Answers to 5 Commonly Asked Digital Marketing Questions
We get asked a lot of questions from our clients. In this post we share the answers to some of the most common questions we hear.
- Is Social Media important to both business to business and business to consumer efforts? What about Non-Profits?
Yes. Because over a billion people are on social media and your audience is included. Social media requires a strategy based on the audience you are targeting, a decent sized content database and consistent attention. Approaches will differ based on targeting businesses, consumers or potential donors but all of them can be targeted nicely on Social Media. - What about email marketing? Hasn’t that been replaced with Social Media?
Despite social media’s growth and email marketing’s spam risk, it remains one of the most effective means of branding, communicating and generating leads for your company. There are big differences between growing a list organically and purchasing lists – in cost, tracking and approach. Done right, email marketing can yield high quality leads and customers that convert to sale. - Are Facebook ads worth it?
Facebook is under the gun for their prices presently, but it remains the most targeted means to capture your audience’s attention. You can start small on Facebook and build your spend toward audiences that respond to your ad. Start with a simple ad to a small targeted audience and grow from there. You won’t believe what you will learn! - Why is YouTube and video so important?
Because video remains effective at gaining the eyes of web audiences. Want to raise your open rate by 19%? Include the word “video” in your subject line. Getting started with video requires a place to host your video, YouTube, Vimeo to name a couple, a basic studio set up and some stories to tell. - My company just put up a new site – what do I do next?
Invite people to the party. Use social media, online PR vehicles like PR Web and others to get the word out about your new site. After a week, check the traffic and note where people are dropping off the site, what page are most popular – and then respond to that information with changes to your site.
Have a question you are dying to ask? Write us or reply in the comments and we will do our best to address your question in our next newsletter!
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2023 Social Media Trends
2023 Social Media Trends
A long time leader in communicating the details and trends around the social media monster, Michael Stelzner at Social Media Examiner put a sharp and pointed report together that gives you the 2023 facts regarding what tactics are most popular with who and why. The report is called 2023 Social Media Marketing Industry Report: How Marketers are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses. The facts are compelling and I hope they help you form a strategic approach to social media for your business in 2023. Until you have time to read the full report, here are the highlights:
Straight from the article – What you need to consider when planning your 2023 Social Media:
First of all, Facebook continues declining:
Marketers have been diversifying away from Facebook steadily since 2018. When asked to select their single most important
platform, only 45% selected Facebook, down from 67% in 2018. Fourteen percent
of marketers indicated they’ll be decreasing their organic marketing on Facebook
and only 37% of marketers plan on increasing their organic activities on the platform.
Secondly, of course, YouTube interest is high: While only 54% of marketers use YouTube, a
significant 59% plan on increasing their use of YouTube video—the largest
percentage of any platform. Plus, 68% want to learn more about organic video
marketing on YouTube.
Thirdly, Instagram remains hot: Eighty percent of marketers are using Instagram. It’s
the second most important social platform for marketing (behind Facebook). A
significant 56% of marketers plan on increasing their Instagram organic activities
over the next 12 months. Instagram is tied with YouTube as the top platform
marketers want to learn more about.
Finally, TikTok is growing: TikTok adoption among marketers rose from 18% in 2022 to
22% in 2023. Thirty-eight percent plan to increase their activity on the platform
and a significant 48% are interested in learning more about TikTok.
Here is the link to the full report – happy reading!
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Digital Marketing Mystery #2 – Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses?
We all know what social media is, and likely have a Facebook and a LinkedIn account. We know there is a business play to make for our small business on social media, but without a general understanding of how it can benefit you, it may not feel as if it is costing you anything to ignore it. But it is. It’s easy to ignore things you don’t know effect your bottom line. If you sell a product online or otherwise, and depend on traffic to your web site for sales and brand awareness, I am here to convince you it’s important.
The single most important reason to not ignore social media and creating a presence for your company there is Google and other search engines will ignore you if you don’t. Though you need a solid Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy for your sites and structure, technology and keywords still play a role in ranking on search engines, you can no longer artificially stuff your site with links or keyword dense content in hope the search engines will look your way. Google’s rules and bots demand authentic content that is thorough regularly updated and if yours is not and your competitor’s is, they will get the traffic. When someone types in your product category search terms you want them to land with you – or you at least want to be on the front page of the search results, right? Well this used to be accomplished with solid SEO and some artificial SEO tactics. It is now accomplished by solid SEO and you establishing relationships with many consumers or business owners across at least a few social media channels.
Where you establish a presence on social media is determined by who you are marketing to. Research is clear that Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are necessities and YouTube, Google +, Snapchat and Instagram follow. Instead of managing one property, your main web site, you have to manage your main web site(s) and multiple landing pages, with traffic arriving from your active presence on a portfolio of sites and social media property accounts. Social media can be used as a selling vehicle itself, but that is for another post.
For example:
Are you targeting Millennials? You better have a presence on Snap Chat, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube
Are you targeting Gen Xers? Linked In, Facebook and YouTube will get you started!
You get the picture.
Where direct access (a consumer typing in the name of your company on a search engine), paid search engine ads and writing content with just the right keyword density used to do the trick, now you must create all of those links to your site by your authentic presence across the social media sphere. It takes a strategy, a variety of content and an ongoing effort to update and replace content. If search engines are the new phone book, you want to be showing up. So getting a start on social media is not a fun, side job anymore. It’s a necessity.
If you want to see real live examples of social media done well by some major brands, here is some inspiration from some major brands:
For social media advertising: Air BnB, The American Red Cross
For Facebook Strategy: Coca Cola, Walmart
Google+ Strategy: Charmin, Oreo
Instagram Strategy: Hershel Supply Co., General Electric
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Digital Marketing Mystery #1: What is SEO anyway?
What is SEO?
We all know it matters but some wonder what SEO even stands for. Mystery solved! Read on.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization or the optimizing of site content to satisfy the demands of search engine ranking criteria. SEO is a combination of technical and non-technical aspects of a site. Examples of technical SEO would be the sites use of code language, the back end code details and the download speed of the site onto a mobile device. An example of a non-technical or content item is the quality of the content and the frequency at which it is updated or kept fresh. Search engines want fresh, dynamic content that is naturally relevant to you consumer.
Search Engines like Google and Yahoo! will serve your pages up to consumers looking for you on their search engines when your content is relevant (full of keywords that your consumers search on) and when the content is kept fresh – the solution for most sites is a blog that is posted to weekly or even more frequently.
What is Site Success?
Successful sites have a clear brand look and feel and attract a high volume of visitors from the locations and populations you are targeting. The visitors return frequently and devour the types of content being offered. The contact us forms are filled out and sales are closed as a result of the site – often right now the site. Successful sites have low bounce rates (people stay for a while) and high page session averages. (They look at lots of pages) The content is brand, product and sales oriented. Article length is long (at least 700 words) and is relevant to your audience – their challenges and needs.
Why is SEO a challenge?
SEO is tricky in that it requires a constant feed of relevant, timely content – your content can go stale quickly. Also, the search engines change their appetites from time to time. For example, Google recently has been measuring not just the keyword density of your articles but their true relevance to your audience and they even have ways to measure how deeply you cover your topic. A team of writers, interns, product managers, PR representatives can all contribute to your content library. Be careful not to duplicate content as that is a no go for search engines. If your company owns multiple domains the content must all be unique and frequently refreshed.
Where do you start?
Getting started is the tough part. Start by discovering what your readers want to hear about, by studying your clicks and site statistics. Create a blog on your site and start posting articles that your site visitors are interested in. If you need some fresh ideas on the types of keywords that will work for your site, and your content, WordTracker is helpful and offers a free trial. You can also survey your email recipients to see what they are interested in learning about, what their key challenges are.
Assign content development to specific team members, and develop a content schedule in tandem with your sales and marketing goals and promotions. If you start to generate content on a regular basis, your search engine ranking and site interaction will grow. It takes time but it’s worth it to gain true traffic that supports your sales and marketing goals.
Good luck and stay at it! With SEO, slow and steady wins the race!
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