5 Ways To Optimize Your Social Media Campaigns

Covid-19 Social Media Tips For Businesses

September 15, 2020/in Articles, Blog, Directors, Social Media /by Nicole Wagner

COVID-19 has resulted in an uncertain situation that nobody has experience with. As such, many companies are stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out how to proceed. Some businesses are even cutting back on their marketing budgets due to a decrease in sales. In fact, marketing your business is more critical than it’s ever been. It’s your marketing strategy that will help get your business through the pandemic and allow it to emerge on the other side — whenever that may be. One particular marketing strategy you should focus on is social media. However, your success depends on how effective your social media strategy is during this time. Here are a few Covid-19 social media tips for businesses to continue to reach a broader audience and to build stronger relationships to set yourself up for future success.

It would be understandable to assume that social media usage is up at this point in time. Unemployment is sky-high and a significant amount of people who are still employed are now working remotely. With that in mind, you would think that more people would be on social media in search of connection than ever before. While there is a 70 percent increase in social media app usage, engagement rates have actually gone down. The following are a few potential reasons for this:

People are using social differently – People are more isolated than they’ve ever been, especially in areas with stay-at-home orders or if they’re under quarantine. As a result, they are on social media a lot. They’re just not engaging with brands. This is because they’re using social to connect to their friends and family, not necessarily to do research into products and services.
Businesses aren’t leveraging social correctly – Sporadically posting content on your social channels without any kind of plan won’t do you any good. There needs to be a reason behind your social media actions. Simply trying to engage followers for the sake of engaging them won’t help you or them. In order to see results, you need to establish goals, which requires you to create a social media strategy.

Like this article? Also read 8 Tips on Social Media Best Practices For Your Business

Despite a lack of social media engagement, you should not ignore the opportunity to use social as a marketing tool. Social media can be a very effective way to reach your audience and to build stronger relationships throughout the pandemic. With that in mind, the following are a few social media tips for businesses:

1. Provide Useful Content

If you want your audience to engage, you need to provide them with something of value. What are they looking for? Odds are, they’re not looking for advertisements. Create content that you know will be useful to them. If your current content marketing strategy is stale or isn’t having the impact you desire, consider trying new things. For instance, begin creating video content to post to your social channels.

2. Don’t Avoid The Topic, But Don’t Be Too Opportunistic

Providing useful content on COVID-19 can help your audience. People are desperate for all kinds of information related to the pandemic, whether it’s concerning their personal health or their financial health. As such, don’t just pretend like nothing’s happening. Address the topic. However, it’s important that you don’t come across as opportunistic. For instance, you may not want to begin selling masks with your logo on it. It will come across as if you’re taking advantage of the pandemic.

The world has never been like this before, which means it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen. Because of this, you need to keep an eye on both marketing trends as well as social media trends in general. For instance, people have begun to depend more heavily on e-commerce, even if they don’t have stay-at-home orders in their area. If you offer e-commerce, then informing your audience (especially offline customers) and encouraging them to use it via social media is a good idea.

4. Listen To Your Audience

Your audience’s wants, needs, desires, and fears may be changing during this time. Be sure to listen to what they have to say. You can do this by using various social media listening tools to track conversations about your brand, your industry, and the pandemic in general.

5. Invest In Influencer Marketing

Despite the fact that social media engagement is down, influencer marketing is as strong as ever. Influencers have a deep connection with their audience, which means that they are an excellent way to reach them. In fact, influencers may be a better option than traditional marketing tactics at the moment, such as TV commercials or radio ads, to name a few.

Use these social media tips for businesses to continue to reach a broader audience and to build stronger relationships. By using social media during COVID-19 effectively, you can set yourself up for future success.

Five Tips for Effective Inbound Marketing for Healthcare

September 10, 2020/in Articles, Blog, Brand Positioning, Digital Media, Directors, Inbound Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, Senior Living Marketing, Social Media, Trending, Website Design /by wpsuperadmin

Quality healthcare has always been important, but it’s even more important during the pandemic. More people are searching for health-related information than ever before. As such, it’s critical that your healthcare business is in a position to be found. To achieve this, you need to implement a strong, long-term inbound marketing strategy. A good inbound marketing strategy can help drive awareness of your business and help generate more leads. It’s why you should work with a reputable healthcare marketing agency. With that in mind, the following are five essential inbound marketing tips for healthcare businesses:

1. Add Educational Content To Your Website

One of the most important goals you should have is to build trust with your audience. Trust is essential to any healthcare business; after all, your customers are often putting their lives in your hands. With that in mind, you should add educational content to your website. This content shouldn’t promote your services or products. Instead, it should educate your audience. The more informed they are, the more confident they will be in making a purchasing decision. Not to mention that it helps build your brand authority, which directly increases trust.

COVID-19 Content

An example of educational content might be a page dedicated to COVID-19. This page could explain what the symptoms are, what patients should do if they exhibit symptoms, and how they should seek help if needed. Not only are you providing valuable information that can save lives, but you’re also providing relevant information that can build trust.

2. Build A Compelling Website

Your website is the foundation of your inbound marketing efforts. It doesn’t matter how good your content is if your website is poor. The following are just a few important elements of a compelling website:

No technical issues – Broken links and slow loading pages can hinder the user experience. Few visitors will stay on your site for more than a few seconds if they’re encountering technical problems.
Visually pleasing layout – Your website should be visually pleasing. A poorly designed website that looks outdated will give visitors reservations about your healthcare company’s quality.
Easy navigation – Your site should be easy to navigate. Make it easy for your visitors to jump from one section to another and to find what they’re looking for. Besides a solid navigation menu, you should also use internal links to help guide your visitors to related content and pages.
Ability to contact you – Whether visitors have questions or want to schedule appointments, it’s vital that you make it easy for them to contact you. Your contact information should be on every page. However, you should also have a page dedicated to your contact information where visitors can fill out a form. You should also think about incorporating a live chat or chatbot feature to provide basic information and guidance.

3. Maximize Your Email Marketing Strategy

Email marketing has been an incredibly cost-effective marketing strategy since the beginning of online marketing. Healthcare companies, in particular, can benefit from email marketing. For example, you can create an email newsletter that leads and customers alike can sign up for. You can use this newsletter to educate your audience and to build trust in your brand. You can achieve this by using your newsletter to provide new health information, healthcare tips, and office updates. A good email marketing strategy can allow you to nurture more leads and encourage more appointments.

Social media is one of the best ways to engage directly with your target audience. Many people turn to social media in order to seek healthcare-related advice. In fact, it’s estimated that 40 percent of people say that they use information they found on social media to make health-related decisions. If you establish a regular presence on your social media channels, you’ll be able to offer professional advice to potential patients. As a result of such engagement, you can build trust. Not to mention that any interactions you have will be public, which will help to generate more brand awareness.

5. Create A Blog

While you should have educational content throughout your website, a blog can be particularly helpful. A blog allows you to publish new content on a regular basis. It also allows you to publish content that may be relevant to a specific time. For instance, a post on health-care-related laws passed during the pandemic would be a great blog post. However, you can use your blog to post about all kinds of general disease information.

An effective healthcare inbound marketing strategy is essential to your company’s success, especially at this point in time. Although these marketing tips are incredibly effective, they do require time, experience, and expertise to implement successfully. As such, you should strongly consider working with a professional healthcare marketing agency.

What’s Trending in Marketing for August 2020

August 10, 2020/in Advertising Agency, Articles, B2B Marketing, Blog, Brand Development, Brand Positioning, Consumer Marketing, Digital Media, Directors, Mobile Advertising, News & Insights, Press Releases, SEO, Social Media, Trending, Video Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Staying current on marketing trends is especially important to assess whether your marketing efforts are harmonious with today’s evolving world. We know the difficulty of keeping up with these trends given the abundance of information thrown at us every day. The following articles highlight current August 2020 marketing trends that we think are worth paying attention to:

Noteworthy Marketing News

Hulu Launches Beta for Self-Serve Advertising Platform

In effort to combat the negative economic backlash of Covid-19, Hulu has created an opportunity for small businesses to use its platform. Hulu has recently launched a self-service advertisement program eligible for any company with a minimum ad budget as low as $500. The process is simple: a company creates and submits a 15-30 second creative video along with details on budget, date range, and an area to upload the ad to Hulu Ad Manager. Hulu approves or denies within 3 days. Brands also have the option to specify their target market by age, gender, genre and location. Hulu provides approved brands with a simple walk-through of set-up and launch. For this program, Hulu permits a maximum of one version of a creative video per campaign.

Google Ads is Banning Spying Products & Software

As part of its recent Enabling Dishonest Behavior Policy, Google Ads is banning any advertising for “spyware and surveillance technology” in both search and shopping starting August 11. Examples of services include fake passports, fake degrees or diplomas, drug test aids, exam or paper writing services, invalid reviews and clicks, and fake social media endorsements. Examples of unauthorized access includes hacking, cable-stealing, radar jamming technology, traffic signal changers, and phone/wiretapping. Google explains that its list is not exhaustive and only mentioned for example. Google exemplifies spyware as GPS trackers, cameras/recorders marketed for spying purposes, and software that monitors someone else’s texts and phone calls, with the exception of parents tracking underage children. Violators on Google Ads will receive a 7-day warning.

Twitter’s ad revenues have fallen in the past years though daily active user rates have increased. However, Twitter’s CFO Ned Segal is confident in the rebuilding process of Twitter’s ad server. He expresses optimism for the future of advertisements on Twitter through the advantage the platform has for live events. Snapchat reports a 17% increase in revenues. Though its audience is largely younger, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel found that the average number of users on the Discover page are in their thirties. Additionally, the platform has benefited from the increasing Facebook ad withdrawals. Twitter has also taken action against QAnon content, suspending thousands of accounts for sharing or associating with any “conspiracy theory-ridden content”.

Improving your Marketing Program

Lessons Learned: Buyer Persona Gone Wrong

Before a company can establish a solid marketing plan, it must be aware of the specific target markets or customer profiles it has the best chance to attract to its product or service. Creating a buyer persona is essential to effective attraction marketing. In order to perfect your approach in buyer persona launch, here are some common mistakes to avoid.

30 Ways to Boost Instagram Engagement & Following

Looking for ways to boost your social media brand presence? Knowing how to increase brand engagement on Instagram, the latest and hippest social media platform app, is a great start. People are online all day due to working from home. Virtual shopping has risen due to restrictions and pandemic fears. As we have geared toward a more online world, your brand’s presence on the web is more important now than ever. According to Forbes, 80% of Instagram users follow at least one business or brand, and 200 million users on Instagram visit business profiles daily. 70% of users turn to Instagram to look up a brand, and 60% learn about new products using Instagram. Now is the time to catch up with the competition that is already using these trends to their advantage.

Istanbul, Turkey – December 15, 2018: Person holding a brand new Apple iPhone X with Instagram profile on the screen. Instagram is an online mobile social networking service, launched in October 2010.

5 Ways to Improve Your B2B Marketing Strategy

B2B marketing can be a challenging endeavor, especially if you don’t have a clear cut marketing strategy in place. To have any hope of running a successful B2B marketing campaign, you’ll need to establish what your goals are. Once you’ve done so, you should implement marketing strategies that will support those goals and help you achieve them. The following are five B2B marketing tips that you should use to help improve your marketing efforts.

Free Digital Marketing Tools To Cope With COVID-19

Recent Marketing Reports, Updates, and Trends

No in-person events until 2^nd half of 2021, marketers say

According to a recent Marketing Land survey of 300 people, 3 out of 10 people responded that they anticipate attending in-person events in the first half of 2021. In another survey, 70% of respondents plan to attend solely online events until a Covid-19 vaccine emerges.

U.S. Mobile Ad Spending Update

In March, E Marketer’s Mobile Ad Spending Report forecasted that the pandemic would cause a 20% increase in mobile ad spending, but they have now updated this expectancy and reduced it to 4.8% growth. Among mobile advertising results, location-based advertising has suffered, and gaming and streaming video apps have done well. This year’s lost growth in mobile ad spending will affect overall spending through at least 2024.

COVID-19 Is the Asteroid That Struck American Small Business

Positive news regarding the virus is 78% of small businesses report being able to survive 7 to 12 months or more with existing cash on hand, and 57% could last over a year. Restaurants suffered primarily, as there were over 133,000 business closures total and of the 26,000 Yelp restaurants that have been closed since March, 60% were now permanently closed. A majority of 92% of businesses report pivoting strategy in at least one way form the pandemic. The most common change was a creation of delivery channel, and 96% of businesses reported planning to keep some new services and channels post-pandemic, while 43% will maintain all changes. Find out more on Search Engine Land.

Utilize Marketing Audiences on Pinterest Today

August 6, 2020/in Articles, Blog, Digital Media, Directors, Homebuilder Marketing, Media, Mobile Advertising, News & Insights, Real Estate Advertising, Senior Living Marketing, Social Media, Trending /by Nicole Wagner

Pinterest is a valuable marketing tool, as 88% of pinners purchase something they have pinned, and 49% purchase 5 or more products they have pinned. Despite its effectiveness as a marketing tool, only 28% of marketers are already using Pinterest, so get ahead of the competition and start using this visual platform today.

Who’s Using Pinterest?

Pinterest has over 335 million worldwide users and 88 million users from the United States. With over 200 billion Pinterest pins and 4 billion boards, users save 2 million shopping pins on boards daily. 71% of Pinterest users are female. In the United states, 40% of dads use Pinterest, and 80% of moms. The median age of Pinterest users is 40, however most active “Pinners” are below 40 years old. Gen Z adults and millennials are the most dedicated users, however Gen X users increased daily use by 10% from 2018 to 2019.

30 Ways to Boost Instagram Engagement and Following

Marketing on Pinterest: Homebuilding, Crafts, Senior Living, Real Estate, CPG, and more

Two thirds of pins represent brands and products, and 50% of users have made a purchase after seeing a promoted pin. According to Mintel’s February 2020 Arts and Crafts Consumer Report, Pinterest is largely used to spread creativity through DIY crafts, creating a valuable marketing opportunity for craft and home decorating companies. Pinterest is also a valuable tool for homebuilders to reach consumers through typing in keywords linked to related visual boards of ideas and products. Additionally, Pinterest is a marketing tool to promote services as well, such as Senior living facilities. A platform that provides a unique way to visually display information, Pinterest provides a way for your brand to share health and caregiver related articles, exercise routines for seniors, home health care products, images from your service’s website, and even healthy recipes. As nearly 30% of Pinterest users have a 6-figure income, Pinterest is a sufficient platform for real estate companies to reach their target audiences. In a study of 9 million consumers, consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketing research shows that Pinterest households were 29% more likely to try a new product within the first 10 months of launch than non-Pinner households, and the Pinner “trial date” was 40% higher in the first 30 days of launch than non-Pinners. Experts say the study shows that people on Pinterest are more likely to try new CPG products. Overall, 75% of Pinners say they are “very interested” in new products compared to 55% with the same level of interest on other digital platforms.

Click here to learn more about social media from our FREE Social Prospecting Workbook

Developing Inbound Marketing Strategies For Your Business

July 27, 2020/in Articles, Blog, Directors, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Strategy, SEO, Social Media /by Nicole Wagner

Everyone is familiar with traditional marketing. Traditional marketing includes TV commercials, radio ads, magazine ads, billboards, and more. While such marketing can still be very useful, it’s not always a cost-effective option for smaller businesses. It’s one of the reasons why most businesses have set up websites and social media pages (such as on Facebook). What you may not realize is that marketing your company online in such a way is known as “inbound marketing.” You should also know that a lot more goes into inbound marketing strategies than just setting up a website.

What Is Inbound Marketing?

People often think of inbound marketing as being the same as online marketing. However, while online marketing is often a form of inbound, they are not the same. Inbound marketing refers to any marketing strategy with a focus on attracting an audience. Most traditional marketing strategies, such as TV commercials, directly engage an audience. This type of marketing is known as “outbound marketing.”

How Is Inbound Different Than Outbound Marketing

Instead of directly engaging an audience, inbound marketing involves letting your audience come to you. To achieve this, you need to put yourself in a position to be found. For example, when someone does a Google search and finds your website on Google’s SERP (search engine results page) and they visit your site as a result. This is a form of inbound marketing.

The Benefits Of Inbound Marketing Strategies

First of all, inbound marketing is the most affordable option for companies with a smaller budget. What’s particularly beneficial about inbound marketing is that you can scale your efforts as you grow. It’s also a more effective way to build your brand authority, thereby helping to increase your reputation while building a larger audience.

Inbound Marketing Is A Long-Term Strategy

In addition to being cost-effective and easier to scale, inbound marketing is also a long-term strategy. You’ll rarely see significant results from your inbound marketing efforts the moment you implement them. But if you keep at it, you’re much more likely to achieve long-term success. This differs from outbound marketing, which tends to be more short-term in its results.

5 Essential Inbound Marketing Tips

Hopefully, your business has a website or a social media page. Most small businesses, including mom and pop shops, at least have a Facebook page. This is a good start; however, you’ll want to expand your inbound marketing efforts to increase your chances of success. The following are five essential inbound marketing strategies that you should adopt:

1. Create Attention-Grabbing Content

To attract people to your business, you need to have something of value to offer. Because of this, you need to create content. Content is the reason people use the Internet, whether they are doing research, looking for help, or seeking entertainment. By creating website content, you put yourself in a position to be found. The content you create can continue to attract new leads over the long run. However, not just any content will do. You need to develop content that’s relevant to your business and that provides value to your target audience.

Creating high-quality content is the first step. However, you need to promote it to attract as many potential customers as possible. Social channels are arguably the best way to promote new content since billions of people use social media. By posting content on social media, you will generate awareness of that content to your followers. Additionally, you will have a chance of attracting more leads if your followers share your content.

3. Set Up A Blog

The blog is one of the most effective ways to generate and organize content. By setting up a blog, you create a dedicated section on your site where you can publish new content. Your audience will know that they can continue to visit your blog to view new content in the future. As such, a blog also makes it easier to nurture your leads and maintain your audience.

You’re going to have a difficult time determining the success of your inbound marketing efforts if you can’t judge their performance. Fortunately, there are tons of website and social media analytics tools that you can use. By tracking various KPIs, you can identify what inbound efforts are performing well and which ones are doing poorly. This data can help guide your future marketing efforts.

Six Steps to Better Use of Marketing Analytics & Dashboard

5. Use SEO For Your Headlines

Search engine optimization makes it easier for Google to identify what your content is about and how engaging it is. It factors these things into ranking content. The better your content ranks, the more organic traffic you’re likely to receive through Google’s search engine. As such, make sure that you optimize your content’s headlines using strong, relevant keywords.

Develop an Inbound Marketing Strategy Today

As beneficial and cost-effective as inbound marketing can be, it’s important to understand that it’s not superior to outbound marketing. Inbound marketing is just a different type of marketing strategy than outbound. The best approach is to use both inbound and outbound marketing strategies that work with each other. Either way, you’ll want to make sure that you use the right inbound marketing strategies to get the most out of your inbound marketing efforts.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

30 Ways to Boost Instagram Engagement & Following

July 20, 2020/in Articles, Attraction Marketing, B2B Marketing, Behavioral Marketing, Blog, Brand Development, Brand Story Telling, Content Marketing, Digital Media, Direct Marketing, Directors, Hubspot, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy, Mobile Advertising, News & Insights, Social Media, Trending, Video Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Why Instagram?

According to Forbes, 80% of Instagram users follow at least one business or brand, and 200 million users on Instagram visit business profiles daily. 70% of users turn to Instagram to look up a brand, and 60% learn about new products using Instagram. Now is the time to catch up with the competition that is already using these trends to their advantage.

Here is a compilation of our 30 best marketing tips for businesses to grow Instagram engagement and following in 2020:

Instagram Profile and Posting Habits

Get to know the Instagram app and master how to use its basic features such as uploading posts and stories.
Write a compelling Instagram bio and integrate it into your brand personality.
Keep posts visually consistent to meet your brand’s style guide and tone.
Incorporate categorized pinned stories on your Instagram page so it is easily navigable and can be used as a resource for sharing your brand identity to consumers.
Optimize captions using brand hashtags and relevant hashtags with high popularity. (Determine if a hashtag is trending by typing the hashtag in the instagram search bar to see how many posts come up with the hashtag.)
Use tools such as Hashtagsforlikes to optimize hashtags to use for your business sector.
Create and promote a specific branded hashtag for a campaign. Encourage others to share the hashtag with it theming around a relevant, trending topic that consumers are passionate about.
Use local hashtags and geotags on posts in order to attract local users on Instagram in a similar way SEO works for the web.
Post consistently with both posts and stories, including videos, polls, and other interactive elements to keep followers engaged and entertained with your content.
Start conversations using Instagram stories stickers and polls.
Schedule Instagram stories to generate more views.
Keep in mind that 40% of Instagram videos do not have sound on, so ensure you caption relevant verbal content.
Convert instagram followers into email subscribers by making your Instagram a business account and promoting your email subscriptions in your Instagram posts and stories.
Monitor your tagged photos to ensure a good reputation, and un-tag your account on posts that are irrelevant or spam, so they do not appear on your profile.
Add a link to instagram stories in order to generate website traffic.
Use humor through gif’s and memes to execute your brand message through a creative angle.

Increasing your Instagram following

Optimize SEO on instagram by paying vital attention to your Instagram handle and name. It is very important that your handle (@…) reflects your business industry. Try to make it short, sweet, and with relevant words. The account name should reflect the account handle and industry because it is what Instagram checks its searches against when users type a word or emoji in the search bar.
Partner with micro influencers.
Run a contest, giveaway, or raffle entry through your account page.
Invest in Instagram ads, which targets customers with personalization and buyer persona techniques.
Create “savable” content, or posts that are aesthetically pleasing, informationally useful or relevant. This will entice followers to save the content to their library and increases the chances of further brand awareness. Simultaneously, creating desirable content provides people a reason to continue following your page and share your content.
Participate in popular conversations on accounts with high following and public relevance in order to get your instagram handle out there and quickly generate new followers.
Encourage followers to re-share your Instagram stories through incentives of discount promotion codes and/or contests.
Open up about your business with a weekly featured vlog of the day in the life of an employee, an interesting biographical picture and captioned story of the founders, or inspirational quote from the CEO.
Follow relevant accounts and users following competition in your industry to gain followers back.
Promote your Instagram on other social media accounts. Feature your Instagram account in your Twitter and Facebook bios, and make a post promoting your Instagram page with a link.
If your Facebook has many likes or followers already, consider linking your Facebook and Instagram together to boost your Instagram following.

6 Social Media Trends to Follow in 2020

Keeping Track of your Instagram Performance

Ensure your account is in business mode to automatically receive valuable insights and analytics on how your posts are doing.
Regularly test and analyze new content to post to your Instagram.
Use a free follower tracking app to regularly unfollow accounts that do not follow yours back in order to maintain a good follower/following ratio while continuously following new accounts.

We hope these 30 tips with various resources serve you well on your journey to becoming an Instagram lead-generation powerhouse. Happy “gram-ing”!

Successful Viral Marketing Campaign Tactics

May 22, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Social Media /by Mark Beebe

Content that goes viral is content that generates massive awareness in a short period of time. In viral marketing, it refers to an ad that is so effective it’s viewed and shared millions of times. In many cases, a viral ad will be so effective that it becomes part of the popular culture at the moment. Unfortunately, “going viral” is not something that you can just do. It requires a lot of luck, and you can never quite pinpoint exactly what kind of ad will appeal to a large audience. However, implementing a viral marketing strategy will allow you to put your ads in the best possible position to go viral. The following are five tactics that will help you create an effective viral marketing campaign:

1. Emphasize Emotion Over Exposure

Traditionally, the success of advertising has been linked to exposure. Many advertisers believe in the rule of seven, which states that an ad must be seen seven times before a viewer will act. Those advertisers will put much of their budget into getting their ads as much exposure as possible. However, it’s much more effective to create an ad that resonates with audience members on an emotional level. A customer doesn’t need to see an ad seven times to have an emotional connection, after all. If you’re able to elicit an emotional response, the viewer will be more likely to watch the ad again and to share it with friends and family. Eliciting emotions such as awe, laughter, amusement, joy, or anger, can all be effective in viral marketing.

2. Implement a Real-Time Marketing Strategy

Most marketing campaigns are planned and executed over a long period of time. While you can still create viral ads doing this, it often results in ads that aren’t in line with current trends. Real-time marketing involves creating ads that are relevant to what’s happening at the moment. Audiences will connect with ads that are addressing current trends and events more easily. For example, many businesses are implementing real-time marketing strategies to address the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on the importance of social distancing or by highlighting essential workers.

3. Use Humor to Create Amusing Ads

A customer might like an ad that they see, and it may even resonate with them. However, it has to do more than that for them to feel like it’s worth sharing. Because of this, you should consider using humor if it’s appropriate for your brand. Not only do people love to laugh, but they also love making their friends and family laugh. This means that if an ad makes them laugh, they will be more likely to share the content with others in the hopes that it will make them laugh as well. It’s why so many of the ads that go viral are ads that are funny. For example, the Old Spice Man ads or the Most Interesting Man in the World Dos Equis ads.

Enjoy The Article: What We Can Learn From Viral Video Marketing & Examples of How It’s Been Useful

4. Provide Value

Creating ads that are funny or that elicit an emotional response can be very effective; however, you need to make sure that your ads are providing value as well. Unless your only goal is to generate brand awareness, you will need to create ads that get people to take action. A good example of a viral ad that provides value is the Dollar Shave Club ad. It’s a hilarious ad that’s creatively made. Yet it also clearly conveys what the value of its product is.

5. Test Your Campaigns

The last thing that you want to do is to create an ad that goes viral for the wrong reasons. For example, you thought you were creating an ad that was delivering a positive message; however, a small part of your audience misinterprets that message. They interpret the meaning of your ad to be negative, resulting in controversy. Controversy is a good way to go viral, but a bad way to maintain your reputation. A good example of this is the Pepsi ad featuring Kendal Jenner released a few years ago. The ad featured a protest full of smiling models and ended with Jenner providing a Pepsi to a police officer as a sign of peace and unity, which the protesters cheered. Critics believed the ad to be insensitive due to the fact that there were many protests against police brutality happening at that time. To avoid a public relations disaster, make sure that you test your campaigns first.

One thing to note: these tactics aren’t just effective for viral marketing. They can incredibly useful for creating ads even if they don’t go viral. Although going viral is a goal you should have, the objective should be to successfully deliver your message in an engaging way to your target audience. Using these five viral marketing tactics will help you achieve this at the very least.

Facebook Housing Ads: What’s Changed and What You Need to Know

February 28, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Social Media /by Nicole Wagner

Social media has left a great impact on the way we as a community engage with one another and live our lives. Perhaps, one of the greatest contributors to this new age of social media influence would be Facebook. For years, Facebook has kept friends and family connected, helped businesses grow, and entertained the population. All of which, is thanks to the consistent updates to the platforms on their webpage. As a result, Facebook housing ads have also changed their policies. These new rules affect marketers and advertisers, while impacting their clients such as home builders as well.

How it Happened

Unlike with most updates on Facebook, this one came as the direct result of a lawsuit. In March of 2019, The Department of Housing and Urban development sued Facebook for engaging in housing discrimination. On the grounds that Facebook was allowing advertisers to restrict who is able to see ads on the platform. Primarily based on characteristics such as race, religion, and national origin. Additionally, the housing department, known as HUD, claims that the company uses its data-mining practices to determine which of its users are able to view housing-related ads. This would put Facebook in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act.

As a result of the lawsuit, Facebook has partnered with several national organizations, to help counter these allegations against them. The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Communication Workers of America (CWA) have all helped establish changes that would better prevent housing discrimination from taking place on their website.

Special Ad Category

One of the first noticeable changes is the Special Ad Category. If you are in or want to reach people in the United States with ads that offer housing, employment, or credit opportunities, you must select the corresponding Special Ad Category. These ads will not go by by age, gender, ZIP code, multicultural affinity. It excludes any detailed options describing or appearing to relate to protected characteristics.

Advertisers using Special Ad Categories will no longer be able to access Lookalike Audiences; which help advertisers reach new users who closely resemble their existing set of users. Instead, advertisers will have to be able to create a Special Ad audience. Special Ad audiences are based on similarities in online behavior, without considering things like age, gender, and ZIP Code.

Similar Article: Real Estate Marketing Resources For Home Builders

Requirements & Restrictions

If any advertiser wishes to use Facebook housing ads, then there are rules that must be followed . As stated above, advertisements will not target by age. Instead, they have to operate in the standard 18-65+age range.

Zip Codes, are no longer in use in this form of advertisement. However, this is only a sample of the geographic target changes that await home builders. Before, home builders could target regions up to the nearest one-mile radius. Now they have to work with a maximum radius of 15 miles.

Similarly, The Special Ad Category comes with detailed limitations users must follow. These limitations include:

Developers and advertisers located in the U.S. or targeting users in the U.S and running ads with housing, employment and credit opportunities must specify their respective category.
Developers and advertisers located in the U.S. or targeting users in the U.S and whose ads do not fall under one of the categories must specify NONE. Otherwise the campaign creation requests will fail.
Developers and advertisers that are located outside the U.S. whose ads target users outside of the U.S. regardless of the category, should specify NONE as well.

Also, starting in 2020, advertisers and developers must modify any ongoing campaigns that began prior to December 4th 2019; in order to comply with these new requirements.

How to Navigate It

Going forward, it’s important to remember that there are still ways to be successful with Facebook ad campaigns. The use of visuals, words and messaging can be a great asset. You’ll want to be as clear and precise as you can. Make sure your readers understand that the home you are selling is something they would be interested in. That way you can get closer to the goal you are trying to reach. Make sure ad messages add up with the type of audience you are trying to attract.

Leveraging your re-marketing audience is another way to navigate the shift in Facebook housing ads. Your re-marketing audience will consist of a group of users you want to re-engage because of their likelihood to convert. We know that the process of buying a new home will be a lengthy one, so add in as many funnels as you can to the buyer’s journey. It’s a cost-effective way to mitigate the loss of relevance caused by these targeting changes.

Facebook employs the uses of many different campaigns in order to make the advertising successful. One such campaign that can be a great benefit is the use of conversion campaigns. This campaign type utilizes specific website events as the key performance indicator. They often rely on user signals to help Facebook prioritize who is going to see what ads. This tactic can be effective, if open communication is maintained. Always ensure that you are still engaging these leads and moving them along the funnel and buyer’s journey.

The changes made to Facebook housing ads have left an impact on the way advertisers are able to market. With that said, the most important thing for advertisers to remember is to be mindful of their client, and their boundaries.

6 Social Media Trends To Follow In 2020

February 12, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Social Media, Trending /by Nicole Wagner

At this point in time, every business with an inbound marketing strategy should have a social media presence of some sort. Social media is one of the most effective ways to build relationships with your target audience. You can engage directly with them and learn more about what their wants and needs are. However, social media is constantly evolving. Which means that you need to keep up with all the latest social media trends. In doing so, you make sure that your presence is felt and that you don’t fall behind the competition. With that in mind, the following are six social media trends in 2020 worth implementing yourself:

1. Find More Impactful Influencers

Influencer marketing continues to thrive. Building relationships with influencers can help expose your brand to a huge audience. However, more and more so-called “influencers” have popped up over the last few years. And as a result, make it difficult to identify actual influencers. Don’t make the mistake of trying to build a relationship with an influencer based on their number of followers. Many of these “fake” influencers won’t be able to help you at all. Focus more on finding influencers who actually have sway over their followers, no matter how many they have. Many brands are focusing on nano-influencers, which are influencers who may only have a few thousand followers but who actually have significant influence over their audience.

2. Focus On Video Content

Brands are continuing to focus on the creation of video content as it continues to be incredibly effective. Not only are short videos easier to consume on mobile devices than other types of content, but people are more visual creatures that retain information better when it’s presented in a video format. On top of that, YouTube currently boasts the second most active users behind only Facebook. While channels like Instagram are continuously looking to improve their video features. As such, you should focus on creating professional-quality video content for your target audience.

3. Curate Customer Created Content

Encouraging customers to create content that’s relevant to your business not only helps to strengthen your content strategy in general (and provides you with fresh content that helps increase brand awareness on your behalf), but it’s also a great way to boost customer participation and engagement. Many brands encourage their followers to post pictures on Instagram showcasing the use of their product with a specific hashtag. For example, the eyeglasses brand Zenni encouraged its customers to post photos wearing their new glasses under the hashtag #justgotmyzennis.

Enjoy Article: The Power of Social Media Influencers: Why it works

4. Take Advantage Of FOMO

People on social media (and life in general) tend to have a “fear of missing out” or FOMO. This means that posting content that can only be accessed for a specific amount of time can help to attract more views. For example, webinars that people have to register for or ephemeral content in the form of Snapchat Stories or Instagram Stories that will disappear forever. Many followers will check in regularly to make sure that they don’t miss out on content that’s only going to be around for a day, allowing you to drive more engagement and keep your brand at the top of mind as a result.

Most companies stick to major social channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, to name a few. However, there are hundreds of other social channels out there that might be worth incorporating into your social media strategy. Specifically, social channels that cater to a certain niche that’s relevant to your brand. By establishing a presence on such a channel, you’ll be able to target a much more specific audience to greater success than on channels like Facebook that essentially cater to everyone. For example, TikTok tends to be more youth-oriented but has exploded in popularity amongst the younger demographic (it’s a social platform similar to the now-defunct Vine), while Twitch is a streaming platform catering to videogamers.

Social media is thought of as a strategy that helps improve customer engagement and that can drive leads to your website; however, it’s potential to be used as a platform to generate sales is increasing year by year. Channels like Facebook and Pinterest have been used for years now to sell products; however, social commerce has increased to the point where it may soon become just as effective a source of sales as website ecommerce pages and offline stores. As such, you may want to consider incorporating social commerce into your sales strategy going forward.

These are six social media trends that you should keep a close eye on in 2020 and that you may want to consider adopting for your own inbound marketing and sales strategies.

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5 Examples for Great Social Media Branding

November 26, 2018/in Articles, Directors, Social Media /by Nicole Wagner

Large brands such as Coca-Cola and McDonalds have the necessary budgets to invest in A-list influencers and over-the-top Super Bowl commercials. The same cannot be said for startups and small-business struggling to make ends meet. This, however, won’t stop a smart marketer from taking a note or few from the best. Whether it’s a clever use of shape and color, or a catchy slogan, here are some of the best examples of what branding is supposed to look like.

Most major brands invest heavily in large creative design teams to manage their social media branding efforts. Yet, Airbnb has managed to do a lot more than just share beautiful content to solidify their brand image. With Airbnb, the customers are the brand, both guests and hosts. The company doesn’t manage nor does it own any of the properties hosted on its website and social media accounts. In fact, it only provides a forum where customers can promote and ultimately book some of the most breathtaking properties in the world.

Businesses often rely on telling their brand story to sell products and services, but Airbnb lets the customers to tell their own stories. The travelers are using their platform and Airbnb regularly hosts them on its website and social media accounts. Going through the company’s Instagram account and you’ll quickly feel exactly what it’s like to be in the customer’s shoes. The company understands the importance of social media engagement and also provides links to each and every location displayed in their content. That way they are providing their followers with the opportunity to experience what their feed is offering using a single click.

2. Brand-driven storytelling: Nike

Nike is one of the few companies that have understood and successfully leveraged great storytelling for the last 20 years as a means of developing a brand soul. One of their most successful branding campaigns was led in 1999. That year the company released a minute-long commercial commemorating the fruitful career of none other than Michael Jordan.

What made the commercial such a wild success is the fact that Nike as a brand was not mentioned at all until the very last second of the film. In the last second we saw the logo and now iconic words “Just Do It” were superimposed over Jordan’s high school photo. The entire minute-long commercial was dedicated to the great basketball player. That was something that was previously unheard of in the marketing industry.

Instead of trying to sell its products and push the brand down the throats of its consumers, Nike wanted to make an impression! The one that lasted and cemented their brand with an authentic, heartfelt story. Now, their logo and slogan can be found literally anywhere. From their clothing lines and twitter commercials to a viral video of Shia LaBeouf screaming “Just Do It” into the camera for a solid minute. Go figure!

But on a serious note, brand development requires a number of important steps, including logo design, color and font choice. All that play a major role in developing a brand voice and maintaining consistency. Finding the right agency using Google and similar search engines might be a stretch. You can find help using dedicated resources such as Design Rush which allows users to search and filter through leading branding experts based on budget, location, and their expertise.

Visual Storytelling Trends That Will Shape The Future For Marketers

3. Clever brand slogan: Dollar Shave Club

The team behind the Dollar Shave Club knows exactly what they’re doing. Their “Shave Time. Shave Money.” slogan is arguably the pinnacle of marketing related puns. Dollar Shave Club offers a shaving equipment and accessories as a cheap subscription service. It includes flexible shipment without the use of contracts and tricks involving fine prints. The company has cleverly incorporated two of the largest benefits offered by its service: convenience and cost.

Its campaign is on point, quite funny and adequately defines its brand tone, voice and a pun-related sense of humor. Today, Dollar Shave Club is often being cited as a sponsor to various YouTube personalities and celebrities. That only increases their reach and solidifies the company’s brand authority.

4. Embracing new technologies: Domino’s

Most brands fail to incorporate new technologies fast enough, but Domino’s pizza has not only managed to do just that but also stay ahead of the curve by constantly innovating their mobile ordering experience. The company has incorporated Twitter into its ordering process by offering a “tweet-to-order” option and has recently introduced its very own messenger chatbot “DOM The Pizza Bot”.

Their approach to social media branding is refreshing, to say the least. They also pushed forward a campaign where users could visit their website, make their own pizza and share the design on different social media channels.

5. Customer experience is the best marketing: Slack

A collaboration tool used by teams to communicate and share files more effectively, Slack currently has over 2 million active daily users. What even more amazing is that the company didn’t really launch a massive marketing campaign. In fact, its success can only be attributed to the outstanding customer experience. Slack not only receives but also responds to more than 10,000 Tweets per month. Their Twitter Feed is home to “Slack Wall of Love”, a place dedicated to showcasing all the love Slack has been receiving from its users.

Your number one priority should always be building brand awareness. Regardless of whether you’re working in business-to-consumer or business to business fields. Why? Because people would not be investing in your products and services unless they know and trust your brand. Social media branding is an effective tool for maintaining a consistent brand image in order to build authority, increase customer engagement, boost loyalty and make your brand memorable.

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