March 2020
The Social Media Rule of Thirds and 3 Best Practices for Social Media Management
Source: Orbit Media Studios
If you’re using social media as a dumping ground for links, you’re doing it wrong. There’s more to social media than promoting your content.
You’re missing out on the more social side of social media, like building your network and making friends. And your accounts won’t be much fun to follow.
There are three types of social posts. And blending them together is part of social media best practices. Here’s a breakdown of the “Social Media Rule of Thirds.”
Source: Orbit Media Studios
Ensuring Optimum Customer Experience: Why Automation is the Key
Source: Business2Community
The antiquated idea that automation will someday replace the human worker has long since been replaced by the realization that automation will not replace but rather enhance the employee experience. Fear of automation has transformed into demand. Because we now know, automation isn’t coming for our jobs – it’s helping us to do our jobs — more easily, more quickly, and more effectively than ever before.
Nowhere is this more apparent than customer support. Today, we know that creating the best customer experience possible goes well beyond simply the interaction between a customer and a support agent.
Source: Business2Community
PR and Marketing During COVID-19: What You Need to Know
Source: Business2Community
COVID-19, otherwise known as Coronavirus, has been wreaking havoc across the globe, with countless people practicing “social distancing” and staying home as much as possible. How does this affect your PR and marketing strategies? Let’s take a look at what you need to know and do during this difficult time.
Perhaps you’ve personally seen the effects of COVID-19 in your day-to-day business. Maybe you’ve had to cancel or postpone important events, started working from home, or implemented daily cleaning routines within your company.
But what about when it comes to your PR and marketing activities?
Source: Business2Community
11 Email Marketing Habits It Pays to Break
Source: Hubspot
Before you break any email marketing habits or best practices, it’s important to first understand why they work.
Once you’ve mastered basic email content creation, you’ll be in a better position to experiment and test certain components of your strategy. In today’s ultra-competitive email landscape, you need to perform tests in order to find out what drives your specific recipients to open, read, and click.
While the right content and design are necessary components for email success, running tests will help you understand how to stand out in your readers’ inboxes. And to understand what to test, it’s helpful to revisit your current strategies and consider which email habits might be appropriate to mix up, or break altogether.
Source: Hubspot
How TikTok has Become the Number One Social Media Platform with Coronavirus
Amid the social distancing guidelines brought upon by the spread of Coronavirus, celebrities have taken to TikTok to share how they are passing time in quarantine. TikTok has become the new hub for stars and organisations to connect with fans and spread awareness on the pandemic.
Lebron James performing a dance on TikTok
The current international lockdown protocols have given rise to a new form of content on social media. #quarantine. The #quarantine hashtag has racked up over 2 million posts on Instagram and is made up of videos and images sharing how people are living through these stringent safety measures. From memes to at-home workouts, this form of content is flooding all social-media platforms. Despite the traction #quarantine is gaining on Instagram, TikTok is still dwarfing these figures, reaching well over 2 billion views for this exact category.
Fitness influencer Demi Bagby posted a video to TikTok with the #quarantine hashtag
Why TikTok?
TikTok is a social-media application commonly used by teens and Generation Z’s to share short-form videos. With the ease of editing, coupled with a large database of music and filters, TikTok has developed a platform for creators to share content in a way which is far easier and quicker than other platforms. The simplicity of developing quality content on TikTok allows celebrities and influencers to branch out to new and younger audiences, which is why it is becoming the preferred platform during this crisis period. The option to embed and share TikTok’s to other social media platforms gives creators more reason to use TikTok. It is not uncommon for celebrities to initially create and post their content to TikTok and then share it to their larger following on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It is the creative accessibility of TikTok, in conjunction with the ability to share to other social media platforms which grants celebrities and organisations with the immense reach they are achieving.
Courteney Cox sharing her TikTok to her 9m followers on Instagram
TikTok during the Coronavirus Crisis
With social distancing becoming the norm for most people, celebrities are turning to TikTok to share best practices, dances and light-hearted comedic content. Many are posting short clips demonstrating social distancing and urging others encourage others to follow their lead. Gloria Gaynor, for example, shared a 20 second clip washing her hands to her 1978 hit ‘I Will Survive”, with the caption “It only takes :20 seconds to SURVIVE”.
Gloria Gaynor sharing handwashing tips to her single ‘I Will Survive’
Users of TikTok are not only limited to teenagers and celebrities. Many companies are using TikTok to build brand awareness though engaging younger audiences with creative and quirky videos. However, during the Coronavirus outbreak, organisations including the NBA have used TikTok as a platform to show fans how each player is individually dealing with the social isolation restrictions.
Organisations including WHO and NBA are using TikTok to encourage social distancing
Similarly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has also taken to TikTok to share best practices, by launching the ‘Safe Hands Challenge’. With over 1.6 billion views, #safehands encourages users to post 40 second clips showing what they are thinking while washing their hands. TikTok’s reach to an entirely new audience allows organisations to share preventative methods that can slow the spread of the epidemic. Posts with the hashtags #coronavirus will automatically include a notice from Health Authorities with updated information.
TikTok has been widely used by celebrities and organisations during the last few weeks as a platform to share best practices, their experiences with social isolation, or just light-hearted dances. The ease of content creation and sharing ability has shown TikTok to be the most effective platform to get content across to a large audience during this period.
The Comprehensive Guide to Podcast Advertising
Source: Growth Marketing Pro
A comprehensive podcast advertising guide by Growth Marketing Pro Hailey Friedman.
In today’s ever-changing digital landscape, us savvy growth marketers have to be nimble and adaptable. Quickly embedding the latest technologies into our toolkit– fully devoted to following our audience wherever they may lead us.
If you’re like me, and you’re on the hunt to nail down an educated, tech-savvy, high net worth audience, then you too have probably found yourself here, at the doorstep of the world that is podcast advertising.
From the highly acclaimed “Serial“, to the wildly popular “Startup“, to ever-inspiring “How I Built This“, there’s a little something for everyone.
Source: Growth Marketing Pro
Pay Attention to These SEO Trends in 2020 and Beyond
Source: MOZ
Without a doubt, it is our job as SEOs to keep an eye on the future and anticipate what Google is planning, testing, or looking to drop on our doorsteps. Over the past 12 months alone, we have seen several changes in Google Search — each impacting how we plan, implement, and report on campaigns.
In this article, I will take a look at what is in store for SEO in 2020 and how these factors will change the way we formulate strategies throughout the next year and beyond.
Source: MOZ
The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing
Social media platforms have experienced exponential growth since 2004. Despite almost half of the world’s population being active on social media, it still has not reached the peak of its popularity. With users spending an average of 3 hours on social media per day, businesses are experiencing countless opportunities to reach their audience through social media marketing.
Social media provides businesses with a low-cost alternative to traditional marketing methods. It also allows brands to interact, communicate and build brand loyalty with their audience. In doing so, they can build their brand, increase sales and drive website traffic.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
- Drive awareness:
Consumers will gravitate towards brands they recognise; social media allows for cheap, effective and easy brand building. Effective social media strategies will stimulate conversation about your brand and get fans talking.
- Build customer loyalty:
A strong investment in customer service can build meaningful relationships between your company and your customers. Social media allows for immediate interaction and customer feedback. Businesses can also respond to their customers right away.
- Low-cost:
Creating social media profiles is completely free. Sharing quality organic content can often be enough to boost your brand on social media, however paid promotions will often expose your brand to a wider audience. Most social media platforms base your ad promotions around a budget, meaning you can adjust it depending on the extent of promotion you want to achieve.
Build a Social Media Strategy to Boost Your Brand
- Align your social media strategy with your business objectives:
Set realistic goals that are in line with your overall objectives. This could be to raise brand awareness, generate leads, increase community engagement or to build traffic to your website. Once you determine which of these goals (or combination of these goals) you would like to achieve, you can develop your social media framework around achieving them.
- Define your target audience:
Create a profile of your ideal customer. By knowing their demographic, behavioural and psychographic similarities, you can develop content that will be directly relevant to them. This will also assist in creating ad campaigns that can be targeted to this target group. If you are struggling to come up with a profile, examine your social media insights to learn about your followers.
- Conduct a competitor analysis:
By evaluating your competitor’s social media strategy, you will gain insight on how brands in your industry are conducting themselves. From this, you can establish what is working for them and what you could improve on; ultimately to inform and adapt your own social media strategy.
- Analyse your current social media profiles:
If your brand already has social media profiles, investigate what is working and what is not. Understand which posts are performing well and which posts are not connecting with your audience. Are your profiles up to scratch with those of your competitors? These are the questions you should be asking when conducting an audit.
- Set up and optimise your accounts:
Determine which social media platforms are relevant to your brand and create them. Try to keep usernames consistent between each platform to ensure ease of access for your consumers. It is likely that a separate strategy for each network will be required. I.e. Tutorials on Instagram and customer service on Facebook.
- Plot and schedule your social media content:
The social media rule of thirds is a common strategy used to develop content. One-third of content is to interact with your audience, one-third is to build your business and the final third is sharing content from other businesses or accounts. Once you have the content prepared, place these pieces into a calendar to schedule consistent and frequent posts.
- Evaluate and improve your performance:
There is no single generic strategy that will work for all businesses. Some areas of your strategy may work very well, others may not. It is important to constantly adapt and develop your strategy with the assistance of analytics and data parameters to distinguish how you can optimise and maximise the use of social media marketing.
Building a solid social media strategy is imperative in today’s marketing climate. With approximately half of the world’s population active on social media platforms, this method of marketing provides businesses with a low-cost alternative to traditional methods. For more information, please contact us here.
What is SEO Content? How to Write Content that Ranks
Source: Ahrefs
One post even ranks for 10,000 keywords and gets over 57,000 monthly organic visits:
How did we do this? By taking an SEO-driven approach to our content.
In this guide, we’ll run through the 8‑step process we use to write content that ranks.
But first, the basics…
Source: Ahrefs
How to Handle Marketing During Uncertain Times
Source: Business2Community
For many businesses and individuals, the past few years have been positive and included opportunities and avenues for growth. With the current COVID-19 pandemic that is spreading across much of Europe and the Americas, the present and future have become very uncertain. The clear focus now should be on taking care of those who are ill, protecting those who are high-risk for infection, and staying healthy.
In the U.S., many businesses large and small are taking preventative measures to take care of their employees, customers, suppliers, and partners.
Source: Business2Community