Thursday, October 27, 2016

Major Factors to Consider When Posting Content on Social Media

There’s a combined art and science when it comes to posting social media content.

Art, in terms of crafting engaging content that appeal both to logic and emotions of the readers, and science when munching numbers and studying the total engagement a post receives as per results of a platform’s analytics.



Different experts could tell you varied suggestions on when to post, but the fact is, you can’t clearly see this yourself unless you’ve undergone several trial and error to see when your target market often goes online.

As you start working on your social media strategy, take some time to take a step back and consider the following crucial factors.

Location

Just like choosing a strategic place to start your business, location also matters in social media management. For ventures such as social media marketing company Philippines who usually service bigger entities abroad, knowing the optimal time of posting for the market of those companies takes precedence.

Studying the activity per location helps you assess the specific time when most people are active people are active.

Personal availability

Also, it’s vital that you know the time when you’re personally available to handle the posting online. Naturally, you can’t do the entire thing 24/7. 

You’ll need breaks at a regular basis. The times you spent managing your social media accounts are the best moments to engage with your followers.

Make use this period to reply on comments, reblog posts or retweet relevant and interesting content.

Tools

These are generally optional and you may not need this at a personal basis. However, running social media accounts for a business is different. You have to be constantly present. Using tools such as Buffer, Hootsuite and CoSchedule calendar allows you to schedule posts in advance.

Quality of engagement across different type of posts

Social posts can fall under the following types:

  • ·         Articles
  • ·         Images
  • ·         Videos
  • ·         Audio
  • ·         Quotes
  • ·         Infographics
  • ·         Slideshow

These types can have varied level of engagement depending on their quality and target viewers. When creating a marketing strategy, consider the past engagements acquired by different post types. Which of them are more responsive on a specific time?

Record your findings and use it as guide when posting your next content.

Uniqueness of analytics used by respective social media platforms

Different social media platforms have their own unique analytics.  It’s not enough that you understand how Facebook works because its metrics is different from Twitter and the rest. By understanding the means on how these platforms operate, you’re able to adjust your strategies unique for each portal.

Even if one content succeeds in attracting attention from one SM avenue, it doesn’t guarantee success to other portals. Messaging would also play a vital role. A one paragraph curation for Facebook won’t work on Twitter’s 140 character limit. The trick is to create engaging copies enough to draw your target for a specific medium.


There is no foolproof method on how to succeed in social media campaigns. It’s always a work in progress and the platform itself is dynamic. Still, you can make use of the pre-established metrics and some automation tools to make your strategy implementation more time-efficient.

Reevaluate the current method you’re using for your campaign. Is it doing enough justice to promote your content? How responsive are the people to the information you publicize? Are you posting at the most optimal time fit for your market?


All of these questions are vital in arriving at a more concrete means of boosting your strategy’s overall efficiency. Prepare high-quality content and distribute them across different social media platforms the right way, at the right time.  

Monday, October 24, 2016

Increase Your Social Media Knowledge Using these 5 Websites!

Social connectivity has undeniably stolen the spotlights in terms of information sharing. Digital marketers and even private individuals are now spending more time on social networking sites in finding people, promoting a product and even doing surveys.

But with its popularity comes the bigger challenge of utilizing a specific platform at its best. Setting up your account is one. Planning your posts is another. For personal use, this may seem like a no-brainer. After all, places like Twitter and Facebook can easily be used to serve as one’s online journal.




It means differently though for businesses. Rather than acting as a journal, social media sites act as promotional platforms that boost the visibility and credibility of a company. This is exactly why digital marketers invest considerable time in crafting strategies on how to improve their overall online presence and engagement with their market.

Today, we’ve listed five websites that could help marketers boost their social media expertise. Feel free to check out the following.

Social Media Examiner

 This site focuses on the nitty-gritty of different social media platforms and how they can be used to advertise, promote and connect with different people. If you think you know everything about social networking sites, think again. There’s more to it than mere sharing of information.



This website teaches you how to optimize its usage in the most efficient way fit for yout target market. It’s an excellent source as well of add on resources that could help increase traffic to your page or account.

Copyblogger


It’s composed of a community of skilled digital marketers who offer their tips, experiences and proven-effective guides on how modern marketers should treat online engagement. They feature articles, podcasts and even ebooks available for anyone who finds marketing essential.



Limited offers such as webinars or online symposium are sometimes held to gather interested in one place learn the most recent and practical approach in digital marketing.

CoSchedule


Scheduling is a crucial factor when it comes to sharing information online. If you don’t strategize well, chances are, you won’t catch the attention of your target on the same moment when they spend their time on SM platforms.



This issue in scheduling is what CoSchedule tries to address. Their blog site is an excellent source of informatin in terms of identifying the optimal times to share content online. They also offer tips to help marketers make their content more attractive to readers.

HubSpot


One of the major challenges digital marketers have is time management. This website gives helpful inputs on how marketers and salespeople could become more productive in their work.



This is also an efficient resource when looking for information involving SEO and blog posting.

SocialMediaToday


If its about anything relevant to social media and its recent innovation, then this website is the go-to place. It features the latest breakthroughs from website owners, social networking startup companies and more.




Social media marketing is now mainstream and companies who are serious in attracting more customers have no reason to shy away from this technique.

Even the most seasoned corporations recognize the importance of connecting digitally with their market. Should you find yourself having some difficulty in making your promotions more effective, perhaps it’s time to up your game by studying more closely the anatomy of the platform in use.


Keep in mind that different social media sites have their own unique metrics. The ones that work on Facebook may not necessarily receive the same response when applied on Twitter. As a marketer, it’s your professional obligation to assess the effectiveness of your strategy and continuosly work on making it better. 

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Social Media Marketing Killers You Should Now Stop Doing

Seth Godin, a prominent American entrepreneur and marketer once said,’Markeing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.’

And when it comes to telling stories, we all know how social media has become everyone’s favorite. From text stories to images and videos, we’ve all seen how convenient and accessible it is to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like for reaching friends and people with the same interests.



Now that anyone can readily create their accounts on social media, it shouldn’t be  surprise why marketers are also jumping into this platform to promote their company’s product or service.

Unfortunately for many, social media has been treated as one of those avenues to hard sell something instead of building connection with people, which is the very premise of why the platforms are created in the first place.

Today, we’ve listed notorious things that are most likely ruining your marketing strategy without you knowing about it.

Frequent content posting

We’re supposed to be active online. So shouldn’t we post more?

Posting social media content at a regular basis is important to gain traffic. But the frequency has to be strategic enough to avoid becoming more of a nuisance than an asset to your followers.

Remember that the typical SM user has scattered attention span as he or she jumps from one site to another, checking different information across various sources.

Posting stuff every minute or hour could be perceive as annoying especially if you’re just sharing posts that they’ve already read from somewhere else. Stop being redundunt and give your audience a breather.

Disregarding schedules

This is primarily related to the previous one. The secret to achieving a good posting frequency is to schedule. Naturally, schedules are adjustable depending on engagment results, but the point is, you’re abiding at something consistent and random.

Unfortunately, many noob marketers prefer random posting with scattershot frequency to experiment. While this has its own benefits, the negatives ultimately outweighs the positive.

Disregarding schedule doesn’t help in long-term marketing strategy. Plus it endangers your page’s ability to maintain solid viewership.

Spammy call-to-action

CTAs (call-to-action) are important since it helps lead your customers on what to do next. Unfortunately, CTAs could also backfire especially if you’re using inappropriate ones.

For instance, using the popular ‘Buy Now!’ CTA on every product you introduce may sound okay, but will ultimately appear as a spam.

It’s best to experiment on variation by studying how the best pages do it. There are lots of creative call-to-action out there. Make the best out of them!

Sharing random rants

Keep in mind that you’re focus is to market whatever product or service it is that you offer. While sharing random thoughts could be tempting, it doesn’t necessarily have a place in your marketing strateg especially if your rants are totally irrelevant to your branding.

Save those rants on personal accounts and away from your business’ identity.

Bombarding friends or followers to like, comment or share your post

Who doesn’t want to have more likes, comments and shares on social media? Marketers do. It’s technically part of their job.

However, these things are gained. They’re not forced. So there’s no point in having to tell all of your friends to engage on every post you share. It’s fine on special promotions but you can’t do it always on each single post.

Doing so would be annoying and irrelevant. Just stop. If your content is really worth sharing, organic shares and engagements would say so.


Maximize the usage of social media by making sure you don’t flood them with unecessary posts.

Be vigilant about everything you share and stay consistent with your brand. Your followers expect you to provide something of value and not just rehash of what other websites have provided.


Up your marketing strategy and don’t let the ones on our list ruin your momentum! 

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Notorious Work Elements that are Killing our Creative Juices

Creativity is fleeting. It's what most artists believe. This is exactly why modern employees need a constant inspiration boost or ritual to get things started. They have deadlines to catch and ad hoc tasks to consider. Relying on the inconsistent, sporadic burst of creativity isn't practical in the typical nine-to-five work setup.



The issue of staying creative for long hours is even made more difficult by the following notorious elements that are dragging us down. Have a quick look. 

Dull working environment

You can never underestimate how your working environment affects your overall performance. Research has proven that the place where a person works is a factor that contributes to his or her productivity level. This is exactly why several businesses invest on creating a conducive environment fit for their workers.

The demand for a highly convenient location is even more amplified in the case of creative industries like android app development. A boring working station with minimal chances of improvising or customization can significantly affect a developer’s creativity which is essentially in dire need of constant inspirational boost.

Hard-to-deal-with colleagues

There are toxic employees. Whether we like it or not, they sometimes exist. They are those who can’t seem to find happiness in what they do but chose to stay anyway. Sometimes you question why they even continue if they look like they’re ready to snap at any moment’s notice.

In as much as how productive workers ignore them, there are times when they just get in the nerves and eventually affect the performance of those who are serious in getting something done.

Too much overtime

Working overtime is inescapable. There are times when we really have to render extra hours work to finish something. However, it’s an all new different matter when you are already asked to work consecutive overtime beyond what you are capable of.

Keep in mind that our brain has its own limit. Once it gets exhausted, you can’t expect creativity to keep on rushing in and give you all of those brilliant ideas you need to get the task done.

Low salary

Sometimes, employees say yes to overtime because of an additional pay, which is ultimately a good thing as it would mean bigger income and more money to pay for regular expenses. But don’t be surprised if you hear workers who complain about not getting the due salary they deserve for the quality of work they deliver.

These times, people need money. In fact, it is one of the basic motivations for workers to accept an offer or not. Once they see that their efforts are not well compensated, they will most likely not exert effort and commitment in doing their tasks too.

Lack of professional growth opportunity

Whether one admits it or not, there is a certain part of a person’s personality that craves for growth. It naturally comes in the more we age. Professionally, this can be provided by those companies we choose to work for.
Unfortunately, not all employers invest on giving something back to their workers by allowing them to grow in their career paths.

The moment workers start to feel stagnant, unless the pay is really too good to give up, is the same time when they would start looking for viable options that could give them better avenues to improve their skills and learn something new.

Of course, being stagnant meant lesser creativity as well.

Indefinite company goals

A company’s mission and vision are more than just written tenets for the sake of having it. They are supposed to be an overview of what the company hopes to achieve.

If these things are absent and employees start to question the point of what they are doing, their perception also changes. If they can’t see the bright side of their efforts, they would feel less motivated to giving out their best.
This, in result, is a huge negative blow to a person’s overall creativity.

Lack of mentoring

This is somewhat related to the need for professional growth. Part of growing is having a mentor who can assist and support you all throughout your career journey in the company. The lack of which could sometimes make one question if he or she is doing the right thing or not.

Usually, this confusion leads to a dramatic decrease in the creativity of a person.


Examine your working environment right now. How is it? Have you experienced some creativity killers we have on this list? 

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Top 5 Reasons Why a Vacation is Needed for Marketers

"You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life."
-Heather Schuck, The Working Mom Manifesto


Forget about clients and deadlines – a vacation for workaholics is a must. Yes, it is understandable why most marketers cannot immediately leave their work considering how hectic and demanding their jobs are, especially when working in an SEO Company Philippines. You need to come up with engaging and effective strategies to achieve quality traffic – not to mention the right marketing approach to avoid disappointed clients. And yes, this requires a lot of work to do. And as a result, most marketers forget to have their work-life balance.

Taking a vacation does not mean you are slacking off at work. One way or another, you need to take a break from a stressful day at work to ensure a productive outcome on your daily performance. To give you some idea of why vacation is helpful for marketers, we list down the reasons below.

1. Your office is not the place for inspiration

Unless tomorrow is a payday, then working in an office is hardly the place you want to get inspiration. It 's hard to find an inspiration when you are under enormous pressure due to strict deadlines and other factors that contribute to your stressors. However, a change of scene is one thing that can help you regain your creative and productive side. Moreover, vacation is also perfect for finding new ideas that can be useful for your work.

2. Leave your comfort zone

Some marketers would prefer their usual work-home routine. Perhaps, it is the only thing they can do as of the moment. But do you know that this kind of method is also one of the reasons why you are stressing out? Why don't you take some time to leave all the stressors behind for the meantime, and get back to your usual self? Through taking a vacation, it allows you to breakthrough with the things that keep you from being productive. This is also an excellent way to try new things besides doing the usual tasks at work.

3. Your health benefits enormously

Although marketers are taking some multi-vitamins to keep them from their everyday lives, there is nothing more satisfying than taking some break. Always remember that money is nothing when you cannot even enjoy it. Right? That means you have to know how to discipline yourself when it comes to balancing your life from your work. When you do, you will eventually realize that work is much easier done when your mind and body are in conditioned.

4. Give your brain a break

There is nothing more tiring than an exhausted mind. And mind you, it is not advisable to abuse your brain no matter how demanding your job is. A tired brain is one of the many factors of unproductive work performance. Give your brain a break by going on a relaxing and satisfying vacation. With this, it allows your brain to shut down from any stressful things that are going on around you.

5. Keep yourself and your workers happy

There are studies have proven that vacation can give a significant impact not just on your work, but also with your self-esteem. Moreover, having a good and positive vibe is one of the results when you tend to give yourself a break. It helps you keep yourself and your workers happy. With this, it would give a significant impact on your productivity at work.

There will always be advantages when you go on a vacation. If you want to keep your career as a marketer and have a better performance, then take a break. You need it to ensure a better and productive outcome on your performance at work. Take time to enjoy once in awhile too!

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Thursday, August 4, 2016

Content Marketing 101: The Recipe for Blogging Success




“Marketing is telling the world you are a rock star. Content Marketing is showing the world that you are one.” –Robert Rose 

Undoubtedly, content marketing is one of the most difficult tasks in the world. It is not a one-time endeavor that would instantly catapult to your success. It requires constant dedication, continuous commitment and a remarkable skill for keeping audiences engaged and interested in you riveting blogs and contents. Regardless of whether you are working for a digital marketing agency or are doing your own freelance work, enough experience with blogging and content marketing would easily tell you just how much of a challenge it is, and you would need a sense of enduring determination for you to succeed.

One of the many reasons why some would fail in their attempts at successful blogging is because they commenced the task without fully comprehending the full implications of what blogging entails. As a result, they would fall short at accomplishing their intended objectives. Fortunately, identifying the pivotal elements, a blog would need to succeed can assist you in blogging success. Here are some of the elements you would need to take a closer look into.

1.)    Core Values 


Any business would have core values and likewise, so should your blog. These core values should be fashioned in a way that they should extend beyond an individual. These values would propel you forward and commit to doing contents.  True enough, a blog can be commenced and kept going by a single individual, but blogs that aim to drive sales or support them or are media entities should be a team effort united by these values. Put your selected blog’s core focus on paper, not hidden in your computer files.


2.)     Set big goals 


While it is good to be realistic, when it comes to blogging it is important to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and commit to accomplishing stuff that is quite beyond your reach. This means you have to show up at the page on a regular basis and at the very bare minimum, you should publish at least two blog posts a week to keep your audiences engaged. Aim for objectives that are aligned with your business goals. This can be anything from building your brand to celebrating fans or driving more traffic to your website.


3.)    Create a “cult” culture 


One thing you have to keep in mind that the Internet is teeming with blog posts that while your blog might be individually created, it would take time before it can develop its own unique identity. Your goal should be to create a brand which your audience can feel comfortable associating with themselves to. This goes hand in hand with deciding the values at the heart of your blog for you to use these in developing your blog’s brand.


4.)    Plan for both the short and long term 


Blogs are not one-time coup attempts; they are on –going entities that would require social media and content marketing at the same time. To ensure you have a steady engagement with your audience, it is critical that you have content that is centered around annual events as well as newsworthy announcements and regular columns. Have an editorial calendar included in your blog which would continuously provide fresh content for the blog and in a sense, think like a magazine.


5.)    Be prepared to change


True enough, you should be able to adhere to the core values you have established, but you have to consider that times would change and so would your audience tastes. As a competent blogger, you should be able to adapt to these. Continuously provide information related to your core topic that would also be relevant to your reader’s need. Additionally, you can place a suggestion box on your blog.

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Monday, August 1, 2016

Four Ways to Discover Whether Your Audience is Bored With Your Content





Content marketing can get pretty challenging.

Anyone in link building services would tell you that. Regardless of how long you have been in the business, it remains as a fact that your audience is a diverse set of individuals who has a varied set of tastes. And no matter how experienced you are in this field of business, it is an uncontested reality that the audience of your content can be some of the most exacting people on the planet. Not exactly in the literal sense, but in a figurative one wherein if you no longer produce riveting content, you no longer have their complete apt attention.

And with the competition so rigid, you cannot afford to lose even just a handful of these audiences.  However, there are ways of telling whether or not your audience is getting bored with your content and when they are, it is high time you do something about it.


1.)  You get few comments to no comments at all 


Take a gander at the social media posts, guest posts, blog posts, etc. you have done over time, are you getting any reaction at all? Are these responses consistent? Seeing how many comments you get in a single post is a cardinal sign that your post is being read. If there is little to no signs of comments in your post, then that is a warning sign. The comments in your post would serve as the barometer of how much attention your posts are getting and if there are no comments at all, that might be a sign for you to change things up.


2.)  Your content is not getting socially shared 


One very informative metric in content marketing is social shares. One look at the number of likes, tweets, shares would serve as a test how your content was received by your audience (whether favorably or unfavorably). Realistically, though, each content you write would not exactly get impressive amounts of shares and likes, but if your content is not getting any sort of attention at all, it could be an indicator that your audience is bored of your content. Your readers are not captivated by your content, and if you want to hold their attention, you better figure out a good content strategy.

3.)  You have low Twitter engagement 


It is not exactly possible to gauge what your exact engagement level is on all social media platforms, but Twitter makes it exceptionally easy. For you to get an accurate grasp of your engagement levels, try Twitter Analytics and compare the number of impressions, your content has received with the number of engagements. This would invariably include link clicks, favorites, retweets, etc. In addition to that, it has a lot of features which are incredibly nifty such as telling you your top tweet, your profile visits, your top mentions and so on. This feature allows you to get a broader perspective of who is engaging with you which you can use to your advantage.  When you are provided this much data, it helps you appropriately create content for the audience who is engaging with you.


4.)  Your unfollow rate is increasing 


If you are noticing a rather steady decline in your followers or perhaps a steady incline of your unfollowing rate, then this is a sign that something is wrong. If you get more unfollows with each update rather than follows, then it is a clear indication that your audience no longer wants any updates from you. Social media savvy individuals are incredibly meticulous on what they see in their feeds, and if they have unfollowed you, it means that you no longer hold their interest. There are free tools which could assist you in finding out how many followers you used to have before they dropped out and who they are which can be used on a variety of social media platforms. Ufollowerstats will give you a detailed report on who is currently following you, who has unfollowed you, etc. on Twitter.


If your content is no longer engaging, perhaps it is high time to change something up in your content strategy. Remember, if you are not writing any stimulating content, you are not helping your brand grow.