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How to Write Instagram Captions That Improve Engagement https://ift.tt/2GMC9BT Do you want to improve your Instagram post engagement? Wondering how to write strong Instagram captions that move people to action? In this article, you’ll discover how to create appealing Instagram captions that clearly communicate your marketing messages and encourage people to act. Why Instagram Captions Matter for MarketersOn occasion, you’ll see celebrities or popular accounts post photos to Instagram and leave the captions blank. They generate thousands of likes and hundreds of comments without saying a word. But they also have millions of followers. Most brands and businesses don’t have that celebrity factor and can’t get the same level of engagement by merely “showing up” with a post. Instagram is an incredibly visual platform, based primarily on photos and some video posts. A strong visual component will capture your audience’s attention, but it won’t drive conversions. That’s why a well-crafted caption with a clear message and possibly a CTA can make a significant impact on your Instagram results. The caption allows you to take the visual message of the photo several steps further. Do you want a purchase of the book you feature in your image? In your caption, tell users where they can go to buy it. It’s also your opportunity to generate much more conversation so you can better serve your audience and rank higher in the Instagram algorithm. What Is the Ideal Instagram Caption Length?How long an Instagram caption should be depends on how much you need to say. If you can make your point in a single paragraph, keep the caption short and don’t draw it out unnecessarily. But if you need five paragraphs to tell your story, don’t cut it short to save space. Most people on Instagram prefer less text. They’re on the platform for the photos and videos, not to read endless text updates. So a short paragraph is usually a good goal. Some accounts even get away with a single sentence or zingy one-liner that provides valued entertainment to their audience. If your message requires more context or you want to include a CTA or other component in your caption, writing a few short paragraphs is completely acceptable. Even though most people aren’t on Instagram to read long posts, some accounts have been able to use it as more of a micro-blog, writing long captions to tell a story, share important news or updates, or offer long-winded thoughts. If your content warrants this type of caption and your audience responds to it, it can work for you. Just be aware that you can only use 2,200 characters in an Instagram post. Now let’s look at four tips for writing appealing Instagram captions that will help you improve engagement. #1: Decide What Your Instagram Caption Will ConveyThe purpose of an Instagram caption is to tell more of the story or message behind your photo or video. If the photo or video is about a contest, sale, or event, the caption is your place to fill in the details of your campaign. Explain what it’s about, how to participate, and when it will occur. If your post is something about your business or brand, the caption is your space to explain who’s involved, when the photo was taken, why it impacts your audience, or any other context that relates to your followers. In general, images with lots of text don’t perform well on Instagram. So while you can capture your audience’s attention with a great image and maybe a couple of words in the photo, the caption is where you convey the complete story and details you want to share. It’s also important to think about the structure of your caption. Currently on Instagram, when you’re scrolling through the feed, you’ll notice the caption beneath each post is truncated with “… more” after two lines of text. Instagram does this to keep the feed visual while reducing how much text appears between each post. But this also means that people won’t see your entire caption unless they tap on “… more” to open and view it. It’s obviously not ideal to write a great caption, tell a whole story, and include a CTA that nobody will read. To improve the chances people will click to expand your caption, make sure you have a powerful first sentence that appeals to your followers and will encourage them to tap to read more. That first sentence is on par with a great email subject line or a blog post heading. Say something that will intrigue users to click and read more. You can use questions, bold statements, emojis, and good writing to entice your audience into wanting to see more. Starts March 20th! Discover the latest tactics and improve your marketing know-how! #2: Include a CTA in Your Instagram CaptionInstagram limits you to one clickable link, which is in your bio. To get people to click on that link and take action, you have to give them that directive. This is where a good CTA comes into play. The most common CTA used on Instagram for this purpose is “Click on the link in my bio” or some variation of that. This CTA clearly tells your audience that they can navigate to your profile and access the link there to complete the action. This works well for nearly any type of action: reading a blog post, downloading a freebie, signing up for something, watching a video, buying a product, scheduling a meeting, and so forth. There are other creative CTAs you can include to get your audience to be more engaged and build your Instagram conversions:
#3: Divide Your Text Into Short ParagraphsWriting a great caption, in terms of copy, context, and value, is important on Instagram. But if your caption is one long paragraph, chances are your audience won’t read much of it. Instead, divide your text into short paragraphs with extra spacing to make the content easier to read and help increase activity on CTAs. Many people attempt to add spacing between paragraphs but after uploading the post to Instagram, they find that all of their formatting is lost. This happens because Instagram has an odd formatting feature that requires you to remove any spacing or emojis from the end of a paragraph. When typing on most mobile devices, a space is automatically added to the end of a sentence, after the final punctuation mark. If you leave this automatic space and then tap the return key, when you upload the post, Instagram will remove the line break you inserted. To avoid this, simply backspace to the last character punctuation mark in the sentence and then hit the return key. When you upload your post, the formatting will be retained. Additionally, if you have an emoji as the last character in a paragraph, the line breaks will usually be deleted. So while you can use those emojis, just don’t use them at the end of the paragraph. There is no set rule for formatting an Instagram caption. You can use bullet points, paragraphs, big space breaks, long leader dots or dashes, whatever method you prefer. It’s purely an aesthetic choice and has no effect on your post’s performance from an algorithmic perspective. But you do want to make sure that the caption is appealing to your audience because if they aren’t reading it or clicking through from it, it should definitely be revamped. Use the Right Voice in Your Instagram CaptionsYour brand has its own unique personality, style, and tone of voice. Depending on your target audience, you’ll be talking to a specific group of people and your Instagram captions should reflect that. Make sure you’re very clear about who your target audience is and how you want to approach them. If you’re talking to women between the ages of 35 and 50, you’ll have different ways of formatting your content and voice to appeal to them than you would if you’re talking to men between the ages of 20 and 35. The use of emojis, slang, geographic references, trending topics, and other aspects of your brand voice will help you convey a clear tone that appeals to your target audience. And when you’re talking to your audience the way they talk, they’re more likely to participate and engage with your content. If you’re an entrepreneur or a small business and manage your own content, it’s ideal to write your captions the same way you talk. This builds trust and rapport with your audience, where they can almost hear your voice while they’re reading the content. ConclusionThe Instagram caption is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on the platform and it’s imperative that you use it well to fuel your Instagram marketing efforts. While the process of writing a good caption will add significant time to your post creation, it’s worth the effort to write something that is both appealing to your audience and also valuable to you in building relationships, engagement, and conversions from Instagram. What do you think? Do you use some of these tactics to write your captions? Are you going to try something different in your Instagram captions after reading this? Please share your thoughts or tips in the comments below. More articles on Instagram marketing:Start's March 20th! There are 17 tracks of content available to you at Social Media Marketing World. Don't miss this event! Social Media via Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner https://ift.tt/1LtH18p February 26, 2019 at 05:04AM
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Taking Advantage Of AI In Social Media Marketing https://ift.tt/2EwkjRh The really exciting part about artificial intelligence (AI) is that it is finally moving from being just some kind of fantastic sci-fi premise (super-intelligent robots!) to becoming a real, practical technology that digital marketers can actually use. AI vs. data analyticsIn fact, you can think of AI as just a superior form of data analytics or social media metrics that you already use. Take a data analysis tool that you probably already use in your daily marketing life – Google’s analytics package. Using this tool, you can see which visitors are coming to your website, which pages they are visiting, and which search terms brought them in the first place. You can also see which devices they are using and which browsers they are using. But here’s the thing: Googlegives you all the charts and data, but you – the human – needs to figure it all out. The same is true when you start diving into Facebook or Twitter user data. What’s going to change with AI is that, soon, machines will be able to make the same kinds of inferences that humans can. Moreover, they will be able to find the types of relationships in the data that you (or your marketing team) cannot. For example, an AI-powered application would be able to tell you not only when peak activity on your social media platforms occur, but also what characteristics the best-performing pieces of content have in common, or what the average “buyer personas” on your different social media platforms look like. How marketing will change as a result of AIThe marketing industry will still be the same – there will be leads, sales funnels and conversions. However, each of these will become a lot easier to analyze using AI-powered applications and software. In some cases, you will actually be able to predict user behavior using insights provided from AI. For example, instead of messing around with a lot of A/B testing to see what the “perfect” marketing message is for a Facebook ad, you will know in advance how well a message will likely perform. You won’t have a magic crystal ball (nobody does), but you’ll eliminate much of the guesswork in crafting the perfect marketing campaign. Ways to use AI in social media marketingPutting it all together, there are several ways that AI will likely influence the world of social media:
An example of AI at work in social mediaHow you choose to embrace the brave new world of AI is up to you. For some brands, it might mean the creation of multiple taglines for multiple customer niches. For example, consider the example of Coca-Cola. What if Coca-Cola could use AI to create personalized marketing messages for different demographic groups that could be used across different social media platforms at different times of the day or night, in multiple different languages and dialects? For example, if the Coke AI marketing bot knows that a Facebook follower prefers to speak Spanish rather than English, wouldn’t it make more sense to send a marketing message in Spanish? If the Coke AI marketing bot knows that you live in Philadelphia, it might send a very different marketing message than if it knows you live in New England. For example, Coke’s ads appearing in your Facebook feed might show images of your favorite Eagles players enjoying a nice, refreshing Coke after the game and vice versa. In many ways, then, AI is not just about software and machines getting smarter, it’s also about marketers getting smarter. What once took you hours to analyze and decipher might be possible in just a few seconds – and that will free you up to focus on what really matters for all of your social media marketing clients. The post Taking Advantage Of AI In Social Media Marketing appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog February 25, 2019 at 03:57PM Why Should You Enroll in a Business Analyst Certification Program? https://ift.tt/2SZzv24 Every day, businesses are expanding and growing, and so is the need to analyze all of the data that goes along with measuring the success of day-to-day operations. Being able to efficiently analyze that data and then put a plan of action into place is where business analytics comes in. Introduction to BA and its growth Business analytics, also simply referred to as BA, is important data within an organization. This is data that is used to measure both success and failure, plan for future projects, and set goals. These days, most businesses depend on this information when it comes to making important decisions. According to IDC1, approximately 55 percent of IT spending goes towards business growth initiatives, which inevitably has been increasing the need for business analyst professionals. Unfortunately, the demand is greater than the actual number of employable, certified business analysts, but this is why this is such a great career opportunity for anyone interested in analytics. Why go for a business analytics certification? The concept of business analytics may sound simple on the surface, but it takes a great deal of technical proficiency to excel as a business analyst. Skilled business analysts must thoroughly understand the technologies and the business, and make an organizational commitment to data-driven decision-making. It’s also crucial that business analysts receive an adequate amount of training, and the right business analyst certification course can provide just that. According to a McKinsey study, there will eventually be more than 490,000 vacant jobs in the data science industry, but fewer than 200,000 qualified individuals to fill these roles. Techcrunch has also reported2 that worldwide, the demand for data scientists is eventually expected to exceed supply by more than 50 percent. Because this field is growing so quickly with more companies recognizing the importance of business analytics, more jobs are becoming available. Benefits of business analyst certifications With so many organizations relying on business analytics each day, it’s no surprise that a business analyst certification is one of the more popular technology certifications available currently. If you’re looking to expand your career or change career paths completely, and data and technology fascinates you, training as a business analyst may be the best decision you ever make. Looking for a little more motivation? Consider some of the following advantages of earning your business analyst certification: The opportunity to grow in your career This may seem like an obvious one, but it’s worth pointing out because for many, this reason alone is enough for people to pursue educational training in a specific field. In a competitive job market, job security is everything. Although having a business analyst certification is certainly no guarantee that you’ll always have a job, of course, being certified for something that’s in high demand certainly gives you an advantage. Aside from job availability, there is also salary advantages to consider when it comes to enrolling in a business analyst certification course. Statistics from Business Wire3 revealed that in general, getting certified can increase salary from 20 percent to 40 percent. But so can things like learning Spanish; although if you want to skip ahead there, here are the most common Spanish verbs you should know But let’s get a little more specific. Glassdoor.com reports that the average business analyst in the United States earns a salary of $77,712 annually. The U.S. Census Bureau recently reported that the average individual salary in America is $34,940 annually. While salary isn’t everything when it comes to picking a career, let’s face it: for many, it’s a huge motivator. And with business analysts typically earning much more than the average salary, it’s easy to see why pursuing a career as a business analyst can be a good decision. It’s also important to consider the level of education that is required to potentially earn this level of salary. For many, earning more than the nationwide average means advanced schooling and earning a professional degree. But simply completing a business analyst certification course is often all the training you’ll need to start your new lucrative career. Simplilearn explains in the below video about career growth in business analyst profession. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25T8ZCXgSWM Structured learning approach When students complete a business analyst certification course, they learn all about data analytics, from the basic fundamentals to the advanced components. A structured learning approach is crucial when it comes to learning data analytics. If you attempt to learn on your own through tutorials or blogs, you may only get bits and pieces of information. It’s likely that a lot of crucial information will fall through the cracks, and it can be difficult to build a deep understanding of data analytics without a structured learning approach.
The opportunity to work in just about any industry Just about every business out there depends on data analytics these days. From retail to entertainment, to finance and healthcare, business analysts are often seen as valuable assets. This not only means there are more opportunities, but with all of the different industries you can possibly work in and use your skills in, it also means it’s almost impossible to get bored. As a business analyst, you’re almost guaranteed to find a job at a company in a sector that piques your interest. Most career paths don’t offer this level of flexibility and diversity. Aside from the flexibility in the specific industry you work in, you also have the opportunity to work in different roles. Receiving a business analyst certification doesn’t just tie you down to working as a business analyst. You may qualify for other related positions, such as solution designer, product analyst, business architect, and so on. Learn the most popular business analytics tools As a business analyst, you’ll perform different tasks that use various tools. These tools are often necessary to work more efficiently and get your job done. When you receive the proper training, you’ll learn some of the most popular tools used in business analytics. For instance, you may need to learn SAS for analyzing massive data sets, or Tableau for excellent data visualization across enterprise data. If you take on a business analyst role without this training, you may end up making mistakes in your work, or not perform as well as you could have. It may also take longer to accomplish certain tasks. If you decide to pursue a professional certification in business analytics, you’ll usually get the opportunity to learn tools like Microsoft Excel, NumPy, SciPy, Tableau, Python, R, SAS, and so on. Learn to apply theoretical concepts to business problems You can learn a lot of theoretical concepts from books, videos, or even from university courses. But only a practical certification course like Simplilearn’s Business Analytics Expert Masters Program will have industry experts showing you how to apply those concepts to actual business problems. Show your commitment and dedication Obtaining this certification can be somewhat challenging. Between studying and taking exams, the entire process can be time-consuming. When companies hire business analysts who have this certification, they are able to appreciate the fact that the candidate has put in a great deal of effort and worked hard to obtain this particular certification. It can also indicate that the candidate is capable of tackling challenging projects, and also performs well under pressure in order to meet (or exceed) company goals. It also helps to put you ahead of the competition. If you and another applicant have relevant experience, for instance, but you’re the only one certified, you’ll be at an advantage. Interact with peers and experts in business analytics With Simplilearn’s LVC learning mode, you get to learn a lot from industry experts. Also, you get the opportunity to interact with professional business analysts. If you’re looking to learn business analytics, you have a lot of choices. In addition to Simplilearn’s Business Analytics Expert program, Simplilearn also offers a program called Business Analytics Certification Training with Excel. These are just a couple of the great options available; to learn more about Simplilearn’s courses in analytics, feel free to browse their course catalog. The post Why Should You Enroll in a Business Analyst Certification Program? appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog February 25, 2019 at 02:03PM
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Best WordPress Booking Plugin – (Review Updated for Winter of 2019) https://ift.tt/2TcNIrU I’ll get straight to the point. If your company takes reservations or appointments, you need an online booking system — period. Take a moment to analyze your current process. How does a customer schedule their appointment? Without an online booking system, I’m willing to bet that the process looks something like this:
That’s assuming you can clearly understand each other over the phone. We all know sometimes it’s difficult to hear based on things like reception, accents, and background noise. Oh yeah — that’s also assuming nobody else called you while you were on the phone. Then you’re forced to let the incoming call go to voicemail, or place your current caller on hold. Each time someone calls, it takes you away from the task you’re working on. Sure, there are some alternative solutions. You could pay someone to sit by a phone and answer calls all day. But do you really want to incur that added cost? This still isn’t your most efficient option. Why you need a WordPress booking pluginAdding a booking plugin to your WordPress site will do more than just improve your operational efficiency. This new system will optimize the customer experience. Roughly 70% of consumers prefer booking appointments online. Furthermore, 36% of people said that waiting on hold too long when booking over the phone was their biggest pain point for scheduling appointments and 20% of people said the biggest inconvenience was having to wait to call during office hours to book. By adding a booking plugin to your WordPress site, you’ll eliminate more than half of the biggest pain points for consumers while simultaneously providing them with their most preferred booking option. When evaluating a new service provider, 94% of consumers say they are more likely to choose one that has online booking options compared to a provider that doesn’t. In short, adding online booking options to your website will:
I think I’ve made myself clear. Now that you know the importance of having a WordPress booking plugin, you need to install one to your site. How do you choose? What’s the best WordPress booking plugin? Use this guide as a reference to help you decide which one is the best for your business. 1. BooklyBookly is fully customizable and extremely responsive. Its sleek design on both the front and backend is modern and visually appealing. One of the features that makes Bookly one of the best WordPress booking plugins is the option for different employees to create custom pricing and availability. For example, let’s say you own a gym. Each personal trainer can set their own rates. Your customers would have the option to choose the trainer they want from a dropdown menu when booking a session. From the user end, Bookly takes them through a quick four-step process on your website.
That’s right. Bookly even processes payments or deposits. This is great for those of you who are getting lots of no-show appointments and missing out on those earnings. If you don’t want to force your customers to pay in advance, you can set an option for paying on-site at the appointment. You can also set up automatic text and email notifications with Bookly. Those notifications remind the customer as well as your staff members about upcoming appointments. Bookly also lets your customers translate the booking process into their native language. This solves the problem that I talked about earlier in terms of having trouble communicating with certain customers over the phone. Bookly lets you create promo codes to discount your services. The plugin tracks all of the data, so you can determine which deals are working the best. With Bookly, customers can set up recurring appointments, get added to a waiting list pending cancellations, attach files, and rate your services. This WordPress plugin even has a feature for group booking. Overall, Bookly is one of the most complete WordPress booking plugins you’ll find. 2. EDD BookingsEDD Bookings is definitely another top option to consider. In addition to booking standard services, this plugin is great for those of you who offer rentals. Maybe you have a business by the beach and rent out bikes, skateboards, surfboards, and paddleboards by the hour. All of this can be managed through your website with the EDD Bookings plugin. It’s one of the easiest plugins to integrate into your ecommerce platform. For those of you who are already using Easy Digital Downloads solutions for ecommerce, I highly recommend this plugin. Customers can book appointments or rentals in just seconds on your website with EDD Bookings. All they need to do is:
It’s as simple as that. The EDD Bookings plugin makes it easy for you to manage all of your appointments in one place with different calendar views. They provide you with extensive details for your day, week, and month. You can color code your appointments as well to keep track of different types of services. The plugin integrates with payment gateways, email lists, Zapier, and Slack as well. EDD will also provide you with reports and detailed analytics. EDD Bookings has a responsive design for desktops, smartphones, and tablets. Compared to other similar plugins, it’s very affordable. Pricing for the EDD Bookings plugin starts at $80 per year. 3. BookedThe Booked WordPress plugin makes it easy for customers to book appointments on your website. I like this plugin because it comes with great add-ons for things like integrating payment options with WooCommerce, calendar integrations with Google Calendars and iCal, as well as front-end appointment management. It’s a great option for beginners because it’s essentially ready to go right out of the box. You don’t need to worry about any custom coding. The interface is smooth and easy to navigate. Booked makes it easy for you to add custom time slots to your schedule. This is great for adding in holidays or vacation days. The plugin also comes with some great shortcodes, making it possible to embed your booking calendar nearly anywhere on your site. Booked is another option for managing calendars for multiple members of your staff. So let’s say you own a barbershop or hair salon. Customers can book with their preferred stylist online with ease. This plugin also offers guest booking, so website visitors don’t need to be registered or logged into their profile in order to schedule a service or appointment on your website. 4. Booking CalendarBooking Calendar has been around for ten years and is a top solution for those of you who are in the hospitality industry. In addition to appointments, this plugin is commonly used to book stays at hotels, resorts, or a bed and breakfast. That’s because the system is designed to accommodate days-long bookings, as opposed to just an hour time slot for an appointment. Not every WordPress booking plugin offers this feature. Booking Calendar is extremely responsive on both the frontend and backend. For those of you who aren’t too tech-savvy, you shouldn’t have any problems installing this plugin to your WordPress website. All you need to do is insert the booking shortcode into a page or post on your site. Your bookings are stored in the Booking Calendar dashboard, so you won’t need any third-party services or accounts to manage them. The plugin will automatically prevent double bookings based on this information. Again, this is ideal for those of you who are offering a service such as rooms in a hotel building. Booking Calendar supports multiple languages, so you can accommodate website traffic that’s coming from other countries. The plugin also syncs with third-party platforms such as Booking.com and TripAdvisor, to make sure your availability dates are updated in real-time all over the Internet. 5. Team BookingAs the name implies, the Team Booking plugin is designed to accommodate the booking schedules of multiple members on your staff. We’ve seen some other plugins on our list that have this feature, but none that have it has their primary point of emphasis. Team Booking integrates with Google Calendar, which makes it easy for managing appointments based on everyone’s unique availability. But don’t let that that dissuade you if you’re a solopreneur. While this plugin was designed with teams in mind, you can still use it on your own if you’re providing an individual service. This plugin allows you to set up multiple form fields to collect additional information about your customers. Team Booking also has a map feature, which is another differentiating element. When a customer books an appointment, the map can pop up with the location. All of the directions are displayed in real time from the customer’s address. You can collect payments or deposits with Team Booking as well. The plugin is supported by PayPal and Stripe. Team Booking is a top choice for those of you who don’t want to spend a ton of money on a booking plugin. Pricing for this license starts at $28. 6. AmeliaAmelia is an automated booking specialist. This plugin is great for those of you who offer multiple types of services. For example, let’s say you own a car repair center. Your customers can schedule things like tire rotations, oil changes, brake replacements, and other services that you offer. You can even set it up so they can choose a specific mechanic to service their vehicle, based on availability, of course. This plugin is also great for law consultants. Your clients can schedule meetings based on the type of help they need. You can collect deposits and payments through this booking plugin as well. As you can see, the applications for Amelia reach far and wide. Its versatility makes it one of the best WordPress booking plugins on the market. You can install Amelia to your WordPress site in just a few clicks. You don’t need to be a technology wizard or have experience with coding to get it up and running. I also like how this plugin has an administrative dashboard that lets you track and measure KPIs with graphs, tables, and charts. This provides you with deep insights into your performance. The design of the booking calendar is completely customizable, so you can choose the colors and other design elements that compliment your website color schemes. ConclusionYou need to have online booking options on your website. If you’re not allowing online booking, you’re leaving money on the table. Now that you’re aware of the importance of this feature, it’s time to find a plugin that fits your needs. What’s the best WordPress booking plugin? The answer will vary based on who you ask. I created this with all different types of businesses in mind. Depending on your needs, I’m confident you can find what you’re looking for.
Some plugins specialize in these features, so think these questions through and install a plugin that meets the needs of your business. Social Media via Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/UU7LJr February 25, 2019 at 11:09AM
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4 Steps to Effective Content Promotion on Social Media https://ift.tt/2UdhGcB Many businesses spend huge amounts of time, energy, and resources developing content strategies that don’t live up to expectations. Obviously, this isn’t ideal or sustainable, but why do such a large number of blog posts, marketing videos, and content offers fail to resonate with a customer base? The answer –– almost invariably –– is down to poor promotion on social media. Blase, cookie-cutter, posts that don’t properly support branded content can undermine months of hard work and prevent a business from gaining the exposure that it needs (and deserves). Given that fact, here are four steps all professionals should take to ensure that their content-promotion tactics on social media are always on point: Step #1 Measure Engagement The first step to improving your influence on social media is to take stock of your current position. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, in reality, measuring engagement for individual posts on social media can prove quite tricky. It’s not enough to judge a given post based on the number of clicks, likes, or shares it generated –– though that is a decent place to start. Rather, marketers need to go the extra step and determine which social-media posts are generating interested leads and, of course, sales. Whether you utilize software like call-tracking technology, in-depth surveys and market research –– or a combination of the two –– it’s imperative to measure your presence on social media before you can seek to improve it. Step # 2 Build an “Ideal” Post No, not every post a marketing team creates will prove wildly successful. However, that doesn’t mean that professionals shouldn’t form a set of goals they want to achieve with each post. Mock up an “ideal-post” list and determine the one or two objectives you want to achieve with each social-media post. It may simply be to engage consumers in a target market; or to contain multiple “clickable” elements. Keep in mind that a post doesn’t have to catch fire and go viral to prove effective. Step #3 Incentivize Experienced marketers understand that if you want someone to take time out of their day to click on a branded post, you have to give them a quality reason to do so. Promise insightful tips, a compelling narrative, half off your next order, free shipping etc. –– just make sure you promise something in each post. You’ve taken the time to create amazing content. Let your consumers know what they’ll get by interacting with it! Step #4 Adjust Constantly Businesses that enjoy high conversion rates and engagement on their social media posts don’t adopt a set-it-and-forget-it mentality in regard to their campaigns. Instead, progressive marketers are always looking for ways to enhance their efforts on social media. Remember, even minor adjustments in ad text, post length, or style could make a huge difference for your results. Final Thoughts Whether your company offers chimney repair services or manufactures water-filtration devices, every business can find profitable opportunities on social media. Just make it a point to follow these four steps and your website will be sure to experience an uptick in traffic! The post 4 Steps to Effective Content Promotion on Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog February 25, 2019 at 10:21AM
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Why is it So Difficult to Get Ads Approved on Facebook? https://ift.tt/2BPUMRm For better or worse, Facebook is the most popular social-media platform, and, as such, the channel that most companies choose to advertise on. However, as many professionals have undoubtedly noticed, it’s become extremely difficult to get certain ads approved on Facebook. Indeed, anything from “before-and-after” pictures, to imprecise ad-text phrasing can spark a slew of rejections from Facebook’s advertising center. Marketers are now faced with two questions: why is it so hard to get Facebook ads approved, and (more importantly) how can avoid you avoid Facebook ad rejections? We’ll answer both below: Why is Facebook Clamping Down? It’s not that difficult to determine why Facebook is becoming more selective of its ads and (subsequently) protective of its users’ experience. After all, given the amount of legal trouble Mark Zuckerberg and co. have experienced in the preceding 18 months, it only makes sense for the company to change some its policies. What’s more, by prioritizing user privacy and experience, Facebook is attempting to make amends with individuals who have lost trust in the platform. What Disqualifies a Facebook Ad? The bad news for marketers is that seemingly anything can trigger a rejection from Facebook’s ad-screening process. (On that point, the process Facebook use to screen ads is one part automatic, one part manual. And this setup creates even more confusion!) Some criteria for advertising on the platform is obvious; you can’t, understandably, post adult content on Facebook Ads. Nor can you sell illegal items. However, other stipulations are much more subtle. For instance, Facebook will reject an ad that it deems to make assumptions about a person’s identity –– their race, gender, age, religion, lifestyle etc. This can get pretty confusing On Facebook’s own site, it states that an ad containing the phrase “Date Christian singles!” is acceptable, but that “Meet other Buddhists” is not. For a full list of Facebook’s prohibited content, click here. Is Facebook Advertising Still Worth it? Though advertising on Facebook is certainly more of a headache now than it once was, it’s still an extremely viable method for small businesses to increase their digital exposure and boost sales. And that’s especially true for companies that specialize in new tech developments, like speech recognition technology or call tracking services, for instance. The key to building a functional and profitable Facebook ad campaign depends on mastering Facebook’s new advertising protocols. It may be wise for small business owners without much experience in this regard to hire a social-media marketing firm for assistance. In the meantime, avoiding sensationalized content, graphic images or language, and prioritizing the user within your ad text will help you avoid dreaded rejection notices. The post Why is it So Difficult to Get Ads Approved on Facebook? appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog February 25, 2019 at 10:18AM
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How To Strategize In 2019 For A Company Content Marketing Campaign https://ift.tt/2GZWx1z 2019 looks bright for the digital marketing industry in general as nearly all companies both large and small with an online presence understand how content marketing can help them. There were times in the last few years where people had no idea what SEO was and how it would help their business in the slightest. With those outside of the marketing world catching up on knowledge many brands are more willing to invest money in digital marketing as they now see the value in it. Content marketing drives traffic, leads, sales, and search engine rankings as well as does quite a bit for branding. 2019 can be a business trajectory changing year with the right strategy when it comes to the content marketing campaign. The following are tips that will help companies both large and small create their content marketing strategy for the year. Start Gathering Data NowContent marketers now have more tools than ever before that can help them shape 2019’s strategy. Articles or resources that have done well in the past should be updated and reposted as great resources can generate hundreds of backlinks over time. This is an example of creating “Evergreen” content that can be updated and be as relevant as the original time it was created. This software development company does a great job in this post explaining processes to create software without overselling. Avoiding being too salesy can be just what a company needs for their blog to become more popular than ever. Engagement on posts via social media is also important to note as the social media team bringing in sales leads is a huge bonus for many businesses. Have a few people on the staff take a look at the data to see if they can create an actionable plan out of it. Mending these plans together can create a workable plan that incorporates the strengths of multiple people on the staff. Identify Publications That Accept Outside ContributionsBuilding a great backlink portfolio for a business needs to be done carefully as a site that is easy to post on has probably been spammed by less than ethical content marketers. Take the time to look at the backlink profile of competitors to see where “low hanging fruit” in terms of guest posts are. This can help a company gain quickly on their competitor for certain keywords and phrases. By targeting the publications now it is possible to create a relationship where the company could contribute a few articles per month. Start Creating Topic Ideas For Major Holidays Throughout The YearPeople love holiday themed content whether we as marketers want to admit it or not. At times many marketers can be tired of putting a new spin in terms of the holiday to an article they might have written previously. Marketers have to understand that the common consumer outside of the marketing world love this type of content. It can bring a new light to a subject that might be boring to put it plainly. Being able to get this content together early is important as well as many professionals tend to use their PTO around holidays to maximize days in the row off. Diversify Types of ContentTaking the time to test out different types of content is important otherwise the company could be alienating a huge part of the customer demographic. People prefer their content in a specific form so it is important to appease the consumer as they are the ones generating sales. Podcasting has become increasingly popular as it allows for in-depth discussion versus other types of content. Articles that are too long can lose the attention of the reader while a podcast can be listened to during a commute where time is prevalent. Of course it is important to track data on these types of content as the company might find that one form of content is not worth the increase in cost when compared to written content. 2019 is going to be a bright year for content marketers as people finally understand the true value of marketing in this way. There are no shortage of tips in content marketing, it just takes time to sift through the good suggestions and the less than average ones. The post How To Strategize In 2019 For A Company Content Marketing Campaign appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog February 25, 2019 at 10:10AM
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This Twitter thread of dads texting the bare minimum will make you say 'OK' https://ift.tt/2NwgLkY Dads are not known for being prolific texters. While there are exceptions to the rule, we suspect that all dads have, at some point, received secret instructions to only respond with "OK." Now, this phenomenon has been immortalized in an extremely good Twitter thread. It was started by user @zenuhhh, who tweeted her text history with her dad on Saturday.
Look familiar? It did to a lot of other people, too. The thread quickly filled up with people whose dads cannot seem to text in complete sentences. They would rather talk on the phone, OK? What is it with kids and all this texting? Read more... More about Twitter, Family Parenting, Parenting, Texting, and Social MediaSocial Media via Mashable https://ift.tt/2DCFv97 February 25, 2019 at 10:07AM
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How to Build a Successful Instagram Ad Campaign With Only $5 a Day https://ift.tt/2Ew0yJs Want to do more with Instagram ads? Wondering how to create an affordable Instagram ad campaign that runs automatically? In this article, you’ll discover how to create and run a self-sustaining Instagram ad sequence that converts followers into customers for as little as $5 per day. #1: Identify Your Most Engaging Instagram PostsLet’s dive into how to prepare for the Instagram ad sequence that’ll nurture your audience and generate sales. The first step is to identify five pieces of content with high engagement rates to use in your ads. By amplifying existing content that has already performed well, you’ll eliminate the guesswork around what kind of content your audience wants to see. First, go back through all of your Instagram posts, and for each post, click View Insights. I have about 30 posts on my Instagram profile so it’s doable for me to go back through every one. However, if you have hundreds or thousands of posts, focus on a certain time period (say the last 6 months) or the posts that stand out with the highest engagement. Record the number of these engagements from Insights:
Then add all of these numbers together to get your total number of engagements per post. This post received 562 hearts, 94 comments, 0 sends, 9 saves, and 35 interactions (profile visits, website clicks, and emails), so the total number of engagements is 700. Next, record the total impressions from Insights (2,113 in this case). Now you have the data you need to calculate your engagement rate. Take the total number of post engagements and divide it by the total number of impressions. 700 / 2,113 = 0.331 Then multiply this number by 100 to turn it into a percentage. 0.331 x 100 = 33.1% The Instagram posts with the highest engagement rates will typically do well to amplify as ads. Set Up a Spreadsheet to Analyze Your Instagram ContentFor fellow spreadsheet aficionados: To speed up the process of finding your highly engaging content, create a good old-fashioned spreadsheet to help analyze your Instagram Insights. It will help you quickly identify your most popular, engaging, and effective content. Set up your spreadsheet to add the total number of hearts, comments, sends, saves, and interactions. To total the engagements, use the formula =sum(C2:G2). Then add a column for total impressions. Lastly, use the formula =sum(H2/I2) to divide total engagements by impressions. And make the outcome a percentage. The result is the total engagement rate for each post. Once you have this information for all (or a large number) of your Instagram posts, you can do a quick sort in the spreadsheet for the Engagement Rate column and you’ll have a list of your posts with the highest engagement rates. #2: Choose the Content for Your Strategic Instagram Ads SequenceYou don’t want to turn just any old Instagram post into an ad. Your most engaging post of all time might be a pic of your new puppy, and while everybody loves puppies, it may not be a great representation of your brand. To create a strong Instagram ad sequence, choose content that mirrors an organic customer journey. You’ll need to take a three-pronged approach to running Instagram ads that will build your audience, create leads on autopilot, and turn hungry prospects into eager buyers: This $5 per day Instagram ad sequence is focused on the Connect and Commit phases. I’m going to assume you already have a proven offer you can make in the Close phase, and if you don’t, this isn’t for you yet. Go get your sales ducks in a row first by learning how to sell on Instagram (or any platform, for that matter). Ads will only amplify what’s broken in your customer journey, not fix it. After testing hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad spend, I’ve boiled down the most successful ad sequence in the Connect and Commit phases to include four types of content. Connect Content: Grow Your Audience With New Digital AttentionAt the highest level, the Connect phase is all about branding and building an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you. This is content that brings attention to your brand to get a fresh new audience interested in what you have to say. It’s also typically the most engaging content you post organically. From an ads perspective, Connect is all about growing your warm retargetable custom audiences. To achieve this objective, select two pieces of content: an engagement ad and an authority-building ad. Content That Evokes EngagementAmplifying posts that grab people’s attention drives more engagement and grows your custom audiences faster. In addition, it allows your audience to become familiar with your profile icon so they start paying attention and get excited for your posts. Engagement posts are often polarizing or they put the user at the forefront, asking them to weigh in with their opinion or respond. This first ad will begin to familiarize them with your Instagram profile image and get them excited for your future posts… ahem, ad sequences. Content That Demonstrates AuthorityWhen new followers first find you, they don’t know you. This is typically a disadvantage when you’re using Instagram organically because they might only ever interact with your profile once and then bounce. With an ad sequence, though, you can ensure people who visit your profile will immediately see your good side and have a chance to develop a stronger relationship. Authority posts educate your followers about your accomplishments and achievements and give them a reason to trust and follow you. For this ad, you can highlight a success, an award you’ve won, a major piece of press, a big-name interview, or specialty credentials. Commit Content: Enter the Sales Process Via an Opt-InThe Commit phase nudges your audience further along the customer journey through a simple opt-in. Typically, people are happy to exchange their email address or contact information for a lead magnet: a free piece of valuable content intended to save time, energy, resources, stress, or even a small amount of money. This part of the equation is referred to as lead generation and kicks off the purchase consideration period of a sales process. From an ads perspective, this is the final destination you’d like Instagram engagers to see with the ads you’ll set up in this sequence. Remember: For this sequence to work effectively, you must already be selling your products and services successfully. To achieve this objective, you’ll select three pieces of content: a blog post and two opt-ins. Content That Goes DeeperInstagram posts are limited to 2,200 characters. That means when people interact with you organically on Instagram, the link in your bio is the only way to get them off of the platform and onto your website. Starts March 20th! Discover the latest tactics and improve your marketing know-how! When you run Instagram ads, the character limit still appears, but instead of sending people to your bio link in hopes they make it to your blog, you can add URLs directly in the Instagram ad. For an ad for your sequence, you might choose an Instagram post that has complementary in-depth information on your blog post, which leads to an opt-in to start your sales process. You’ll constantly be guiding your audience through the customer journey toward the sale. Content That Generates Leads and Starts the Sales ProcessAll right, all you Market-y McMarketsons can sigh in relief that lead generation ads were finally mentioned. Ninety-five percent of digital marketers try to start lead generation by targeting a cold audience and getting them to opt in. According to an ad spend study of more than $45,000 with 349 ad set variations for The Ad Strategist, we’ve determined that running engagement ads first to grow a strong custom audience results in 50%–100% cheaper lead costs. Every time we target this Instagram engagement custom audience, the corresponding revenue results are significantly higher and the costs are significantly lower than attempting to target a cold audience. Now that you’ve warmed up your audiences, it’s time to take advantage of those low lead costs and allow someone to directly opt in. You can try different opt-in offers (one for a lead magnet and one for a webinar, for instance), but I tend to just look for different angles on the same one (like seven reasons they need my lead magnet). The nice thing about having the engagement rate data from your spreadsheet is that you don’t have to guess which post will be the most convincing as an ad—you already know. Obviously, choose a post that’s relevant to the offer you want to make at each stage of the sequence, and then make sure whatever content you’re linking to includes a compelling opt-in offer. Pro Tip: If you don’t have a piece of content that fits into one of the groups described above, create it and test it organically before turning it into an ad. #3: Set Up Your $5 per Day Instagram Ad CampaignSetting up your Instagram ad campaign consists of two parts:
Create the Target Audience for Your CampaignOnce you’ve selected the Instagram posts to turn into ads, you want to create a custom audience of people who’ve interacted with you on Instagram. This is where the magic happens for this particular Instagram ads sequence. Custom audiences are composed of people who already have a relationship with your business. In this case, you’ll create a custom audience of people who have interacted with your Instagram account in the last 5 days. To get started, open Facebook Ads Manager and navigate to Audiences. Then click Create Audience and select Custom Audience from the drop-down menu. In the first window that appears, select Engagement as the type of custom audience. Then select Instagram Business Profile in the next window you see. In the custom audience creation window, select the correct Instagram account. Remember: You need to use an Instagram business profile, not a personal profile, to use the Facebook ads platform. To convert your personal profile into a business profile, open the Instagram app, navigate to settings, and then click Switch to Business Profile in the Account section. Next, enter 5 in the In the Past Days box. Then enter a descriptive name for your audience and click Create Audience. Now Facebook will track in a custom audience anyone who double-taps, comments, saves your content, DMs you, or clicks the link in your bio. This is pretty amazing because it allows you to turn all of your organic actions on Instagram (making posts, sharing stories, responding to comments, etc.) into actions that will help drive new leads for your business. Create Your Instagram Ad CampaignYou’ve selected your Instagram ads content based on engagement rate. Check. You’ve created a custom audience of people who have had some kind of engagement with your Instagram profile in the last five days. Check. Now it’s finally time to build your Instagram ads sequence. You’ll create one campaign with five ad sets for $1 per day each, with their own individual corresponding ads from the five pieces of content you identified earlier. In Ads Manager, create a new campaign and set the campaign objective to Post Engagement. Now create five ad sets within that campaign and name them according to the five pieces of content you selected above. Set the budget of each ad set to $1 per day. Simple. Then select the custom audience you just created to target your Instagram engagement in the last 5 days. Choose Instagram as a placement and exclude all others. Finally, add in your ad copy and creative based on your selections from above. This campaign can now run on autopilot in the background to engage and nurture your new followers, guiding them toward becoming customers. ConclusionIt’s easy to spend an immense amount of time building a following on Instagram. But do you really have a business if you aren’t monetizing all of that effort? Or is it just a really expensive hobby? I’m a big believer in setting up systems to reward us for our social media marketing actions. By putting this Instagram ads sequence in place, you’re setting yourself up to reap the rewards of your human-to-human, organic interaction on Instagram. Creating a custom audience of people who interact with your brand (double-tap, comment, share, save, DM, etc.) allows you to tag them as potential new leads for your business. And then your thoughtfully created Instagram ad sequence helps newcomers further develop a relationship with your brand so by the time you invite them to make a purchase, they’re already invested in you and what you have to offer. It’s a classic marketing strategy brought up to date with a cutting-edge digital advertising strategy. Having a low-cost Instagram ad sequence that’s always running in the background is a simple way to turn followers into fanatical (read: paying!) customers. What do you think? Have you tried this type of Instagram ad campaign? What were your results? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below. More articles on Instagram marketing:Start's March 20th! There are 17 tracks of content available to you at Social Media Marketing World. Don't miss this event! Social Media via Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner https://ift.tt/1LtH18p February 25, 2019 at 05:02AM
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New Facebook Group Management Tools https://ift.tt/2Sljm1B New Facebook Group Management Toolsby Grace Duffy / / Leave a Comment Welcome to this week’s edition of the Social Media Marketing Talk Show, a news show for marketers who want to stay on the leading edge of social media. On this week’s Social Media Marketing Talk Show, we explore new Facebook group management tools with special guest, Bella Vasta. Watch the Social Media Marketing Talk ShowIf you’re new to the show, click below to watch our latest episode from Friday, February 22, 2019. You can also listen to the show as an audio podcast, found on iTunes/Apple Podcast, Android, Google Play, Stitcher, and RSS. VIDEO For this week’s top stories, you’ll find timestamps below that allow you to fast-forward in the replay above. Facebook Introduces New Formatting and Management Tools for Groups: At the Facebook Communities Summit, Facebook announced a number of new tools and improvements that will make it easier for admins to maintain, manage, and engage with their communities. (2:38) Also, Facebook is launching a pilot program that allows groups and brands to collaborate, expands Subscription Groups to more partners, and allows relevant pages to participate in groups as a representative of their business or organization. Facebook Page Admins Can Now Respond to Instagram Direct Messages From Page Inbox: Last month, The New York Times reported that Facebook is planning to integrate its top messaging products—Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram Direct—into one underlying interface. While Facebook set a goal of completion at the earliest by late 2019 or the beginning of 2020, Facebook is taking the first small step toward this change by allowing Facebook page admins to receive and respond to Instagram direct messages from their Facebook page inbox. (35:03) Starts March 20th! Discover the latest tactics and improve your marketing know-how! This functionality is currently rolling out to businesses in Brazil and the U.S. over the next few weeks. It will be available on desktop and mobile through the Pages Manager app. Instagram Tests Direct Messaging on the Web: Instagram appears to be testing the ability to receive and respond to direct messages from the web. Instagram confirmed to TechCrunch that this product isn’t ready for public testing, which suggests it’s still in internal development. (36:12)
Instagram Tests Donate Sticker for Stories: Instagram is testing a new fundraising sticker that would allow users to add a Donate button to their stories in the same way as adding a GIF, @mention, or hashtag. From there, their followers can click through to contribute to the cause. Code found within Instagram’s Android app suggests that users will be able to search for non-profits by either browsing a collection of suggested charities or selecting ones they already follow on Instagram. (40:17)
Other News MentionedWant to catch our next show live? Click here to subscribe or add our show to your calendar. Start's March 20th! There are 17 tracks of content available to you at Social Media Marketing World. Don't miss this event! Social Media via Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner https://ift.tt/1LtH18p February 23, 2019 at 05:03AM |
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