social media marketing Archives - Page 2 of 3

Why Videos are so Popular in Social Media Marketing Campaigns

Posted on March 28, 2017 by NextJSjointviews

It is said that what you say is as important as how you say it. Marketers are always finding better ways to reach out to their targets and engage them in a meaningful way. The Cisco Visual Networking Index has forecasted that video will account for almost 70% of consumer internet traffic by 2017. Videos are more likely to be shared in social media as compared to a written article. According to Nielsen 64% of marketers expect video to dominate their strategies in coming years. This is why social media marketing services are also emphasizing on creating more video content for their clients.

Here are the reasons why videos are gaining popularity in social media and are one of the best ways to connect with your audience:

Visually appealing

Do you remember the colorful pictures in your textbooks disappearing as you graduated to higher grades? Didn’t the books look scarier and less appealing each year?

There are four primary learning styles: visual, read-write, auditory and kinesthetic. Each person has a predominant style but using more of these means that the learner, or in our case the audience, finds it more enjoyable to consume, learn and understand content. Videos can use all of the four styles together and give a richer experience to the users. It is because they engage more of the senses that they are so appealing to social media users.

Ease of Absorption

The human brain always searches for the shortest way to do a task. Generally speaking, our brain has to do many processes to take in the meaning of a written content. In contrast to this, videos give us easily digestible visuals, audios and mind maps to take in. Videos are simply more effective way of getting the meaning of a message compared to a written article. They are also more useful to communicate complex concepts by including animation, simple relation- charts and diagrams.

Reducing Attention Span

The attention span of readers is decreasing day by day as it is proved by the popularity of sites like Instagram, Vine and Twitter. Although the rate of hearing in humans is less than the rate of reading ( 250 words/ min for reading vs 150 words/ min for hearing), a video packs in more content in a shorter span of time. This is because a lot of information on product/concept is given simultaneously in a frame which would otherwise have required a lengthy written description.

Social media users are hence more drawn to videos and are more likely to share it with their friends who are equally hard-pressed for time in this world of information overload. Many social media marketing services run analytics to understand the attention span of users and determining factors on what content is shared.

Human Touch

Humans are social animals and we are wired to interact with others. In fact, our brains reward us with happy hormones on interacting with others and lack of interaction leads to depression. Videos are closer to reality by enabling users to see the people, their expression and actual demonstrations of tasks being performed. Videos also fulfill our need to know more people and are hence, a more rewarding way of information consumption.

So, when you conduct social media marketing campaign for your client make sure to invest more time and money on creating engaging videos. These videos can surely attract your target audience, generate leads, and thereby leading to conversions.

What to Look for When Hiring Social Media Marketing Services

Posted on May 23, 2016 by NextJSjointviews

We can’t deny that social media is a great platform for all brands. Despite the turnover, businesses, whether it is small or large scale industry, strive to be a leader in Social Media Marketing.

According to a recent study, 41.5% of businesses are investing 1-5% of their marketing budgets on social media. These figures clearly show brands are conscious of increasing their identities and hunting for expertise from top Social Media Marketing Services.

Here are some useful tips for you if you are looking to hire a social media service.

Cooperate and Work Together

If you consider the Social Media Marketing Services just as an outsourcing agency, of course, you are on the wrong path. Obviously they have the expertise to make your brand a success, but don’t forget you are the brand custodian, get involved.

Keep in mind, they know how to market via social media, but you know your brand better. They can guide you how to reach your audience, but you know the real customers. So there will be many situations where you and your marketing services have to work together. Your brand will be a success only if you and your agency work in tandem.

Be prepared to hand over your account details to a new agency if your social media was being managed by any other agency till now. Make sure that all your passwords and admin rights are deleted from the older agency. It will take a couple of weeks for the new agency to understand your social media strategies so far, so cooperate with them.

Read Also: 8 Social Media Marketing Benefits For Your Business

Set Goals and Missions

You should get acquainted with team members of the new agency. Try to give them a clear picture about your brand. To be precise, you are supposed to make them understand about your brand’s philosophy, legacy and the real purpose of your brand not only on social media but in all spheres of its existence.

It is good if you can exactly define what your expectation of social media marketing is, by setting short term and long term goals for your brand.

It is important that the agency team should have an idea about your office culture. You can invite their team to your company. This will help them know about the back- end working, your manufacturing style, how your employees work etc. Sometimes they might find a story from your working ambience to include in their social media campaign for your brand.

Reporting methods and accountability

Reporting methods and accountability is an important process because it helps the metrics to determine what is working and what is not. A mutual discussion between the agency and you help to make sure the reports, numbers, insights would be needed by your marketing team. You have to precisely define schedules and timelines for these reports. Ensuring the data needed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis is also important.

You might be using a social media tool earlier, if so, share your credentials with your new Social Media Marketing Service. They will use the tool and give you reports, helping your marketing team to schedule upcoming quarters. You should seek suggestions from your agency on how to make things better. Suppose there was a decrease in traffic, your agency will comment on it and suggest you measures to rectify it.

Get updated by involving

Everyday social media evolves with new ideas. For example, if an idea works today will be out- of- date in the coming month. As trends change day- by- day, your agency must be updated with the latest trends in the market. You guys both need to work in tandem to know the changes in the market.

Try to conduct brainstorming sessions in a month to place your brand in more impressing ways. Invite employees from different departments of your company to suggest their ideas. Sometimes fresh ideas will come even from people with no marketing background.

You should make your employees understand what their company is doing on social media. Conduct social media awareness sessions with the agency teams and employees from your company. Get updated with the latest features brought in by Twitter or Facebook. Also, find if there is any feature suitable for adopting by your brand.

You May Also Like: How to Decide the Ideal Social Media for Your Business

Trust your Social Media Marketing Service

When you hire a social media service, you should allow them free to work in their own style. You only need to give them guidelines and content. Allow them to communicate with whoever they want. It is good to keep an eye on the activities on social media but never command them how to operate it.

Sometimes there may be situations to do things spontaneously. So, you have to believe in your social media service’s capability. They know what to do for the betterment of your brand. If they get a sign from your side that you trust them, then they can work with much confidence. This will give you incredible results.

8 Social Media Marketing Benefits For Your Business

Posted on March 24, 2016 by NextJSjointviews

Social media is a powerful platform for marketers to reach out to prospects. They can be used for direct marketing as well as to maintain public relations. Facebook and LinkedIn are the two most leading social media platforms used for marketing. It is found that most of the users use social media for researching brand, products or services before making the decision to buy.

People were doubtful about social media marketing at first, but they were proven wrong as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter among others became a hit among brands.

Read Also: How to Decide the Ideal Social Media for Your Business

The following are 8 ways business stand to benefit from implementing social media marketing:

Helps to cut the overall marketing costs

Social networks are one of the best cost-effective methods to popularize your brand among target customers. The overhead cost for tweeting a message, promoting through Facebook or pinning a photo of the product to Pinterest is minimal when compared to billboards, TV and newspaper ads.

If you have marketing budget, social media channels will offer advanced but affordable advertising which target the audience by using keywords, interest based and demographic campaigns. Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook offer more specific parameters for targeting.

One needs to create compelling and optimized content to make the domain seem high up on the search results page. By sharing this content through various social portals, they can capture the interest of readers who may visit, like or share content on the website and link to it from their own domains. Search engines such as Google and Bing consider these social signals to rank on the search results page.

Social media marketing is extremely useful and beneficial to discuss customer comments, concerns and questions. Customers can directly interact with owners through platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Owners can answer them in a public format so that other customers can realize the quality of company’s customer service. Quicker responses can be delivered by brands to customers through social media. This helps in building brand awareness.

Recommended Read: 100% Growth in Social Media Usage in Rural India

Provides an opportunity to associate with other businesses

Through social media, a company can not only interact with consumers, but also with entrepreneurs and owners of other businesses. They help to have a real conversation with important personalities who may not otherwise be accessible socially or globally in the real world.

By allowing customers to directly interact with company, they are able to get the best customer service. Each and every response of customers is seen by the public. Hence if one of the customers appreciates the service of the company, it will directly show in the good online reputation of the company.

Helps to gain competitive advantage

Social media marketing helps to cope with competition by connecting with current and prospective customers in an organic way across the web. It can help boost search rankings, connect with new business partners, offer better customer service, and thus create a better online personality.

So, if you haven’t started marketing on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or Pinterest among others, you might be missing some real opportunities. So, start now! Better late than never.

Email Marketing: Still Far from Over

Posted on January 8, 2016 by NextJSjointviews

The status of email marketing is a popular topic for debate in every Digital Marketing Agency. Is it dead or alive as of now? Well, email marketing is something that will never ever leave its place in the world of digital marketing. Its importance and presence can never be ignored. Email marketing is not dead, definitely not, and neither will it die anytime in the near future.

A simple statistic will prove the importance of emails in our everyday lives: Over 200 million emails are sent out in a single minute every day. So, you see how heavily email is used as a communication platform for brands, marketers, and even consumers.

There are even more numbers to prove this fact. Over 72% of the adults in USA have stated that they prefer the companies to communicate with them through email rather than any other platform. 91% said they would love to receive promotional emails from the companies that they do business with. As far as the companies are concerned, 72% of them have said that they use email marketing as an integral part of their business and marketing efforts. 25% of the companies consider email as the top most priority and channel for an advantageous return on investment.

Read Also: 14 Smart Tips to Get Your Email Subscriber’s Attention

If you are still not convinced and doubtful about the existence of email marketing, here you have three major reasons why email marketing is not going anywhere. Go through them and decide for yourself.

The advantages of social marketing

Social media has a lot of fancy and exciting options to it. This is why there are several rumours that it is slowly killing email marketing which is more of old school. Well, even though social marketing may seem to be more effective in certain case, this one marketing medium is not able to do anything alone by its own. This is one point you need to keep in mind. Vanity metrics and other hollow impressions usually give the marketers a sense of false satisfaction about social marketing. There are simply distracting you.

There are a number of marketers who try their best to gather attention through slightly spammy tactics on social media like filling out Twitter feeds with automated tweets all round the clock, blasting their pages on Facebook with completely irrelevant posts and updates, sending direct messages that are nothing but automated, and also using a huge number of cat memes and circulating them. They do not understand how annoying these techniques can be. Spamming only reduces your followers. They tempt the users to click the unfollow button, and you do more harm than good.

Email marketing, on the other hand, provides useful and relevant content to the audience. This audience consists of people who have willingly subscribed to receive newsletters and other informative emails and would love to learn more. As per data collected in 2012, nearly 90 percent of the internet users have an email account while a smaller number of just 70 percent have an account on any of the social media networking websites. This proves that email is still reigning as the top most form of communication. If you want to reach a majority of the audience and increase your reach, then email is definitely what you need as it is the most effective method in this case.

It is evolving at a higher rate

With emails, brands could get the power to drive customer engagement by monitoring, testing, measuring, and tweaking the emails sent out as newsletters or targeted offerings. The whole game of email marketing has now changed and evolved to a greater extent. Slowly, it is ceasing to be a medium purely for communication purposes to a complete platform that could help the different brands deliver their experiences across various channels.

Here are some of the key email trends that have been explored by Liga Bizune in a recent article that illustrate how emails are slowly evolving to become more than just a channel for communication:

Wearable technologies are evolving. This will slowly change the way brands communicate with the email subscribers.
A new technique of email marketing will surface, which will be hyper-targeted and also location based. The credits for this goes to the integration of proximity and geo-location applications into emails.
Behavioural email marketing will start to get driven by predictive analysis.
As emails are transitioning to mobiles, it has become more necessary than ever to develop better and more creative content. This is the only way to capture the attention of the audience and keep them hooked on.
Videos have started to evolve and find their own place in the world of marketing. They will start playing an even bigger role in email marketing. A bigger emphasis needs to be put into this aspect.

You May Also Like: 10 E-mail Marketing Hacks That Every Marketer Should Know

Correct execution makes it most effective

Emails need to be used properly and effectively to make it more than just a passé. The biggest challenge you face in case of newsletters is that only a small part of the subscribers actually care to open and read the email newsletters you send out to them. This does not, in any way, imply that email is dead or dying. It just points to the fact that your newsletters are not able to make the mark among the audience. They either fail to create the interest in them or your calls to action are not effective enough. Ask yourself a few questions to get your answers:

How is the tone of your content? Is it purely promotional and impersonal, or is it helpful and friendly?
Are you making an effective and meaningful one on one engagement through your content?
Are you striking up a conversation with the reader, or are you just talking at them to get your job done?

These questions will help you understand where you are going wrong. Understand the effectiveness of email marketing to be able to use it in the best way possible.

One thing you need to remember is that email marketing is not going anywhere. Each and every Digital Marketing Agency makes sure to emphasise this point. If you even believe that emails are dying and there is no point in marketing via emails, you will surely start missing out on the wide range of opportunities that this platform has got to offer you. Do not make this mistake, and keep your place in the digital world.

Social Media Sites and Applications to Be Exempted From the Encryption’s Domain Policy

Posted on September 23, 2015 by NextJSjointviews

New Delhi: Shortly after a debate emitted over government’s proposal to explore each message send by an individual by WhatsApp, SMS, or Google Hangouts, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology cleared up in a draft that online networking sites and applications will be exempted from the Encryption’s domain Policy.

The draft posted by Deity indicates that there are classifications of encryption products that will be excused from the draft’s domain national encryption policy.

Encryption products, which are as of now being utilized in web applications, social media sites, and social media applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter etc are excluded from the purview of the draft National Encryption Policy, confirmed a proposed addendum to the policy posted on the department’s website.

Encryption items utilized as a part of Internet banking and payment gateways, and for e-commerce and password-based transactions will be exempted as well.

Read Also: Facebook Introduces SIGNAL, A Social News Gathering Tool for Journalists

Earlier Deity had proposed that all the messages which are sent through encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp (Android version supports encryption), Google Hangouts or Apple’s iMessage, must be stored safe for 90 days. Privacy concerns triggered heated debate.

The draft of New Encryption Policy proposes that upon demand users of encrypted messaging service must reproduce same text, transacted during a communication before law enforcement agencies. It should be in a plain format. Failing to do so may result in imprisonment of the user as per the provisions.

The proposed policy of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology will be made applicable for everyone including government departments, academic institutions, normal citizens and for all kind of communications.

All the modern messaging services like WhatsApp, Viber, Line, Google Chat, yahoo messenger etc, has high level of encryption and many times security offices think that it is difficult to catch these messages.

“All information shall be stored by the concerned B/C entity for 90 days from the date of transaction and made available to Law Enforcement Agencies as and when demanded in line with the provisions of the laws of the country,” the draft said.

The ‘B category’ in the draft is defined as all statutory organizations, executive bodies, business and commercial establishments, including all Public Sector Undertakings, Academic institutions.

The draft has defined ‘C category’ as all citizens including personnel of government and business performing non-official or personal functions.

The user should provide the readable plain text along with the corresponding encrypted information if they communicate with foreigner or entity abroad.

As per the draft, all service providers located inside or outside India which uses encryption technology for providing any type of services in India should register themselves with the government.

Recommended Read: Facebook to Finally Introduce “Dislike” Button

The New Encryption Policy is introduced under section 84 A of Information Technology Act 2000, as proposed by the draft. Through amendment in 2008, this section was introduced. Sub-section 84 C introduced through the amendment has provision of imprisonment for violation of the act.

“Encryption products may be exported but with prior intimation to the designated agency of Government of India. Users in India are allowed to use only the products registered in India. Government, reserves the right to take appropriate action as per Law of the country for any violation of this Policy,” the draft said.

October 16, 2015 is the last date for public to comment on the draft.

“Having a draft on issue is a welcome step. It looks at everything with prism of law enforcement. It will create a license raj. There is very much concern around privacy of citizen. The policy wants messages to be given on demand. If my private information is sought by government, it should be done through courts,” Arun Sukumar,Head Cyber Initiative, said.

Source

Effective Social Media Marketing Tricks for 2015

Posted on August 12, 2015 by NextJSjointviews

Any digital marketer will know the importance of Social Media Marketing, be it for promoting their brand or for increasing sales. Social media is a vast medium which is constantly changing. So, as a marketer, unless you stay up-to-date with the current social media marketing trends, you might not be able to make any significant difference. With hordes of businesses flocking the social media market, you have to use every trick up your sleeve to get that edge. To make your job easy, we give you some effective social media marketing strategies that will improve your online presence.

Relook & Revamp Your Social Media Profiles: You might already have created your social media profiles or might be working on profiles that someone set for you. But, that doesn’t mean you should not go back and review the profiles. There are umpteen reasons to do that. Polish your profiles – personalize them. Social networks often keep updating their features to improve user experience. You should also do the same. Keep checking for updates and take advantage of the latest features introduced. Update your profile with the latest photos. Professional background graphics or images make a huge difference.

Don’t Shy Away From Multimedia: They say “A picture is worth a thousand words” and rightly so. Give your customer the inside perspective of the product or service you sell. Use professional pictures and videos of the products extensively, so that the customer gets the look and feel of the product. This will make the customers come back to your profile everytime they want any details of the product. Don’t just stick to images or videos about your businesses. Customers like to relate to the brand. So, go ahead and highlight your corporate events that you participated or some in-house events that occurred.

Invest in Integrated Social Media Strategy: To achieve optimal results, it is essential to integrate your social activities. So, devise a strategy that is flexible and that will meet the ever-changing needs of social media. Make a calendar with all the upcoming events or any other promotion that you plan to do. Use social share buttons wherever possible to make your content shareable.

Personalize Your Approach: Each of your media post relating to your business can be plain boring. Social media is the platform where people come to communicate and engage with others. You have to understand that audience needs to be felt included, and the best way to do that is to personalize your approach. Humour is a great way to reach out to your audience. Conduct simple polls, post on your clients pages to publicly thank them for their business, ask questions based on the current topics and most important of all, respond. Don’t let it be one sided, respond to the tweets and posts of others. Comment, like, retweet, say a simple Thank You for their comments or apologize for some error that occurred.

Work on Social Login: Registering on websites can be an annoying process and most often will dissuade the customer from doing so. People think twice before adding a new username and password to their already long list. You have to adapt the simpler method to improve your website visitors’ experience and to improve your registration conversions. And the best way to do it is through social logins. Give your customers the choice to login using their social media profiles. This way you are minimizing the registration process, while getting the chance to import their photographs, personal details and their addresses.Another advantage is that you will be reducing spam as well.

Be Punctual: To get the maximum results, timeliness is a crucial factor. Respond timely; don’t wait for hours to respond. Craft your message around the most happening issue on social media. If you take your own sweet time to respond, you’ll lose out on the chance of having your message heard. Timely response, matched with a crafty slogan and a hard-hitting image will give you the right boost.

Recommended Read: 10 E-mail Marketing Hacks That Every Marketer Should Know

10 E-mail Marketing Hacks That Every Marketer Should Know

Posted on August 10, 2015 by NextJSjointviews

E-mail marketing plays a vital role in digital marketing campaigns these days. But most of their process lacks proper structure. So, they fail to achieve expected success with their campaigns. With 81 new mails reaching inboxes at an average, 84% of them being spam, you need something to make your mails stand out.

Before you can access your click-through rates, revenue generation or any other business growth metrics, your prospects need to open your e-mails. For this, your mails need to be special, the kind that generates curiosity in the reader’s mind. Here are some ways digital marketing companies can improve those e-mails and get great customer response and better revenue generation.

1. Create a Short, Intriguing Subject Line

The difference between your e-mails being opened or reaching the trash is the awesomeness of your subject line. Avoid those dumb, boring clichés and go for something that can generate curiosity, subconsciously forcing the reader to want to know more. Try to keep them as short as possible for better open rates, but not too short that the reader doesn’t understand what it is.

Don’t say more, but just enough to invoke curiosity. So are your subject lines really good to get you those valuable open rates?

Recommended Read: 5 SEO Factors That Are More Important Than Keywords

2. Make the message a personal one

Adding a personal touch to your e-mails can take you a long way. Using your client’s, company’s or the industry’s name in your subject line is good method of creating response. A person’s awareness heightens when hearing his/her name, which makes them feel unique and special. This will help your mails standout and that is good for business.

3. Resend E-mails

The client’s inbox may have thousands of mails and yours can easily be overlooked. So feel free to resend relevant content to those clients in case they have missed the first one. This second chance is often appreciated by the clients and you can drastically improve your overall open rate.

4. Being Provocative Can Help

Tests by A/B and Promise Media have found that subject lines with a little personality and flavour can help you get the attention that you desire from your mails. This includes controversy and humour, which are far better than most ordinary topics. But remember there is a fine line between being provocative and being offensive, so choose wisely.

Recommended Read: Why Mobile Marketing Is Going to Be the Next Big Thing

5. Know What Your Audience Wants

Create emails in a way that the readers want it. According to Science of Emails 2014 64% of the readers preferred HTML based emails rather that plain text. Studying more about the audiences you want to focus on will help you a lot. It was found that 63% of the people between age group of 18-29 use automatic email filters in their inboxes. So, choose your candidates accordingly.

6. Timing is of Utmost Importance

When to send an email is as important as to whom you send the email. People go through mails during business hours and commuting hours rather than over lunch or dinner time. Moreover be aware of the time zones and cultural tendencies in relation to time.

7. Use Active Verbs

Strong verbs can help convey action, excitement, and intrigue. Using active verbs in subject lines and if possible throughout email copy can excite your readers and engage their interest.

8. Use a Proofreader

You might think that your emails are perfect, but there is no harm in hiring an extra pair of eyes. This has proved to be an asset more often than not and makes your emails as perfect and error free as possible.

9. Emails Coordinated With Buyer-facing Messaging

Consistency in the experience across all your platforms is essential for getting satisfactory customers. This can be the message that you are trying to deliver through all your blogs, tweets, posts, emails, offers or sales calls.

10. Go Past Open and Click Rates

The executive team may not care about opens or clicks. For them revenue is what is important. Find ways to connect your email marketing campaigns with leads transferred to sales to deals closed and revenue earned. This can be good for both your company and your career.

Also Read: This is Why Marketers will love Facebook’s New Sign-Up Ads