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August 5, 2014

How to Market on Twitter (Hint: It’s not for SEO)

By most measures, Twitter is the second-most prominent social network in the world. It is home to more than 500 million newly published tweets every day–an astounding body of content in its own right. Brands have recognized this opportunity, which virtually every major domestic and international brand managing their own Twitter accounts.

Understanding the need for Twitter is one thing–most businesses have been told many times that building a social presence is important. Using these platforms effectively is another matter, though. As social networks develop, they are also trying to distinguish themselves from their competition to create unique opportunities. This means that the best practices for each can be slightly different.

And on Twitter, question marks can abound. While Facebook’s revenue system (sponsored posts) and its primary usage (social engagement with friends and family) are obvious to marketers, Twitter’s platform is a bit more amorphous. Users engage the social network in many different ways, and Twitter itself sometimes seems unsure how to differentiate itself from competitors. Even so, Twitter offers a unique format that consumers love, even if they love it for different reasons.

So what does that mean for marketers? As is often the case, intuition can be misguided. Here are some data-backed tips for marketing on Twitter.

Forget SEO–Google Isn’t Indexing Your Tweets

On Twitter, each individual tweet has the ability to be indexed by Google and integrated into online search results. The problem? This almost never happens unless you are a major Twitter user. Recent research has found that of the 500 million daily tweets produced, only a fraction of a percent are ever indexed by Google. Those figures are slightly better if you have a Twitter following in the millions, but even then most of your tweets will never make it into Google searches.

For this reason, Twitter has no business being considered in your SEO strategy. The content you produce has plenty of value within the Twitter platform, but as a method of expanding your overall online visibility, it’s irrelevant.

Unlike Facebook, You Have to Post Frequently

Facebook best practices say you should limit your posting to a few times a day–beyond that, the content can get lost in News Feeds, and it may even annoy your followers.

No so on Twitter. Unlike Facebook’s News Feed, where a single post can enjoy prominence for hours–even days–Tweets are very disposable. Everything is published chronologically, which means the exposure of a single tweet will drop rapidly after about 20 minutes. To make sure users see your posts, you’ll need to post periodically throughout the day. It’s more time-intensive than other social networks, but it’s the only way to get consistent results.

Sponsored Tweets Don’t Offer Enough Value–Yet

Twitter has rolled out a Sponsored Tweet functionality where users can pay to reach new audiences through a paid tweet. For most businesses, though, there isn’t enough confirmed value to make this worth the expense. Major brands are already diving on to pay for this advertising, but those companies also have deep pockets and plenty of latitude in how they spend marketing dollars.

As more research about the efficacy of Sponsored Tweets comes out, they may prove to be more valuable to small and mid-sized businesses. Until then, it’s better to stick with the free promotional opportunities.

Remember the Rule of Three: A Link, a Mention, and a Hashtag

Visibility and engagement are key on Twitter. If you want to maximize your reach and interactions with other users, follow the Rule of Three. This principle is simple: Every tweet should include a link (offering useful information), a mention of a relevant Twitter user, and a hashtag to categorize the tweet.

By employing this strategy consistently, more users will see and respond to your tweets, and you will be able to build your following faster.

Contact DBC Digital today to get started on a better Twitter and social media strategy.

Greg Sherwood is CEO of DBC Digital, a marketing agency based in Denver, Colorado. With over 30 years of marketing experience with traditional and inbound (internet) marketing, Greg helps mid-sized businesses get a better return on their marketing dollars.

You can reach Greg at (303) 357-5757 or at dbc@dbcdigital.com

Categories : SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Posted by DBC Digital on

July 31, 2014

Why Paid Facebook Ads Make Sense

Social media has created great channels for business promotion, and at virtually no cost. Most social platforms have very crude strategies for generating funds through advertising. Facebook has led the pack in terms of generating revenues off of an advertising system, and it has quickly generated huge sums of money, with annual earnings exploding into the hundreds of millions.

And yet, most businesses eschew ad spending entirely and squeeze value out of Facebook without putting any money down. It’s long been a great strategy for reaching a digital audience, but this opportunity is changing–and eventually, it will disappear. Even though you can still get results from Facebook for free, there are some great reasons why it’s time to start paying.

Facebook Organic Reach is Declining

Reaching your audience through Facebook may be free, but it’s much more restricted than it once was. Currently, brands enjoy only a six percent reach on any piece of content they post. This means that if you post a status update to your audience of 1,000 Facebook followers, only about 60 of them will ever see that content.

That’s a big change from years past, and it illustrates Facebook’s long-term goals: The company wants to wean brands off of free self-promotion and convince them to instead pay for the results it once dispensed pro bono. Fair or not, this is the company’s primary strategy, and the change is inevitable. In the not-too-distant future, brands will be able to post all they want on Facebook–but without paying to promote their posts, hardly anyone will ever see the content.

The Facebook Display Network is Huge

The upside is that Facebook’s advertising audience is massive: More than one billion users are regularly active on the site. A big potential audience means that companies can add numerous filters onto their promoted posts that limit who sees the content. When utilized correctly, brands can ensure that their paid posts are only seen by the most relevant consumers.

If you choose to pay for a high volume of exposure, you will quickly find that a single post can be seen by tens of thousands of users, if not more. These users can then choose to follow your brand, which creates additional viral potential. Promoted Facebook posts, in other words, can directly increase the value of your organic results. As far as digital marketing goes, only Google paid search offers a larger potential audience.

Paid Search Does Not Come at the Cost of Organic Sharing

Eventually, businesses will get no organic exposure from their Facebook pages. But that’s not the case yet, as many companies are eager to point out. As far as the immediate future is concerned, it’s still possible to get exposure and enjoy the benefits of viral sharing without giving Facebook a dime. So why bother with spending money on ads?

The reason is simple: Paid advertising does not impact your organic exposure in any way. When you purchase promoted posting space on Facebook, you’re reaching people that otherwise might never discover your brand. And if those consumers choose to follow your Facebook page, you’ll enjoy a modest bump in organic reach for as long as Facebook makes this available.

The future is tough to predict, particularly when Facebook is cryptic about its future plans. But they seem to be pretty clear on one thing: sponsored posts will be a necessary expense for businesses within the next few years. By adopting this campaign strategy now, you can get ahead of the game and build a healthy lead in brand reach and engagement. Contact DBC Digital today to take advantage of this opportunity.

You can reach Greg at (303) 357-5757 or at dbc@dbcdigital.com

Categories : PUBLIC RELATIONS, SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING, WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

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July 29, 2014

Picture This: The Rising Value of Instagram

Instagram is a platform unlike any other. While it has hundreds of millions of users around the world, it is most popular among teens and young adults. The platform has been purchased by Facebook and is currently being developed to bring in greater revenues for the company. But perhaps most notably, Instagram is the most established and active social network where pictures–not text–are the primary form of communication.

With this twist on social interaction comes a number of challenges. Businesses engaged in social marketing tend to see Instagram as a unique marketing opportunity, one that pairs well with a long history of image-dominant advertising strategies used over the years. But Instagram is more temporary than a billboard or a TV commercial, and because text isn’t a major component of its success, messages must be conveyed in innovative ways.

At first, adoption of Instagram by brand marketers was slow. Finally, however, this practice is starting to pick up pace. The more we learn about Instagram, the better we understand how to make it work even for small and medium-sized businesses.

Visual Channels Encourage Brand Visibility

Several types of branding are visual in nature. Logos, products and other branded content can be easily promoted on a visual platform, and heightened brand visibility is one of the best goals of using Instagram. Frequent updates can help your brand stay top-of-mind with interested followers, and you can deliver a consistent stream of content that entices would-be consumers to convert.

The most important consideration when producing content for Instagram is that the content must speak for itself–that is, the images must easily communicate a message to your followers. If consumers aren’t easily able to connect the image with your brand and its focus, the value will be lost.

Images Can Work as Referrals, Too

While long blocks of text won’t work well on Instagram, limited amounts can be extremely valuable–especially when utilized to refer followers to another website. Product referrals are a great example: after featuring a product in an Instagram post, you can add a hyperlink with the words: “Find the product here!” to entice consumers into visiting the page. Keep the text short and sweet, but don’t be afraid to utilize this technique when necessary.

One tip: since Instagram is a mobile-based social network, any referral links you provide need to be mobile-optimized. If not, you’ll immediately lose a large percentage of the traffic you just referred.

Marketers Are Figuring Out the Best Practices

There isn’t a ton of information about how to utilize Instagram and other visual marketing channels, mostly because they are a newer social breed. Because images can’t be analyzed quite as well as text, the insights that come from visual marketing analysis can be vague and occasionally misleading.

Despite these obstacles, marketers are figuring out how to make Instagram work for them. Instagram is helping, too: the platform has started to roll out paid advertising that delivers images to relevant users, similarly to how Facebook’s ad network operates. But brands that aren’t ready to pay for this exposure can still develop their own branded Instagram feed, and many already have: 80 percent of the world’s top brands are currently using Instagram in their digital campaigns.

This trend among marketers proves that while the road has been bumpy, professionals are figuring out how they can use Instagram to achieve their marketing goals. And as more research comes pouring in, these best practices will be revised to make a maturing Instagram platform even more valuable to businesses everywhere.

To start utilizing Instagram and other social marketing strategies, contact DBC Digital today

You can reach Greg at (303) 357-5757 or at dbc@dbcdigital.com

Categories : INTERNET MARKETING, SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Posted by DBC Digital on

July 10, 2014

Which Social Networks Should I Use?

If you own or manage a business, you don’t need to be told one more time that social media is important. But it’s one thing to say your company should be on social media; it’s another thing to actually take advantage of it.

Meanwhile, there are more and more social networks sprouting up all the time. For companies that can’t afford a dedicated social media manager, the task of maintaining a social presence only grows more time-consuming and difficult. Plus, not every social network is relevant to your company and its target audience. So what do you do? Here’s a quick guide to choosing your top priorities on social media.

Facebook

As far as maintaining your digital presence goals, Facebook is invaluable. It’s the biggest social network with the biggest potential reach. While it offers limited organic reach, you can pay for cost-effective advertising to get your brand out among relevant audiences. And, if you already have a personal Facebook account, a business page is very straightforward.

The other benefit of Facebook is that it doesn’t require a lot of upkeep. Most businesses want to limit their posting to one to three posts a day, which alleviates the burden on anyone trying to manage social media in-house. Too much Facebook activity can actually be harmful to your brand, so take comfort in knowing that your most important social media presence will require no more than 10 minutes a day.

Twitter

Twitter is a massive social network, but it functions very differently from Facebook. Posts are made in real time and disappear from a person’s timeline as other users post their own content. As a result, Twitter requires brands to post content much more frequently, sometimes repeating content links to make sure it reaches a large audience.

While more time-intensive than Facebook, Twitter is still a very valuable way to increase brand visibility while connecting with customers. Another bonus: Twitter users are very active on their smartphones and tablets. If that matches your target audience, Twitter only becomes more valuable.

Pinterest

If you have great ideas for promoting your company visually, Pinterest can be a fantastic option. Recipes, crafts, furniture and DIY projects are among the products and content that have proven very successful on Pinterest. Because its user base is heavily female, Pinterest is ideal for brands targeting women. If you don’t have great options to publish compelling visual content, though, Pinterest may not be an ideal use of your time.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a strictly business social network. If you’re a business-to-business company, using the LinkedIn platform makes perfect sense. But understand that LinkedIn functions differently than other social networks because its primary function isn’t “social” at all. You will connect with businesses and work professionals on business-related topics, but everything else is unsuited for this platform.

Google+

This one can be a bit of an anomaly, because many users aren’t quite sure how to utilize it. Google+ has a very large user base, but its engagement rates can be much lower than what is seen on Facebook and Twitter. It tends to attract businesses and professionals more than everyday consumers looking to socialize, but both demographics are present.

There are some valid reasons to set up a Google+ business account–even if you don’t update it frequently. For one, you can gain greater control over your business info that is displayed on Google Maps and in Google Web searches, helping customers get the right info about you. Because the time commitment is low, it’s probably wise to set up a Google+ account even if you plan to rarely update it.

For help designing your social strategy and setting up other online marketing campaigns, contact DBC Digital today.

Categories : SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Posted by DBC Digital on

June 5, 2014

How to Create Compelling Content

What’s the most critical factor in a company’s online marketing success? According to a recent survey, it’s creating original content.

Social Media Examiner recently published the results of its annual Social Media Marketing Industry report, which solicited views from 2,800 marketing professionals around the world. The main goal of the survey is to assess trends in digital marketing, particularly as they relate to social media. The main takeaway from the survey? Most of the industry agrees that original content is the foundation of digital success.

Following best practices is critical to maximizing results from digital marketing efforts. At DBC Digital, we know that the virtual landscape can change in an instant. Google’s search ranking algorithms can change, social networks can revise their practices and policies, and new data constantly produces new insights into efficient marketing operations. Staying on top of these trends is vital to remaining relevant and efficient in pursing an online consumer base.

No one knows what the future may hold for digital marketing, but the smartest marketers will steel their focus on what they can do to promote a brand today–not tomorrow. Here are some other key insights from Social Media Examiner’s report.

Emphasize Written Content

Original content distinguishes one brand–and its digital properties–from its competitors. Original content can come in many forms. According to Social Media Examiner, though, written content remains the most valuable form.

There are many reasons written content may hold higher values than other forms of original content, such as videos and infographics. For one, text can be crawled by search engines, making it easier to discover than other types of content. Written content is also easier to consume, particularly when on-the-go or with limited Internet bandwidths. In many cases, it’s much easier to read a written tweet than it is to watch a 15-second video. All of this might contribute to digital marketers seeing written content as offering the best value.

Deploy Social Media for Content Promotion

Social media remains a very valuable, and highly utilized, method of promoting original content. In 2014, though, the hierarchy of this content promotion is changing. Organic views through Facebook are being gradually curbed as the network looks to encourage more paid advertising. For marketers seeking the best ROI, free content exposure and distribution is the better channel for reaching consumers.

This is why many respondents reported a declining use of Facebook for promoting original content, while Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other competing social networks have elevated in value. Facebook is still a worthwhile platform for promoting original content, but other social networks should also be integrated.

Analyze Performance, Adapt Your Approach

The industry’s best practices offer general guidance to help any business. But the greatest value of digital marketing comes when strategy has been highly customized. Every business has different needs, and consumers will respond in their own unique way to content and other components of your strategy.

Analytics tools are a dime-a-dozen nowadays, and they offer essential insights into how digital strategy is performing. As you publish content and track the performance of your efforts, you might find that certain types of content perform better than others. It’s also possible that other types of content will outperform original written content. When your data feedback delivers these insights, it’s wise to listen and adjust your strategy accordingly. Written content may be the gander’s key to success, but this trend promises nothing to the individual goose.

Whether you need help producing written content, implementing a social strategy or jump-starting other aspects of your digital strategy, contact DBC Digital to get started on a better path.

Categories : SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

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