the intuitive SocialPilot mobile app so you can make every minute count with your audience. From connecting your social media accounts to scheduling new content, SocialPilot’s mobile app allows you to access almost all of SocialPilot’s features while on the go.

Get the iOS or Android mobile app right away!

You can make your posting easier with the 'SocialPilot Browser Extension'. Add posts to your queue without leaving the website/content you are surfing with the help of our amazing extension.

We have Chrome, Firefox available for immediate download.

Once the extension is downloaded, just click on the SocialPilot extension when you find the content you want to post while you’re surfing. A popup of ‘Create Post’ will appear right on your current window

Other Great Features

In addition to the features covered above, SocialPilot offers these additional features:

·       Invite Clients

You can manage your clients' social media profiles hassle-free without the need for their credentials.

·       Add RSS Feeds

Share your blog posts automatically or manually to your connected social profiles by adding your blog’s RSS Feed to your SocialPilot account.

·       Shorten URLs

Get rid of the long, ugly-looking URLs by shortening them using Bitly, Rebrandly, and Sniply

·       Create Groups

If you want to create and share content over the same set of social media accounts regularly, and you don’t want to select the accounts individually each time, you can create groups of accounts to easily queue posts with a single click.

·       Social Inbox

Reply to and manage all messages, posts, and comments on all your Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts - in one place.

UpContent

How Upcontent facilitate Social Media Management?

Upcontent helps users find relevant content to share on social media. The platform provides a curated selection of news articles, blog posts, and social media posts to streamline content discovery and saves users time. Upcontent integrates with social media management platforms like Hootsuite, but integration issues can occur.

How does Upcontent facilitate Sending & Publishing Communications?

UpContent simplifies the process of finding and sharing relevant content for social media and other platforms. The tool filters out irrelevant content, allowing users to quickly discover news articles, blog posts, videos, and social media posts. UpContent integrates with Hootsuite for efficient scheduling and publication, but does not track which items have been posted previously.How can Upcontent optimize your Engagement

Management Workflow?

UpContent facilitates engagement management through content curation, enabling users to easily find, save, and categorize relevant and engaging content for their audience. This tool streamlines content sharing and maximizes engagement potential by organizing content for optimal shareability. The tool may require time to learn and requires engagement with the support team to fully maximize its capabilities.

What solutions does Upcontent provide for Collaboration?

UpContent facilitates collaboration on content discovery and distribution. Users can discover relevant content, share it with team members, and leave notes for feedback. The platform streamlines collaboration by centralizing content planning, review, and distribution.

"...The integration pairs Lately s Artificial Intelligence-powered marketing dashboard with UpContent s curated content management platform for optimal time-saving, efficiency and increased engagement through organization, centralized processes,best practices, article discovery, collaboration and scalable distribution...."

 

What are the top features of Upcontent?

Personalization, SEO and Dashboard are some of the top features of Upcontent.

 

Curata

Content curation is the process of gathering, organizing, and sharing online content on a specific subject. However, it’s not just taking someone else’s content and merely distributing it online. That’s a common misconception. Curating content can be used to source topics, gather industry news or trends, and get inspired to create unique content. It applies to various digital channels, including social media platforms like LinkedIn, newsletters, blogs, etc. Therefore, it is apparent that content curation is a valuable tool in marketers’ hands, both in the B2C and B2B space, since it allows them to provide value and engage their customers through curated content.

The Benefits of Content Curation

1. Provide resources to your team

For some businesses, having a broad, full-time marketing team is a given. However, if you have a small group, you know that content creation is a tedious task that requires a lot of time and effort. Curating content can be an extra boost in your team’s marketing efforts. Their job will be easier since they won’t stress creating only original content, and meeting deadlines will be more feasible. Think of it as skipping the first step of content creation. The content is already out there. You just need to gather it, organize the most valuable parts, and add your unique angle to it. In this way, you also ensure that your team doesn’t “burn out” in the process of content creation.

2. Establish yourself as a thought leader

Another benefit of sharing content relevant to your niche is that you can gradually become a thought leader in your industry. In a digital world where exchanging valuable information is critical, it doesn’t matter if you create the content. You’re the one sharing it with the world.

3. Follow industry trends

The content curation process allows you to explore and stay on top of ongoing trends in your industry. For example, let’s say you’re an email marketing service. Tracking this keyword will reveal your competitors’ writing, what is said about your industry on the media, and other useful things. Curating content gives you a broader exposure to new topics, publishers, and websites, thus allowing you to gain insights. These findings can, in turn, help you improve your content marketing strategy and fill the gaps in the content you offer.

Tip: Remember that content curation can be a tool for identifying emerging trends that SEO research might not reveal.

4. Build your audience

Having an engaged audience is vital for every strategy in online marketing. To achieve the engagement of your followers, you need to share content that gets people talking, while at the same time it’s relevant to your brand. Content curation is an excellent way to start discussions about the things that interest your audience. You just need to ask yourself the following question: “why would my audience care?” Start and promote conversations, study your audience and you’ll see your business growing. Sharing different types of content is going to engage different people, and in this way, you’ll be having a balance, since the content won’t feel monotonous or single-sided. If you use this practice along with one of the best email marketing services out there, then you’ll have a powerful means of growing and retaining your audience.

5. Improve brand awareness

Growing your brand and improving brand awareness is a difficult task, similar to creating high-quality content.  But when there is already content out there, which you can leverage, then things are significantly easier.

It’s an excellent idea to promote curated content mentioning your brand. Don’t forget to add your “personal touch” to it and add eye-catching visuals to make it more informative than promotional. Subtly explaining how your brand is relevant to the content will help increase brand awareness, which allows your business to grow.

6. Boost visibility online (SEO)

Last but not least, content curation positively impacts SEO as well as visibility. The curation process requires considerable research on various websites and careful selection of the content that will be used. Moreover, curated content usually contains outgoing links to trusted, authoritative sites, as well as proper citation of the author and other material included.

What all these have as a result is high-quality content, which ranks high in search engines. This means better online visibility and more traffic.

The takeaway

Content curation is a marketing practice beneficial for both curators as well as their target audience. Not only do you save time and resources, but also you have the chance to improve on existing content. It is an essential tool in the modern digital world, allowing businesses to follow industry trends, establish a relationship with their audience, and improve brand awareness. A tool that should not be neglected.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch automatically uncovers the gender, interests, profession and location of the authors in your data. Automated classification of data. With NLP Consumer Research automatically determines the brands, locations, people, hashtags and emojis present in the data. Brandwatch is a digital consumer intelligence platform founded in 2006. They recently merged with Falcon.io in May 2022 which provided tools for social media management.

Some of these brands include Delta, Unilever, Monster, and GSK.

They have an extended library of case studies to show how their customers are using their tool for their marketing efforts. Unfortunately, they do not have a filter option to really narrow down case studies so it’s not the easiest to find case studies that may address your goals if you moved forward using this tool.

What Does Brandwatch Offer?

So what do you need to know about Brandwatch before actually using the app? We’ve broken down here everything you need to know.

Consumer Intelligence

Brandwatch offers consumer intelligence under the basis of consumer research to help understand your consumers, your brand, and your market. They also provide add-on apps, Reviews and Vizia:

•                Reviews – Understand your reviews and sell more online – very useful if your brand relies on product sales 

•                Vizia – Embed data in the heart of your business

Social Media Management

Brandwatch provides the tools to search social networks and the internet to find the right audience, opportunities to act on, and problems to avoid. With Brandwatch’s social media management tools, you’ll be able to:

•                Publish – Manage all content in one calendar.

•                Advertise – Create automated ad campaigns at scale.

•                Measure – Track your performance across channels.

•                Benchmark – See how you stack up against competitors.

•                Influence – Discover influencers and manage your campaigns.

•                Engage – Use one inbox for all your interactions.

•                Access to Audience – See all audience data in one place.

•                Listen – Monitor the web for insights.

There are some great case studies of how various brands use Brandwatch’s solutions including Nestle, American Airlines, and Walmart that we highly recommend checking out if your social media goals are similar.

What Stands Out?

Brandwatch does a great job of providing examples of all aspects of the solutions they offer. They break down all actions that are provided while including photo examples of the interface and how it is used for that specific action. The interface appears to be easy to navigate and allows you to manage networks like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.   Brandwatch provides examples of the best ways to use their platform based on roles. Whether you’re an agency, analyst, researcher, or so-on, Brandwatch gives you reasons why they are the platform for you. 

This tool is also known for its social listening skills, which can provide some great insights about what your audience is talking about or comparing your brand to competitors.  How Much Does It Cost?

Brandwatch allows you to book a meeting to discuss the plan that best fits your needs, which is a nice option to have with a social media management tool. 

You may select Consumer Intelligence, Social Media Management, or the Full suite which combines both consumer intelligence and social media management products. The price of this plan will vary based on what features you want. 

There is also a smaller scale plan, Essentials, available for small businesses for the price of $108 per month. 

•                You have the options to try this plan for free or buy it now

•                This plan is recommended for 1-2 users, so if you have a smaller team this could be a nice starting point

Final Thoughts

With Consumer Intelligence and Social Media Management boxed together and easily accessible in one platform, this makes Brandwatch a valuable tool to have for any size brand. With the Essentials plan they offer; allows smaller brands to be able to utilize Brandwatch’s functions without paying a cost that might not be as affordable. Their easy-to-follow interface and extensive descriptions explaining each function make it a simple process when trying to learn if Brandwatch has the tools to help with any social media marketing plan or idea you have for your brand. 

Mention

Mention is a cloud-based solution that helps enterprises monitor audience insights and analyze marketing strategies across social media platforms. It enables professionals to perform crawling across review sites, forums, blogs and other sources to find brand/product mentions.

What is the purpose of a mention?

The main role of a court mention is to allow the court to guide your case and instruct both you and the other party on what needs to be done next. For example, upon a court mention, the court may direct both parties to attend alternative dispute resolution.

What are the benefits of mention?

Not only do mentions generate visibility and publicity (both positive and negative), but they also provide you an opportunity to interact with your followers and customers.

Key Features

1.   Track Topics In Real-Time. Real-time tracking capabilities allow users to stay up-to-date on conversations as they happen. The numerous filter settings allow you to focus on what matters most and avoid irrelevant noise. You can track this in the live feed or set up an alert to inform you of specific keywords, hashtags, brand mentions, or topics. Mention’s social media monitoring is its primary function.

2.   Comprehensive Analytics. Use the analytics feature to monitor your social media performance and anticipate consumer attitudes. Measure the success of your campaigns, the conversation volume, and your business’s share of mentions. The dashboard provides quick visualizations of these and your performance. You can also build custom reports to share with your staff, clients, or stakeholders.

3.   Influencer Identification. This feature can tell you who is talking about your brand and rank their influence over specific communities. Identifying influencers means you can collaborate with the right people and increase your community and success.

4.   Sentiment Scoring. Mention’s social listening capabilities alert you whenever your brand is mentioned. Each has a positive, neutral, or negative sentiment score. Whether your brand goes viral for good or bad reasons, you can share and spread the fire or put out the flames as quickly as possible.

5.   Social Publishing. Mention allows users to manage and schedule content across social media channels with a few simple clicks. Share relevant content based on insights and build your media presence. Mention’s caption generator is a big hit with users.

6.   Centralized Engagement. Receive all social media conversations across multiple channels in one place. This feature saves time switching between accounts, allows you to respond quickly, and avoids missing important engagements.

7.   Collaborative Working. Mention has many features that allow teams to work together. These include smart folders, tagged assignments, content calendars, and a shared inbox. You can also set up a content library, a great digital asset for content creation in a team setting.

8.   Simple To Navigate. One of Mention’s best praises is how simple it is to use, even for beginners. The interface is super simple to use, and the dashboard offers quick performance indicators and alerts. Check out this quick video about how to navigate Mention.

Mention Customer Service

Mention offers support to all users through their live chat or email. The live chat function uses a bot to answer questions in the first instance. I had the choice to speak to an actual human, too, and they replied to me within 10 minutes. In addition, users with the Company plan have access to a dedicated account manager. Online reviews consistently mention that customer service is responsive. BuzzSumo displays may not be entirely accurate. The reason for this is that when a new piece of content is published,

 

 Advantages

 

§  Simple interface and easy to use.

§  Real-time alerts.

§  Offers analysis and sentiment scoring.

§  Scheduled publishing.

§  Centralized engagement inbox.

§  Identify influencers.

§  Collaborative working tool.

§  Free trial available.

 

TapInfluence

TapInfluence is a premium influencer marketing platform where brands can create swift influencer campaigns with ease by choosing across a variety of categories like food, fashion, beauty, and lifestyle. The platform helps users with creating content that will attract new customers, maximize customer lifetime revenue, increase repeat purchases and drive customer loyalty as well. It also assists companies to find the right influencer that could be the best possible match to promote their brand. With TapInfluence, users also get access to a detailed overview of relevant metrics that aligns with their pre-structured goals. By making convenient changes they can attract new clients, maximize revenue and drive loyalty as well. The platform can also be used to measure campaign wise impact, like content reach, media value, views, conversion, and ROI. At last, it even enables users to programmatically target their content, reach out to an ideal audience and get the engagement and conversion rates enhanced in real-time. Good content grabs your attention. Great content inspires action.
Create great influencer campaigns and content in a fraction of the time it would take you to do it manually. Everything under one roof from influencer discovery, workflow, and analytics to amplification and distrbution.

Longtail content, maximized by influence, optimized for engagement.
Get metrics that matter and align with your goals. Attract new customers, increase repeat purchases, drive customer loyalty, and maximize customer lifetime revenue. The perfect addition to your marketing stack. Content should be a dynamic and appreciating asset.
The integrated asset manager makes repurposing and distributing influencer content easier than ever  influencer marketing. Powered by data, designed for convenience.

DISCOVER

WORKFLOW

MEASURE

Advantages

•                TapInfluence has been used by my company for a really long time now and we have been using it religiously for influencer discovery and analysis.

•                TapInfluence has many advantages for all users like its searchable database is just mind-blowing.

•                It really easily and efficiently filters out the most relevant influencers needed by a business according to the business portfolio.

 

Buzzsumo 3 Ways to Use BuzzSumo for Awesome Content Marketing Insight

BuzzSumo is an excellent tool in gathering valuable insight into the success of your content on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+. In this tutorial, I’ll show you three ways to use BuzzSumo in your content marketing efforts.

BuzzSumo 1: Analyze Top Content

When it comes to getting the inside scoop on content’s social media life, BuzzSumo can act as a private investigator, tracking its whereabouts through social media circles around the internet. The free version allows you to search for the most shared content, top influencers, and track mentions of a brand or topic. It is restrictive however, and will only allow you four searches per day. You are also unable to use any of the “reports” features that I will touch upon later in the post. The search function on BuzzSumo is dynamic because not only can you find your content by entering its title, you can search any keywords, topics, or domains to gauge the social media “buzz” of each. One thing to keep in mind when searching recently published material is that the numbers that BuzzSumo displays may not be entirely accurate. The reason for this is that when a new piece of content is published, many times, the social media shares occur in rapid succession while the post is relatively new. This information isn’t constantly being crawled and updated in real time on BuzzSumo, so the numbers that are represented may be lower than what they actually are. The solution to this issue is to simply click on the link to the article in question and the correct social sharing numbers should be displayed.

This tool is useful in getting an idea of how successful previous content was with respect to its peers that pertain either to the same topic, keyword, or domain. In regards to producing new material, it’s extremely insightful in helping you choose the right keyword or topic that’s going to get maximum exposure and drive traffic to your site. Think of this as similar to doing keyword research, but instead of researching what terms have high search volume, you’re looking for topics that people love to share. Targeting the right one could set fire to your social channels. So if you’re writing a new blog post or have certain topics in mind, it would be a smart idea to conduct a quick search in the “Top Content” section.

Enter the title or topic you wish to write about and see how well it ranks via social media compared to other similarly titled pages. You could also type in the domain of the website it is located on to device.You’ll see a list of content titles on the left and on the right, the number of shares per respective social media website they received, as well as the total number of shares. On the side bar there is a “Filter By Type” option in addition to a “Filter By Date” option. you also have the option to sort the data by either “Total shares” or any of the individual websites’ shares. By doing this, the place where your post ranks will depend on which platforms it was more successful in. Another great feature in this section is the ability to view who has shared your content. This can be helpful in getting an idea of the variety of readers you have reached. You can sort this list based on the type of audience that you are interested in. The list above is sorted through Average Retweets. individuals with a higher number of followers are important to take note of because they’re sharing your content to a larger audience. However, take into consideration that although a company may have more followers than your friend Tommy, Tommy’s friends are probably more inclined to read something that he shares. When it comes to quantifying social media success through shares, you will want to have a healthy variety of users.

The number of shares per individual/site is an interesting figure to analyze. If there are previous posts to compare yours to, these numbers can add some insight into the type of audience you’re reaching. So take in the different variables that warrant a share, like, or retweet, and consider the social media platform that you want your specific content to be prominent on. BuzzSumo Tip 2: Find Influencers in Your Space

Under the “Influencers” section, you can locate all of the social media users within your specified industry, topic, or keyword that have the most reach.

Home — Blog — BuzzSumo Tutorial: 3 Ways to Use BuzzSumo for Awesome Content Marketing Insight

BuzzSumo Tutorial: 3 Ways to Use BuzzSumo for Awesome Content Marketing Insight

Unlike the sugar in your iced coffee, social media and content marketing blend together effortlessly. One of the key metrics that determines the success of a piece of content like a blog post is the extent to which it is shared via social networks. BuzzSumo is an excellent tool in gathering valuable insight into the success of your content on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+. In this tutorial, I’ll show you three ways to use BuzzSumo in your content marketing efforts.

 

BuzzSumo Tip 1: Analyze Top Content

When it comes to getting the inside scoop on content’s social media life, BuzzSumo can act as a private investigator, tracking its whereabouts through social media circles around the internet. The free version allows you to search for the most shared content, top influencers, and track mentions of a brand or topic. It is restrictive however, and will only allow you four searches per day. You are also unable to use any of the “reports” features that I will touch upon later in the post. Paid subscriptions allow for more interactions for content campaigns and agencies, as well as exportable data and other customizable options. You’ll also get unlimited access to BuzzSumo’s search data. The search function on BuzzSumo is dynamic because not only can you find your content by entering its title, you can search any keywords, topics, or domains to gauge the social media “buzz” of each. One thing to keep in mind when searching recently published materny times, the social media shares occur in rapid succession while the post is relatively new. This information isn’t constantly being crawled and updated in real time on BuzzSumo, so the numbers that are represented may be lower than what they actually are. The solution to this issue is to simply click on the link to the article in question and the correct social sharing numbers should be displayed.

This tool is useful in getting an idea of how successful previous content was with respect to its peers that pertain either to the same topic, keyword, or domain. In regards to producing new material, it’s extremely insightful in helping you choose the right keyword or topic that’s going to get maximum exposure and drive traffic to your site. Think of this as similar to doing keyword research, but instead of researching what terms have high search volume, you’re looking for topics that people love to share. Targeting the right one could set fire to your social channels. So if you’re writing a new blog post or have certain topics in mind, it would be a smart idea to conduct a quick search in the “Top Content” section.

Enter the title or topic you wish to write about and see how well it ranks via social media compared to other similarly titled pages. You could also type in the domain of the website it is located on to determine how well it stacks up to the other content on that site.You’ll see a list of content titles on the left and on the right, the number of shares per respective social media website they received, as well as the total number of shares.

On the side bar there is a “Filter By Type” option in addition to a “Filter By Date” option.You also have the option to sort the data by either “Total shares” or any of the individual websites’ shares. By doing this, the place where your post ranks will depend on which platforms it was more successful in. Another great feature in this section is the ability to view who has shared your content. This can be helpful in getting an idea of the variety of readers you have reached. You can sort this list based on the type of audience that you are interested in. The list above is sorted through Average Retweets. Individuals with a higher number of followers are important to take note of because they’re sharing your content to a larger audience. However, take into consideration that although a company may have more followers than your friend Tommy, Tommy’s friends are probably more inclined to read something that he shares. When it comes to quantifying social media success through shares, you will want to have a healthy variety of users.

The number of shares per individual/site is an interesting figure to analyze. If there are previous posts to compare yours to, these numbers can add some insight into the type of audience you’re reaching. So take in the different variables that warrant a share, like, or retweet, and consider the social media platform that you want your specific content to be prominent on.

BuzzSumo Tip 2: Find Influencers in Your Space

Under the “Influencers” section, you can locate all of the social media users within your specified industry, topic, or keyword that have the most reach. This section represents all of the social media superstars who provide a level of influence to potential readers of shared content. On the right you can see how they are ranked through page authority, domain authority, followers, retweet ratio, reply ratio, and average tweets. You can determine how influential the sharers of your content and the sharers of the “top” content are. Once you get the popular kids on your side you’ll be able to get a lot more power behind those blog dodgeballs you throw. You can also filter the type of influencers that you search for by their position, affiliation, or even location.

BuzzSumo Tip 3: Run Social Reports

The reports section on BuzzSumo is an excellent place for content planning. Unfortunately, this service is not free, but that doesn’t take away from all of the delicious statistical information that it supplies you with. Conducting a content analysis will give you all kinds of useful information regarding the keyword or topic that you’re thinking of basing your next post on. Under the “reports” section, select “Content analysis.” Just like the other sections it allows you to submit a keyword, topic, or website domain into the search box. This can allow you to track the social media exposure per topic or through your entire site. The analysis will specifically show you the types of social media and respective quantity of shares based on certain metrics like total shares by date published and average shares by content length.

Advantages

One of the main benefits of BuzzSumo is that it helps you find content ideas that resonate with your audience. You can enter any keyword, niche, or question and see what type of content performs well on social media. You can filter the results by date, language, country, content type, and word count

Lumen5

Lumen5 is an online video creation platform that makes it easy for anyone on your team to create engaging video content without technical expertise. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and AI technology, Lumen5 transforms text content like blog posts into professional videos in minutes.

How Lumen5 Works

Lumen5 works similarly to building a presentation in PowerPoint. You can easily:

•                Upload a blog post, script, or outline

•                Drag and drop text onto the timeline

•                Customize fonts, colors, and layouts

•                Add stock footage, images, animations, and illustrations

•                Insert a logo

•                Apply a template

•                Add background music

•                Generate voiceover audio

•                Download the video or publish directly to YouTube

With its artificial intelligence, Lumen5 automatically analyzes text and converts it into video by picking relevant clips and images to visualize your story.

Key Features and Benefits

•                Intuitive Drag-and-Drop Editor

•                Easily build videos by dragging and dropping text, footage, images, logos, graphics

•                Simple timeline editing interface similar to PowerPoint

•                No design, editing, animation, or video experience required

•                AI-Powered Video Creation

•                Automatically convert blogs, scripts, or outlines into videos with relevant visuals

•                AI picks best footage, images, and animations to match text

•                Creates an animated video synced to auto-generated voiceover

•                Hundreds of Customizable Templates

•                Professionally designed video templates for any need

•                Templates built for social media, internal comms, ads, explainers, and more

•                Easily customize colors, fonts, layouts, and branding

•                Massive Stock Media Library

•                1M+ stock videos, images, illustrations, and audio tracks

•                Premium collection of contemporary, relevant footage and visuals

•                All assets are cleared for commercial use

•                Animated Typography & Motion Graphics

•                Animate text with cool transitions, movements and effects

•                Add lower thirds, titles, quotes, captions, and callouts

•                Incorporate animated graphics, shapes, and icons

•                Built-In Analytics

•                View video engagement analytics like views, watch time, and audience retention

•                Optimize videos quickly based on data and insights

•                Integrate with YouTube Analytics for deeper metrics

Use Cases and Applications

Lumen5 is used across teams and departments to drive results with video content:

Marketing Teams

•                Create videos from blog posts for social media ads, campaigns

•                Produce videos for email nurture campaigns, landing pages

•                Design animated social posts, stories, reels for all networks

•                Build video ads for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

Sales Teams

•                Make personalized outreach and follow-up videos for prospects

•                Produce video emails, demos, testimonials, customer evidence

•                Create internal training and onboarding videos

HR & Internal Comms

•                Develop videos for employee onboarding, training, and development

•                Design animated internal announcements, newsletters, and updates

•                Build recruitment and culture focused video content

Support & Customer Success

•       Produce tutorial videos, FAQs, how-tos, and troubleshooting content

•       Create video responses to support tickets or questions

•       Generate engaging videos to onboard customers

•       Corporate Communications

•       Create videos for press releases, news announcements, and events

•       Develop executive interview videos and thought leadership content

•       Design animated videos for internal all hands meetings and town halls

Canva

Canva is one of the best examples of a digital design platform that straddles the line between a professional tool and an easy-to-use learning system. As such, it is a great way to begin teaching students how to use design tools, including the potential of using this very tool at work in the future. Canva is ideal for art and design, and also can be used in projects for technology, geography, history, English, and more. Crucially, students can learn to use this tool while also learning a specific subject. Teachers can create posters for class or build images, charts, and more, all from this tool, which is crammed with helpful guidance and templates from which to work.

Canva is a graphic design tool that works to simplify the process of digital design. As such, an account can easily be created and everything works either via a web browser or on the iOS or Android apps.

Canva allows for image editing and project-based learning using a simple drag-and-drop interface that works well even for younger students. From brainstorming as a group working collaboratively to individual project creation, it has lots of potential uses in the classroom.

How does Canva work?

Canva is easy to sign up for, using either an email, Google account, or Facebook login. Once an account is created, for free, you can pick if you're using it as a teacher, student, or anything else. This will tailor the experience to your needs, making it simpler to search. Teaching how to use Canva can be the focus of a lesson that aims to broaden the digital skills available to students. But since this is so easy to use, it will likely take very little time. Letting the students play with the options is how the deeper learning and creativity can flourish.

Canva offers plenty of virtual templates so students can work with a design and add in their own changes. This allows them to focus on the topic at hand without wasting time or energy on getting started with the tool itself.

Making a poster, for example, will start by offering templates down the left, then the main image on the right that you can customize. Clicking into this will make a toolbar appear with options to edit – this reacting as you work keeps things minimal and clear throughout. You can upload your own images and videos, which is ideal when working on a smartphone using the app version. Once completed, you can download the file, share it via lots of social media optimized options, or send to a professional print service to have it printed.

What are the best Canva features?

Canva is crammed full of features but many are education-specific. Before getting into that, it's worth noting that Canva auto-saves. This is a great feature both for teachers and students as it means never worrying about losing work – something Google's ecosystem of tools has got many people used to.

While the templates are fantastic to make any presentation, poster, or image have more impact, there are powerful sub-tools. The graph templates, for example, are a great way to help in math and science classes – allowing for specific results to be displayed in a clear visual and engaging way.

Canva for Education is a powerful feature of this tool as it allows teachers to setup a virtual classroom, invite students, and have them collaborate on a project. This could be used in the classroom or remotely, with the aid of a video chat tool as well. In fact, you can link Zoom and then present screen to share the slides with the class as you go.

Canva best tips and tricks

Use Canva to visually lay out the lesson for yourself as a teacher but also to share with students so they know what to expect and can plan accordingly.
Have students create learning portfolios so they can see how they're progressing throughout the year -- this can also be a valuable revision and review tool.

 

Collaborate

With up to 10 members in a project, have groups of students work together, in class and digitally from home, to create a finished body of work. Ideal for math and science, Canva can be used to display data in rich charts and graphs to make presenting experiments, and more, visually engaging.

Platform using models:

X

How to create a Twitter marketing strategy for your brand

Twitter marketing is the process of promoting your brand and its products or services through Twitter. It involves establishing an effective social media marketing strategy to create and publish content on the platform. When you market on Twitter, you need to publish the right Tweets at the right time to attract the right audience.

But before you start Tweeting, you need to consider the key elements of a successful Twitter marketing strategy. Here's a quick rundown:

• Audit your accounts. This will give you a baseline to work from.
• Check out your competitors' strategies. Look at what their audience likes and consider their brand voice.
• Set clear, measurable goals. Be specific about what you want to achieve on Twitter.
• Compare Twitter analytics data to your goals on a regular basis to judge your progress.
• Establish your brand voice.
• Use a content calendar to help you develop and maintain a consistent content strategy.

It doesn't stop with posting content. Twitter marketing requires a plan to engage and interact with your audience. Twitter is a conversation-based network. It's important to create a two-way conversation with followers by replying to Tweets or direct messages. in fact, you increase your chances of appearing in non-followers’ feeds by interacting with your audience’s replies and mentions. Doing this will improve your visibility as well as brand awareness. These are only a few of the many benefits of Twitter for brands.

Twitter marketing tips to influence your strategy

Strengthen your brand Twitter profile

When you use Twitter for business, it's essential that you have a captivating profile. Your brand voice, your brand’s “personality,” begins here. This is where customers come to see what you’re all about. So if your Twitter business profile is not representing you well, it’s time to give it a good edit. Begin with your banner, or header photo. It’s likely the first thing a customer will see when they visit your profile. What does it convey to the viewer? Is it consistent with who you are as a business? If not, it’s time for a change. Once you have that to your liking, look at your profile picture. Since it shows up on every Tweet, you want it to be something that is quickly and easily associated with your business, such as your logo.

Next, analyze your bio. You may only have 160 characters to work with, but it is imperative that you use them to engage your profile visitor with your brand. This is a great opportunity to let your brand voice shine through. And don’t forget to let people know what your company has to offer. Finally, take a good look at your pinned Tweet. Does it reflect what’s going on with your company right now? Or is it last month’s news? Don’t waste this opportunity to make an impression on your profile visitors.

Audit your Twitter account

If you already have an existing Twitter account, you should run a Twitter audit. An in-depth review of your Twitter analytics will allow you to take stock of what's working and what's not. You'll want to know things like:

o   Follower growth rate

o   Whether you're attracting your target audience

o   How effective your posting frequency is

o   What types of content are resonating best with your audience

Twitter analytics tools like Sprout Social can do the hard part for you and help you analyze:

o   Hashtag performance

o   Individual Tweet performance

o   Individual Twitter audience

Knowing which Tweets are performing the best will give you an idea of the type of content that your audience is most interested in seeing. You can use this information to create a strategy to give your audience what they’re looking for in your content. This will ultimately allow you to maximize the reach and engagement you with your Tweets.

One way to audit your Twitter account is to look over your analytics manually from your Twitter Analytics dashboard. Here’s the step-by-step process to access this dashboard:

1.   When you're logged in, click on the “More” button from the left-hand panel of your Twitter homepage.

2.   Expand the “Creator Studio” option and select “Analytics.” This will open the Twitter Analytics dashboard.

3.   From here, find “Tweet Highlights” and select "View all Tweet activity". This will open a graph of all the impressions you earned for your Tweets within any given time period.

4.   Below the graph, you can see the impressions, engagements and engagement rates for each Tweet. Click on “Top Tweets” to see your best-performing Tweets. Check out the performance of your promoted Tweets by clicking on the “Promoted” tab.

Find your brand voice on Twitter

Audiences on Twitter are looking for brands that Tweet authentically and stay true to their brand voice. It can be easy to jump on the latest trends to try to appeal to the masses on Twitter. But don’t do this at the expense of losing your brand voice. Your Twitter presence can be more playful and casual than on LinkedIn or Facebook. However, it should still be authentic and consistent with your brand voice as a whole. Innocent Drinks has nailed its brand voice on Twitter. Going through the brand’s feed, you can immediately see the brand’s persona shine through. The brand voice is fun, friendly, honest and approachable.

Remember, an engaging brand voice is essential, but don’t jump on trends just for the sake of staying relevant. Twitter users are especially astute when a brand is being inauthentic in an attempt to generate attention. In other words, don’t try too hard to fit in and instead, but instead, stay true to your brand voice.

Use Twitter hashtags and trends

Hashtags are a great way to expose your brand to new audiences who may be interested in what you have to say. They’re particularly effective for connecting your brand with what’s happening on Twitter. In fact, hashtags can increase message association by 18% and brand awareness by 8%. What’s more, is that brands saw a 3% lift in purchase intent by using hashtags to connect their brand with Twitter trends. Some brands create Twitter hashtags for a specific campaign and use them in relevant Tweets. They may even encourage their audience to share Tweets with that hashtag. One excellent example is the #RebuildTheWorld hashtag campaign from LEGO. LEGO used the campaign to inspire people to unleash their creativity. Additionally, it helped to showcase the virtually endless possibilities that LEGO play offers.

Tweet when your audience is most active

At the same time, Twitter moves so fast that something you Tweeted 30 minutes ago may very well be invisible to your followers. This makes it crucial to post at a time when your followers are most likely to see and engage with your Tweet. This would allow the Twitter algorithm to prioritize your Tweets and display them to an even bigger audience. Sprout’s study on the best time to post on Twitter revealed that Tuesday through Friday, between 9 AM, 5pm and noon are the best times to post.

Sprout’s ViralPost™ feature looks at your audience’s activity and chooses the most optimal times for you to post depending on when your followers are most active.

Maintain a content calendar and schedule Tweets

The right Tweet posted at the right time has the potential to generate massive engagement and virality. But you can’t possibly wait for your audience to be active every time you send out a Tweet. Intentionally scheduling your Tweets ahead of time to makes publishing more efficient. Knowing the right time to Tweet makes scheduling a consistent flow of Tweets much more manageable. It’s important to be as consistent as possible on Twitter. Best practices recommend Tweeting at least once per day. Some brands Tweet up to 15 times per day to stay in front of their audience. Best practices can differ across industries. It depends on your resources and social media strategy to determine how frequently you can create and publish new content on Twitter.

Engage with your Twitter followers

Twitter is all about creating a two-way channel of communication with your audience. It’s important to create content that encourages your audience to engage with your Tweets. You want to create content that encourages your audience to engage with your Tweet, which can help you get more followers on Twitter. Meanwhile, you need to make sure that you’re engaging with people who are Tweeting about your brand individually. If someone mentions your brand or responds to a Tweet, make sure you’re responding to their message in a timely fashion. It’s a good idea to have a dedicated community manager handle these requests. This will help prevent responses from falling through the cracks.

Another way to create engagement with your followers is to ask questions. You can do this by creating a survey on Twitter directly or by just asking a question and Retweeting people’s responses. Clear Voice regularly posts Twitter surveys to ask questions to its audience. These may be about their content preferences and strategies. This gives the brand valuable research information to understand its audience better.

Set measurable Twitter goals and track your analytics

Your Twitter marketing strategy needs measurable goals that will keep your plan on track. Instead of publishing Tweets and hoping for the best, set goals and objectives for Twitter. These goals should help your business meet its overall marketing goals. Goals for Twitter can include:

• Building an engaged following to increase brand awareness
• Generating leads by directing traffic to an offer or email list
• Increasing traffic to your website by posting links to blog content
• Building brand loyalty by providing excellent customer service on Twitter
• Networking with influencers and industry thought leaders to create more connections

·       Once you’ve determined your Twitter goals, set aside time every month to measure those goals. Make sure you know which Twitter metrics to track for each goal. Then you can analyze what’s working with your strategy and what needs tweaking.

·       Native Twitter analytics will allow you to see your profile growth, and analyze your Tweets through metrics such as engagements, impressions, clicks, replies and Retweets. But a Twitter tool like Sprout can make the process nearly effortless. Once you've set your goals, you can implement them and track their progress within an all-in-one tool.

Analyze your competitors

Competitive analysis is great for keeping track of your competitors' marketing efforts on Twitter. What are your competitors posting? How often do they post? To help you get answers, you can use Sprout's Twitter Competitors Report. The Twitter Competitors Report lets you track and compare the performance of other Twitter profiles against the average of the profiles being compared.

Unleash the power of Twitter marketing

A solid Twitter marketing strategy gives you leverage in a competitive market. It helps you stand apart from the crowd while keeping your audience engaged. More importantly, it enables you to stay top of mind for your audience. Use the steps outlined above to get started with Twitter marketing. And make sure to invest in a robust social media management platform like Sprout to make your job more efficient. Request a personalized demo to see how Sprout can help.

Benefits of Twitter

 

Gain valuable customer insights

Twitter sees 6,000 Tweets every second. This puts into perspective how actively people are using it as a conversation platform. And for businesses, these conversations can prove to be a valuable source of customer insights. Using Twitter can help you research trends and topic The Twitter Explore page gives you an updated list of topics and hashtags trending in your region and relevant to your interests. So you can use this section to discover the Twitter hashtags and conversations that are important to your audience.

Build brand personality and awareness

How you style your Tweets and engage with your audience on Twitter is highly effective for establishing your brand personality and growing awareness. One of the top benefits of Twitter for business is that it lets you share information quickly and start conversations with your target audience. In turn, your audience would find your Tweets and content valuable and ideally, even share with their followers. Make sure you use a tone that aligns with your brand voice and personality. The types of conversations and topics you’re interested in and the tone in your Tweets will help you attract an audience whose views align with yours. If you’re starting out or need a refreshed strategy, Twitter recently launched an Organic Tweets starter kit worksheet to help brands establish their tone of voice.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s may sell ice cream but it regularly talks about political and social issues through Twitter. It uses the platform to promote social causes that are important to the brand, so it’s been able to make a huge impact on people who care about the same causes. We even did a Social Spotlight on Ben & Jerry’s for this very reason.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. Sweet, right? Well, not so much for women of color. Take the quiz to test your knowledge of women's suffrage: https://t.co/6a35BOQOTW pic.twitter.com/x9TQeXuaKD

— Ben & Jerry's (@benandjerrys) August 18, 2020

Additionally, engaging with your audience’s replies and mentions  also improves your chances of showing up in non-followers’ feeds. These actions help you boost visibility and brand awareness, thus proving to be a major benefit of Twitter. The most successful brands on Twitter have both paid and organic strategies. To illustrate, a Followers campaign is more likely to be successful if your profile has a healthy stream of engaging organic content. Conversely, promoting a Tweet can give it organic momentum.

The Sprout #BrandsGetReal survey even found that the top three behaviors that help brands connect with consumers are:

1.   Liking or responding to customers

2.   Showcasing brand personality

3.   Supporting a cause that consumers personally support

Deliver customer support and gather feedback

According to Rice, “The most advanced brands see Twitter as a vital marketing, customer care and market research medium that can provide valuable insights on every aspect of their business.” And rightly so. The platform makes it easy for customers to reach out to brands and provide their feedback or ask for help. Brands can then use this as an opportunity to not only collect vital feedback to improve their products but also to deliver the support their customers need. Companies such as Netflix have even set up a dedicated Twitter account to provide support. The company offers support through this page in multiple languages and in locations across the world. Hey thanks for reporting this to us and sorry for the delayed response. Our members are reporting the issue is fixed for them. Can you check if your Netflix is working again as well? *CS

— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) August 7, 2020 Netflix also uses the same account to collect feedback on how to improve the service and user experience, which they then pass on to their research team.

 

Cultivate a brand community

With the ease of conversation between brands and consumers, one of the major benefits of using Twitter is for building and cultivating your brand community. Brands can use the platform to start and join in on relevant conversations, engage with their community and build a loyal following. In fact, our #BrandsGetReal survey found that 55% of consumers want brands to help them connect with likeminded people through social media. And 36% expect brands to build communities that consumers can belong to. So it’s no surprise that one of the top benefits of Twitter for business is to cultivate a brand community and bring people together around a common interest or cause. Taco Bell has done an exceptional job of nurturing its brand community through Twitter. The brand regularly shares its customers’ and super-fans’ Tweets to show appreciation while getting others on board.

Facebook

How To Increase Your Facebook Reach Without Paying For Advertising

 

Create Awesome Content

This is the first and foremost thing you should think about. Awesome and compelling content that talks directly to your customers, fans, and audience is the best thing you can do. But it does require a strategy. I think the best way to have something to share is to blog, take photos, and create an online persona. When you have great content on your website and other online sites, it’s easier to have something of VALUE to share.

2. Embed Your Posts

It is likely that your audience is hanging out all over the web and not only on Facebook. You can extend the reach of your Facebook post by embedding that post on your blog. This will get your Facebook posts in front of your website viewers and allow them to interact with your Facebook content off Facebook.

 

3.Encourage Likes & Shares

The way Facebook algorithm works, the more liked and commented on your Facebook post is the more eyeballs it will reach. One easy way to get something important out is to encourage your fans to like it or share it with their network. You can only do that with really great content. If the content is good, people will like it. But don’t ask for likes or shares, this could actually hurt you. If you’ve done a good job building a relationship with your fans you will see that this will be easy to achieve.

 

4.Ask Your Fans To Receive Notifications

Have you ever noticed that you get notifications from your top friends? Did you know that you can receive the same type of notifications from Fan pages? It’s true and a lot of people don’t know this is possible. To get notifications on Fan page content, hover over the “Like” image on and click notifications. Once you do that, every time that page is updated you will get an instant notification. There’s nothing wrong with asking your fans to do the same for your Fan page. Again, if you have the relationship built, share awesome content and don’t over post, your fans will be happy to do this. After all, they want to see your notifications.

 

5.Give Reasons To Comment

Commenting is one of the best ways to increase the eyeballs on your content. Try to kick off each post with a comment from the Fan page and your personal page to get the conversation going. We also give this advice to our blogging clients. It is also a good idea to ask questions or give incentives to increase commenting. Both of these tactics work, and I recommend you try it.

 

6.Mix Up Your Content

The common thought used to be that every post should have an image attached. While this is a good tactic because it has a longer shelf-life, it is smart to mix it up. Links now show up on News Feeds the same size of images which increases the click-through.

 

7.Become a Content Curator

Again, it all comes back to great content. When you have great content to share, more people are going to tune in. Share articles, images, and videos that will keep your fans coming back for more. The more often one person connects with your content will determine how often they see your content. Be targeted with your content and your true and loyal fans will love it!

 

8.Create Fan Page Relationships

There are a few ways to go about this. One way is to share other fan page content. Because everyone is sharing the content of huge publications and brands, you might want to think about targeting middle sized fan pages instead as they will notice it more. When you give love to other Fan pages, they will likely return the favor and share your content. You can also tag pages within your posts. The other Fan page will see your tag and hopefully be happy. In order to build a successful relationship you have to think about this. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. It’s a two way street people!

Of course, every audience is different and not everything is going to work for you. But in business it is all about experimenting and figuring out what works for you.

Advantages of Facebook Marketing

Reach a Wide Audience

The audience on Facebook is not merely large, it spans across many demographics. No matter to whom your business caters, you should be able to find your desired audience profile on Facebook.

Alignment with Both B2C & B2B Businesses

Prepare to be surprised at how B2B businesses can also run successful campaigns on Facebook. Business decision-makers spend 74% more time on Facebook than other people. The B2B space is competitive, which means B2B marketers must be aggressive when leveraging Facebook. But with the right targeting, ad format, messaging, and off-Facebook user experience on your site, there is definitely opportunity for success. Facebook remarketing is the least B2B marketers should consider. We often forget how anyone, who is a B2B target, does not stop being so after they leave the office or are online in snackable moments between work engagements.  They are the same person. Remarketing to them on Facebook is a reliable way to remain in their consideration. For targeting new users, Facebook offers these targeting segments that align well with B2B needs:

• Employer name.
• Job title.
• Employment industry.
• Interest industry.
• Employer company size.
• Business travelers.

nother B2B tactic worth pursuing is creating lookalike audiences based on an existing email list, website visitors, or customer base.

Full-Funnel Targeting with Multiple Form of Engagement

Of all digital platforms, Facebook is perhaps the only one that successfully caters to users at any stage of their engagement journey. Facebook’s ad formats, targeting options, and measurement capabilities align well with any marketing strategy. It is useful whether a user is in the proverbial upper funnel stages, casually browsing and just starting their research, or in a mindset to transact.

Audience Transparency

While some programmatic networks offer similar audience targeting capabilities, Facebook’s audience reach is highly transparent. By virtue of self-selecting audience targeting, your business has a high level of control and transparency over the audiences you target.

•        Fans: Your Facebook followers.

•        Friends of Fans: Users who are friends of your followers.

•        Behaviors or Interests: Users who meet the criteria you selected based on self-reported criteria.

•        Remarketing: Users who have previously visited your site.

Drive Traffic Directly to Your Site

As suggested earlier, many of Facebook’s ad options allow driving referral traffic to your business’s site. It is true that most users open Facebook with the intent of staying there to browse its content. However, if your add is compelling and targeting is highly relevant, the ad will be sufficiently enticing for the user to leave Facebook and reach your site.

Keep Your Existing Audience Engaged

One important benefit of Facebook advertising is that it nurtures and helps grow your Facebook followers and fans. While driving referral site traffic, site engagement, and conversions is key, it is also important to regularly engage with and maintain your Facebook audience. Think of your Facebook profile as your business’s second website – another digital extension of your business

Instagram

How to Get Clients from Instagram Marketing

Instagram, one of the biggest social media platforms available today, has more than a billion monthly active users — a figure that’s set to grow to 1.18 billion by 2023.Instagram has traditionally been the go-to platform for eCommerce businesses looking to showcase their goods through high-quality product shots, the platform is also a powerful tool for service business owners to grow their audience, generate leads, and, more importantly, find clients. And considering the average Instagram user spends roughly 30 minutes in the app every day, this is one marketing tool you won’t want to pass up. If you’re an agency owner, a freelancer, or a service provider looking to increase your client roster, here’s how to use Instagram to get more clients.

Can you really get clients from Instagram?

Put simply: Yes. Any type of service provider, from a social media agency to a personal trainer, can find ideal clients through the Instagram app.  

Data shows that after seeing a product or service on Instagram, 79% of global users will search for more information about it. And 67% of Americans will visit the brand’s website or app, with roughly 46% of them making a purchase (either through online or offline channels). It’s why professional service companies are the second top advertising industry on Instagram.  Regardless of which service you’re offering, you need a well thought out Instagram marketing strategy to reach your ideal clientele, turn them into leads, and eventually paying customers.

What are the best ways to get clients from Instagram?

The key to finding clients through Instagram is sharing great content and building an engaged community. Granted, it takes time and effort (social media marketing isn’t an easy job), but if you get it right, you’ll reap the rewards.

Here are some of our favorite Instagram (IG) tips to get more clients:

1.   Create an Instagram business account.

2.   Add a “Book Now” button to your bio. 

3.   Drive followers to your email list. 

4.   Use hashtags to reach target clients.

5.   Be helpful and approachable.

6.   Give away freebies to drive leads.

7.   Use geotagging to boost your local presence. 

8.   Share client case studies and testimonials.

9.   Show the human side of your business. 

10, Respond to prospective clients immediately.

Create an Instagram business account.

 

If you already have an Instagram account for your service business, double-check that it has been converted into a business account. IG business accounts have extra features that personal accounts don’t have access to, including:

• Instagram Insights: Discover how many people engage with your Instagram content, your overall impressions, and your follower demographics.
• Instagram advertising campaigns: Have a post that’s performing well organically? There’s the option to put some cash behind it and reach more people with boosted posts. 
• “Swipe up” links: Once you reach 10,000 followers, having an IG business account allows you to add links to your Instagram Stories to direct followers to specific pages. 

While you’re setting up your Instagram business profile, it’s worth taking the time to make sure your profile is optimized. Upload a profile picture (either of you or your company logo) and write a bio that explains what you do. The goal is to make your small business look reputable. Accounts without a profile photo look spammy, hurting your chances of getting clients through Instagram.

Finally, add a link to your Instagram bio that diverts leads towards a site most likely to turn them into clients. Since IG only allows one link in the bio, use tools like Later or Campsite to organize and highlight your most important links, such as your service landing page, homepage, or podcast download page. This gives people a way to explore your content elsewhere and connect with you outside of Instagram. 

Add a Book Now button to your Instagram bio

Once you’ve made your business account, IG allows businesses to add certain calls to action (CTA) to their pages. One of these is the “Book Now” button, which makes it easier for potential clients to schedule an appointment or set up a call with you.

The Book Now button integrates with a range of apps (such as Appointments by Square, Appointy, MyTime, and Schedulista), and can be added to your profile in a few simple clicks.

1.   Head to your IG profile and press “Edit Profile.”

2.   Go to “Action Buttons.”

3.   Choose the “Book Now” button.

4.   Choose your booking app and press “Confirm.”

Drive Instagram followers to your email list

When you’re trying to acquire clients for your service business, it’s important to remember that not everyone who sees your content will be ready to buy. People buy from brands they know, like, and trust. Email marketing is a channel praised for helping marketers build trust because it delivers value over longer periods of time in a sacred place: their inbox. 

(Not convinced? Consider the fact that 59% of business-to-business (B2B) marketers think email is their most effective revenue-driving channel. It also has an insane return on investment (ROI) compared to other channels, generating around $55 in revenue for each $1 spent.)

Instagram can help you drive leads into your email marketing funnel. Once people have opted in to hear from you, you’ll be able to move leads through your nurturing sequences where they’ll (hopefully) turn into clients. 

There are a few methods for using Instagram to grow your email list, such as:

• Add a link to your email sign-up page from your Instagram bio and ask followers and users to go to the sign-up page when you post new content.
• Use Instagram to promote email-only discounts. Some 40% of people follow brands on social media to learn about promotions or discounts — a superb incentive to push them towards your email list. 
• Engage with users via Direct Messaging (DM), and ask for their email address to send them further information.

Use hashtags to reach your target clients

There’s a hashtag for pretty much every topic under the sun, from #marketing to #poolcleaning. Hashtags aren’t just a marketing fad, though. Instagram allows users to follow hashtags, and view posts that use the term in the caption — even if they don’t follow the brand. That means service businesses can expand their reach by including relevant hashtags in their Instagram content. Let’s put that into practice and say you’re trying to find clients for your social media marketing agency. Tools like SparkToro pull together the most used or most talked-about hashtags on a specific subject. Use this collected information and insert these popular hashtags into your Instagram caption or as your first comment.

Be helpful and approachable with your content

The purpose of your activity on Instagram is to drive leads and attract new clients. In order to do so, you need to build a sense of authority and expertise around your specialty. Create a content calendar to share posts that are genuinely useful to your audience. Aim to solve their problems and pain points, and give them a reason to continue engaging with your service business before they recognize it’s easier to hire you. 

Marketing agency Digital B posts useful content by sharing a simple carousel with an eye-catching first slide.

Give away freebies to drive leads

Humans are wired to love free things. Use this psychology in your Instagram marketing strategy to give away freebies — whether that’s an e-book or live training — to hook potential clients and drive them into your sales funnel.

Not only does free content build trust with your Instagram followers, but it’s a great way to get them on your email list. Valuable content is one of the biggest incentives for people to join mailing lists, closely followed by staying in the loop with company announcements. Use that in your strategy to offer one of the following freebies to your Instagram audience:

• A free guide or whitepaper.
• E-books or articles.
• Video series.
• Checklists.
• Email sequences or courses.

The great thing about IG giveaways is that once your freebie is created, you can give it away automatically using automation. With ManyChat’s Instagram Automation, you can trigger automated responses when a user sends a message with a particular trigger word.

Share client case studies and testimonials

Speaking of previous campaigns, if you’re delivering great work for other clients, let people know about it. Your Instagram profile exists as a tool to market your service business. There’s no better way of doing that than by sharing examples of your great work and how you’ve helped your previous clients. Research shows that 72% of people think positive reviews and testimonials make them trust a business more. Whether it’s a positive client story or news about getting an award, shout about it on Instagram. Show potential clients that you deliver work that keeps your current client roster happy.

Going Social, for example, shares a customer testimonial on their Instagram page. It builds trust with their audience so when a follower needs Going Social’s services, they already trust that the agency will do a good job. 

Show the human side of your service business

It doesn’t matter what type of client you’re trying to attract through your Instagram profile. At the end of the day, people buy from people.

“All things being equal, people do business with and refer business to those people they know, like, and trust,” said Bob Burg, entrepreneurial author and speaker. Work “being human” into your Instagram marketing strategy by going behind the scenes of your business. Show how you work to deliver success for your clients. Feature a different colleague each week. Let your staff take over the company’s Instagram account for a day in the life of their role. Research has found that Instagram posts including human faces attract more likes and comments. By sharing this type of content to your IG page, you’ll build a stronger and more meaningful relationship with your followers, leading them to become paying clients. 

Respond to prospective clients immediately

Once you refine your Instagram strategy, you’ll start to generate a steady stream of leads. You’ve already made it easy for potential clients to get in touch with you (through your link in bio and Book Now button), now make sure you respond to any inquiries as soon as possible. Studies show that 46% of people expect a response to their customer service inquiries within four hours. But if you don’t have the time to handle those questions manually, take the pressure off the need to constantly check your inbox with Instagram Automation. Many Chat’s Conversation Starter feature allows you to configure responses to your FAQs. If potential clients want to read a case study before hiring you, for example, create a flow that directs them to the link on your website when they select the “Want to read a case study?” button.

Advantages

 

Instagram Can Help You to Reach Over One Billion People

Did you know that over a billion people have an Instagram account? Although social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp get more engagement, there are still over a million people who go onto Instagram daily. The first benefit of marketing with Instagram? It’s the fact that you can reach a huge audience the moment that you post anything about your company or brand.

You Can Track Your Competitors and Their Marketing Strategy

As you’re coming up with a content strategy, it can never hurt to check out what your competitors are doing. Instagram makes that easy to do. Going to a competitor’s page can help you to gain insight into the kind of content they post, how often they post it, and how they engage with their clients and customers. The objective here is not to copy what they are doing. It’s to make you aware of their approach so that you can come up with something even better.

It’s Easy to Collect User-Generated Content

Something great about marketing with Instagram is you’re able to generate content for your marketing ideas. For instance, if you sell bedding and one of your customers posts a pic of the new comforter that they bought from your company, you can share the post on your page. This is good to know because companies and brands that share user-generated content experience 2.5 times more conversion rates. This means that you’re over twice as likely for scrollers to inquire about your products or make a purchase whenever they are exposed to your user-generated content.

You Can Make Money Directly from the Site

The only thing better than capturing someone’s attention is immediately turning it into a sale after you do. Thanks to some of Instagram’s marketing tools, people can now make purchases directly on the site. This is thanks to their Shop Tab. Something else that you can do is add “shoppable posts” to your page. This includes adding tags to your photos with product descriptions and prices. You’ll be able to make money without people having to leave your Instagram page to do it.

 

LinkedIn

 

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a social networking site designed specifically for the business community. The goal of the site is to enable registered members to establish and document networks of people they know and trust professionally. LinkedIn is also a resource for professionals to find jobs, research companies, and get news about their industry and business connections. LinkedIn gathers data across LinkedIn profiles to provide policymakers, employers, workers and educators with data-driven insight into patterns that help align workforce supply with demand worldwide. Such patterns include when people generally look for the next step in their career, work migration trends in specific geographical locations, skills gaps in specific industries and what cities are "stickiest," i.e., areas that employees are less likely to move away from.

Why use LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is used primarily by three groups of people: individuals, sales reps and recruiters:

1.   For individuals, LinkedIn is a great way to manage your career, find a job, research companies, connect with business contacts and get news about your industry.

2.   Salespeople often used LinkedIn to generate leads and build relationships with potential customers.

3.   Recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates for open positions, research companies and connect with potential employees.

How can someone sign up for a LinkedIn account?

See the following step-by-step instructions to sign up for a LinkedIn account:

1.   Go to linkedin.com, and click Join now. You are asked to enter your first name, last name and email address, as well as to create a password. You are also asked to select your country/region and primary language.

2.   After you have entered all of the required information, click Join LinkedIn. You are then taken to a page where you can complete your profile by adding additional information about your work experience, education, skills and interests.

3.   Once you have completed your profile, you can start connecting with other LinkedIn members.

Best practices for creating your LinkedIn profile

While the process for signing up for a LinkedIn account is relatively simple, there are a few best practices you want to keep in mind to create an effective LinkedIn profile:

·       Be sure to use a professional photo as your profile picture. This helps you make a good first impression on potential employers or business contacts.

·       In the about section of your profile, be sure to include a brief overview of your experience and skills. This is a great way to give potential employers or customers a snapshot of who you are and what you can do.

·       In the Experience section of your profile, be sure to list all relevant work experience, including job titles, dates of employment and descriptions of your responsibilities.

·       In the Education section of your profile, be sure to list all relevant educational degrees and coursework.

·       In the Skills section of your profile, be sure to list any relevant skills or qualifications you may have. These could include things like proficiency in certain software programs or languages.

·       Be sure to connect with other LinkedIn members who you know and trust. This helps you build your network and expand your reach on the site.

·       Finally, don't forget to regularly update your LinkedIn profile as your experience and skills grow and ask the appropriate colleagues to give you a professional endorsement -- and be sure to provide them with one in return. This helps ensure that your profile is always up to date and eye-catching.

Advantages

·       Professional Networking with Connections

·       Job Opportunities

·       Professional Branding Options

·       Learning Opportunity along with Insights Management

·       Recommendations and Endorsements

·       Event and Webinar Listings

Pinterest

Pinterest is a social media platform in which users explore, share, and store visual content they find inspiring, helpful, or entertaining. Users add, or Pin, their chosen content to boards with a common theme to keep it organized so other users can discover new content related to their interests.

Engagement is key. Follow the boards of your friends and competitors, "Like," and comment on others’ Pins, re-Pin (or repost) content, and share links to your website and blog in your Pins.

It’s important to note there are personal and business accounts on Pinterest. Choosing a business account will allow you to gain access to Pinterest Analytics and other features including a visual search tool, a native video player, and the ability to run Pinterest ads if you choose — making the platform ideal for marketers.

How to Use Pinterest for Marketing

·       Distribute your content.

·       Build a community.

·       Educate customers.

·       Drive website traffic and boost online sales.

Distribute your content.

85% of Pinners search for and prefer visual content. This makes Pinterest a uniquely strong place to distribute all types of content, including written blog content. Unlike Instagram, users can click-through live links. On Pinterest, you share content on Pinterest boards. Boards save all of your Pins and distribute your content for your followers to explore. You can have as many boards as you want, and they can be organized into themes, ideas, plans, or types of inspiration to make it easy for your audience to find the content they’re looking for. You can also invite people to join your boards — which would make your board a "group board" — if you want other contributors to add content they believe works with your board’s theme. This is a great way to increase engagement and interaction on your profile.

Build a community.

Online communities bring together like-minded people and serve as helpful hubs for businesses. With a Pinterest community, you can count on your followers and fans to interact with your boards, consume your content, and make their way to your website — driving traffic in the process. There are millions of people who use Pinterest every month. By treating your Pinterest board as a two-way street through which you can interact with and engage users (not like a one-way billboard), you can build a loyal community of Pinterest users who may become customers, too.

How to Build Your Pinterest Following

Although you can search for and add specific friends via their name, Facebook account, and other identifiers, this is time-consuming and would make it nearly impossible to substantially grow your following.

Instead, consider the following methods to build out your base of fans and followers on Pinterest.

·       Promote your Pinterest account via your other social networks.

·       Follow accounts you believe would want to follow you back.

·       Watch what your competitors are doing to increase their base of followers and learn from their techniques.

·       Use keywords in your posts (we’ll discuss these tactics in more detail later).

·       Ask influencers to re-post some of your content to gain the attention of their followers.

·       Pay for a Pinterest ads account to run ads on the platform.

Educate customers.

Pinterest is rife with tutorials, infographics, how-tos, and links to additional educational content. Given its propensity for visual content, it’s a powerful channel to educate and engage customers. While creating and sharing content for your Pinterest profile and marketing to users, be sure to keep your target audience in mind. Similar to the way you would when creating new products, developing your branding, or posting to other social networks, you want to ensure you’re pushing out content that appeals to your target audience, current customers, and buyer personas on Pinterest.

You can do this in a few different ways:

·       Research your buyer personas to determine what type of content would be most helpful and appealing to them.

·       Survey and ask your current followers and customers for feedback on what they want from your company on Pinterest.

·       Look at what your competitors are doing well (or not) to help you think about new ways to push out your content and make it unique.

·       View the boards of your current followers and customers to aid in your understanding of who your audience is and what they're most interested in.

 Drive website traffic and boost online sales.

Pinterest, unlike Instagram, allows you to link your visual content to another website — namely, your website. This feature allows you to share both written and visual content and direct users back to your website in the process.  This is a powerful addition to your marketing as it can boost online sales, too. Many brands use Pinterest to showcase product images while sharing content. For example, this board, created by the clothing company Madewell, serves as a source of travel inspiration and is paired with real products they sell to get their audience excited about their brand, the lifestyle they promote, and the idea of purchasing some clothing.

Choose the right categories for your content.

By choosing the right category for your content to be shared in, your Pins and boards will become more searchable for users looking to discover content similar to that of your business. Users can search for specific categories on Pinterest or simply go to the “Categories” section of any profile on the platform to view all content related to the topic they’re searching for.

Use unique images and videos.

Similar to other social networks, Pinterest contains a plethora of images and videos. Not only do you want to ensure you’re posting images and videos that will help you promote your brand and market your products/ services, but you’ll also want to ensure they stand out against all of the others on the platform. Otherwise, why would a user choose to follow you over your competition?

Here are some ways to ensure you’re sharing great and unique visual content on Pinterest:

·       Create and share branded videos to promote your products and company. Pinterest users watch nearly 1 billion videos per day on the platform.

·       Share images and videos that show your products in action so viewers can more easily envision themselves using them.

·       Avoid excessive blank (or white) space in your images — images with 30% less blank space in the background are pinned most.

·       Create videos between 30-90 seconds long because they’re proven to have the highest performance.

·       Create specific boards to share images of your company’s most helpful data visualizations and infographics if you have them for your audience to use as resources for their businesses.

Leverage keywords.

By using keywords throughout your profile, posts, Pins, and boards, you’ll be more likely to organically appear in users’ feeds and searches. Keywords and phrases on Pinterest are related to specific niches being searched by users. For example, if you sell suitcases, you might use keywords and phrases like "vacation" or "going on a trip" throughout your profile and Pins. This way, when a user searches one of those terms, your profile and images of your suitcases will appear on their feeds. When performing keyword research on Pinterest, start by searching terms related to your niche within the platform itself. In the image below, I searched for the term "travel" and not only found content related to that niche, but Pinterest also provided a number of related keywords at the top of the screen. This tells you what other related terms users are searching for to support your research. You can also use the plugin Keywords Everywhere to see the search volume for terms on Pinterest. This helps you understand the level of demand for the keywords you're using. Here are some locations in which you can insert keywords on Pinterest to improve your chances of organically ranking through search:

·       Bio and profile

·       Pin descriptions

·       Board titles

·       Board descriptions

·       Image-Alt-Text

For those of you who choose to pay for Pinterest ads, there’s also an option to use the platform’s keyword targeting tool to help you reach your audience through your ads.

Share your content on other social networks.

To promote your Pinterest account and content, you should share your Pins, images, and videos in other areas to improve your chances of being seen and followed. For example, you can claim your business’ Pinterest account on Etsy and YouTube so your followers can easily learn about the other platforms you’re on and how they can view more of your content. Additionally, claiming your account will provide access to analytics and data on all of these Pins so you can see the other networks your audience is most interested in.

You can also link your Pinterest profile to your Facebook and Google accounts so you can easily add and find friends, share content across networks, speed up your login on all accounts, and backup your profile in case you lose or forget your password details.

Follow, engage, and interact with other accounts.

When you follow and interact with other Pinterest users and their accounts, you’re able to initiate and maintain personal relationships between them and your business. This type of engagement has the potential to make your followers feel a level of loyalty towards your brand that keeps them coming back to your profile for inspiration, ideas, and to buy products. Here are four ways you can build strong and lasting relationships with your target audience through your marketing tactics on Pinterest:

·       Follow new accounts of users who state or show they have interests related to the work your business does and the content you post (you can do this by searching keywords and hashtags or reviewing the people who follow your current audience members).

·       Re-Pin, Like, and comment on the content your followers and fans share.

·       Respond to the messages your followers write on your content to personalize their experience on your profile and make them feel heard.

·       Create engaging posts that showcase your expertise in your industry, teach your followers how to do something, or get them involved (in a giveaway or contest for example).

Advantages

Pinterest is a powerful marketing tool that can help businesses increase website traffic, improve brand awareness, create targeted advertising campaigns, increase sales, and gain valuable insights through analytics

YouTube

There are two ways to use YouTube—as a viewer or as a creator. You can watch other people's videos or upload your own. Still, many people on YouTube use the site and its family of apps to watch content.

Get an Account to Broadcast Yourself

Google, which bought YouTube in 2006 and now operates it as a subsidiary, got rid of standalone YouTube accounts a few years later. Today it lets people use any existing Google ID to sign in to YouTube so they can create custom channels and do all the things allowed with a YouTube account. If you don't have a Google ID or don't want to link it to YouTube, you can create a new YouTube and Google account, which means creating a new Google ID.

Use YouTube for Basic Activities

Signing in to YouTube as a registered user lets you do a lot of stuff you can't do while browsing the site anonymously, such as:

• Save favorite videos for quick viewing later.
• Comment on the videos you watch.
• Rate the videos you watched.
• Create playlists of videos to watch.
• Operate your own video channel.
• Upload videos for others to watch

Browse and Watch Videos on YouTube

Watching videos is straightforward—press the Play button, and the video streams to your computer or mobile device. By default, the video appears in a box on the screen. However, you can make it fill the screen by selecting the full-screen icon. You can browse categories by topic, perform keyword searches, or scroll through popular or trending videos to find footage to watch. The search function has filters you can apply to search for videos by date or popularity level. There's also a YouTube Charts page showing popular videos, plus there are blogs about trends on YouTube

YouTube's Massive Scale

The amount of content available on YouTube is amazing. It's available in more than 80 languages and in most countries worldwide, so its content is diverse. YouTube receives more than two billion unique visitors monthly. Collectively, these visitors watch more than one billion hours of footage per day. About 500 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute.

Upload Videos and Share With Friends and Strangers

YouTube was created by former PayPal employees and launched in 2005. The idea was to simplify the process of sharing videos, which has long been complicated by the different codecs used by various cameras and online video sites. These video formatting issues can still be tricky, but YouTube has taken much of the pain out of putting videos online. Most smartphone cameras and point-and-shoot cameras store video in formats compatible with YouTube. Size limits on video files are 128 GB per file or 12 hours.

Manage Each Video With Individual Settings

For each video, you can set privacy levels (for example, to decide who can view it), decide whether you want people to rate the video (using the YouTube star system) and leave comments for others to see, and set licensing rules for how others can use your material. YouTube offers online video editing tools, but these tools are fairly basic. Many people prefer to do significant editing offline before uploading the final footage. You can annotate your videos by adding comments as a note at certain points in the footage or through a speech bubble that is superimposed on the video image, like text bubbles in comics.

Finally, you can share each video in multiple ways—by sending a URL as a link in an email, for example, or by copying the embed code YouTube generates for each video and pasting it on another website.

Your Own Video Channel

All your uploaded videos are grouped together into your video channel. You can set the privacy level, determining whether the public can watch the videos or only authorized friends. You can make your custom YouTube video channel look spiffy by uploading your logo or another image. Each video you upload can be customized in terms of how the controls look. And, you can add titles and descriptions to help people decide if they want to watch your video clips.

Advantages of Youtube

·       YouTube as an information disseminating platform for students. It's the perfect place to learn and gain expertise. ...

·       YouTube's user-friendliness. ...

·       YouTube for Brand Promotion. ...

·       YouTube benefits talented people. ...

·       Easy Earning is at the very top of the list of YouTube benefits for Vloggers.

TikTok

TikTok's short-form video format lends itself to entertainment and comedy. However, it is increasingly used for infotainment. Influencers who gain a steady audience on TikTok offer snippets of advice and tips along with self-promotion. Beauty, fashion, personal finance and budgeting, and cooking are all popular topics for informational videos. Increasingly, the format is used to promote and sell products.

Launched in its present form in 2018, TikTok joined the ranks of social media giants in record time. As of February 2024, it has been downloaded approximately 4.7 billion times

Like other social media companies, TikTok has been the subject of persistent concerns about the potential use or misuse of the private information that it gathers about its users. It has become a particular focus of attention because the majority of TikTok is Chinese-owned.

TikTok's Business

Marketing on TikTok is still maturing, but a growing number of agencies are eager to help brands create the kind of quirky content that gets clicks on TikTok. Conventional advertising that stresses a product's superior qualities doesn't work.

Instead, brands open user accounts on TikTok and, just like any of its users, create and post mini-videos. They can also pay to promote their videos to other users. The ultimate goal is to go viral and spur takeoffs, drawing in a huge audience for the brand's message. Light, fun campaigns set to music hit the spot.

Some of the most successful marketing campaigns on TikTok:

• The Chipotle restaurant chain ran a Halloween "Boorito" coupon giveaway campaign encouraging TikTok users to dress up for the holiday and post their images. The campaign scored 4 billion views.6
• e.l.f. Cosmetics teamed up with a few social media influencers to create an online reality show and contest called #eyeslipsface. The ad campaign had 10.4 billion clicks as of January 2024.78
• The NBA signed up for an account and has scored 21.7 million followers as of May 2024. Its aim is to enhance global awareness of the NBA, particularly among young people.9

TikTok has headquarters in Los Angeles and Singapore as well as offices in New York, Berlin, Dublin, Jakarta, London, Paris, Dubai, Seoul, and Tokyo.10

Like many other social media sites, TikTok also makes money from in-app purchases, which is a big contributor to its revenues.11

TikTok's User Base

TikTok is available in more than 150 markets and more than 50 languages.313

Here's a breakdown of some of the app's most notable stats:3

• About 36.7% of users are aged 18 to 24
• 52% are female, and 48% are male
• 102.3 million users in the U.S. in 2023
• 30.8 million daily active users via iOS
• Children spend an average of 75 minutes per day on it

Twitch

What exactly is it?

Twitch is a video-streaming platform that offers a fun, social way to watch people play games. Through the Twitch app (and online at Twitch.tv), gamers who broadcast their matches (known as streamers) play their favorite titles while providing running commentary on the action. Launched in 2011, Twitch has grown into the largest live-streaming platform of its kind. Millions log in every day to watch their favorite gamers battle aliens, score goals, and achieve victory royales.

Who’s streaming on Twitch?

Anybody can stream, but skilled players with larger-than-life personalities draw the biggest audiences. Some streamers have reached bona fide celebrity status.

How kid-appropriate is the content?

Due to the unpredictable nature of live-streaming, adult language and subject matter can be the norm for some streams. Although Twitch doesn’t offer a typical suite of parental controls, there are several ways to safely view content. Using the “Sort and Filter” menu on the Browse tab lets you apply content tags, such as Family Friendly. Or use the app’s search tool (tap the magnifying glass icon in the upper-right corner) to type game-related phrases like “Mario” or “Minecraft.” Viewers can also completely hide a stream’s chat window by tapping an icon in the corner of a video (it looks like a speech bubble with a line through it).
 Seeing problematic content? Tapping a user’s name allows you to block or report that person. (Specific streamers can be removed from your feed too: Tap the three dots next to their preview thumbnail, or use the options menu directly in their channel.) Many popular streamers try to keep things clean by having chat filters in place that block bad words, but keeping a watchful eye is best. (According to Twitch’s terms of service, only gamers 13 and older are allowed, and those under 18 must have parental supervision.)

Reddit

What is reddit?

Reddit is a site where members can post links or ask questions about almost anything, as well as commenting on what other people have posted. Anyone can visit reddit and see what other people have posted or written, but only members can post content or leave comments. Membership is free. In terms of its popularity, as of 9 a.m. (EST) on April 29, reddit reported 114,943,104 unique visitors over the previous month.

What is voting?

Reddit members can also “vote” on links or questions that are posted on the site. An “upvote” denotes approval, while a “downvote” indicates disapproval. The more upvotes a post has, the more likely people are to see it. More on that in a second.

What are subreddits?

While reddit does have a home landing page, content and questions are posted to specific subreddits. These are communities within reddit that focus on specific (sometimes very specific) subjects, ranging from “Science” to “Batman.” The number of upvotes a post has affects how visible that post is in a subreddit, depending on how you sort the results.

You can sort results under a subreddit in a number of different ways. I’ll address three: hot (which is normally the default), new, and top. “Hot” posts are determined by an algorithm that highlights posts that are relatively recent and have received a lot of upvotes. These are the posts you see when you first land on a subreddit. You can click to sort subreddit posts by “new,” which highlights, well, new posts. However, if a subreddit is fairly active, new posts can quickly disappear from the top of the “new” page. If you sort by “top,” you’ll see the posts that have received the most upvotes on that subreddit, regardless of when the posts were submitted.

Reddit’s rules

There are some rules that apply across the entire reddit platform. The list of rules is short, so I’ll include it here in its entirety (though you can link to more information from reddit’s rules page).

·       Don’t spam.

·       Don’t ask for votes or engage in vote manipulation.

·       Don’t post personal information.

·       No child pornography or sexually suggestive content featuring minors.

·       Don’t break the site or do anything that interferes with normal use of the site.

Can I post links to my own stuff?

Yes. You can post links to your blog posts, artwork, Kickstarter campaign, etc. But reddit has fairly detailed guidelines on how you should (and shouldn’t) promote your work on the site. Basically, it’s okay to share your work as long as you’re an active member of the reddit community, but do not go to reddit solely to self-promote.

Benefits of Reddit:

1-Access to Diverse Communities: Reddit is divided into numerous subreddits, each dedicated to specific topics, interests, or communities.

2-Information and Knowledge Sharing: Reddit serves as a platform for users to share valuable information, news, articles, and personal experiences.

Google My Business

What is Google My Business?

As mentioned, Google My Business is a tool that enables you to manage and optimize your Business Profile on Google—which is one of many important business directory listings. So to explain what Google Business Profile is and how it works, let’s first make sure we’re clear on what a Business Profile is. Your Business Profile is Google’s term for your Google business listing. Business Profiles appear in Google Maps and in the local results of Google Search.

Why Do I Need It?

In an effort to gain more visibility on Google, many businesses create a Google business listing (known officially as a Business Profile). If you’re one such business owner, something you might not realize is that creating a Business Profile does not give you management over it, and you need those management and editing capabilities if you want your Business Profile to work for you as an effective SEO and lead generation tool. So how do you gain management over your Google Business Profile? The answer is that, in addition to creating a free Business Profile, you must also separately create a free Google My Business account for that profile.

How to use Google My Business for local marketing

So we’ve established that Google My Business is not your Business Profile, but rather a tool by which you enhance your Business Profile to boost its visibility and effectiveness. Let’s cover the four core ways you can use this Google My Business to make your profile on Google listing a better local marketing tool.

Engage with consumers

There are a lot of ways consumers can interact with your Business Profile, and you use your Google My Business account to engage back with them. You can respond to reviews, answer questions, enable direct messaging, and set up associated alerts. You can even use Google My Business to publish posts to your Business Profile, much like you would with Facebook and other social media platforms.

Highlight your business

A Business Profile alone contains limited information about your business. But through your Google My Business account dashboard, you can provide hours, a link to your website, products and pricing, attributes, and other details that make your business unique. You will also use your Google My Business to make edits and updates as needed.

Gain insights

You can use the Google My Business dashboard to gain key insights on your audience and local search performance. In the analytics tab of the platform, you can see the queries customers are using to find your Business Profile, whether they found you on Google Maps or Google Search, a breakdown of actions taken on your listing, and how your photos are performing compared to other profiles in your category.

Perform local SEO

Just as Google has algorithms for ranking its ads and websites, it also has one for ranking Business Profiles. Through your Google My Business dashboard, you can incorporate keywords into your Business Profile and perform other optimizations to help it rank in local results, which we’re going to cover next.

How to use Google My Business for SEO

Google Business Profiles are dynamic. Not only do they change form based on platform, but Google will also prioritize sections of your profile according to the term that was searched as well as the type of information most important to consumers in your category. Even better, Google will embolden keywords in the content of your profile that it thinks are relevant.

But there needs to be information to prioritize and keywords to embolden in your profile in the first place. Just as you (or your agency) would use a content management system like WordPress to optimize your website for search engines, Google My Business is used to optimize your profile and expand your reach. How do you use Google My Business for local SEO? Well, since optimizing for Google is essentially optimizing for searchers, it all comes down to the same three things: targeting, quality of information, and trust.

Target your information

To use Google My Business for SEO, make sure to incorporate relevant keywords into your Business Profile so you can tell Google what you’re trying to rank for. Use them in your “from the business” description, your responses to reviews, your answers to questions, and in the posts you publish. Make sure to incorporate them naturally just as you would with any other SEO strategy.

Maintain quality of information

The completeness and accuracy of your Business Profile impacts its rank, so make sure to provide the requested information in every section of your Google My Business dashboard. Especially important here is your contact information, special hours, and attributes.

Build trust

The final approach to using Google My Business for SEO appeals to the trust component of Google’s algorithm. Keep your information updated and accurate as your business evolves. Keep a steady stream of reviews coming in and respond to them. Also, signal to Google that you are active by regularly uploading photos and publishing posts to your Business Profile through Google My Business.

How to sign up for Google My Business

A free tool that turns my Business Profile into a power marketer for my business? Where do I sign up?

To get a Google My Business account, go to google.com/business and click “Manage now,” which will take you through the steps of creating an account. Remember, a Google My Business Account does not automatically create a Business Profile—it gives you access to it and the ability to add more to it. So you’ll want to make sure you have an existing Business Profile to access.

You need a separate Google My Business account to manage your Business Profile.

A Google My Business account is the only means by which you can claim ownership of your Business Profile, attain management rights to it, and unlock additional free features to increase your visibility on Google. In this post, I’m going to cover everything you need to know about Google My Business, including:

• What Google My Business is
• How to use Google My Business effectively
• How to use Google My Business for SEO
• How to create a Google My Business account

·       Read on so you can incorporate this free and powerful tool to your marketing toolkit!

Benefits of Google My Business

·       Increased visibility. ...

·       Better search engine ranking. ...

·       Improved customer engagement. ...

·       Free marketing. ...

·       Increased customer trust. ...

·       Valuable insights. ...

·       Mobile-friendly. ...

·       Connect with customers across multiple channels.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a network of millions of user-generated, personal websites. It's part blogging platform (like Wordpress or Blogger) and part social networking service, letting users create and post their own original content. Written entries, photographs, video clips, or links to other websites — you can share all of these things with your friends and followers. Tumblr offers many dynamic features. Users can subscribe to as many other users' pages as they like, which show up on the user's feed, or Dashboard. It's also possible to give "notes" to other subscribers in several forms — you can reblog someone's content on that user's Tumblr site, "like" it, or reply. To further the social aspect, authors can opt to post their Tumblr entries simultaneously, or at least link to them, via other services, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

How to Use Tumblr

Using Tumblr is as easy as using e-mail — which is how a Tumblr account is created. Simply sign up with an e-mail address and a password, choose a user name, and start blogging. (The user name does not have to be the same as the blog's title, by the way.) On the user's blog entry page (accessible via the Dashboard, which we'll talk more about in a second), Tumblr guides the blogging process with icons for text, photo, quotes, links, chat, audio or video. Click on the correct one, enter in the materials, and then click "post" at the end (or, queue it, or set it to run on a specific date). Users can have more than one blog. But Tumblr is a social network, too. Tumblr users connect by subscribing to other Tumblr blogs. This way, any time an author updates with a new article, picture, video or shared item, it shows up in the Dashboards of his or her subscribers. The Dashboard is Tumblr's main interface. Similar to a Facebook news feed, it plainly displays, in reverse chronological order (most recent at the top), all activity by the user and the blogs he or she follows. (Tip: scroll through posts easily by pressing the "J" key while in the Dashboard.)

Notes Encourage Users to Connect

·       clicking the arrow button on a post "reblogs" it on their own site

·       clicking the heart icon registers a "like"

• a speech balloon (if enabled) leaves a text comment
• clicking the camera button to leave a photo reply (if the athor has allowed for that)

Tumblr Themes, Backgrounds, and Layouts

Tumblr users see the blogs that they subscribe to, as well their own posts and notes, on the Dashboard interface. But the public "face" of a Tumblr blog goes out to the whole of the Internet (unless privacy features are enabled), which means that they require some cosmetic maintenance. Users can fully customize their Tumblr sites, changing the colors and fonts, how pictures are displays, where modules are presented, and so on. Tumblr makes it easy for the non-computer coder to do so by offering dozens of free site templates, which it calls "Themes." Here's how you set up a theme. First, go to your site's page on the Dashboard. Then, open the "customize theme" module. Tumblr provides a pull-down theme menu, with thumbnail images of themes currently available, many designed by other Tumblr users. Based on what you'll be using your Tumblr for, there are several theme options available. A blogger can choose from single, double or triple column (for a text-heavy, photo-light newspaper layout), or high-resolution (for a photo-dominant blog), for example. Most themes are free, although Tumblr does sell "premium" themes. Once you find a theme you like, you can install it with the push of a button. With a dummy example page, you're then free to explore the customizable features. From this page, you can change the background color (or pattern, or an uploaded image), entry text size and color, the site's title and description, and even how many older entries you want displayed your page. (It also allows for user-generated code injection.) You can fiddle with anything here.

 

Snapchat

What is Snapchat?

Snapchat is a popular messaging app that lets users exchange pictures and videos, called snaps, that are meant to disappear after they're viewed. The essential function is to take a picture or video, add filters, lenses, or other effects, and share it with friends. The app is free to download, and also has a premium subscription plan called Snapchat+. (Note: If you're looking for more parental insights on your kids' favorite things online, sign up for our family movie night newsletter.)

How does Snapchat work?

All you need to sign up is your name, an email address or a phone number, and your birth date. To add friends, you can upload your contacts or search for people you know. You can also automatically add someone by taking a picture of their "Snapcode," a special QR code unique to each user.

After that, things get a little confusing. On Snapchat, you usually start the communication by sending a photo or video, not a text message. To begin a conversation, you tap the big camera circle and take a snap. There are all sorts of photo-editing tools, as well as filters to decorate your images and videos. Once you customize your "snap," you can send it to anyone on your friends list, add it to your story (which is a record of the day that your friends can view for 24 hours), and add it to Snap Map (which displays your photo on a map of your location that can be viewed by anyone on Snapchat).

Snapchat provides several options for sharing and managing snaps. In addition to individual messaging, Snapchat offers group chats that everyone in a group can contribute to. You can delete the text messages you send, though in a group chat the other people will see that you've deleted something.

What are Snapstreaks?

A Snapstreak represents the number of days users snap each other. To achieve a Snapstreak, two users must have snapped back and forth with one another in a 24-hour period for three days in a row or more. Once you've established a streak, special emojis and statistics display next to your names to show how long you've maintained a streak. Why do they matter? For one thing, they most likely add to your overall Snapchat score (basically a number that reflects how much you use the app).

Because of the intense bonds that children can form over social media, they can feel that a Snapstreak is a measure of their friendship…and that if they don't keep it up, they'll let the other person down. Teens have even been known to give friends access to their Snapchat accounts to keep a streak going if they can't do it themselves (for example, if their phone gets taken away for being online too much). This can lead to feelings of pressure, anxiety, and compulsion, so it's a good idea to talk with your kids about how they use the app.

What's a Snapchat story?

A story is a collection of moments in the form of pictures and videos. On Snapchat, stories appear as circles, and when you tap them, they autoplay the pictures or videos the user collected. You can create personal stories that your friends can view for a 24-hour period. Snapchat+ subscribers can set them to expire after anywhere from an hour to a week. Or, if you think your snap is particularly interesting or newsworthy, you can submit it to be featured in the Spotlight section, which features a mix of snaps that have been identified as entertaining viewing. Snaps are curated and compiled by the company. While it's cool to have your story added to the Spotlight roundup, it's also very public, so kids should think carefully before submitting one.

What are Snapchat's other features?

The more you use the app, the more points you get and the higher your Snapchat score goes. Snapchat awards high scorers with trophies and other perks. Here are a few other Snapchat features:

• Cameos: These are animated GIFs featuring your selfie that you can send in a chat. Snapchat offers dozens of video options to add your image to, including "duets" where you and a friend appear together.
• Face lenses and world lenses: If you've seen photos of people with cartoon cat ears and whiskers on their faces, those are face lenses. World lenses are augmented reality elements, such as rainbows, that look like they're part of the photo. Technically, lenses are "overlays" -- and they cost money on Snapchat.
• Geofilters: These are location-specific elements that can only be unlocked by visiting a specific place. Businesses use geo-filters as a way for customers to check in and advertise for them. A kid could create a special geo-filter for their sweet-16 party for attendees to add to their photos.
• Memories: If you don't want your snaps to disappear, you can store them to send and view again later. My Eyes Only is a way to save Memories behind a passcode so that no one else can see them.
• Snap Store: This is exactly what it sounds like: a place to buy Snapchat-related items.
• Scan: Users can find out what song is playing, scan a dog to identify its breed, and use this feature to locate other information.
• Snap Games: Co-play games with voice/text chat and ads, launched from the chat section to play with friends.
• Sounds: TikTok-like feature that allows users to include music with snaps.
• Spotlight: This is another TikTok-like feature that collects snaps submitted by users into one giant feed. Once you send in a Spotlight, it's public and can be viewed by anyone on or off the platform.

Benefits.

·       Less Competition. The number one benefit of Snapchat is that it doesn't have a lot of competition.

·       Stories That Can Be Viewed Once.

·       Snap Map.

·       Geofilters.

·       A Visual Platform.

·       Visual Customer Testimonials.

·       Snapchat Shows Your Human Side.

·       You Can Organize Fun Contests

 

Benefits of Social Media Marketing For Consumers

Social media marketing has taken the digital landscape by storm. In 2021, social media advertisements had a worldwide revenue of $153 billion, projected to reach $252 billion by 2026, according to Statista. This is why social media advertising is the second-largest market in digital advertisements. Today, the role of social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, goes beyond the sharing of images or posts. As a result, both online and offline businesses try to leverage the power of social media in myriad ways. 

According to a study by Forbes, two-thirds of shoppers use social media to make purchase-related decisions. In fact, this same study also looked into shopping preferences across Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z and found that 77% of Millennials and Gen Z use social media for shopping. 

Besides offering a glimpse into brand personality, social media marketing allows consumers to directly engage with the brand, leave feedback, compare competitor brands easily, get quick access to global brands, among other uses. Before we take a look at more benefits of social media marketing for consumers, let us understand how social media marketing works. 

How Does Social Media Marketing Work

Digital transformation has become imperative for businesses across industries, thanks to the rise of e-commerce and the omnipresence of social media. Given the extensive reach of social media, marketers cannot overlook how effective social media marketing is in connecting a brand with its target audience. Here is a four-step guide on how social media marketing actually works

Step 1: Market Research

The first step is to collect relevant data by conducting market research for an in-depth insight into current trends, customer demands, market conditions, and so on. 

Step 2: Discover Opportunities

After research, identify the right opportunities regarding how to connect with the target audience, generate useful leads and provide customer support.

Step 3: Formulate Strategies

Get clarity on business objectives and develop a clear social media marketing content strategy that works best to achieve those business goals. 

Step 4: Review and Report

Social media marketing results in real-time reviews and instant feedback. Take these reviews into consideration and improvise the content marketing strategy in order to make better-informed decisions. 

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

A good social media marketing strategy requires a combination of strategic thinking and creative solutions. Social networks are now a significant consideration in most marketing plans, as they are a relatively cost-effective tool that can generate immense exposure for businesses. The goal is to target the social media marketing material towards meeting consumer needs, promoting brand recognition, and increasing inbound traffic toward the brands’ website or application. 

Here are the top seven benefits of social media marketing for consumers.

Current Trends

The one thing that is constant in both the real and digital world is that it is always changing. New trends, products, brands, and services are being introduced on a daily basis, which can often be hard to keep up with. In such a rapidly changing world, there needs to be an efficient way in which customers can stay on top of this change. Content on social media is a great way for consumers to access engaging and relevant information that helps them stay up-to-date. When consumers are armed with the latest information, it can help them make informed purchase decisions. 

Convenience and Quick Service

In a world that is driven by content, the key is to ensure that this material can be accessed with ease. When consumers have quick access to relevant information, it simplifies their purchase decision. In fact, this is where social media marketing plays a significant role. For example, if a consumer notices a post about a product that interests them, they can access the brand page and purchase the product at their convenience.   

 24/7 Access

While offices have a concept of weekends and holidays, social media has no off days. People have complete access to information regardless of the day or time. So if they want to know more about a product or service, they have 24/7 access to the brand’s social media profiles to get all the information they need.  

Personalized Experience

One of the many benefits of social media marketing for consumers is the concept of a personalized experience. What this essentially means is that a business with a good social media strategy will be able to focus on their target audience based on relevant factors including demographics, shopping patterns, and interests. This results in consumers only seeing posts that align with their interests. Such personalized experiences increase the likelihood of engagement and eventually lead to more conversions.  

Market Insights

Social media marketing enables people to find information regarding different businesses within their field of interest. It allows consumers to explore different products, services, and brands within a wider marketplace. Moreover, it is particularly beneficial for brands as it offers insights into branding, industry trends and competitor activities. 

Quality Content

Social media marketing is a great way for products and services to engage better and deeper with target audiences by generating quality content. It helps consumers be more informed and engage with the brand for longer.  

Clear Product Information

With the advent of the internet, consumers have become far more informed than before. An in-store visit can give them information on the product that may be limited to the product label. Meanwhile, social media posts can offer more details to help consumers make better purchase decisions. 

How Emeritus Can Boost Your Social Media Marketing Career

Social media marketing can be leveraged to understand consumer interests, engage with them on a personal level and gradually convert them to loyal customers of the brand. As is evident, there are multiple benefits of social media marketing for consumers and businesses. If you want to build your career in this field, explore the digital marketing online courses offered by globally renowned universities in collaboration with Emeritus and equip yourself with the right skills to step into this new emerging world of social media marketing. 

Hence,

Social media marketing is beneficial for both business clients and individuals, as it enhances visibility and engagement, ultimately driving growth and success. Its strategic use can lead to significant advantages in reaching target audiences effectively.