Hope you enjoyed reading our blog on Top Ways to Use Social Media Marketing for Your Business. Social media is an integral part of the marketing strategy for any business and its sole purpose is not just to drive sales and generate leads but more to build a stronger relationship with the customers as well.  It paves the way for a business to share and strengthen the bond with its audience and understand them better.

On 11th January, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be changing its news feed algorithm to prioritize content from “friends, family, and groups.” As he says there will be less public content like posts from businesses, brands and media and businesses will have to work harder than ever to gain their customer’s attention on the platform. It is evident for businesses to post content that will encourage meaningful interactions between people.” We are yet to see the results of new algorithm however it is going to challenge businesses more than ever before to come up with content that really focuses on providing great user experience, is more relevant to the users and triggers them to respond to it rather than just getting likes from the audience.

Now there is a stronger need for businesses to emphasize more on customer engagement and establish more trust with existing or potential customers. Companies which will be able to think differently to utilize the power of social media for building meaningful engagement with the customers will not only succeed but thrive. A fully engaged customer will always remain loyal and emotionally attached to their favourite business brands and will never opt for any alternatives. It is proven that level of customer engagement can be directly linked to crucial business results.

Now the question comes; what type of content will lead to more engagement! There is a plethora of content that gets generated and put on the social media every day. There is no limit to the amount and the kind of content that can be produced. There can’t be one single strategy that will give results for every business. There are content writing strategies that can help acquire more organic traffic but there are certain fundamentals of creating engaging content.

1. Quality and relevance

You need to know who your customers are! With your goals and target audiences in mind, try to find out what can you offer them or what they would like to hear from you. Think about content that will generate a response from viewers and give them reasons to return to your page. It is easy to create just any content; more effort and time is required for creating a good quality content which is relevant to the users as they are following your page for a reason.

2. Your content must be original

Originality confirms uniqueness in your content. What will set apart your view or creation from the content present on other websites on similar topics is originality. Of course, it is not at all easy to come up with new ideas for every piece of content however you can make efforts to present an already existing information or thought from your standpoint and Google will just love you for it! Content need not necessarily be a blog or article; an image, infographic or video is also a content. To preserve individuality don’t stick to creating just one type of content.

3. More visual content

The human brain processes images faster than text, this is the reason your audience will always prefer and find easier to engage with a visual content rather than plain text. Select from multiple creative options like sharing a simple image, infographics, GIFs, videos or any graphics tutorial giving information about your product or services. What makes visuals indispensable part of every content strategy is that they are always less time-consuming, are more enjoyable therefore easy to remember. They stimulate a prompt and stronger reaction so more likely to get shared!

4. Engagement must be two-way!

Think if your content is giving a chance to your audience to share their opinions and feelings. You are creating content for them but if your company is doing all the talking; narrates your business products, viewers will soon start to lose interest as they are not getting any chance to converse. If your content is only meant for reading or viewing and is not provoking users to take any actions, you will never to come to understand your audience, their likes or dislikes, do they feel your content is useful or not! Think of some ideas how you can turn a tedious post into an interactive one.

Be there to connect with your customers, engage in conversations and enhance your relationship with them! Please do share your ideas to optimize social media for customer engagement!

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Social Media Return on Investment (ROI) is simply measuring the value that we got from our social media campaign to determine which social media marketing efforts are working.

How to measure Social Media ROI

ROI = (return – investment) / investment

This straightforward formula has just the two parts: Return and Investment. Buffer blog explains in detail the different methods to tackle the monetary side of ROI.

Keep in mind that setting goals and objective should be measurable and attainable and make sure you choose the right metrics to measure your social media campaign success.

Social Media Examiner discussed in details the different Metrics to track Social Media Success and how campaign performance helps determine which tactics are working.

Social Media ROI Challenge

In an eConsultancy survey conducted by Convinced and Convert, 41% of the respondents have absolutely no idea of social media’s financial impact.

Another social media survey by MarketingProfs: 47% of respondents say social media measurement is important to them; another 36% say it is somewhat important.

A further survey made with 70% of respondents to determine social media’s return on investment (ROI) and most marketers say their companies are not adequately measuring the impact of social media campaigns.

Why you should Measure ROI

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Is it “the end” for Facebook?

What is the likelihood of Facebook users losing their trust in them? Will users still share their data on Facebook? Facebook has been faced with a lot of tough questions this month. History of the digital world has proved that all social platforms like Friendster, Myspace and Orkut have a lifespan. So is it the time for Facebook to rest in a digital graveyard?

People have known for years that advertisers can get our data from Facebook or target ads by using that data but the current environment started a spark. There has been a raising hashtag delete facebook movement since the news broke that Cambridge Analytica used data collected from Facebook to sway voters in favor of Donald Trump.

The Facebook VP and Deputy General Counsel, Paul Grewal, posted on Facebook “The claim that this is a data breach is completely false. Aleksandr Kogan requested and gained access to information from users who chose to sign up for his app, and everyone involved gave their consent. People knowingly provided their information, no systems were infiltrated, and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hacked.”

Do you agree that Facebook is a victim of Cambridge Analytica?

All we know is that Cambridge Analytica obtained data from Facebook in a way that violated Facebook privacy policy.
Facebook was aware of this breach since 2015 but it was only when the New York Times and other media published the story, Facebook crosses the bridge.

As Marlo Thomas says “Despite our ever-connective technology, neither Skype nor Facebook — not even a telephone call — can come close to the joy of being with loved ones in person.”

Facebook holds probably the largest data on personal insights that has ever existed. “Facebook itself has more than 2 billion users, those other three apps now have more than 3.6 billion combined. The entire population of Earth is around 7.6 billion, which gives you some perspective on just how entwined Facebook is – and these apps aren’t even available in the most populous nation, and in many low connectivity regions”.

There is a fact that even if people deleted their Facebook account, Instagram is climbing the charts and it is owned by the same company Facebook!

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For any startup or small business, the most important mission is to find and acquire new customers. Unless a new business with limited budget and resources has a powerful team to develop a great marketing strategy and create the right content, it will be constantly struggling with challenges to remain visible to the potential customers. A business owner might be tempted to work on different marketing strategies and plans each day in an attempt to find the one that best suits his business and brings good results.

Social media marketing can be one of the best options for small businesses. With more and more active users joining social media sites, there is more opportunity for businesses to create brand awareness, engage with the current and potential customers, and serve them better. As we spoke about SEO in our recent blog, though SEO will bring targeted traffic to your website, social media can have the influence on buying decision of the customers.

According to a recent study from Forbes, 81% of respondents said that recommendations and posts impact their buying decisions, and 78% said that social media posts directly from a company influence their buying decisions.

Let’s look at some interesting statistics that show how social media marketing is impacting businesses.

• • As Social Media Examiner shares, 92 percent of social media marketers said that social media was important to their businesses

  • Social Media Examiner’s report shares that 84 percent of marketers have integrated their social media strategy with their traditional marketing strategies

  • 90 percent of businesses said that social media has increased the exposure of their business

  • Over 50 percent of marketers say that social media has directly increased sales

  • Forbes reports that three out of four consumers say that social media impacts their buying decisions

Here are some of the top ways to use social media to market your small business:

1. Advertising on Social Media

One important benefit of advertising on social media channels is more targeting options. Social networks carry a huge amount of user information like their behaviours, interests, age-groups, demographic or geographic information; which a business can utilize to reach specific audiences by creating relevant advertisements. You can create social media campaigns using the platforms where your target customer is more present and most engaged. There are tools you can use to track the performance of your social media advertising campaigns, how successful were your campaigns and what next strategy would you want to implement.

2. For Branding

For a start-up, branding becomes even more crucial and is not limited to luring customers only but also to become visible to other investors and partners in this ever-increasing competitive market. Begin by choosing the right social media platforms and creating the content that visitors will find interesting, they would want to follow and can give you the opportunity for better customer engagement. A simple activity such as running a quiz or contest with giveaways is a great way to connect with your audience and gain more following.

No other marketing method will give you the opportunity to know your customers at a personal level. At the same time, interactive posts with your brand logo will help you create an identity of your business among the audience.

3. For Building Community

Why startups should care about building community. According to David Spinks, CEO, and co-founder of Feast, community building can wield power even at the earliest stages of growth for startups and he shares examples of many startups who have invested a great deal of time and resources into building community. It is important to understand why a startup with so many things to figure out should focus on building community on social media. As David Spinks says; the simplest and most valuable thing you’ll get from a community is highly engaged customers or users.

Social media community is more than receiving a huge number of likes and comments on your posts. A true social media community is the one where followers interact with each other. They will react to other follower’s response, share their thoughts, ask questions, and seek advice and so on. They feel important and included as part of one group. They develop strong emotions for a brand and build relationships with other members.

4. Track Your Results

As you start gaining experience in social media, you can use tools and software that provides data about your social media platforms. Social Media Analytics can really help to track and measure results of your social media strategies leading to more information-driven business decisions and increased customer centrality for brands and businesses. You’re analyzing your own efforts on social media, but what about your competitors? Remember another challenge for startups is competitors and it is vital for them like for an established business to compare their social media presence with other similar companies. They can learn a lot by analyzing social media profiles of their competitors, what kind of content they are posting, the mistakes they are making, and their social media practices. This information can be used to create a competitive advantage over them.

Having a social media profile does not mean you need to be on every platform and connect with everyone. Choose a platform that is relevant to your business, connect and interact with the right audience, find creative ways to engage with them, monitor your strategies, don’t be afraid to experiment and implement what works best for you!!

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Digital marketing is the most powerful and innovative form of marketing for the growth of your business. It is the best way to reach your potential customers. It could be from google search, social media marketing services, email and online advertising in short Digital Marketing is a term for all your online marketing efforts.

Building a website with Search Engine authority, loyal online community, digital trust, and collaboration is a long-term process that requires patience but an effective investment in the future.

Digital Marketing Assets You Need To Invest:

. Website

. Social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)

. Branding Assets (Logos, fonts, colours, etc.)

. Blog posts

. EBooks and whitepapers

. Infographics

. Interactive tools

. Earned online coverage (PR, social media, and reviews)

. Online brochures and lookbooks

Tactics to do Digital Marketing

. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

. Content Marketing

. Inbound Marketing

. Social Media Marketing

. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

. Affiliate Marketing

. Native Advertising

. Marketing Automation

. Email Marketing

. Online PR

Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

In Traditional Marketing

There is very little engagement between B2B and B2C. It is more of providing information to the public rather than brand awareness. Most people hate receiving sales flyers or phone calls that they have little interest in. While Digital Marketing your audience can choose how they will receive your content and what content they will receive.

Example of Traditional Marketing:

. Commercials both on TV and radio

. Billboards

. Print Ads

. Cold Calling / Telemarketing

. Direct Mail

Online marketing or (Digital) allows business to reach targeted ideal audience. In this case, most companies focus on online marketing over offline marketing. This change deals mainly with email communications, web tracking, PPC, and SEO. And it is effective in client engagement and leads.

Let’s analyze your Digital Marketing assets and use digital marketing solutions to grow your business.

Benefits of Digital Marketing:

1. Higher Conversion Rate

Digital marketing enjoys an edge better conversion rates over traditional marketing

2. Get Measurable Result

You need to measure results from the pieces you create and ensure that you get the best results: efficiently and effectively resulting in ROI.

3. Website Traffic

Web traffic is an important marketing metric and there are many ways you can increase traffic to your website

4. Lead generation

The process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects to potential customers.

How important is digital marketing to generate leads in your business?

Digital Marketing utilizes research, strategy, data and planning to optimize your campaign so you can easily reach wider and targeted audience so that your business can dominate.

You can potentially reach more people by targeting their location, demographics, behaviours and also the things that interest them.

Image by: 360direct

Marketing has always been about making a connection with your target audience in the right place, at the right time.

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Having a website is a must for all businesses. With increasing customers spending more time on the internet, an online presence is a great way to connect with the potential customers and give them information and solution they are looking for. But on the other hand, competition is too high. What will attract visitors to your website than to a competitor’s website? A website should not only have the relevant information and quality content but it must be well-structured and optimized for a search engine so it ranks higher in search results.

Search Engine Optimization is an effective and affordable strategy to improve a website’s ranking in search engine results page. As per CTR study, 75% of people never scroll past the first page of a Google search. It is clear that every business would want to get the first page rankings.

Here are some top reasons why Search Engine Optimization is important for a business:

Authenticity of Business

Google is a highly trusted search engine for its users. When Google places a website on top based on a number of factors, such as website speed, backlinks, bounce rates, and other factors; users trust they are receiving the best relevant content from Google. So appearing on top is an excellent opportunity for every business to create a better image and authenticity of themselves.

More Traffic

The higher a page is ranked in search results and/or the more often a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive. Your goal of having a functional website is to put your products or services in front of highest possible customers over the internet. When a website is well optimized to appear on the first page of Google, it gives a business an excellent opportunity to have more traffic.

Cost Effective

Time and patience are the only two main investments in organic SEO. Once your content is set up properly on a website; it will keep on attracting new prospects without any additional cost. It targets users who are actively looking for similar products and services online hence more cost-effective than all other marketing techniques for delivering brand awareness and relevant traffic to a business website.

Better ROI

There is nothing that comes close to the ROI that SEO can provide to your business. Paid advertising like Google AdWords might give you a reasonable return on investment but it costs really high. With SEO the visitors are landing on your site after searching for relevant and related keywords and search terms related to your business. A business doesn’t need to waste a lot of money to reach target audience; convince them to buy a product or service, but to show up when they are looking for the service!

Increased Site Usability

SEO consists of rearranging the site’s architecture and links so that pages within a website are easier to find and navigate. These efforts not only improve the design of a website’s navigation for the search engines but also for the users, so even the first time users can find the information they need with the least of effort.

Your competitors are doing it

Your competitors understand the benefits of SEO and are already using it. When entering the same industry, similar products, and almost similar prices as other businesses, a good SEO strategy will ensure that you do not miss any big opportunity to your competitors. Get inspired by understanding what they are doing, keywords they are using to attract more traffic and develop better strategies to propel you one step ahead of them.

Search engines are constantly evolving and changing their algorithm to keep up with the constantly developing new technologies. Your SEO Strategy should be a long-term process with proper maintenance. As Jason Bayless says, “SEO is a never-ending process”. Always make sure that your SEO trends and strategy is up to date as it will go a long way for your business with proper maintenance.

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Featuring the New AdWords Experience here are the Google AdWords terms you need to know, to get you start with your paid campaigns and increase your conversion.

Campaign – Campaign on Google Adwords is a set of Ad groups like ads, keywords, and bids that share a budget, location targeting, and other settings.

There’s more to an AdWords Campaign than waiting for visitors to click on your ads. You need to show to the right people the ads you’ve made.

Search Networks – Your ad can show to search results when someone searches one of the keywords related to one of your campaigns. As WordStream say Search Network connects advertisers to people actively looking for your products. As a result search campaigns typically drive more conversions than display campaigns this is because when users are in GDN (Google Display Network), they may not necessarily want to shop at the moment, they are just online for other reasons.

Display Networks – On the other hand, display network can help advertisers capture someone’s attention earlier in the buying cycle.

Shopping Campaigns – It is more than a text ad with the title, price, shop name and more. Jane Modena shares Best practices and pro tips about Shopping Campaigns.

Video Campaigns – Get your video live. Using your YouTube account just upload your video then use Google AdWords to advertise your campaign. Your video will now be shown on related videos and searched results.

Universal App campaigns – Allow you to promote your app across Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Gmail, and within other apps and mobile websites on the Display Network. As an app advertiser, you want to get your app into the hands of more paying users.

Impressions – Impressions is the number of time your ad is shown on a search result page or other sites on the Google Network.

AdRank Adrank in AdWords is a key AdWords marketing concept that plays a huge role in determining how prominently your ads are displayed in a SERP and also your cost-per-click.

A/B split testing – Most effective way to successful campaigns it is all about getting statistically significant data across all the ads involved in any given test. This will give ideas about improving your paid ad performance.

Ad extensions – An additional information about your business, like a phone number or a link to a specific page on your website that you can add to your campaign. Google reports that Using Ad Extensions can increase CTR by 30% on average.
Moz walks us through the advantages of using Ad Extensions and how to set up to Improve Your AdWords Campaign.

Landing Page – In digital marketing, a Landing Page is a standalone web page, created specifically for the purposes of a marketing or advertising campaign. Usually designed with a goal – known as a Call to Action (CTA).

Call to Action the other known as (CTA) – is an image or line of text that prompts your visitors, leads, and customers to take action like download an ebook, sign up for a webinar, get a coupon, attend an event, etc.

Destination URL – The URL address of the page on your website that people reach when they click your ad.

Display URL – The webpage address that appears with your ad, typically shown in green text.

Click through Rate (CTR) – is a digital marketing metric that measures the success of online advertisement campaigns. The number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown.

To understand better the effect of Click-Through Rate for your PPC ads Larry Kim discussed Why Click-through rate Matters.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – refers to the actual price you pay for each click in your pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns.

Cost per thousand (CPM) – is a marketing term used to denote the price of 1,000 advertisement impressions on one webpage. If a website publisher charges $2.00 CPM, that means an advertiser must pay $2.00 for every 1,000 impressions of its ad. The “M” in CPM represents the Roman numeral for 1,000.

Billing Threshold – A term used when you set an Automatic payment and choose to pay either 30 days after your last payment or when your account reaches your set predetermined amount.

Bid Strategy – AdWords bidding strategies can help you get closer to your goals.

Best bid strategy is to set yourself an answer to the following questions:

1. How much should you spend on your ad?

2. How to best adjust campaign budget?

3. How to optimize bids?

Search Engine Watch gives a complete guide to Google AdWords Bidding Strategies.

Daily budget – An amount that you set for each ad campaign to specify how much, on average, you’d like to spend each day.

AdWords lets you set an average daily budget for your campaigns, with the flexibility to change it at any time.

AdWords detailed explanations on setting the budget on Google AdWords including how to decide on your daily budget, when to use a campaign total budget, and how budget changes take effect.

Check additional Google Adword Terms

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When I first heard someone say this term, I immediately googled the words and found a very simple explanation of it.  According to Sridhar Ramaswamy “Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device—increasingly a smartphone—to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped.”

As I began to understand it more, I realized it was one of the micro-moments of my day when once again I was looking for some information on my mobile and of course I found it. Thanks to Google!!

We all are carrying technology in our pocket in the form of this small device ‘Mobile’. It always accompanies us whether we are at home, office, shopping mall, hospital or even on roads. There are hundreds of moments in a day when we would reach out to our mobile to call people, text, set an alarm, put a reminder or even take a selfie!! But then there are specific ‘I want to know’, ‘I want to go’, ‘I want to do’ and ‘I want to buy’ moments which involves preferences and decision making by us as a consumer. In these moments as a consumer, our expectations are highest than ever. The Technology has impacted our behavior so much that our mind is now trained to expect results immediately and exactly the way we want. These instances are micro-moments when a consumer would reflexively turn to a device to fulfill an immediate need. As a marketer if you want to turn this changing “right here, right now” behavior of customers into a superb opportunity to connect with them and build trust, you have to well anticipate their needs and enable them to do what they want to achieve in that particular moment by providing a quick and right information. These micro-moments have great implications for your digital marketing efforts.

Image by: searchengineland

As Google says “micro-moments” represents a new way of thinking and a new opportunity for online marketers and that it has the potential to add a lot to your internet marketing strategy. Customers are not brand committed when they start looking for information online, most of them will buy from where they get the information they were looking for at that very moment. As a marketer, you have to think and identify those small moments of a consumer’s buying journey that ultimately leads to final buying decision moment. If you are able to connect with your customers’ right at the moment when they searched for information, they are likely to buy from you. It is very clear that the successful brands of tomorrow will be those who will be able to understand the importance of these micro-moments, identify them in their customers’ buying decision journey, connect with them and able to deliver exactly what they needed right when they ask for it.

A #Hashtags on social media is basically (#) sign followed by a keyword. For example #nfinity8weekend #ilovecoffee are both hashtags. The purpose of using Hashtag is mainly to immediately expand your topic to all online audience and get a response. Best practices for journalists according to Forbes when individual use a hashtag within their tweet, engagement can increase as much as 100%; brands could get an increase of 50%. No wonder people are curious about placing hashtags in their post.

The question now is how to come up with the most relevant Hashtags, and how to use them the right way for your content. Firstly, you should know your purpose and why are you using it. Second is know your audience. Finding the right Hashtag might seem to be difficult as we want to take a look here at how your brand can use hashtags with success, on all social media platform.

Here is the list of best blogs to follow about using the hashtag:

1. How to Use Hashtags: How Many, Best Ones, and Where to Use Them – Buffer’s blog

Kevan Lee shares that in finding the best hashtags for your content make sure you’ve got them in the right number, on the right social network.

Choosing the right hashtag tools will help you find, create, analyze, and track hashtags that matter to your brand. Also, makes it easier for you to achieve your goals.

2. Hashtag Mistakes and How to Avoid Them – Social Media Today

Dhariana Lozano pointed out that “The easiest hashtag mistake to make is to only use popular hashtags.” She even goes further saying that hashtags like #love and #beautiful have hundreds of thousands of posts, but these generic hashtags are going to be useless for your business. You’ll get likes, but not from people who are actually interested in your business or brand.

It is actually right to choose a hashtag that is popular – but not too popular as the competition is high does your post will easily get lost and you will not get the best result you need. In practice seek hashtag that specifically targets the audience you need and should be related to your post.

As noted by The Social MS base 10k to 100k is usually a good number to target. Anything more, that hashtag is not going to work.

What I usually do is to check successful accounts related to my industry and see what hashtags the best work for them. It really helps me with my hashtag strategy.

3. The Ultimate Guide to Hashtags – Socialbakers

According to Socialbakers data, more hashtags used on a Facebook result in less engagement, while using just one hashtag seems to be better than not using any at all. On the other hand, interactions on the Twitter rise when brands are in the sweet-spot of three to five hashtags.

As what William Miller implies be careful about using #Too #Many #Hashtags. Using too many hashtags is generally considered bad form on personal profiles, it applies doubly for brands.  Make sure you test, research and rethink to come up with a great hashtag applies doubly for brands.

Studies show that using 11 hashtags per post generates the most engagement. Although using the limit of 30 is not a bad idea at all.

4. Tips from Postplanner

Don’t put your #hashtag in the middle of the #sentence. That makes #reading the sentence #annoying. Instead, write out your whole post. At the bottom of the post, add the hashtags.

5. How to Use Hashtag Analytics to Improve Your Marketing Efforts – Sproutsocial

Hashtags, if used correctly, are a great tool to track conversations about brands, companies, or events. Monitor your top performing hashtags, share content related to them, and use the hashtag frequently.

Dominique Jackson says tracking social media activity is one of the biggest struggles companies have faced since the early stages of social media marketing. One study showed 39% of businesses don’t measure their social media ROI due to a lack of analytics, resources or expertise.

Learning to use hashtag analytics will help you able to run organized campaigns.

To sum it up you have to test and do your research to figure out what works best for your content. Do you want this post delivered right to your inbox? SIGN UP HERE.