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4 Wonderful Emails To Inspire You For BFCM 2018 https://ift.tt/2qikNST Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is a great time for businesses and consumers alike. Businesses get to sell in higher volumes, and consumers get to take advantage of great deals. Adobe Digital Insights collected data through Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2016 to reveal that online sales were in the range of $13 billion![1] The number was bigger in 2017 and is expected to still be higher in 2018. Now if you’re running a business online or involved with e-commerce marketing, you definitely want to get in on this action! You want to attract people towards your brand during BFCM to get them to buy from you. One of the best tools available to communicate with your audience are emails, but it can be somewhat challenging to break through the clutter. As you’re probably aware yourself, inboxes tend to get hammered with emails regarding Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This is why we’re showcasing 4 excellent examples for BFCM that are attention-grabbing, and if you take a page from their book you’re bound to get higher click-through rates and stand above your competition. #1 Lucky Brand: Fear of Missing Black Friday. The time is now.What the Email Is: A Black Friday discount email showcasing types of discounts being offered by Lucky Brand. Uses sharp images around a black and white theme and the choice of font accentuates the youthful nature of the brand. The Good: First thing I noticed about this email is the multiple CTAs (call-to-action buttons), which is an uncommon practice. Most marketers advice to keep emails simple with as few CTAs as possible, but in the case of Lucky Brand. They’ve used it as a wonderful tactic. Given that they’re a clothing brand with discounts in multiple categories. It makes sense to have CTAs for each category, further sorted by men and women’s section. This way the reader can choose which discount is relevant to them, and then be redirected to the page of their choice. The email also works because of its excellent design. Though it is a small email, different sections (images, body, footer) have been arranged in a manner that makes the email easy to navigate. Takeaways: If you’re offering multiple discounts on Black Friday, you can add multiple CTAs in your email but remember to keep the email neat and clean. #2 Tanner Goods: Enjoy 20% off Danner, Dehen, and TG EssentialsWhat the Email Is: A Cyber Monday email by Tanner Goods that invites its readers to take advantage of their deals. A small email that starts with a graphic showcasing the primary offer then shows a catalog preview, followed by the email footer. The Good: This email stands out on its virtue of brevity. The brand does a great job of catching your attention by starting the email with a graphic that shows 20% off. Once you know what type of deal they’re offering, you can learn more about the type of items the discount applies to. They show 6 season relevant catalog items that their readers may find interesting. By this stage if you like what you see, you’re obviously going to want to visit their website. Pre-empting your needs, they put a CTA button right under the catalog preview to facilitate your journey through the email. The whole experience of the email becomes fluid. Takeaways: If you understand the way people scan through emails, even a simple email with elements placed in the right spots can be very effective in driving click-through rates. #3 Grammarly: 55% OFF Annual Plans – TODAY ONLYWhat the Email Is: A ‘Cyber Savings’ email by spell-check app Grammarly which offers a 55% off for its users if they opt for an annual subscription. Email uses a single graphic and 2 body sentences, leading to a call-to-action button. The Good: First admirable thing about the email is its title ‘A deal of cosmic proportions’. The title implies a bigger than life value proposition to its readers. Obviously, everyone knows it’s an exaggeration but it does a good job of catching the reader’s interest. The second good thing about the email is the coherency of body text to the title. Poorly designed emails can have great titles or catchy subject lines, but once you read the email the body text often skews away from the subject. A great subject line and a title are followed up by disappointing body copy. In Grammarly’s case that is not true. They do an excellent job of justifying the title with text that explains the discount with a humorous analogy, claiming it is so good it’s from another dimension. Such consistency in text causes the least amount of dissonance to a reader and they are more likely to visit Grammarly’s website through the CTA. Takeaways: Email content should be relevant to email subject and title. A consistent message is more likely to convert readers to visitors and an inconsistent message is likely to irritate readers. #4 Casper: zzz what’s insideWhat the Email is: A Cyber Monday discount offer email by Casper; a home bedding brand. Email uses a single blue backdrop as an effective contrast against a cleverly designed image and some crisp copy. The Good: This is one of my personal favorite Cyber Monday Emails. I instantly smiled at the clever image design. The symmetrical gift wrapped letter Zs show that with their brand Casper, sleeping also becomes a thing to celebrate. The whole vibe of the email makes you feel cozy. To complement that mood, they also use a light font with white color for text. Another admirable thing about this email is the flow. When you start reading, the first thing that catches your attention is the $150 discount, followed by the subject of the email ‘The Gift of Sleep’ which hints to the content of the email. To complement the subject is the Zs graphic. By this point, the reader is fully primed for the main message and is definitely more likely to click on the CTA. Takeaways: You don’t have to have emails loaded with content to stand out. You can use well-designed graphics to make your mark in readers’ inboxes. To design beautiful emails and manage your email lists, check out MailMunch; a tool built specifically to grow your email lists and help automate email marketing for you. If you’re looking for further inspiration, check out this guide for Mailchimp templates to learn more. 1 Becky Tasker, “2016 Holiday Shopping: Up-To-The-Minute Data From ADI,” CMO.com by Adobe: Digital Marketing Insights, Expertise and Inspiration – for and by Marketing Leaders, November 9, 2016, accessed October 29, 2018, https://ift.tt/2Pt5DZo. The post 4 Wonderful Emails To Inspire You For BFCM 2018 appeared first on Social Media Explorer. 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Blockchain company check: why the team says a lot about the company https://ift.tt/2qiZCjJ From time to time, the world is graced by something as hilarious as this; Ryan Gosling’s face above a name of an individual listed as a graphic designer for an ICO. source: CoinGeek
But it’s not all the time that a scam gives everyone a good laugh—especially not when people are victimized. In fact, even with Ryan Gosling’s face on that scam ICO website, the scammers still managed to run off with $830,000 before the site vanished into thin air.
Countless blockchain companies are emerging—at what seems to be–by the minute, and since thousands of them are scams, it’s imperative for anyone transacting with cryptocurrencies to do their own due diligence to protect their funds. The blockchain and cryptocurrency spaces can be chaotic, and they will probably remain that way until both industries mature.
Looking back at the history of the internet, its earliest days were also riddled with tons of scams– and this trend persists to this day—almost 30 years after its inception. The blockchain world will probably have to go through the same rough patch that the internet did for a certain period before effectively purging more of the scams out.
In the meantime, users can educate themselves and do their own research. Here are some steps to help keep you from being robbed in the world of blockchain and crypto.
Check the website for the company’s background and backers. Whether you’re new to the blockchain industry or an experienced participant looking for new projects and platforms, always check the websites of the companies you’re interested in. Most blockchain start-ups include the profiles of their team members so newcomers can better weigh the company’s legitimacy.
You can tell a lot by looking at the team behind a project. One of the best indicators that you’re in good hands is when the expertise of the team members are well-spread and relevant to what they’re doing. For example, a company that is launching an ICO for a real estate blockchain project but whose team members have no relevant background in that industry is probably not a safe bet.
On the other hand, a company building a cryptocurrency trading platform whose members are finance veterans is more likely to succeed. For example, a new cryptocurrency exchange called BitAsset is building a platform for ETF index funds, futures and derivatives, and other financial products—and its team is comprised of Wall Street veterans who know how traditional banking and finance work.
Check if the members listed on the team page are real people and if they are actually connected with the project.
Much like the Ryan Gosling scam, it’s easy for scammers to build a team profile using stock photos of random people, writing fake names and backgrounds for them. Do a background check on the names listed on their website.
Snoop around, find their LinkedIn pages, Twitter accounts, and even Facebook accounts. If necessary, send the account holder a message to confirm their connection with the project. If it turns out they’re not actually connected with the project, not only did you save yourself from a potential con, you would have also helped alert the unwitting individual that their name is being used for a scam.
This is exactly what happened with a project claiming to be reviving SegWit2x last year. The person listed as their CEO denied being involved in the project.
Fortunately, blockchain is also a powerful tool for identity verification, reputation, and background checks. Solutions are being built on the blockchain for more secure, more transparent, and easily verifiable ways to check whether a person is who they say they are. On platforms like LinkedIn, any profile can list made-up credentials, and random people give out their recommendations willy-nilly even when they’ve never met or worked with the person they’re recommending. LinkedIn doesn’t even check to see if the profiles on their site are real people.
But on blockchain platforms, this is changing. Penalties can be imposed on false verifications and rewards can be given for honest, accurate recommendations. One example is a startup called BHIRED.io, which makes identity and reputation verification for employment key focal points on its recruitment platform. Reputation scores are part of the ecosystem, paving the way for a “more transparent and honest LinkedIn.” Additionally, not just anyone can access profiles on the platform; this means data miners cannot just gather data for profit as they please. Data owners have full control over who gets to access their data, and get compensated accordingly should it be shared.
Sounds cliche, but Google it.
Some companies don’t include their team profile on their website; this could primarily be due to turnovers and replacements, which isn’t necessarily a bad sign. In fact, it’s just a natural reality for any company. But a Google search of the company name should help you out.
Results should include news articles, forums, interviews, events—a variety of material about the company. If the company has never been heard of and has no online presence, then proceed with caution.
When in doubt, ask.
There are entities in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space who choose to remain pseudonymous; this doesn’t automatically mean they’re not legitimate. Several pseudonymous individuals have established their aliases in the space, and people trust them without knowing the real identities behind them.
If you’re in doubt, ask around. There are several communities and forums online such as Reddit, Bitcointalk, and Telegram which are dedicated to answering questions and discussing new companies. Even Twitter has a league of people willing to help out; this is the good thing about the blockchain industry—online communities have risen for global collaboration and guidance. The post Blockchain company check: why the team says a lot about the company appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog October 30, 2018 at 03:23PM 7 Ways Influencer Marketing Is Changing (And How Marketers Can Keep Up) https://ift.tt/2Q4RiiM 7 Ways Influencer Marketing Is Changing (And How Marketers Can Keep Up) In a world where 92% of Gen Z trust a social media influencer more than the famous celebrity, influencer marketing is no longer a nice “tack-on” to your advertising budget. Influencer marketing in 2018 is similar to what SEO was in 2008; seasoned and proven enough to take get C-Suite attention, but new enough that the biggest of changes were still to come. As we look back over the past 5 years, influencer marketing has seen rapid changes in how both brands, platforms, and influencers approach it. While much of the industry in the past has been selling the value and gathering adoption, that is no longer. Influencer marketing is changing and there’s a variety of key areas to consider as these changes come to life. Bigger budgetsFirst off the medium is growing, and this will ultimately be the biggest driver of change. Studies show that the the influencer marketing ad spend, which was only $500M in 2015, could easily grow to $10B by 2020. This trickle down effect will mean more agencies arising and getting involved, bigger budget for creative & production, additional budgets for paid media boosts, more regulations, and more platform involvement. What’s causing this growth in budget? Simple; the method is working. While early days were experiential and unknown, today you’ll find thousands of successful case studies on the medium. These building case studies and increase media attention will get the eyes of the C-Suite and ultimately will push forward budgets as projected. Higher demand for unique creativeIn 2016, Scott Dissick showed the world just how bad influencer marketing creative could be when he copied and pasted a email for the caption of a photo promoting a protein powder. While this anecdote was an extreme case of a poor execution, it showed a glimpse of the broad issue with how brands go about executing their campaigns. As budgets and eye-balls increase, there’s a bigger demand for a seamless experience from the influencer’s original content to their paid sponsors posts. Users are starting to be able to more easily distinguish between a paid post and something that an influencer truly enjoys. To combat this, brands & their agencies will need to get more thoughtful in how they write their caption copy, what the photo & video is, and how they deploy it. There will also be increased use of original video content that integrates personality and original writing. Instagram Stories will also be a medium of choice with more unique, influencer-based video content coupling dedicated posts. Demand for authenticityIn an Influencer Marketing survey that asked 170 marketers from CPGs, food-and-beverage companies to retailers, 87% of respondents said that “influencer marketing’s top benefits entail creating authentic content about their brand.” A key to not losing this benefit is to take extra steps to show and push authenticity. “A great way we’ve seen to tell the raw, authentic story in an influencer marketing campaign is filming behind the scenes” says Mike Clum, CEO of Clum Creative, a video production business riding the growth of influencer videos. “Release a long-form video of behind the scenes in unison with the ad will build deeper trust and connection with fans of both the brand and the influencer.” A perfect example is seen in GoldShark’s behind the scenes on their collaboration with KOLD. The 8 minute video documents the hard work that went into the content created, but also showed KOLD’s passion for GoldShark’s products. It gave the final video, posted to KOLD’s channel, a more meaningful dynamic and yielded ultimately a better campaign. Influencer marketing turns to advertisingOrganic posts won’t be enough in 2019 and beyond. There will be and already is a rise in paid media to promote influencer campaigns. These boosted posts will come both from the brand as well as the influencer. Why the rise in paid spend? Because of the volatility in news feed algorithms. Banking on organic engagement is simply too risky given the ebbs and flows of how facebook & instagram prioritize their content. Paid boosts allow brands to take ownership and control of results, engagement, and sales which will be necessary as influencer budgets start to reach a level where ROI becomes increasingly imperative. Higher accountabilityIn June 18’ when Unilever put a crackdown on working with influencers with fake followers, it set ripples in the advertising community. While many digital-first marketers knew of fake followers since the days of Twitter in 2012, this brought a heightened awareness to the conversation. Brands are using simple tools such as FakeCheck.co, HypeAuditor, or TwitterCheck – which allow you to quickly check what percentage of an influencer’s following is real. But this accountability push isn’t just coming from the brands, but also from the FTC and other government regulators who are pushing further regulations and demands for clear communication of sponsorships. Canada went to the extent to publish official influencer marketing ad standards, see other countries to follow-suit soon. LinkedIn & B2B influencers emergingWith the emergence of LinkedIn video, a new breed of B2B Linkedin Influencers are a group to take seriously when it comes to influencer marketing. Speakers, marketers, and consultants with micro followings of 5000 to 100,000 can get extremely high engagement rates on videos and long-form text posts. This underpriced attention is a ripe spot for B2B brands. Platforms outperforming agencies.While agencies are naturally gravitating to capture a volume of the rise in influencer marketing spend, easy to use platforms are making it easier for brands to bring the channel in-house. And that’s exactly what you’re seeing, especially with the uncertainty around follower legitimacy. These platforms allow you to search between influencers, analyze metrics associated with their followings, find the right influencers for your campaign and quickly book them. Essentially doing the job of the agency & talent firm with a few clicks. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog October 30, 2018 at 01:11PM 7 Ways to Throw An Unforgettable Event https://ift.tt/2qk8S79 7 Ways to Throw An Unforgettable Event Planning a special event is an ambitious undertaking. You will invest quite a bit of your personal time into handling all the details, to say nothing of the expense involved in throwing a fabulous event. If you hope to throw a special event that attendees will remember for years, you need to start planning as soon as possible. Thankfully, there are some simple tricks and quick tips that can make it easier to create a memorable and unique event for everyone who attends.
7. Upgrade to Cutting Edge Audio and Visual Technology
Whether you want to show a retrospective video about the guest of honor or hope to integrate some scares into a murder-themed party, the right audio and video equipment and effects can make all the difference. If you can’t handle them yourself, consider outsourcing the technology and the effects. Working with an outside company is often the easiest way to integrate the hottest, newest audio video solutions into your event planning process. Your guests will be impressed by the quality of the effects they encounter at the event.
6. Look into Projection Mapping
Projection mapping can turn even the dullest space into a house of horrors or a fantasy getaway. High-resolution projectors create images on the walls, ceilings, and floor of a space that transport attendees into another realm entirely. You can get as creative as you want with projection mapping. The only real limit is how many projectors you can afford and the artistic skill of the individual handling the map creation process.
5. Create Inclusive Spaces, Fun, and Food
Different people at your event will need different things. From dietary restrictions to physical disabilities, there are issues that keep certain people from truly enjoying special events. Try to plan for or accommodate these needs, perhaps by including a questionnaire with your digital invitation. For example, flashing visual presentations could prevent the risk of seizure for people with epilepsy. Loud noises or fireworks could be triggering and emotionally difficult for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Seafood may be a popular menu choice, but people with allergies or religious dietary restrictions may not enjoy that shrimp cocktail. Know what your guests need, and plan accordingly.
4. Test Everything Before the Big Day
The more complex technology you integrate into your planning, the more testing you need to do. Make sure that every individual component for your party works well. Enjoy sample drinks and dishes from the menu. Check any projection mapping or special videos for flaws or issues with sound. That way, you will know ahead of time if there is a glitch that could impact the party.
3. Focus on Atmosphere
The best events have carefully controlled atmospheres. Whether you’re looking for the frivolity and fun of a 1920s Gatsby-themed event or hope to scare people with a horror-themed special event, everything from the temperature to the lighting can impact the atmosphere. Spend time planning to create an immersive atmosphere that will allow your attendees to truly experience the theme of the event.
2. Create ‘Grammable Moments
Creating a few special tableaus throughout the event space can attract people to take and share images online. Whether you have costumes station or a photo booth that uploads digital images, there are many ways to make your party into a source of long-term social media memories. Consider how people will announce their attendance at the event online, and consider creating signs with a shared hashtag to track social media posts by guests.
1. Require an RSVP From Everyone
Unpredictable turnout to a party is a major stressor as the host. Absolutely demand an accurate RSVP from everyone attending several days before the event. Not only will this ensure that you have adequate refreshments for everyone and all special needs accounted for, but you can also ensure that there won’t be issues with crowding, a lack of seating, or too much noise for the space. A little planning goes a long way when it comes to special events. Creating a memorable event doesn’t have to cost a fortune. It just requires careful attention to atmosphere and detail. By following the tips on this list, you can rest assured that you will create an exciting event that people who attend will talk about for years to come. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog October 30, 2018 at 10:58AM Twitters doubling of character count from 140 to 280 had little impact on length of tweets10/30/2018 Twitter’s doubling of character count from 140 to 280 had little impact on length of tweets https://ift.tt/2Q2M7Qt Twitter’s decision to double its character count from 140 to 280 characters last year hasn’t dramatically changed the length of Twitter posts. According to new data released by the company this morning, Twitter is still a place for briefer thoughts, with only 1% of tweets hitting the 280-character limit, and only 12% of tweets longer than 140 characters. Brevity, it seems, is baked into Twitter – even when given expanded space, people aren’t using it. Only 5% of tweets are longer than 190 characters, indicating that Twitter users have been for so long trained to keep their tweets short, they haven’t adapted to take advantage of the extra room to write. Meanwhile, most tweets continue to be very short, Twitter says. The most common length of a tweet back when Twitter only allowed 140 characters was 34 characters. Now that the limit is 280 characters, the most common length of a tweet is 33 characters. Historically, only 9% of tweets hit Twitter’s 140-character limit, now it’s 1%. That said, Twitter did see some impact from the doubling of character count in terms of how people write. It found that abbreviations are used much less than before. Instead of writing in “text speak” like “u r,” “u8,” “b4” and others, people are now using proper words. For example, the use of abbreviations like “gr8” is down by 36%, use of “b4″ is down by 13%,” and “sry” has dropped 5%. Other words have increased as result, including “great” (+32%), “before” (+70%) and “sorry” (+31%). Twitter also points out that the use of “please” and “thank you” have increased over the year since the character count change, by 54% and 22%, respectively. But don’t take those metrics to mean that Twitter’s community itself has a kinder, gentler tone. Sentiment expressed on the network can’t be tracked by use of polite words alone – especially when they’re a part of less than polite conversations, or used sarcastically, for example. You’d need real sentiment analysis for that. Perhaps unrelated to character count increases, Twitter found that the number of tweets with a question mark have increased by 30%, and overall, tweets are receiving more replies. To be clear, the data is for English use of Twitter, but the company says the findings are consistent across the seven languages analyzed. One thing Twitter didn’t measure was the use of threading, which seems to be the more popular way today of expressing longer thoughts. Threads, which are connected series of tweets telling a longer story, seem to be more popular than ever before. They also appear to take advantage of the extra characters, in many cases. These longform tweets often even announce themselves, by tweeting “THREAD” at their start. But Twitter didn’t analyze the use of threads, or character counts within them, so it’s unclear to what extent they’ve changed following the increase to 280. (We’ve asked if they have access to this data, and will update if they can provide it.) As a proxy, however, tools that help Twitter users read threads have seen a boost in usage in recent months. For example, Thread Reader App in August tweeted a chart showing its website’s global ranking climbing.
Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com October 30, 2018 at 09:25AM Social Media WA Summit | 20-22 February 2019, Perth | Novotel Perth Langley https://ift.tt/2Rlp9Er Social Media WA Summit | 20-22 February 2019, Perth | Novotel Perth Langley Strategies to drive consumer engagement and inform decision making within your organisation Register here – Use VIP code SME1 to receive the best rates available With eight out of 10 Australians on social media, there is now an increased focus for the organisation to become more digitally accessible and transparent to the community. In order to engage citizens and inform the public, organisations are now focused on driving consumer engagement and effectively informing decision making across the West Coast of Australia. Ahead of our Social Media WA Summit 2019, we chat with Nancy Groves, Head of Social Media, United Nations USA about her thoughts on how social media is bringing the community closer together and the challenges with adopting this.
Employees often have overstretched mandates and not enough resources to meet them. That means that when changes like integrating social media use happen, many have a hard time figuring out how to re-prioritise their work. Managers may be slow to understand how these changes may affect existing workloads and guidance can be slow to come. Also, for those working with political appointees, there is always a delay when new teams come and go.
We try to keep an eye on what people are talking about online and make sure that our content matches those ongoing discussions. We keep our content simple and facts based and try to keep it as relevant as possible for those who may not fully understand how complex some international issues can be. We do reply to comments and questions on our platforms and we try to save time for more planned Q&A sessions on topics.
Strategies should be realistic and aligned to goals. It’s easy to get distracted but keeping your eye on your overall goals will help you prioritize. Without adequate staffing, resources and knowledge and/or experience, organisations are likely unable to be on every platform. Pick those that make the most sense for your audience. Depending on your aim, strategies should be able to cover different time frames — several years, a year, quarters, months, weeks and even days. Allow time to explain your strategies to managers, colleagues and peers. You can never assume that people understand what you’re trying to achieve and since everyone thinks they are expert communicators, it helps to have up-front discussions of what you’re trying to do early on. Attend and discover how the United Nations are capitalising on their social media activity: United Nations: Communicating in the era of constant change
Nancy Groves, Head of Social Media, United Nations USA Register here – Use VIP code SME1 to receive the best rates available Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog October 30, 2018 at 06:34AM
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7 Ways to Create Better Instagram Engagement for Businesses https://ift.tt/2zcThdG Are you looking for ways to get more Instagram engagement? Wondering how to build stronger consumer relationships? In this article, you’ll discover seven ways to improve your Instagram engagement.
#1: Follow Through on Follower Engagement to Stay in Step With Your CommunityWhile it’s the first rule of social media marketing, lots of brands and marketers don’t follow through on follower engagement with their content. When you share a post on Instagram, be ready to answer questions in the comments, highlight them in stories, and refer to them in other posts. Beauty brand Glossier spotted a great question in their post comments, so they shared a screenshot in Stories, offered an answer, and took the chance to share a shopping link with their followers. True engagement goes beyond just reacting to your followers. You should actively invite them to participate and then respond. Set up a topic, hear your followers’ thoughts, give them feedback, rinse and repeat. In other words, have a conversation! Instagram has a ton of features that make this easier. Question stickers, poll stickers, and emoji sliders are already popular tools for Instagram Stories. Run a poll to get clear-cut opinions or go deeper with an open question. Use these dynamics to entertain your customers, get quick product reviews, and even ask followers to choose the content they want to see in the future. Food magazine Bake from Scratch gave their Instagram followers control of their content schedule with this quick poll. While Stories are great for having a conversation with all of your followers, the Quick Replies feature lets you connect on an individual level. With Quick Replies, you can write and store common responses to specific people in your DMs. To visualize this, you can create a thank-you message to send to anyone who replies to your stories. It’s easier than giving someone a public shout-out. But a word of caution: make sure your replies don’t sound canned or artificial. The aim is to relate, not alienate. #2: Incorporate Evolving Style and Platform Features Into CampaignsOf course, every brand has its own unique style, voice, and values. While you don’t want to move too far away from those, it’s important to stay abreast of Instagram’s house style, latest design trends, and even memes. If you’re still posting content that looked good last year, your followers will lose interest. Keep up with the latest Instagram features and releases, and watch your competitors closely to monitor trends. It’s worth doing your research into what content and styles are popular, too. For example, it’s pretty common knowledge that photos with a single dominant hue and lots of texture score better with users. But you can also adjust your choice of colors and filters for the season, like L.L.Bean does below, or pick up tips from design experts to make your feed stand out. Although Instagram is a visual platform, don’t forget about text. The way you use comments, captions, and text overlay can impact your posts. There are trends in text, just as there are in photo design. For instance, 2018 has been the year of deadpan humor for big brands on social media. Hot Pockets has joined the trend for oddball humor and snarky replies. Posting this Twitter screenshot brings them in line with the multi-channel trend, too. #3: Cross-Promote Content and Offers to Move Followers Beyond the Instagram FeedSocial media is all about connections, and that includes your marketing. You can’t get the most out of Instagram unless you’re making links with other channels, brands, and tools. Most importantly, you need to connect your social media content to the point of sale. Let’s start with the most obvious. Since Facebook acquired Instagram, the two networks have become ever more integrated. You can use Facebook ads to broadcast your posts on both Facebook and Instagram at the same time. You can also achieve a lot by mixing features within Instagram. To illustrate, use your stories to highlight posts on your profile and vice versa. You can use stories or video posts as trailers for longer content on your IGTV, as Nike does here. But remember, it’s not only about increasing reach within social media. You can bounce followers among your social channels, website, store, and more. Introduce communities to a new range of content and encourage them to escape the “walled gardens” of individual social networks. #4: Use Instagram Stories to Guide the Buyer’s JourneyInstagram Stories is the secret to the social network’s meteoric rise in the past year. More than 400 million users now watch stories daily. As the name suggests, use Instagram Stories to tell a story. Just because the video format is short doesn’t mean you can’t build a narrative. Remember Vine? The short-form social network is long gone, but it taught us that you can tell an epic tale in 6 seconds or less. Here’s a simple, effective story from magazine Travel Insider. With one image, a short text overlay, and a swipe-up link, they’ve set the tone and anticipation for a full article. Try thinking about the story of the buyer’s journey. How can you guide your followers from seeing your content, to interacting with it, to making a purchase? Of course, the tricky part of Stories is transferring that connection off Instagram. Check out the next two sections for some story-specific tips. #5: Make Every Link Opportunity CountOne of the biggest challenges on Instagram is the scarcity of live links. Unlike other social networks, you can’t share clickable links, except in your Instagram bio or via specific business tools. This helps keep the platform free of spam. In fact, it’s one of the reasons that users enjoy Instagram so much. So if you want to make a positive impression, the trick is to work with Instagram’s limitations, rather than against them. Make sure that every link counts. The way you use links depends on your industry, niche, and marketing strategy. You could connect to a landing page, update your link regularly with new content, or hedge your bets with a link channeling service such as Linktree. Here are contrasting link strategies from two Instagram business profiles. ARCH Motorcycle sends followers to their main website, while The North Face’s Instagram for climbing enthusiasts links to the schedule for a film tour of the year’s best climbing films. If you use your business profile to create ads, have more than 10,000 followers, or have a verified account, your options increase. You can add a swipe-up link to your stories or include links in ads. However you share links, don’t lose sight of your strategy. Give users an attention-grabbing visual and a clear call to action. Make sure that the link is fully functional for mobile viewers. #6: Create Point of Sale Opportunities With Shoppable TagsShoppable tags are the most direct form of link marketing on Instagram. Users respond well to rich content and added-value links, but sometimes you just want a simple call to action and a sale. Tags are also what differentiates Instagram from Snapchat. We all know that Snapchat’s popularity with mobile users, especially young people, is unmatched. But so far, it’s been impossible for most brands to monetize. Instagram is the marketer’s compromise. It combines visual, valuable content with the chance to drive sales. The trade-off seems to work for users, too: 90 million users tap to reveal tags in shopping posts each month. The platform is currently testing a dedicated shopping channel on the Explore tab. You may have seen this rolled out already or might still be waiting for the update. There are even rumors that Instagram could launch a separate shopping app. After a shaky start for IGTV, some are questioning whether a stand-alone app would get enough users. On the other hand, apps such as Pinterest and 21Buttons are testing the concept of social shopping with some success. Either way, you should be keeping a close eye on how new Instagram features and user reactions develop. #7: Reward Active Followers With GiveawaysSo far, we’ve mostly discussed practical tools to improve Instagram engagement. But let’s not forget the psychological side of things. You can promote user interactions with positive reinforcement. In other words, show your followers some love. One popular method is an Instagram giveaway. You can highlight products and services, while encouraging engagement and showing followers they’re valued. Subscription beauty brand Birchbox treated their followers to deals, giveaways, and surprises to mark Customer Appreciation Day. The success of a giveaway depends on how you carry it out. You’ll need to publicize the deal in your posts, stories, ads, and even on other platforms. Include a clear call to action and give your announcements a sense of urgency. Be sure to use all of the visual tools that Instagram gives you. Share a prize image, add filters, and layer on special effects such as Superzoom in your stories. Subscription service Gentleman’s Box runs regular contests and co-branded promotions. They keep giveaway stories listed in their highlights so new followers get a glimpse of previous rewards and offers. The prize you choose is key to your success. It has to be relevant, timely, and something that users will value. You can link prizes to themes or special events. And don’t underestimate the power of co-branding: you can team up with other brands or influencers to offer a wider range of prizes. The NBA teamed up with sponsor Kia Motors to give away game tickets to celebrate the new season. The best prizes are things your followers love, but wouldn’t normally splash out on for themselves. Dollar Shave Club wins this one, with a prize that is literally out of this world. Finally, choose an exciting dynamic; don’t ask users to follow you, spam their friends, or repost photos. In fact, reposting photos is explicitly banned in Instagram’s Community Guidelines. In practice, this comes down to a difference in technique. There’s a world of difference between sharing a single follower’s photo with the original image and proper credit, and asking followers to post thousands of grainy screenshots of your posts. Instead, try asking users an open-ended question or encouraging them to share original content. This improves the quality of your interactions, which is the goal of rewarding active followers. It also reduces spam and creates user-generated content that you can repurpose. Tips to Encourage User-Generated Content on InstagramThere are only two types of user-generated content that will be useful to you on Instagram: posts and comments. While stories with polls and question stickers can be a quick and easy way to hear user opinions, it’s much more difficult to record responses or share them with others. In contrast, with the right tools, Instagram’s API allows you to collect comments, posts, and the usernames responsible. Stories are fun if you want to boost short-term engagement. If you want a long-term, data-driven social media strategy, comments and posts may well be more informative. Let’s start with comments. Many brands ask users to tag their friends in post comments, which may help to attract new viewers. However, you can go further and solicit more information. Ask followers how they use your products, what they think of the latest release, and why they love your brand. You can even enlist your followers as product designers and unofficial focus groups. But let’s not lose sight of reality. The truth is that many brands and influencers have indulged in cheap, “like and share”–style engagement for a long time. This means your followers are often not used to sharing real, meaningful content. So to start, users may need an incentive. Tap into the popularity of giveaways and discount codes to encourage your followers to share. Fashion brand ModCloth asked users to share their own designs in original posts and offered a generous incentive (in proportion to the assignment): the chance to win a $500 gift card. As well as comments, original posts from users are a key form of user-generated content. Take a look through the examples in this article: you’ll see brands using their followers’ content for photo posts, product design, and promotional material. And until now, it’s been easy to collect user posts by asking them to share content with a branded hashtag. However, Instagram has programmed a major change to the API, coming up on December 11. It’s part of the ongoing campaign on social networks to improve privacy and quality of engagement. When the full Instagram Graph API comes into effect, you won’t be able to collect user content from hashtags alone. But this doesn’t mean that user-generated content is over. As always, the best strategy is to work with Instagram, not against it. The stricter API is an opportunity to demonstrate again that you have a good relationship with your followers, and they can trust you. Updated apps are already available that allow you to collect user content, with up-to-date permissions. You may even be able to get more contextual information than before, such as email addresses. Your treatment of user-generated content is also a chance to show your respect for your followers. Make sure your privacy and data policies are up to date, readable, and fair. Give users a clear idea of how you want to use their content. Above all, announce any competition winners in a timely and transparent fashion. False promotions do happen on Instagram, and users are quick to call them out in public. ConclusionWhat does engagement on Instagram mean to you? For too many brands, it’s as simple as getting likes and follows. But in 2018, that’s no longer enough for a successful Instagram marketing strategy. Users’ feeds are flooded with content and it’s possible, even common, that someone could follow your profile and then never see your posts again. So how can you increase visibility and improve engagement for your posts? Instagram’s algorithm favors posts based on interest, recency, and your relationship with others. So you need to be posting attractive content on a regular schedule. And most importantly, you need to foster a genuine relationship with users online. Quality engagement takes more effort than likes and follows, but it brings greater rewards. What do you think? Which of these tactics do you use to engage with your followers? Do you have any tips to add to this list? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. More articles about Instagram marketing:Social Media via Social Media Examiner https://ift.tt/1LtH18p October 30, 2018 at 05:04AM
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No, Twitter is not removing its like button ‘soon’, but it is considering it https://ift.tt/2zeredI Twitter’s like button — the heart at the bottom of a Tweet — is one of the more enduring and popular parts of the Twitter experience. So it took some by surprise to see a story published earlier today claiming that Twitter would “soon” be removing the feature. Not so soon, it seems. Twitter today said that while it’s been “considering” a move to remove the “Like” button for a while now — CEO Jack Dorsey has mentioned it more than once over the the last few months — there is no timeline for the move, nor is it happening in the near future.
“As we’ve been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation, that includes the like button,” the Twitter Comms account noted. “We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now.” What’s the backstory here? Twitter’s heart button — which controversially replaced a star back in 2015 — gets used by millions as a quick way of sending an acknowledgement of what someone else has written, without the full force of a re-tweet. It also can be a way to help you track things you found interesting but are otherwise likely to forget. But nothing is sacred on social media, and so it seems that even the simple heart has become subject to abuse. As with any Tweet, one that is harassing or harmful, or that might contain incendiary content, will go viral when it gets Re-Tweeted. But if a large amount of people — or, maybe just as likely, bots — like that Tweet, this can also help push it along in Twitter’s algorithms, where it gets surfaced in lists, in your notifications, and in people’s timelines because of its popularity. Thus, when that Tweet might have a nefarious intention, hearts can lead to heartbreak. In the meantime, the company has been on a long-term process of rethinking what it can do on its platform to make it less toxic — or as Twitter might say it, improve public conversation. Its strike rate is not always perfect, though. Just this weekend, it emerged that it had given a pass to a user who had been reported as abusive on the platform: it turned out that it was the person sending bombs in the mail to public figures. (His account has since been suspended and Twitter has apologised.) On a more productive level, Twitter has been expanding options it gives users to save Tweets that are less ‘social’, such as the creation of Bookmarks, which are private to the user creating them — in effect creating a new tool to replicate one of the ways that the like button has been used. Removing ways of responding to Tweets seems anathema to the idea of a conversational platform, although there are many options for what Twitter might consider before removing the heart (or whatever shape its fave/like takes) altogether: they could include a variety of responses similar to Facebook’s, or changing how a like affects a Tweet’s position in Twitter’s wider algorithms. Twitter’s move to reconsider the like button and what it does isn’t ridiculous in that context, although abandoning it abruptly would be odd, and potentially controversial in itself. Or perhaps not: the company’s stock is up nearly four percent in trading this morning. Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com October 29, 2018 at 07:51PM
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Best Email Marketing Services https://ift.tt/2OgmYjL Nearly every email marketing platform promises the same thing: great deliverability, intuitive tools, designer-quality templates, and useful reporting so you can make the most of every email you send. We looked at the best email marketing services and found that yes, they do all reliably deliver email, make it easy to manage your massive lists, and make sending emails more intuitive. But they’re not all the same. These are our four recommendations and how they stack up.
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Why Social Media Analytics Aren’t Just for the Top of Funnel https://ift.tt/2qpnzGl Why Social Media Analytics Aren’t Just for the Top of Funnel If you’re only tracking the impact of your social media activity within the confines of each social network, you’re likely missing key pieces of the puzzle. Here’s why. “Know your audience.” It’s something drilled into most marketers’ heads from the first day of work. Understanding your audience is key to knowing what your target customers want, like, and think at every stage of the buyer’s journey. And that’s how you convert people into customers, rather than simply collecting a large audience of social media fans. But most marketers also don’t have the necessary insights and data to understand their audiences well enough for marketing campaigns to reach their full conversion potential. It’s easy to track followers or sales, the start and end of the funnel, but there’s often not much measurement going on in between. And even the final numbers you do measure might not have proper attribution set up to fully grasp your result. Only tracking sign-ups or sales conversions will never give you the information you need. What you need is quantitative data and answers about your target customer at every stage of the sales funnel. Instead of just tracking when someone becomes a customer, follow them on the path to getting there. Once you can follow engagement patterns from touchpoint to touchpoint, you can learn specifically where to improve, down to the specific asset or call-to-action. And you can get all of this information from measuring your social media marketing more effectively. Here’s why you might want to ensure your analytics program is set up as well as it can be to optimize your marketing. Optimize and improve active campaigns As the customer journey continues to get less and less linear, and your audience increasingly interacts with you in multiple places at once, social will become more closely integrated with other channels in marketing promotions and campaigns. In the past, social media was viewed as a brand awareness and top-of-funnel strategy for building an audience to be moved elsewhere for conversion. But now, as customer touchpoints spread to more and more platforms and formats, social media plays a larger role further down the sales funnel in multichannel marketing. Take the three questions Single Grain’s Eric Siu recommends asking for each stage of your marketing funnel, particularly the ones around how customers find you and what they need from you to move to the next stage. Increasingly, that answer will be found on social media, whether it being how someone found you, or interaction and connection helping guide them to the next stage. As social media continues to seep throughout the marketing funnel, not measuring it will create wider and wider gaps in your understanding of your effectiveness. Find focus in your messaging Social media analytics can help you hone in on your marketing messaging to better appeal to your target audience. You can do this in multiple ways with multiple types of data. For example, when creating a new marketing campaign or promotion for any channel (or more likely, multiple channels), you can create different content topics and versions of copy based on what social content tends to perform well and what you learn from social media insights. But that’s the least of what you can do. For messaging targeted at a warmer, familiar audience, you might want to test content with your company’s social audience. But with a colder campaign, you can leverage employee advocacy and your team’s personal networks. Smarp has found the average employee advocate can reach at least 300 people per social channel and drive nearly 13 clicks per Facebook share, so this can be a powerful, low friction way to put test ideas in front of cold audiences. Social media marketing and measurement also lets you quickly test different marketing and messaging ideas, see how they engage different audiences, then optimize and iterate on them for a full funnel or campaign. You can even customize this process based on what type of audience you would like to test. Add insights and context to the bottom of your funnel In addition to measuring your organic and paid activity performance, you can use data available from social media to better understand the bottom of your funnel, even when social media isn’t directly involved. Thanks to the information made available from social platforms on your target audience and people engaging with you already, you can get information you otherwise wouldn’t have access to with your own numbers. For example, think about how your strategy and funnel can benefit from Facebook Audience Insights and custom audiences based on what stage of the sales funnel someone is in. You can use your pixels to track activity on different pages, building ad targeting audiences of new leads, warm prospects at the bottom of the funnel, those who found you through a certain source, and more. There are tons of segmentation possibilities. The background data you can get from things like that are completely different from what you might get from measuring email or sales page clicks and conversions. So when you track everything from social profiles to email behavior and look at it all together, you can add more context and understanding to the stages of the buyer’s journey that are lacking in demographic insights. Convert with social As social media becomes even more closely integrated with the rest of conversion marketing, incomplete measurement will become even more detrimental to your other marketing channels like paid ads and email. Improve your tracking today to not only prevent that gap but also add new strength to your entire marketing strategy. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog October 29, 2018 at 04:25PM |
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