Let’s start by clarifying that aren’t stating the obvious. Both channels are traditionally used for very different purposes. Facebook is used to share photos from vacation and connect with friends and family. Linkedin is used by businesses to share updates while staying update What we would like to elaborate is how digital marketers can create the right mix to use both Facebook and Linkedin to their advantage. In this blog, we can take you through some of the latest ad formats to try out and case studies on how the same company is using both media differently. The core part is you are communicating with people on both fronts except that they are looking at you with a different lens on each platform. 1. Leverage on UGC from Facebook and on lead generation from Linkedin We will neither claim this to be the right way or the only way as vice versa of the above statement works equally well. In most cases UGC is easily generated on Facebook as people have a way to rate your business and drop visitor posts. For a consumer-facing brand, leveraging Facebook to amplify positivity around the brand and eventually get to lead generation makes sense. It is like your digital word-of-mouth. Running consumer ads on Facebook is also a great way generate leads. Given the basic association of professionals with the medium, ads on Linkedin are more veered towards the generation of leads. From professional courses to connecting with the right people within an organization, lead generation from a business perspective works well on this medium. Let’s take an example where the same product can be used for different types of lead generation. Sahil has been teaching Kickboxing for a while. When he wanted to recruit more people from a particular area of the city, he turned to targeted lead generation from Facebook. When he wanted to start batches for corporate, he targeted HR managers at corporate for lead generations and sales. 2. Individual stories v/s 360 degree PR stories Facebook is a great platform for telling individual stories. It allows you to take each of your users and put them on a pedestal and share their story. Linkedin can work well when you connect all these stories and showcase this from a brand perspective on how the brand is helping users collectively. Again, there is no right or wrong here. Because Linkedin acts as a communication point to professionals, talking about the brand gives it context from a different view. 3. Brand building v/s brand advocate building When you want to say something amazing about your products and brand in a visually appealing manner, Facebooks works wonderfully to a marketer’s advantage. Let’s say your company sells travel packages, talking about destinations in all their visual glory works well on Facebook. On the other hand, talking about the numbers and behaviour around travel, that especially comes from your CXO level brand advocates, grounds your company in a superior level intellectually. 4. Awareness and Reach v/s Penetration When it comes to awareness and reach, Facebook beats most social channels hands down. Because of the sheer user base, time on the channel and engagement, Facebook is a good medium to get visibility. Linkedin is used when your targeting is niche and you can almost identify people by their position in the organization and reach out to them with a clear ask. 5. Linkedin Groups v/s Facebook Groups Both social channels have the groups feature that allow users with similar interests to have conversations within the restrictions and guidelines of the group. The motive of engagement in the groups tend to vary. A company selling a mixer grinder may create a general user community group on Facebook to share recipes. Here the company executives may subtly steer conversations that feature their product once in a while. The same company may have an active group of innovators on Linkedin who take pride in food or tech innovations around the product. With these two channels its never an or but an and. As a organizations, it is important to maintain different facets of your social side on both these channels. Have you done a 360-degree campaign using both channels effectively and differently? Do share your case study with us to be featured in this space. Watch: We are a Content-First Agency
Author: Payel Mukherjee
7 Customer Engagement Strategies That Really Work
Digital marketing has one significant advantage over traditional marketing. And that is its ability to create a two-way dialogue between customers and the brand. Unlike traditional marketing where brands shove a bunch of information down customers’ throats, digital marketing allows you to build a relationship with your customers; thereby creating a loyal following. Unfortunately, most marketers don’t leverage this unique ability of digital marketing. They continue to use the same one-way technique that traditional marketing is known for even in their digital efforts. As a result, customers end up feeling disconnected from the brand. Forget customer retention and loyalty, even acquiring new customers becomes a challenge. If you’re serious about building a Digital marketing strategy that engages customers in the long run, here are some invaluable tips: Tip 1: Measure, measure, and then measure some more You can’t grow something if you’re not tracking it obsessively and that stands true for customer engagement as well. With analytics tools like Kissmetrics, Mixpanel, and Amplitude, you can easily figure out how customers are engaging with the product. You can find out which buyer personas are engaging more, where users are dropping off, where cohorts are churning, and so on. This gives you major insights into how customers are engaging with your product today, which will become the foundation for the next steps. Also, try to combine qualitative analysis with quantitative metrics for maximum effectiveness. Tip 2: Deliver exemplary customer experience No amount of customer engagement techniques will work unless you focus on delivering a superlative customer experience. Nothing puts a customer off more than a bad experience. So unless you have a monopoly, chances are that a bad experience equals a lost customer. In fact, 42% of brands say that they invest in customer experience in order to build customer retention. As a brand, start by setting up strong metrics around the customer experience that are relevant to your brand — whether that’s time for query resolution, days to delivery, or time for first response. Then track those metrics relentlessly and even link staff bonuses to these metrics if need be. Tip 3: Involve your brand advocates Chances are that you have a small group of customers who absolutely love your brand. These are the people who will give you a consistent 10 on your NPS (Net Promoter Score), organically tell people about how great your product is, and want to give you feedback. Leveraging your brand advocates effectively is a great engagement strategy. You can start off with simple things, like giving them a sneak preview of your new products/updates and asking them to spread the information via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. You can also rope them in to conduct user tests before launching a new product or an upgrade. This will not only keep your loyal customers engaged with the brand but will also help you build credibility among a wider audience. Tip 4: Build a brand people relate to In today’s day and age, you have to work on humanizing your brand. People are much likelier to buy your products if they relate to your message as a brand. And this doesn’t just go for exciting, hip brands like Kylie Cosmetics or Red Bull. It also applies to everyday brands that are usually perceived as “boring”— whether that’s a B2B SaaS product or a supply chain management company. If you belong in the latter category, it’s a good idea to find someone in the company who feels passionately about your product to become the “face” of your brand. It could be a CXO, but it could also be someone from middle management who just loves what the company represents. Position this person as a thought leader, publishing whitepapers, case studies, conducting webinars, and so on. It will immediately make your brand more relatable to your target audience. Tip 5: Build a community The best part about social media marketing is that it gives customers a platform to directly engage with your brand. Use this opportunity to create a community of loyal users, many of whom are likely to have shared interests. While Facebooks groups are a great way to build a strong community, Slack is another upcoming option. Many companies these days use an exclusive Slack channel to build a loyal community of brand advocates. Tip 6: Personalize communication Personalization is the best way to engage customers throughout the customer journey. On average, 36% of customers say they want to purchase personalized products and service and 48% say that they’re willing to wait longer for a personalized product or service. From powerful recommendation engines to a customized email, personalization can take many forms. Using marketing automation platforms like MoEngage and WebEngage can also help you deliver a more personalized experience, through customized push notifications, texts, and emails. Tip 7: Listen to your customers Listening to your customers may sound like an obvious cliche, but the latest digital marketing tools enable you to listen to your customers in new and interesting ways. Every few minutes on the internet, whether you’re aware of it or not, customers are expressing their opinion about your brand. By using social listening tools like Buzzsumo, SproutSocial, or SocialMention,, you can tune into what your customers are saying about you. The negative feedback will help you focus on where you need to improve while you can leverage the positive feedback and incorporate into a holistic marketing strategy. With customer acquisition costs becoming sky-high, retaining and engaging customers is rapidly becoming the biggest factor in brand success. Make user engagement and retention the focus of your business and design metrics and policies accordingly. And do let us know in the comments if these tips help you get there. Watch: We are a Content-First Agency
Rise of new social media channels – Vero, Tik Tok and others you should be aware about
All digital marketers know that there are dime a dozen new social channels emerging every day, all wanting to be the next Facebook and take over the world. What the savvy digital marketer really wants to know is which of these should he or she bet their money on. Existing social giants have changed the algorithm several times to nullify our investment. Most brands went after increasing fan follower count aggressively on Facebook until one fine day it just didn’t matter how many you had as the organic reach was going to be paltry at best. But for other social channels, follower count still matters, and so do metrics like engagement. So, essentially, what we are saying is that an average Digital marketer is living the ‘Fast and Furious’ life with a ‘Ride or die’ attitude. We have to try things out constantly, know how it works, blog about it, educate others, keep learning and experimenting and use the collective intelligence of the hive to see how to use the platform. Let’s check out some of the newbies in the digital arena and how you can find a way to begin experimenting with them. Tiktok Entertaining, addictive and fun are some of the adjectives used to describe this popular app whose meteoric rise to stardom in 3 short years is commendable. By their own definition, they sound like a competitor to YouTube – they are a music and video platform that allows users to create and share videos on any topic. But the two platforms are vastly different. Primarily because Tiktok is for really short vertical videos ranging between 15 – 60 secs in length. Known as Douyin in China, the app is simple to use, loved by the younger audience (especially teenagers), is strongly driven by localized content and has the Apple music library. Claim to fame Fastest downloaded app, challenges, high degree of engagement – much higher than existing platforms and celebrity endorsement. In fact Tiktok really aced on local celebrity endorsement and this was one of the biggest reasons it grew so fast so quickly. It has spawned a new breed of influencers called Tiktok influencers and you see their popularity flowing from online to offline. How brands can leverage TikTok Challenges are an interesting way to get attention on TikTok. Challenges are as crazy as they come. There was the #achoo challenge where people jumped from one character to another after a sneeze. Other challenges are organically, and in this case, literally rolled out by celebrities like the #Tumbleweed challenge by Jimmy Fallon. In eyeballs and engagement is your criteria, TikTok can do the job for you with their target audience. The Har ghoot mein swag challenge by Pepsi had celebrities Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani showing off the #SwagStep and encouraged other users to share their steps. Until date, challenge has over 15 billion views! There is something about a doable challenge that makes people take it up, then circle back and tag friends to do the same – like the Ice bucket one. The premise of such challenges is that engagement with the brand eventually works to a recall and likability perspective. The users of the future aren’t passive but have a point of view and aren’t shy of expressing it. So where is this whole engagement going? It is allowing brands to build a ‘brand community’ of sorts filled with advocates and super users who can maximize the reach. The wait and watch for TikTok is how the platform will shape up to eventually to help marketers reach their ROI at the end of the rainbow. Vero Vero was started in 2015 but it became the “hot new” only 2018. It’s claim to fame is that it is “authentic” by not using an algorithm to determine content visibility. It is also an ad-free platform (for now). That’s how Instagram started, remember? The good part is that people who are dissatisfied of being short-changed by Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm and have worried about their content being lost are now in a more comfortable space with Vero. At least, the organic appeal is not lost. Leveraging Vero Since the platform is ad free, changing this status can mean losing user base. As a brand, this means you get to organically test out your traction with this user base. Since there isn’t a shift of marketing money involved, the adoption by brands may be better justified than another new social platform. On the other hand, we’ve burned our efforts with other platforms like this that haven’t been able to continue their scaling without advertiser money. The other ‘What if’ that you should consider before you jump on the Vero wagon is ‘What if one of the bigger fishes eats this one?’ Lasso Facebook has a simple policy – either buy your competition or make a simpler and better version of what they have to beat them. Since TikTok comes as a threat in the social space, Facebook decided to quietly launch Lasso. It has mostly similar features. What makes it ‘easier’ is that you can user your Facebook / Instagram account to login and also share Lasso videos as stories on Facebook. This will be eventually available for Instagram too. Leveraging Lasso Facebook knows how to make a business out of a product. You can expect them to throw their might behind Lasso too to outrun TikTok. Given the existing platform synergies, it makes it easier for marketers to adopt. However, Lasso currently seems like a late entrant in the short video player game. This one we closely watch on how things can turn out. More information here Caffeine Caffeine is the new Twitch. It’s the social media platform for live streamers. The platform is aimed at gamers and artists. Started by a couple of Apple designers in 2018, the startup came to limelight when it raised $100 million from 21st Century Fox for a content joint venture. The platform
How to Increase Traffic & Improve SEO with Structured Data Markup
SEO is generally divided in on-page, off-page and tech, each requiring a complete understanding of how search engines ‘view’ the website. While on-page and off-page can be taught to a novice, tech SEO requires some basic understanding behind the science of search engines. It doesn’t mean you should know to code but it would be a definite advantage to have the knowledge. One look at the execution requirements of structured data will make you wonder if it is worth the trouble. The question makes most SEO specialists give up before they start. Don’t lose heart. If you are one of the non-tech background SEO experts and want to start with structured data, this blog can be your starting point. Here’s why you should have structured data for your website Rich search results: May include styling and images Rich cards: Similar to rich snippets for mobile users Enriched search features: An immersive popup or an advanced interaction feature (see how job search results are featured these days) Enhancing Knowledge graph: Share information about the brand Enhanced breadcrumbs: Adding breadcrumbs to search results Carousel: Works great for news and videos Higher ranking Better traffic Higher CTR: Structureddata helps Google understand your website better. Three points to remember before starting Talking to machines is often about having a logical approach to things. For example, if you were to define a recipe, you would have the title, the ingredients, the prep time, the cooking time etc clubbed together followed by the step by step recipe. If you can logically define the hierarchy of things, you should eventually get a hang of structureddata. Have a tech person be ready on standby to help you before you start. Some parts of structureddatais straight forward. Other parts aren’t that simple. It’s best to have someone on standby to help you wade through the murky waters Always take a backup before you start. Once you implement the new code and something breaks, you can always go back to the old site and then figure how to fix things. Otherwise, you’ll be fighting fires on both ends. What is structured data? As the name suggests, structured data involves giving a structure to the data by organizing it in a way that gives a better understanding. This is also called ‘schema markup’. These terms are interchangeably used in the industry. While Google is smart enough to understand what your data says, it (and you) will be better off if Google can understand what your data means. Here’s a brief description for a microwave cake: In microwave safe bowl, put 2 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp honey. Whisk well. Put in 1 tbsp flax seeds, 2 tbsp peanut butter and milk meal. Stir in. Then fold in dry ingredients – whole wheat flour, ½ tbsp cocoa powder, ½ tsp baking powder and a pinch of baking soda. Top up with peanuts. Put in the microwave at 800 power for 2 minutes. It will be ready. While this works for humans to an extent here’s what makes it simple for Google to understand. This followed by the step-by-step instruction, clear headers on the cooking time, calorie count and even user reviews, recipe rating, video and images can give Google a full view of the content of the web page. Let’s say, for example, that you have a cookbook website with recipes in the format of blogs and vlogs. Each recipe will have the name of the dish, the ingredients, their measurements, the cook time and the steps to make it. So, weren’t we always told that we need to write for humans first? The key difference to note here is that we may still classify things under these headers for humans but Google needs a little more than that. So how do we make things better for Google (and humans)? We use schema markup or structured data. There are three types that search engines will typically support – Microdata, JSON-LD, and microformats. Microdata is integrated via the page’s HTML while JSON-LD uses a Javascript object. Of these, JSON-LD is the most commonly used format (because Google supports it) so we will limit to it for our explanation here. It’s now time to have a look at schema.org where you’ll find A LOT of information on the implementation of schema markup for your website. It can be confusing if you aren’t accustomed to seeing codes. The good part is you don’t have to know all of it. Start by looking at Google’s guidelines on adding structured data. Here’s what it says: “Google Search works hard to understand the content of a page. You can help us by providing explicit clues about the meaning of a page to Google by including structured data on the page. Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content; for example, on a recipe page, what are the ingredients, the cooking time and temperature, the calories, and so on” Here’s a quick view of a couple of key terms you need to know from an SEO perspective 1) Itemscope: Consider this to be the topic header Let’s try with our previous example. Below is the standard code we will write for the page. <div> <h1>Microwave cake</h1> <span>Recipe: Microwave cake in 5 mins</span> <span>Sweet Delights </span> <a href=”../bakery/microwave-cake.html”>Cup cake</a> </div> For the above, here’s how we will inform Google that this section is about a microwave cake recipe To start, we can change the first line of code to define the topic <div itemscope> <h1>Microwave cake</h1> <span>Recipe: Microwave cake in 5 mins</span> <span>Sweet Delights </span> <a href=”../bakery/microwave-cake.html”>Cup cake</a> </div> This means all the items defined within the itemscope now belongs to the particular topic. 1) Itemprop This allows you to tell google about the properties of the individual items. In our case, this can be the name of the dish. The code will look like this <h1 itemprop “name”>Microwave cake </h1> <span itemprop “Ingredient”>Wheat flour</span> <span itemprop “Ingredient”>Honey </span> You can find more examples here
How to Create Your First LinkedIn Ads Campaign in 5 Simple Steps
LinkedIn is one of the most underrated social media platforms there is. A lot of people think it simply doesn’t have the kind of numbers that Facebook and Instagram do. But if you think about it, LinkedIn is really a curated platform. It may have only 575 million users (compared to Facebook and Instagram’s billion-plus users) but they’re largely white-collar professionals who are on the platform because they want to build their career or business in some way. In short, LinkedIn is a great place to get recognized— whether you’re a freelancer, a professional, or a business owner. And if you have a B2B company, then LinkedIn is probably the first place that you need to look at from a marketing perspective. Another challenge people sometimes find with LinkedIn is that it’s unfamiliar. So even though you know it’s an important platform you’re not always sure about how to go about using it. Most importantly, you’re not sure of how ads work on LinkedIn. And while it’s true that the platform can be a little unfamiliar, and that the cost per click is relatively expensive, there is no better way than LinkedIn ads to generate B2B leads in the short run. So in this article, we breakdown the whole LinkedIn Ads platform and help you launch your very first LinkedIn Ads campaign. Step 1: Build strong personal and company profiles LinkedIn allows people to see everything about a prospect before deciding whether to engage with them. This means your LinkedIn profile has to be spot on, and this includes both your personal profile and your company page. So first off, analyze your personal profile; make sure you haven’t missed out on anything that’s noteworthy and that will build your credibility as someone people want to do business with. As a next step, set up your company page. Here’s how you do it in just 2 clicks: Image Source Then add your company name and your profile URL. Image Source Although company pages can be fairly extensive, there are a few things that you need to add right off the bat. These include: Your cover image Your logo Your “about us” summary. This helps you with getting recognized in Google searches so make sure you include all the important keywords here. Your header and profile picture should reflect your brand. Many people just use their logo for their profile picture so that people immediately know who they’re dealing with. Ask everyone on your team to connect their profile with the company page so that any prospect knows they’ll be working with a solid team. Step 2: Share unique content Before you create ads on LinkedIn, you need to start by posting and promoting great content. This will give you valuable insights into the kind of content that works, helping you decide what content to spend your advertising budget on. LinkedIn is probably the most underrated content platform. There are about 9 billion content impressions every week on LinkedIn, and these are being driven by just 3 million users. What this means is you have an opportunity to get great engagement on your content without having to deal with too much competition. Here are a few things to keep in mind while promoting content on LinkedIn: Post content every day Consistency is an absolute must with LinkedIn. You can post a variety of content — from company updates to blog posts to industry articles to thought leadership pieces. It’s just important to share content every single day. Post snappy content A compelling headline, a brief but interesting introduction, and a clear CTA (Call to Action) are all prerequisites for good content. Also, make sure that your content is asking readers thoughtful questions and discussing their pain points, as opposed to talking about yourself. Use tags Tagging people and companies who might find your content relevant will help you get some quick likes and comments. This, in turn, will signal to LinkedIn that this is the content that they should share with a wider audience. Step 3: In-depth data analysis Go to the Engagement highlights on your business page to analyze the performance of your content. There are two main things you need to get from this exercise. Find out who is seeing your posts You need to make sure your posts are reaching the right audience. If that isn’t happening, experiment with changing the headlines to capture a more relevant audience. Knowing how to target the right audience is an important key to effective advertising on LinkedIn. Figure out which kind of content is working You also need to see which type of content is actually working well; in terms of tone, content format, topics, etc. This will help you make important decisions around which content you should be spending your ad budget on. Step 4: Sponsored content You are now ready to begin your LinkedIn ad campaign. There are 3 main options for your ad campaign. These include: Sponsored posts Text and dynamic ads Sponsored InMails. Sponsored posts are a good starting point because they reach a wider audience at a lesser cost compared to display ads and InMails. Plus, you already know which content is working well so you won’t have too much trouble there. Here are the steps you need to follow to begin your campaign: Go to your company page, go to the post you want to sponsor and click the Sponsor Now button 2. You’ll be taken to the Campaign manager. Click on Create Campaign. 3. Specify the campaign name and choose a campaign goal. For the first campaign, sending people to your website is probably the best goal. 4. Choose your target audience. The best feature about LinkedIn ads is how narrowly you can define your target audience so use this option well. 5. Choose your budget and bidding option. There are two bidding options – Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per
7 Actionable Tips to Give Your Content More Personality
It’s true- there are over 2 million blog posts being written every single day. So how do you engage readers in this era of short attention spans and information overload? The only way of effectively doing this is by creating unique content. But as our clients always ask us, “is any content really unique in today’s day and age?” Of course, most topics under the sun have already been written about. But unique content doesn’t mean you have to a unique topic. What it means is that you have to bring your unique perspective to the topic, whether that’s in the way you structure your article or the personality you bring to your content. In fact, content writing in a voice that’s interesting and unique can put a fresh spin on even the most mundane topics. So without further ado, here’s our pick of the 7 most effective ways to give your content more personality. Tip 1: Don’t write, talk Does that sound confusing? Believe it or not, this is one of the simplest ways to give your content more personality. Unfortunately, ever since school, we’ve been taught that’s there’s a difference between how we speak and how we write. So long-winded sentences, extensive vocabulary, and complex ideas meant you were a better writer. But that simply isn’t true. When you create content today, it has only one main purpose— to engage the reader. So a simple technique is to just imagine your reader is standing in front of you and you’re having a conversation with them. The words will be simple and direct; and will flow naturally. And your content will automatically become so much more engaging. Tip 2: Tell a powerful story Humans have been telling stories since the dawn of civilization, and there’s a reason for that. Stories immediately hook the reader and capture interest. Of course, you’re not always writing a compelling narrative. Sometimes, you’re writing a 1000-word guide on which building materials to use. Even in that case, use anecdotes. Anecdotes are an effective way of transforming a drab and dry piece. Every time you feel the pace is slowing down try and use a compelling anecdote. Of course, you need to find an anecdote that is both interesting but also relevant to the point you’re making. Also, try and sprinkle them through the content without going overboard. Too many anecdotes can be jarring and take attention away from the meat of the content. Tip 3: Craft a detailed buyer persona A buyer persona is basically a detailed account of an average reader of your blog. Put some time and effort into cultivating a buyer persona so that you’re able to understand your audience better than anyone else. Figure out who your reader is; how old they are, what gender they belong to, what their income is, whether they have kids, where they went to school, what their hobbies are, and so on. Once you start writing, always keep this buyer persona in mind and address your post to them. You’ll notice your writing immediately becomes more intimate, personalized, and effective. Tip 4: Tug at the heartstrings Jonah Berger analysed over 7000 articles from the New York Times to figure out what made a particular piece of content engaging. He found that stories that provoked an emotional response in readers — whether that was empathy, joy, frustration, pain, or even anger — were far more likely to be shared than stories that weren’t high on emotional content. If you’re stuck wondering how to make your staid content idea evoke an emotional response, just think of it from the reader’s point of view. Which pain point of theirs are you addressing with this piece? Why will they value what you have to say? Once you figure this out, writing an emotion-driven piece shouldn’t be hard. Tip 5: Formatting The right formatting is just as important as the actual words. You need to understand that in this age of frenetic content consumption, readers don’t always “read” content. Sometimes, they just scan it. So making your content easily scannable is the key. Formatting is actually one of the easiest tools to pick up. For starters, keep your paragraphs short; ideally no more than 100 words. This helps break the monotony for readers. Another technique is using subheadings to break down the text and let the readers know what’s coming next. Other techniques include using paragraph spacing, emphasizing important words and phrases by putting them in italics, using em and en dashes, and parentheses. Tip 6: Be interested in the topic This one can be tricky, especially for those of us who are professional writers. You may not always get to work on content ideas that you find inspiring or even interesting. But the trick is to move past this. The reason you’re writing that piece of content is because it will add value to someone who’s going to read it. This means that just because you don’t find the topic interesting, doesn’t mean no one else does. Instead of writing on a topic you don’t care about, take some time out to do your research. Not research on the topic, but rather research about and around the topic. Keep doing this till you find something about the topic that piques your interest. You’ll create a much more authentic piece if you’re actually passionate about what you’re writing. Tip 7: Break the rules When it comes to modern content, you don’t need to be a stickler for grammar rules. Starting a sentence with “and” or “but” is perfectly acceptable if it drives your point home better. As is using sentence fragments and even run-on sentences. The idea is to be unique, authentic, and relatable. Your customer needs to understand and identify with what you have to say — and if some rules get broken in the process, don’t sweat it. These tactics are fairly simple to implement, but they can really
Making the Online Offline connect for Your Campaigns
With limited attention span and mind space, most brands who want to create a sustained campaign recall tend to plan for a 360-degree campaign. This often means a campaign that encompasses print, radio, outdoors and digital. In some cases, it may also include in-store advertising and Below The Line (BTL) campaigns. Such campaigns do require a sizeable budget and a water-tight media plan to optimize spends. One of the biggest reasons to make this connection is that the performance tracking and ROI calculation becomes more tangible via the digital medium. Even if you share information vial all other media, you would ultimately prefer that your user comes and takes an action online so that the outcome is measurable. The best way to pick out ideas for such campaigns is by seeing how successful campaigns have been implemented so far. Let’s take a few examples. Online initiation to Offline execution: Events Event management is one industry that has tremendously benefited from the online campaigns resulting in offline outcomes. The simplest form of event marketing starts by creating an event page via Facebook. This works especially well for local events for a targeted user base. Let’s say you plan a conference for professionals in your industry, it will require a parallax landing page on your website along with a curated registration form and a payment gateway for paid events. Advertisements for premier events can start months before to give enough build-up time with content about the speakers, the opportunities the event brings and mirror stories about professionals attending it. Creating an online-offline campaign for the event The online channels you are most likely to use for a professional event is Linkedin which will allow you to target by industry and designation. This along with an email campaign to a relevant database can be a good starting point. After testing the waters with these channels, you can try out the search engine marketing route primarily via Google AdWords to see how it impacts your registration flow. The offline connect for the campaign can happen by directly identifying influencers for the campaign and reach out to them with an offline invite. Offline initiation for online execution: Let’s say that you want the final action of the user to happen online. Here you can create a website or microsite for the user to land on and complete the action – be it fill a lead, make a purchase or upload their contest entry. The promotion of the offer can happen via a variety of offline channels like print, in-store and radio. The online promotion can happen via a range of high-traffic websites. The best examples come from brands like Myntra, Jabong, Amazon and Flipkart who go all out to promote their sales. You’ll see their ad in newspapers, hear it on the radio and not miss it on your phone. Since most of these brands time their sales together, they also benefit by the cumulative visibility that rubs off from each other’s advertising. After all, it is a common trend for shoppers to check out multiple sites and go through endless scrolls before zeroing in on a purchase. Image Source Such campaigns have clearly proved their worth in ROI. Myntra added 5 lakh new users after its EOSS sale in 2018. This number along with a 10x sale prediction is only increasing every year. Try out an innovation One of the most innovative online-offline campaigns was done by Fox TV to promote their show The F Word. Digital posters with Gordon Ramsay were put up in the streets of Los Angeles. These were connected with microphones and cameras transmitting real-time data. As unsuspecting people walked by, the interactive poster had Gordon Ramsay speak to them real time! Another example of packaging innovation comes from McDonald’s. We all know that the children’s favourite Happy Meals comes with a toy that is the centre of attraction. In an innovation, McDonald’s converted its Happy Meal Box into a VR headset. The box came with dotted lines that could be folded into a VR contraption. Dubbed as ‘Happy Goggles’ these could be used by anyone with a smartphone to have a VR experience. Here are some quick things to remember to make your online-offline campaign successful Add online CTAs to build the offline-online connect All your offline campaigns should lead prospects to a landing page. This can be done either by directly giving them a simple, memorable URL. This can be a slightly complicated proposition if your landing page is not your homepage. In such cases, you can run promotional banners on your homepage to facilitate the journey or share a QR code. In the case of contests, you can ask people to complete an activity offline and upload their entry online to be eligible to participate. Use #tags #tags become a perfect channel for online-offline connect as it can be used and tracked across most of the popular social channels. #tags also solve the problem of having complicated URLs or avoid the trouble of scanning a QR code. Instead #tags can be used on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Create an offline story and continue it online Some brands often tend to use this style to build empowerment campaigns. Think of campaigns like Tata tea’s Jaago re which has become a movement in itself. Jaago re was popularized via TV campaigns. Today, long after the campaigns are off the TV and over a decade after it began, it continues to live on via online channels becoming a home for activism and public interest petitions. Another interesting thing to do is use the story-telling approach to narrate half the story online and ask the users to watch the conclusion online. Once you have them hooked, it is not difficult to make the sales pitch at the right time. Give out vouchers online which can be redeemed offline (or vice versa) If you are a restaurant who wants to increase walk-ins on a weekday, publicize your discount voucher online.
How to Rank on Position Zero in Google
We know that Google is constantly experimenting with search results. For search engine optimizers, goals keep shifting. SEO earlier was about ranking against competitors in the same category. Now it has moved to a point where SEO is about having a sustained approach against Google’s changing algorithm. Ranking on position 1 is yesterday. SEO is now about ranking in position zero. What is position zero? Position zero is the ‘featured snippet’ that shows above the first search result. It looks different as it is highlighted in a grey outline box and features the answer in the first few lines. For a typical query, you are highly likely to find your answer in this snippet, so much so, that you may not go beyond if the snippet gives you the answer you need. You are also much more likely to click on this result compared to others that appear below. How do featured snippets work? Here’s what Google has to say: Here’s the nice additional bit that a lot of people miss – “Featured snippets commonly contain one listing, but more than one may appear.“ This means Google is picking the most definitive reply to a query which is most likely based on its historic performance. It is highly likely that these are: It’s high ranking in organic search based on various existing parameters of the search algorithm High click rate on the query Likely answer to the exact question in the format of an answer in a few lines and also a detailed explanation for support The average amount of time spent on-page and a lower bounce rate which is a signal that the answer is relevant Are there different types of featured snippets? Well, the are different types of content that get featured. This includes paragraphs, numbered lists, bulleted lists, tables, YouTube videos, images, and charts. Why are featured snippets important? Other than the most obvious fact of added visibility, featured snippets are also what you hear as an answer if you do a voice search. Not just that, 55% of households are expected to own smart speaker devices by 2022. From this lens, if you are not in the featured snippet, nothing much else will matter. The good part is that more than one result can be in the featured snippet. Here’s an example of what multiple featured snippets looks like We searched for ‘top 10 places to holiday in India’. While the main featured snippet read ‘According to Travel Triangle’, it also had ‘View 5+ more’ on the top right corner. The result takes you to a page where Travel Triangle is still featured in the first two search results and also as a first result in the answer box. Then you’ll see search results from competitors like Thrillophillia and MakeMyTrip among others on the same topic. Here’s another thing that grabs attention – the featured snippet is not a paragraph directly taken from the page. The snippet program is built in a way that it will scan the entire page, select content from the page in parts, gather it and show it in the more relevant and effective manner. With this instance of the Travel Triangle blog, you’ll see that Google has reformatted the content and just picked up the list for display with minimal or no text from within each list item. Another reason to care about position zero in terms of search is also that it is shown before the ads. It takes up significantly more real estate space than regular results garnering more attention – and there is no way you can pay to get here. And now the question you are really seeking the answer to – How do I get to rank in the featured snippet? As with all things SEO, there are tips and tricks to get yourself into position zero. Here are some things that can help First – get to the first page of search results – the higher the better. This is half the battle won for any SEO. Now, even a no. 10 listing on page 1 has a chance to get into position zero, however, the majority of featured snippets come from results that rank between 1 to 5. Work backward – what is the most likely question for which your particular blog can be the best possible answer. Provide the right information in the right format. Include all possible information through that one page Include rich media including infographics and video on the page in the same context Keep updating the page as often as possible. Keep a timeline check on when the page was last updated and if it the latest page is crawled Optimize the title by adding a part of the query to it as an H tag. Also, add the year/month where relevant. For example, something like ‘2019’s most definitive list to get to position zero on Google’. Keep the page engaging by opening comments so that there is always fresh user-generated content on the page that gives the impression that the page has useful information. From a content perspective, answer the 5 Ws of who, what, when, where, why. This is most likely to cover the questions in context. Google’s answer box about the topic is likely to give you the questions people are already asking. Don’t forget to answer the How. Many questions seek instructions as answers on how to do or make something. If you have a video, image or content that answers this, make sure you include it in the page Add definitions: Definitions help solve the ‘What’ part of the question in a way that can keep it simple to understand and complex enough to intrigue someone to click through. Do a comparison: An a v/s b approach can be a great winner for a featured snippet people like to get information in context. For example, do a simple cat vs dog search on Google, you will see a featured snippet, featured videos, answer
Whatsapp for Business – All you need to know and how to assess if its worth it
Most marketeers have already heard about Whatsapp for Business that launched sometime back. A few early birds have tried it out. Most others are trying to figure their way around this new and seemingly powerful means of customer communication. Let’s get into the details of what this medium is, how to evaluate it for your business and what you’ll need to get started. What is Whatsapp for Business? In simple terms, it is a way for businesses to have one on one communication with their customers. As a business, you can be a just chat away from your customer at all times. Even though businesses have always wanted to do this, there has never been an easy way to do it. Our earlier means of communication like emailers SMSes and even notifications have long reached their saturation point, enough to be partially consumed but also easily ignored. Whatsapp, primarily because of its market penetration, established usage and a huge set of the captive audience becomes a gold mine for a savvy marketer. Where is Whatsapp for business users? In case you booked a movie ticket, it is likely that your booking service provider sent an update about your ticket on Whatsapp. Same goes for a travel ticket booking or even if you are interacting with your bank and want to know your balance. Most people received their first communication on Whatsaap as a transactional message which you can’t reply to. You must not have even realized giving consent during the booking/transaction process. Now you have your ticket right in a chat window – unmissable and quick to access. This establishes a window of communication initiated by the brand – but with rules. What are the rules I need to know before I use this medium? Whatsapp currently is trying things out and they have authorized third-party vendors who can help you with the technical set up and the communication strategy. Their primary fear is that brands exploit the medium and soon make it spammy. Aren’t we already tired of the Good Morning messages from various groups? Now what if brands start selling to you on Whatsapp – it can get irritating and mostly result in people blocking brands altogether. Most service providers will share a per-message cost with you. The cost varies depending on the base number of messages you commit to per month. The cost applies if you initiate the communication, but is free for a 24-hour window if your customer messages you first Whatsapp is establishing itself as a convenient way for customer service. They are being cautious to not open the platform for promotional content which they believe can lead to it becoming spammy All message templates need to adhere to stringent guidelines and will be executed only if approved by Whatsapp If your customers being to block you and report your messages as spam, Whatsapp too will block your number The most basic but most important rule – Whatsapp requires explicit customer consent before you send a message to them. The consent can be taken on other media like SMS, email, website form, etc. The consent can also be collected in an offline form but the record needs to be preserved electronically for easy access in case of conflict. What are the types of communication possible via Whatsapp? Whatsapp can primarily hold up the burden of your transactional communication. Ticket booking confirmations, links and relevant messages on Whatsapp allows easy access. The second type of communication is initiated by the customer with a service request or query. Thus, it can be used for issue resolution. What should marketers be varied while using Whatsapp for Business? It seems like a good bet to jump on the Whatsapp bandwagon and announce to your customers. Here are a few important things to consider before you do this The opt-in process starts from scratch. You’ll have to write the right opt-in message so that your customers have set expectations from the medium. The more transactional the better initially as those come as utility messages than regular communication.7 Consider a base technical set up cost and the cost per initiated communication from your end. Consider resource requirements to handle Whatsapp messages. This is similar to having people on standby for a live chat with your customers on your website. Except, many customers may think it is OK to reach out to you at an odd hour. Invest in training people who will be actually answering customer queries. If the first people in the line of fire fall, the whole system can crumble very quickly. We can see screenshots from Whatsapp chats floating on Twitter on how an irate customer service reacted on chat. Keep a thorough quality check on the responses delivered and be agile to intervene and change processes where required In spite of your best efforts, some disgruntled customers are likely to block you because of an unrelated issue. Because the line here is unclear, Whatsapp is more likely to side with your customer than you. How can you evaluate if Whatsapp for Business is right for you? To evaluate Whatsapp for Business, you need to have a handy document that establishes the business case. Here’s how you can do this: Get clarity on all customer-facing functions in your organization. In most companies, you’ll have a customer service team and a sales team in this line. Others may include finance (governing transactions). The sales may further split into offline and online sales depending on your business model. Collect volume data on communication from each of these functions. Understand how many touchpoints exist for each function (emails, SMSes, notifications), who they reach out to, how much overlap exists and the frequency of communication. This will help you get to a rough ballpark on the number of messages that you are likely to initiate via Whatsapp and what the cost will be. Shortlist which functions really need Whatsapp and which
How to Edit Social Media Posts That Have Already Been Published
When it comes to content, the competition becomes more intense every day. And for any brand that hopes to capture that slice of the customer’s attention, posting quality content simply isn’t enough. I can post a great Insta story or a witty meme with an even wittier caption, but if I’m doing it once in two weeks, there’s simply no point. Consistency is key — everyone from the biggest online brands to fledgeling Youtubers swears by this one rule. But consistency comes with its own issues. When you’re posting twice a day on Facebook, thrice on Instagram, four times on Twitter, and so on, chances are you’ll make a mistake or two. From racking your brains to create memorable copy to finding/creating that perfect image, there are way too many things that go into a social media post. Sometimes, the mistake may be as trivial as a misspelt word (which can still have a strong impact on your reputation) or you may just upload a completely wrong image! Whatever be the issue, here’s the complete guide on how you can resolve it. We’ve broken down editing options by social media platform, along with instructions on how to make things right. So here we go: Facebook Facebook is the one platform that’s part of the default marketing strategy for most brands. Given how frequently we end up posting on Facebook, it’s important to know how to quickly backtrack when necessary. What can be edited You can easily edit wrong spellings, poorly worded captions, and even entire textual content. Basically, as long as you’re dealing with the written word, Facebook lets you edit the post whenever you want. In fact, you can even change or add tags, whether that’s for brands, individual, or even locations. You can also edit posts with the Facebook Page Manager App. Keep on mind that edits on Facebook can be made by any Page admin. Plus, edits are also visible on the platform, including the ones that have been made before the post was published. Finally, the post’s edit history is actually public so any user can really look at the editing history if they really want to. This obviously shouldn’t deter you from making the edits you need to, it’s just something to keep in mind. How to edit Simply click/tap on the three dots which are present on the top right-hand corner of the actual post. Then select “Edit Post” from the drop-down menu that appears. Make your changes and just click “Save”. What cannot be edited Unlike textual content, photos and videos cannot be edited on the platform. So if you attach the wrong image or video to the post, you’ll simply have to delete the post and start from scratch. The only exception is if you are editing your post in the Facebook Pages app and you need to change an image. In that case, you can upload the new photo to a post and save it. Once you save the post, go to editing mode and delete the old photo. Importantly, if a post has been boosted, or is part of an ad campaign, it cannot be edited. So when you’re advertising on Facebook, please make sure your post is perfect before it goes live. Otherwise, you’ll have to keep deleting the old post and creating a new one. Twitter Twitter is the one platform where posting frequency is the maximum. In fact, many companies run a thriving customer support channel on Twitter. What can be edited Nothing! Unfortunately, there is no option of editing tweets as of now. This has been the subject of a lot of discussions but as of now, there is no move by the platform to provide an editing option. The company feels that giving the edit option would take away from the free-flowing nature of the platform. At times, Twitter has indicated that it might provide an editing option, with an ‘editing window’ of around 5 minutes after the tweet has been posted. However, there is no concrete progress on this as of now. How to edit Since there is no real editing option for tweets, if you make an error you simply have to delete the tweet and start again. Luckily, the limited size of a tweet makes it much easier to accomplish this. Instagram Instagram has become the most popular social media platform after Facebook. Plus, its young demographic (more than 600 million followers are under the age of 34) and high engagement rates means its often the primary platform for many marketers. What can be edited Just like Facebook, you can change textual information on Instagram. Which means you can edit your caption, add or change any location tag, and add or delete account tags. You can also add and edit alt text tags. How to edit Keep in mind that you can’t edit captions on the desktop version of Instagram. It can only be done within the app on your mobile. To edit the caption, go to your post and click the three dots on the top right side. Then tap the ‘edit’ button after which you can make changes like editing the caption, changing location, and adding account tags to the photo or video. Once the editing is complete, tap the “Done” button on the upper right side. What can’t be edited Similar to Facebook, you cannot edit the videos and images in a post once you’ve uploaded them. You’ll have to delete the post and start again. LinkedIn In recent years, LinkedIn has become the go-to platform for every B2B brand and two professionals join LinkedIn every second. What you can edit You can edit posts both from the Company page as well as your personal profile. Once again, you can only change the text. How to edit To edit your post, go to the page you posted from, and find the post. Click on the three dots on