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Instavast Review How Automation Speeds Up Instagram Growth http://bit.ly/2GEw09q Since the first time it was released, Instagram turned to the main marketing platform for many. This rapid blooming has made many users look for the fastest way to multiply their audience, get their attention and engage with them. Instagram automation tools have become many people’s first option to rapidly grow their business. But why should Instagrammers use automation tools? How do they work? Are they safe? and Which one is the best? These are a few questions you should consider before using these tools. Here, we would answer these questions and give a comprehensive review of Instavast as one of the known automation tools on the market. This Instavast review would make it easier for you to decide if it is worth using or not and how to use it properly if needed. Read along to get the most out of your Instagram presence. Reviewing its handy options, Instavast became our number one option, already helping many accounts to grow. Whether you own a business page through which you want to increase your brand awareness and sale or you are an influencer seeking to gain more paid partnership, Instavast will definitely help you, too. What is an Instagram bot? Instagram bots are third-party tools automating all your activities on this platform which otherwise you should do manually. Using bots, you can automate your interaction with others and make it more targeted. It includes following other users, liking their posts, leaving comments, and viewing their stories. Instavast, as a great automation tool, presents smart targeting options. It engages with other users based on desired locations, hashtags and competitor pages. Why do you need to use an Instagram bot? You may already know that whether you are a big company or an influencer, you need followers. And not just followers, you need their engagement as well, i.e. like, comment, share, and message. Increasing the number of followers and their engagement are bound together in the new Instagram algorithm. As long as your followers engage with your page, your posts appear to more and more people. A fact which may help you to get even more followers if you have quality contents. However, increasing the number of your followers would not be easy at all. It needs more than sharing quality contents. Though your growth rate may seem good at first, you may feel stuck in the same place for a while. This is why it’s necessary to interact with other users. You should get their attention and make them aware of your business. Yes, you can do it yourself. In fact, performing all these tasks by yourself is a money saving option but very time-consuming and confusing as well. Having lots of tasks, updating your page and engaging with others are the last things you think about. By the way, if you are going to do it yourself, be patient. On the other hand, buying followers is easy and appealing to many people. Though it may seem great in terms of your page’s follower counts, its disadvantages are more in the long run. These types of followers are mostly fake accounts so they would not engage with your posts. And consequently, they would decrease your page’s engagement rate. An important issue which would make your posts disappear on the feed of your current followers as well. There are also other approaches like influencer marketing which is very effective but very expensive as well. Hiring an IG assistant would be good too if he or she would not perform the same actions a bot would do with lower prices. Here is when you need to use a trustworthy automation tool. Instavast provides all the services you need to grow with competitive prices. A budget-friendly automation tool, Instavast performs all its actions when you are away. Helping you reach more and more Instagram users, it will finally help you to get lots of real, active followers. Continue reading our Instavast review to find out how it works and why we are recommending Instavast. How does Instavast work? While there are many automation tools out there and many new ones are popping up every now and then, most of them lag behind in doing what they boast about. Instavast is one of the few ones which have provided all the functions it has mentioned on its website. Instavast Instagram bot, a cloud-based app, automatically interact with your target audience. Using this tool, you can maintain your Instagram presence all the time even when you are offline. You need to create an Instavast account and specify the initial settings. Stimulating human-like activities, the bot would engage with the audience considering all the filters you have defined. It gives you plenty of options which make your Instagram marketing campaigns more focused. You can target the audience by defining specific hashtags, locations, and accounts or even directly making a custom list. Also, use filters in the Instavast dashboard to be on the mark in your marketing campaign. These filters are so accurate that will narrow down the list of your audiences so be careful in using them. Is it safe to use Instavast? The Instavast dashboard is easy and straightforward to use. But, considering the fact that bots have not gained good reputations in recent years, you may be still concerned about using it. Don’t worry! The team has relieved its clients’ concern by setting default limits for each function. These thresholds adhere to Instagram limits. Not only used in its bot, Instavast considers Instagram limits in its auto direct message as well. One of the most important features which make Instavast stands apart from its competitors is the unique proxy services they offer to make your use even safer. They have provided different kinds of proxies to avoid any problem with Instagram. Choose one of them considering your needs. Finally, though Instavast provides around-the-clock automated services, it is better to turn on the bot’s night pause. As you can see in their dashboard, they have provided the option in their settings. It would make your activity more human-like and safe. To tell the truth, service-providers boasting a 24/7 performance are putting you at the risk of being banned by Instagram. Instavast Review: is it trustworthy? As we mentioned before, there are plenty of automation tools, offering one or all the services Instavast provides. Here are the reasons why we have considered Instavast as one of the best automation tools.
To complete our Instavast review, we should also mention the cons of using the bot. Here are some of the experiences we feel obliged to include in our review of Instavast.
What other tools Instavast offer to help with your Instagram marketing? Though Instavast Instagram bot, as an alternative to Instagress, is an important tool for your Instagram growth, Instavast has provided other services which are equally useful. Instavast offers Post Scheduler, Comment Tracker, Auto Direct Message, Like and Video View beside its Instagram Bot services. You can schedule your posts for the future using Post Scheduler. Upload edited photos or use the filters provided by Instavast. Then write a proper caption and schedule the post for the desired times. This service also lets you upload as many photos as you want to be edited later. Using Instavast’s Comment Tracker, you can see all the comments your posts receive in a single dashboard. Manage them by marking important ones, replying them or deleting the spammy ones. Sometimes you need likes and views for your posts in the time of publishing them to make sure that they appear on the feed of your followers. Instavast provides this option as well. It sells likes and video views for your published or scheduled posts. The last but not the least is Instavast’s Auto Direct Message service. Auto DM lets you send direct messages in bulk to the desired audience. It is a great option for welcome messages, special offers, and discounts. Instavast also offers free tools like Hashtag Generator, Banned Hashtags, and Local Proxy App. These tools also help a lot in your Instagram marketing campaign. But, we didn’t include them in our Instavast review as they are beyond the scope of this article. Final Thoughts All in all, Instavast performs all Instagram interactions like a human so you cannot expect to gain lots of followers overnight. This is, in fact, a wrong promise if any other bot claims it and the followers they bring you are fake followers for sure. Yet, it will grow your followers, profile visits, likes, and comments increasingly. Have quality contents and define proper targets for your growth plan, that’s it. Considering all the features mentioned in our review of Instavast, we highly recommend it as one of the best Instagram automation tools available now. The post Instavast Review How Automation Speeds Up Instagram Growth appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://bit.ly/2onGYog April 24, 2019 at 08:43AM
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Twitter to offer report option for misleading election tweets https://tcrn.ch/2Pp4n70 Twitter is adding a dedicated report option that enables users to tell it about misleading tweets related to voting — starting with elections taking place in India and the European Union. From tomorrow users in India can report tweets they believe are trying to mislead voters — such as disinformation related to the date or location of polling stations; or fake claims about identity requirements for being able to vote — by tapping on the arrow menu of the suspicious tweet and selecting the ‘report tweet’ option then choosing ‘It’s misleading about voting’. Twitter says the tool will go live for the Indian Lok Sabha elections from tomorrow, and will launch in all European Union member states on April 29 — ahead of elections for the EU parliament next month. The ‘misleading to voters’ option will persist in the list of available choices for reporting tweets for seven days after each election ends, Twitter said in a blog post announcing the feature. In recent months the European Commission has been ramping up pressure on tech platforms to scrub disinformation ahead of elections to the EU parliament — issuing monthly reports on progress, or, well, the lack of it. This follows a Commission initiative last year which saw major tech and ad platforms sign up to a voluntary Code of Practice on disinformation — including Facebook, Google and Twitter — committing themselves to take some non-prescribed actions to disrupt the ad revenues of disinformation agents and make political ads more transparent on their platform. Another strand of the Code looks to have contributed to the development of Twitter’s new ‘misleading to voters’ report option — with signatories committing to:
The EC says it will assess the Code’s initial 12-month period by the end of 2019 — and take a view on whether it needs to step in and propose regulation to control online disinformation. (Something which some individual EU Member States are already doing.) In the latest progress report on the Code, which was published by the Commission yesterday but covers steps taken by the platforms in March 2019, it noted some progress made — but said it’s still not enough. “Further technical improvements as well as sharing of methodology and data sets for fake accounts are necessary to allow third-party experts, fact-checkers and researchers to carry out independent evaluation,” EC commissioners warned in a joint statement. In the case of Twitter the company was commended for having made political ad libraries publicly accessible but criticized (along with Google) for not doing more to improve transparency around issue-based advertising. “It is regrettable that Google and Twitter have not yet reported further progress regarding transparency of issue-based advertising, meaning issues that are sources of important debate during elections,” the Commission said. It also reported that Twitter had provided figures on actions undertaken against spam and fake accounts but had failed to explain how these actions relate to activity in the EU. “Twitter did not report on any actions to improve the scrutiny of ad placements or provide any metrics with respect to its commitments in this area,” it also noted. In its blog post announcing the new tweet report option Twitter said it intends to roll the vote-focused feature out to “other elections globally throughout the rest of the year”, without providing further detail on which elections and markets it will prioritize for getting the tool. “Our teams have been trained and we recently enhanced our appeals process in the event that we make the wrong call,” it added. Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com April 24, 2019 at 08:36AM 4 Reasons That Can Explain Why Branding for Bloggers Is Powerful http://bit.ly/2IPjsxo Want to share your thoughts about a celebrity’s recent backlash? Want to delve into political discussions? Willing to discuss your radical point of view? If you want to do all these and more, you have the means. You have a blog! Posting content on your blog is a neat way of letting the world know all of your ideas. Whether these ideas are mundane or extravagant in nature, it doesn’t matter. Then again, if you’re a beginner in blogging and you haven’t established yourself yet, you might want to put a pin on your posting spree. You need to concentrate on creating a brand first. Here are some reasons that branding is powerful. Grabs Your Audience’s AttentionBuilding an attractive and user-friendly landing page is how an SEO agency gets visitors to your blog. Once they drop by your blog, they will land on a page that gives them every reason to stay. Another way to go at this? Create a brand! Creating a brand is a powerful way of grabbing attention. It also paints a picture of a respectable and professional blogger. With a brand, people are more likely to check you out — and what else you have to offer. But without a brand, not many people will hear you out. For all they know, you’re some shady blogger who’ll just spew fake news. Remember, getting people’s attention is key. And the tricky part about it is that people’s attention spans are decreasing. Think of your brand here as a hook that will catch people. Without a hook, they will run loose to wherever – and maybe even to your competitors. You can talk about all the ideas that you want on your blog. But if nobody is paying any attention to you, you’re basically wasting precious time. Creates a MemoryBranding is also powerful because it can create lasting memories. If you have a brand, it’s likely that people will have you in mind every time they see something that resembles it. Take, for example, McDonald’s and its brand logo, the golden arches. Whenever you come across something that looks like the golden arches, isn’t McDonald’s the first thing on your mind? That’s how it is, too, if you have a brand. As a blogger, you’ll earn yourself some fans who’ll remember you based on things that they can associate with you. You might not earn immediate recognition like McDonald’s. But you’ll be on your way. Just build your brand little by little. And soon enough, people will remember you easily. Consistency“Consistency is vital”, is what an SEO agency will tell you. The most consistent brands are the ones that generate the highest revenue. And luckily, having a brand provides you with an opportunity to show off how consistent you are. Here are some tips:
Remember, if you’re consistent, you’re somehow telling people that they can count on you. But, of course, consistency will only work in your favor if you approach the matter right. If you’re consistently going with the wrong approach, you’re also giving people the impression that you’re consistently wrong. If you keep up with doing things wrong, the power of consistency will backfire on you. Rather than herd them in, you’ll end up pushing people away. Reinforces a Positive RepresentationA brand will also help build a good image for you. If you’ve been associated with a negative image, things look gloomy for you. Especially if your negative reputation is all over the internet, it can be challenging to come out of it. But know this: it’s doable. And all you need to do is let your brand help you out. Be firm in reminding yourself to move on. Look beyond your faults and start by posting good stuff from now on. If people start interpreting your brand differently based on your past reputation, you should intervene. You should get to the bottom of the issue. And teach them to understand you correctly. Otherwise, their wrong thoughts might end up dragging you down for the second time around. Explain yourself this time – and prove it with the help of your brand! Final ThoughtsThink of the process of creating a brand as a starting point. And from the reasons mentioned above, you can use its power to elevate your position as a blogger. It’s how you can reach the end part of your blogging career: success!Just remember to make your brand authentic. If you’re genuine (and your audience can feel it), you’re already paving the way towards your desired destination. The post 4 Reasons That Can Explain Why Branding for Bloggers Is Powerful appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://bit.ly/2onGYog April 24, 2019 at 06:36AM
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How to Activate Users http://bit.ly/2ICG8BW Now you have visitors to your product, but that’s the problem. They are just visitors. You’ve found a way to get them to come to your product, but if this is all you do then they will bounce at an incredibly high rate. Your goal is to activate them. Activation is the act of getting them to take an action in your product that you are guiding them toward. Activation is not just the act of them clicking around randomly and not bouncing. Activation is when they do something that you’ve decided beforehand that they should do, something which furthers your goals. Here are some possible activation goals:
Some of these activation goals may seem silly, while others seem relevant, but your particular goals will depend entirely upon your product. If your product is a blog that makes money from advertising then you may want to focus on numbers 1, 3, 4, or 5. If you have an email address then you can message them in the future about new articles. If they read what is already on your site they will see the quality of your journalism and want to read more. If they comment on an article then they will be more apt to come back, especially if others respond to them. If they share your article on Twitter then it will get you more readers. All of these goals lead to eyeballs that will make you more money with advertisers. A different product will have completely different goals. It is also important to recognize that the fewer goals you have, the more likely you are to achieve them. If you have 5 activation goals then it’s difficult to use the tactics in this chapter to achieve any of them effectively. At a minimum, for a given section of your product you should have one primary activation goal. Landing PagesWhen someone visits your website the use of a landing page can greatly increase your chances of activating them. A landing page is different than your homepage. It might have some of the same elements, but not all. A landing page is a page you create within your product that you can direct people toward for certain campaigns. For instance, if you are always tweeting about certain kinds of things from the company Twitter account then you might make your Twitter bio URL send them to a landing page that highlights those same topics. Here are some of the distinct characteristics of a landing page and why you would use one: Limited Navigation Single Call To Action Congruous Language There is a specific kind of landing page which is becoming very popular, and it has some distinct characteristics, and that is the launch page, or coming soon page. A launch page is a landing page that you put up before your product is even public, and the goal is to collect email addresses of visitors so that you can inform them about your product when you do go live. Here are some things to understand about this kind of landing page: Use it to Get Traffic, Not Just ActivationsBefore you actually launch is one of the best times to get traffic. You can tell people that they will be let into your product first if they share your launch page with others, or you can only let them sign up on your beta list if they tweet about you first. Get creative. The Headline and Subhead is EverythingSince you haven’t launched yet you probably won’t have much detail to add to the launch page. This means that the headline and subhead become very important. If those few words don’t get someone’s attention then they will bounce. Emotional Imagery is a MustBesides the headline and subhead, you also need a very emotional image. A fullscreen background image is the common practice. Make them feel emotion, despite your lack of content. Don’t Let the List Grow ColdAs you build a list of people that are interested in the launch of your product you must not let the list get cold. If you don’t email them for months, then suddenly tell them about your launch, your click through rate will be very low. Stay in touch with them through the process of building your product to keep them warm, or don’t even take email addresses until you are within a month (or less) of launch. If you are trying to create landing pages quickly then you can use a service like unbounce.com, and if you are creating a launch page then you can use a service like Launchrock. CopywritingIf you want people to take a certain action, and not bounce, then the words you use are more important than you realize. We spend so much time obsessing over visuals that copywriting sometimes takes a back seat. As important as visuals are, if you want someone to know something, or understand something, or do something, then you probably have to use words. Here are some insights around copywriting: The Headline Should Mention Your Unique Value PropositionWhy is your product unique? What do you do that competitors don’t do, or can’t do. If you don’t tell people that you’re unique then visitors will assume you’re not. The Subhead Should Further Explain Your Unique Value PropositionThe subhead is smaller text below your headline that further illustrates your unique value. It might give reasons why the headline is true. Use this to take away doubts or clarify the headline. Long Copywriting is Good for Expensive ItemsIf you are selling something that costs $500 then you need lengthier copywriting. This will give you a chance to inform, answer objections, and just generally convince them to become activated members. Short Copywriting is Good for Less Expensive ItemsIf you are selling something for $20 then long copywriting will bring up more objections than it answers. It will confuse people more than it helps people. For low cost products, short, precise, copy is better. Different Audiences Will Respond to Different Kinds of WordsDon’t just imitate someone else’s copywriting style. Your words need to fit your audience. You should use jargon if you’re talking to doctors, but not if you’re talking to laymen. You can use slang if you’re targeting kids, but not if your audience is filled with grandmothers. Use Customer Development to Inform CopywritingBy researching your audience online (message boards, surveys, etc.) you will start to see which words they already use. If you use their own words in your copywriting then you’ll be able to activate them much easier. Social Proof is CopywritingIt would be wise to use testimonials within your product because humans behave with a herd mentality. If everyone else is doing something then so will I. Social proof is a form of copywriting that will help you activate visitors. Don’t Forget the MicrocopyMicrocopy is the short tooltips, hover boxes, or other text that helps a visitor navigate the interface. Little clues, at the right place, can help people navigate your UI. Confused visitors don’t usually do what you want. Calls to ActionsWe’ve already mentioned it a few times, but calls to action deserve their own section. The best way to get someone to do what you want is by giving them a clear call to action. Leave nothing to their imagination. Tell them where to click and make the button obvious. Tell them who to call and make the phone number prominent. Activate visitors by telling people, in the most explicit way you can, what you want them to do. Below are some examples of great call to actions. OnboardingWhen people arrive on your site it’s like they’ve been dumped in the middle of New York City without a map and no sense of direction. Your job is to give them orientation, and lead them to the places where you want them to go. One of the best ways to guide visitors is through onboarding. Onboarding can take the form of visual directions placed on top the screen, or a series of pages that lead visitors from one place to another. Think of onboarding like a digital tour guide for your product. An explanatory video could even be a part of your onboarding strategy. Twitter has one of the most talked about onboarding experiences because they carefully guide people from creating an account to using an account, and it’s all through the onboarding. They know that an account that doesn’t follow anyone is kind of useless, so they make following others a part of the signup process. Another great example of onboarding is InVision. They give you large, obvious, pop ups throughout their product that guide you and tell you what you need to know. People are not patient, and they don’t care about your product enough to find out how to use it. If you want to activate visitors, making them take certain actions, then you must carefully craft your onboarding experience. GamificationThere is something about gameplay that is hardwired into the human brain. We love progressing, getting awards, ranking on leaderboards, finishing tasks, leveling up, and having fun while we do it. Gamification is when you use game mechanics within your product, and this can be used to activate members. Gamification can cause someone to complete actions they normally wouldn’t complete. Here are some examples: ProgressIt is common within products to tell people that their profile is only a certain percentage complete. This prompts us to get to 100% because we hate not finishing something. Just by adding a progress bar with a percentage then we have gamified our product. AwardsWe are all still in little league baseball. Trophies matter, even if they are meaningless. If you can award something within your product then you will create a gamified incentive for people to take certain actions. Just think about Foursquare. It’s one big baseball game for adults with mayorships and badges instead of cheap trophies. LeaderboardsJust by showing someone their rank you can prompt them to compete. If you let someone know that they are in 3rd place for most comments on your message board there is a good chance they’ll take actions to get in 2nd place. Leaderboards can activate people to take certain actions. There are countless ways to gamify your product, but you have to think about your product as a game (even if it is a B2B app). Pricing StrategiesGetting someone to make a purchase is really just a unique kind of activation. You are getting a visitor to take a certain action, that action just happens to be making a purchase. There are a number of best practices around activating people to make a purchase. They may not all apply to your situation, but some of them probably will. Perfect Price DiscriminationPricing is an important aspect of activating people to make a purchase. There is something called perfect price discrimination which is the act of creating a pricing structure that charges based on the consumer’s purchasing power. Ecquire does this well by making their lowest tier only support basic integrations. This is everything except Salesforce. They know if you are using Salesforce then you can afford to pay for an expensive plan. Multiple TiersAnother popular strategy to activate purchases is to have three pricing tiers. Just the fact that there is a more expensive option makes you feel like you’re not wasting money, and you are getting a good deal. Having a pricing tier below you can make you feel like you’re not a cheap person. Options give people confidence to buy. Suggestive Tier NamingIf you name your pricing tiers something vague like gold, silver, and bronze, then you don’t really help people discover which tier is good for them. By naming the tiers things like “Starter,” “Professional,” or “Team,” you are giving people the confidence that they are in the correct tier. Free TrialsPeople are afraid to make an irreversible mistake with their money. If you give them a money back guarantee, or a free trial of some kind, then you are taking the risk away from them and placing it on yourself. Discount CodesOne of the most powerful forces, in terms of getting someone to make a purchase, is a discount code. But there is a trick that makes discount codes even more effective. If you include a time limit on the discount then you force people to make a decision. Udemy is a great example of this kind of activation tactic. They send out emails on a regular basis which include discount codes that are only valid for a limited time. BundlingAnother way to get people to make a purchase is through bundling your product with other products. If you can overwhelm people with value then they are more willing to make a buying decision. Hacker Bundle is a good example of a service that uses this activation tactic. Social Media via Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/UU7LJr April 23, 2019 at 01:23PM The Right Way To Use LinkedIn For Marketing http://bit.ly/2GtgjRb The problem with LinkedIn these days is that too many people try to use it as an advertising and promotional platform rather than a classic social network. At its core, LinkedIn is a way to discover all the people in your business network who are linked to you via several degrees of separation in order to help you grow in your career. So why are so many people just trying to use LinkedIn as a way to spam others with offers and deals? How not to use LinkedInHere’s a typical scenario: you get an offer to connect from someone who you don’t immediately recognize. The person seems legitimate enough (i.e. not a bot), but as soon as you accept the offer to connect, that person starts hitting you up with all kinds of spammy messages, trying to promote something. Or here’s another scenario: you join a LinkedIn group, hoping to learn more about a certain topic and meet other likeminded individuals with interest in the same topic. Instead, you encounter spam message after spam message, with people just trying to get you to buy something or sign up for something. How to use LinkedInThere is a better way, folks. Let’s say that you are trying to build brand awareness. Fair enough. But brand awareness shouldn’t mean just plastering your company’s name wherever you can on LinkedIn. Instead, why not consider writing thought leadership pieces for your company’s page on LinkedIn? The idea here is to publish engaging content, not “salesy” promotional content. In other words, writing content about the future direction of the industry is a “thought leadership” piece. However, writing content about the upcoming launch of your company’s new product is a promotional piece. Moreover, LinkedIn has really been stepping up its game as a social network to showcase rich media, especially images and SlideShare presentations. So if you worked day and night on a new presentation, why not add value to the LinkedIn community by uploading it to LinkedIn for others to see? That might get you a real response, in fact, if people can see that you are a thought leader. And what if your sole intent is to use LinkedIn as a promotional and advertising platform? Well, there are plenty of ways to use LinkedIn as it was intended to be used, and not just to hawk your products under the guise of friendship. For example, LinkedIn allows you to sponsor your content, much the same way that you would sponsor your content on Facebook. That is one way for your content to appear in someone else’s LinkedIn newsfeed without coming across as pure spam. Don’t blame LinkedIn, blame FacebookIn many ways, you can blame Facebook for people using LinkedIn the wrong way. It was Facebook that created a mentality of relentlessly pumping out content, building up a massive amount of followers, and then doing everything within your power to connect with those followers on a regular basis. But here’s the thing – Facebook is a social network for casual acquaintances and friends, not for business colleagues. It might be annoying when some people just use Facebook as a way to get attention… but at least they’re not trying to sell you something. If you are using a Facebook mentality on LinkedIn, then it’s time to step back and reassess things. Blindly spamming as many people as you know (and, yes, telling me about your new product launch is spam!) is not the way to go if you want a real response. The post The Right Way To Use LinkedIn For Marketing appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://bit.ly/2onGYog April 23, 2019 at 12:54PM
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Pull Strategies for Getting More Visitors http://bit.ly/2VnK0MZ So, you want to get new visitors to your site? There are three fundamental ways to get traffic. No more. No less. You can pull people in, push people in, or you can use the product to get people in. These are the 3 p’s of getting traffic. What’s the difference in these methods? I’m glad you asked. Pull Push Product Pull and push tactics are examples of growth hacking which hinge on the redefinition of distribution. If you know how people flow online then you can accurately entice them or strong arm them onto your site, but if you don’t understand where people congregate and what causes them to travel to other places (digitally), then you can’t effectively push or pull them on onto your site. The third P (product) doesn’t rely on a redefinition of distribution (like pull and push), but it relies on the redefinition of what a product is. Like we said in the first chapter, now products can play a role in their own customer acquisition, which is a very radical concept in the history of the world. It is important to realize that all three P’s work really well in the right context, when executed by the right person. As you were reading about the differences you probably assumed that one method was better than the other, but they all have their place in the growth hacker’s arsenal. Many products actually employ a combination of push, pull, and product methodologies. This isn’t the time to get on a soapbox for a certain camp. Growth hackers are about growth, not just a certain kind of narrowly defined growth for a priori reasons. The Fundamentals of a Pull StrategyA great pull strategy is based on two fundamentals:
BloggingOne of the tried and true ways of getting traffic to your product is through blogging or guest blogging. Blog posts are suited perfectly to send you traffic for a number of reasons.
Blogging is a no brainer. The only decision you have to make is whether to start your own blog or guest blog for others. The main reason to guest blog is that you don’t have to create the audience. You only have to create the post. Trust me, it’s easier to create a post than to gather the people together that are willing to read it. However, the main benefit to starting your own blog is your ability to have full control. If you build your own audience you have more flexibility over the content. You might choose to get more aggressive in the future with sending traffic to your product from the blog, but if someone else owns all your content then you don’t have this possibility. Neither answer is wrong as long as you choose for strategic reasons. Remember, you can always do both. Maybe you start by guest blogging but then transition to your own blog. Whichever route you choose you must not make your blog posts an extended pitch for your product. You’re gently pulling people in, not begging them to visit your site. If you get too overt about your intentions it will turn people away. With a little creativity you can easily get click throughs without making your post feel like an ad. Always start a new post with a bio that links to your product (no one will begrudge you this), and try to link to your product once within the post, but only when it’s relevant to what you’re saying. Also, the blog posts that get read and shared are the ones that tap into something emotional, trendy, educational, enjoyable, or surprising (amongst others). Take note of the kinds of posts that get your attention, and then reverse engineer them to inform your own writing. PodcastingPodcasting is another great pull tactic because audio has inherent inbound qualities. When you hear someone speak then you are given a window into their mind that is different, and sometimes even better, than reading their thoughts. Like blogs, podcasts have inbuilt distribution mechanisms (podcast listening apps), but there are differences between blogging and podcasting when viewed through the lens of getting traffic:
It is highly unlikely that a podcast will be a viable channel for traffic, unless you think very creatively about it. Here are some twists that you could try:
Of course, it is possible to go the traditional route by creating a podcast that publishes new episodes every week, but there is something you must know. Podcasts require a lot of time to do well, and low quality offerings will not gain enough traffic to matter. Therefore, get creative and think like a growth hacker, not like a podcaster. Use their medium, but not their methods. Ebooks, Guides, and WhitepapersPart of creating an effective pull strategy is to use the unique makeup of your team to inform which tactics you try. Some people love the idea of doing little things on a very regular basis (like blogging, or maybe podcasting). Others would rather invest large chunks of energy at spread out intervals, and produce things that are a bit more monumental. This is a valid tactic, and large written documents have a number of advantages in terms of getting traffic:
MailChimp has a number of guides which they publish for all the reasons listed above. InfographicsInfographics can entice people to your product because they simultaneously display expertise and aesthetic taste. Visualizations are powerful tools, and they are spread using social media extremely easily. Adam Breckler, of Visual.ly, provides the following advice when creating an infographic: Select a Good TopicPick something that is clever, exciting, noteworthy, or that stands out for some other reason. Just don’t be boring or irrelevant. Find the Right DataPeople sometimes assume that they have to create the data themselves, but often a simple Google search will uncover data sets that have already been compiled. Analyze the DataLook at the data that you have with journalistic integrity. Don’t bend the data to suit your needs. Build the NarrativeBrainstorm what story the data should tell. You need to transform the numbers into a coherent narrative, and not just present them as a collection of facts. Come Up With a Design ConceptNow it’s time to consider ways to tell your narrative visually. Polish and Refine the DesignPut on the finishing touches and make sure everything is as high quality as it needs to be to gain the public’s attention. Distribute the InfographicYou can distribute it using your own audience (email list, social media, etc.), or you can use services like Visual.ly which is a marketplace for browsing inforgraphics. Everlane produced a couple of controversial infographics that created a firestorm online. Their infographics showed the typical markups that department stores charge for t-shirts. Since Everlane sells similar quality shirts at lower prices it’s easy to see how this infographic brought them the right kind of visitors. WebinarsThe offline world has seminars, but the online world has webinars. These are very successful channels at bringing in new visitors for a few reasons:
Unbounce hosts something called “unwebinars.” Above is one they did with Joanna Wiebe in order to benefit from her expertise and her audience. Speaking at ConferencesConferences may feel like a very non-growth-hacker way to get traffic, but that’s just because you’re not thinking of it creatively enough. A conference presentation may pull in a few more visitors to your product, but not many, and the amount of preparation required is very high. However, a conference presentation creates a number of by-products which can be used to pull in visitors more effectively. Slide DeckIf you’re presenting at a conference then you probably have a slide deck. This deck can be uploaded to slideshare.com and now you have a left over piece of collateral that can easily be shared, and it will bring people into you product for the foreseeable future. Sildeshare.com is a social network in it’s own right, and you would do well to invest in it. Video/AudioMany conferences will record your presentation, and this will allow you to put it on your company blog, upload it to YouTube, place it in email signatures, or use it during a drip email campaign. Besides the by-products of a presentation, here are some other things to keep in mind: Instant RetweetsI once spoke at a conference, and I ended my presentation by telling the audience that if they retweeted my last tweet that I would give them a discount to my product. I created a social media tornado in a matter of seconds. PersuasionWhy did Steve Jobs do presentations? Because they’re are powerful. If you have the gift of gab, and can command an audience, then sometimes a few moments on stage can create a number of traffic sources for your product. Remember, growth hackers are right-brained and left-brained. Sometimes the ROI is fuzzy, but that doesn’t mean it is non-existent. Rand Fishkin, the former CEO of Moz, has over 60 slideshares, and they have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, creating countless new visitors for his product at Moz.com. SEOIn a sense, all the tactics we’ve covered so far are incredible from an SEO point of view. As you create content of various kinds (blogs, podcasts, ebooks, whitepapers, guides, infographics, webinars, slide decks, video/audio presentations) then the search engines are going to realize that you are an authority on your topic of choice, and you’ll rank high for certain keywords. However, there are really two kinds of SEO strategies. I call them content and code. Content Coder If you can use both content and code to your advantage then this is obviously the best case scenario. However, even if you can’t do both, you should do at least one or the other. Search engines are still the primary way we navigate the internet, and to ignore this simple truth is very unwise. SEO is important, and for many businesses it’s the primary way they gain traffic at the top of their funnel. Social MediaOne of the ways to gain traffic at the top of your funnel is through social media (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc.). There are actually so many spammy ways to do this that first I feel the need to tell you what not to do.
Here are some tips to help you bring in traffic to the top of your funnel using social media:
ContestsContests are an awesome way to drive new traffic to your product. A lot of people are actually unaware of how well contests work. Ever heard of AppSumo? Want to know how they grew an email list to over 700k emails? They started with contests. Ever heard of AirBNB? Want to know what they started doing this week to drive new traffic to their product? They started promoting a contest. Contests are good for small companies and big companies alike, so here are a few of things to remember as you create a contest:
AppSumo ran a ton of contests over the years. They found something that worked so why should they stop? Also, notice how experiential their prize is. App MarketplaceOne of the channels for gaining new visitors which has arisen in the past few years is marketplaces. The Apple App Store is a marketplace. The Google Play Store is a marketplace. There are actually two kinds of app marketplaces, and they are different. B2C App MarketplacesIf your company made an app for a consumer then you’ll probably be in a B2C app store like the Apple App Store. Here are some things to keep in mind if you are trying to get new users through this method:
B2B App MarketplacesIf your product can be used for businesses then you might consider this relatively new kind of marketplace. Companies like Salesforce or Mailchimp now have their own marketplace for apps that integrate with their product. Here are some helpful tips concerning B2B app marketplaces.
The AppExchange is Salesforce’s B2B app marketplace. Deal SitesIn the aftermath of Groupon’s rise (and slow demise) there have been a number of deal sites created in their wake. For many niches there is a deal site which has a substantial email list and is willing to promote your product. The arrangement with these companies is usually pretty straight forward. You provide a discount to their audience, and in exchange they provide you with distribution. This is a quick way to get traffic, and given how easy it is to set up this kind of relationship it’s worth trying. Another unexpected side benefit of these deal sites is the number of people who will purchase your product at full price even though they came from the deal site. The internet is a strange place and this will happen more than you would guess. Mighty Deals is a niche deal site that serves designers. It would be worth it to see if you can find a deal site for your niche. Leverage Other Peoples Audience (LOPA)Although this is built into many of the tactics already covered I still wanted to talk about LOPA explicitly. Basically, building an audience is incredibly hard. So if you can find any way to leverage someone else’s audience then you will be taking advantage of a traffic shortcut. Guest blogging is a form of LOPA. Guest podcasting is a form of LOPA. Even marketplaces are a form of LOPA. Here are some other ways that you can take advantage of LOPA:
Social Media via Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/UU7LJr April 23, 2019 at 12:43PM Social Media Strategies That Are Still Relevant http://bit.ly/2PrCvz3 As a brand, an influencer, or just someone who has something to sell, you need to think your social media strategies from the ground up year after year. That may feel a bit tedious, so you may want to learn about some strategies that tend to remain relevant, even in the ever-changing landscape of social media. Cultivate your love for your audience The millennial generation is all about having a voice and be heard, and generation Z has grown – and continues to grow – surrounded by the digital environment that has been in the works for the last decades. Therefore, you must identify your audience clearly and cater to its needs. Especially if your audience falls into these age groups, you must prove that your love for the people who watch you, read you, or follow you, is the genuine article. Millennial and Gen Z groups can’t be fooled with clickbait content. Traditional ads that exaggerate the benefits of a product or a service are today the stuff that memes are made of. As a result, these consumers value honesty above all else, and, in that respect, they are no different from other age groups. Only that they are better equipped to be able to tell when a company or an individual is trying to sell them something they don’t need or want. So, be honest and genuine, and your follower or subscriber base will grow. Apply the S.M.A.R.T. formula for your marketing strategies One of the things companies, brands, and influencers have complained about over the years is that social media doesn’t entirely pay off since the campaigns they run don’t yield the expected results. When building your marketing strategy for social media, always keep in mind the S.M.A.R.T. formula. In other words, your approach must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. There is also something that should be added here. You should set realistic expectations. Work on small samples of consumers, and start small. This will give you the possibility to adjust your marketing strategy as you go, without investing the entire budget for the year. ‘Spy’ on your competition Building a brand new strategy can be challenging and time-consuming, especially for someone who doesn’t have the resources of a big corporation at his or her disposal. So, one thing you can do is to start examining what your competition does. There is no shame in imitating something that works. As long as it fits your business model, you should give it a try and see the outcome. Content is still king and will remain so The mantra of the last decade has been this so far: content is king. And it should be so since people seek real value even when they are just browsing through their social media feeds. For them, well-written reviews of products that come from established experts, as well as consumers just like them, represent the real value. That is what you focus on, too. Provide real value with each blog post you write, YouTube video you create, or photos you want to post on Instagram. Don’t neglect the power of engagement Consumers are no longer passive spectators to ads, presentations, and other marketing materials brought in front of their eyes. They like to comment, share their opinions, express their doubts, and that’s the type of resource that you shouldn’t overlook. If someone says something, good or bad, about your product or service, answer in a timely fashion. If you have to deal with an influx of such input, maybe a good idea would be to hire someone to be in charge of engaging with your audience. The post Social Media Strategies That Are Still Relevant appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://bit.ly/2onGYog April 23, 2019 at 08:32AM
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Five Tips On How You Can Use Social Media To Boost Website Traffic http://bit.ly/2Zulau8 In the world we live in today, social media is perhaps the best way businesses can interact, and build relationships with their target audience. The direct interaction it offers allows companies to develop their personalities and present them to their customers. It’s no surprise that a whopping 92 percent of small business owners who are social media users consider it a crucial strategy. It helps potential customers recognize your brand, build a community comprising your followers, and helps foster your bottom line. With the number of social media users increasing by the minute, it has become increasingly important for every business to incorporate social media into their marketing strategies. In short, there’s no better time to use social media to attract traffic to your websites. So, how exactly can you do that? Well, keeping reading to learn about the five best ways to use social media to boost traffic: Optimize Your Social Profiles Similar to how you focus on search engine optimization (SEO) for your website, the same rules also apply to your social media profiles. For starters, you can ensure that your biography and about description have keywords incorporated to them. Furthermore, make sure you haven’t missed out any section in your profile and that all relevant information has been completed. You should also include your website’s link to your social media biography since this is a great way to boost your website’s SEO. By using your social media profiles to link back to your website, you can create high-quality backlinks which are especially useful to social media profile optimization. Choose The Best Time To Post There’s absolutely no point posting content on your social media profiles if the audience you’re targeting isn’t online to see it. Of course, this doesn’t mean you won’t get any views at all. However, it’s likely those aren’t the views that fruitions into action and they may contribute to your bounce rate. The solution to these problems is the peak time, which is simply the time most of your target audience is active. The peak time often varies on different days of the week with Thursday being popular on Twitter (5 pm) and Facebook (8 pm) and Friday is the most popular day on Instagram (7 pm). Once you’ve established your brand, you can start experimenting with different times and days to see how your audience reacts and whether the experimentation drives enough engagements. With a few trial campaigns, you can analyze the results and determine what works best for your brand. Share Your Posts While this tip is pretty much a given, there’s no downplaying the importance of sharing your posts to your social media profiles. Every time you publish a new blog post or upload a new photo on Instagram, you need to ensure your social media audience also knows about your new content. Blog posts, in particular, will be able to draw in more audience when they’re shared on social media since, when more people gain awareness and access to your content, it boosts your search engine optimization (SEO) and helps with engagement. Just like anything else, it’s important to analyze your results and determine what works for you. For instance, it’s possible you’re gaining more traction on platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, than Twitter or LinkedIn. Using a tracking tool allows you to see where most of the traffic was coming from and how that traffic interacts with your content. Choose The Right Content To Post The best way to figure where you should start and what your business is supposed to do is by looking at what’s working for your competitors and taking that up to a notch. Once you’ve determined what tone or voice works for your social media posts, you can use other skills, such as Photoshop and photography, to come up with better content and even use them to post product images for your e-commerce business. There are various content generation tools, such as Canva, available that will help you come up with new and original content and gain more followers. Content with visual elements, in particular, such as images, gifs, and videos, will tend to get more clicks, views, and share than any other kind of content. Additionally, your content should also be accompanied by short text or description, hashtags, and emoticons to encourage more interaction with followers. For instance, you can post images, quotes, links, or reshare something altogether. You should keep the tone and theme of your content consistent to avoid creating too much disparity in your brand personality. Choose The Right Social Media Channel Before you jump right in and start implementing your devised social media strategy, you need to step back and reflect on one crucial aspect: know your audience. Every social media platform caters to a different audience, and you need to choose one that falls in line, not only with your target audience but also with your business goals. For starters, you should focus on the demographics of your target audience to draft up your target buyer personas and the mediums they prefer. You don’t need to be active on all social media platforms; you need to choose the ones your audience is active on. For instance, Twitter is excellent for political organizations while Instagram is perfect for food and travel bloggers. Keep in mind that you’re aware of the rules and guidelines associated with the platform you choose. For instance, if something such as your Instagram story dimensions could turn off your potential followers and push them the other way. Using social media to boost your website traffic is an excellent way to create brand recognition. By starting with at least one of these top-notch tips, soon enough you’ll be drawing more and more visitors and establish you’re it enough even to sell your website one day. Regardless of what route you decide to take, social media is a valuable asset to add to your arsenal, and the possibilities it offers in terms of content marketing and lead generation are endless. Have you tried any of these tips before? Or do you have suggestions of your own? Sound off in the comments below! The post Five Tips On How You Can Use Social Media To Boost Website Traffic appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://bit.ly/2onGYog April 23, 2019 at 07:52AM Identifying Health Trends via Social Media http://bit.ly/2UtZQ4h Social media can be seen as an information hub as you can find all sorts of news, trends, and gossip on the many platforms. In light of this, business, organizations, and brands often want to both create a presence online and ensure they’re up to date with what’s going on in their respective industries and beyond. The health industry especially is a good place where you can find useful information that will help you learn more about health whether for personal or professional reasons. Here are a few health trends that you may be able to identify via social media if that’s your aim. Fitness If you haven’t already noticed, fitness happens to be trending on social media at the moment. If you check for popular health-related hashtags, you’ll find that millions of people are sharing health-related content. In addition to this, social media is influencing the way people exercise as now there are videos, live streams, as well as a community of people encouraging and rooting for one another. Mindfulness Aside from the mentioned, another health trend that you have likely been able to identify on social media is mindfulness. As there has been much more talk about mental health and the need to improve wellbeing, there is no surprise that mindfulness is on the radar too. You will find many professionals promoting mindfulness teacher training if that’s something that interests you. Being more mindful and taking the time out to reflect can make your days and health far better. Awareness Thanks to graphics and infographics, people can now learn a lot more about health by merely scrolling through their galleries. This can be seen as a great thing as it’s a way of getting more people to evaluate their lifestyles as well as pay more attention to their health and that of those around them. There is even the opportunity to learn more about the health of your pets if you happen to have any. Dog skin cancer, for instance, is something that could be detected early on by simply following a dog brand or vets on social media. Awareness posts go a long way in creating reminders and teaching you new things. Food In addition to awareness, there is a lot more healthy food content trending on social media these days too. You will probably notice that there are colorful dishes as well as organic and plant-based foods trending because of their supposed health benefits. Not only can you get dish inspiration from such pages, but it’s also the chance to learn about different products and their health benefits. You’ll usually fund nutritionists, healthcare professionals and brands sharing such content. Social media trends happen daily in every industry. Whether you happen to be a health fanatic or just want to learn more about your health, you’ll find the kind of information you need. It provides opportunities for people in the health industry to promote their services as well as share their knowledge. The post Identifying Health Trends via Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://bit.ly/2onGYog April 23, 2019 at 07:52AM Using Social Media to Leverage Your Business http://bit.ly/2ZwoPYa These days, social media is an incredibly powerful tool that can be used in both business and your personal life. Not only is it a way to connect you to people all over the world, but it also helps to share information much faster than traditional mediums like news stations or radio. Having said that, if you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, social media is a tool that you should be using to grow your brand. It is multi-functional and can help you meet several goals or objectives. On that note, continue reading to learn more about ways you could be using social media to leverage your business. Brand Awareness One of the primary ways that social media can be used to leverage your business would be to create brand awareness. There are a few ways to help you achieve this, but the first would be to find your target audience where they are. It will require that you do research and figure out what platform they’re likely to be on. You can then create content that they’re most likely to engage with. In doing so, you have a better chance of creating awareness about your brand, and hopefully building your business. For Sales Another way that social media can be used to leverage your business is by using it as a platform for selling. Not all brands do this, but if you choose to, it’s crucial that you have an effective strategy in place. Below are a few things that you may decide to sell on social platforms.
Engagement Another way to use social media to leverage your business would be to increase engagement and build an online community. Aside from selling, social media is a great platform to help you show your customers your human side. Do so by responding to their comments, asking them questions and reminding them how your brand fits into their daily life. The post Using Social Media to Leverage Your Business appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://bit.ly/2onGYog April 23, 2019 at 07:52AM |
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