Ever run into someone who doesn’t “get” content marketing? They unknowingly ascribe to misunderstandings and misperceptions. Here’s how to take on three of those myths so you’re all operating from the same content marketing field. Continue reading
The post 3 Myths in Content Marketing and How to Counter Them appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.
Over the past few years, Instagram has taken the world by storm. With over a billion users, Instagram trails only parent company Facebook in terms of traffic. While IG has long been a fan-favorite, the addition of a “Stories” feature is what put the platform on the fast track to worldwide ubiquity.
Stories began as a way for Instagram to emulate competitor Snapchat’s ephemeral nature; now, Stories alone boasts twice as many active users as Snapchat has in total. The combination of Instagram’s immense user base, its relationship with Facebook, and its ease of use catapulted Stories to social media stardom.
The incredible number of eyeballs on Stories means that brands and businesses that don’t utilize the format are missing out. Advertising on Instagram and Stories are on the rise, but businesses should also focus on creating eye-catching, engaging, and ultimately persuasive organic content as well, in order to appear naturally in users’ Stories feed.
The only issue with this plan is that a user may follow hundreds or thousands of other accounts. How can you rise above your competitors and consistently appear near the top of your followers’ Stories?
Here are some tips that will help your business rank higher on Instagram Stories:
There was a time when Instagram delivered photos and videos to your feed based on when users added them chronologically. A few years ago that changed, and now an algorithm that is reportedly based on engagement decides when and where posts appear to you.
When Stories debuted in August 2016, the algorithm was already in full effect. While that algorithm has been tweaked over time, its mission remains the same: Instagram wants users to spend as much time as possible on Instagram – viewing ads, engaging with brands – and so they will show users what they think those users want to see.
Therefore, if someone demonstrates a history of interacting with an account (liking their posts, commenting, direct messaging, and yes – watching their Stories) then Instagram will elevate their posts to the top of your feeds.
Of course, “making good content” is easier said than done. Some best practices for posting content that gets higher engagement include:
Via @LEGO: A combination of kaleidoscopic colors and question stickers creates a fun, informational Story post.
Whether you’re writing a blog post or posting to social media, hooking consumers instantly is the goal. Your introduction – or in this case, first post or two of your Story – should make it clear what you’ll be offering viewers. Don’t be coy, because all it takes is a swipe for people to move on from you entirely.
Whether you’re making a how-to video or tutorial, premiering special behind-the-scenes footage, or presenting followers with discounts and deals, take the time to make the introduction of your Story as strong as possible. Even if people move on before the Story finishes, nothing drives down your engagement like an immediate pass.
If you have a Business account on Instagram, you can view your Story “Insights” to see how people are engaging with your posts – including where you might be losing users over the course of a Story.
The Stories’ format lends itself to certain kinds of storytelling that doesn’t work as well with regular Instagram posts, which are limited in scope. Take advantage of Stories with its sequential format and endless posting ability to create useful, educational, and less overtly polished (but more “authentic”) content, such as:
Via @britandco: Teach and inspire followers with tutorials that they didn’t know they needed.
Extra points if you link these photos and videos to even more in-depth content on your webpage for additional engagement. You’ll need at least 10,000 followers to gain the “Swipe Up” option that takes users to a different page, but you can also use the “Mention” sticker to reroute users to your bio, where your bio link is waiting to direct them to your off-channel content.
Instagram is pushing hard for users to watch more live video and long-form video thanks to the rollout of their IGTV feature, which offers TV episode-length videos. They also prominently feature live streams at the top of each Stories list as a way to alert users of ongoing streams.
Too much live streaming for a small business account can come across as spammy, but a well-timed use of the feature can both provide followers with fun insight into your office culture, a day in the life of an employee, or a fun event that you’re throwing at your brick-and-mortar location – as well as catapult your account to the top of your followers’ Stories feed.
This is good practice for any social media account you operate: Remember, your activity is not a one-way street. Creating high-quality, timely, useful content is important, but so is engaging with other accounts on the platform.
Reply to comments left by followers, invite users to DM you customer service issues (and respond when they do), and comment on the posts or Stories of users who tag you or use your company tags. The point of your business accounts on social media is not to simply be another mouthpiece for the company, but a channel where followers and customers get to see the “real” you.
By engaging with other users, you break down the walls between customer and brand – plus, the more users interact with you, the more likely you’ll reach the top of their feeds.
Location geotags on Stories are a great way to gain local exposure, and to appear in the feeds of people who don’t follow you but are exploring that same spot. You can go broad with your geotags – tagging entire cities, such as New York – or go hyper-local by tagging your neighborhood. You might gain new followers who enjoy your contributions to the location’s social media footprint.
Hashtags work much the same way, though they’re most effective when you create your own specific hashtag that leads to a run of on-brand content. You’re less likely to get found in the sea of #fashion or #retail posts – but the occasional well-placed tag can catch fire on the Discovery feed as well.
Using both of these options on key posts is a great way to find new followers and boost your overall engagement.
When all else fails, or when seeking an extra boost, you can always try hacking the system with the “hide/unhide” hack.
The Tab figured out this trick: Post a story, then “hide” it from the person you want to see your story. Quickly unhide it, and your story will reportedly jump to the top of their Stories queue.
If you’re looking to grab the attention of thousands of followers, this hack is time-consuming and may not pay off in the long run. But when you’re first starting out, it may provide the jumpstart you need. Just don’t forget to also follow the above tips, so your content becomes the driving force behind your engagement, not tricks.
Ranking higher on users’ Instagram Stories is a great way to stay top-of-mind for your followers. You’re far more likely to generate leads and see repeat business if you’re there every time someone opens their app. As marketing tactics go, this concept can be highly effective – plus, it’ll probably be a lot more fun than you realize.
There’s a reason why Instagram has over a billion users: It’s because Instagram is a good experience. With good content that keeps people wanting more, you can help keep it that way.
Guest author: Eric Goldschein is a staff writer at Fundera, a marketplace for small business financial solutions. He covers entrepreneurship, small business trends, finance, and marketing.
The post 6 Ways to Rank Higher on The Instagram Stories Feed appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.
To develop a lucrative link-building strategy, you must go beyond the basics of creating quality content that your audience wants. To be successful, you must do what many sites don’t. Start with these five less-obvious tips. Continue reading
The post 5 Forgotten Ways to Improve Your Link-Building Strategy appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.
Blogging is a great way to work from home, particularly for parents, but in order to be productive, you also need to have a space to call your own. That’s why professional bloggers need a home office. But how much space do you need to make it work? There are several different factors you need to consider as you develop your home office space.
Setting Boundaries
The first factor you need to consider when setting up your home office is what kind of boundaries you want – or need – to set. If you typically write while caring for your children, you might want an office that’s nearby, allowing you to write in short bursts, while they’re playing or taking a nap. On the other hand, if you’re likely to be interrupted by family members or other demands, but don’t actually need to be on call, you’ll want clearer boundaries. Some people even set up a detached home office in the backyard or one attached like a porch to the house, so that they have a dedicated and private space to work.
Size Matters – Somewhat
The size of your home office matters, but not as much as you may think. If you’re buying a new house, then, you may want to factor your home office into the square footage of the home you buy. If you’re not planning your home office upgrade at the same time as a move, on the other hand, it’s more important that you create a space of your own than have a lot of space. Many home offices are carved out of large closets, desks built into an eave or nook under the stairs, and other innovative spaces. Ultimately, it’s creating room to work that matters most; how much room is a secondary concern.
Consider Comfort
In addition to the size of your office, it’s important that whatever space you adopt for your home office is designed following ergonomic principles, allowing for proper posture, minimizing visual fatigue, and generally reducing discomfort associated with sedentary work. Blogging may seem like it would be easy on the body, but it’s actually associated with back pain, “tech neck,” and a variety of complaints that can drive those in the tech professions to the chiropractor. When you set up your space, then, invest in equipment that supports your body’s needs.
Make It Count
Don’t forget that by creating a home office space, you gain some financial benefits – you can deduct your home office as a business expense on your taxes. All you have to do is calculate the percent of your home’s square footage used as an office, and then you can deduct that from your rent or mortgage. Even if you don’t have a complete room to use as an office, investing in a few dividers will allow you to clearly mark your workplace and calculate the deduction.
By creating a formal home office area in your home, you make it clear to your family – and yourself – that running a blog is a serious job, and the income from monetizing your site, combined with tax deductions, should more than pay for the investment. What’s more, by dedicating a specific space to your work, you nearly guarantee that you’ll be more productive when you are working, making your blog, and your office, even more valuable.
Original post: Blogging Full Time? You Need A Home Office
There’s a crisis in consumer trust. Yet brand trust is one of the biggest factors for consumers’ purchasing decisions. Here’s how to address the pressure to not only secure brand trust but to let marketing own it. Continue reading
The post 7 Steps to Getting Brand Trust Right appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.
Over the past few years, Facebook have been steadily reducing organic reach. Which means businesses now reach far fewer people for free, when they post something on their Facebook Page.
Facebook’s reason for doing this is obvious. By reducing organic reach, they encourage businesses to advertise. This strategy has been very effective and there are reportedly now more than 6 million active Facebook advertisers.
However, organic reach has not disappeared completely. You can still consistently reach people on Facebook without having to pay, with a Facebook Group.
I’m not advocating that you spam lots of Facebook Groups with links to your website. That is a waste of time and quite frankly annoying. Instead, you should create your own Facebook Group.
By creating a Facebook Group and getting people within your target market to become members, you can market to those people on a regular basis without having to pay. And the big difference between a Facebook Group and a Facebook Page is that members of your Group will actually see your posts – which is a big deal!
So how do you convince people to join your Facebook Group? This article will show you exactly how to generate 1,000+ Facebook Group members quickly.
For the purposes of this article, I have focused on growing a Facebook Group as opposed to creating one. If you haven’t already created a Facebook Group, here’s Facebook’s support documentation on how to do that.
You can generate members by directly advertising your Facebook Group. But I have found that’s expensive and ineffective.
Instead, you should link your Facebook Page to your Group. Doing so is straightforward and you can click here for Facebook’s instructions.
Once your Page and Group are linked, you can invite people that like your Page to join your Group:
If you’ve been active on Facebook for a while, it’s likely that you already have a number of Page likes.
Inviting those people to join your Group is very effective. I consistently see 50%+ of the people invited, accept the invitation to join.
It should be noted that Facebook won’t let you invite everyone at once. You have to invite each person manually and Facebook seems to limit you to around 50 invites per day. But if you have thousands of Page likes it won’t take very long to reach the 1,000-member mark in your Group.
However, not everyone reading this will have thousands of Facebook Page likes and some will have brand new Pages.
If that’s the case, you can advertise your Page to generate likes and then invite those people to join your Group. I have found this is much more effective than advertising your Group directly.
Head into Facebook’s Ads Manager and click on the green Create button. That will bring up a window that looks like this:
Here you need to give your campaign a name and select the Page likes campaign objective as you can see above.
Selecting the right campaign objective when you create a Facebook ad campaign is very important as Facebook will optimize that campaign to meet your objective.
Then give your ad set and ad a name, and click Save to Draft at the bottom of the page.
Now it’s time to set your Facebook targeting for your new campaign. Navigate to the ad set level and scroll down to the Audience section:
When looking to generate new Page likes it’s very unlikely that you’re going to advertise to warm audiences. Therefore, you can ignore the Custom Audiences section.
Start by adding the Locations you would like to target. I would recommend making this as large as possible. But, bare in mind that it should be within your area of operation as a business.
After all, there is little point building a Facebook Group that is full of people that can’t become customers of yours.
Then set your Age and Gender parameters. Again, I would recommend leaving this as open as possible. Page like campaigns work best with large target audiences.
After that, you may want to add Detailed Targeting criteria. If you operate on a local basis, or your product/service has mass market appeal then I wouldn’t add anything here.
However, if your product/service is quite niche then you may want to add something that is closely related to your industry.
You can leave the other settings as default. All you need to do is set your budget and then move onto the ad.
Facebook ads that are designed to generate Page likes should be very straightforward.
You simply want to include an interesting image that is related to your industry. And include a bit of information about what your company does, and why people might want to like your Page.
Here’s an example of an ad I’ve used that has performed well:
The ad images in Page like campaigns are formatted differently to most ads as you can see above. Which means not all images will work.
The image above works well because it is interesting and colorful, which helps grab people’s attention. It also immediately lets people know what this ad is about.
Here I’ve used short and simple copy, and I’ve told people why they should like my Page. It’s very important that your copy focuses on why people should like your Page.
You may need to experiment with a few copy and ad variations to create an ad that can perform well and generate Page likes inexpensively.
As your Facebook ad campaign starts to generate Page likes, you obviously need to invite those people to join your Group.
The quicker you invite someone to join your Group after they have liked your Page, the more likely they are to accept the invitation.
I would recommend that you do this on a daily basis. It only takes a couple of minutes, but having hundreds or thousands of members in your Facebook Group can be well worth it.
Organic reach on Facebook has almost completely disappeared. One way that you can still reach people without having to pay for it, is with a Facebook Group.
Directly advertising a Facebook Group is expensive and ineffective. I’ve found that generating Page likes and then inviting those people to join your Group, is a more effective strategy.
There are 6 steps to this strategy:
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below and best of luck with it.
Guest author: Ben Heath is the CEO if Facebook advertising agency, Lead Guru. Alongside executing successful Facebook ad campaigns for clients, he produces high-quality content for business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs.
The post How to Grow a Facebook Group From Zero to 1,000+ Members Fast appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.
Toddlers have short attention spans, ultimately leaving in their wake a trail of orphaned blocks, half-eaten strawberries, and half-dressed dolls. Is that how your content team operates? Here’s how to grow up your project management. Continue reading
The post Don’t Let the Toddler Trap Torpedo Your Content Productivity appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.
