Many businesses are content with the organic reach on Twitter, but the stats are in. According to Mashable, when businesses use Twitter paid advertising, users are more than 60% more likely to visit the website and more than 50% more likely to make a purchase and recommend the business. Twitter offers many forms of paid advertising to fit even the smallest marketing budgets.
There are three main kinds of paid advertising options on Twitter – promoted Tweets, promoted trends, and promoted accounts.
The best part – you don’t have to pay for the wider audience, only when someone engages with the post using favorite, retweet, or reply.
Promoted accounts will show up in the “Who to follow” area and you will only have to pay for the users who click “Follow” after a promoted account.
With Twitter paid advertising, you only pay for actual results – engagement and followers. The price of these real time results is whatever you want it to be! If you have a certain budget in mind, you can give that price to Twitter and it will not exceed the set amount.
Depending on what kind of advertising you want to invest in, you can separate your budget into “bids” for each action. Twitter then allows you to track in real time the progress and success of each of your campaigns, making it easy to adjust your budget and action requests while the advertisements are running. There will be a dashboard breaking down the metrics of each type of advertisement you chose, allowing you to see the views, engagement, costs, and more.
Paid advertising on Twitter is easy to implement, cost-effective to invest in, and immersive to track. With the convenience and guaranteed results, Twitter paid advertising is difficult to ignore.
]]>There are not many businesses that should not be on Facebook. With over 1.3 billion active users, the platform gives any business great potential to extend their brand reach and awareness.
The trick with Facebook is playing nice with their algorithms. Much like Google, Facebook has specific algorithms that weed out content that is low quality or uninteresting to users. If you don’t make the cut, your posts won’t appear on users’ feeds. To be successful, keep your content high quality and authentic. It also doesn’t hurt to drop a few dollars into targeted advertising.
Like Facebook, there is no reason not to be on Twitter. Over 500 million Tweets are sent per day on the platform and every industry has found a home in those Tweets. With the use of hashtags, you can join in discussions with anyone in your industry – from influencers to potential customers.
The only rules of Twitter are follow hashtag etiquette, post authentic and helpful content, have conversations, and don’t be a salesman. As long as you are authentic and keep your hashtags restricted to three or less, you will flourish on Twitter.
People love to argue the merits of Google+. Some joke that only Google employees actively use the platform. Others swear by it, showing stats on their conversions and reach. The divide is because Google+ is still a little bit clunky. It combines the efficiencies and features of other big social platforms – creating a conglomeration that is hard to use effectively.
If you are able to understand the basics of Google+, it is absolutely worthwhile to put your business on the platform. When you have a Google+ business page, it integrates seamlessly with your search engine rankings and can even improve them. You also receive easy access to Google Analytics and AdWords.
LinkedIn is the perfect platform for B2B businesses and those trying to grow their professional reputation with a certain company. Here is the kicker – LinkedIn is all about professionalism. Users will put you on their mental spam list if you get too sales-y on your page or in groups.
The rule: Keep it classy and use LinkedIn for authentic business networking. You will have to use your personal profile to reach out to people, but you also want a company page for legitimacy and to direct people to follow your business updates.
Many businesses are clamoring to get on Pinterest, but I have new for you – only certain business industries flourish there. The active user base is extremely niche. Generally the only businesses that do well are home improvement/remodeling/interior design, retail, restaurants/food stores, wedding industries, artists and independent sellers, and décor. If you don’t fall into one of those categories, skip the platform.
Since Instagram has been bought by Facebook, it is the perfect platform to hop on if you already have a heavy Facebook following. If your business has a visual aspect to it, Instagram is a great tool for your social media toolbox. Take photos of new products, events, your staff, your dog visiting the office – anything that is eye catching and looks great with a filter!
]]>After you sign up to Twitter, the first place you need to go is your profile settings. Yes, Twitter will encourage you to send your first Tweet out, but don’t give into temptation! Your first Tweet is very important and needs to be handcrafted to perfection.
Underneath your banner on your profile, there is a button that says Edit Profile. Click that and you will get the fast-pass access to editing your Twitter profile. Underneath your description is the Theme Color option. You can choose one of the pre-decided colors or enter your own HTML color code.
Twitter gives you two chances to showcase your brand visually on your Twitter – a profile picture and cover photo. Before even thinking about choosing photos, make sure you know the dimensions. Many people try to upload an odd photo size that stretch or cut off, hurting their brand perception. The dimensions change often with updates, so refer to a frequently updated dimensions guide before posting.
When choosing your profile picture, a good starting place is your business logo. However, if you have a great team picture or an engaging photo of your business leader, then upload that. People connect more to real photos from businesses.
There are so many options for your cover photo. You can upload a sweeping image of your logo with a slogan. You could upload a recent event photo you attended or hosted. You can showcase your products or services. Whatever you choose, make sure it is different from your profile picture and is extremely high quality.
Twitter allows a “generous” 160 characters for your description as opposed to the 140 character limit on Tweets. Your description is used to quickly showcase who you are as a business. My advice is to list your primary offerings and include your slogan. Some businesses choose to place hashtags in their description to get their brand spread further across Twitter. If you like this idea, use popular hashtags (ie: startup) and limit yourself to only using three spaced throughout your description. Any more and it looks like you are a spambot.
We briefly covered hashtags in the previous section regarding your description. The same line of thought goes towards using hashtags in your Tweets. They are a great way to spread your brand, but limit yourself to three hashtags per Tweet.
It is tempting to jump in and start hashtagging any word in your Tweet or to start using trending hashtags like crazy. Always research before using hashtags. Many businesses (especially big name brands like DiGiorno) have used hashtags without researching and have caused a scandal.
It is a good idea to come up with a branded hashtag. Even though it gives you no current reach, eventually your audience will want to track conversations about your business and that hashtag will help them easily join in the conversation and spread your business further.
When you don’t complete your profile correctly or go against the trends set by other Twitter users, you risk your reputation. Regular users can spot an amateur and not optimizing your profile will label you as inauthentic and out-of-touch with these Twitter fanatics. So get to optimizing and showcase your Twitter expertise!
]]>While businesses are utilizing email more effectively today than they ever did back in the dial-up days, there are still many pitfalls to avoid. Follow this checklist to learn what you should not say in your email marketing campaign.
When your subject line fails to wow and your content is less than spectacular, you don’t engage with your target audience. There are over 122 billion emails sent every hour. Your email needs to stand out in the crowd! From your subject line to your content to your design, every part of your email needs to be inviting and appealing.
I don’t mean sharing insider stories about the funny thing Bob from Accounting did the other day. I mean you are putting way too many choices and calls-to-action on your email blasts. Some businesses think they need to cram as much as they can into an email to receive more value from it. This is wrong!
Giving users too many options of actions to take will cause them to ignore all of the options or become frustrated and unsubscribe. Instead, make each demand simple and concise. Have no more than three options to click in each email blast. Make sure each of these three options is related to a singular call-to-action.
Much like the last point, you need to be absolutely clear in what you want your audience to do. If you want them to call today, then put the phone number in an easy-to-access and central location. If you want them to review, give an easy link to send a review with no extra steps required.
You also want to be clear in the flow of the email. The audience should be able to easily follow the path of the email with their eyes. If you have a wild email with a cluster of information in odd places, audiences will become overwhelmed and miss the message entirely. Direct the audience’s gaze easily and logically.
In addition to everything else you need to hit with an email, you also need to tell the audience what value they are receiving from your email. This is a step that many businesses miss. Whatever you want the customer to do, you need to show them how the action is going to be valuable to them. Personalization here goes a long way!
Let’s say you avoid every single problem above and have an outstanding email campaign. It will still be ineffective if you bombard your target audience with emails. You will also be spending quite a bit of money and receiving little ROI from your efforts.
The general rule of thumb is to send no more than three marketing emails per week. Less is best, however, so your email list doesn’t unsubscribe. You might also hit roadblocks if you send emails on certain days of the week. Try not to send emails on Mondays or Fridays and definitely don’t send on Saturday. Your emails will be deleted or not given proper attention if you send on these days.
]]>Many businesses believe the only way to be successful on Facebook is to pay for targeted advertising. Don’t get me wrong – paid advertising is extremely helpful. You can gain an outstanding number of Likes on your page, as well as a better chance for interaction with your brand and more exposure for your posts. Often, Page Likes do not turn into customers. This lack of ROI is making businesses rethink their presence on Facebook.
Here is what these businesses don’t realize and the secret I am going to share with you – native advertising is actually more effective than paid advertising on Facebook. While paid advertising can get you Likes, those people do not really care about your brand. Instead, employing these native advertising tactics can turn disinterested Likes into brand evangelists.
By taking a customer service approach, you not only help these commenters become brand evangelists, but also show other customers how much you care about them with a public feed of your communications.
]]>Doing a simple search of your business will reveal a lot about how your brand is perceived online. Google thrusts high quality content with proper SEO to the top of the search engine list. If you are on the second page (or even further!) then Google does not view your brand as being high quality enough to appear near the top. Since 95% of web traffic goes to links on the first page of search results, this is bad news.
There could be many causes for your low website placement. To rectify it, invest in an SEO firm or expert. They will be able to help boost your website rankings. You should also consider creating a detailed content plan for your brand.
Search for your business with the word “reviews” in the search engine bar. This will allow you to find every review website your business is listed under as well as any reviews that have been posted. Even one negative review outweighs ten positive ones.
When you see a negative review, register your business as a user on that site and respond to them. Apologize for any issues they experienced with you and offer ways to rectify their situation. This can include kindly defending your brand for those who search for reviews of your business.
Look at every review site as well as all of the social networks you are a part of. If there are any unanswered questions or comments on your brand on social, you need to answer them! Direct communication with a brand that goes unanswered casts you as uncaring toward your customers. Any negative comments are also allowed to fester and become monsters on social, broadcasted for all the world to see. You can lose current and potential customers by ignoring any inquiries.
Share positive comments to improve brand reputation. Answer any questions to provide a customer service tool for those online. You also need to answer negative comments or complaints on social.
Look at your social media posts and see how far apart each message is spaced. Posts that are too infrequent do nothing to help promote your brand and also cast your brand as behind the times. Posts that are too frequent overwhelm and annoy your audience, casting you as a spam-brand.
Each platform has their own preferred posting frequencies, decided by the activity of the users. You can learn about best posting times and frequency on Buffer.
Our last point – use your analytics! By integrating your website with Google Analytics, you can learn a lot about your reputation online. If your website is showing low website hits or a terrible bounce rate, you know your brand is not being successful and creating a bad reputation. Using your analytics with the other points on our checklist will help you improve your brand reputation and see more business.
]]>The percentages change depending on who you are talking to, but the general rule is your social content should break down into 50, 30, and 20 percentages.
The days of text-only posts are over! You need some type of media in every post to engage more people. Add a photo, video, or infographic. If you are on a platform such as Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn, allow a link preview for your media.
Everyone is used to limiting their Twitter posts to 140 characters, but did you know more people will engage with your posts on other platforms more if they are 100 characters or less? Max engagement occurs with 80 characters or less.
Craft keywords not only into your social media posts, but also throughout your profile descriptions so people are able to actually find you to easily engage. You also want to break your content strategy down into topic categories in an editorial calendar. Include a list of recommended keywords for each category. You can use those keywords when creating posts on social.
Even though you want to use keywords, there are hashtag rules for each platform. Breaking these rules can result in low engagement, either due to platform algorithms or the audience mentally marking your brand as spam.
Don’t have the same post for every platform and definitely don’t like your posts across multiple platforms, like Facebook posts automatically uploaded to Twitter. The exception to this rule is allowing Instagram photos to upload to Facebook as the two are partner platforms.
Take the time to learn the language of each platform to craft posts specific to each audience. Remember my points about character counts and hashtag usage!
As long as you take the time to develop a content strategy and learn the language and rules of each platform, the engagement numbers will follow.
]]>Post Reach is the number of people each post was served to, both organically and paid. Most pages opt for paid posts which will show high engagement, but you should also look at how your posts do organically.
The posts that have higher engagement organically should be emulated as often as possible. Analyze the post topic, the wording, the character count, the use of media, which link was used, etc. Your analytics will show that format resonates most with your audience – why fix what isn’t broken?
Visit your list of all posts published to see each metric broken down by post. From here you can retrieve great insights into what works and what doesn’t. Here’s a tip – don’t look at the hard numbers. Instead, do a little math to see the true engagement of each post.
Why? If a post has 8 likes and reached 100 people, it is more effective than a post that has 10 likes and reached 1000 people. The formula you should use is:
Engagement
_______________ x 100
Reach
Let’s use our previous example. Post 1 saw 8 engagements and reached 100 people. The true engagement measure is 8% using the formula. Post 2 saw 10 engagements and reached 1000 people. The true engagement measure is 1%. You want those higher engagement numbers every time.
This is an important metric for creating your content schedule. Look at this data to find out which days your fans are online most and the times they are accessing your content. Let’s say your fans are online more Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. You want to post your best content on these days. If your fans online spike between 3PM and 6PM, schedule your posts right before and during that time frame.
Remember -you want to put some posts during non-peak hours so you reach more new people. These non-peak times give you a better chance of your content being seen and not hidden.
Lastly, check out where your page visits are coming from with External Referrals. You will get a great idea of how well your outreach campaigns are doing and where you should be focusing more of your energy on conversions.
To save time and money, spend your efforts on these essential Facebook analytics. Don’t forget to compare your paid post metrics and all other social and digital analytics for a true view of how well your brand is doing online.
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Here is the problem – people are pretty savvy at sifting through their email. Marketing emails from businesses are often deleted without opening for a variety of reasons, decreasing the open rate. Many businesses don’t realize they are doing anything wrong with their email marketing, or do not know how to combat the problem of low click through rate (CTR). If you are one of these businesses, here are three ways to improve your email marketing CTR.
To get your audience just to open the email, your subject line and short description need to capture the audience’s attention. There are going to be hundreds of emails in that inbox – what is going to make yours stand out?
Keep your subject line under 50 characters and don’t sensationalize it. When you go over the top with your headline to grab attention, people feel you are not authentic and will discard your email. Make it simple, inviting, and try to personalize. Adding in the receiver’s name can help.
You also want to keep the short description next to the subject line under 50 characters. This is a great opportunity to further engage your audience so they know your message and want to learn more. If you choose not to add a description, the email software will automatically put the first few lines of your email in the description which will not make sense to the audience.
Before you start to compose your email, you need to get an idea of what to write about. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. If you were receiving an email from your business or the industry your business belongs to, what solution would you want from them to convert you to a customer?
Once you answer that, you can start writing your email. After you get your audience to open your email, the content that solves their problem and offers an easy or affordable way to do that is what causes people to click through to your website.
This is a message many businesses aren’t getting. For all aspects of digital and online marketing, your content needs to be optimized for mobile. What does this mean? The marketing content or call-to-action you want your audience to read and follow through on needs to be easy to read and click through on mobile devices. 60% of internet access is mostly mobile and that number is increasing everyday.
When it comes to email marketing, studies show people may open your email on mobile but will delete it if it is not easy to view on their device. Optimizing your email message for mobile will increase your CTR.
]]>Before you start excelling on LinkedIn, you need to get a few tactical measures in place. When you optimize your profile and actions on the platform, you will have the foundation to take your business presence to the next level.
Every business needs to realize LinkedIn is a networking platform, not a marketing platform. You need to keep this in mind when you start using LinkedIn seriously. If you use any part of the platform as a billboard for your marketing messages, you will not see any authentic communication or conversions. To stop yourself from doing it, there are a few etiquette rules to follow.