Have you been working on your brand’s Facebook page? Facebook is often considered the “original” social media network and, even though some similar technologies were produced prior to the its launch, this particular social platform has become the most widely used of its kind today. According to Zephoria, Facebook now has more than 2.13 billion users who sign into their Facebook account once or more each month. The social media giant continues to experience a 14% increase in their user accounts each year. There’s also more than 1.15 billion people who sign into their Facebook account daily from a mobile device.

Frustrated by Facebook? Not So Fast – You Really Can Improve Your Brand’s Facebook Page!

While Facebook offers the average user a great way to stay in touch with colleagues, friends and family, this platform also offers numerous benefits to businesses that would like to reach their target markets. The platform has launched several tools that make it easy for businesses to create their own profile on Facebook, and to promote their business to potential leads and customers across the entire Facebook network.

Build Your Brand’s Facebook Page with Tips from Start to Finish

Getting started seems to be a little confusing for some business owners; thus we have decided to provide a complete overview of tips that will help you create a winning Facebook page for your brand, and ultimately reach your target audience through an effective
social media marketing strategy on this platform.

Setting Up the Perfect Facebook Business Page to Represent a Brand

It all starts with the set-up of your page on Facebook. While it’s important to plan and strategize how you would like to configure your business page on this network, it is essential that you do not overcomplicate things. There are some vital pointers that should be noted before you set out to hit that “Create a Page” button on Facebook, so let’s start with these first:

• Avoid the creation of a separate Facebook profile specifically geared toward your brand. This can be confusing, as your target audience would have to send your business a “Friend Request” if they wish to follow you on Facebook or communicate with you. Stick to the tools that Facebook offers your brand – a professional business page.
• There is no need to create a professional profile for yourself that is separate from your personal Facebook profile. This will not only put you in the red with Facebook, since it’s against their terms of use, but it will also make things more confusing.

Once you’re ready to create your business page, all you need to do is log into your Facebook profile and click on the “Create a Page” link. Here, you are presented with a list of page type options – it is important to choose the correct page type that represents your business.

• Do not configure your page as a “website” when you have a local address.
• At the same time, do not claim to be a local business if your entire company is based on the internet!
• You also need to give your Facebook Business Page a professional name that will be representing your brand – be sure to use your brand’s name, as using a name like “weight loss supplements” or other describing names will not allow people to recognize your brand name.

Optimizing the Facebook Page to Build the Brand

After your page has been successfully created, it’s time to set it up so that it will represent your brand in a professional way. ThriveHive explains that some of the most important elements that should be included on the Facebook Page of every business include:

• A cover photo that represents what the brand offers its customers. The cover photo should be a high-resolution image, and you need to ensure you use the right dimensions for the photo. The ideal dimensions for a Facebook cover photo are 828 pixels by 315 pixels.
• A profile photo should also be uploaded as soon as the page has been created. The profile photo should be simple and not seem too busy. It should also clearly represent your brand – when someone looks at the profile photo, they should be able to recognize your brand from it. A good option is to use your brand’s logo.
• You also need to ensure you configure the “CTA” button that Facebook offers every page. This call-to-action button can be configured to point to your brand’s website, to allow the user to fill out a contact form, or to point them to your location on a map. There are other options as well – choose the one that best suits the method you’d like people to use when they communicate with your brand.
• The about section of a brand’s page is very important. This section should not contain an essay that explains every aspect of the brand, but rather a summary to provide a quick, yet useful overview of what the brand can do for the consumer.
• Be sure to link your Facebook page to your brand’s website, as well as to link to other social profiles on Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks. This will help to drive more traffic to your brand’s profiles on other social platforms as well.

Tips to Make Managing Your Page a Painless Task

Setting up your brand’s Facebook Business Page is an essential step to succeeding on this particular social media platform, but it is only the first step that should be taken when you wish to reach your target audience, improve your brand awareness, and drive more traffic and potential leads to your brand’s website. The next step is to properly manage your Facebook page. There are numerous ways in which you need to manage your page – and by failing in any area, you could be compromising the effectiveness of your social media marketing campaign.

Here’s a few tips to help make the management of your Facebook Business Page more efficient, effective, and a less-painful task:

• Frequently publish posts to your timeline – try to find a consistent posting schedule, such as once or twice per day. This will allow your followers to become aware of when they can expect new posts from you.
• Only post high-quality content, and never publish personal posts on your Facebook Business Page. When posting to your business page, also ensure you are posting as your brand and not as your personal profile, as that could create a less professional impression about your brand.
• Try to post a variety of content types. Include text, infographics, videos, photos and links. The combination of content types will ensure your page stays interesting.
• Always ensure you manage your page’s roles effectively. Only provide access to your brand’s page to individuals who have been instructed to work on the page – and ensure you only grant those individuals the permissions they need to do their jobs. Any person who gains access to your brand’s page should also be trained in social media management, and they should know what to post, when to post, and how to post.
• When your page has been active for a while, you should take a look at the statistics and reporting tools provided by Facebook, known as Facebook Insights. The information provided by these tools is very helpful in determining what type of content performs better than others. This will help you know which type of content you should post more of, and which ones you may consider avoiding in the future.
• Once you have a few posts published on your page’s timeline, you should consider choosing one particular post to be pinned to the top of your timeline. This post will always be seen first by anyone that visits your page, so be sure it’s a post that holds value for the visitor.
• Avoid continuously posting links to your website – this will make your page seem like spam. Instead, deliver posts with value for the visitor and the audience that is already following your brand. Share tips and tricks, tutorials, news broadcasts, downloads, and any other relevant information that they will find useful.
• To increase your page views, page likes, post likes and post shares, consider using Facebook Ads. This is one of the most affordable advertising platforms on the internet, and many businesses have had a lot of success by utilizing the built-in ads platform on Facebook. It’s really easy to get started with Facebook Ads, and you don’t need to invest thousands of dollars before you can get your first ad to go live. 

As Facebook continues to grow, more and more businesses are starting to create a presence for themselves on this social media platform. Facebook is now a part of most social media marketing campaigns executed by businesses – both large and small – and has many opportunities and tools that make reaching your desired target audience not only easy, but also affordable.

Manage Your Brand’s Facebook Page for Best Results

For those new to social media management on Facebook, it may seem a little daunting to get started, but once you learn about what makes a good Facebook business page and how you can manage your page for the best results, things turn out to be exciting. In this post, we provided a guide to creating the perfect page to represent your brand on this huge social media network, and we offered some useful tips that will make managing your brand’s presence on Facebook easy, convenient, and hassle-free.

Managing Your Brand’s #Facebook Page for Better Results by @McGrathStevan #RocksDigital
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How is that working for the brands you represent? Do share your thoughts and experiences in the comments!

The post Managing Your Brand’s Facebook Page for Better Results appeared first on Rocks Digital.

Without adequate marketing strategies in place, a business would not be able to achieve the success they’re striving for. For this reason, companies are always searching for the latest tactics, including the content marketing strategies that will help them succeed on the internet and overcome the obstacles their competitors cause them to face.

For many years content marketing has been one of the most effective and most important strategies utilized in the marketing campaigns of businesses, and even today, this particular marketing tactic remains one of the most essential for a business’ success.

The Pass/Fail of Content Marketing Strategies

Content marketing is a quite broad term used to describe any form of promotion that utilizes content created by a brand (or in some cases, content created by a third-party), in order to help drive more recognition and engagement for a particular company. Some content marketing strategies work effectively and get a passing grade, but there are also many strategies that get a capital-F Fail, yet companies tend to make these mistakes when it comes to implementing a strategy into their business model. For this reason, it is important to consider what is effective and what is not effective, and to adjust your marketing campaign in such a way to benefit your brand, rather than harming awareness of your brand.

When you read an article about content marketing on the internet, then you are most likely going to find information related to content marketing strategies that will help you improve your campaigns. While it is important to know what type of strategies you should implement for success, there are simply too few posts that offer information related to the mistakes that are bringing you down in regards to your marketing campaigns.

7 Content Marketing Strategies to Dump Today!

For this reason, we’ve decided to fill that particular gap by providing a detailed article about common mistakes you need to avoid to ensure your content marketing strategies are not only effective, but also free of any particular mistakes that could cause problems with the efficiency of your efforts.

1. Plagiarism

One of the first mistakes that people tend to make when it comes to delivering content to their audience is when they copy content from another source and publish it as their own. Not everyone is guilty of this particular mistake, but there’s a significant number of blogs that tend to do this. A lot of software also exists that allows for content to be “curated” in a very direct way – a lot of these tools tend to copy exactly what another blog has posted and then publish it on the blog the tool was installed on. Torque explains that it is important to consider the fact that plagiarism can be divided into three categories:

• Complete plagiarism
• Partial plagiarism
• Lazy plagiarism

Even though these categories don’t all include copying an entire article, each should be avoided at all times. Not only is plagiarism unethical and might cause copyright claims to be made by the original source, even “lazy” plagiarism will also harm your ranking in Google and other search engines.

2. Focusing on Quantity Over Quality

Now that we have discussed the fact that plagiarism should always be avoided, it should become clear that creating your own content is very important. Unfortunately, we live in a very busy world, and that causes restrictions to be placed on our schedule. For this reason, a lot of people tend to hurry away when it comes to creating content, as they focus more on creating a large quantity of content rather than focusing on the quality of the content they produce. However, this is the wrong way to think!

While it’s important to post regular content on your blog, on other websites and of course, on your company’s social media channels, it is important to consider the quality of the content as the most important element. Here Articulate explains that focusing on quality will bring a better ROI and help you achieve more.

3. Not Spending Enough Effort on Headers

When it comes to creating content that will be utilized in a content marketing strategy, another common mistake that many people tend to make is rushing on their headers. Headers are essential for content, not only to be of high quality, but also to be engaging and to attract new customers. For this reason, it’s important to spend some time on your headers. Make sure they are attractive and completely relevant to the content found in the article. For instance, don’t tell people they’re going to find the answer to losing weight in one week when the article simply shares general information about long-term weight loss.

In addition to focusing on the content of your headers, also make sure to use the correct tags. Add a page title and include a topic in an <h1> tag. Use <h2>, <h3> and <h4> tags wherever appropriate. This will ensure Google picks up the correct content when your content is discovered during a search, and it will allow third-party websites to correctly analyze your content when someone decides to share your article.

4. Not Attending to On-Page SEO

Apart from the header tags found in your website’s content, there are many other on-page SEO factors that need to be considered. Backlinko explains that there’s a number of factors considered essential for a web page to be visible to search engines, and to allow for the best possibility of ranking higher. Attending to on-page SEO will also make it much easier for your audience to find your content. Here are some of the most important factors to consider when it comes to on-page SEO:

• Your page title should start with the keyword you are targeting in the particular piece of content
• Ensure the URL of the page that contains your content is SEO-friendly
• Add multimedia objects, such as images and videos, wherever possible
• Add the primary keyword you are targeting in the piece of content within the first 100 words of the article
• Make sure your content can be viewed on any device, be it a computer or a smartphone
• Link out to third-party websites that have a lot of authority in the industry you are targeting
• Internal linking is also important – link to other pages on your website to make it easier for Google to crawl your website

5. Building Backlinks from Low-Quality Sources

The backlink is not only a key player in search engine rankings, but also gives you a good opportunity to promote your content on third-party blogs and websites, and to simultaneously drive more traffic back to your website. When you build a backlink to your website Google picks it up, and this either increases or decreases your ranking in the search engine results.

Unfortunately, when you post your content and link back to your website from a third-party platform that has low search rankings or a high spam score, then the link will cause a reduction in your search engine ranking. For this reason, it’s important to always focus on building links from higher quality sources. Use tools such as CheckMoz to determine the ranking metrics of a site before posting a backlink on that particular website.

6. Focusing Only on Research and Survey Statistics

Research reports and survey results regarding how people are using the internet can be found on many different locations on the web. These statistics are extremely helpful when it comes to creating new content, planning a content marketing strategy, or when promoting your website. However, the problem is that too many people are too concerned with these statistics, which causes them to forget about the fact they have to take their target audience into account as well!

Instead of only focusing on statistics you can find at research and survey sites, take a look into the needs and interests of your target audience and also consider these factors when planning a new content marketing strategy.

7. Targeting Too Many Strategies at Once

As a final note in our list of mistakes to avoid when it comes to content marketing on the internet, we want to emphasize the fact that you should avoid taking on too much. There’s a lot of marketers and business owners who take on multiple strategies when they are only getting started. They want to blog, post content on guest blogs, share images all over the internet, and stay active on all of the most popular social media networks! Great – but this takes up a lot of time and effort, which means they are losing money.

When only starting out, begin by analyzing what strategies would most effectively work for your needs, and focus on these particular strategies first. As your business grows, then you can implement more techniques when you have more staff on board that could assist with these tasks.

Practice Sound Content Marketing Strategies for Success

Content marketing has become one of the most important parts of a successful business, especially in our modern world where we have to greatly rely the internet to help us succeed. With the right content marketing strategies in place, your business is sure to thrive, whether it includes blogger outreach techniques or social media sharing campaigns.

Not implementing the correct strategies, however, can be detrimental to your business. In this article, we shared some important mistakes that people often make in their content marketing strategy. Should you be making any of these errors, know that avoiding them from here on out will help you improve the results achieved through your campaigns.

#ContentMarketing Strategies You Need to Dump by @McgrathStevan #RocksDigital #Content
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Are any of these DON’Ts lurking in your strategies? Which one do you think is the most damaging to a brand? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments!

The post 7 Content Marketing Strategies You Need to Dump Today appeared first on Rocks Digital.

If you run a successful business and you aren’t active on social media, we need to talk. Yes, this post on how to optimize social media is very important to your business, and you can’t neglect that. The presence of a social media network can treat your business right. The maintenance and building of relevant followers is good for a healthy profile and serves as a foundation that will back up all your efforts.

Social media optimization is an essential factor if you want your business to rank well in Google search results. It is an important strategy that a lot of companies are ignoring, although it is vital to help you obtain an outstanding Google rank. An effective social media technique starts with social profile optimization. The first thing new users do is look at your profile, so it’s important!

Optimize Social Media and Reap Multiple Benefits

Some of the essential search engine optimization you should do includes:

• Google search
• Search was done on every social network

Optimizing your social networks has both indirect and direct benefits. Helping your profile get found and getting customers in touch with you – and getting visits to your business site – is one of the top merits.

8 Ways to Optimize Social Media

Giving your website extra links from your social network profile is an indirect benefit you might receive. These are two important factors in using social media marketing to support your business. Here are doable tips to help optimize your social media platforms.

1. Link Your Social Networks with Your Website

Use direct links from the web and connect them to your social networks. Also link from your social media profiles back to the website. Further, you can add a social network sharing button to blog posts.

Links on social media are seen as high-quality links, because social sites tend to contain high web authority. It doesn’t matter how new your Facebook page is, it will rank, and it will have a good ranking in the SERPs because Facebook has high authority.

2. Stay Consistent

To be frank, you will find out that creating a social network profile is easy. But it is an area most businesses fail to fulfill. Most of them do not completely fill in their profile information. The secret is that search engines tend to favor social profiles with complete information.

It also gives your business a professional look compared to those with incomplete social media profiles. To sum up, make sure the information available on your website is the same as the info represented on your social networks.

3. Make Use of Keywords in Posts

Keywords are an essential part of blog content, websites, and any ad campaigns you can do. Thus, it should not be a surprise to you if I say they also play a role in the social content you share. It is also an aspect that will help your content get shown to your targeted, relevant audience.

How you can do that:

• Find the most relevant search terms. You should look for terms related to your business that are highly searched. You can use Google Keyword Planner to do that.
• Put the researched keywords in your social media profile. The terms should be seen in your LinkedIn job description, job title, and skills. Make it appear in the copy of your bio, experience, photo names, category, and interests.
• You should avoid just dropping the terms anywhere you feel they should be. Place them in your bio with precision.

4. Socialize with Your Social Media Followers

Social signals are vital factors as far as SEO is concerned. That’s because search engines review social signals and use them to factor how frequently you post, and the number of people you interact with. They also look for any social sharing that took place and that led visitors to your site.

Most brands forget to stick to building relationships by socializing with their followers. You should form a habit of sharing helpful tips with your customers, and participate in their conversations by commenting on their posts.

5. Use SEO Keywords on Social Media Accounts

To make good use of social media make sure you use keywords, as they play a major role. Embed your keyword phrases in social media profiles, but in a way that looks natural. The proper placement of keywords in your profile will help you have a better ranking on Google and also on social networks.

6. Make Sure you Fill Your Bio with Engaging Content

Use of keywords in your posts will be useless if you have an incomplete bio. It’s the dumbest mistake you can make! In fact, it is a sure way of telling your target audience that you’re lazy and unprofessional. Again, don’t write just anything because I said fill out your bio, as that’s the same as leaving it empty. There is no difference.

Instead, fill in your bio with copy that explains what your business does. Ensure the wording is engaging and fun. It will motivate the target audience to take a glimpse at your feeds and profile.

7. Request Customers Give a Review

The presence of positive reviews on your social networks is a great boost. It will help you earn trust from your target audience and turn strangers into customers. You can decide to draft a few messages and send to a few people, asking them to write a review on your page.

How you can do it:

• Pin tweets that are positive. They can be tweets from clients recommending your service. Anyone that visits your site will be able to see it. Furthermore, you may ask for endorsements and make them into content to share on Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook. Just find a way that works for you and build that social proof.
• Use LinkedIn endorsements. You can have people endorse some of the skills you placed on your profile. However, you will need to help them draft an endorsement that is appealing and unique. It is a powerful act that may land you a client through LinkedIn.
• Use the reviews section on the Facebook page. This part of the Facebook page allows your customers to write reviews. Good reviews can lead to getting connected to more clients. Bad reviews can damage your brand.

8. Remove Tags to Your Page from Inappropriate Photos and Posts

You should be vigilant about what photos individuals and other pages may tag you on. Cleaning up your profile is a good way to shape a good image for your brand on social media. To take control of who should tag you on their posts, go check the photo tagging setting. You should make the setting align with the social media policy of your brand.

The photo tagging setting gives you control over who should tag you in their posts. Also, if you would like the tags to appear on your profile before you approve them, you can do that (there’s a lot of features). Just take your time, go through them, and pick what best works for you.

Facebook gives you permission to approve tags and review photos – and also untag yourself on photos where you were tagged, but that you feel are inappropriate.

Instagram gives you control to approve posts that you have been tagged in before making them appear on the profile.

Twitter, on the other hand, restricts anyone who can tag you in a photo. In addition, it can remove the tags.

You should form a habit of frequently reviewing posts that you were tagged in (let’s say on a weekly basis).

Don’t be tempted to turn off tagging. You’ll sound like Mr. Bean when he threw his alarm clock in a jug of water to avoid waking up. Well, he forgot that tomorrow he might need the clock. Enough said – understand that you might need the tagging feature tomorrow.

Here’s why it’s important to leave it on. For example, on Instagram, a customer may tag you on a photo of a product he wants. The photo will appear in a section called “photos of you.” Such photos are good in terms of engagement. It gives a customer additional photos if he or she happens to be looking at your profile.

Use Keywords with Care When You Optimize Social Media

If you want to optimize your social networks, you need to include keywords in your social profiles. It is essential to help you rank well in terms of keyword search on Google and in the social network search. Overall, your social network profiles should always aim at reinforcing your brand.

8 Ways to Optimize #SocialMedia for a #Business’ Online Presence by @McgrathStevan #RocksDigital
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Which tip do you see as most powerful for your business? Are you already having conversations with your customers? Share your experiences in the comments!

The post 8 Ways to Optimize Social Media for Your Business’ Online Presence appeared first on Rocks Digital.

of companies across the world, and marketers are hungry for B2B blog marketing tips. According to a study conducted by Content Marketing Institute (CMI), blogs are the 3rd-most popular content marketing strategy, just behind social media marketing and articles.

First, let’s see a generic definition of what a blog is. Just like social media marketing, email marketing, direct email, etc., the blog is another marketing tactic that uses unique and original content to drive traffic to the website and get your business more online visibility. This popular marketing channel can help you support business growth, if promoted in the right way to the right audience.

The Evolution of Blogging – These B2B Blog Marketing Tips Supports the New Purpose

In the early 90s, the blog was used as an online journal by individuals to express their thoughts and opinions. Now it has expanded to a platform where millions of people share their ideas, with millions following those pages. Although this transformation came in with a set of disadvantages, one cannot overlook the impact it has created.

A company can blog and market their blog for various purposes. Some of them are:

• To improve website traffic through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Enforce the organization as an expert and thought leader in a particular industry or solution or service
• Gain inbound leads

Having a blog and churning out content will not guarantee success. One needs to be aware of the purpose of the blog, the targeted audience, and how to market it to them. For instance, blogs run by individuals operate differently from business blogs. The marketing strategy for a blog varies for B2B and B2C companies. For B2C, marketing becomes easier as they are dealing with customers who are looking for a final product. But B2B businesses deal with other organizations that are looking for specific solutions or services. Considering the highly competitive market, it is important for B2B companies to share highly refined content through blogs, and market it to the relevant target segment.

7 B2B Blog Marketing Tips to Pull Traffic and Harvest Leads

Here are a few practices for B2B organizations to successfully market their blog to create more traffic and generate leads.

1. Exclusive and Educational Content

Everyone loves good content. Readers keep looking for original and quality content that adds value and provides insight. Unfortunately, many marketing writers have failed to understand this. They still run their content marketing through promotional materials, 3rd-party publications, and low-quality writing that is repetitive (and even plagiarized). This will only deteriorate the brand value of the organization as well as the writer.

According to this research by TIME, you have 15 seconds to gain your reader’s attention for your content. If you are unable to impress him or her within this timeframe, he will move on to better content, or will be less-attentive while reading the remaining part of the blog. Content should therefore be original, educational, and uniquely crafted, with a catchy heading and a carefully-written first paragraph.

The topics should also be selected carefully. Give your take on relevant topics, be the first one to talk about a new trend, give a small learning session on something that your followers would find informative. Be different from the crowd. Offer that refreshing breeze to your audience. This will make the reader choose your blog out of thousands of others in the ocean web. Always remember, well-crafted content sells itself! It just needs that initial visibility.

2. Email Marketing

Email marketing can be considered to be the DNA of a B2B business. Organizations are heavily dependent on this method to generate leads and strengthen the branding initiatives. Leverage this platform to boost your blog marketing. Pump up your existing list of subscribers, social media followers, clients, prospects, etc., and you are ready to go.

Create a monthly newsletter with all the relevant industry news and tag your social media and blog links at the bottom. However, you need to ensure that you are not explicitly promoting your blog. Offer value to the readers. Make it a knowledge-gaining experience for them. Provide links to relevant research and the latest analytics. That way it will be mutually beneficial, and the reader would want to come back. You can also send exclusive content to an elite-reader group to boost engagement and circulation rate.

3. Social Media Marketing

As Jay Baer says, “Content is fire, and social media is gasoline.” Social media platforms help you to market your blog to a wide range of audiences. B2B buyers use social media to connect with their prospective customers or clients and do research on products and services, and to study the feedback. So, first start by analyzing which platforms you want to use for social media marketing.

Usually a B2B organization uses the following six social networks – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, and SlideShare. LinkedIn is the most leveraged platform as it offers the higher possibility of reaching out to your target audience. When you have a new blog post shared through social media marketing, it will immediately give you thousands of audience members, depending on your follower count.

And never underestimate the power of sharing and retweet! Those are simple buttons that have made thousands of content pieces go viral! You can also subtly request that your follower-base share the articles with their circles. This will not only boost a single blog, but will also expose your blog platform to a new set of eyes.

4. Branding

There are not many B2B organizations without a branding strategy. Branding involves positioning your organization in a consistent way throughout your content marketing initiatives. Branding could be anything from physical components such as banners, brochures, visiting cards, etc. It could also be digital, such as videos, whitepapers, or even websites. Ensure to leverage all these materials to promote your blog. Give a link to your blog at the end of a promotional video. Be sure to include the link at the final slide of a client presentation. In short, promote it when you promote your brand.

5. Content Syndication

Promoting your blog through all the above strategies can help you gain significant results. But sometimes, doing all these activities on a daily basis can be a big challenge! That’s where content syndication is gaining popularity among bloggers and companies alike. It’s a process where you publish your blogs on third-party websites, and usually, on websites that are either popular or possess a high domain authority.

This method is extremely useful for companies that do not have time to execute customized campaigns to promote their blog. These can be either paid or free campaigns.

Investing in an in-house team for social media marketing or other means to drive traffic can be a costly affair. So, B2B organizations would gladly pay for content syndication, as it is easier for them to build traffic this way. Here are some of the benefits of content syndication:

• Ensures that your site gets maximum exposure
• Drives traffic to your site
• Better search ranking
• Promotes you as a leader in the industry
• Builds a relevant audience for your content

6. Include Good Graphics

According to Jeff Bullas, articles with images get 94% more total views than articles without images. Now that’s quite an exciting number, isn’t it? But it comes with a warning. You simply cannot use any image and expect the numbers to favor you. Instead of using a “pure-filler,” the graphic should be relevant to the content you present. It should be interesting enough to hold the reader’s attention and prompt him to open the blog. In short, the graphic should be used as a window to show what’s on the blog before a reader clicks the link.

Another fact is that content presented in the form of an infographic will gain at least 50% more engagement than plain text. So a good graphic not only boosts your blog traffic, but enriches your content marketing as well.

7. Make Your Blog Mobile-Friendly

During November 2016, for the first time in the history, mobile web browsing surpassed desktop browsing. By 2019 mobile is predicted to account for 79% of all web traffic. The item once considered a luxury has become an integral part of human life. Many people, especially the young generation, use smartphones to access the internet.

It is important to have a website that’s mobile-friendly and loads faster. Simple UI, easy navigation, and optimized content are the keys to have a mobile-friendly blog page. This will also boost the SEO initiatives for your website and drive traffic.

 B2B Blog Marketing Tips Will Give Your Blog the Respect It Deserves

Blogs are one of the key aspects of a good content marketing strategy. Having thought-leadership blogs with a good blend of graphics and text can drive traffic to your website and boost your B2B business. It can also present you as an industry leader and an expert solution provider.

Producing unique content can create a steady flow of readers to the blog platform and expand your business pipeline. Good quality content can also help in strengthening your social media marketing through increased followers and engagement. Therefore, it is not too late to embrace it now and promote your blog through the ways mentioned above.

Boost Traffic with 7 B2B #Blog #Marketing Tips by @StevanMcgrath #RocksDigital
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So, what you’re doing right – and what needs an adjustment? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.

The post Need More Blog Power? Boost Traffic with 7 B2B Blog Marketing Tips appeared first on Rocks Digital.

If you’re involved in marketing, you must be somewhat familiar with both artificial intelligence and social media. Both technologies are significantly impacting the world of marketing. Gone are the days when businesses only focused on pamphlets, TV ads, newspaper ads, and other forms of traditional advertising methods.

How are Artificial Intelligence and Social Media Changing Marketing?

Marketing is one of the fields that is highly impacted by technology and changes in the world. A marketer needs to be updated with the latest trends and technologies to keep on performing.

With recent statistics showing more than 2.4 billion active social media users, businesses will bear a huge loss if they are not getting involved in social media marketing.

On the other hand, AI is impacting both personal and professional aspects of a person’s life. A study shows that the growth in external AI investments is 3X, and the AI technology is rapidly improving. The businesses that leave AI behind can also be missing out on the enormous benefits of AI.

Six Transformative Artificial Intelligence and Social Media Integrations in Use Today

AI is one of the most influential technologies that has ever been developed in human history. It’s now impacting social media marketing in many different ways. Here are some of the ways that AI is transforming social media marketing.

1. Slack Bots

The use of slack bots has helped social media marketers in many different ways. All the guesswork that social media marketers used to do in the past is not needed now, thanks to slack bots.

Modern social media marketers can develop effective posts to promote their products and services, and now they do not have to make guesses to create content that works.

These slack bots are equally important in content marketing as well. The slack bots help with the in-depth analysis of all the posts that are promoted on social media platforms that are related to your niche.

The slack bots also help in predicting the chance of success of various posts on different social media platforms, by comparing the posts with other similar posts that are promoted across these platforms.

Avoid the headaches of guesswork with the use of slack bots, and enhance your chance of creating an effective social media marketing campaign.

2. Customer Service

The customer service of a company is highly impacted by the introduction of AI. According to this study, around 42% of customers who complain in social media platforms expect an answer from brands within 60 minutes.

It’s practically impossible for human beings to provide 24/7 customer service to their customers. This is where AI is playing a crucial role for brands in enhancing their customer support.

The AI is still in its early phase, and is not yet ready to solve every problem of customers on its own, but it is enhancing the quality of customer service.

Another survey shows that a large number of customers want to send a text message to the brand instead of calling the customer support team for their problems!

Some brands are already using AI to detect what customer problems should be prioritized. The use of chatbots can help in filtering spam posts and fake social media accounts, which saves the customer support team a lot of time.

The use of AI for customer support can help you generate leads and boost conversion rates via social media marketing.

3. Text Mining and Marketing Automation

Text mining and marketing automation is now a reality in the 21st century, and it’s happening due to machine learning and AI.

Text mining means the analysis of both structured and unstructured data across various social media platforms to discover buyer tastes and preferences – which helps in predicting customer behavior.

All the vital information that can be extracted from text mining can be used in developing a personalized marketing strategy.

The targeted marketing automation is possible with the information that can be extracted from text mining, and it can be utilized to help get the maximum out of your marketing campaigns.

Plus, you can do a lot more with marketing automation combined with AI and machine learning. There is no need for you to think long and hard about your audience.

The AI technology can predict the optimal timing for social media posts, which can help you reach larger and diverse audiences to maximize the impact of your social media marketing campaigns.

4. Facial Recognition in Facebook

Facebook is just one of the technology giants that are massively investing in artificial intelligence. Because Facebook is emphasizing AI so much, it has made the tagging function easier (with the help of AI).

Facebook Facial Recognition saves a lot of time for users who want to tag the people on an image, as Facebook automatically recognizes the person on the image with the help of its facial recognition technology, powered by AI.

In the future, Facebook may even utilize the history and preference of users to recommend right offers, shopping places, and products.

5. Pinterest and Kosei

Pinterest is certainly not lagging behind regarding the use of AI. Kosei (a data software company) was acquired by Pinterest and is now working to allow Pinterest the ability to provide the personalized recommendation feature. So now, Pinterest can provide recommendations based on user-specific searches and interests.

6. LinkedIn and Bright

LinkedIn and Bright have also worked together to improve the features of LinkedIn. Bright is a job search company acquired by LinkedIn that makes use of AI and machine learning to provide right recommendations to both job seekers and companies.

LinkedIn analyzes hiring patterns, job description, job location, account info, and other important information to make accurate suggestions and recommendations for recruiters and job seekers to find their match.

Use Artificial Intelligence and Social Media Strategies to Reap AI Benefits and Avoid Possible Negatives

Many people are going to lose their jobs due to the revolution of AI. This is not my prediction; this is what the results of this study indicate.

It predicts that around 38% of American jobs may be lost due to AI, and many have already lost their jobs due to AI. Why? It’s because the nature of jobs will be completely transformed by AI.

If you want to be in business, it’s better that you start implementing AI technologies now because soon, AI could be a basic necessity for a business to stay in the competition.

Businesses may have to think out of the box in the future about how to use AI technology to have a competitive advantage in their industry.

The combination of social media marketing with the creative use of AI can help take businesses to new heights.

Will #AI Transform #SocialMedia #Marketing? asks @McgrathStevan #RocksDigital
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Are you ready to integrate AI into your social media strategy? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The post Artificial Intelligence and Social Media: Will AI Transform Social Media Marketing? appeared first on Rocks Digital.

Every business today is striving to create a marketing strategy, and a social media marketing strategy is part of that. 66% of marketers are enjoying enhanced lead generation benefits using social media. However, this seems to be a daunting task, especially for new business owners who are creating a plan for the first time. While there are different types of marketing including email, mobile, direct and digital, it can be difficult to determine which one is right for your business.

To simplify the process while getting the best out of your hard work, it is recommended to start with one type as you assess its success, before moving on to the next or adding another method. This is crucial to bear in mind, especially when you are working on a limited budget.

Social Media Marketing – First Choose the Right Platform(s)

Social media marketing is proving to be one of the most potentially successful types of marketing that businesses are adopting due to its higher rate of return. This article’s goal is to bring to you every detail needed to choose the right social media platform for your business.

Selecting the right platform is the first thing you should do when creating a social media marketing strategy. You, therefore, need to look deeper and understand each of the available social media marketing platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. The choices you make depend on your brand and your social marketing goals.

We have delved deeper into several factors to consider, for you to decide which one has the greatest potential for reaching your ideal audience, and to broadcast the kind of media you believe is best for your business. Remember, no single business can be perfect on all the platforms, as it takes a lot of resources to do so. That is why you need to select a few and work hard to be the best in them.

Social Media Marketing Platform Selection in 5 Easy Steps

To determine which channels are best to build your online presence, use the following steps as a guide.

1. You must know what your social media strategy objectives are.

It is crucial to link your social media channels to your strategy objectives. You should, therefore, be able to explain how a particular channel will help you achieve your set goals and objectives. Otherwise, you should not adopt the channel. After all, the main purpose of adopting a specific social media channel is to support the achievements of your strategic goals and objectives. When setting your business goals and objectives, you also need to be informed of the various social media marketing trends so that your goals remain in line with what your industry is facing.

Some of the major objectives of many businesses include:

• Increasing brand awareness: In this case, well-established platforms with a large following are recommended. You may also decide to use paid promotions on such platforms to raise awareness and extend your reach. A good example for this case is Facebook’s advertising platform, which has a great reputation in enhancing awareness and generating impressive returns on investment.
• Enhancing lead generation: If this is your business objective, LinkedIn would be the ideal social media channel, because it is renowned as the king of social media lead generation. You may also consider such platforms as Facebook and Twitter as they are also quite effective, with a lower cost per click.

2. Determine the channels being used by your target audience.

Upon alignment of your business goals with your social media channel selection, the next thing should be finding out where your target audience is interacting online the most. Take for instance your business’s Snapchat account with barely 100 60-year old women; this could be a waste of time and resources if you are counting on it as your social media marketing platform. The same case is trying to pitch your social media marketing on Pinterest if you are targeting only men.

It is therefore essential that you take social media demographics into account when choosing the right social media platform to undertake your marketing. With the right demographics, you will be sure of targeting the right people at the right time.

To be more effective, you need to use social listing tools such as Sprout Social to analyze your followers to determine their gender, age, and location. This way, you will be able to determine the right social channel worth maintaining. This is where you bring in influencer marketing using renowned and trusted influencers to promote your brand on the channel perceived to be the best.

As much as social media marketing trends are important to consider when choosing your social media channel, you always need to make your decisions based on demographic data.

3. Research and determine the social media channels being used by your competitors.

It is equally important to consider what social media channels your competitors are using as part of finding the accounts your target audience is interacting on. This is considered a smart move to determine your industry activity so that you can determine what you should be doing.

On the same note, check out the type of content they post, how regularly they do so, and how many likes or shares they get from the posts. It is important to know your competitors’ activeness on social media, as well as how they interact with their customers to get insights on what you need to do to better than their offer, and eventually beat them at their own game.

Using such social media listening tools as Buzzsumo, for instance, will enable you to determine which brands in your industry have the most extensive reach and influence on social media. From there you will be able to analyze their content regarding social shares and likes, content format and length, that helps them to effectively engage with their customers. The same listening tools will help you to determine the brands in your industry that have the largest reach and influence on particular channels.

Brandwatch Analytics is quite effective in monitoring competitor social media output across various channels like Facebook and Twitter, so that you can easily track any mentions of them on the internet. There are many social media listening tools for you to choose from. Before making the decision on which one to use, make sure you have thoroughly researched each of them and fully understand every option in front of you.

4. What kind of content do you want to create?

You should keep this in mind when choosing your social media platform: Choose the right content format to complement your business goals and brand identity. Some content formats are more suited to specific social channels than others, so you need to understand this very well. Toward this end you should determine:

• If you want to share industry updates, white papers or company news: This requires you to use content formats adopted by professional platforms. LinkedIn and SlideShare, as well as Twitter, offer the best options for content aimed at engaging with a fellow professional in the industry. Here, only industry-specific content is shared.
• If you want to share video content: If you want to share video content, you need to consider its size and the demographic it is intended for. In case you are targeting younger prospects, Instagram, Snapshot, Vine or Periscope would be ideal. However, for long video content that has a universal appeal, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter would be ideal to generate more engagement.
• If you want to share image-based content: This is critical, especially when you have an engaging product to sell. While Instagram is ideal for building an inspirational visual brand story, Tumblr is better in sharing image-based content suited to a younger demographic, and Pinterest is considered the best when you have an engaging product to sell. Research indicates that 93% of Pinterest users leverage the platform to plan purchases, hence the reason why it could be ideal when sharing image-based content.
• If you want to share editorial content: In case you want to establish yourself as a trusted brand, publishing articles on the LinkedIn platform could have your brand exposed to more than 300 million people. Another popular publishing platform is Medium, with over 95% of readers being college graduates, of whom 43% earn six-figures and more.

From the above information, you realize that it is very easy to make your choice on the right social medial marketing channel, if only you identify the content formats you want to use.

5. How many social media channels can you manage?

91% of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels. While many people think using one social media channel won’t be sufficient, striking a balance between several channels can be tricky. With many social media channels, it means you will have to spread yourself thin, thus negatively impacting the results. On the other hand, too few channels will mean your brand visibility will suffer.

To be more effective in whatever number of channels you intend to use, social media scheduling tools like Buffer will help you to schedule posting in advance, thus saving you time and maximizing your resources. With such tools it is simple to cross-post the same content across different social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ among others. Buffer also allows you to add images to your content so that it gets more views, because content with relevant views is attracting 94% more views than content without relevant images.

This kind of automation will thus help you to incorporate more channels into your social media marketing strategy. However, marketing pundits recommend that you start small with fewer social media channels while you gain momentum and experience to later incorporate more.

Take the Path to Brand Awareness with Social Media Marketing

Choosing the right platform for social media marketing depends on some factors explained above. However, for you to stay at the top of your industry, you need to rise to the occasion, learn the various social media marketing trends, and adopt the best strategies that will boost brand awareness to your target audience.

Choosing the Right #SocialMedia #Marketing Platform by @McgrathStevan #RocksDigital
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Still feel “the more the merrier” when it comes to using social media platforms? Share your thoughts on the selection process in the comment section below!

The post Swamped by Choices? How to Choose the Right Social Media Marketing Platform appeared first on Rocks Digital.