Robotic Marketer Blog Posts from January 2021
10 Statistics That Will Impact Your Marketing Strategy in 2021
The New Year has brought the opportunity for companies to adapt and refresh their digital marketing strategies. With the turbulence of 2020 now behind us, companies are looking to bolster growth in 2021 and recoup losses made at the beginning of the pandemic.
Reimaging your marketing strategy is a way of investing in the long-term growth of your business. After reflecting on the past year, these statistics surrounding digital strategy will play a critical role in your strategy and contain fantastic insight into growth in the face of uncertain circumstances.
Brands that were seen as purposeful grew 2x faster compared to other brands (Liana Technologies, 2020)
With an increased focus on social and environmental responsibility, brands that have a focus on achieving a greater purpose have been rewarded for their efforts and their vision through faster growth. Over 2021, corporate social responsibility and transparency will further grow in importance to potential customers. It is now more important than ever to clearly communicate your ‘why’ as a business and ensure that your communications and marketing activities are in line with this.
Posts without a video get 92% less traffic compared to posts with at least one video (Liana Technologies, 2020)
Video marketing was a hot topic over 2020 and for a good reason – video content convey rich information about the personality, work and values of your business and are often the first point of reference for potential clients. Whether it be through podcasts, behind-the-scenes snapshots of the office or professionally made videos, visual assets are critical for your marketing strategy. Once live, you can share your content across multiple social media platforms to provide better content to your audience and improve engagement.
68% of marketing professionals believe marketing automation technology will have a positive impact on their work (Liana Technologies, 2020)
With the rise in marketing technology over recent years, it has never been easier to automate certain aspects of your marketing strategy that are particularly mundane. Automation allows you to streamline your marketing activities, saving crucial time for more creative visual content or planning the next campaign. This means that you can optimize time spent on your marketing strategy to get the best possible ROI for your efforts.
79% of consumers felt companies knew too much about them (Liana Technologies, 2020)
Data privacy and storage concerns were seen as important issues in 2020. With the number of cyber-attacks increasing with the almost exponential growth in consumer data, it is no wonder why consumers had concerns surrounding the privacy of the data they share with companies. In order to safeguard your customers’ privacy, ensuring that their data is secure and being transparent about data use are two important steps to take this year.
86% of marketers use blogging as part of their marketing strategy (SEMRush, 2020)
Blogging still has major SEO benefits for companies looking to make their website and services more accessible to the public. Blogs are not only the ideal place to include keywords and commonly searched phrases to answer your customers’ questions but can also improve the credibility of your business. A well-established blog sharing insightful insights on your industry is a fantastic way to become a thought leader in the field and attract more leads in the long term.
On the first page of a Google search result, the first five organic results account for 67% of all clicks (Zero Limit Web, 2019)
SEO should be a critical step in your marketing strategy in 2021. Your target customers are out there searching for your services, so make it easy for them to find you! Once you have established an easy to navigate and comprehensive website, look to how you can optimize the content and copy to include keywords that are being searched. By appearing higher up in search engine results pages, you can be well on your way to achieving higher levels of growth this year and securing more leads.
65% of B2B marketers are creating infographics ( Content Marketing Institute, 2018)
Infographics are shared 3x more than any other visual content on social media according to HubSpot, making them the ideal piece of visual content to have in your social media strategy. Infographics provide the opportunity to share your knowledge about your industry and spread the word about things that you think are important. Ensure that your infographics include key information and strong branding to improve the visibility of your brand amongst those who view and share your content.
On average, social media users spend over 2 hours a day on social media (Global Web Index, 2020)
As social media use continues to grow, so does the saturation of the attention economy. In order to compete with the thousands of businesses that are marketing to potential customers and clients on social media 24/7, a strong social media strategy is critical. By establishing your key points of difference, posting only the best content and actively engaging with your audience, you can grow your business via key social media channels.
Instagram has 84x more engagement than Twitter and 10x more than Facebook (Ignite Visibility, 2018)
If you’re looking to create a community surrounding your brand, Instagram is the perfect platform. With the impressive level of engagement with Instagram content and the variety of content that can be posted including reels, IGTV videos and stories, the marketing possibilities are endless. By tailoring your Instagram posts around your target market and what they prefer to engage with, you can grow your following on this key platform in 2021.
LinkedIn drives more than half of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs. (Foundation Inc, 2019)
As the premier B2B social media network, having a strong LinkedIn profile is one of the key steps to becoming more reputable in your industry and growing your number of leads. With countless key decision-makers and business owners at your fingertips, a strong LinkedIn presence, consistent branding and high-quality content may be the best move you make this year.
Take advantage of the fresh slate feeling of the new year and the insights from 2021 to create a digital strategy that prioritizes higher engagement and growth.
If you’re looking for help developing your digital strategy, Robotic Marketer can assist through our digital strategy workshops. Contact us today.
How To Set Marketing Goals And Keep Them
Source: Marketing Eye Australia
There is not a business on the planet that hasn’t thought about setting marketing goals for 2021, and at least given thought to how they are going to keep them. Most companies spend November and December bringing together key stakeholders in a business to discuss the next years business, sales and marketing goals. They do this in the form of a series of workshops, and what’s really great about this, is even if you have a small business, a mini-workshop is invaluable for brainstorming how your business can do better in the year ahead.
Workshops are a great way to reinvigorate your team members and engage with them in taking ownership of your company direction. When you have key stakeholders that benefit from the outcomes of marketing at a marketing workshop, you will find that these members of your team will actively participate in following through on key actions that derive from the meeting.When it comes to having marketing goals in a business, it’s important to:
- Make your goals realistic: If you are seeking to double your business, but spend no extra resources and funds on marketing, then this would be highly unrealistic. Look into your industry average for growth rates and work out what investment your business is able to do in marketing, then ascertain what is a fair growth rate that is achievable but at the same time pushes your team to excel.
- Put a marketing plan in place: By documenting your marketing plan and goals, you will be 313% more likely to experience success according to Coschedule’s recent survey. It’s easy to put together a marketing plan either by using a technology like Robotic Marketer or by just writing it down yourself.
- Put your plan in a project management software: It’s great to have goals and a marketing plan, but without putting together an implementation plan, it probably won’t happen. Ensure that you have a weekly cadence for marketing activities in place, key stakeholders responsible for the delivery of marketing and the right support infrastructure in place.
- Set KPI’s: If your goals are year-on-year, then you need to set in place either monthly or quarterly KPI’s so that if you are not edging towards your goal at the required pace, you can adapt your strategy and make relevant changes.
- Celebrate: If your team helps the company reach it’s marketing goals, then everyone should celebrate the win. Set in place upfront how the team will celebrate so that everyone can work towards the achievement.
In my experience in marketing, it is important to regularly remind everyone on the team of the goals that are in place and how performance is measured. It’s also important to continually reinforce the success of little wins along the way bringing the whole team with you.
Marketing can be fun but it’s also work and repetitive in many ways. Adhoc marketing doesn’t work, and for those who continually set marketing goals and then stray from the marketing plan when a bright new idea arises, you will find that goals are harder to achieve.
Make them easy. Set a plan in place, a way to deliver on that plan and measure your performance along the way.
Source: Marketing Eye Australia
Why Marketing Consultants Don’t Know It All
There is this notion that marketing consultants should know it all. They are after all qualified in marketing and are employed to steer a company or brand, but here are some reasons why they may not exactly know everything. And why technology helps fill the gap.
They have other clients.
Your marketing consultant is just that: a consultant. As such, they are likely to have more than one client. This means that, while they are more than able to devote the necessary resources to you, they also have other commitments on their plate which will require their attention. They won’t be spending all the hours of each working day with you or on your business. They may be well versed in your business and its services; however, they likely won’t know as much about the business as you do. They may be highly experienced marketers, but that doesn’t mean they will know everything about your business unless you take the time to fill them in. Don’t assume your marketing consultant knows all of this; instead, help them by filling in the gaps so, in turn, they can help you more efficiently.
They are not prophets.
Though experienced marketing consultants are well versed in providing their clients with adequate assessments of potential risks in marketing campaigns as a result of threats and weaknesses, ultimately, they cannot predict the future. This means that even the best marketing campaign is susceptible to failure for any number of reasons – but this does not necessarily mean your marketing consultant is at fault. Take, for instance, the myriad of well thought out campaigns that never came to fruition in light of COVID-19. Well planned marketing campaigns are certainly less risky than a game of roulette in that they are informed by previous strategies and market trends that provide the perfect foundation for educated hypotheses and projections. However, it is important to keep in mind that there is always room for human error.
They lack follow-through.
The professional landscape is highly saturated with individuals declaring their marketing expertise. This may well be true in the majority of cases, however, there are certainly a number of frauds masquerading as seasoned marketing aficionados. Sure, your marketing consultant can come up with an exciting plan for your business, but can they just as eloquently execute this plan? As Scott Belsky, author of Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, points out, “an idea can only become a reality once it is broken down into organized, actionable elements”. As such, your marketing consultant, though creative, may lack the necessary discipline that could lead to the downfall of your campaign.
Their work is expensive.
Your marketing consultant can provide you with a comprehensive plan of execution when it comes to your marketing campaigns. Its implementation will likely be strategically scheduled out over the desired duration of the campaign, and detail specific tasks for communications. This plan will revolve around sending out emails and calling existing clients as well as prospects, writing content for blogs, coming up with concepts and shooting video content, devising engaging social media posts, and more. It is significantly more cost-efficient, especially for small businesses, to implement these marketing strategies themselves and simply rely on marketing consultants to provide them with extensive planning, as opposed to turning to consultants to both divise and execute plans. Businesses can end up spending a great deal of money asking their marketing consultants to execute the ‘grunt’ work of a campaign, and small businesses should prioritize minimizing costs wherever possible. When it comes to smart marketing, every dollar counts.
They don’t embrace change.
Though the future of AI is daunting to some, an understanding of strategy technologies that founded, in reality, can provide marketing consultants with an invaluable tool to improve their efficiency and accuracy. Many consultants remain apprehensive about AI, largely due to the proliferation of a false narrative that this form of technology is going to steal human jobs. AI won’t take jobs so much as it will change how they operate for the better. Those who are late to the party risk missing out on all the advantages working collaboratively with technology has to offer and end up putting themselves at a significant disadvantage.
How can marketing strategy technologies fill in these gaps?
Unlike individual marketing consultants, strategy technologies do not have multiple clients. In fact, they are built to work quickly on multiple tasks at once. This means that you are always their top priority. Furthermore, your marketing consultant isn’t a prophet, and neither are marketing strategy technologies, although they do provide more accurate projections of the future. This is due to the multitude of calculations they can complete with precision where a human is more likely to become exhausted by such tedious and menial calculations. With automated calculations, there is even less room for ambiguity, which means your estimations for the future are founded in hard facts.
While humans are capable of lying about their level of expertise, a machine is incapable of fabricating the truth. With marketing strategy technologies, what you see is what you get. In other words, you know exactly what return you are getting and there are no surprises. It is, in a lot of ways, a far more valuable and secure investment for a business without a pre-existing relationship with a trusted consultant. Whereas consultant rates are quite high, especially when relied upon for ‘grunt’ work, strategy technologies are comparatively inexpensive when taking into consideration the range of specific and automated tasks that can be undertaken in a short period of time.
In contrast to the ultimately less predictable nature of humans, technology seldom lacks follow-through. Don’t be mistaken, though, into thinking that AI can execute everything exactly as, or better than, humans do. AI is of particular use when it comes to small, repetitive tasks such as calculations or sending out emails, which would take a marketing consultant much longer to complete. However, human marketing consultants are irreplaceable in how they add value to projects through imagination, innovation and informed understanding of the customer psyche. Humans are natural storytellers, and our ability to craft unique marketing campaigns depends on our innate inclination to creativity. This is something that technology inherently lacks. Perhaps we will be there one day, but we are certainly not there yet.
Top 10 Reasons Why Your Website Is Crucial To Your Digital Strategy
Websites have been a key aspect of digital strategy for many years now and despite the growth of social media, a well-designed website is still one of the most important aspects to ensuring success in the online space. If you’re skeptical as to how important a good website really is, read on to discover 10 reasons why your website is imperative for a successful strategy.
Your website helps you to…
1- Create a Good First Impression
Never underestimate the power of a good first impression. Your website is often the first touchpoint your customers have with your business, so a professional design and ease of use helps to ensure that it is not their last. Ensure that your website exemplifies your value with an appealing design, quick load times and strong branding so that they regard your business and offerings highly.
2- Establish your Credibility
A quality website design also enhances the legitimacy of your business. After all, anyone can create a website on a certain topic, so ensuring that your website is built in a professional manner, highlighting your work, key values and how to contact you is essential to building trust with potential clients from the get-go. This initial trust is critical to establishing a strong dialogue between you and your customers, ultimately resulting in improved sales over time.
3- Create Consistency
Your website is the perfect opportunity to make sure that your branding is consistent. This includes graphics, photos and even tone of voice within website copy. A consistent brand further builds on the credibility you have established with a well-designed website and makes your brand recognizable across different online platforms, including social media posts and paid ads.
4- Share Key Information with Customers
Your website is essentially a hub for information for your customers and should be a one-stop-shop for customers to come and learn about what you do as an organization and the value that you offer to your clients. This makes decision making easy for potential clients as they are able to assess whether your solutions are right for them. By clearly outlining what it is that you do and your key values, you are more likely to attract your target market for whom your services are specialized and grow your business.
5- Simplify Interaction with Your Business
A good website can also make it easier for customers to take action and further engage with your business. Website design nowadays incorporates data capturing forms and contact information, so that your customers know what their next steps are when they wish to engage with your offerings. The easier it is to get into contact with you or purchase your services, the less friction there is for sales, meaning that ease of contact should be a priority when designing your website.
6- Host All of Your Resources
As a home page for your business, your website can also host important resources. Blogs, podcasts and thought pieces can all be included within your website, further establishing your credibility in the market. Other important resources that should be included in your website are testimonials and case studies, which can be referenced by customers who want to know more about the nature of your offering or the level of satisfaction amongst past customers. Whatever the purpose of your resources, having them easily accessible within your website is a must to encourage potential clients to engage with them.
7- Make Your Business Easier to Find
Search Engine Optimisation is a necessary part of any digital strategy. By making your business as easy to find in search results as possible, you can reach more customers and grow your business. The role of your website is therefore critical. Incorporating keywords throughout your site and hosting SEO improving content are some of the steps to creating a SEO optimized site.
8- Improve your Following
Your website can also help bolster the growth of your social media channels. Including links to your social media platforms is a must for your website. This means that if customers are interested in your business but haven’t contacted you yet, they are able to follow your accounts on relevant platforms, allowing you to expand your reach amongst potential clients and encourage long term growth.
9- Streamline Lead Generation
Websites are the ideal place to include forms that can assist you with generating leads. Through these forms, you can construct databases of potential clients you can reach out to who have shown an interest in your offerings or resources. This assists with your CRM activities and is a set and forget the way of having a stream of potential clients filtering through your sales department.
10- Improves Customer Service
Finally, your website essentially provides self-service customer support to your clients. By having information about your work, contact details and services, clients are able to easily get information about your company and answer any questions they may have. To further enhance customer support, chatbots can be incorporated into your website to instantaneously answer questions or point them in the direction of appropriate resources. Even if it seems like a simple step, readily accessible contact details and additional information improves transparency and makes it easier for clients to work with you, further building trust and loyalty amongst your client base.
There are so many reasons why a website is critical to your digital strategy. By establishing an appealing, easy to navigate and information-rich website, you can improve trust between you and your potential clients. Additionally, ease of access to information empowers your clients to understand which of your offerings is most tailored to them, allowing you to best help them. All of these reasons highlighted contribute to higher levels of client satisfaction and greater lead generation potential, ultimately helping your business grow.
If you’re looking for assistance with developing a website and some of the more complicated aspects including SEO and embedding forms, Robotic Marketer’s marketing strategy workshops can assist you in building a website that will help grow your business.
10 Reasons Why You Are Failing in Marketing Your Business in 2021
All businesses use marketing to position their brand in the minds of their desired target audience in the best way possible. Effective marketing will ultimately lead to increased sales and brand recognition, however, there are many dangers in current business practices that can result in marketing failure that you may be overlooking.
That is why we have created a list detailing 10 of the most common issues businesses face today when executing their marketing tactics.
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Lack of research
Research, and lots of it, is a must for any business before they can create an effective marketing strategy.
There is plenty to work out before you can even release your brand to the world, such as what channels you will use, who your target audience is, who your competitors are, etc.
These are only a few of the aspects you need to discover to create a successful marketing strategy, meaning conducting thorough research is a necessity, in as many forms as possible, and for as long as it takes until you have all the information you need for your brand.
- You don’t have a strategy
Even if you do undertake the right research, and work out who your target audience is, many businesses then do not use this information effectively and create a detailed marketing strategy.
It is imperative that all businesses manifest a marketing strategy if they are to understand how their daily marketing activities are contributing to the achievement of business goals.
Otherwise, you will have no idea what effect your marketing practices are having on your business and brand, and whether what you are currently doing is resonating with potential clients. This is a major reason for marketing failure.
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You don’t understand your customers or their needs
Communicating with your customers and providing platforms for your audience to discuss issues or queries with your business is the easiest way to understand their needs.
Without regular communication, there is no hope of your business recognizing what is working, or not working for your brand.
Whether you use a chatbot on your website, actively use a discussion forum or even quickly respond to social comments, there are so many ways you can keep in touch with your audience and learn what they want to get out of your business.
There are always alternatives out there for your audience to convert to, so make sure you are meeting their needs and keeping up-to-date with your clients’ needs.
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Marketing and sales departments are not aligned
A major issue faced by many businesses today is the lack of communication between marketing and sales teams.
Sales do not happen without marketing, meaning both departments should have an understanding of where their responsibilities lie, and how they can help each other to improve marketing practices and increase sales.
Both teams should be across all the buying stages and be aligned and have synonymous goals if they are to impact the business in a positive manner.
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Unrealistic goals
As well as working together, both sales and marketing departments need to ensure they are setting realistic goals based on the research they have conducted and the size of their target audience.
Realistic goals are a must, whether they be short or long-term. Unrealistic goals will only lead to demoralized employees and underperforming businesses.
Marketing teams should only focus on setting achievable goals that employees can be rewarded for accomplishing; for if they continue to miss targets, it is likely the business could fail.
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You are using and promoting the wrong channels
Today, there are so many different channels available for businesses to market through, whether it be the many different social media options or website blogs and articles, just to name a few.
It is up to your business to discover, through effective research, which channels resonate the best with your target audience, whether they prefer to get their information online or in person.
Without understanding where your audience receives most of their information on your brand, your business is likely to miss out on many potential leads and future sales.
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You are lacking patience
The majority of marketing strategies do not yield results overnight, or within a week for that matter.
Many take months, or sometimes years, to generate actionable results that can be used to determine the success or failure of your current marketing campaigns.
A large number of businesses tend to give up on their current practices long before they have been able to have a real effect on the market.
Don’t make the same mistake with your campaigns; give them time to reach your audience and leave an imprint of your brand on them rather than scraping “underperforming” strategies before they get started.
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You are targeting the wrong audience
Even if you are being patient and utilizing the right channels, you still could be targeting the wrong audience.
This all comes back to the research you have conducted regarding your target market, what they need and how they want to be informed of it.
Your brand could be amazing for some people, but they might not be hearing about it because you are targeting the wrong clients, therefore you must be sure your research is as accurate as possible and that you’re appealing to the right people.
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Your product or service does not deliver on what was promised
Another factor to marketing failure is that we see with businesses is the gap between what they say their brand can do and what it actually does.
The aim of businesses is to retain customers and generate positive word-of-mouth. But if their brand is not delivering on the promises made in their marketing practices and campaigns, customers will look for an alternative product.
This is why communication with customers is a necessity, listening to their concerns and making adjustments accordingly to retain them in the future.
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Your brand is not easily accessible
Even with a great product and excellent marketing practices, if your product is not readily available to customers then they are unlikely to purchase it.
Whether it be due to complicated online purchasing procedures, limited delivery options or the lack of physical stores and support services, there are many reasons why your audience may choose to go to a competitor with simpler purchasing processes.
There are many reasons as to why a business could be failing, but we are trying to make sure that it is not because of your marketing activities.
Take note of the issues discussed here today and ensure that your business is employing the best marketing practices possible.
8 Reasons Why You Need a Blog Content Strategy
With all the different types of content available to use and explore today, you could be forgiven for getting distracted and neglecting your blogs.
But that stops today! Blogging has, and should still be, one of your top priorities when it comes to content marketing, as it is the perfect avenue for telling stories and engaging your audience.
According to HubSpot, blogs are still among the primary three forms of media used in content marketing strategies in 2020, revealing that the majority of businesses still utilize this reliable form of content creation.
Here are 8 reasons as to why your business needs a blog content marketing strategy to remain front-of-mind in the eyes of your target customers.
- Blogging helps to generate successful social media strategies.
In times past, blogging and social media platforms were used independently, without any collaboration between the two or correlation between the talking points of each post.
In 2021, however, businesses recognize that social media marketing can be used as a link to your blog, and can be a way of advertising your articles and more informative content to your target audience.
By having your socials and blogs work together, you can drive engagement with your customers and promote your brand much more efficiently.
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Blogs can become a long-term way to produce frequent content.
Blogs are all about engaging your audience through storytelling, and each week, or even day, there can be new topics to discuss and inform your readers about.
Blogging is the perfect way to keep engagement up with your target audience, as by posting frequent, educational and hopefully fun blogs, readers will be able to keep up-to-date with your business and form a long-term connection with your brand.
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Blogging increases your expertise and generates thought leadership.
For your blogs to be truly successful, they must resonate with your target audience.
Your blog topics and posts must assess the current issues facing your clients, or the primary needs they may have at this point in time.
By using the right tone and language within your blogs, your posts can be used by your target audience to find solutions to their problems or satisfy their needs, showing clients that you have the right expertise and authority for their industry, and that you are competent at producing high-quality content on topics relating to your industry.
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You will generate more leads through blogs than advertisements.
Not only do advertisements cost your business money you could be budgeting for other areas of your work, they are shown to be far less effective than blog posts in generating new leads.
According to HubSpot, you will generate three times more leads for your business through blogs than you would ads, meaning it is definitely much cheaper and simpler to spend your time on creating high-quality blog posts, rather than spend money on less effective advertisements.
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You can create a like-minded community through blogging.
As we have acknowledged, the primary purpose of any content creation is to generate leads and engage your target audience.
Blogging can be a way to facilitate new conversations in your industry by discussing current issues and through focusing on topics troubling or affecting your businesses’ industry today.
By discussing the right topics in your blog posts, you will attract a like-minded audience and create an engaged community who will become more interested in the content produced by your business, and therefore more likely to stay engaged with your business in the long-term.
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Blogs are trusted and well respected.
Blogs are not just another form of content for your business to produce.
Blogs are where you can create stories, find the tone your business wants to relay onto your target audience, and create trust between you and your audience by discussing issues relevant to them and their work.
People trust blogs, which is why you need to ensure that what you are posting is helpful and accurate if you are to increase the trust your audience has in your business.
By encouraging discussions between your readers and by creating posts that differentiate you from your competitors, other businesses and people within your industry will come to trust and respect what you have to say.
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Blogging is affordable and supports other content strategies.
Saying blogging is affordable is an understatement, as there are many platforms available for you to post your personal blogs for free!
Even for content marketing teams and businesses, blogging is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to produce content and release it to their target audience efficiently.
Not only is blogging low-cost, it is one of the easiest ways to support other content produced by your business.
You can create links within your blogs and make reference to other forms of content produced by your business that is relevant to the topic being discussed, such as other recent blog posts, website content, or videos produced by your business, just to name a few.
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Blogging can expand your own knowledge and push you out of your comfort zone.
Coming up with blog topics that will interest and excite your readers can be challenging if you want to create frequent blog posts relevant to your business or industry.
That is why they can be a great way for your content team to branch out and learn about new topics they might not have had any prior knowledge about.
Your target audience wants to read content that provides them with new and insightful information, which means a lot of the time it will be necessary for your content team to do their research if you are to truly engage with your readers.
Ultimately, there are many reasons as to why blogging is still one of the best forms of content out there; we have just given you a few here today to stress its importance.
It would be a huge mistake to not have blogging as one of your content team’s top priorities, as by having a high-quality blog producing frequent topics and discussions, your business will be able to grow your brand and increase customer traffic and engagement quickly and cheaply.
8 Steps For Social SEO Success
For years, businesses have invested in Search Engine Optimisation to expand their reach and become accessible to as many potential clients and customers as possible. However, with ever-evolving disruptions within the digital space and a ranking algorithm that is constantly changing, an adaptive SEO strategy is now vital for success.
Social SEO, centering around improving your search engine ranking through improving content and keywords within social media channels, has risen in popularity in the past few years – albeit with ambiguity from Google in terms of whether or not a social signal improves a business’s search engine ranking. Irrespective of whether the number of followers your business has on a social media channel directly affects its website’s SEO ranking, there are an immense number of benefits of a well-developed social SEO strategy.
Social SEO increases the visibility of your business through driving traffic to your website and ensuring your social media accounts further populate search engine results pages. With the number of social media users and searches growing exponentially in recent years, social really is the new SEO. We have outlined a step-by-step social SEO success strategy – read on to improve your ability to connect with and inspire action from your potential clients and customers.
1- Create Quality Content
Effective content is the very foundation of SEO success stories – the entire purpose of Google’s ranking algorithm is to direct people to sites that are of most use to them. Using SEO tricks can work to improve your ranking in the short term, but at the end of the day, it is in the best interest of you and your customers to create useful content that Google can direct them to.
Blog posts, podcasts, infographics and other shareable content mediums are among the most successful in driving website traffic and improving your SEO ranking. With these valuable pieces of content as the backbone to your social SEO strategy, you will have a library of content that people care about to post across your social channels. These posts have a twofold effect of driving traffic back to your website and increasing your social media following, which can also help boost the search result ranking of your social media pages.
2- Take Advantage Of All Relevant Platforms
With social media sites taking over search engine results pages as they grow in popularity, ensuring your business is active on relevant social media platforms is more important than ever. A strong profile on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Pinterest can be shown in the list of results on search engine results page, providing another opportunity to connect with your customers and share your fantastic content.
Social media pages that appear within search results also elevate the credibility of your brand, improving the chance that customers will look at your various channels and engage with your content. This means that streamlining your social media platforms and picking relevant content is a critical step in your social media strategy to improve your social SEO.
3- Fill In The Blanks
There are so many opportunities to share your business’ story, vision and value through descriptions, headlines and information within your social media channels – don’t let this space go to waste!
Leverage your LinkedIn description to provide a succinct summary of your business, utilizing keywords that users may be searching in Google or within LinkedIn itself. Optimizing your accounts using all of the description space available puts your social media on the search engine results page and has the added bonus of making your account more personal by providing further information about who you are as a business and what you stand for.
4- Make Your Accounts Look Legitimate
If you already have accounts on the social media channels you need, duplicate accounts, outdated information or low-quality profile photos can be detrimental to your brand, deterring potential customers from engaging with your social media account and preventing you from reaping social SEO benefits.
Investing a little time into updating your social media profile and creating a legitimate look has a significant payoff. To optimize your social media presence, ensure you do not have any duplicate or unused accounts, update copy and photos to reflect your business and ensure your profiles include working links.
5- Use Keywords In Social Media Copy
After creating professional, up to date profiles across your social media channels, optimizing them for SEO is the next step. If you are already using keywords in your website copy, now is the time to include them in your social media platforms! If not, utilize Google AdWords or other keyword search platforms to gain an understanding of what your customers are looking for.
Armed with this knowledge, you can carefully craft copy to use in your suite of social media platforms so that individuals searching on them are more likely to land on your page and engage with your business.
6- Include Backlinks In Posts
Although Google has been relatively ambiguous as to whether social links are considered valid backlinks to your website, a study by Hootsuite found that a higher social following is associated with better search engine rankings.
Although correlation is not the same as causation, a higher social following does direct traffic to your website and there are plenty of examples of viral social media posts that have landed businesses in rank 1 on Google. The more people that like, share and link to your content on social media, the more visitors you have to your site and the better the ranking. This is precisely why a focus on social SEO can have massive payoffs for the visibility of your business.
7- Post Often
Successful social media accounts post regular updates for followers, producing a consistent stream of opportunities to share your well-crafted, SEO optimized content with your social media channels.
Ad hoc posts have been proven time and time again to be ineffective. Although it takes time to plan social media posts ahead of time, it is far greater use of your time than sporadic marketing activities. Social media calendars can be a great way to make this easier and ensure that you are always on schedule with posts.
8- Be Social
Your social media strategy is not a ‘set and forget’ solution to increase the visibility of your business. Social media is exactly that, social!
By making connections with other individuals in your industry or potential customers, you can grow both the reach and visibility of your content in addition to growing your social media following. This bolsters not only the number of people landing on your website but also the size of your following which will allow you to reap significant long-term benefits. Your social media strategy should include different activities that speak to your customers to improve their engagement and make them more likely to stick around.
With social media channels becoming more and more popular as a way for people to obtain information and engage with businesses, social media’s importance to SEO will continue to expand. The search engine ranking benefits of your social media accounts appearing as search results and the indirect link between strong engagement and the ranking of your website means that there is no doubt that social media has an important impact on your SEO success. As we share, like and connect with each other online more and more every day, there has never been a better time to include social SEO as part of your marketing strategy.
5 Reasons Why You Need a New Digital Marketing Strategy in 2021
A new year means new opportunities to optimize your digital marketing strategy for maximum effectiveness. The fast-paced field of marketing is an ever-evolving practice that requires a trained eye that is on top of the myriad changes occurring on a day-to-day basis. Smart businesses stay ahead of digital marketing trends in order to ensure that the business reaches its full potential and performs accordingly. We’ve put together a list of the top five reasons why you likely need a new digital marketing strategy in 2021.
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Get with the times or get left behind.
This means embracing new and popular digital platforms in order to maximize your customer base and communicate with them in the most efficient manner. Last year, TikTok emerged as the reigning champion in its ability to command the attention of the younger generation as social media users the world over spent more time online in light of COVID-19. Brands who recognized this shift early on were quick to reap the benefits of the platform’s exponential international growth.
As such, staying on top of the platforms most engaged with, new or old, will provide substantial opportunities for your business to optimize its reach. Set aside sometime each week to review current events and digital marketing trends so that your business is one of the first to jump on and utilize the innovative tools at these platforms’ disposal.
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Maximize sales through social media and sales overlap.
While new platforms continue to arise, social media giants like Facebook and Instagram continue to lead by example on the front of revitalizing their digital marketing strategies as a means of keeping users engaged. In 2016, Facebook incorporated sales into its business model with Facebook Marketplace, allowing users to buy and sell items from other users. Though slow to gain traction at first, it has evolved into one of the platform’s most interactive features.
In the last year, Instagram has followed suit with the introduction of its shopping feature, which largely entails B2C sales for users through brands they already follow or those they stumble upon through the discovery page. As social media and sales increasingly overlap, users are more likely to execute in-app purchases which fast track sales processes and converts them from followers into customers. For businesses who choose to open themselves up to this line of efficiency, sales turnover will be sure to expand substantially in 2021.
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Less is, as always, more.
While it is important to stay active on up-and-coming marketing platforms, it is worth ensuring that your business isn’t spreading itself too thin, or else you risk wasting valuable resources on fruitless tasks. Your new digital marketing strategy should include setting aside time to regularly review the tangible outcomes of where your business’ time and energy is best spent. Do not be afraid to cull efforts with your least effective digital marketing platforms. Doing so will reallocate the same resources to more result-prone tasks, and ensure no effort goes unnecessarily wasted.
For instance, imagine your business utilizes LinkedIn, podcast advertisements, email campaigns and Facebook as its primary means of generating sales. If, as of late, the latter two methods are providing little to no overall improvement, consider cutting them from your digital marketing strategy and instead reallocate resources to the most effective platforms of sales generation. Not only will this ensure the time spent on reliable sources of engagement and income, but it will also improve the overall quality of your messages to your customer base.
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The average human attention span continues to shorten.
Unsurprising yet certainly frightening is the fact that, as of 2020, the average attention span is, at most, eight seconds. Yes, you read that correctly: that is less than the average attention span of a goldfish. Rather than be put off, embrace this new reality and adapt accordingly by adjusting your digital marketing strategy to best compete for your audience’s attention.
Increasingly, audiences are drawn to personalized, video and image-based content. Your next advertising campaign should, quite simply, give the people what they want. As a starting point, we recommend curating a list of high-performing brands whose business aligns with your own and highlighting their most engaged with content. This will provide you with relevant inspiration for your own advertising campaigns to ensure that your target audience is most likely to respond positively to content as well as encourage click-throughs.
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If it isn’t mobile-friendly, don’t bother.
If you haven’t already optimized your website for mobile viewing, now is the time to do so. The significant growth of the mobile market in recent years has necessitated that businesses have mobile-friendly interfaces, given that consumers understandably opt for the most accessible and efficient means of interaction. Without it, businesses run the immediate risk of losing customers as a result of outdated website designs.
Some of the obvious benefits of mobile-friendly interfaces involve the capacity for location-based marketing as well as its cost-effectiveness. This means your business is able to curate tailored content for your audience, which also improves the intricacy and relevancy of your customer profiles. As such, your business is able to do more with less by selectively targeting consumers who are most likely to engage with your content and avoiding wasting resources on less probable leads.