Let's celebrate International Women's Day together
https://ift.tt/2HbKK0r Let’s celebrate International Women’s Day togetherBeing a woman in the male-driven tech industry can be frustrating – so much so that, if you are a woman in tech, I don’t even have to explain what I mean. Yet in the face of adversity, we’ve proven time and time again that we have what it takes to succeed. These stories of rising to the challenge can be really motivating. Take, for example, the fact that women founders receive less funding than men, but make double the revenue. Or the fact that funding for femtech is set to see a huge increase to more than $400 million – proving that technologies and products designed for women are not a niche. Stories like these are what gives me, and many women in tech, the motivation to strive for greatness. I’m lucky enough to work for a company that provides me with strong role models who share their own anecdotes – whether it’s at TNW Conference, where a host of leaders will be speaking about diversity, or on International Women’s Day. On March 8, I’ll be joining TNW in celebrating IWD2019 and the achievements of women at our headquarters, TQ. Through networking, discussions, and a panel of inspiring speakers, we’ll share our ups and downs and learn from them together. I’m especially excited to hear from our speakers: Anouk Vos, Founding Partner at RevNext; Janneke van den Heuvel, Co-Founder of TryLikes; and Linda Frietman, Founder and CEO of IamProgrez. With our very own Georgina, Editor Community Manager at TNW, they’ll chat about their personal experiences of female leadership onstage. Even more exciting is that all ticket proceeds will go to Technovation, the world’s largest technology entrepreneurship for girls aged 10-18. This non-profit has already helped 23,000 girls to develop apps and startups to solve global problems. If you want to join for a night of inspiring stories, networking, and lots of champagne and food, come join us on March 8. I can’t wait to celebrate International Women’s Day and support young girls in achieving their goals. I’ve just bought my ticket – will I see you there? Read next: The first self-driving car by 2020: just another lofty promise? Social Media via The Next Web February 28, 2019 at 04:32PM
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Tesla halts online sales ahead of Elon Musk announcement https://ift.tt/2UfFi00 Tesla buyers might have a hard time ordering a vehicle through its website for the next several hours. The “order” webpages for the Model 3, Model S and Model X vehicle all redirect to show nebulous message that reads “”The wait is almost over.” Below the main message, it reads “Great things are launching at 2 pm.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Feb. 27 “Some Tesla news,” followed by equally vague tweets “2 pm” and “California.”
The tweets had led to widespread speculation of what Musk will announce Thursday. It was enough to send shares higher yesterday. Tesla shares have risen more than 7 percent since market open Feb. 27. In the midst of Musk’s teasing tweets, another pressing matter unfolded involving his settlement agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A U.S. judge issued an order Feb. 26 that gave Musk until March 11 to explain why he should not be held in contempt for violating a settlement agreement with the SEC. The timing of Musk’s tweets, which followed his recent problems with the SEC, has struck many as a diversionary tactic meant to distract investors and the media. The SEC asked a judge Feb. 25 to hold Musk in contempt for violating the settlement agreement reached with the agency last year. Reuters was the first to report the judge’s order. The SEC argued that a tweet sent by Musk on February 19 violated their agreement. Musk is supposed to get approval from Tesla’s board before communicating potentially material information to investors. The tweet said Tesla would produce “around” 500,000 cars this year. He later sent another tweet that corrected himself. The second tweet said “meant to say annualized production rate at the end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k.” This is a developing story. Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com February 28, 2019 at 03:33PM A new ‘Hide Tweet’ button has been spotted in Twitter’s code https://ift.tt/2GQlugD Twitter confirmed it has in development a new “Hide Tweet” option, but has yet to provide more detail about its plans for the feature. The new option, spotted in Twitter’s code, is available from a list of moderation choices that appear when you click the “Share” button on a tweet – a button whose icon has also been given a refresh, it seems. Like it sounds, “Hide Tweet” appears to function as an alternative to muting or blocking a user, while still offering some control over a conversation. Related to this, an option to “View Hidden Tweets” was also found to be in the works. This appears to allow a user to unhide those tweets that were previously hidden. The “Hide Tweet” feature was first discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, who tweeted about her findings on Thursday. Wong says she found the feature within the code of the Twitter Android application. That means it’s not necessarily something Twitter will release publicly, but has at least thought about seriously enough to develop. Reached for comment earlier today, Twitter told us some employees would soon tweet out more context about the feature. As of the time of writing, those explanations had not gone live.
Immediately, there were concerns an option like this would allow users to silence their critics – not just for themselves, as is possible today with muting and blocking – but for anyone reading through a stream of Twitter Replies. Imagine, for example, if a controversial politician began to hide tweets they didn’t like or those that contradicted an outrageous claim with a fact check, people said. On the flip side, putting the original poster back in control of which Replies are visible may allow people to feel more comfortable with sharing on Twitter, which could impact user growth – a number Twitter struggles with today. But as of now, it’s not clear that the “Hide Tweet” button is something that would hide the tweet from everyone’s view, or just the from the person who clicked the button. It’s also unclear what stage of development the feature is in, or if it will be part of a larger change to moderation controls. If Twitter chooses to comment, we’ll update with those answers.
The feature’s discovery comes at a time when Twitter has been under increased pressure to improve the conversational health on its platform. In a recent interview, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that it puts most of the burden on the victims of abuse, which has been “a huge fail.” He said Twitter was looking into new way to proactively enforce and promote health, so blocking and reporting were last resorts. A “Hide Tweet” button doesn’t seem to fit into that plan, as it requires users’ direct involvement with the moderation process. It’s worth also noting that Twitter already has a “hidden tweets” feature of sorts. In 2018, the company introduced a new filtering strategy to hide disruptive tweets, which takes into consideration various behavioral signals – like whether the account had verified its email, is frequently blocked, or tweets often at accounts that don’t follow it back, for example. If Twitter determined the tweet should be downranked, it moved it to its own secluded part of the Reply thread, under a “Show more replies” button. Twitter tests a number of things that never see the light of day in a public product. More recently, the company said it was weighing the idea of a “clarifying function” for explaining old tweets. It’s also launching a prototype app that will experiment with new ideas around conversation threads.
Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com February 28, 2019 at 03:03PM What Marketers Need to Know About Long-Form Video on Social Media https://ift.tt/2IGjWYk Written by Michael Del Gigante It seems like the way we utilize social media changes on a daily basis. Only a few years ago, video content on social platforms tended to be short pieces that could be watched quickly. Today, long-form video is the latest thing and it looks like it’s here to stay. Social media giant Facebook reportedly has poured up to $1 billion into developing original long-form video content for its Watch platform. Facebook Watch allows users to access original shows from its partners, such as the Discovery Channel. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube are all expected to follow suit by devoting hundreds of millions of dollars to long-form programming. Why is social media so fascinated with long-form video? Is there consumer demand for this type of content? How will this transition affect advertisers? Does this mean the end of traditional television or streaming platforms like Netflix? The social media experts at MDG Advertising analyzed a comprehensive study by eMarketer and found answers to the following questions:
Since online long-form video content has proven to be popular and effective for several years, it’s only natural that this transition would eventually reach social platforms. In 2016, approximately 80 percent of U.S. Internet users streamed or downloaded video content at least once a month. That number is expected to increase to nearly 84 percent by 2021. To further demonstrate how comfortable consumers have become with watching lengthy digital video content, 61 percent of American adults say they regularly watch shows on Netflix, 33 percent on Amazon Prime, and 24 percent on Hulu. The prevalence of mobile devices among consumers appears to be a driving factor in the popularity of online video content. In 2016, 73.7 percent of mobile phone users streamed or downloaded video content at least once a month. That number is expected to rise to 82.5 percent by 2021.
Like most business decisions, the transition to long-form video is motivated by a desire to garner a larger share of advertising dollars. Recognizing that social media and video are a powerful marketing combination, half of advertising and marketing professionals expect to increase their spending on social platform video content in the near future, and 40 percent plan to increase their spending on online TV shows. This expansion into long-form video provides brands with additional inventory that they can use for their video advertising on social platforms and online programming.
While social platforms may like long-form video, it only makes sense if it’s what audiences want. The answer to whether consumers will accept lengthier content on social media is somewhat murky. According to one survey, younger audiences appear to be much more accepting of long-form content than older audiences. Among U.S. social media users between the ages of 18 and 24, 47 percent said they would watch their favorite television show on a social platform. The number drops to only 38 percent among adults between the ages of 25 and 54, and 23 percent for adults over the age of 55.
There’s no disputing the fact that video content in general has been a success on social media. More than half of social media users in the U.S. watch video on Facebook. This is followed by 48 percent of Instagram users and 30 percent of Twitter users. Will this success translate to long-form content? Whether long-form video can be deemed a success at this point is difficult to discern. A survey conducted by Morgan Stanley AlphaWise found that 40 percent of Americans over the age of 16 who use Facebook viewed video content on Facebook Watch on a weekly basis. Another survey painted a slightly less rosy picture. The survey, which was conducted by Raymond James, found that 75 percent of Facebook users never viewed Facebook Watch content, and only 5 percent watched at least once a week.
Since long-form video is still relatively new to social media, the long-term outlook remains unclear. The pessimistic outlook expressed by the Raymond James survey may reflect the fact that audiences have not fully embraced this type of social media content. Like any other type of change, it may simply take American audiences a while to become comfortable with long-form content. In a survey of video streaming behaviors around the world conducted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, 43 percent of U.S. consumers said they watch video through a digital streaming service compared to only 41 percent of consumers worldwide. When it comes to watching video on social platforms, however, 52 percent of consumers worldwide said they viewed content this way compared to only 40 percent of U.S. consumers. U.S. consumers were also less likely to stream video through TV network sites or apps, gaming sites or apps, or a pay TV service provider site or app. So how should brands and marketers interpret this conflicting information? There are a number of factors indicating that long-form video content on social media isn’t a passing fad and is likely to become an increasingly important marketing strategy in the long run. The ongoing shift in audience behavior, the increase in the number of younger consumers who are accustomed to consuming digital content, and increased advertiser demand all bode well for the future of lengthier video content on social platforms. That’s not to say, however, that there won’t be growing pains along the way. The disparity between the behaviors of U.S. consumers and consumers globally may indicate a gap between the current behaviors of Americans and what audiences are willing to embrace. It’s very likely, however, that the gap will be bridged in the very near future. About Michael Del Gigante, CEO of MDG Advertising In 1999, CEO Michael Del Gigante founded MDG Advertising, a full-service advertising agency with offices in Boca Raton, Florida and Brooklyn, New York. With his unique insight and decades of industry experience, he turned what was once a traditional ad agency into an integrated branding firm based on an innovative 360-degree marketing philosophy that provides a full spectrum of traditional and digital advertising services. The post What Marketers Need to Know About Long-Form Video on Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog February 28, 2019 at 02:52PM Privacy complaints received by tech giants favorite EU watchdog up more than 2x since GDPR2/28/2019
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Privacy complaints received by tech giants’ favorite EU watchdog up more than 2x since GDPR https://ift.tt/2H3XYMy A report by the lead data watchdog for a large number of tech giants operating in Europe shows a significant increase in privacy complaints and data breach notifications since the region’s updated privacy framework came into force last May. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC)’s annual report, published today, covers the period May 25, aka the day the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, to December 31 2018 and shows the DPC received more than double the amount of complaints post-GDPR vs the first portion of 2018 prior to the new regime coming in: With 2,864 and 1,249 complaints received respectively. That makes a total of 4,113 complaints for full year 2018 (vs just 2,642 for 2017). Which is a year on year increase of 36 per cent. But the increase pre- and post-GDPR is even greater — 56 per cent — suggesting the regulation is working as intended by building momentum and support for individuals to exercise their fundamental rights. “The phenomenon that is the [GDPR] has demonstrated one thing above all else: people’s interest in and appetite for understanding and controlling use of their personal data is anything but a reflection of apathy and fatalism,” writes Helen Dixon, Ireland’s commissioner for data protection. She adds that the rise in the number of complaints and queries to DPAs across the EU since May 25 demonstrates “a new level of mobilisation to action on the part of individuals to tackle what they see as misuse or failure to adequately explain what is being done with their data”. While Europe has had online privacy rules since 1995 a weak regime of enforcement essentially allowed them to be ignored for decades — and Internet companies to grab and exploit web users’ data without full regard and respect for European’s privacy rights. But regulators hit the reset button last year. And Ireland’s data watchdog is an especially interesting agency to watch if you’re interested in assessing how GDPR is working, given how many tech giants have chosen to place their international data flows under the Irish DPC’s supervision. More cross-border complaints“The role places an important duty on the DPC to safeguard the data protection rights of hundreds of millions of individuals across the EU, a duty that the GDPR requires the DPC to fulfil in cooperation with other supervisory authorities,” the DPC writes in the report, discussing its role of supervisory authority for multiple tech multinationals and acknowledging both a “greatly expanded role under the GDPR” and a “significantly increased workload”. A breakdown of GDPR vs Data Protection Act 1998 complaint types over the report period suggests complaints targeted at multinational entities have leapt up under the new DP regime. For some complaint types the old rules resulted in just 2 per cent of complaints being targeted at multinationals vs close to a quarter (22 per cent) in the same categories under GDPR. It’s the most marked difference between the old rules and the new — underlining the DPC’s expanded workload in acting as a hub (and often lead supervisory agency) for cross-border complaints under GDPR’s one-stop shop mechanism. The category with the largest proportions of complaints under GDPR over the report period was access rights (30%) — with the DPC receiving a full 582 complaints related to people feeling they’re not getting their due data. Access rights was also most complained about under the prior data rules over this period. Other prominent complaint types continue to be unfair processing of data (285 GDPR complaints vs 178 under the DPA); disclosure (217 vs 138); and electronic direct marketing (111 vs 36). EU policymakers’ intent with GDPR is to redress the imbalance of weakly enforced rights — including by creating new opportunities for enforcement via a regime of supersized fines. (GDPR allows for penalties as high as up to 4 per cent of annual turnover, and in January the French data watchdog slapped Google with a $57M GDPR penalty related to transparency and consent — albeit still far off that theoretical maximum.) Importantly, the regulation also introduced a collective redress option which has been adopted by some EU Member States. This allows for third party organizations such as consumer rights groups to lodge data protection complaints on individuals’ behalf. The provision has led to a number of strategic complaints being filed by organized experts since last May (including in the case of the aforementioned Google fine) — spinning up momentum for collective consumer action to counter rights erosion. Again that’s important in a complex area that remains difficult for consumers to navigate without expert help. For upheld complaints the GDPR ‘nuclear option’ is not fines though; it’s the ability for data protection agencies to order data controllers to stop processing data. That remains the most significant tool in the regulatory toolbox. And depending on the outcome of various ongoing strategic GDPR complaints it could prove hugely significant in reshaping what data experts believe are systematic privacy incursions by adtech platform giants. And while well-resourced tech giants may be able to factor in even very meaty financial penalties, as just a cost of doing a very lucrative business, data-focused business models could be far more precarious if processors can suddenly be slapped with an order to limit or even cease processing data. (As indeed Facebook’s business just has in Germany, where antitrust regulators have been liaising with privacy watchdogs.) Data breach notifications also upGDPR also shines a major spotlight on security — requiring privacy by design and default and introducing a universal requirement for swiftly reporting data breaches across the bloc, again with very stiff penalties for non-compliance. On the data breach front, the Irish DPC says it received a total of 3,687 data breach notifications between May 25 and December 31 last year — finding just four per cent (145 cases) did not meet the definition of a personal-data breach set out in GDPR. That means it recorded a total of 3,542 valid data protection breaches over the report period — which it says represents an increase of 27 per cent on 2017 breach report figures. “As in other years, the highest category of data breaches notified under the GDPR were classified as Unauthorised Disclosures and accounted for just under 85% of the total data-breach notifications received between 25 May and 31 December 2018,” it notes, adding: “The majority occurred in the private sector (2,070).” More than 4,000 data breach notifications were recorded by the watchdog for full year 2018, the report also states. The DPC further reveals that it was notified of 38 personal data breaches involving 11 multinational technology companies during the post-GDPR period of 2018. Which means breaches involving tech giants. “A substantial number of these notifications involved the unauthorised disclosure of, and unauthorised access to, personal data as a result of bugs in software supplied by data processors engaged by the organisations,” it writes, saying it opened several investigations as a result (such as following the Facebook Token breach in September 2018). Open probes of tech giantsAs of 31 December 2018, the DPC says it had 15 investigations open in relation to multinational tech companies’ compliance with GDPR. Below is the full list of the DPC’s currently open investigations of multinationals — including the tech giant under scrutiny; the origin of the inquiry; and the issues being examined:
“The DPC’s role in supervising the data-processing operations of the numerous large data-rich multinational companies — including technology internet and social media companies — with EU headquarters located in Ireland changed immeasurably on 25 May 2018,” the watchdog acknowledges. “For many, including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Dropbox, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Oath [disclosure: TechCrunch is owned by Verizon Media Group; aka Oath/AOL], WhatsApp, MTCH Technology and Yelp, the DPC acts as lead supervisory authority under the GDPR OSS [one-stop shop] facility.” The DPC notes in the report that between May 25 and December 31 2018 it received 136 cross-border processing complaints through the regulation’s OSS mechanism (i.e. which had been lodged by individuals with other EU data protection authorities). A breakdown of these (likely) tech giant focused GDPR complaints shows a strong focus on consent, right of erasure, right of access and the lawfulness of data processing: While the Irish DPC acts as the lead supervisor for many high profile GDPR complaints which relate to how tech giants are handling people’s data, it’s worth emphasizing that the OSS mechanism does not mean Ireland is sitting in sole judgement on Silicon Valley’s giants’ rights incursions in Europe. The mechanism allows for other DPAs to be involved in these cross-border complaints. And the European Data Protection Board, the body that works with all the EU Member States’ DPAs to help ensure consistent application of the regulation, can trigger a dispute resolution process if a lead agency considers it cannot implement a concerned agency objection. The aim is to work against forum shopping. In a section on “EU cooperation”, the DPC further writes:
Over the reported period the watchdog also reveals that it issued 23 formal requests seeking detailed information on compliance with various aspects of the GDPR from tech giants, noting too that since May 25 it has engaged with platforms on “a broad range of issues” — citing the following examples to give a flavor of these concerns:
“Supervision engagement with these companies on the matters outlined is ongoing,” the DPC adds of these issues. Adtech sector “must comply” with GDPRTalking of ongoing action, a GDPR complaint related to the security of personal data that’s systematically processed to power behavioral advertising is another open complaint on the DPC’s desk. The strategic complaint was filed by a number of individuals in multiple EU countries (including Ireland) last fall. Since then the individuals behind the complaints have continued to submit and publish evidence they argue bolsters their case against the behavioral ad targeting industry (principally Google and the IAB which set the spec involved in the real-time bidding (RTB) system). The Irish DPC makes reference to this RTB complaint in the annual report, giving the adtech industry what amounts to a written warning that while the advertising ecosystem is “complex”, with multiple parties involved in “high-speed, voluminous transactions” related to bidding for ad space and serving ad content “the protection of personal data is a prerequisite to the processing of any personal data within this ecosystem and ultimately the sector must comply with the standards set down by the GDPR”. The watchdog also reports that it has engaged with “several stakeholders, including publishers and data brokers on one side, and privacy advocates and affected individuals on the other”, vis-a-vis the RTB complaint, and says it will continue prioritizing its scrutiny of the sector in 2019 — “in cooperation with its counterparts at EU level so as to ensure a consistent approach across all EU member states”. It goes on to say that some of its 15 open investigations into tech giants will both conclude this year and “contribute to answering some of the questions relating to this complex area”. So, tl;dr, watch this space. Responding to the DPC’s comments on the RTB complaint, Dr Johnny Ryan, chief policy and industrial relations officer of private browser Brave — and also one of the complainants — told us they expect the DPC to act “urgently”. “We have brought our complaint before the DPC and other European regulators because there is a dire need to fix adtech so that it’s works safely,” he told TechCrunch. “The DPC itself recognizes that online advertising is a priority. The IAB and Google online ‘ad auction’ system enables companies to broadcast what every single person online reads, watches, and listens to online to countless parties. There is no control over what happens to these data. The evidence that we have submitted to the DPC shows that this occurs hundreds of billions of times a day.” “In view of the upcoming European elections, it is particularly troubling that the IAB and Google’s systems permit voters to be profiled in this way,” he added. “Clearly, this infringes the security and integrity principles of the GDPR, and we expect the DPC to act urgently.” The IAB has previously rejected the complaints as “false”, arguing any security risk is “theoretical”; while Google has said it has policies in place to prohibit advertisers from targeting sensitive categories of data. But the RTB complaint itself pivots on GDPR’s security requirements which demand that personal data be processed in a manner that “ensures appropriate security”, including “protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss”. So the security of the RTB system is the core issue which the Irish DPC, along with agencies in the UK and Poland, will have to grapple with as a priority this year. The complainants have also said they intend to file additional complaints in more markets across Europe, so more DPAs are likely to join the scrutiny of RTB, as concerned supervisory agencies, which could increase pressure on the Irish DPC to act. Schrems II vs FacebookThe watchdog’s report also includes an update on long-running litigation filed by European privacy campaigner Max Schrems concerning a data transfer mechanism known as standard contractual clauses (SCCs) — and originally only targeted at Facebook’s use of the mechanism. The DPC decided to refer Schrems’ original challenge to the Irish courts — which have since widened the action by referring a series of legal questions up to the EU’s top court with (now) potential implications for the legality of the EU’s ‘flagship’ Privacy Shield data transfer mechanism. That was negotiated following the demise of its predecessor Safe Harbor, in 2015, also via a Schrems legal challenge, going on to launch in August 2016 — despite ongoing concerns from data experts. Privacy Shield is now used by close to 4,500 companies to authorize transfers of EU users’ personal data to the US. So while Schrems’ complaint about SCCs (sometimes also called “model contract clauses”) was targeted at Facebook’s use of them the litigation could end up having major implications for very many more companies if Privacy Shield itself comes unstuck. More recently Facebook has sought to block the Irish judges’ referral of legal questions to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) — winning leave to appeal last summer (though judges did not stay the referral in the meanwhile). In its report the DPC notes that the substantive hearing of Facebook’s appeal took place over January 21, 22 and 23 before a five judge Supreme Court panel. “Oral arguments were made on behalf of Facebook, the DPC, the U.S. Government and Mr Schrems,” it writes. “Some of the central questions arising from the appeal include the following: can the Supreme Court revisit the facts found by the High Court relating to US law? (This arises from allegations by Facebook and the US Government that the High Court judgment, which underpins the reference made to the CJEU, contains various factual errors concerning US law). “If the Supreme Court considers that it may do so, further questions will then arise for the Court as to whether there are in fact errors in the judgment and if so, whether and how these should be addressed.” “At the time of going to print there is no indication as to when the Supreme Court judgment will be delivered,” it adds. “In the meantime, the High Court’s reference to the CJEU remains valid and is pending before the CJEU.” Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com February 28, 2019 at 12:32PM
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10 Vital Customizations to Make in Google Analytics https://ift.tt/2UiV36B Google Analytics can do just about whatever you want it to. It has a ton of depth. It can also feel a bit overwhelming once you get into it. After consulting on Google Analytics for years, both independently and as the head of marketing at an analytics startup, I have 10 customizations I consider vital for every site I run. Once they’re in place, you’ll have:
Let’s dive in. Connect Google Analytics to Google Search ConsoleWay back, Google Analytics used to have keyword data in all its standard reports. You were able to see which keywords sent traffic to which pages. And if you had ecommerce tracking or goals set up, you could see how much revenue each keyword produced for you. It was amazing. Then Google decided to remove the keyword data from Google Analytics. So, instead of amazing keyword data, everything got lumped into the dreaded “not provided” group. Google killed the keyword data in Google Analytics. I thought the keyword data was done forever — I never expected to see it again. I resigned my fate to needing tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs for keywords. Then a funny thing happened. Google started investing a lot of time into improving Google Search Console. In the last few years, it’s gotten incredibly good. The data is a goldmine. Google also improved the integration between Google Search Console and Google Analytics so it’s now possible to get a lot of that missing keyword data back. That’s right, keywords are back in Google Analytics. All you have to do is sign up for a free Google Search Console account and connect it to your Google Analytics account. It’s pretty easy. There are only two steps:
Here’s where to find the settings in Google Analytics to turn on Google Search Console: After the accounts are connected, all the reports under Acquisition – Search Console will start populating. Keep in mind that they have a 48 hour delay so give it a few extra days before checking for data. Create Multiple ViewsI consider this a mandatory customization for Google Analytics. Once data makes it into your Google Analytics reports, it’s permanent. Nothing can change it. Google has an entire processing pipeline for all the data it collects. Once data has been processed, there’s no going back. So what happens if you use one of these Google Analytics customizations and accidentally nuke your whole account? That data is permanently gone. When you fix the setting in your account, you won’t get any of your old data back. Only data from that moment onward will be clean. Even if you just make your reports a bit messier with the wrong setting, there’s no going back. In other words, the stakes are high. We all make mistakes. And it’s a good idea to create two extra views for your Google Analytics profile as a backup. On every one of my Google Analytics properties, I create three views:
Your Google Analytics views should look like this: Set Up EventsGoogle Analytics tracks a ton of stuff without any customization which is why it’s so popular. There’s a ton of value right out of the box. Sometimes, there are other actions that are also worth tracking beyond the standard sessions, pageviews, bounce rates, and time on site. You might want to track:
Anything that’s important to your site can be turned into a Google Analytics event so you can track how often it’s happening. To trigger events, you will have to add some code to your site that sends the event data whenever the action occurs. Most likely, you’ll need a developer to help you set this up. All the event documentation is here. Define GoalsIn my experience, folks go overboard with goals. Hitting 10 pageviews per visit is a goal, signups are goals, PDF downloads get goals, random events are goals, goals goals goals everywhere. Usually when I start working on a new site, I end up having to delete a bunch of goals that don’t matter. My rule: only 1 or 2 goals per site. And they should be goals that closely track to revenue. So if the goal goes up, I expect revenue to also go up. If the correlation to revenue is weak, use an event instead of a goal. Some examples of good goals:
Any event that leads to a sales funnel is a good candidate for a goal. There are really two ways to set up goals like these. URL GoalIf your site is set up in a way that users always hit the same URL after completing one of these key actions, you can tell Google Analytics to trigger a goal every time someone lands on that URL. This works great for “thank you” pages. No code is needed for these, you can set it up right away. Event GoalsIt’s also possible to have Google Analytics trigger a goal any time an event fires. This gives you the flexibility to trigger a goal whenever you like since it’s possible to trigger events whenever you like. You most likely need a developer to help you set these up. Ask them to create a Google Analytics event for you. Once you see the event tracking correctly in the Google Analytics event reports, then go set up a Goal using the values of your event. Why go through the trouble of turning an event into a goal? Why not just look at the event reports? It makes getting conversions data in your reports a lot easier. Many of the reports are pre-configured to show conversions based on goals. It’s trickier to get the same reports based on just events. Implement Ecommerce TrackingIf you have an ecommerce store, Google Analytics ecommerce tracking gets all your revenue data into your reports. It’s amazing. You’ll be able to see:
Google Analytics doesn’t track any of your ecommerce purchases out of the box. You will need to set up some extra stuff. There are only two ways to get this set up:
First, go check your ecommerce tool and see if it has a built-in integration. Shopify has one. And if you’re not on Shopify, consider migrating. It’s worth the switch. If you need to set up ecommerce tracking by hand, all the developer documentation is here. One last thing, remember to turn on ecommerce tracking in your Google Analytics settings: You need to flip the switch before data will start showing up. Content GroupsOut of everything on the list, Content Groups are the most situational customization. Most sites don’t need to set these up — they’ll amount to nothing more than busy work that’s quickly forgotten about. But for editorial and ecommerce sites, they make an enormous difference. Google Analytics considers all your URLs to be equal. It doesn’t lump them into subgroups at all. If you have a large site and manage the site by sections, this becomes a real problem. You might have Money, Heath and Fitness, and Political news sections that are all managed by different teams. Or, maybe you have different merchandize groups for your ecommerce store. How do you track the performance of those different sections of your site? You can’t do it with an internal spreadsheet; new posts and products go up too fast to keep one accurate. Even if you can make it work, it’s a real pain to keep updated. Setting up unique Google Analytics views is one option but only really works if every category has a clean subfolder in your URL. Plus, creating unique Google Analytics properties for each section creates all sorts of extra problems with referrals and tracking everything in aggregate. The solution? Google Analytics Content Groups. Using either the Google Analytics settings or by appending your Google Analytics JavaScript with a bit of extra code, you can categorize your site pages into whatever groupings you want. Once you’ve set up Content Groups, you can take any report in Google Analytics and organize all the data by any content group you’ve set up. For major editorial and ecommerce sites, it saves countless reporting hours. Clean Up ParametersIt’s pretty common to run into pages like this in your Google Analytics reports: Anything after a “?” in a URL is a parameter. It’s common for tools to add URL parameters to a URL. These parameters don’t change the destination of the URL, they add extra data that various tools can then use. The problem is that Google Analytics treats parameters as unique URLs. In other words, traffic to the same page will show up in Google Analytics as visiting different URLs simply because the parameters for each user were different. This splits our pageviews across a bunch of different URLs instead of giving us the real total for a single page on our site. That’s exactly what’s happening in the Quick Sprout example above. Instead of having 7 pageviews for our homepage, we have 7 pageviews split across unique pages because of a unique fbclid parameter that was added. There’s a bigger problem too. A lot of marketing automation and email tools will add ID parameters to the end of every URL in their emails. That allows them to track what email subscribers are doing. Even worse, it can populate reports with personal information like email addresses and names. It’s against the Google Analytics terms of service to have personal info in any report so you definitely don’t want this data to end up in your reports. Here’s how parameters work:
To clean up your reports and scrub personal data clean, go to the All Pages report. Then sort by least pageviews. This will give you a list of URLs that only had a single pageview. Scroll through about 100 pages and look for any parameters that don’t signify a real URL. Once you have a list of parameters that are junking up your reports, go to your View settings and add all the parameters that you want excluded here: Be careful though. Some sites use parameters for different pages. I personally think it’s a terrible way to structure a site but it does happen. If your site does this, don’t include the parameter for those real pages. Otherwise Google Analytics will stop tracking the pages entirely. Also don’t include any of the standard UTM parameters that are used to track marketing campaigns. Google Analytics already handles that data correctly. Install Google Analytics via Google Tag ManagerIn our post on setting up Google Analytics, I advocated for skipping Google Tag Manager when setting up Google Analytics for the first time. I still stand by that, especially for folks creating their site for the first time. When you skip Google Tag Manager as a new site owner, you skip a lot of emplexity without giving up much. If you’re at a stage with your site where you’re looking at deeper customizations for Google Analytics, it’s worth taking the time to get Google Tag Manager set up. Long term, using Google Tag Manager is a good habit to get into. It saves a bunch of headaches down the road that large sites run into. Keeping all of the JavaScript tags from all your marketing tools in a tag manager makes updates, maintenance, and audits super easy. Again, if you’re running your site by yourself and hate the thought of learning one more tool, feel free to skip this. For everyone else, it’s time to remove your Google Analytics Global Site Tag from your site, install Google Tag Manager, and then add Google Analytics to your tag manager. Once you’ve removed Google Analytics JavaScript from your site, follow these steps:
Your tag will look like this when you’re done: To make sure that Google Analytics is working through Google Tag Manager, check your real-time reports in Google Analytics to see if it’s successfully recording data. Create Custom AlertsSooner or later, you site will get hit. Here are a few scenarios that I’ve personally been through:
Most of these examples are pretty embarrassing. Sooner or later, they happen on every site. I find that I run into 1–2 per year. To help catch major problems like these, Google Analytics has Custom Alerts. You define a set of criteria and whenever that event happens, Google Analytics will send you an email. Even if your team isn’t checking Google Analytics daily, you’ll still catch major problems within 24 hours. Here’s the alert I like to set up: This alert sends me an email whenever sessions decrease by 30% or more compared to the same day the previous week. A few tricks that I’ve learned about custom alerts over the years:
Add an Office IP FilterIn Google Analytics, filters give you complete and total power. You can remove and transform your data permanently. And when I say permanently, I do mean permanently. Be careful with these things. Once a filter is live, it’ll change all the data that’s collected. There’s no way to undo it. If a bad filter is applied, the only fix is to remove it and clean up data that’s collected after. There’s nothing that can be done to fix the old corrupted data. So proceed with caution on these things. There’s one filter that many websites should apply: a filter to remove internal traffic. If you’re running your own business out of your house or from a coffee shop, don’t worry about this at all. The data impact from a single person is so limited that it’s not worth the hassle of adding a filter and maintaining one more setting in Google Analytics. Whenever I start to see the impact of my own browsing habits on one of my websites, my first thought is: “I need to spend my time getting more traffic.” At that stage, I prefer to worry about big things like getting enough traffic and customers. However, there is a situation where an office IP filter becomes a requirement. When you’re working on a larger website with an entire team of people employed, skewing your traffic data becomes a real possibility. If a couple hundred people all work on the same website, Google Analytics data will become biased. If your company works out of an office (or several offices), it’s worth the effort to figure out the IP address of your office and apply a Google Analytics filter that excludes all data from that IP. That keeps your employees from skewing your Google Analytics reports during their day-to-day work. Here’s what your Office IP filter will look like: This filter tells Google Analytics to take all data from an IP address and completely ignore it. Remember to use the new views that you set up earlier. First apply the filter to your Test view, give it a few days to make sure it’s working properly, then apply the filter to your Master view. Filters are so powerful that you always want to test them first. All it takes is accidentally selecting “Include” when you meant “Exclude” to permanently nuke your entire Google Analytics account until your discover the mistake. Social Media via Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/UU7LJr February 28, 2019 at 11:58AM Infintech Designs’ Brian Hong Offers 12 Tips For Ranking A Small Business Website https://ift.tt/2HdEVj5 Ranking any website takes patience and knowhow, however it can be very lucrative and beneficial to a business. Brian Hong is the CEO of New Orleans webs design agency Infintech Designs that ranks clients like these every day of the week. They provide quality SEO solutions and change the way local businesses are presented and help them get found online. We asked him to provide us with some tips on how to rank a small business site in Google and he duly obliged.
There is a direct correlation between high rankings and longer content (2,000+ words). Brian suggests you consider the topics that are especially relevant for your target audience, then get in-depth blog posts created that cover all angles of the topic. There have been several studies conducted on how long content needs to be in order to rank. They have all shown that in order to rank within Google’s top 10 pages, that your pages should have 1,100 words at least.
Having an XML sitemap shows exactly what is on your website to Google. You can use XML Sitemap Generator to easily get one created and uploaded to your website.
Brian explains that a 301 indicates your content has moved permanently, and all of the SEO rankings and juice should be redistributed to a new page. He told us this is the best way to show content has been moved.
If you aren’t getting any search traffic, you should check your robots.txt file and look for something like: User-agent: * Disallow: / That directive informs the search engines to not index or crawl your website. All of the world’s SEO hacks won’t help until those are removed.
The Mobile-Friendly tool from Google can help you with that. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, then you should switch over to having a dedicated mobile site, mobile app, or responsive design. If you use WordPress, the plugin WPTouch can be installed to switch over to a mobile theme automatically for mobile visitors.
According to Brian, site owners should ensure there sites load as quickly as possible. PageSpeed Insights from Google can be used to find out how fast the main pages on your website load. If you find that it takes to long, there is a list of 10 different ways to speed your site up.
According to Brian you should always use descriptive keywords and static URLs, and not just random numbers or letters (like dynamic URLs have). He told us this is one of the most fundamental mistakes website owners without an idea of SEO make and something they see regularly at Infintech Designs when they take on new clients.
Searchmetrics concluded that a .com is used by 84% of top-ranking pages for their top-level domains (TLD). You don’t have to worry a lot about keywords being used in your domain name; it is a lot more important for your URL to be used for branding purposes.
Don’t worry too much about getting keyword-rich anchor text artificially incorporated in order to rank for certain keywords. Instead, your focus should be on the use of natural anchor text that would help out your readers the most.
A majority of the top-ranking pages on a website or on the root domain and not a sub-domain.
Make sure each page on your website uses a descriptive and unique title tag in order to tell the search engines and users what your page is about. Brian suggests you go into your Google Webmaster account and check the HTML Improvements report to see if your website’s title tags have any potential issues.
When this markup is add to your website, it provides Google with a better idea of what your website is all about, and ensures that rich snippets get displayed next to your website in the search results. The post Infintech Designs’ Brian Hong Offers 12 Tips For Ranking A Small Business Website appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog February 28, 2019 at 10:52AM
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Pinterest SEO: What Are Your Customers Searching For? https://ift.tt/2Teuke7 Is Pinterest SEO a part of your social media strategy? If your brand is active on the platform, then it should be. Pinterest may be more known as a social network for sharing recipe ideas, décor inspiration, and DIY hacks. But the site also doubles as one of the biggest search engines on the web. If your Pinterest content isn’t optimized for Pinners’ searches, you may be missing out. Keywords are building blocks for search engine optimization—and Pinterest is basically a visual search engine. Using the right Pinterest keywords will help your content reach the right audience. There are a few ways to do keyword research on Pinterest, like using guided search to see automatic suggestions or drawing inspiration from hashtags. But lucky for you, we’ve got the top 100 Pinterest keywords—and tips on how to use them—right here. Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to make money on Pinterest in six easy steps using the tools you already have. The top 100 search keywords on PinterestData taken from August 2017 – August 2018
Key takeaways to inform your Pinterest SEO strategyHow can you use this list to tailor your Pinterest SEO strategy? For starters, if there are themes on the list that align with your business objectives, make sure you are using the right keywords. Here are a few more takeaways: Use keywords to inspire your content calendarDepending on your business objectives, these keywords can be used to inspire content for the coming year. If you’re a clothing retailer, for example, create boards and Pins for each season. Recipes are popular on Pinterest. Almost one in every six of the top 500 search keywords has the word “recipe” in it. For companies in the health and food space, consider creating recipes that correlate with these Pinterest keywords. Bonus points if they meet Keto Diet standards: “Keto” appeared in the top 100 keywords four times. Plan like a PinnerPinners are planners, which means that seasons, holidays, and life events influence the keywords they search with. For example, instead of looking for “nail inspiration,” more Pinners are looking for “summer nails” and “fall nails.” Holidays such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Halloween all appear in the list, too. And important life events like weddings and birthdays are also popular. According to Pinterest, Pinners tend to start search twice as early as people on other platforms. So, if you decide to create on-brand holiday content, plan to do it in advances. You can also use Pinterests’ Possibilities Planner for additional stats and keyword inspiration. Pinners are aspirationalBecause Pinners are planners, they’re often searching early for inspiration. The word “ideas” appears 16 times in the top 100 Pinterest keywords. If you want your content to be one of the ideas they find, consider including the word “ideas”, too. The top 100 Pinterest keywords show that Pinners are goal-setters, too. Inspirational and motivational quotes are in high demand, as are “relationship goals” and “healthy,” “diet,” and “low-carb” options. Don’t be too genericGeneric keywords are useful, but think about accompanying them with descriptive detail, too. For example, “recipe” is the most popular word on the list, but it’s never used alone. “Christmas decorations” ranks before “Christmas” and “fall outfits” and “summer outfits” rank before “outfits.” Put keywords in your board, tooIt’s not all about the Pins. Use top performing keywords to inform board names, descriptions, and categories. You can also add them to your profile so long as it makes sense to do so. Try using keywords as hashtags, tooIf Pinners are searching for these keywords at high rates, there’s a good chance the hashtag equivalents are being followed by many Pinners, too. Don’t worry about keyword variationsThose of you that noticed the incorrect spelling of “hair styles,” might have wondered if it’s necessary to include variations of keywords in your descriptions. The answer is no. Pinterest automatically does this for you behind-the-scenes. So avoid keyword-stuffing your descriptions. Put money behind what’s popularIf your brand uses Pinterest Ads, keyword targeting can help you rank higher with audiences searching for specific ideas. Consider allocating a higher portion of your ad spend behind the appropriate high-volume keywords in order to maximize ROI. Make sure to track your keyword performance. Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to make money on Pinterest in six easy steps using the tools you already have. Get the free guide right now!10 SEO tips for PinterestKeywords are a crucial component of Pinterest SEO, but there are also other ways to optimize for the Pinterest search engine. Here are some additional tips: 1. Write thoughtful Pin descriptionsDon’t just tag your description with an assortment of popular words. Good descriptions help your Pin perform better, and that in turn can improve your Pin’s SEO ranking. Tell Pinners about your Pin, where it links to, and include a strong call-to-action. 2. Use Rich PinsRich Pins are essentially Pins with more detail, and that added detail can improve ranking. There are four types of Rich Pin: app, product, recipe, and article. 3. Pin in the optimal ratioPinners have gone mobile: 85 percent of all Pinterest searches happen on smart devices. That means Pins with vertical images tend to perform better than squares or horizontal pictures. The optimal aspect ratio is 2:3 (600 pixels wide: 900 pixels high). 4. Optimize your Pinterest BoardsJust like with Pins, quality board names and descriptions will also improve SEO performance. Don’t forget to pick a relevant board category, too. To do this, select the pencil icon in the lower right section of your board, and select the category that best describes it. The same goes for your profile. Be sure to have a SEO-friendly username, fill out the “about you” section, and upload a profile picture. 5. Save Pins to Relevant BoardsThe more consistent you are on Pinterest, the better. Once you create a Pin, the first board you pin it too will remain associated with it. So, the more relevant the Pin is to the board, the better the chances it will rank well. 6. Claim your websitePinterest prioritizes Pins that are created by the owner of the appropriate website. To connect your website with your content, you’ll need to claim your website. An added advantage is that once you’ve claimed your website, you’ll unlock additional analytics on Pinterest and website content performance. 7. Create fresh content from your websiteBecause Pinterest prioritizes Pins that are created by the website’s owner, it can be a good idea to create content from your website. Before you do, you can check to see what people are already pinning from your site by typing https://www.pinterest.ca/source/[yoursite] into your browser. 8. Avoid duplicate contentThere are rumors Pinterest plans to crackdown on this, and besides, fresh is always better. 9. Pin consistentlyPinterest favours regular and consistent Pinners. So, instead of Pinning everything in one go, Pin at regular intervals. To maximize performance, make sure to Pin at the best time of day. You can determine optimal times based on audience location stats and by looking for high engagement periods in your analytics. 10. Aim for engagementHealthy engagement metrics can have a positive effect on SEO. Work to maintain an active follower base. And most importantly, conduct regular analytics reports to see what’s working and what’s not, and tailor your strategy accordingly. Brush up with our simple guide to using Pinterest Analytics. Save time managing your Pinterest presence using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can compose, schedule, and publish Pins, create new boards, Pin to multiple boards at once, and run all your other social media profiles. Try it free today. The post Pinterest SEO: What Are Your Customers Searching For? appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management. Social Media via Hootsuite Social Media Management https://ift.tt/1LdunxE February 28, 2019 at 08:12AM
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Hopper HQ Review — Save time managing your Instagram accounts https://ift.tt/2IVC68P At Social Media Explorer, we’re always on the hunt for tips and tools that streamline and support social media marketing and account management. The most recent software we’ve been trying is visual Instagram scheduler, Hopper HQ. I have written a full review of Hopper HQ below, including feature list, pros and cons, and pricing. OverviewOnce the only fully-automated scheduling tool for Instagram, Hopper HQ now supports Facebook and Twitter as well, but has stuck with its visual focused design. It’s a great tool, and personally the best I have seen for Instagram management in terms of UI and feature support. Hopper HQ was intuitive to use, and the design made scheduling feel like a creative process (almost like a Pinterest mood board) rather than a technical chore. Seemingly small features such as the ability to schedule first comments, and an inbuilt hashtag search, made scheduling week’s worth of content a quick and seamless task. The ability to preview what your Instagram feed will look like after your scheduled posts have been published was also a huge bonus for me. Customer support is very good, with an instant messenger on the site to speak to the team and troubleshoot any problems. I spoke with a very helpful member of the team who helped me get set up in no time. FeaturesScheduling Features:
Manage and schedule content across multiple social networks
Manage multiple accounts from a single login
No annoying reminders or push notifications to your mobile — I think this is a great feature, as many other schedulers convince you you’re saving time and then you still find yourself on your phone at the weekend!
Schedule posts for any day or time — there is no limit to the scheduling on Hopper HQ, and you can also ‘post now’ from your computer.
Hopper HQ supports automatic video posting across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Hopper HQ supports multiple image, or carousel posts, across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
If you post at the same time most days, you can add time presets in your account settings. This means all the content you upload will automatically set to those days and times, speeding up the process even more.
Easily reuse high performing or evergreen posts without uploading the content again.
They also have an iOS app which helps if you’re on the move — although this is by no means a replacement to the desktop site as it is limited in places. Content Features:
Upload up to 50 images and videos at once and edit them all at once. I found myself planning 2 week’s worth of content in under an hour — including image cropping, captions, hashtags and scheduling dates and times.
Like many businesses, we work with different photographers and creatives across multiple teams, which means all of our content is in the cloud. When bulk uploading you can choose from Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Photos, Box, or even a URL, so you don’t need to worry about downloading the photos and videos to your computer in advance.
Once in bulk edit you’re able to crop to the right ratio for the social network you’re posting to with a built-in cropping tool. They also alert you if an image is the incorrect dimensions for the social network you’ve chosen.
We don’t tend to make any last minute image edits with our social content, but if there’s anything you want to change Hopper HQ comes with an image editor, including filters, light leaks, contrast, brightness, rotate, stickers, blur, saturation and more
You can schedule your first comment on Instagram alongside your caption, which is a great place to put your hashtags if you like keeping them separate from your caption.
You can tag other accounts in your captions, which is necessary if you post a lot of UGC or collaborate with other brands/influencers. There’s also a built-in hashtag tool, which gives you suggestions as you type and lets you know the amount of posts on Instagram using that hashtag.
Geotagging is available on Hopper HQ which is a huge bonus as posts with a location tag tend to receive higher engagement than those without! Planning Features:
As well as the Queue which is essentially your homepage, you can also view all your upcoming posts in a calendar view. This helps keep track of posting consistency and spotting any gaps!
I think this was my favourite feature in the creative/planning aspect of Hopper HQ. Their Instagram grid planner shows you a preview of what your feed will look like once all your scheduled posts have been published. All of the posts in this view are drag and droppable, so you can shuffle posts around to get the perfect theme. This was such a useful feature for ensuring feed cohesion and generally making your Instagram look awesome. When you hover over the grid planner it also shows you which posts have been published or are in drafts, to avoid any confusion!
Using Hopper HQ’s ‘Teams’ feature, you can collaborate with your colleagues and/or clients on the platform. All plans come with unlimited team members and the ability to set different permissions for different people. Say for example you needed approval from a client, you could invite them to view your Hopper HQ account under ‘view only’ settings. This is a great feature for agencies or freelancers and saves a lot of time going back and forth over email.
Hopper HQ also has built-in analytics to help you inform your content plan with data from Instagram. Track your follower growth, find the best time to post, and learn what type of content is performing best. Their analytics offers the same data from Instagram’s Insights, however it’s presented in a more user-friendly way, and saves you checking your mobile. Pricing:Hopper HQ offers a free 14-day free trial, where you can cancel at anytime to avoid being charged. Subscriptions begin from $19 a month for 1 account, including 1 x Instagram, 1 x Facebook, and 1 x Twitter. Therefore the pricing is done by business/client rather than social network. You can add/remove accounts at anytime to upgrade/downgrade your subscription. There is also a bulk pricing discount, with every account over 5 coming down to $15, and again over 10 becoming $10. Take a look at the pricing calculator on their website. Top 5 Pros:
Top 5 Cons:
SummaryHopper HQ is a great solution for any business or agency whose social media marketing strategy is focused on Instagram. It definitely saved me time planning the content for the weeks ahead, and was more enjoyable and creative a task than other social media management tools I’ve used. I would also recommend Hopper HQ for companies working across teams or with clients, as their Teams feature offers flexibility for collaborative working and speedy approval. Sign up for a free 14 day trial and test Hopper HQ out for yourself now! The post Hopper HQ Review — Save time managing your Instagram accounts appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog February 28, 2019 at 06:07AM
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5 Important PPC Trends You Need to Know in 2019 https://ift.tt/2T46HWk When it comes to PPC marketing, 2018 was indeed a great year – for example, we had the rebranding of the Google AdWords, including its new interface, new features at Bing Ads, as well as the rise of Amazon – which now seems to be a potential challenger to Google. However, 2018 is in the past now – namely, we have to think in the present and start looking at the PPC trends that one needs to know for 2019. Therefore, without any further ado, here are five of the most important PPC trends that you need to know this year. Automation Opportunities First of all, keep in mind that automation still works better if overseen by humans. Humans continue to do things better than algorithms and machine learning tools in certain areas. The creativity and management of accounts is still best done by people However, there are areas where automation is beginning to do a better job than people. Biding is one example of this. Bidding is a very time-intensive task for people. If account managers can offload this task to some highly efficient bidding tools, then they can focus more of their efforts on areas that can help with growth and overall performance. The key is finding the right balance between automation and people power. Some examples of automation include:
Paid Search Audiences We all know that, at times, Google doesn’t show us what we need to find. In the case of a business owner who tries to advertise their services, Google may not show ads on a search page simply because its algorithm does not think they are relevant for certain audiences. This changes when it comes to paid search audience targeting. If you take advantage of audience targeting, you can have your ads displayed to highly targeted audiences with more accuracy. In short, audience targeting will get your ad in front of the people that are searching for what you are selling. New Ads As new ad options were released back in 2018, people are still trying to figure out how to create the right ads that get them the best results. Naturally, you have to do some split testing in order to determine winning and losing ads. For example, there are people that have seen a 5x increase in their conversion rate, as well as a roughly 97% drop in their cost-per-conversion. Therefore, revamping your ads might be a good idea. Just make sure you thoroughly test them. Video Marketing Video marketing has been steadily growing year over year. Businesses are finding more success with video marketing and meeting their objectives. For example, those quick 6 second YouTube ads come with an average brand message lift of around 30%. Sponsored videos on Instagram usually get three times more comments when compared to sponsored photos. Also, according to statistics, 64% of the customers that watch an ad on Facebook said that they were convinced to eventually make a purchase. Additionally, roughly 8 billion videos are watched on Facebook on a daily basis. That is an insane amount of views! In short, don’t just stick to banner ads. It may be time for your business to test running video ads and invest in video marketing. PPC Partnerships Traditionally, most marketing and web design firms did everything in-house. All facets of marketing and design were done by full-time W2’d employees. This works just fine for many agencies. However, this industry really lends itself to decentralized work environments. By that I mean, team members can work remotely. Contractors can more easily take the place of an in-house employee. Firms that specialize in SEO or web design, can advertise a new PPC service and outsource that fulfillment to a PPC company. They don’t need to try and bring it in-house. This type of partnership can make it easier for companies to rollout a new service. The upfront cost of finding the right team of providers is drastically reduced when outsourcing the fulfillment portion of the service. This type of partnership is often referred to as White Label PPC. White label services are nothing new, but they have increased in popularity over the past few years. We think this trend is going to continue in 2019. If you are an agency who is currently looking to expand or create a new PPC service, then you might want to consider outsourcing it. The post 5 Important PPC Trends You Need to Know in 2019 appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog February 28, 2019 at 05:56AM |
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