by Sofi | Dec 21, 2018 | Social Media Marketing
Social media advertising is one of the biggest social media trends, and it can benefit the growth of your business. The reach of organic content is slowly declining. Paid social makes sure that your content is getting in front of the right people. This form of advertising targets a specific audience that you outline with customizable demographic information. However, you need a strategy for paid social media advertising in order for it to work and be worth your time and money. This includes taking ad spend, content selection, and audience targeting into consideration. Here are some tips on how to create successful social media ads.
#1 Choose a Paid Social Goal
Every brand has a different goal. Prioritize your goals, and decide which one to attack first with your social media campaign. There are five common paid social goals: increase traffic, increase visibility, increase engagement, increase lead generation, and increase sales. Each one of these goals will require a different action from your target audience, so your ad needs to direct your audience on what action to take. Using social buttons helps provide the consumer with shortcuts to desired actions. Facebook and Instagram even include options for pre-set goals that affects how, when, and to who your ad is shown.
#2 Choose a Social Platform
Each social media site caters to a specific kind of content with a specific audience. So, you should run ads on sites that your target audience uses. Facebook has multiple ad formats that make it great for business-to-consumer campaigns. Instagram is suitable for increasing web traffic sales and driving awareness. Twitter heavily relies on gaining new followers, which can grow awareness and drive clicks to your website. Because of LinkedIn’s specific demographic, it is a better platform for business-to-business campaigns. Researching where your competitors’ ads are being displayed can be helpful in deciding which platform to use as well.
#3 Blend in With Organic Content
Although you want your ad to grab attention, it is not always helpful for an ad to stand out. When deciding what type of content to display, it is important to make sure that your ad content blends in with the organic content on users’ feeds and walls. Generally, people are aware of when they are viewing ads, and too many ads from your company might lead to people unfollowing you. Posts that stand out as paid social as opposed to organic content will draw more negative attention to how often they are being posted. It is important for your brand to not stand out as spammy.
#4 Choose a Bidding Strategy
One great advantage of social media ads is that they can work on any budget. However, bidding too high might be unnecessarily wasting money while bidding too low could make for an unsuccessful campaign. Researching the best days and times to run your ad can help cut costs while ensuring your ad runs when your audience will mostly likely see it.
#5 Analyze and Adjust
With any marketing strategy for your business, one of the most important steps is analyzing the results of your campaign and adjusting future campaigns based on your findings. You can view insights as to how well your ad is performing and the results in quantifiable actions during and after its duration. So, take the time to adjust your paid social media ad while it is active if the insights are showing that it isn’t reaching your audience. Afterwards, look closely at what was successful about the ad and what can be better changed for next time.
by Sofi | Dec 14, 2018 | Other
In order for any business to prosper and grow, a good marketing strategy is necessary. This requires a good marketer, and in order to be a good marketer it’s crucial to have a marketing education of some kind. Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned professional, there are a lot of options for taking marketing courses or accessing helpful resources online without having to pursue a formal education. Marketing trends are constantly changing, so even someone with a formal marketing education can benefit from taking one of these online courses. Often, you can find these tools online completely free of cost and available to anyone. Here is a list of the best websites for marketing education classes.
#1 Hubspot
Hubspot offers both free and paid courses on a variety of marketing principles that include videos and quizzes to test your knowledge. Along with these courses, there is an extensive marketing library where you can read articles on the topic. One of the unique things about Hubspot is that the training academy allows you to access or rewatch course videos on specific topics without going through the course. The inbound marketing certification course is a great introduction to content marketing and lead generation. It includes 12 classes with over 5 hours of material, and there is a 60 question exam at the end of the course to become certified in the material.
#2 Coursera
Coursera is known for making the best courses on a variety of topics available to anyone anywhere. Partnering with top universities, these courses are built to fit your schedule. You can take courses on business and marketing, as well as on topics like psychology that could benefit your marketing strategies. Although these classes are not free, they are much more affordable than taking the same class at a university. Courses range from $29-$99, with advanced specializations for $250-$500. This offers options for almost any budget.
#3 Udemy
Udemy claims to be the largest online learning marketplace with 14 million students. There are courses on business, development, design, marketing, and productivity that are all beneficial for the success of a business. Typically classes cost around $200, so this option might not be for everyone. However, there are sales and discounts throughout the year to make these classes much more affordable on almost any budget. Businesses can also invest in Udemy courses for their employees to provide valuable training.
#4 My.Copyblogger
My.Copyblogger specifically focuses on the content aspect of digital marketing and offers a lot of useful materials beyond courses. Members can access webinars, eBooks, and forums to expand their education in a format that suits individual learning styles and interests. There is a free 20-part course to improve copy and content marketing that provides a certification at the end of the class. This website is a great tool for introducing people to the best digital practices and writing for the online world.
#5 Google Certifications
Google offers certifications for their online courses in Google Analytics and Google Adwords. Many businesses are requiring employees to be certified in Google Analytics and Adwords because they’re heavily used marketing tools. This makes sure the marketing team has a complete knowledge of how to use these tools via virtual training. Each course combines information pages and video tutorials along with activities and quizzes to help students master the information. The Google Adwords Certification includes specialites in Search Advertising, Display Advertising, Mobile Advertising, Video Advertising, and Shopping Advertising. These certifications are completely free.
by Sofi | Dec 7, 2018 | Other
If you’re a marketer living in the 21st century, you almost certainly own a smartphone. This is a good thing, because it means that you can actually get some of your job done even when you’re on the move. To do this, you need to have the appropriate apps on your phone. So, let’s look at some of the best apps used by marketers worldwide.
#1 Hootsuite
The Hootsuite app allows you to connect to your Hootsuite account and manage all of your social networks from your phone. You can use the app to monitor the activity on multiple social accounts, create and schedule posts, engage with your followers, track your performance with various analytics reports, and more.
#2 Buffer
Buffer is a social media management platform with similar features to Hootsuite. Its main feature is the automated scheduling of social media posts. Buffer is a little bit more expensive than Hootsuite and usually a better option for large businesses.
#3 Trello
Trello is a free tool for project management that marketers can use to organize and manage their campaigns and collaborate with their teams. The Trello app is very intuitive and easy to use, which makes it a favorite among marketers and other professionals alike.
#4 Slack
Slack is a great software for messaging and team collaboration. It can integrate over 1500 different apps–which you can use to manage your entire workflow. The Slack app can be a handy marketing tool which you can use to work on your campaigns while being away from your desk.
#5 Canva
The Canva app is a powerful, easy-to-use graphic design tool. You can use it to create social media images, infographics, posters, brochures, and other types of beautiful visuals, right from your phone.
#6 Adobe Photoshop Express
If you need to edit photos or create beautiful collages when you’re out of the office, the Adobe Photoshop Express app is a real lifesaver. It offers less features compared to the desktop version, but they are enough to get the job done.
#7 Dropbox
The Dropbox mobile app lets you share files with other people who do or do not have Dropbox, and it can be a handy tool for project collaboration with your team. It also allows you to keep your data private and protect your files, folders, and links with passwords.
#8 WordPress
If you own a WordPress website or blog, it’s good to have the app on your phone in case you need to manage your website or blog when you’re out of the office. As with the desktop version, you can create and edit posts and pages, upload media, view stats, etc.
#9 MailChimp
With the MailChimp app you can take care of your email marketing campaigns from the palm of your hand. You can design and send emails, create and manage lists and campaigns, check your stats, and more.
#10 Evernote
Evernote is an app that can help you organize your work. It allows you to take notes in the form of a text, photo, voice, web pages, etc.–which you can access at any time. It’s a very useful app that can help you be more productive and efficient in anything you do.
