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13 Tools That Experts Use to Simplify Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

13 Tools That Experts Use to Simplify Their Digital Marketing Campaigns

It’s the 21st century and everything has gone digital!

We order our food online, we do our banking online, and even movies and shows have moved on from broadcasting to digital streaming. 

That’s why it’s so important that companies use social media apps, where people spend a large part of their day, sharing their lives, ideas, and opinions.

If you aren’t sure how to market your business digitally, then we’ve got you covered. Today we’ll be looking at 13 digital marketing tools that experts use to simplify their digital marketing campaigns. 

It all starts by dividing your digital marketing campaign into different categories.

Let’s start with the most important one.

Social media marketing tools

Social media applications are where people get to share their daily lives, thoughts, and opinions with the rest of the world.

There are plenty of them around, but the biggest are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

For any company looking to get in on digital marketing, social media apps are by far the most important.

#1: Sotrender

Sotrender is an excellent social media analytics tool that should be in every digital marketing team’s bag of tricks.

Using this simple tool, you can keep track of all your social media accounts, in one place.

You can analyze your Facebook’s and Instagram’s organic and paid performance, and keep track of all your KPIs, including reach, impressions, and CPC.

The tool comes with a built-in Interactivity Index, which allows you to view aggregated engagement metrics.

You can also generate summary reports within a minute!

If you need one simple app to keep track of all your social media performance, then Sotrender is the way to go.

sotrender screenshot

#2: Napoleoncat

Napoleoncat is an all-in-one social media management tool. If you’re looking for a custom-priced media management tool, then Napoleoncat has got you covered.

Why pay for 20 social media accounts and five user accounts, when you really only want 15 and three? Napoleoncat lets you choose your plan, the way you see fit.

Napoleoncat lets you take control of all your social media accounts, even TikTok! You can schedule posts, automate moderation, and print analytics in less than a minute. Their social inbox includes all the linked social media accounts and the messages that come through. It’s easy to navigate through them and reply if you wanted to.

If you’re looking for the most intuitive and customizable social media management tool plan, the Napoleoncat is for you.

Napoleoncat

#3: Loomly

Loomly is a great tool for smaller businesses that don’t have a large staff. It’s easy to use and organize.

Loomly comes with a built-in calendar, ways to set deadlines, and makes scheduling meetings as well as crafting new content super easy!

Loomly’s interface is very clean, with a great color palette that’s easy on the eyes, yet keeps you motivated and feeling inspired.

It’s also quite a bit cheaper than most other platforms, which is a plus if your business is just starting up.

Loomly

Email marketing tools

With over 4 billion email users worldwide, and an astonishing 293 billion emails sent daily, getting your marketing correct using emails is an important tool in your digital marketing arsenal. 

Here are some tools to help you:

#4: Moosend

Moosend is a user-friendly, simplistic email organizer that every up-and-coming business should utilize.

It’s pocket friendly but is a surprisingly well-thought-out and optimized software solution.  

Running campaigns is as easy as a few clicks away, with simple automation. There are no difficult to write scripts or commands, instead, it’s simple click-and-drag automation that anyone can learn to do in 5 minutes.

The analytics are presented in a way that is easy to read and understand, and it’s all built into the software.

moosend

#5: SendGrid

SendGrid is perfect for beginners and professionals alike. It comes jam-packed with email marketing services that come in handy in all situations.

There are plenty of different ways to set up email campaigns, including a handy drag-and-drop system for automating emails. If you prefer the old-school way, there is an option to code your email automation as well.

SendGrid has a free option for small businesses, to help you grow your business. As your business grows, there is an intuitive payment scaling plan.

SEO marketing tools

Keeping your website search engine optimized is important. According to Forbes, up to 71% of search traffic previously did not click on the 2nd Google page. That number has grown over recent years with up to 92% of traffic not going past the 1st page.

#6: Semrush

Semrush is one of the most well-known SEO tools out there, used by countless businesses for their digital marketing work.

It helps you find the perfect keywords, as well as brainstorm new terms for your digital content.

Semrush offers you a comprehensive overview of your keyword, how many searches it garnered, which demographics are highest, as well as variations of the keyword.

SEMrush

#7: SurferSEO

SurferSEO is one of the best SEO marketing tools out there. 

SurferSEO can generate all the analytics you need for your article, including the correct keywords, semantically related words, the correct number of characters, as well as the right number of words for your article. It also scores your content in an easy-to-understand way.

It’s able to create paragraphs that rate high on SEO metrics using specialized AI that is only on SurferSEO.

If you want your content to get on Google’s first page, then SurferSEO is the tool to use to get you there.

SurferSEO

#8: Clearscope

Clearscope is the best SEO tool if you want to optimize current content.

It is mostly used for content writing, similar to SurferSEO. There is a great content editor built-in to the software, as well as a keyword recommender. It will also rate the readability of your text, which is similar to applications like Grammarly, which will rate your content according to its readability, mood, and grammar.

If you’re looking to spruce up your existing content, look no further than Clearscope.

Clearscope

Conversion optimization tools

Optimizing your website is extremely important. Your landing page has to be as optimized as possible. The smallest little differences, like the color of a subscribe button, can be the difference between someone signing up or taking the high road.

#9: Optimizely

Optimizely has an emphasis on creating the perfect landing page. It includes plenty of visualization tools to help you change how your landing page looks and runs. 

From there, the software can run landing page experiments, allowing you to test the page according to different audiences and how well it would do.

The software is easy to use, with a no-code interface that allows the smallest amount of fine-tuning to your website.

#10: Hotjar

Hotjar does exactly what the name says. It offers real-time analysis of your webpage. The only difference is, that instead of offering up a bunch of graphs and information, it shows hot spots on the screen.

It also records the number of clicks. This information gives you a real-time view and idea of how people are interacting with your website.

It keeps videos of each of your visitors, which allows you to look back and study how they use your website, where people are hovering, clicking, and obviously, where they don’t.

hotjar

Graphic creation tools

Having a good-looking website is important. First impressions are everything!

Social marketing and branding are all about creating your own identity. Something that people can identify with your brand. Thus, having the perfect logo, slogan, and aesthetic is important. 

Here are some graphic tools you can add to your toolbox next time you need them.

#11: Visme

Visme is mostly used for creating presentations.

If you are spending hours upon hours gathering data, sorting it all out, and putting them in graphs, then it might be time to start using Visme.

If you are a content creator who loves posting infographics on social media platforms, Visme makes it easier to get them on those platforms.

Another great feature is that Visme allows you to get data from other resources and add them to your graph.

Visme

#12: Venngage

Venngage is similar to Visme. It’s an infographic creator that allows you to create creative spreadsheets with ease.

There are plenty of different chart configurations for everyone and any situation. This allows you to customize your infographics to match your brand. 

If you value customization over ease of use, then Venngage is for you.

venngage

#13: Canva

Canva is easily one of the best creative tools a digital marketing team can use. It can create any type of graphic, from album covers and graphs to presentations, logos, and even Instagram posts.

The best part of Canva is the fact that the free version already offers such a variety, that any up-and-coming business can make use of it without running extra costs.

The templates are limited in the free version, but the templates you get from the paid version are stunning and make creating any sort of graphic design simpler and faster. 

Canva

What digital marketing tools are you using?

If you have the right digital marketing tools at your disposal, nothing can stop you from running the best digital marketing campaigns possible for your business.

It’s especially important for up-and-coming businesses that don’t have a lot of brand recognition yet, to get the word out there, make a good first impression, and build an audience.

Using digital marketing tools like Canva will allow you to build a recognizable brand. Using Optimizely will help you build the perfect landing page for the perfect first impression. Using Hotjar you can optimize and analyze your website to help you see where your audience is spending most of their time.

That said, any of these 13 tools will surely be the perfect fit for content marketing for startups.

The post 13 Tools That Experts Use to Simplify Their Digital Marketing Campaigns appeared first on Convince & Convert.

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10 Tips To Increase Eyeballs And Conversion

Generating conversions for your digital marketing efforts can be TOUGH. Even if you’ve put the basic work in (like content marketing and perfecting your social media game), you can still fall short of where you COULD be.

marketing eyeballs

So why put the effort in? Well, your website is important – essential to your business’ success. Ithemes.com says,

“Your website is a dynamic piece of “real estate” within a diverse online market. Every business, when gauging its digital marketing, is only as effective as how its website performs.”

Talk about hitting the nail on the head! If you aren’t converting, you aren’t thriving. It’s time to ask yourself, what are my conversion goals?

Here’s a quick refresher on conversion rates and their importance from Neil Patel:

Quick Takeaways:

  • Website Success = higher likelihood of business success
  • Converting and getting eyes on your blog/website is CRUCIAL to success
  • Conversion goals include generating leads, creating a good newsletter, and decreasing your bounce rate (% of people who view but don’t engage with your site)

So, what can you do to get that extra edge on converting? We’ve compiled a list of 10 things to keep in mind when assessing your strategy. Take a look at what your company is doing and think about the little things that can take it to the next level.

10 Tips to Increase Eyeballs and Conversion

increase conversion

1. Deliver a clear brand promise

What is the value you offer to customers? Say it crisply and hit a drumbeat.  Many brands do this very well.  Coke – happiness. Red Bull – energy.  Verizon – works everywhere.  Make your brand value crystal clear and unique. Consistently hit that drumbeat across all channels.

Be known for something.  Acid test — if asked what your company stands for, could your customers tell you? What would they say? If the answer you’re expecting isn’t the right one, it’s time to reassess your brand promise.

2. Vary your delivery

Depending on preferences, people are drawn to different types of media. After all, in the era of targeted ads, we are expecting the companies that want our attention to find us, not the other way around.

Take similar content and deliver in 10 ways: expert interviews, how-to podcasts, reviews, videos, weekly news, blogs, tweets, infographics etc.   First-mover advantage on modern platforms, such as Snapchat or Instagram Reels, will give you an edge over the competition.

3. Humanize your brand

brand, conversion

Source: UX Collective

Use language that connects with your customers on a personal level. Relate to their lives, their trials, their successes. Too many brands are behind the times and still use corporate speak in their online presence.

Humanize your voice – and sometimes less is more! Try changing ‘contact us’ to ‘speak with an expert from our design team.’ Instead of ‘chat now’, write your own CTAs such as ‘Come behind the scenes’, ‘Join our community of elite athletes’, ‘Become a VIP’.

Save the corporate buzz-speak for the board room.

On the list to never use: optimize, empower, leverage, and synergy! Don’t use terms that are overused, clichéd, or jargony.

4. Make a connection

Who is signing your email?  For your customers, consider a note from your CEO to connect them back to the brand. For your prospects, consider a note from a human!  Use a voice that is personal and believable. People connect better with humans than a disconnected ‘brand’ persona. Develop a brand personality and use it consistently.  Be approachable.

5. Be relevant

What are people talking about? Check out Reddit, Twitter, or Google Trends to find out what people are interested in around a particular topic. It used to be enough to be on message, but now you have to be IN on the trending conversations.

This has resulted in the development of real-time marketing. Being flexible and in-the-know enough to participate in real-time conversations with your consumers online is crucial.

However, preparing for planned events in your field is important too! At a minimum, have a content calendar that’s relevant and stays on trend. Use it to build and deliver thought leadership, social and digital engagement.

6. Design for mobile

marketing app design

Source: ScienceSoft

This one feels like a duh, but you’d be surprised at how many companies miss the mark! Realize that most people browse on their mobile devices. Use responsive design where possible (i.e. design for the mobile experience).  Hire someone if you have to! It’s worth the investment.

Simply put — your site should load fast, be readable and navigate well.

7. Know your audience

Know what your customer cares about. Use customer segmentation to place your customers into categories. Target them based on their triggers (e.g., I’m a student, likely to buy textbooks). Develop a thesis and test it against your target audience.

8. Provide a single call to action

Tell the reader what you want them to do. Too often you’ve left your prospects guessing on where to go and they end up lost or wandering off your site. Make crystal clear the action you want them to take. We’re talking BIG BUTTON above the fold.

Consider a call out, live chat, or an outbound email to retarget.  Usability testing is a must. If you don’t have the budget, ask your kids, your interns, and trusted friends. Let them test it. You might be surprised.

9. Measure your funnel from end-to-end

marketing funnel

Source: ClatterChatter

Comb through each stage of the sales funnel to see where you might be falling short. While customers finishing registration forms is a good start, actually converting is all that matters. Celebrate when a new client emerges, not before.

This means seamless collaboration between SEO/SEM, social, content marketing, digital and demand generation teams. Incentivize on total win revenue – nothing short of that truly matters for business results.

10. Provide a path to purchase

Consider the mindset of your prospective customer. There’s nothing worse than an over-aggressive live chat or an offer too soon into the experience.

Think of when you shop for clothes at the store and an employee approaches you the second you walk in. Annoying, right?

Always develop your SEO/SEM strategy together with your web design team. Ask yourself – what is the mindset of my customer? Does the experience I’m offering provide what they’re looking for – and does it drive my prospect down a reasonable path to purchase?

Now you know our top 10 insider tips to boost conversions on your site. Remember, there’s ALWAYS room for improvement!

eyeballs conversion

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business!

The post 10 Tips To Increase Eyeballs And Conversion appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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Social Media Recruitment: Optimizing Your Hiring Leads

The current state of the US job market is an ongoing pain point for entrepreneurs and hiring managers across the nation. Companies face hardship as they struggle to fill empty and even new positions for multiple reasons.

Some of these reasons include 4.5 million workers voluntarily resigning from their jobs between November 2020 and March 2022,1 contributing to the staggering 11.4 million US job openings.2 The high percentage of workers transitioning industries further complicates the market.

While these reasons help to explain the national worker shortage, companies still need to learn how to adapt. The job market is not what it used to be, and instead of getting discouraged, it’s time to get curious about how to best pivot with it.

Your company has likely posted open positions on job board sites and LinkedIn. However, we encourage you not to stop your efforts there. Enter social media recruitment strategies—today’s most savvy way to showcase your company culture via social media and network with prospective job candidates. Your social media presence is an opportunity for job seekers to ‘window shop,’ see what positions are available, and determine whether they see themselves as a good fit.

Research supports that 86% of job seekers look to social media when conducting a job search, and 92% of employers use social media and online professional networks to hire talent.3 These numbers overwhelmingly support that social media recruitment is a necessary tool in today’s market.

Here are the best ways to implement social media recruitment strategies to find and sign the best talent for your company.

Refining Your Recruitment Social Strategy

Solidify Your Employer Brand

Before you can gain momentum, you’ll need to make sure your employer brand is solid. Your employer branding platform is made up of powerful tools that help market your company to current and prospective employees. Use this checklist to determine where your company stands on each of the key components of an effective platform. Think about which areas are strengths for your team and which present opportunities for improvement.

  • Employer branding: mission, story, values, reasons to join the team
  • Social media presence: profiles, team and culture content, company updates
  • Recruitment strategy: dedicated careers webpage, clear job descriptions, recruitment channels
  • Onboarding experience: clear expectations, adequate training, regular check-ins
  • Employee satisfaction: competitive salaries, benefits, career paths, teambuilding initiatives
  • Employee advocacy: referral programs, satisfaction surveys, employee website testimonials

Having a handle on all of these elements means your company is working hard to continually evolve as an employer and demonstrate your growth to others. But there’s always room for improvement. Take the time to consider how you run your business and what image you want to convey to employees and job seekers.

Use this official Employer Branding Checklist to properly assess your recruitment readiness.

Go Beyond LinkedIn

LinkedIn is notorious because it works; however, it’s not the final frontier of recruiting. Once you have created a job post on LinkedIn, take the link, and share it on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. If you have the budget, this would be an excellent opportunity to circulate ads on LinkedIn and Facebook.

A budget-friendly alternative would be to reach out to relevant colleges and universities, asking to feature your link in their job posting listservs and newsletters. You may get an invite to join and make an employer profile on the university’s networking site. For example, many universities use Handshake. You can encourage prospective applicants to apply and connect on social within these funnels.

An added benefit to this avenue is networking with students and alumni job seekers. Schools with prolific career centers often have alumna use their resources to aid the job search, so there will be professionals of various skill levels in these networks. If someone on your team is an alumna, this is an opportunity to consider attending job fairs, info sessions, and webinars. Throughout this process, you can curate relationships with professors and career counselors, who can send talent your way.

Encourage Employee Engagement

Having strong employee engagement speaks to a healthy company culture. Employees interacting with your social platforms pulls more weight than you would expect. Studies support that prospective job candidates rank current employees as the most trusted source when it comes to information about a company. Ranked after was information from former job applicants and former employees. Applicants want to hear from employees before they want to hear from executives and the c-suite. This relates to relatability and overall trust that they are getting the most objective review possible.4

This says a lot, and prospective employees want to know what they’re getting into before they get too far into the application process or forgo other opportunities. Social media can be used effectively as a brochure showing the best aspects of your culture and employee engagement. Post your values, mission, and how your team and organization actively apply those in their everyday work.

Support employee advocacy and make it fun for employees to follow and interact with your company’s accounts. This can be a great way to increase involvement, build camaraderie, and generate a following. Post content that speaks to the human side of your company. Include fun aspects of your team’s day-to-day operations, company milestones, teambuilding events, and celebrations.

Your social media space is an opportunity to pat your organization on the back and celebrate your team’s leadership, growth, and achievements. Applaud and celebrate promotions and years of service. This makes employees feel appreciated and shows that you’re an organization with a growth mindset.

Practice Consistency

Post regularly, and don’t wait too long in-between posts. Regular posting or social calendar is a great way to keep your feed fresh. Keeping design and messaging uniform across platforms is essential to staying consistent.

Another aspect of consistency is promptly responding to engagement, such as likes, comments, DMs, and tags. Keep notifications on so you can get back to prospective applicants and answer their questions ASAP. This is especially important in the realm of recruitment. Ideally, you want to get off social and into an interview process sooner than later.

Use Measurables

Use tools to track traffic, applicant conversions, and engagement. Take advantage of the data and revise your approach as needed. Best practices and posting times on different social media platforms based on your target audience may vary. However, being flexible and proactive is always a great place to start.

Provide a Link

Give your prospective applicants a form to fill out with their contact information, attach a resume, and offer availability for an informational interview. Keep this in your bio for people to easily access.

Showcase Your Value

Why should people want to work for your company? What separates you from similar organizations of your size? Leverage your employer brand strategy to share content about your unique benefits and how you offer your employees flexibility and ways to improve their quality of life. Reference these if you have any awards for workplace achievements or high ratings on employee review apps. Treat these as bonus credentials!

Start Attracting Talent Today

Social media is here to stay, so we strongly recommend embracing its recruitment capabilities. This guide provides you with the proper framework for successfully integrating social media into your hiring practices. We believe that launching your social media recruitment strategy will solve hiring pain points and attract the best talent fits for your company. Need an employer brand strategy and social media recruitment support? Get started today.

Sources:

  1. https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage
  2. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm
  3. https://www.careerarc.com/social-media-recruiting/
  4. https://www.careerarc.com/blog/future-of-recruiting-study-infographic/

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5 Best Tools to Measure Share of Voice on Social Media

Competitive analysis is a serious challenge for most marketers. It’s complicated, multi-faceted, and time-consuming. You need the right workflow and the right resources to perform a meaningful analysis. It’s also unavoidable: without competitor analysis, there’s no clear Unique Value Proposition, no understanding of what your brand’s advantages and disadvantages are, no justified digital marketing strategy. 

Measuring your market share is an important part of competitive analysis. Market share, in turn, is determined by a number of metrics, one of which is share of voice. Share of voice shows how much people talk about your brand in comparison to your competitors’ brands.

The easiest way for a brand to measure SOV is by turning to social media.
Social media is where people talk about everything. Open a list of subreddits if you doubt that. No matter what your product is, you can find enough people who’ve talked about it online to make a reliable comparison. 

How do you measure share of voice?

The most popular tools for measuring share of voice on social media are social listening tools. Social listening tools do much more than just measuring share of voice: they monitor mentions of any keyword (usually of your brand and your competitors’ brands) and perform analysis of the found data. The analysis can be of brand awareness, brand reputation (sentiment analysis), most popular niche trends, the distribution of brand awareness by location, language, and social media sources. And even that’s not all a social listening tool can do. So, share of voice is just one of the metrics. However, it’s worth pointing out that there are no tools that measure share of voice alone. It’s a rather complicated metric that requires complicated programming. 

It might be also helpful to know that the share of voice metrics doesn’t have to be about comparing your brand to your competitors’ brands. It can be also used to compare your products to each other. You might do it to find out which product gets more traction online and where it gets its traction from. Is it possible that MAC lipsticks are talked about on Twitter while MAC blushes are frequently featured on Instagram? Time to look into that and draw marketing conclusions. 

So this is the list of five social media listening tools that measure share of voice. Pay attention and get ready for a thorough competitive analysis. 

1. Awario

Awario share of voice analytics

Best for: Small to mid-sized businesses. 

Awario is a social listening tool often used for competitor research. It gathers data about your brand and the brands of your competitors on social media networks, news sites, blogs, forums, and the web. You can choose which of these to include in the data and consequently choose where to measure share of voice. For example, you could measure your brand’s share of voice on news sites and blogs if your goal is to assess your PR efforts. Or you might be interested in a particular social media network you’re promoting your business on – for example, Instagram, which is often the case. 

Awario collects data in real-time, which means you can not only assess your share of voice once but observe how it changes over time and how your actions and the actions of your competitors affect it. 

Pricing: $29/mo for the Starter plan, $89/mo for Pro, and $299/mo for Enterprise. Saves you 2 months with a yearly plan. Offers a free 7-day trial.

2. Brandwatch

Brandwatch share of voice circle graph

Best for: Enterprises and agencies.

Brandwatch is one of the most sophisticated social media monitoring tools on the market. It’s far from budget-friendly, and it’s a sure overkill if share of voice is the only marketing metric you’re planning to look at. However, we know that that’s not usually the case – most marketers require tons of metrics, and that’s where Brandwatch can definitely help. 

The tool doesn’t stop at monitoring popular social media networks, news, blogs, forums, and the web. It also covers niche and foreign social media networks, and if you lack a source, you can add it manually for Brandwatch to monitor. 

Brandwatch is the ultimate enterprise-level tool for advanced competitor research. It shows the share of voice and breaks down this metric to show you how your brand compares in terms of reputation, demographics, and other metrics. It lets you discover in detail where you fall behind and where you win.

Pricing: Available upon request

3. Talkwalker

Talkwalker market impact graphs

Best for: Enterprises and agencies.

Talkwalker is another superb social media listening and analytics tool for businesses with a substantial budget. It monitors most social media networks, blogs, news, and the web. It analyzes mentions to show you your brand’s share of voice, as well as the volume of mentions by competitors, and net sentiment of each brand. You can slice and dice the data based on specific topics, channels, markets, and languages. You also get automated reports with all the metrics – Talkwalker works hard to save your time when it comes to ongoing competitor analysis.

Pricing: starts at €6000 per year. Other pricing options are available upon request. 

4. SproutSocial

Sprout social pie chart

Best for: mid-sized and large businesses.

Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management tool. Measuring SOV via social listening is just one of its many features. With Sprout Social, you can measure both your share of voice on social media (including blogs, forums, and news sites) and your PPC share of voice. This lets you assess where your brand stands in comparison to your competitors both in terms of organic brand awareness and social advertising. In addition, the tool’s competitor comparison allows you to identify industry gaps. 

Pricing:  $99/mo for the Standard plan, $149/mo for Professional, and $249/mo for Advanced. Offers a free 30-day trial.

5. Social Searcher + Google Sheet

Best for: Solopreneurs.

This is a free option for anyone on a very tight budget. Both Social Searcher and Google Sheet are free tools, and when combined, they can provide you with a solid idea of your share of voice. However, this will take some manual work.  

Step 1. 

First, open Social Searcher. The tool searches for mentions of any keywords in real-time. Enter the name of your brand in the search bar, wait for the tool to gather mentions, and then look at the top of the page. You’ll see the total number of your mentions. In a new tab, open Social Searcher and search for mentions of your competitor. Repeat that for as many competitors as you like. Your search results can’t be saved, hence new tabs are a must. 

If you want more information, look at the tool’s analytics. The additional metrics are “Users” and “Sentiment”. In the first section, users are sorted by the popularity of their posts, and by the number of posts. “Sentiment” measures the tone of mentions, just like in other social listening tools.

Step 2. 

Take the number of mentions for your brand and every competitor brand and sum them up to get the total. Then, divide the number of your brand mentions by the total number of mentions. Finally, turn the fraction into a percentage. 

You can use this Excel spreadsheet for quick and easy calculation of share of voice. All you have to do is insert your numbers instead of the numbers in the table and see how the percentages and the graph change.

Pricing: Free

Final Thoughts

Calculating your share of voice, knowing how much attention you get from the social media audience, benchmarking your success against the success of your competitors – all these are important steps in understanding where your brand is and how you can move forward. Having the right tools by your side is vital in this process. Hopefully, you’ll find the tool you need on this list.

 

The post 5 Best Tools to Measure Share of Voice on Social Media appeared first on Convince & Convert.

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3 Key Elements to Effectively Target Gen Z with Social Media Advertising

Let’s cut straight to it. How the heck do we reach Gen-Z through social media advertising? It’s already halfway through 2022 and approaching this generation seems like the most daunting task. 

Gen-Z knows the ins and outs of the latest trends, are hyper-focused on digital, and undeniably has the shortest attention span of any other generation. With the rise in popularity of short-form video in TikTok and IG Reels – and we hate to say it too but, AUTHENTICITY, it’s not surprising that some brands are becoming obsessed with Gen-Z as they live in this space more than anyone else. 

If this isn’t surprising enough, taking time to understand what makes this generation click is a must if marketers want to take advantage of their massive spending power. Young, tech savvy, and socially-invested, Gen Z is by far the most racially and ethnically diverse generation ever with a spending power of over $140 billion and $360 billion in disposable income.

So although implementing them into your strategy may seem difficult, let’s dive into a few tips to help target Gen Z with social media advertising. 

Make Gen-Z Feel Included

This means ditching traditional advertising. We’re not saying it doesn’t work, but it’s probably not the best approach for Gen-Z. 

Gen-Z’ers do not like to feel marketed to. There’s a difference between us as brands selecting them to market to versus them feeling that way. They want to feel a part of something bigger than what you’re selling. What is it about your brand that can resonate with them? What values does your brand advocate and have passion for that you can use to create a niche? 

This generation is known for their proactiveness within their digital communities. So we strongly suggest that you find a way to hone in on a specific “community” in Gen-Z that resonates with your brand and start there. Whether it’s a passion for mental health, gaming, or avocado toast, there’s an unlimited number of sectors you can choose from. 

If your brand wants to take it a step further, rely on the help of micro-influencers since they specialize in niches. People speak to people better than words on an ad do. If you want to reach Gen-Z, there’s nothing more beneficial than utilizing a human being that they can connect with. 

Gen-Z just wants to be understood, not defined.
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Grab Their Attention, FAST

With an attention span of just 8 seconds, the content you are spewing out in your campaigns needs to work just as quickly as they lose interest. It’s no surprise that short-form video content has become the number one tool that nearly all social media platforms have implemented and prioritized. 

Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram have revolutionized the world of short-form video content. In fact, by 2023, the amount of Gen-Z users in the U.S. on TikTok is expected to be around 43 million, with Instagram coming in close after at 41 million.

Number of Gen Z users in the United States on selected social media platforms from 2020 to 2025(in millions)

If you are working on utilizing short-form video content, here are three key things to keep in mind:

  • Get to the point

Whatever it is that you’re trying to sell, focus on the benefits and the experience they will get out of it. You do not need to spend half of your video explaining to Gen-Z who your brand is. They will likely do research on your brand on their own if they are interested in your product. Remember, for Gen-Z, its experience > product. 

  • Show personality 

Utilizing humor, trending audios, and influencers are great ways to add more depth and life to your short-form videos. Think of it as a conversation with your teenage kids. If you can’t picture them listening to you without getting bored, then you want to change up your approach. 

  • Focus on one thing

Do not make the mistake of trying to sell everything all at once. This is a huge perk of utilizing short-form videos because you can have each small aspect of what you’re selling shine on its own. Think of it this way: take each benefit that your brand or product has and use every short-form video you make act as a teaser or trailer for it.  

Optimize Mobile Experiences for Gen Z

With 98% of Gen-Z owning a smartphone, it’s imperative that your campaigns are mobile-friendly. Most of them grew up surrounded by the evolution of our mobile devices, making it one of the most effective ways to reach them through online advertising.

Gen Z Smart Phone Ownership

Here are important things to consider: 

  • Emphasize imagery

Gen-Z loves to utilize GIFs and emojis as a way to communicate. It can easily be used as a way to speak to them without using any words at all. 

  • Make your content interactive

It’s important that your campaign is sharable so that they can show their peers. This feeds their desire to interact with brands that they love or have interest in. 

  • Remember online user experience

They love having quick access to almost everything online, which means they have high expectations for anything digital. Your campaign, website, or ad should be clear and responsive to live up to those expectations. 

How to Get it Right When Advertising to Gen-Z

With a massive purchasing power that’s only going to grow as Gen-Z matures in the workplace, don’t neglect them. No matter what industry your brand falls under, whether it be food & beverage, healthcare, or technology, there’s no doubt that a large group of Gen-Z’ers already have an existing passion and interest in it.

Gen-Z just wants to be understood, not defined. Once you recognize that difference, it’ll take your social media advertising initiatives to the next level. 

The post appeared first on Convince & Convert.

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11 Marketing Experts Reveal Their #1 Social Media Advertising Tip

11 Marketing Experts Reveal Their #1 Social Media Advertising Tip

Let’s talk social media. 

We all use it. It’s a platform that reaches billions of users, making it the perfect place for businesses to reach their audience. 

The world's most used social media platforms

Source

So while social media advertising is undeniably effective, it can also be pretty tricky to get right. There are a lot of different opinions on what works and what doesn’t.

Luckily, we’ve gathered some of the best and brightest minds in marketing to give us their #1 social media advertising tip. 

Let’s hear what they have to say!

Tip #1: Focus on a strong message

When it comes to social media advertising, the most important thing is to have a strong message that resonates. This means creating clear, concise, and easy ads for your target audience to understand.

Too often, businesses make the mistake of cramming too much information into their ads, which can be overwhelming and confusing for users. Instead, keep your message focused and simple so your target audience can easily understand it.

Name: Jamie Shostak

Title: Head of Growth 

Company: Appetiser App Development

Social Media (LinkedIn/Twitter): LinkedIn

Tip #2: Don’t sell the product, sell the outcome 

People are buying your product to solve a need and address a specific pain point. So what is the solution that your product is offering? And are you communicating that solution sufficiently on your social media channels? 

The goal is to educate, engage and inform as this builds customer trust—which is incredibly important. So instead of discussing your products’ features, look at the outcome. What problem does your product solve?

A great example of this is Apple. When talking about the new iPhone, they emphasize that their commercial was shot entirely on the latest iPhone instead of only highlighting the features. Or Nike. Their advertising is about how their shoes will allow you to run faster, jump higher, and reach your fitness goals. You’re not buying shoes; you’re buying a lifestyle. 

So who are you selling to? And what is the problem your product is solving? If you can’t answer these two questions, then you need to go back to the drawing board. 

Name: Yvonne Ivanescu

Title: Founder / Social Media Strategist / Travel Wrier 

Company: Now In Rio Swim / Spreaker / Now in Portugal

Social Media (LinkedIn/TikTok): Linkedin | TikTok

Tip #3: Test and Learn – then Pivot

Most marketers have a test and learn plan in place, but a shocking amount of marketing teams aren’t utilizing those insights to power creative direction for future campaigns. To make an impact with your testing spend, compile those insights over time, and use the layered findings to drive your content and creative planning. 

Name: Amanda Stevenson

Title: Marketing Strategist 

Company: Convince & Convert

Social Media: LinkedIn

Tip #4: Make your brand stand out using explainer videos

There is no doubt that videos have become one of the most powerful marketing tools over the past few years. More and more companies have been allocating big budgets to make videos for their brands. Just when you think those are good news, actually, the competitions are getting fiercer.

Therefore, choosing the best type of video for your marketing purposes is vital to make your brand stand out in the crowd. One of the most recognized video styles is explainer video. A report says that 73% of shoppers are more likely to purchase after watching videos explaining the products.

Explainer videos have both appealing visuals and compelling storylines to attract and engage audiences. In addition, they are well known to be straightforward and impactful in delivering messages. Another winning point of explainer videos is they can break down any complex concepts into digestible pieces of information in the most interesting way possible.

Name: Andre Oentoro

Title: CEO and Founder

Company: Breadnbeyond

Social Media: LinkedIn | Twitter 

Tip #5: Know your audience and align your social ads with your brand

It’s important to tailor your social media to your primary audience. Create personas to better understand your customers and then create social media posts and ads in a way that will appeal to their needs and preferences. Also, remember that your images, videos, and messaging should all align with your company’s brand, regardless of the channel you’re on. 

For example, if you’re a consultant that targets professional service firms, you might want to avoid creating TikTok videos that are funny or silly. While those videos might help you go viral, they might not help you reach your core audience, and they could possibly work against your brand and turn off your target audience. 

Name: Candice Stennett

Title: Vice President of Marketing

Company: SCORE

Social Media: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook

Tip #6: Advertise where your users are

Sometimes the channel you market in will impact your results more than your actual marketing campaigns. This is because you need to advertise where your users are. For example, if you’re targeting B2B decision-makers, you will likely get far more results advertising on LinkedIn compared to a platform like TikTok. 

You should take some time to list down different platforms your ideal customers use and focus on the platform that is the most relevant to your audience. This not only gives you a higher ROI on your marketing spend, but it also allows you to build a relevant brand on a platform that your audience is active on. 

Name: Ali Ali

Title: Founder

Company: Alisquared

Social Media: Twitter

Tip #7: Use the B2Bob framework for B2B creatives 

This one makes so much sense, yet it’s often overlooked. With the introduction of stories, the attention span decreased, and along with it, the way we consume content altogether. If you add on the complexity of B2B where the challenge lies in showcasing the promise or benefit of the product, it may seem like there’s no point in even doing ads for B2B users. 

However, Facebook introduced the B2Bob framework after the company extensively researched the consumption habits of social content. So, instead of “business to business,” we should rethink the acronym as Brand, 2 seconds, Benefit. Or in other words, you should aim to showcase your Brand within 2 seconds by highlighting your Benefit while speaking to a human such as Bob, if you will. 

If you add storytelling to the mix, striking facts, or surprising benchmarks, your ads have a better chance of standing out from the crowd and stopping people from scrolling. 

Name: Raluca Bejgu

Title: Digital Marketing Manager

Company: Verifone

Social Media: LinkedIn

Tip #8: Go back to basics

Despite all the new trends constantly happening in social media marketing, I believe many of us still do not use basic strategies in full capacity.

When was the last time when you used the AIDA model while creating your social media posts? Of course, the type of content is important, but users’ psychology and best practices on how to get their attention are already in the books.

Name: Evaldas Mockus

Title: VP of Growth

Company: Omnisend

Social Media (LinkedIn/Twitter): LinkedIn

Tip #9: Emphasize more on content creation than media amplification. 

Most social media marketing teams (small or big) spend 80% of their time and budget on media buying rather than creating the content itself to buy the media in the first place. I’ve seen what works for my eCom business is to make more creatives because that’s the prime variable for relating with people, which leads to more sales. 

Allocate at least 60% of the efforts for contextual creatives and the rest for buying and distributing the media. This has worked really well in my experiences.

Name: Bhujal Patel

Title: Founder

Company: My Digital Kube

Social Media: LinkedIn

Tip #10: Tell a Story 

Advertising on social media is all about storytelling. People hang out on Facebook and other networks to share their stories – what they’re nuts about, what they’re tired of, and what they can’t keep in anymore. So instead of a generic product description with a cliche CTA, focus on the emotional side. 

Let’s say you’re going to promote cold email software. Your target audience must have tried lots of tools like yours. What’s the point in wasting time on one more? To get them interested, you could tell a controversial story.

For example, a typical cold email tool usually comes packed with humorous follow-up templates allowing senders to look like funny peeps to deal with. But the truth is – jokes sound manipulative, almost like negging, when told by strangers. And many influencers actually criticise this follow-up strategy. 

The world's most used social media platforms

Source: https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes/status/1133461675548528640

That’s what you should talk about in your social ad.

Any contradiction or controversy will draw attention for sure. And if you add that your templates are based on a different approach and showed high response rates in your tests, people will want to try them.

Name: Mykola Haichenko

Title: Content Marketing Manager

Company: Visme

Social Media: LinkedIn | Twitter

Tip #11: Invest in Video Content

The most engaging sort of social media material is definitely video. Video content is 12 times more successful than other types of content, according to InVideo. In fact, it has a higher percentage of engagement than both text and image content put together.

Video helps you to be succinct and pique the interest of your audience in the first few seconds. Your ability to condense information into easily digestible snippets of content that are lengthy enough to hold viewers’ interest but short enough to leave them wanting more is key to your social media success.

Name: Eldo Roshi

Title: Co-Founder

Company: Codeless

And that’s a wrap!

There you have it, 11 social media advertising tips from some of the top marketing experts in the industry. 

What do you think? Anything that stands out to you that you want to try first? 

While fancy strategies are great to test and optimise, I believe that the best strategy is simply staying true to your brand: focus on what your product/service is and present it to those you know it will serve. 

And of course – get creative, have fun with it, and see how your brand can start attracting more people and start outperforming your competition!

 

The post 11 Marketing Experts Reveal Their #1 Social Media Advertising Tip appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

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Permission Marketing: Love it or Hate it?

permission marketing

For the longest time, marketing and advertising have been seen as intrusive and interruptive. A commercial on TV, an ad on the radio, and those huge billboards along the highway are all part of traditional marketing and advertising.

Furthermore, the introduction of the internet and social media has resulted in ads showing up on our social media feeds and timelines too. (I can hardly even use Instagram any more because of it! Is it just me?)

Seth Godin found the answer to this consumer dilemma in 1999, as he developed the idea of “permission marketing.” In his book Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers, he defined the term as the type of marketing where you need the consumer’s consent before sending out information.

Seth also said “Content marketing the only marketing that’s left!” It’s one of my favorite marketing quotes!

This means that if you get their approval, in some manner, they’re interested in your brand and tend to have higher engagement levels.

permission marketing

Permission Marketing vs. Interruption Marketing

Permission marketing shifts the power to the consumer. It relies on their decision as to whether they’ll allow the information to reach them. This activity alone makes it different than traditional interruption marketing.

Your consumers can only focus on so much. If you bombard them with too much marketing material, it can result in ad fatigue. The last thing you want to do is annoy your audience unless of course, you’re happy with a bad user experience.

ad fatigue
Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/why-people-block-ads-and-what-it-means-for-marketers-and-advertisers

Permission marketing increases the efficiency of any marketing strategy by zeroing-in on the prospects that are the most likely to engage. It also gives your audience a chance to opt-in. By providing certain information like name, email address, or phone number, the consumer permits you to use the information in exchange for valuable content like an e-book or whitepaper.

Seth Godin has repeatedly said that permission marketing gives you the opportunity to “earn the privilege” of interacting with your consumers. They’re paying attention to your marketing because you’ve earned their attention.

Examples of permission marketing are everywhere, although you may not notice them. A consumer’s social media activity (likes, favorites, and shares) are one aspect of permission targeting. This activity shows interest, and in permission marketing, this is what you need. For example, if a consumer liked a post from a brand’s page, he or she will be far more likely to engage with that brand’s content in the future.

Subscriptions are also considered permission marketing. If a user opts in by agreeing to receive a newsletter or subscribes to a podcast or YouTube channel, they must provide at least some portion of their contact information (usually an email address). Each of these actions gives a clear signal as to a prospect’s interests and gives your brand the in it may need to attract a prospect’s attention.

Benefits of Permission Marketing

1. Boosts Quality Leads

Your consumers have expressed their interest in purchasing your product or service; therefore their inherent interest (higher than those who didn’t opt-in) add to your engagement and conversion rates. These prospects can be considered high quality leads.

2. Increases Relevance

Because you’re targeting a consumer who’s already shown interest in your product or service, you know that your marketing strategy is relevant. Furthermore, by knowing that your targeted audience is already one step into your sales funnel, you can produce personalized campaigns based on demographics and their online behavior.

3. Lowers Costs

For the most part, permission marketing can and should be automated. There are several permission marketing tools (like email marketing automation) that can help improve process efficiency and ultimately, reduce the variable costs associated with running permission marketing campaigns.

4. Builds Loyalty and Reputation

Permission marketing is a continuous interaction. It doesn’t stop after the permission is given, especially if they like how you interacted with them in the first place.

Since you’re targeting them at the most relevant time, they’re less likely to block or ignore your marketing strategy. It’s always a good idea to build a good reputation with your customers.

Our data from actual clients shows that those who use content marketing with existing customers see a 4x higher Cusrtomer Lifetime Value (CLV).

Challenges with Permission Marketing

1. Getting to Yes

Permission marketing banks on getting that “yes” from consumers. But what would make them do that? Well, you need to be able to communicate the value of your offering, without coming off as too pushy.

Formulate and communicate your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) properly. Give the reason why their lives will change through your product or service. A compelling value proposition enables you to catch their attention right away.

2. Fewer Leads

The number of leads you acquire via permission marketing will likely be lower than traditional broadcast methods because you require users to opt-in. On the other hand, you can expect your improved conversion rates to offset any potential drop in leads that may occur.

3. Timing Issues

The turnaround time of permission marketing might take longer than usual. This is because you’re only targeting a portion of what you were targeting before. Once again, improved conversion rates should more than make up for any lag in lead time.

In Conclusion

Permission marketing is your consumer’s green light. This type of marketing works for most of the companies in general because of the benefits mentioned above, but also because most consumers are sick and tired of disruptive marketing tactics. The modern customer outlook is changing, so we’d better start giving them what they want.

Remember not to neglect marketing automation! These tools can assist you in scaling your permission marketing efforts on a personal level.

The post Permission Marketing: Love it or Hate it? appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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What is Retargeting and How to Use it to Drive Your Growth

retargeting

What is retargeting and why do you need it? Well, because it’s easier than ever to lose a sale online.

Think of it like this: you successfully drive a potential customer to your site with great content or social media engagement.

But then their phone rings. Or they have to take a quick meeting. Their child calls their name. They look up at the TV and forget to return. Or one of a million other potential distractions in our fast-paced world get in the way.

They could be lost forever. Or — you could use retargeting to get them back to your site.

That’s what we’ll cover in the sections that follow. You’ll learn what retargeting entails, why your business should be using it, which platforms to do it on, and best practices to maximize ROI.

Let’s get started.

Quick Takeaways

  • Only 2% of web users convert on their first visit to a website.
  • Retargeted web visitors convert at a 70% higher rate.
  • Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social platforms are effective places to use retargeting.
  • Retargeting ads are most effective when they incentivize, are personalized, and/or leverage high-value content.

What is retargeting?

So what exactly is retargeting? In short, it’s the process of monitoring the behavior of your web visitors so you can drive them back to your site later.

It’s done by adding code to your website that tracks user actions by placing cookies in their browsers. You can then use that information to show them targeted ads when they’re elsewhere on the internet.

Those requests you get to “accept all cookies” when you visit a new website? It’s retargeting in action. Brands are asking your permission to track what you’re doing so they can show you ads that are relevant to you.

Retargeting drives web visitors back to your website after they leave using targeted ads.

Image Source: Single Grain

Today 87% of marketers use site retargeting to attract potential customers back to their website. Given that only 2% (!) of web visitors convert on their first visit to any site, it’s a smart strategy for brands to capture low-hanging fruit in their web traffic and avoid losing prospects who will likely convert with a little bit of encouragement.

Let’s look at 3 reasons why retargeting should be part of your digital marketing strategy and the benefits your brand will experience from doing it.

Why Retargeting Needs to Be Part of Your Strategy

Consumers actually like retargeted ads

The consensus view of retargeted ads has always been tainted with a little bit of uncertainty about their use of individual consumer data. And there’s no doubt about it — consumers do worry about their online privacy.

At the same time, however, they are also more aware than ever that brands are using their information to advertise to them and target their buying preferences. And they still browse and buy online at a rapidly increasing rate.

Here’s what it comes down to: retargeting doesn’t turn consumers off as long as it’s done ethically (AKA you’re only retargeting people when it actually makes sense and they’ve agreed to your privacy policy).

In fact, recent research has found that 25% of consumers say they actually enjoy seeing retargeted ads. And while a quarter of consumers may not seem encouraging, actual consumer behavior suggests that number is quite a bit higher.

Here’s what the numbers tell us:

  • Retargeted ads earn a click-through rate 10x higher than regular display ads
  • Retargeted website visitors are 70% more likely to convert
  • 3 out of 4 consumers notice retargeted ads when they see them

Website users retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert.

Image Source: Invesp

It’s helpful to think about this in the context of your own life, too. We all see ads for products and brands we’ve briefly visited without buying from. But rather than get annoyed, our interest is usually sparked again. We may click on the ad to look at it again and rethink whatever reasoning we had before for not buying. We may follow the brand on social media for updates.

Retargeting is a massive opportunity for brands to cut down on lost sales by reminding consumers why they were interested in the first place and incentivizing them to come back and make a purchase.

Where to Retarget

Google and YouTube

Google and YouTube are the two most visited websites in the world, with a casual combined 85 billion monthly views (nbd). You can target ads on these massive platforms with Google Ads on the Google Display Network.

Most consumers are doing their brand and product research using Google search. What better place, then, to have your ads displayed to convince users to choose you?

Facebook and Instagram

Ads on the two platforms are both run under Facebook Ads Manager. You add the Facebook Pixel to your website’s code. When users take an action on your site (for example, adding to cart or making a purchase) the pixel is triggered and they’ll see retargeted ads on both Facebook and Instagram.

Learn more about the Facebook Pixel here.

TikTok

TikTok has exploded onto the scene over the past two years. It’s easy to assume this platform might be best for targeting younger audiences, but the truth is there are tons of audiences on TikTok that encompass a range of ages and interest areas.

For example #MomTok — moms sharing tips, stories, and advice — is one of the most active corners of the app. #BusinessTok, #FitnessTok, and #BookTok are some of the other most popular hashtag-driven interest groups on the app. These are only a few examples. In other words: retargeting on TikTok is for every type of audience.

You can get started at TikTok for Business.

LinkedIn

For B2B companies or brands targeting a more corporate or professional audience, LinkedIn could be an ideal platform for your retargeting efforts. You can add the LinkedIn Insight Tag to your website to begin tracking your visitors and serving them ads on the LinkedIn platform.

3 Retargeting Best Practices

Incentivize

The thing about web visitors you retarget is that they have shown interest in your brand already, but for some reason they weren’t motivated to make a purchase (or maybe they did but haven’t been back to make another one).

The way to convince them? Offering incentives. Consider this: you see a pair of shoes you love. You almost buy them but you think “Well, they’re just a little too pricey. I’m going to pass.”

A few days later you see those shoes you love, except they’re being offered at a discount. Your main argument for not buying the shoes is gone. You’re much more likely to  go back and make the purchase.

Incentivizing your retargeting audiences is worthwhile because you eliminate one of the biggest roadblocks to purchase: concerns about price.

Here’s an example from American Express:

Retargeting ad example from American Express.

Image Source: Neil Patel

Personalize

Like all other kinds of online experiences, consumers want their retargeted ads to be personalized to their preferences. Nearly 80% of consumers say personally relevant ad content from brands increases their purchase intent.

Adding simple phrases that are unique to a person’s experience with your brand (i.e. “You left this item in your cart!” or “Based on your previous purchase, we think you’d love this!”) can be what makes your ad stand out to your audience.

Here’s an example from AirBnB, which shows a listing from a destination this user already searched for:

Personalized retargeting ad example from AirBnB.

Image Source: WebFX

Leverage Content

Content drives more organic traffic than any other method of digital marketing. That said, targeted ads are the highest-converting of all methods. Why not combine the two for maximum ROI?

Consider the types of content your web visitors interact with and/or what content created by your brand would be most relevant to them. Promote it through your ads, emphasizing how it can help users solve problems, learn something new, or accomplish an important goal.

Content that can be effectively marketed through retargeting ads include:

  • Blog articles
  • How-to guides
  • Checklists
  • Webinars and video demos
  • Ebooks and whitepapers

Here’s an example from Unbounce:

Retargeting ad example from Unbounce.

Image Source: Sprout Social

Nothing demonstrates the value of your brand and established authority better than great content. To maximize conversions, be sure you include strong CTAs with your content telling users what you want them to do next (like sign up for emails or start a free trial).

Over to You

Great content creates a strong foundation for your other digital marketing strategies (like retargeting ads). The team at Marketing Insider Group can deliver you optimized, ready-to-publish blog content every single week for one year (or more).

Check out our SEO Blog Writing Service or schedule a quick consultation with me to get started!

The post What is Retargeting and How to Use it to Drive Your Growth appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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3 Key Elements to Effectively Target Gen Z with Social Media Advertising

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Let’s cut straight to it. How the heck do we reach Gen-Z through social media advertising? It’s already halfway through 2022 and approaching this generation seems like the most daunting task. 

Gen-Z knows the ins and outs of the latest trends, are hyper-focused on digital, and undeniably has the shortest attention span of any other generation. With the rise in popularity of short-form video in TikTok and IG Reels – and we hate to say it too but, AUTHENTICITY, it’s not surprising that some brands are becoming obsessed with Gen-Z as they live in this space more than anyone else. 

If this isn’t surprising enough, taking time to understand what makes this generation click is a must if marketers want to take advantage of their massive spending power. Young, tech savvy, and socially-invested, Gen Z is by far the most racially and ethnically diverse generation ever with a spending power of over $140 billion and $360 billion in disposable income.

So although implementing them into your strategy may seem difficult, let’s dive into a few tips to help target Gen Z with social media advertising. 

Make Gen-Z Feel Included

This means ditching traditional advertising. We’re not saying it doesn’t work, but it’s probably not the best approach for Gen-Z. 

Gen-Z’ers do not like to feel marketed to. There’s a difference between us as brands selecting them to market to versus them feeling that way. They want to feel a part of something bigger than what you’re selling. What is it about your brand that can resonate with them? What values does your brand advocate and have passion for that you can use to create a niche? 

This generation is known for their proactiveness within their digital communities. So we strongly suggest that you find a way to hone in on a specific “community” in Gen-Z that resonates with your brand and start there. Whether it’s a passion for mental health, gaming, or avocado toast, there’s an unlimited number of sectors you can choose from. 

If your brand wants to take it a step further, rely on the help of micro-influencers since they specialize in niches. People speak to people better than words on an ad do. If you want to reach Gen-Z, there’s nothing more beneficial than utilizing a human being that they can connect with. 

Gen-Z just wants to be understood, not defined.
Click To Tweet

Grab Their Attention, FAST

With an attention span of just 8 seconds, the content you are spewing out in your campaigns needs to work just as quickly as they lose interest. It’s no surprise that short-form video content has become the number one tool that nearly all social media platforms have implemented and prioritized. 

Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram have revolutionized the world of short-form video content. In fact, by 2023, the amount of Gen-Z users in the U.S. on TikTok is expected to be around 43 million, with Instagram coming in close after at 41 million.

Number of Gen Z users in the United States on selected social media platforms from 2020 to 2025(in millions)

If you are working on utilizing short-form video content, here are three key things to keep in mind:

  • Get to the point

Whatever it is that you’re trying to sell, focus on the benefits and the experience they will get out of it. You do not need to spend half of your video explaining to Gen-Z who your brand is. They will likely do research on your brand on their own if they are interested in your product. Remember, for Gen-Z, its experience > product. 

  • Show personality 

Utilizing humor, trending audios, and influencers are great ways to add more depth and life to your short-form videos. Think of it as a conversation with your teenage kids. If you can’t picture them listening to you without getting bored, then you want to change up your approach. 

  • Focus on one thing

Do not make the mistake of trying to sell everything all at once. This is a huge perk of utilizing short-form videos because you can have each small aspect of what you’re selling shine on its own. Think of it this way: take each benefit that your brand or product has and use every short-form video you make act as a teaser or trailer for it.  

Optimize Mobile Experiences for Gen Z

With 98% of Gen-Z owning a smartphone, it’s imperative that your campaigns are mobile-friendly. Most of them grew up surrounded by the evolution of our mobile devices, making it one of the most effective ways to reach them through online advertising.

Gen Z Smart Phone Ownership

Here are important things to consider: 

  • Emphasize imagery

Gen-Z loves to utilize GIFs and emojis as a way to communicate. It can easily be used as a way to speak to them without using any words at all. 

  • Make your content interactive

It’s important that your campaign is sharable so that they can show their peers. This feeds their desire to interact with brands that they love or have interest in. 

  • Remember online user experience

They love having quick access to almost everything online, which means they have high expectations for anything digital. Your campaign, website, or ad should be clear and responsive to live up to those expectations. 

How to Get it Right When Advertising to Gen-Z

With a massive purchasing power that’s only going to grow as Gen-Z matures in the workplace, don’t neglect them. No matter what industry your brand falls under, whether it be food & beverage, healthcare, or technology, there’s no doubt that a large group of Gen-Z’ers already have an existing passion and interest in it.

Gen-Z just wants to be understood, not defined. Once you recognize that difference, it’ll take your social media advertising initiatives to the next level. 

The post 3 Key Elements to Effectively Target Gen Z with Social Media Advertising appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

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5 Easy Steps To Running An Effective Social Media Audit

5 Easy Steps To Running An Effective Social Media Audit

Over three billion people around the world use social media every month. Out of this, 75% feel that social media platforms play a key role in their purchasing mindset. This shows how a good social media strategy is a must for businesses that want to come out on top.

But with the constantly changing trends and increasing social media competition, it isn’t easy to make a mark today. So, where should you begin from? Your best bet is to audit your current social media channels to find improvement opportunities and make changes that drive better results.

In this article, we’ll dive deep into the world of social media audits to discuss the what, why and how, so you can give your social media profiles a facelift and pave your way towards enhanced brand awareness.

What is a social media audit?  

To stay on top of your brand’s online presence, you need to evaluate and optimize its social media profiles. This process is called social media auditing. Conducting social media audits regularly is instrumental in reaching your engagement goals because it helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your social handles and develop a cohesive social media strategy that can drive your business forward. 

Many facets come together to conduct a comprehensive social media audit that reveals the good, bad and ugly of your profiles—only to help you improve your game and better engage your audience. It includes: 

  • Performance Metrics: To understand how your profile fares with your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like conversions, engagement, followers and clicks.
  • Social Listening: To track online conversations around your brand, so you can boost customer engagement by interacting with your audience, protect brand reputation in case of fake news and respond to customer feedback.
  • Content Pillars: To maintain a consistent brand voice and provide niche-specific content to your target audience.  
  • Hashtags: To understand which hashtags are specific enough to increase the reach and engagement of your posts.
  • SWOT Analysis: To analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to get a snapshot of your social media performance and identify areas for improvement.

Many social media tools on the internet can help you conduct a social media audit seamlessly to get accurate insights. Yes, the sheer volume can make it hard to single out the top-performing ones, but here’s a curated list of great platforms to begin with:

  • BrandMentions: Get alerted whenever your brand is mentioned across social, news, blogs and videos.
  • Agorapulse: Schedule content, discover trends and access detailed analytics.
  • Followerwonk: Audit your Twitter performance and analyze what type of content gets the most followers to tailor your social media strategies accordingly.
  • Phlanx: Analyze your engagement rate on Instagram to measure the success of each social media post in your marketing campaign 
  • Facebook ads library: Explore all ads running on Facebook and Instagram to understand what your competitors are upto and get ideas for enhancing your content strategies.
  • Sociality.io: Create in-depth content calendars, publish posts and track news about your brand.
  • Hypeauditor: Pick and choose the best influencers for your business by analyzing quality of audiences and engagement.
  • Analisa: Analyze your Instagram and TikTok content to understand your engagement rate, follower count and post performance.

Why should you conduct a social media audit?  

Although conducting a social media audit may seem like a long and drawn-out process, the insights will help you get the most out of your social media efforts and get greater engagement and conversions that impact your bottom line.

Here are some ways conducting social media audits can help you:

  • Allows you to keep a pulse on what people say about your brand and competitors. 
  • Provides in-depth information on your current social media performance.
  • Helps identify opportunities to tap into a new market or target group.
  • Spotlights the engagement strategies of your competitors, so you can learn from them and engage your audience better.
  • It gives you actionable steps to up your social media marketing game and one-up your competitors to create a mark.

5 steps to conducting an effective social media audit

Now that you know the importance of conducting a social media audit let’s look at how to actually do it.

While there are multiple ways to conduct an audit, here’s a simple 5-step process you can follow to begin right away.

  • Analyze your current social media performance

While conducting a social media audit, your first order of business should be to create a comprehensive list of all the social media accounts you currently have on different channels. Dig deep into each profile and look for inconsistencies in brand voice, theme and style guide. 

Note down these inconsistencies on a Google Sheet and share it with your creative team. Then, create a timeline to revamp your social channels’ overall look and feel. 

Ideally, an optimized profile should have a relevant social media account name, brand logo as the profile picture, an optimized bio that tells users what you do, the products/services you offer and why they should follow you, along with a Call-to-Action (CTA). SkullCandy is a case in point. 

Skullcandy Instagram account example

The next step is to identify well-performing posts to understand their virality factor. This will help you understand what type of content works well with your audience.

Nearly 94% of marketers in the B2B space prefer using Linkedin to distribute their content. They leverage tools like LinkedIn Social Selling Index to measure the authority they gain through their Linkedin-driven sales strategies and identify improvement areas to optimize their strategy further for better performance. 

Derive inspiration from competitors

Around 90% of Fortune 500 companies engage in competitive analysis. Studying your competition can help you zero in on your own company’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP). 

Here are three sure-fire steps to conducting an effective competitive analysis: 

Make a list of your top competitors 

Open Google Adwords Keyword Planner, and enter some keywords related to your business. The tool will show you where these keywords are ranking, along with their search volume. You can then enter these keywords in the Google search bar and understand which businesses are ranking the highest for them—these are your competitors. 

Similarly, you can also enter your competitor’s website and understand which keywords rank higher on the search engine results page. 

Analyze their current strategy 

Gather intel on your shortlisted competitors’ strategies, themes and content pillars by evaluating their active social media profiles. Use Twitter Lists to keep a close eye on what kind of content they’re tweeting, and sign up for their newsletters for more insight. 

You can also ask yourself questions like: 

  • What platforms are my competitors on?
  • How often do they post? 
  • What is their engagement rate?
  • What are they missing out on that I can address to one-up them?
  • How can I provide a better social media experience to my audience?

Around 90% of Fortune 500 companies engage in competitive analysis.
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Use the insights to guide your implementation strategy 

After completing the analysis, draw up your action plan to act on your findings and optimize your social media channels to improve performance and engage with your audience better.

Zero in on suitable social media channels

The platforms you choose for your business entirely depend on your target group. For example, if your audience includes marketers and C-level or VP executives, it doesn’t make sense to focus your marketing efforts on Instagram—you’re likely to perform much better on a B2B platform like Linkedin or Twitter. 

Another great way to understand which platform you should be on is to analyze how your audience interacts with your content. Do you get more likes on your Instagram reels, or do thought-leadership articles on Linkedin garner better attention? 

Depending on your engagement, choose a few primary channels to focus your social media efforts on. In an IDC study, three out of four B2B buyers and eight out of 10 executive buyers in the survey relied on social media to make purchasing decisions.

IDC Study : three out of four B2B buyers and eight out of 10 executive buyers in the survey relied on social media to make purchasing decisions graphs

Here are three platforms you can use if you have a B2B audience:

Twitter

  • Perfect for posting company updates and keeping up with trends through Twitter hashtags.
  • Allows businesses to keep track of brand mentions and gain insights into customer pain points and brand perception.
  • Best to create bite-sized content under 280 characters that can quickly capture audience attention. 

Linkedin

  • In B2B marketing, 80% of leads sourced through social media come from LinkedIn —making it an ideal platform to find new customers. 
  • LinkedIn accounts for 46% of social media traffic to B2B websites, demonstrating its effectiveness in driving traffic to your website, and driving conversions and sign-ups.
  • 69% of social media users believe Linkedin is the best platform for authentic and high-quality content, contributing to brand credibility.

Nearly 94% of marketers in the B2B space prefer using Linkedin to distribute their content.
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Facebook

  • Business decision-makers are 1.3x more likely to watch product demos on Facebook, making it an effective space to approach prospects and boost content engagement.
  • According to Meta, business decision-makers, your primary target audience as a B2B brand, spend 74% more time on Facebook when compared to other people on the platform. 

According to Meta, business decision-makers, your primary target audience as a B2B brand, spend 74% more time on Facebook when compared to other people on the platform

Image source 

Identify opportunities from new social media platforms

The next step in your social media audit is to look for opportunities where you can establish your brand’s presence because there’s a huge world beyond Instagram and Facebook on platforms like Peanut and Caffeine.

For example, a women’s fashion brand would do well on Pinterest, given that the majority of the platform’s users are women. Similarly, Twitch and Discord are great options for gaming brands. Several businesses are also exploring audio platforms like Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse to engage in real-time audio conversations. 

Here are some steps that can help you recognize new opportunities to establish your social media presence:

  • Refer to the list of shortlisted competitors from your competitor analysis.
  • Check out the websites to understand which platforms they’re on.
  • Make a list of all new platforms and identify if your audience is active on them. 
  • Conduct in-depth research about each platform’s user demographics and content types. 
  • Create a list of pros and cons to understand which platform is right for you.

If the pros of a particular platform outweigh the cons, create an account on it and analyze the performance of your posts to see whether marketing on this platform is worth your time and effort. Use analytics to validate your decision to be present on a platform and tweak your strategy accordingly for better performance.

Create an implementation plan

Now that you know which social media platforms your brand should focus on, begin creating and tailoring content for each one of them. Your Lifestyle Business has an easy 5-step system for this: 

Step 1: Identify the purpose of your content. Do you want to build brand awareness, trust boost sales, drive traffic to your website or improve customer loyalty? Tailor your overarching content pillars based on the answer to this question. 

Step 2: Use the pillar and cluster technique to organize your social media content into specific topics areas and create topic clusters. For instance, if you’ve chosen “social media marketing” as a content pillar, you can divide it into more specific topics like social media analytics, influencer marketing and paid ad campaigns. 

Here’s an illustration of how SEMrush zeroed in on “SEO” as their content pillar and further divided it into smaller topic clusters:

SEMrush content pillars diagram

Step 3: Write down ten questions per cluster. Create social media posts based on the answers to these questions. This will give you a content bank of around 50 pieces of social media content. 

Step 4: Create a content calendar. Once the content is ready, you can schedule each post through a scheduling tool like Planable. 

Planable social media scheduling platform

Step 5: Repurpose your posts to create a content bank that’s tailored to all the platforms you’ve identified in the previous steps. 

For instance, Linkedin posts are often long and text-heavy, while Twitter posts contain snackable content. So, if you’ve created a content calendar for Linkedin, you can repurpose all of the posts by cutting down the fluff to retain key points and post them on Twitter as a thread. You can follow the same process and repurpose content for different platforms as well. 

In B2B marketing, 80% of leads sourced through social media come from LinkedIn
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Track results over time

You can’t just conduct a social media audit once and call it a day. You need to constantly track your social media profiles to ensure you’re targeting the right set of audiences, creating content that works for you, and are on the right platform.

If you want to generate consistent ROI, you need to perform regular audits. 

Here are a few steps to guide you through the process: 

Step 1: Identify two or three SMART goals you want to achieve by your next audit. 

SMART goals diagram

This means that whenever you’re creating goals for your social media strategy, make sure they are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. 

Here’s an example:

  • Specific: Boost engagement on Twitter
  • Measurable: Get 10 comments, and 5 followers per post
  • Attainable: Attain 200 followers over 30 days with ads and sponsored posts
  • Relevant: Increase engagement rate by 5% to drive brand awareness
  • Time-bound: Achieve 10,000 post views in 30 days

Step 2: Choose relevant metrics to measure performance 

Start tracking your results (we suggest doing it every quarter). You can assess how social media is contributing to your larger business goals by tracking social media metrics like: 

  • Sentiment analysis: Evaluate the overall perception of your brand, whether it’s positive, negative or neutral. 
  • Brand-specific keywords: Understand which keywords work for you and keep updating them with changing trends. 
  • Audience insights: Gather demographic data of your target group. Study their interests, preferred language, income level and unique interests..
  • Engagement rate: Analyze the number of reactions, comments, shares, and clicks on your social media posts during the specified period

Step 3: Create detailed reports to validate your strategy 

Develop in-depth reports of your social media performance for every quarter. For this, refer to the goals you set in the first step and see if you’ve succeeded in achieving them. If you haven’t, playback your social media strategy and identify loopholes, areas of improvement and weaknesses. Use data to understand why you couldn’t achieve your goals and optimize your strategy to get better results.

For example: if you wanted to gain 100 followers on Twitter in 30 days but could only manage 30 followers—look at your impressions per post, month-on-month growth in followers, and engagement. You can also use Twitter Analytics to see your high-performing posts and include more of such in your content strategy.

You can use these to change course and get a better outcome in the next quarter. 

Conclusion

Conducting a social media audit may seem intimidating at first, but the process becomes intuitive after the first few cycles. With the right elements and a few SMART goals to back them up, you can boost your social media presence and ROI. 

Always remember to keep looking for new platforms and trends to latch onto. After all, staying relevant is crucial in today’s changing business landscape. 

The post 5 Easy Steps To Running An Effective Social Media Audit appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

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