by Marketing Manager | How To's & Info you can use, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Media, Video Marketing, Videos
Small businesses are always looking for ways to use their marketing budget as efficiently as possible. One of the many strategies is to incorporate TikTok, the fast-growing social media platform. But how can you use TikTok in your marketing? Should you pay for ads? Should you create content? We’ll outline just some of the ways to use this platform in your marketing. What Is TikTok? TikTok is a social media platform that lets people share short videos. Videos can use music in the background or just use the voice. There are also numerous memes and challenges on TikTok contributing to its popularity. Experts estimate that as of February 2021, there were more than 1.1 billion monthly active users. In other words, a sizable proportion of your target audience is on TikTok. With that in mind, here are some of the best ways to use TikTok in your marketing. #1 Pay for Ads The most obvious option is to pay for ads on TikTok. The ads will appear before and after videos on the application. You can choose from several ad formats. You also get to choose the audience that you want to target. This prevents you from wasting your marketing budget. Common Advertising Formats The ad formats you can choose from on TikTok include: In-feed videos on the “For You” page of your audience. Hashtag challenges that show up on the discovery page. Sponsored AR content, such as stickers, lenses, and filters for your audience to feature in their videos. Brand takeovers that show full-screen video ads when your audience opens the...
by Marketing Manager | Content Creation, Content Marketing, How To's & Info you can use, Marketing, Marketing Tips, Social Media
Social media marketing isn’t the new kid on the block anymore. Things that felt fresh and exciting just a few years ago are now old hat and that means we’ve all got to find ways to take our Facebook and Instagram marketing to the next level. Fortunately, there are still lots of things you can do to “level up” your social media marketing. Here are some suggestions to help you stay ahead of the pack in 2021. Poll Your Followers Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all allow users to create polls for the followers to respond to. In most cases, we’re talking simple polls with just two or three potential responses. That said, even a simple poll can be useful as a way to collect information from your followers. Because polls are interactive, they encourage engagement. In many cases, respondents won’t even need to leave their feed. They can respond by clicking their choice. If you want to take it to the next step, you can try using a poll as a quick form of split testing. Include links to two different versions of your landing page or home page and ask people to vote on their favorite. Engage in Social Listening You’ve probably seen at least one brand make a critical mistake on social media by responding in a tone-deaf way to something in the news. Does that mean you should never respond to anything topical? No – but it does mean you need to be careful. The best way to avoid missteps is to engage in social listening. Before you post, scroll through relevant hashtags, and...
by Marketing Manager | Content Curation, How To's & Info you can use, Marketing, Social Media
The newest social media app on the scene is an invite-only platform called Clubhouse. With its exclusivity and limitation to iPhones (for now), there are a lot of questions about this new app and what it brings to the table. Get a quick overview of Clubhouse and learn if it’s worth your time and attention! What is Clubhouse? Where most social media has gone highly visual with photos, videos, stories, and reels, Clubhouse has gone in a different direction. Perhaps inspired by the popularity of podcasts, Clubhouse is all audio, with no visuals at all except for users’ profile photos. Users can join virtual rooms to listen in on panel discussions happening in real time. How do you find conversations? When you create your account, you’ll be prompted to select some topics of interest. Then, the app will notify you when there are conversations in progress that you might be interested in. The more users and clubs you follow, the more suggestions you’ll receive. Anyone has the opportunity to start a conversation on Clubhouse, but the most popular rooms host celebrities and influencers. The app leverages FOMO to encourage people to stay tuned. When the chat ends, that’s that — there are no recordings of conversations, so there’s no way to revisit them. (Although some users record the conversations outside the app, posting juicy bits to YouTube or Instagram…the internet is forever!) But it’s not strictly passive. If you’d like to chime in, you can “raise your hand” by touching an icon, and the moderator has the option to invite you to the virtual...
by Marketing Manager | Content Creation, Content Curation, Content Marketing, How To's & Info you can use, Social Media
There are only two ways to increase profitability — to increase sales, or to cut expenses. Some strategies for increasing sales are huge undertakings. A new product line or a major marketing campaign cost major time and money. But without a major investment, you can increase your sales by improving your conversion rate — the percentage of users on a website or social media platform that completes a desired action. The action could be making a purchase. Or it could lead users further into your sales funnel by signing up for an email list, creating an account, or scheduling a call. By focusing on conversion rate, you’re working with what you already have — the people who you’re currently reaching with your marketing. With decent web traffic, even a moderate increase in conversion rate can result in real dollars. So here’s how you can start optimizing your conversion rate — without spending a penny. How to Track Your Conversion Rate To improve your conversion rate, first you have to establish your baseline. Start by calculating your current conversion rate with this basic equation: # of times a user completes a goal action / your site traffic = conversion rate This could be for a PPC campaign, a Facebook ad, or your general website’s performance. For your overall website, you must decide how you plan to track certain goals. For example, you could create a specific URL that customers are redirected to after they take an action. That action could include downloading a lead magnet or signing up for your email list. Every view...
by Stefanie Blackburn | Social Media
Social media marketing sounds simple enough to many newbie business owners, but they need to recognize the difference between personal social media use and professional use. Think about it like this: if you make a good pot of coffee to serve your family, then that’s something you can manage on your own. But if you plan on serving 1,000 cups of coffee to peers over the course of a three-day business conference, then that’s an entirely more complex matter! Everything gets more complicated when you move from personal to professional, and the results matter more, too. Suddenly, you aren’t just posting on your Facebook when you feel like it. Nor can you just feel good about the occasional reply and like. Instead, you’re actively trying to drive business goals and represent your brand in a likeable way. The dramatic difference between the two approaches catches many business owners off-guard. To help them out, here are a eight secrets the pros use when it comes to social media marketing — and that many small businesses overlook. Write Down a Policy and Style Guide Ask them to tell you what the business’s social media policy is, and you’re just as likely to get dozens of different answers. In fact, most employees may look you back blankly in the face. A social media policy guides the brand voice as well as the decisions a business makes when posting. So, if you were trying to pick between two image types, the social media policy could help you decide on the one that aligns better with your social goals. Set policies for employee social...
by Stefanie Blackburn | Marketing Tips, Social Media, Twitter
Twitter reaches over 310 million monthly active users, so the marketing potential of the social media site is clear. Many company owners already take advantage of the site, but a few new changes are coming down the pipeline. Thankfully, many of these changes will actually make marketing on Twitter a far simpler process. Images Won’t Dictate Characters Twitter is known for its 140 character limit which stops individuals from posting long rants on the site. Sadly, content such as videos, GIFs and even photos have always counted towards the character count. This tremendously reduced the potential to get out a message. Luckily, this is changing. Twitter won’t count these and other forms of content towards your character limit. Links will still consume some space, but you will have much more room to get your message across. Username Changes Just like pictures, usernames have long went against a business’s character count on Twitter. Again, this won’t be the case. And that means you can Tweet to industry leaders and other businesses without using up your precious 140 characters. In addition, Twitter will allow you to tag up to 50 usernames. This means you will no longer have to guess at which users will enjoy your content. Just be sure not to frustrate others with spam. Responses Gain Reach When you start a Tweet with a username, Twitter always believed you were replying to something specifically. Sadly, replies don’t garner a ton of reach. This led many to merely insert a period before a username so Twitter wouldn’t throttle its reach. This won’t be necessary. Anyone can directly Tweet at a...
