Benefits of Using Instant Forms:

1. Increased Conversions: Instant forms load faster than traditional landing pages, reducing drop-offs and increasing completion rates. The forms can pre-populate fields with user information, making the process smoother and more user-friendly.
2. Customizable Messaging: Advertisers can tailor the message and design of the Instant Form, ensuring that the communication is relevant and engaging for the target audience.
3. Redirect Capabilities: After form submission, users can be redirected to a website, app download page, or other relevant destinations.
4. Automated Integration: Collected leads can be seamlessly integrated with CRM systems through tools like Zapier or Custom APIs, streamlining the follow-up process.

When to Use Website Forms:

Using your own website for lead generation is beneficial when you need to boost site traffic, qualify leads with detailed questions, or leverage existing logic on your site forms. This approach allows for more control over the user experience and data collection process.

Industries Benefiting from TikTok Lead Generation

Various industries outside of e-commerce can successfully utilize TikTok’s Lead Generation objective:

• Automotive: Gather interest for test drives and other dealership engagements.
• Professional Services: Combine with audience targeting to find potential clients or recruit employees.
• Education: Promote programs and schedule campus visits.
• Manufacturing: Feature machinery / equipment or the production process to drive brochure downloads or quote requests.

By harnessing TikTok’s Lead Generation capabilities, advertisers can effectively capture and engage potential customers, driving meaningful results across various industries. For more details, you can visit the TikTok Lead Generation Objective page or contact the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Leveraging TikTok’s New Lead Generation Objective appeared first on MoreVisibility.

There is a blueprint for creating Ephemeral Content that includes:

• A limiting lifespan, usually no more than 36-48 hours
• Very engaging images and videos that are action-packed and attention-grabbing
• Dramatic or popular music / sound integration with the ad
• Calls to action per platform, such as swiping up, taking a quiz, or visiting a page
• Limited time offers and promotions

By creating ads with these characteristics, you should set your expectations and goals to see increased engagement. The purpose behind the short lifespan is to have the user take immediate action. There is a difference between offering 40% off and offering 40% off today only. Keep track of your click-through-rate, number of shares and total watch time from your users.

Ephemeral content is also going to allow your creativity to expand. Creating a strategic campaign that hooks users in to act quickly is going to require a lot of brand knowledge to combine at once. By following the blueprint above, you will be considering your customer’s favorite imagery, music, type of ad, type of promotion and platform. In the past, you may not have used the fact that half of your followers also follow multiple classic rock artists. Now, selecting music clips that will immediately relate to your audience is important.

Collecting data for ephemeral content will have two important factors:

• Ensuring all data collection is accurate
• Scheduling time to review the data sooner

Since the campaign is only 1-2 days long, you must ensure that your data tracking within the platform and on your website from ad traffic is set up correctly. Without proper tracking based on the goals you want to measure; you’re going to miss out on brand insights you may not find in other campaigns. Building content or an ad campaign with the FOMO factor in mind, could mean more engagement in a small window; providing you the amount of data collection in two days you may normally get from a month. You are also going to want to make sure you schedule the time to review the campaign data during and/or immediately upon conclusion. Since these campaigns are very ROI-driven, you want to quickly measure your return on investment and then make any adjustments needed to run it again.

The inspiration for this blog came from a recent ephemeral campaign I saw while on Instagram. One of my favorite bands announced they would be going on a U.S. tour and tickets would be available soon. I was reviewing tour dates and locations when I submitted my information to be reminded the day before tickets go on sale to the public. Three days before tickets were set to go on sale, I was served an ad with an exclusive offer to buy my tickets now and receive a 20% merchandise discount for doing so. This was a no-brainer since I was going to buy the ticket and the commemorative tour t-shirt regardless! I’m a fast scroller, so the marketing team had to use the right video clip of the right song with the right copy to get me to stop, review and act – but it worked.

We are entering a time where customers want advertisers to invoke feelings into their ads, and one if those feelings is excitement. Ephemeral content allows marketers to understand this concept and practice using it to increase ROI. For more information on how you can strengthen your ad strategy with ephemeral content, email our team at info@morevisibility.com.

The post The Ephemeral Content Trend appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Whether you have podcast live already or you are still thinking about it – here are some best practices to use that will ensure your podcast is engaging and optimized for users to find:

Know your podcast purpose. MoreVisibility produces the Eye on Digital Marketing Podcast, and the main goal is to provide industry updates, broken out by categories. Other digital marketing podcasts may focus more on interviews with company owners and entrepreneurs or providing step by step instructions on how to complete something on your digital marketing checklist. All three of these may be under the category of digital marketing – but they may attract different audiences at different times. Decide what avenue your podcast will fill and be direct about it.

Create a podcast rundown. Listeners like to know the structure of your podcast, including approximately how long each episode will be. The rundown of your podcast will allow you to outline how much time you have for guests, topics and any other promotional material. Each episode does not have to be the same length, but depending on your podcast purpose, staying within the same length can increase the chances of your listeners tuning into the entire episode. For example, every episode can include 10 minutes of news updates, a 20 minute guest speaker and 5 minutes of outro promotions and what is coming on the next episode. This helps listeners know when they can press play and without being interrupted.

Choose a release frequency. Podcasts are no different than social media posts, if you have long periods of inactivity or inconsistency with posting new episodes – you risk losing listeners. The best thing to do is start at a frequency level (every week, every other week, etc) that you can stick to. If you can release more episodes in between, great, but being consistent will allow your listeners to anticipate when a new episode is going to be released.

Make your guest interviews count. Not only should you be strategic in the guests you chose, but also in the style and questions you ask (with the guests’ permission of course). For example, agencies that produce a podcast can find synergy with guests from vendors they work with on client projects, while independent marketers producing a podcast may have success interviewing agency team members. When interviewing, know the content your audience wants to hear and why they tune into you. For example, Elon Musk can be interviewed by a storytelling podcast and a trending news podcast. The difference is the storytelling podcast will may focus the interview on his growth and story to become who is he is today, while the news podcast will want to know what Elon is working on next to get the public excited. Book guests that count and then make your time with them count.

Optimize podcast details for each channel. Using the MoreVisibility podcast as an example, we are streaming on Google, Amazon, Spotify, and Apply Podcasts. However, our team creates different size images and sometimes descriptions for each channel, depending on how the platform renders on a user’s device. You should always fill out the description for each episode when uploading – the description acts like the meta data for your episode so it can be served in search results when relevant. I would also recommend buying a subscription to a platform that uploads your podcast to every channel at once for efficiency.

Create content from your podcast. After you record an episode, this is a great opportunity to release teasers of the episode on social media or turn the episode into a blog post. Use social media posts to get your listeners excited about the upcoming episode while also reaching new potential listeners. Podcasts are great to help fill in your social media calendar.

Doing all the above will ensure your podcast is engaging and is also visible in search results. The more content, the better, but remember to only commit to a frequency you can keep up with it and then accelerate if needed. If you’d like more information on how to include a podcast into your content strategy, email us at info@morevisibility.com.

The post Best Practices for Creating Podcast Content appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Here is a checklist you can use to ensure your social media channels are optimized for search:

• Choose logical, on brand handles. Make sure the handle is easier to understand, even if it is abbreviating your brand name or a long word. If possible, use the same handle across all platforms.
• Make sure your profile name is filled in and matches all other social media channels.
• Use the description to incorporate relevant keywords so users can find your profile. I know descriptions may not be the “trendiest” way to showcase your brand, as many profiles use the description for a clever joke or motto, but it is the surest way for search engines to match up relevant users with your profiles.
• Link your website to every social media channel. If you have multiple websites, consider a service like Linktree.
• Link your social media profiles together by sharing handles for each platform, on each profile.
• Provide contact information for each profile. Brands typically dedicate a contact email address or phone number for support on their social channels. I would recommend the same contact information on each profile, for internal efficiency.
• Maintain consistent post content and frequency. You want to ensure the brand messaging, tone-of-voice and creative match across all of your social profiles. You also want to keep your post frequency consistent; it is ok to post more frequently on some channels, but you do not want to have long periods of inactivity.
• When posting, utilize as many audience category tools as you can. This can include hashtags, category assignments, user mentions and profile tagging, and locations. This will increase your reach and percentage of being seen as well as provide search engines better context for your content.

In many ways, optimizing social media for search is like optimizing your web pages, there is a decision that needs to be made on how important following all the recommendations are. A brand may decide to not add keywords to their description and keep a slogan that all their followers know, while another brand decides the extra visibility is what they need. Optimizing social media channels will involve auditing your profile setting and making sure you have a checklist for posting content.

Curious to know how we achieve social media success for our clients? Email us at info@morevisibility.com.

The post Optimizing Your Social Channels for Search Results appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Since Elon Musk has purchased Twitter and changed the platform to “X,” many brands have moved advertising dollars away from the platform as a way to show their disapproval with Elon and how he operates his social media business. As marketers, we are called upon to put our personal bias aside so we have a clear strategy on what is best for our brands and companies.

Digital marketers appear to have chosen LinkedIn as a platform alternative to invest According to the Financial Times, LinkedIn Ad investment has soared steadily, as much as 30% in the past 10 months. A likely cause of this is budget being moved off of X, combined with LinkedIn having historically good ROI for advertising campaigns. The reason LinkedIn is seeing great investment increases is because they have always been the most expensive social media platform to advertise on. Digital Marketers are learning fast, what a budget may have gotten you on Meta or X, may not be the budget that you need to be successful on LinkedIn. But LinkedIn has not recently increased ad pricing, they have just known the power of their data for a long time.

If you are thinking of investing or investing more in LinkedIn, here is what you should consider:

• LinkedIn uses their own auction system to determine which ads are shown and when. This is going to demand a greater ad price to win. It’s kind of like gambling at the casino, if you want to win big, you have to bet big.
• Higher ad prices have not been met with negative reviews, as marketers still claim to see substantial returns on their investments, in some cases greater than 25%.
• When developing a strategy for LinkedIn, use the platform first. Take notice of what ads you see, where they are and when you see them. Like any platform, LinkedIn wants an efficient user-friendly experience.
• Remember the purpose of LinkedIn – users are there for business. You will have access to certain targeting capabilities that are unavailable on other platforms, but that power also comes with responsibility. LinkedIn users are a strong community for business, knowledge, and connections within their industry. Undesired or unrelatable content is reported all the time.
• Be prepared to have deeper engagement with your audience, including conversations through LinkedIn messenger, depending on the ad types you chose to run. Connecting with users on LinkedIn through sponsored direct messages can be just as successful as your video ad running in the LinkedIn news feed.

For further information on setting up LinkedIn advertising, email us at info@morevisibility.com.

The post The Rise of LinkedIn Advertising appeared first on MoreVisibility.

YouTube is no different and recently the platform has shown initiative to move away from only long video content and make short clips of 60-90 seconds available for users. These clips are what YouTube calls “shorts,” and if you are not utilizing them, you could be missing out.

Shorts are not new, YouTube launched the content option in 2021. However, shorts saw a spike in engagement in 2023 when YouTube announced it would add shorts to their partner program. This means creators can now earn revenue from the engagement they get on their shorts – and naturally where there is money to be made, there is attention to be had. I spoke about YouTube engagement trends in episode 53 of the MoreVisibility podcast calling out how YouTube shorts may have increased engagement for all videos on the platform, as data suggests users are watching videos for longer periods of time than ever before. Let’s explore the benefits of shorts and some content ideas that could help your social strategy.

Easy to Create and Edit

YouTube has an editing feature for shorts that is similar to Instagram, meaning the tools provided are not foreign and will not take a long time to test. Upon selecting your video clip, you will have the option to add music, filters, trim your video and add text. This mobile-friendly editor allows creators and brands to edit and upload in just a few clicks.

Build Your Page, Stay Relevant

Digital marketers should always be conscious of how their brand is perceived. In terms of social media, nobody wants to be labeled as “old,” or “behind the trends.” In fact, it is just the opposite, the brands who find success in new content are early adopters and risk takers, often introducing a new ad unit or content template to their audience before it is “cool.” With YouTube putting a focus on shorts, every brand will have a “shorts” tab on their profile for users to see and click through. If you are a well-known brand and are active on social media, it can be a negative to have a blank space where others have content. Many brands keep developing content for social platforms to stay relevant and get their message heard. Just like you spent time building video playlists for your YouTube channel, its now time to boost your shorts playlist.

What Content Works Best?

You likely already know the type of video content that does well with your audience, so the key to success may be in the way you create the video. The shorts that get more average engagement for brands all have one thing in common – they immerse the user into their message. Successful shorts can show behind the scenes content, a customer or client testimonial and even ‘a day in the life’ type of video. Users want to feel like they connected with the brand and the brand understands what is important to them. Clothing brands do this very well on YouTube, showcasing their fashion in a way that you can almost feel the material through your screen and imagine yourself wearing the outfit while doing an activity you love. Be personable and don’t be afraid to show your audience what your brand is like behind the curtain.

If you are not creating shorts today, I would suggest adding that to your video content strategy. YouTube shorts also provide a great way for marketers to gather more data on what their audience likes. Because you can be more personable with these videos, you may find a new way of showcasing your services sells better. You could also take a successful shorts video and use it in other advertising strategies and platforms. Keep testing, keep evolving and make sure YouTube is a platform you invest time in.

The post Don’t Forget About Your (YouTube) Shorts! appeared first on MoreVisibility.

However, many times brands need to go beyond conventional wisdom and understand what not to do if they hope to compete for impressions and engagement. In this guide, we’ll cover some of the more overlooked considerations marketers should reflect on to maintain forward progress on social media, regardless of platform.

Inconsistency

One of the most common mistakes brands make is being inconsistent with content creation. Being consistent doesn’t necessarily mean posting all day every day, but it does mean that marketers should maintain some sort of schedule on any platform they hope to grow a following. This could mean posting once per day, three times per day or three times per week. The quantity of posts is entirely dependent on your brand and whether you’re able to generate enough content that your target audience would genuinely be willing to engage with.

Regardless of the quantity, marketers should find what I like to call a “cadence of content creation” that enables you, the marketer, to set your own expectations about what needs to be done. At the same time, establishing a cadence also begins to set the expectations of both your target audience and the platform’s algorithm.

If you’re having trouble staying on track, consider creating a simple content calendar with a spreadsheet. Alternatively, collaborative cloud services like Airtable have clean interfaces to generate social calendars with ease.

Come up with your topics and body content before the start of each month, decide which platform(s) you plan to post to, set the dates and/or times you plan to post, and include links and creative within the document so they’re ready to go.

Not Engaging

Being consistent is just one aspect of a successful social growth strategy. However, probably the most overlooked necessity for the growth of any social account is engagement. Brands need to be present in a variety of ways, and they need to be there almost 24/7 if they really want to see exponential growth.

Engaging on social media often falls by the wayside not because it’s hard, but because it’s so time consuming. It’s difficult to spend the majority of your day staring at your phone, especially while other tasks are typically lying in wait throughout the work day. It can also become monotonous, and marketers need to be creative and quick thinkers to really improve a brand’s presence.

Successful audience engagement essentially entails a three-fold approach. First, after you post a piece of content on a platform, you need to respond to every single comment (with the exception of spam), and respond ideally within minutes. By responding, I don’t mean simply using a smiley face emoji. Respond to all comments with thought (if they warrant it). Maintain a consistent voice when responding to comments, but more importantly, keep it human and keep it valuable. If your post is about a new recipe, for instance, and a commenter has a question about adding an ingredient, take the time to answer their question in detail. This lets your followers see that your brand isn’t robotic, but that there are humans behind it, and it provides value. Those still weighing whether to follow your brand will also be more likely to commit and click the Follow button when they see your level of engagement. Your audience will remember the effort and will be more likely to re-engage on future posts. At the same time, the algorithms take note of this, and future content will have a higher chance of being shown on follower feeds.

Second, take the time to go out and explore your own content feed. Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, go out, like and comment on the posts of those you follow. Taking the extra minute to write a thoughtful comment on someone’s post gets your brand name and logo out there, while leaving a mental imprint and creating a lasting opportunity to attract new followers.

Third, explore your niche more broadly and go outside of your feed. If it’s Instagram, search for hashtags relevant to your brand and like, comment and follow users. Many will follow you back, explore your page and engage with your posts. While time consuming, this is one of the fastest organic ways to grow a large loyal follower base.

Not Using Calls to Action

Engagement can also come in the form of calls to action, and I’m not referring to driving people to click through to your website. Calls to action can also be used to get a conversation going in your social comment section. Instead of always posting new content or commenting from an informational perspective, ask your audience questions periodically. If you’re a healthcare brand, for example, lead a new post by asking whether patients have experience with a certain condition and what their treatment experience has been like. If you’re a restaurant, search for customers who posted pictures of their dining experience and ask what they enjoyed most about it. Better yet, ask what you could do to make it even more memorable next time. Being creative and inquisitive with your questions, regardless of niche, will undoubtedly grow your following and improve engagement metrics as time goes on.

Overthinking

Lastly, many brands fall victim to overthinking when it comes to publishing content on social media. Should there be an underlying strategy behind what’s being published? Of course. Should you spend more than 30 minutes deliberating on what verbiage and filter to use? Absolutely not. If it’s taking you that long to come up with content to post, you need to reassess the kind of content you’re posting. As I mentioned earlier on, content calendars can help streamline the creative process and minimize the amount of time it takes to post on social.

At the end of the day, what’s most important for growing a social following is being present. Post helpful and informative content for your audience consistently and take the time to engage in creative ways. Before long, you’ll see significant organic growth and the process will only become more enjoyable over time.

The post 4 Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Overcome appeared first on MoreVisibility.

The Search Ads Toggle allows advertisers to seamlessly integrate their campaigns into TikTok users’ search results. This means that when users search for specific keywords or topics, advertisers have the opportunity to display their ads prominently, aligning perfectly with users’ interests – and perhaps, buying intent. In essence, it allows advertisers to extend their reach beyond TikTok’s native algorithm-driven placements (on a user’s “For You” feed) and show ads on a keyword-driven search results page. The result? A balance between broad audience reach and specific intent-based targeting.

When the Search Ad Toggle feature is enabled, ads are clearly labeled as “Sponsored” content on the search results page. Per TikTok’s blog post, ads will “appear in varying positions on the results page based on relevancy, user intent (as understood from their search query) and broader learnings from other user behavior.”

So, how can this new placement tool help advertisers achieve their ROAS goals? TikTok internal research has shown that 70% of ad groups with the feature turned on show “more efficient” performance as a result of lower-cost conversions. Not surprising, as users are more likely to be lower down the conversion funnel while searching for a hyper-relevant product or service.

To learn more about social media advertising strategy, contact the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Elevate Your TikTok Advertising Strategy with New Search Ads Toggle appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Writing compelling social media ad copy isn’t just about using the right words; it’s about connecting with your audience in a way that gets them to stop scrolling and pay attention.

Here are some tips to help your social media ads connect and convert.

Tips for Writing Better Social Media Ad Copy

1. Write for your target audience. Who are you trying to connect with? What problems are they facing right now? Use language that resonates with your audience and makes them feel like you’re speaking directly to them.
2. Stick to a single goal. Solve one problem. Feature one product. Answer one question. This will keep your ad copy tight and compelling and help you connect with the reader.
3. Tell readers how you’ll make their life better and easier. Focus your messaging on the wants and needs of your potential customers. Speak to a pain point you know your audience has and show them how your product or service solves their problem.
4. Keep it short. You only have a few seconds to get your point across. Wordiness hurts clarity. Be direct, speak in an active voice, and use short sentences. Avoid jargon and technical language, but don’t be afraid to speak your audience’s language, especially if it helps them feel more connected to your brand.
5. Trigger an emotional response. In many cases, positive emotional triggers are the most effective and the least likely to backfire. But sometimes, fear and anger might be what you need to get clicks. Use the reader’s fear or sense of entitlement against them or trigger a concern they may miss out or be left behind if they don’t buy what you’re selling.
6. Tell a story. Everyone enjoys hearing about people overcoming challenges and succeeding in life. Convince the reader your product can help them do the same and you’ve got a new customer.
7. Focus on benefits over features. A feature is something your product or service is or does. A benefit is a positive outcome the user will experience from your product or service. Don’t include technical specifications of a remote start car ignition, for example. Instead, focus on how it saves your readers time or keeps them safe.
8. Prove your authority. Anyone can create a social media ad. Use lines from customer reviews, drop names of famous clients or influencers you serve, or mention awards you’ve won to convince readers you’re an expert.
9. Include a call to action (CTA). Whether you want to send traffic to your website or boost newsletter subscriptions, using actionable language helps guide potential customers in the right direction. Feel free to get creative with your CTAs, just make sure they are short, clear, motivating, and in alignment with your branding.

Great Ad Copy Takes Time

Remember that social ads work differently than paid search ads. You’re reaching people at all stages of the buyer’s journey, so make sure to test copy variations to connect with those different audiences and to A/B test and adjust as you go. Better ad copy means better campaign results.

The post 9 Tips to Improve Your Social Media Ad Copy appeared first on MoreVisibility.

What is Organic User Generated Content

Flashback to 2014 with me when everyone was snapping pictures of their favorite meals, beauty items, or new shirt and simply posting it online. That was UGC in its simplest form. To provide a more formal definition, UGC is content posted by a user to various social media channels (including podcasts!) that are specific to one brand.

How Can My Business Utilize Organic UGC

There are two easy ways that companies can encourage social media users to post about their brand(s).

1. Specific Hashtags
2. Tagging the company profile

By encouraging a consumer to use a specific hashtag and tagging the company profile, you’re opening your brand up to valuable and authentic content that can be utilized in future marketing efforts. Examples of brands that utilize organic UGC in a successful way can be seen below:

As you can see above with Lululemon, their feed is full of diverse content sourced from their hashtags and creator partnerships (more below). UGC doesn’t just apply to clothing brands though, as Loews Hotels utilizes the hashtag “Welcoming You Like Family” to encourage guests to post about their experiences across their properties.

Paid UGC

Paid UGC involves brands working with and paying creators for content that feels authentic and organic, while having a say in what is being created. Working with a UGC Creator can be a cost-effective way to refresh your brand’s social media and grow your following. These partnerships are typically handled via a contract for a pre-determined amount of assets to be delivered. The cost can vary based on the creator, however, compared to a formal photo or video shoot the savings could be exponential.

If you’re curious about how you can incorporate organic or paid UGC into your content strategy or digital marketing efforts, reach out to the experts at MoreVisibility today!

The post Trending in 2023: User Generated Content appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Here are 10 tips to help you get the most of your social media marketing efforts.

Define Your Goals and Objectives

Before you get started, it’s important to define what you want to get out of your time spent on any social media channel. This will help you to stay focused and make smarter decisions about how to use social media for your business.

Some good questions to ask yourself are:

• What do you want to achieve with social media marketing?
  • Increase brand awareness?
  • Drive traffic to your site?
  • Generate leads and sales?
• What are the KPIs for your social media efforts?
• What is your social media marketing budget?

Optimize Your Profiles

Don’t make the mistake of overlooking the importance of your social media profiles! Your company’s profile is a great place to paint a picture of your brand. A complete profile can boost your social media presence and make it easier for people to find you. Be sure to include details like your business name, a short description of how you help customers, your website URL, and some images that showcase your company.

Know Your Target Audience

If you want to attract the right followers, you need to understand who they are. You can start by outlining your ideal customer’s interests and demographics. Knowing your target audience will allow you to create appealing and successful content. This will help you to build a strong foundation on social media and set you up for success in the future.

Incorporate Eye-Catching Visuals

High-quality images and videos are an important part of any social media strategy. The right visuals can show your followers what your company does and how you can help them. You can also post infographics or GIFs to ensure your brand stands out. Be sure to add descriptive text to any post with visuals to help make them easier to find and encourage audience engagement.

Utilize Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are an important way to reach and engage with your target audience on social media. You can use hashtags to promote your content and drive more traffic to your page, but make sure they’re relevant to your brand. Avoid using too many hashtags in a single post and make sure they provide value to your audience.

Post at the Right Time and Frequency

One of the biggest social media mistakes is posting too often and annoying your followers. Of course, you don’t want to post too little and risk them forgetting about your company. Try starting with a couple of posts per day at varying times to get an idea for your audience’s preferences. You can also post a variety of content types, but keep in mind that quality is just as important as quantity.

Track and Analyze Your Results

It’s important to track and analyze your social media marketing efforts to know what’s working and what’s not. You can use tools like Google Analytics or Sprout Social to see how many impressions your posts are getting, how many clicks they’re receiving, and how many people are engaging with your brand. These results will help to inform your social media strategy and make necessary adjustments to improve your performance.

Consider Social Media Advertising

While organic reach is a powerful part of social media marketing, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You might want to think about using social media advertising to gain followers and boost sales in less time. Social channels like Facebook and Twitter have paid advertising options that allow you to target your audience based on their interests and demographics.

Stay Up to Date on Social Media Trends

Social media platforms are constantly evolving, which makes it crucial to stay current on news and trends in the social media landscape. You might also want to keep an eye out for the latest social media tools and marketing strategies. Being open to innovative tactics and technologies just might be what helps your business to stay ahead of the curve.

The post How to Get the Most Out of Social Media Marketing appeared first on MoreVisibility.

According to the 2019 Impact of Culture Study by Magna, consumers prefer brands that are culturally relevant. It doesn’t have to be complicated either. Taking advantage of a trending meme on Instagram or Twitter is one way to put your brand in the conversation, or you can hop on to a long-standing tradition like Discovery Channel’s famous “Shark Week”. Like it or not, social media is the place where trending and viral topics are born. It’s a good idea to make sure that your business has a voice in the conversation.

There are a few brands that pull this off exceptionally, such as:

• Wendy’s on Twitter (have you read their ‘roast tweets’?)
• Sephora on Instagram (one of the first brands to utilize the in-app checkout feature!)
• Duolingo on TikTok (guaranteed to make you laugh and remember them!)

Here are three steps to help your business start embracing social media trends:

1. Look at trending topics and searches on Instagram / Twitter / Tiktok

As you’ll see below, Crumbl and Georgetown Cupcakes have embraced the phenomenon that Shark Week has become by offering cupcakes or cookies that are only available for a limited time.

2. Personalize the trends to fit your audience

While you want to insert yourself into the conversation pop culture wise, you also need to keep your audience in mind. Try to personalize the trending topics so they still speak to your everyday audience.

3. Post and engage with other brands also using trending memes or relevant events (see below for examples!)

By engaging with other brands, you’ll increase your brand awareness by also getting in front of their audience. Make sure you’re also using relevant hashtags so people can find you in their own searches as well!

If you don’t have the resources to keep up with social media marketing, consider how MoreVisibility can help you.

Pic sources: https://www.discovery.com/shark-week/partner-pictures
https://fi.pinterest.com/pin/253538654009853323/

The post Pop Culture and Social Media Marketing appeared first on MoreVisibility.

I’m going to share a personal story about how LinkedIn helped me secure a job with MoreVisibility. I found myself unexpectedly laid off on the same day another much larger company also experienced a round of layoffs. I commented on someone else’s post from the larger company, to commiserate and offer support. It was then that I connected with Danielle Leitch (MoreVisibility’s awesome COO) and the rest is history. If Danielle wasn’t active on LinkedIn, I would likely not have heard about the position or the company.

At this point, you may be asking yourself a lot of questions.

“How do I know if my employees are active on LinkedIn?”
“How active as a company are we on LinkedIn?”

If becoming active on the platform is a priority company-wide, make sure that your company profile is set up for success. After you make sure you’ve checked all the company profile boxes, you can move on to your employees. (Check out the MoreVisibility company profile in action!)

Whether it’s through a formal meeting, email, or a break room chat, ask your employees if they’re active on LinkedIn. For those active employees, consider asking them to share an important project they’ve recently worked on or something they’ve learned that could be useful for others as well. Depending on the content, this positions your employee as a subject matter expert while increasing brand awareness. Employees can contribute in other ways as well, if they don’t feel comfortable producing custom content, for example:

• Sharing a job opening
• Re-posting a webinar or company event
• ‘Liking’ company posted content

If you have employees that aren’t currently active on LinkedIn, consider how you can motivate them to do so. It could be as simple as creating a get started guide with simple tips, or other content to showcase how LinkedIn will benefit them.

If you’re looking to grow your network on LinkedIn, follow the MoreVisibility team or reach out to see how we can help optimize the platform for your business.

The post Employee Engagement on LinkedIn Can Help Your Business appeared first on MoreVisibility.

However, a presence on social media is no longer a luxury for businesses. From back-end office solutions to consumer facing products, a social media footprint is crucial. Having no presence leaves holes of untapped engagement among active audiences. We see brands and businesses engaging in social media marketing every single day – from paid ads to utilizing influencers. The masses are aggressively consuming content across social media platforms, from monitoring the news to shopping for bathing suits.

Brands need to remember that the quantifiable benefits may be more challenging to calculate but the benefit is undeniable. The stars may align for a singular post to result in clicks, likes, purchases or whatever you are using to track success. Or it may take a steadier cadence of social media posts and a heavier online presence to see any real traction.

Social media marketing is still a relatively newer avenue to secure business. It’s also one of the more dynamic and rapidly growing ones. Throw some strategy behind it with the understanding that you may need to remain fluid and tweak things after some trial and error. Set realistic expectations and have patience as you curate your social media marketing plans. Social media shouldn’t be overlooked, rather treated as a marathon instead of a sprint.

The post Social Media Marketing is a Marathon, Not a Sprint. appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Recent data from ecommerce apps and platforms, such as Pinterest and Etsy, show that this older demographic not only spends a healthy amount of money, but their engagement is increasing. This age group likely has more disposal income to use. We also do not give enough credit to older generations being active on social and ecommerce platforms. Take a look at these recent statistics from a UK company Ofcom who gathered information from 55 and over groups:

Age 55-64:

• 86% use a smartphone.
• 94% use the internet at home.
• 70% correctly identify advertising on Google.
• 73% have a social media profile.

Age 65+:

• 55% use a smartphone.
• 77% use the internet at home.
• 58% correctly identify advertising on Google.
• 59% have a social media profile.

There is a huge opportunity to target and increase your brand awareness to this demographic based on the above statistics.

Another part of your brands content should be authoritative content that educates your audience. This will establish strong brand identity and keep your audience engaged overtime. The older demographic groups seek this type of content and unlike the younger audiences, they are more loyal to a few sources once they like the content. I have seen this with returning visitor data when looking at the age group of 50 and above for some of my clients. My advice would be to build educational content when targeting an older demographic.

Another great tip is to keep your content and website experience simple for this age group. As mentioned above, this demographic does not surf web content as much as a younger audience would – therefor, if you are “too fancy” with your site experience, you could lose their interest. The best way to know if your content is set up for success in this area is to ask yourself:

1. Are my instructions, steps, messaging and copy easy to read and written in a simple, informative way?
2. Can I eliminate steps within the conversion process?
3. Am I using more CTA’s than I need?

In conclusion, these are a few core insights that can present an opportunity for your brand to look more closely at this age demographic. With technology getting easier to use and understand combined with continued education – I would expect the older demographic to be a large contributor to overall market revenue through digital advertising in the future.

The post Digital Marketing Insights for Older Demographics appeared first on MoreVisibility.

You may think that TikTok is just another social media app, but diving deeper you’ll find it is quite distinctive from other social media platforms. It’s still new enough for your business to get in early and take advantage of the many advertising and marketing opportunities. It’s also large enough so your business can get access to an audience right away.

Let’s go over some intriguing aspects and opportunities TikTok offers, who they cater to, and several reasons why you should consider using TikTok for your business!

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a social networking site that was launched in 2016. Since then, it has gained a massive following and is used in over 150 countries.

Content creators and influencers have flocked in droves to the TikTok app. Along with Instagram, the app is now testing subscription-based services for their most popular influencer’s feeds. It is now open to just a few popular creators, but in the future both social media giants will be expanding this option to others.

Creators on the app have the ability to use a wide range of fun filters, multiple effects, text overlays and the option to enhance videos with a wide variety of music ranging from pop to rock, rap, oldies, classical and everything in between.

Some of the most popular video content on the platform contain short comedy clips, trending dances and skits, informational and educational videos and even lip-synching.

Prior to posting a video, TikTok users have the option to customize and optimize it by adding relevant hashtags, and sharing it to other social media platforms, thereby increasing its discovery on search engines.

TikTok also has a popular ‘Challenges’ feature that allows creators to participate in growing trends, contests and themes. Those who follow the challenge, get their video displayed to those following the specific challenge, which increases the chances of your video going viral.

Businesses are recognizing that with the massive and growing popularity of the app, TikTok has the power to reshape the way brands and businesses communicate with their customers, convey events, share information, and connect to communities and culture worldwide with relevant displays and conversations.

How is TikTok Different From Other Social Media Platforms?

Unlike other major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, TikTok lets users create 15, 60 second, and now recently, up to 3 minute videos that allow users and businesses to create content targeted to a wide variety of audiences.

TikTok is unique in that it’s all about sharing relatable, engaging, and natural bite sized videos where users can create captions and distinctive overlays often set to popular music. It also has the ability to integrate automatically with the other social media networks making content easily shareable.

This in itself opens up a whole new level of connection with the audience your business wishes to target.

Who Uses TikTok the Most?

If you think the app is used primarily by GenZ you may want to look again. Indeed, the largest demographic of users are between the ages of 16-24, with 47.4% of their active users are between the ages of 10 to 29 years.

But interestingly enough you’ll also find people 40-80+ years are creating content and frequenting the app more and more.

With these numbers in mind, and considering that Social media influences 71 percent of consumer buying decisions – businesses would be wise to pay attention. After all, every funnel starts with peaking interest and awareness. Millennials and Gen Z in the U.S. alone are turning to mobile entertainment on social media as a primary source of information, education and awareness.

You can’t ignore the fact that this has led up to $350 billion dollars worth of buying power.

On average, U.S. adult users spent 33 minutes per day on TikTok ranking it 2nd by daily engagement after Facebook.

Another interesting stat: American adults using TikTok grew 5.5 times in the last 18 months alone, with a 2:1 female to male gender ratio.

TikTok has evolved from a creative video platform meant solely for creators to express their creativity to a bonafide advertising and business marketing haven.

Increased Exposure for Your Business

You may be thinking, I don’t need another social media platform. While this may be valid depending on your business, your audience and your niche, keep in mind that it may be an investment worth making for your brand long term.

Due to the enhanced creativity and exposure it offers, many companies have found success on TikTok simply by offering access to an audience other platforms don’t have.

In a nutshell, by building your exposure, the better chance your business will have in retaining customers, acquiring new ones and building your overall brand awareness. By using a less formal, video focused approach, your business can relay its information in the most natural, fun, realistic and authentic way possible.

TikTok Caters to Business

TikTok for business has a centralized platform especially for advertisers and marketers. They have an e-learning center (ads manager platform) where businesses can go to learn how to create specific ads to cater directly to your audience, set budgets, as well as analyze pertinent campaign data. There are 5 different formats available to help assist.

If you’ve used other social platforms in the past you may be aware that some of the algorithms are constantly changing, which can be frustrating, and they don’t often listen to what their users actually like and dislike.

TikTok is known for listening to the feedback it receives. When certain features or trends are ‘liked’, the app can create new editing features and effects allowing users to create similar content easier.

The inverse is also true, when a new feature releases only negative feedback, the platform swiftly adjusts to its user’s liking.

If you decide to use TikTok as a strategy for your business in 2022, your digital marketing ability could have the potential to multiply significantly simply based on these factors.

The Benefits of TikTok for Business

Now that you know a bit more about the TikTok app, and who uses it you may decide to test it for your business. The next thing you want to do is understand exactly what you want your brand to get out of the platform.

Here are 8 reasons and ideas to think about that will help narrow down your goals and reasons for using TikTok for business:

1. Grow Brand/Business Awareness
2. Educate Target Audience
3. Increase Website Clicks
4. Increase Leads & Prospects
5. Target Future Clients or Customers
6. Grow Conversions
7. Increase Your Audience Reach
8. Engage With Potential Employees

If you decide to use TikTok for business there’s even an option to design a branded challenge and invite popular creators on the app to participate. If it goes viral then that generates even more publicity for your business as more people share it and it becomes popular with the masses.

Types of TikTok Ads for Business

In-feed ads appear on a user’s For You page. With in-feed ads for example; Tiktok advertisers can use these ads to drive more conversions by adding CTAs to the videos.

Top View ads are the prime product offering for TikTok for business. These video ads appear once per day once a user launches the app. They can last up to 60 seconds and are perfect for businesses that need increased time to showcase their product.

Hashtag challenges let businesses invite the user community to create content around a particular TikTok challenge. Hashtag challenges run for 6 days and have exclusive access to the hashtag unlike any other social media network.

Brand takeover ads provide a powerful visual impact display for your business. Advertisers can use a GIF or a 3-5 second video for the ad as well as static displays. Along with a link to your business’s website.

Branded effect ads allow businesses to use AR (augmented reality), along with 2D or 3D effects to add images of their products to their videos. These branded effects have been shown to increase user engagement across the board.

Conclusion

Although TikTok is predominantly for a youthful demographic, things are changing. There are more Gen-Xers on the app now more than ever. TikTok for business is definitely a vital and growing force to consider for your business to connect, engage with, and interact with particular members of your audience and make them more aware of your business.

TikTok Statistics

• TikTok active users: TikTok has 1 billion monthly active users.
• Market penetration: There are 4.8 billion internet users, 20.83% use ByteDance’s video sharing service.
• Number of downloads: TikTok has been downloaded 3 billion times and was the most downloaded non-game app in the first 6 months of 2021, hitting 383 million installs from January to June 2021 alone.
• Overtaking competition: Considering it was only released in 2016, TikTok was the 7th ranked social media app in 2021. TikTok has surpassed Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, Pinterest, and Snapchat in monthly active users.
• Company valuation: TikTok’s parent company (Bytedance) reportedly reached a valuation of $280 billion in August 2021.
• User growth rate: TikTok’s had a 1157.76% increase in its global userbase between Jan 2018 and July 2020; the U.S. saw a 787.86% user growth rate in the same period. India is the most significant contributor to TikTok installs, with 611 million downloads to date.
• Engagement: TikTok is the most engaging social media app, with an average session length of 10.85 minutes, double Pinterest at rank #2 with 50.6 minutes. In 2019, the time spent on TikTok was a mammoth 68 billion hours.
• Influencer earnings: TikTok creators have up to 100 million followers and earn up to $5 million a year. Popular categories for content are entertainment, dance, pranks, fitness/sports, and DIY.
• S. Market penetration: Monthly U.S. TikTok users have now passed 100 million, equaling 37.36% of America’s 267.6 million mobile internet users, an 800% increase in 20 months.
• S. Demographics: TikTok’s generation Z penetration is highest in America. 47.4% of their active users aged between 10 and 29. However, American adults using TikTok grew 5.5 times in the last 18 months, with a 2:1 female to male gender ratio.
• S. average time on the app: Americans 18 and over are estimated to have spent 1.43 billion hours on TikTok in March 2020.

Resources: Backlinko.com, TheVerge.com, SocialMediaExaminer.com

The post 8 Valuable Reasons to Use TikTok for Business in 2022 appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Basic Setup

The setup is quite simple; when creating a new campaign, make sure to select either “Traffic” or “Conversions” as the campaign objective. You will go through the initial setup of the campaign and ad group-level targeting before reaching the ad-level section of setup, which is where the call extension option is available.

You will see a checkbox underneath the optional Display Link field and above the Call to Action field, as shown below. Once the box is selected, a field to enter your business phone number will appear.

If it makes sense for your business to only run call extension ads during business hours, there is an option to edit Ad Scheduling at the campaign level as well.

How Call Extensions Work

When someone clicks on your ad (on a mobile device), the new call extension will appear as a button at the bottom of the landing page. This differs from call ads where users are directly calling your business from the Facebook ad. Call extensions allow users to read more about your product or service on the ad’s landing page prior to contacting your business.

Call extensions only serve to users on mobile, and placement is limited to the Facebook News Feed. Your ad may still serve on other placements; however, the call extension will not be included.

To learn more about this new feature or advertising on Facebook, please reach out to your Client Strategist or contact us today.

The post Track More Conversions with New Facebook Call Extensions appeared first on MoreVisibility.

NFTs seemingly appeared out of nowhere in March of 2021 when a digital artist sold a collage of 5,000 images at a major auction house for close to $70 million. The record sale also sparked huge interest in these digital certificates of authenticity known as NFTs. As a web designer and artist, I’ve asked myself, “What do NFTs mean for me and the businesses I work with?” Let’s begin with a definition.

What Are NFTs?

If something is fungible, it is interchanged with other goods or assets of the same type. A typical example would be a dollar bill. That bill can be swapped for goods, services, or another currency of equal value. If you happened to have had a dollar bill signed by Andy Warhol, it becomes a unique product with a unique value (non-fungible). Also, like any investment, the value of that bill can increase or decrease in the future.

NFTs are digital assets like bitcoin, only they’re unique and irreplaceable, like owning an original work of art online. They utilize the same authentification technology as cryptocurrency and, similar to the digital currency, are still indefinable in their uses. While some NFTs hold monetary value, others link owners to communities, are in the form of audio, or can even be worn digitally.

Most importantly, NFTs enable creatives to reach wider audiences. Anyone with access to the internet can create, find, and trade NFTs. So, what if it could help businesses do the same?

How Are Brands Using NFTs in Marketing?

It all started with Taco Bell incorporating NFTs into their marketing strategy. Earlier this year, Taco Bell sold a small collection of taco themed digital art. All 25 unique pieces sold out within 30 minutes. The proceeds went directly to their Live Más Scholarship, which increased Taco Bell’s brand awareness and supported a good cause at the same time.

Since then, Twitter, CNN News, UNO, and Campbell’s are just a few of the many brands that have leaped into the ever-popularizing market, with more joining them by the day. Because of the interest they’ve generated all over the world in the last few months, these digital collectibles have given companies a new way to tell stories and interact with consumers. Additionally, with NFTs in their infancy, the opportunities for use in a brand’s digital marketing strategy are endless.

However, NFTs aren’t all reward and no risk. An NFT’s success relies heavily on the community to create the publicity and traction for a successful project. For new and smaller NFTs that don’t have publicity from a well-known source, this community is crucial as it usually provides the initial funding and hype for the project’s launch. If the community isn’t large enough, the project might not reach the recognition it needs to have a competitive demand.

The Future of NFTs

Some of the reasons why NFTs are so important for brands and corporations are because they can create new, memorable experiences for their consumers, reach new audiences, and offer a new way to engage in the digital space. Yes, they’re still new and their practical use may seem limited. However, people love them and are willing to spend on them. That is proof enough that NFTs are here to stay.

If your brand can afford the risk, has overlapping audiences, and wants to test new digital marketing strategies, we recommend incorporating NFTs into your marketing strategy. With the help of NFTs, your company can increase brand awareness, encourage customer interaction, create unique experiences for your consumers, and generate more interest in your business and its solutions.

The post NFT Art: What Is It, How It Works, and What It Means for Your Business appeared first on MoreVisibility.

QR codes, abbreviated for Quick Response, are two-dimensional barcodes that are readable by smart devices. They are commonly found on, but not limited to, packaging, business cards, restaurant menus, or print ads.

The idea behind QR codes is to bring offline customers online by having them pull out their smart device, scan the barcode, and be directed to online content. That online content could be a website, landing page, social media profile, or payment option, among others.

Years ago, Inc’s research found that an astounding 97% of consumers didn’t know what a QR code was. In addition, many were unsure of which app to use to read a QR code, or how to search for an app to read one. Put simply, the problem was that QR codes never were as rewarding or straightforward as they may have sounded. That is until recently.

Fast forward to the current pandemic and the need for touchless solutions in our socially distanced society, the QR code is experiencing an unexpected, but appreciated revival. The need for a touchless world—along with mobile technology finally allowing QR codes to be scanned directly through the camera app—has called the once-detested QR code back into daily use, and it’s important for marketers to take note.

Some of the many uses for QR codes I’ve seen recently have been restaurants, bars, and pubs exchanging their menus for laminated flyers of the QR code to protect their staff and customers. Grocery stores have also adopted new ways to pay by using QR codes to reduce the risk of human-to-human infection. The healthcare sector is also implementing QR codes to collect patient data through touchless forms and to allow for easy patient checkout.

Essentially, whether someone’s dining out or purchasing their weeks’ worth of groceries, they may very well be interacting with that business by using QR codes. For marketers wanting to get potential customers to a webpage or to a signup form quickly, QR codes make perfect sense due to their quickness and simplicity of use. So what are you waiting for? Your next customer could be just a scan away.

If you want to (re)enter the QR code market for your business, contact the experts at MoreVisibility.

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Why is there so much buzz around advertising on this platform? Marketers love TikTok for the sole reason of being able to connect creatively with the younger generation. Since each video is so quick (15 to 60 seconds) they can keep engagement levels extremely high, which is even more impressive given the predominant age on the app. Users are drawn into this app and are highly engaged, both creating their own “TikTok’s” as well as watching other users’ content.

Since it is a younger audience, many ads on TikTok are much more informal in nature and advertisers typically do not have as large ad budgets here as on other channels. There are many ways to advertise on the platform including hashtag challenges and running banners within the app’s homepage. Another key benefit is that the app is still new so not as saturated with advertisers as Instagram or Facebook. This leaves opportunity for those who are quick to act or willing to test.

One example of a successful TikTok ad campaign is the World Health Organization (WHO). They were able to reach a targeted (young) audience to spread their safety messages around Covid-19 by creating ads on TikTok – targeting almost 3 million followers. There are many creative ways to leverage Tiktok for a variety of brands, but obviously given the primary audience being targeted, it may not be right for every organization.

The post The Rise of Tik Tok and its Advertising Potential appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Title

A well-written, keyword-targeted title helps YouTube, search engines and searchers understand the topic of your video. Every video should have a unique title that makes users want to click through, keeping it under 60 characters long.

Description

Use the first 130 characters to provide context about your video to people and search engines. You can go up to 5,000 characters so take advantage of this space, especially for lengthier videos where you have more detail to include.

Tags

Always include 5-8 tags that help categorize and describe your video. Use the keyword(s) you are targeting in the title and description, their synonyms, and perhaps a broader category.

Thumbnail

Most importantly, spend the time to create a well-designed thumbnail. Don’t settle for a pre-selected thumbnail when you upload your video…unless you find one that looks attractive on desktop and mobile and relates to the title and description of your video. Having a catchy thumbnail can set apart your video from other results and help boost click through rates for your videos.

While there are other factors that go into ranking video content, by tackling these core areas you will ensure that your video content has the foundation to rank in both Google and YouTube. If you want to get honest feedback about your current video strategy, please reach out to us at info@morevisibility.com.

The post Optimize Your Videos Like You Optimize Your Pages appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Facebook: Like, Love, Care, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry

LinkedIn: Like, Celebrate, Love, Insightful, Curious

Social Media platforms keep a close pulse on each other – we have seen a new feature, such as stories, start on one platform and soon rollout to others. These trends usually revolve around a more personal experience and ability to better track user behavior. Post Reactions are no different, so it shouldn’t be to surprising that Twitter has been testing them in certain regions of the world, most recently Turkey. 

While the change may be simple to the user, Twitter, like the platforms before them must still collect their own feedback and roll out the feature based on their protocol. Unlike a social media feature like stories, post reactions have the opportunity to be unique and personable for that platform’s users. Look at Facebook and LinkedIn for example, Facebook includes reactions such as care, sad, wow and angry – simplistic words chosen to fit all ages. Being a more professional, career-driven platform, LinkedIn allows users the chance to react with celebrate, insightful and curious. Twitter has test reactions such as funny, agree, disagree and interesting. While not finalized, we can likely assume Twitter will have its own unique channel reactions.  

Twitter would not be testing this feature if it was not proven successful on Facebook and LinkedIn. The benefits to the user include that more personal experience, allowing them to share more specific feelings towards posts, or tweets, they engage with. Twitter will also have the opportunity to collect user data in new categories based on the reactions of followers. Knowing that a user liked 15 tweets from sports broadcasters is useful marketing information. Knowing that a user agreed with 7 tweets from accounts who work at the same news source, and found 8 tweets about history of football is powerful marketing information. Twitter could also use tweet reactions for algorithm rankings or monitoring tweets that receive a rapid amount of negative reactions. 

Stay tuned for future tweet reaction tests and updates, as they could become permanent for your experience soon.

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Out of habit, my finger pressed down on my screen when I wanted to read a story that likely would take longer than 15 seconds. This is not needed anymore, yet it did take my brain a few attempts to create a new habit. Not feeling the pressure of consuming content in 15 seconds and/or pressing the screen to stop and read a story that includes a lot of copy makes the user experience much different, despite the minor technical change in the app. More than likely a user would skip a story if they realized the text was too long to consume quickly by letting the story continue to the next, now the user must take the action to move on to the next story.

This creates a better opportunity for content creators and advertisers to sell products and services to users, knowing they can include more details in one story post. Instagram ads that include static text with a video or .gif could see higher engagement as the user is able to digest the content more easily. A great example I saw was from a clothing company. The ad had copy above and below a t-shirt that was spinning 360 degrees on a floating hanger. Before the update, my eyes would go to the moving t-shirt where I would decide if it was cool enough to read more about it in the surrounding text, knowing my time was limited. However, this time I viewed the ad for well over 15 seconds, reading every word and looking at the t-shirt for multiple spins before moving on.

A downside to this update could be revealed in looking at how many of the story posts followers view from accounts who post often. The bar that used to exist at the top of the screen not only counted down the time left on the story, but it also let you know how many stories are upcoming from that account. With this removed, it will be interesting to see if users choose to swipe to the next account or if they tap and stay on the current account and view each story post.

Personally, I found after a few sessions on Instagram I was used to the update and overall, like it more than how it was before. This update puts more freedom in the hands of the user while also creating a better advertising experience.

The post Instagram Update: Take Your Time Viewing Stories appeared first on MoreVisibility.

• Digg
• Google+
• Foursquare
• Vine
• MySpace
• Club Penguin

Digg: 2004 – 2012

Digg started in 2004 with the purpose of allowing people to share, discover, and recommend content. Users could submit webpages to the community who would upvote (digg) or downvote (bury) content – a feature that sites like reddit emulated. The nail in the coffin was in 2010 when Digg did away with the cornerstone of what their platform was based on – the ability to “democratize” content. Although it lives on in name, in 2012 Digg was sold in 3 parts.

Google+: 2011 – 2019

Google+ was one of many Google’s unsuccessful iterations of a social network. In addition to providing users another social platform option, Google’s differentiator was that they incorporated the social “signals” gathered from Google+ into the ranking algorithm for organic search results. If users +1’d content, it would show user confidence which Google sees as important when delivering the ideal search results. The channel never gained enough traction and was finally shut down after it limped along for 8 years.

Other now-dead social channels owned by Google include but are not limited to Google Hangouts, Google Communities, Google Wave, Google Buzz, and Orkut.

Foursquare: 2009 – 2014

Foursquare built on the idea of helping people find restaurants, coffee shops, and more, based on user reviews and recommendations (e.g., Yelp). To this, they added the ability to “check in,” allowing for real-time location sharing. Location sharing presented a new opportunity for restaurants to target potential customers and on-site patrons with hyper-targeted offers. Foursquare was also one of the first apps to layer on gamification – allowing users to earn badges, trophies, etc. based on their engagement in the platform. The company was re-imagined (and died) in 2014 when they broke into 2 different apps: Foursquare and Swarm. Swarm would focus solely on check-ins and Facebook would center around reviews and recommendations (e.g., Yelp).

Foursquare still thrives in 2021 as a data giant whose technology is used by Uber, Twitter, Snapchat, and Apple Maps to name a few. They make this list because they are dead to consumers today.

Vine: 2012 – 2017

Tik Tok before there was Tik Tok, Vine launched in 2012 as a (short form) video-sharing social platform. Twitter bought Vine shortly after it launched and spent a few years trying to improve upon it. During this time, Instagram was acquired by Facebook and skyrocketed in popularity, and Snapchat was releasing new features to keep their users engaged. In 2016, Vine disabled uploads but let viewers keep watching and downloading content until it was permanently shut down the following year in 2017.

MySpace: 2003 – 2011

At one point, MySpace was the most popular social networking site in the world. It has always been a media platform at the core, with a social component baked in and one of the original “social networks” that gave way for Facebook and others. MySpace peaked in 2006 when they surpassed Google as the most visited website in the U.S. In 2009, however, Facebook overtook MySpace in unique users and it was downhill from there. They steadily lost users, and advertisers followed. In 2016 there was a hack where 360 million accounts were compromised but the deathblow was in 2019 when MySpace notified users that they accidentally deleted 12 years-worth of content 5 years ago and could not recover it. Monthly viewers dropped to 7 million.

Note that MySpace is not technically dead as they live on in other forms.

Club Penguin: 2005 – 2017

Club Penguin was one of the first social networks for kids. It was set in a virtual world and evolved into popular multiplayer game. Club Penguin was one of the first popular platforms that offered a paid membership option which gave you the chance to purchase virtual clothing, pets, etc. They grew active user accounts from 30 million in 2007 to 200 million in 2013. Even with ongoing theme updates and monthly penguin parties, Club Penguin just could not hold the attention of younger children and tweens. The tip of the iceberg was in 2017 when Club Penguin Island was released on mobile and desktop and was shut down just one year later in 2018. Club Penguin died because of their failure to compete with the explosion of apps that came into the market, aimed at younger kids and their parents.

With the growing number of social media platforms and evolution of longer-standing platforms, marketers must choose wisely where to invest resources and  interact with their intended audience. At MoreVisibility we help our clients develop and refine their social media strategy, establish guidelines for in-channel communications, and even manage day-to-day posts and comments.

For more information about our social media services, call us today at 561.620.9682 or request a complimentary consultation.

The post Social Media Is Dead to You if You Are One of These Networks appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Our approach at MoreVisibility is continuous professional development with our staff – including training from internal and external resources. That training is coupled with real-world, hands-on experience and expertise. Our specialists work with clients and within the channel and engine interfaces to craft and test strategies and optimize for the greatest ROAs possible. So, when LinkedIn launched its new certifications, our team was ready. And did they ever make the grade! Our Digital Advertising team members have earned certification in both LinkedIn Fundamentals and LinkedIn Marketing Strategy.

LinkedIn Fundamentals Certification

This qualification evaluates participants’ knowledge of:

• LinkedIn Ad Basics
• Creating, monitoring, and optimizing LinkedIn Campaigns
• How to use LinkedIn’s incredibly powerful Audience Targeting options
• Leveraging data to improve campaigns

LinkedIn Marketing Strategy Certification

This qualification focuses on more advanced components of LinkedIn advertising, like:

• Knowledge of “full-funnel” LinkedIn advertising techniques and tactics
• How to reach and engage audiences across the entire user journey
• Options and tactics for building Branding & Awareness
• How to drive qualified, cost-effective Leads via LinkedIn Ads

More details about these certifications are available on the LinkedIn Blog. MoreVisibility is so proud that in addition to being (as an agency) Google Ads Premier Partners and Google Marketing Platform certified for Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Data Studio, and Google Optimize, including team members individually certified across these platforms, that we can now count LinkedIn Ads Certifications among our teams’ achievements.

The post LinkedIn Ad Certifications: MoreVisibility Team Makes the Grade appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Our team of specialists help our clients with social media strategy, design, management, and advertising. For more information about our social media services, call us today at 561.620.9682 or request a complimentary consultation.

The post Six Long-Running Social Channels That Are Dead in 2021 appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Recently Gatorade launched a content marketing campaign on TikTok after selecting a group of athletes to make up the “Gatorade Social Squad.” The squad will be in charge of posting content from now until November on TikTok, The athletes were chosen based on age, personality and of course social influence (following). Will we see creative Gatorade showers post-game? Perhaps a Blue Fierce chugging competition? While the content is still a secret, what Gatorade and TikTok are creating is a blueprint the industry should take notice of, and study. Let’s examine further:

Submissions: Gatorade help “tryouts” for their social squad, receiving thousands of video submissions of athletes wanting to be chosen. Before the squad was assembled, Gatorade was already drawing buzz and engagement for free by asking players if they wanted to be involved. Sure, influencer relations are build on financial compensation – but the personal connection should never be underestimated. Gatorade doesn’t need athletes to tell us about the product or why we should drink it – they need players to get creative and make us laugh, smile and remember the product in ways we haven’t yet.

New Rules, New Opportunities: The NCAA has recently updated the rules to allow college players to profit from their name and personal brand. For those not close to college sports (especially football), this is a ‘game-changer.’ While Gatorade has not confirmed the athletes chosen, nor discussed any connection to the new NCAA regulations – a keen digital marketer and sports fan can connect the dots. The desire for collegiate athletes to create a personal brand and make a profit makes it even easier for a brand like Gatorade to engage with athletes and have the ideas be brought to them.

Content Creation: Having a template for influencers to follow can work very well. This time, Gatorade has increased its chances of success by taking the limitations off their content creators. Knowing your influencers and your audience is key – Gatorade is a brand that transcends too many sports and too many diverse fan groups around the world to have strict content guidelines. The chosen influencers will be organic and use the skills that get them a large following to make sure the content is not forced, but relatable. 

Channel Selection: The TikTok craze is not new, the social platform has been top-of-mind for marketers in the recent years as the user base and engagement rates increase. TikTok advertising is still an infant compared to other social giants like Facebook for example. TikTok benefits by taking on large brands and advertising dollars while Gatorade promotes fans to their platform and influencers. I have heard compelling arguments for and against channel-specific content campaigns – I personally am a fan.

If you are a brand looking to increase engagement and track content back to ROI, look into using influencers similar to how Gatorade will. Understanding an influencers’ true appeal to their following is the key to creating the correct strategy.

The post Gatorade & TikTok Make a Content Marketing ‘Splash’ appeared first on MoreVisibility.

It’s no wonder that a social platform centered around highly engaging user-generated video content (I can personally scroll through #cleantok videos for hours) is experiencing such a large increase in consumption. As TikTok advertising capabilities become more and more sophisticated, brands both large and small can take advantage of this hyper engaged audience.

Since introducing TikTok For Business in June of 2020, many new capabilities have been rolled out to further refine targeting. One example of a major change that was introduced earlier this year is the ability to geotarget at the DMA level within the United States. Previously, advertisers could only advertise as narrow as state-wide. This change allows for local businesses to get in front of potential customers who have historically only seen national and international brands advertising on the platform.

Outside of the narrow geotargeting capabilities, a key selling point for TikTok advertising is the ability to target users as young as age 13 in conjunction with interest and / or behavior targeting. Interests range from travel to pets to beauty / personal care, and beyond (not only are these interests great for teens and adolescents, but to reach adult demographics as well). With the recent news of Facebook limiting advertiser’s options on how they can target users under the age of 18, advertisers may need to turn to different channels in order to get in front of their younger target audience.

Another great tool available within the platform is the ability to create custom audience lists. This includes uploading lists of contacts (current customers or prospect database lists) and remarketing to users already familiar with your brand (website remarketing, those who have downloaded your app, or have previously engaged with your TikTok ads). This allows for very narrow targeting that could keep costs relatively low while seeing high engagement. In addition, there is an ability to create lookalike audiences of these segments to further expand reach and find new potential customers. If the interest targeting available in the platform is just too broad to reach your target audience, uploading a list of contacts and utilizing lookalikes may be a good fit for your brand.

TikTok has proven itself as a relevant social channel in the game that is here to stay for the foreseeable future. To learn more about the requirements and benefits of advertising on TikTok, please reach out to your client strategist or contact us today.

The post TikTok Advertising 101 appeared first on MoreVisibility.

In March 2021, YouTube started testing an updated version of their “Products in this Video” feature, which gave users linkouts to pages where they can purchase the products they saw in the video. This new layer seems to be more focused on engaging users with more information and relatable videos about the products in the videos they watched, versus taking them immediately offsite to potential complete a purchase.

Here is a statement from YouTube:

“We are experimenting with a new feature that displays a list of products detected in some videos, as well as related products. The feature will appear in between the recommended videos, to viewers scrolling below the video player.”

The idea is to show users the products in the video in a list format right below the YouTube players where the video description can be found. Users will then have the option to click out to another site if they are interested or continue watching more videos with these same products featured. Basically, YouTube is adding a layer of engagement to give users the option to stay within their platform and watch more content on products they appear to be interested in, or if they are sold, go right to the page to purchase. We already experience this in a very similar fashion when YouTube’s algorithm presents us with “more videos you might like,” taking into consideration your search history and engagement with the videos you watched.

YouTube hasn’t specified what platforms this will be available upon, only stating that it “will be visible to people watching videos in the US.” Digital marketers should be conscious of this update. If this becomes a new norm for the platform, products for e-commerce brands will be much more visible to users without them searching further – having clear and engaging videos for the YouTube algorithm to detect is very important. If you have not evaluated your YouTube channel strategy in some time, this new test may be a good reason to start. Future impacts on digital advertising within YouTube may also be a consideration – if the search engine is making products more accessible and efficient for users to purchase without running paid campaigns, YouTube strategy could significantly shift to boost organic engagement. Video ROI and YouTube will continue to grow and expand how users can identify and purchase desired products.

The post YouTube Will Test Auto-Detecting Products in Video appeared first on MoreVisibility.

1. Young people (under 16) will be defaulted into private accounts
2. Making it more difficult for accounts that are potentially suspicious to find young people
3. Limiting advertiser’s options on how they can reach young people (under 18) with ads.

This change is just one example of how Facebook is “building for the next era of personalized experiences.” People’s privacy expectations have changed, and Facebook is working towards new ways for businesses to reach customers while giving consumers greater transparency and control in how their personal information is used.

What will change on August 23, 2021?

Advertisers are currently able to target young people using a combination of age and interest or behavior-based targeting. This change will limit targeting to people under 18 to age, gender and location. These changes will be global and applied to Facebook, Instagram as well as Messenger.

What does this mean for advertisers currently targeting users under 18 through Facebook?

Ad sets that use these targeting options for reaching young people may see a decrease in audience sizes or potential reach. If you have an audience targeting an age range that includes users below and above the age of 18, it’s recommended that you split the audiences into two separate ad sets or campaigns to keep enhanced targeting for users 18+.

How else can you reach the under 18 audience?

Consider using different channels if you need to reach that under 18 audience. Snapchat and TikTok are both fantastic options. Both provide the ability to advertise to that younger audience with additional targeting layers such as interest or behaviors.

If you are a MoreVisibility client and would like more information about advertising to the under 18 audience, contact your Client Strategist. If you are not a MoreVisibility client and would like additional information, please contact the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Facebook to Change How Businesses Can Advertise to Young People appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Facebook Analytics provides reports about your website, mobile app, and your Facebook or Instagram profile if applicable. These reports as well as any custom reports you created in the interface are being removed.

Facebook Analytics is retiring as part of an initiative to consolidate business tools. Even though it is going away, there are still additional tools within the Facebook platform that can be utilized to help you understand your activities or advertising efforts on both Facebook and Instagram.

Additional tools that are available like Facebook Business Suite can provide you with detailed insights about your audience, content, and trends but it may not be available to everyone at the moment. Ads Manager will still allow you to view, edit, and see the results of your ad campaigns and Events Manager can provide you with pixel data and conversion information about actions that have taken place on your website or in a physical location. The Insights section of your Facebook and Instagram profiles will remain after Facebook Analytics is removed, so you will still have that data to delve into as well.

One important reminder is that until June 30, 2021 you still have the ability to export/ download your data before it is removed from the Facebook Analytics platform. This data can be exported by clicking the arrow in the top right corner of each chart or table in the Facebook Analytics platform.

At MoreVisibility we have a proprietary reporting platform that will collect your Facebook/ Instagram campaign data and provided it to you in real-time. To see how MoreVisibility can help with your advertising campaigns or Google Analytics please reach out to us at 561-620-9682 or fill out our Contact Form here: https://www.morevisibility.com/contact-us/

The post Facebook Analytics Is Being Removed appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Once you join Clubhouse, you can enter different “rooms” to listen (and participate) in a variety of conversations. There is a room for anything you can think of,  being led by people from all backgrounds and geographies (the app was recently blocked in China). Of course, users can also start a room too. The size of rooms can range from intimate to thousands of people.

Clubhouse will suggest different topics and rooms based on your interests or who you “follow”. The below image is an example from the app for suggested upcoming events.

If you click into any of the suggested rooms, more details including the speakers will appear as shown below, plus the options to share in our out of the app, tweet and add to your calendar are offered.

It’s very easy to pop in and out of rooms, connect with other like-minded folks in the same room, or identify new rooms based on Clubhouse’s suggestions. The overall vibe seems informal and tends to feel a bit party-like, although there are certainly many entrepreneurs, tech leaders and business aficionados joining in or leading rooms.

Both Facebook and Twitter have strongly hinted at developing similar or competing products within their platforms, likely given the immediate popularity once Clubhouse hit the market. However, do individuals have the bandwidth to tackle another social media platform? This one is a bit easier in that if you are a speaker in a room for live conversation the dialogue can run in the background while multitasking, but that still requires time. Which for many of us, is a scarce and precious commodity.

The post Clubhouse – Have You Joined the Party? appeared first on MoreVisibility.

New Features

Keeping in line with their goal to simplify the Pages experience, the new updates focus on making it easier to manage your Page and connect with your community. Here’s what’s new:

• Redesigned layout that’s simpler and more intuitive
• Dedicated News Feed to discover and join conversations, follow trends, interact with peers and engage with fans
• Easy navigation between personal profile and Pages
• Updated task-based admin controls giving trusted Page admins full control or partial access
• Actionable insights and more relevant notifications
• Safety and integrity features to detect spammy content and impersonator accounts

Likely the most notable change is the removal of likes and a focus on Followers. Facebook supported the change saying that the Followers of a Page are a stronger indication of a creator’s fanbase, as they represent the people who can receive updates from Pages.

What The Changes Mean For Your Social Strategy

The new Pages updates will not change your existing content, ads and campaigns, or permissions. However, this does not mean you shouldn’t rethink your social strategy. We’ve assembled a couple of changes you should consider making to your social strategy:

1. Update Metrics and Goals
   With the removal of likes, it will be important to make changes to the social metrics and goals you are tracking. If you had a goal to increase your Page Likes in 2021, you’ll have to consider another goal or simply change to a focus on increasing followers.

   It will also be important to consider the way you interpret historical data at the end of 2021. If you typically track changes in Page Likes year over year, be sure your 2021 analysis focuses on other metrics as Page Likes will no longer be relevant.

2. Delegate New Administrative Permissions
   Facebook has added new Page management features that allow you to clearly assign and manage admin access permissions based on specific tasks. For example, you can now grant different levels of access to manage specific tasks including, Ads, Content, Insights, and Community Activity & Messages.

   If your Page is managed by a team, be sure to think about how you will delegate the new permissions. The new permissions help to ensure account safety and integrity, so consider making these changes.

3. Make Conversations a Focus
   Your new social strategy should integrate new ways to engage with your followers and favorite influencers. Facebook’s new dedicated news feed for Pages will allow your page to discover and join conversations, follow trends, interact with peers and engage with fans. The updated News Feed will even suggest new connections, such as other public figures, Pages, Groups and trending content that a Page or public figure cares about.

If your strategy revolves solely around posting, and you don’t regularly comment and engage in conversations, now’s the time to consider changing that, if it fits within your social strategy.

Why? First, with the new update, your Page conversations will now be more visible to a wider audience and surfaced more frequently in your followers’ news feeds. Second, any comments you make as a Page will be bumped to the top of the comments section for those people who follow your Page. And finally, people will now also be able to follow your Page directly from your comments. Consider creating and engaging in conversations to capitalize on these new opportunities to increase your visibility and follower base.

Conclusion

The new Facebook Pages Experience brings forth many new changes, so it is important to rethink your social strategy going into 2021 and onward. Be sure to reevaluate your goals and engagement strategies to capitalize on new opportunities for growth on this platform.

The post The New Facebook Pages Experience: What it Means and How to Adapt appeared first on MoreVisibility.

So, what does this mean for advertisers and organic content creators? Relevant post captions now become more important than ever to increase visibility of posts for keywords that users may be searching for. While the exact “ranking” for keywords within Instagram depends on a variety of factors, the keywords and phrases mentioned within your post caption serve as one of the top indicators of relevancy.

Other factors that determine whether a keyword search may be matched to a particular Instagram post are the date posted (recency) and the type of content. Additionally, Instagram notes that searches will be “limited to general interest topics and keywords that are within Instagram’s community guidelines.” It is important to keep in mind that not all keywords will yield search results, such as those pertaining to political or controversial topics.

While keyword search is a brand new feature for Instagram (and likely to experience adjustments over time), it is another factor for content creators to take into consideration. As time goes on, we will learn more about the functionality and larger role that keyword search will play in an overarching Instagram content strategy.

To learn more about content strategy opportunities, please contact the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Keyword Search Now Available on Instagram appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Thankfully, YouTube sends an email to their users when they make updates to their terms of service. However, many people often do not read these emails because the changes are rarely of any consequence. For example, one prior update was to “improve readability and transparency” by making changes to the T.O.S language so that “Terms that are clearer and easier to understand with useful links to help you navigate YouTube and better understand our policies.” That is not exactly earth shattering, is it?

However, last night, YouTube announced several T.O.S. updates, and one stands out as potentially being very problematic for those who publish content to YouTube. They announced the following:

“YouTube’s right to monetize: YouTube has the right to monetize all content on the platform and ads may appear on videos from channels not in the YouTube Partner Program.”

This simple statement can have huge consequences if you publish videos to YouTube. They did provide additional detail in the YouTube help documentation on these updates which is even more concerning. I have included the full language of the updates at the end of this blog post, but I’ll summarize the main key points and concerns here:

1. YouTube T.O.S. Update: “You grant to YouTube the right to monetize your Content on the Service (and such monetization may include displaying ads on or within Content or charging users a fee for access). This Agreement does not entitle you to any payments.”
   1. MoreVisibility’s Take: Starting yesterday, if you have uploaded any videos to YouTube, they will now be able to show advertisements within your videos, even if you have not opted into the YouTube Partner Program. Previously, you could try to avoid this scenario. Oh, and unless you sign up for the Partner Program, you will not receive any compensation from these ads. This could result in problematic scenarios where ads are run on your videos that you do not approve of (but will not have any say over). Worst-case scenarios could include:
      1. Ads run on your videos from organizations that do not align with your brand safety standards: YouTube has run into many issues with advertisers who do not want their ads run on unsavory YouTube channels (for good reason). The latest T.O.S. updates could result in the opposite issue with those unsavory brands running ads on your videos. If you are advertising on YouTube, you have some control over where your videos are shown. However, now, if you publish videos on YouTube, it does not appear that you will have any control over what ads are run on your videos.
      2. Competitor ads run on your videos: Imagine a potential prospect or customer is watching one of your videos, and they are interrupted with an ad from a competing product or organization. In a worst-case scenario, they could leave your video and click off to that competing organizations website. Additionally, if you are using YouTube to host videos and embed them on your website, this could potentially lead to you advertising for competitors directly on your website.
      3. Lower video engagement: We all know that certain ads can be very disruptive and abrasive. If a potential customer or prospect is watching your video and an ad appears that is abrasive, unsavory, or just too long and boring, they may leave the video. Ultimately, this could decrease engagement with and watch time of your videos.
2. YouTube T.O.S. Update: “We also updated the Terms of Service to mention that any payments from YouTube to U.S. creators will be considered “royalties” from a U.S. tax perspective, effective today November 18, 2020. Some creators may be required to submit tax information in AdSense and may be subject to U.S. withholding taxes if required by law. U.S. creators will be generally unaffected by these withholding taxes as long as they provide valid documentation. If you have further questions, you may want to seek professional tax advice.”
   1. MoreVisibility’s Take: This is likely to be less impactful, but YouTube is updating the way they handle payments for ads that appear on your channel if you are part of the partner program. As they note, if this applies to you (only if you are part of the Partner Program), it may have tax implications for you and require additional information to be provided to YouTube.

At the end of the day, it appears that YouTube needs more ad inventory that they can monetize and are pushing to great lengths to get it. With online video usage skyrocketing due to changes in online behavior related to the current pandemic, YouTube may be trying to provide additional inventory to advertisers. However, that inventory may come at the expense of your audience and potential customers or prospects (without you even opting into it).

This change is likely to result in a lot of negative sentiment and feedback to YouTube. We will keep an eye out for future changes, but whether they will modify this policy or not is yet to be seen. In the interim, we recommend:

1. Assessing the video hosting and player solution used on your website. If you are using YouTube to embed your own videos, now is the time to start vetting options and weighing the pros and cons.
2. Having discussions about your comfort level with the different scenarios that may present themselves regarding ads appearing on your YouTube videos.
3. Considering the YouTube Partner Program and whether it is the right program for your organization or not.

If you have additional questions about how these updates may impact your digital marketing strategy, you can reach us at info@morevisibility.com.

YouTube’s Full Update to their Terms of Service on 11/18/20 Regarding Monetization

New section:
Right to Monetize
You grant to YouTube the right to monetize your Content on the Service (and such monetization may include displaying ads on or within Content or charging users a fee for access). This Agreement does not entitle you to any payments. Starting November 18, 2020, any payments you may be entitled to receive from YouTube under any other agreement between you and YouTube (including for example payments ​under the YouTube Partner Program, Channel memberships or Super Chat) will be treated as royalties.  If required by law, Google will withhold taxes from such payments.

What changed: We’ve added a new section to our Terms of Service: “Right to Monetize” containing two updates.

What this means:

• For channels not yet in the YouTube Partner Program:We added this new section to let you know that, starting today we’ll begin slowly rolling out ads on a limited number of videos from channels not in YPP. This means as a creator that’s not in YPP, you may see ads on some of your videos. Since you’re not currently in YPP, you won’t receive a share of the revenue from these ads, though you’ll still have the opportunity to apply for YPP as you normally would once you meet the eligibility requirements. You can always check your progress toward eligibility on the monetization tab in YouTube Studio.
• For monetizing creators in the U.S.:We also updated the Terms of Service to mention that any payments from YouTube to U.S. creators will be considered “royalties” from a U.S. tax perspective, effective today November 18, 2020. Some creators may be required to submit tax information in AdSense and may be subject to U.S. withholding taxes if required by law. U.S. creators will be generally unaffected by these withholding taxes as long as they provide valid documentation. If you have further questions, you may want to seek professional tax advice.

The post Concerning YouTube Monetization Updates & Terms of Service Changes appeared first on MoreVisibility.

One of particular interest, is the introduction of STORIES. Similar to many other social networks, LinkedIn Stories allows you to post photos and videos that vanish in 24 hours.  This feature is available just within the App and currently only appears to be for Premium members. In the next few days it should roll out to everyone.  You will know you have access once the circles appear horizontally on the very top of your App interface, like shown in my view below.

Once you obtain the feature in your App (make sure you are using the latest version and reboot phone), to post a Story on your profile, touch the circle with your photo and a plus sign in the upper left corner to open the camera.

Options available include:
✔ Record video or take a photo directly through the app
✔ Upload video (up to 20 seconds) or an image
✔ Add a sticker and / or text
✔ Mention users with “@”

It will be interesting to figure out creative ways to use this new feature, particularly given the professional setting. As LinkedIn is usually focused on someone’s business network, the familiarity and uses of Stories on Facebook and Instagram likely won’t apply or be meaningful.

Below are some initial posts using Stories on LinkedIn:

Please send me a LinkedIn connection request, so we can network and I can view your “Stories”.   Below was my first one:

The post LinkedIn Updates – New UI and Introduction of Stories appeared first on MoreVisibility.

The ads show up in your message box within LinkedIn. What’s new and interesting is the way that you’re able to engage with the targeted user when they are actually live on LinkedIn. What makes these ads unique is that they feature a “choose your own path” experience, allowing businesses to create full-funnel campaigns with multiple customized CTAs. The expectation is that it will favorably impact conversion rates.

You are able to target any user on the platform for the purposes of reaching out to them in the same way that you are with a lead gen ad or a sponsored content ad. However, the new Conversation Ads are coming from an individual (hopefully) with an engaging profile, that synchs up industry-wise and in terms of the desired action that you want from the user.

From a reporting perspective, you would see the engagement reporting that we’re used to, including clicks, impressions and what that they’re clicking through on within the within the conversation.

This is an exciting new opportunity we’re testing with clients and anticipate it will become a valuable channel for B-B marketers.

For more insights on Conversations Ads, please read Danielle Leitch’s article in this month’s newsletter.

The post A New Tactic to Consider: LinkedIn Conversation Ads appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Well, now the time has come with the release of Instagram Reels.

Instagram Reels has been rolling out in other countries, and has proven to generate increased engagement with various accounts. With big name brands like Sephora France and Luis Vuitton getting a head start, it will be interesting to see what the future holds now that it is available in the U.S.

What features can you expect on Reels?

• Audio: This can be selected from music within the app, your own creation, or using another public profile’s sound.
• AR Effects: These add a little personality and dimension to your clips.
• Timer and Countdown: To easily start and record your videos.
• Alignment: This is a big one, to help ensure seamless transitions for those quick shots that all come together.
• Speed: Who doesn’t love a featured slow motion section?

Engaging your audience with unique content is so important to helping build your brand awareness. Here are some examples of how to use Reels to your business’s advantage.

• Creating authentic content
  • This is where it all starts, what can your brand offer that will resonate with your audience? This is another chance to show even more personality with easy to use features like special effects, and be discovered by hashtags. It is perfect for showcasing those Instagram worthy moments in snack sized video form.
• Sharing educational content
  • If your marketing objectives are to promote more informational resources, Reels can help share your message in short clips. Many have already created content like meal prepping, recipes, workouts and more.
• Previewing and reviewing products
  • Have you seen those fun clips where the angle shows a shot of the product in a browser online, and then looks like it pops out of the screen? This is a great opportunity to do just that and test other creative ways to promote new products.

One of the biggest benefits that Reels provides is the option for users to remain within the Instagram platform to create and view the same type of content that TikTok can. Based on the popularity Instagram had with the introduction of Stories back in 2016, there is little doubt that this new functionality will have a monumental impact on social media.

Here is the next big question… What can we expect for advertising?

The only metrics available currently from an organic post perspective are view count, likes, and comments. However, we do expect there to be advertising opportunities soon that would appear between Reel videos natively, just as Instagram Story Ads do. An added bonus is that this ad format would help combat ad fatigue with yet another way to get in front of your target audience on the Instagram platform.

Wondering if Reels is right for your marketing strategy? Like any good marketer would do, spend some time on the app to conduct some research! To help you decide how you can use this format to your advantage, browse through some of the new Reels videos on the Explore page to gain a better understanding of what creative content is being output by similar brands.

The post Introducing Instagram Reels appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Whether your brand is an active content creator and/or you just want to reach a highly targeted B2B or B2C audience, YouTube’s advertising options are rife with opportunities to achieve your business’s goals without the need for a professional degree in film. Learn how with Google and MoreVisibility on Tuesday, August 18 at 1 p.m. ET. During this dynamic webinar we will explore:

• Options to reach prospective customers and clients at each stage of their journey on this platform
• Key performance indicators to measure success from video ads
• Selecting the right ad format for your business goals
• And more

Register today for YouTube: How to Reach Your Business Goals.

The post YouTube: How To Achieve Your Business Goals appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Given the rise in live chronicling, particularly during the past 3 months in quarantine due to COVID-19 and more recently within the U.S. during community protests, Twitter looks to stay competitive with other content-sharing platforms. These recordings can be up to 140 seconds long (that’s long for listening to, if not compelling content and a strong speaker), although if you go over this limit the platform will automatically populate another tweet in the thread for continuation. There is the ability to add text in the tweet, shown in the final product which is in the above image to the far right.

While there are some valuable reasons or scenarios to support the introduction of Voice Tweets, it does break away from Twitters original platform intent. Those speakers who can effectively deliver an engaging audio message in under two minutes, may find this new Twitter feature a valuable opportunity. (thinking TV journalists will love this!) Others, well ….. There could be a whole lot of rambling in the future feeds.

The post Twitter Goes Vocal appeared first on MoreVisibility.

How to Schedule Tweets on Twitter

Tweets can now be scheduled through a few simple steps.

First, compose your tweet. Then, select the calendar icon as shown below.

In the pop-up window, you can specify the exact date and time you would like the tweet to go out.

In addition, from this window you can view a list of all scheduled tweets and make any adjustments if needed by clicking on the tweet.

Twitter.com’s New Draft Feature

Alongside the scheduled tweets feature, users now have the ability to save drafts in the web based version of Twitter

To save a draft of a Tweet via Twitter.com, compose your tweet and then click the ‘X’ button to close out of it. Twitter will ask if you want to save what you’ve composed or permanently delete it. If you choose to save a tweet as a draft, you can come back to it at any time and finish it. Tweet drafts can be accessed across platforms, which means you can save a draft on your mobile app and revisit it on web based Twitter.

Need Social Media Marketing help? Please contact MoreVisibility today to speak to one of our specialist.

The post Twitter Introduces A New Scheduling Feature appeared first on MoreVisibility.

This cash grant is for use on things like rent, salaries, advertising and operational expenses. It is not a Facebook credit – which is what Google Ads recently announced they would be offering to businesses who marketed with them in 2019.

The Facebook application requires several different pieces of information, which most business owners would have readily available. Once the application opens in your city, there is a two week window to submit.  At this point, Seattle, New York and San Francisco have all opened up – on April 22^nd all other locations will be available online to submit applications. Learn more and determine if you’re eligible.

The post Facebook Offering Grants to Small Businesses appeared first on MoreVisibility.

• Teaching at home? Becker’s School Supplies has great Home Teaching Tools.
• Or, if virtual school is done for the day and you want to get “crafty” check out their educational Activities & Crafts page.
• Need to get out the wiggles or have a stretch? Keep your whole family active and fit with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s 31 Day Exercise Challenge: http://31days.chop.edu/
• Mealtimes seem to creep up out of nowhere; why not get your kids involved? You can search for kid-friendly favorites and comfort foods on the Cusinart.com recipe page.
• Get recipes and online learning activities from the Dairy Council of California.

With kids, the old adage is true – the days are long (made longer, perhaps in times like these), but the years are short. We hope these resources provide some fun and levity to your families at this difficult time.

The post #WFH with Kids: Resources to Help appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Unlike Tweets, Twitter’s new Fleets can’t receive Likes, Replies or Retweets. However, much like Instagram’s Stories feature…

• Fleets appear at the top of users’ home page
• Users can only react to or send the person who posted content a direct message
• Fleets are based primarily on text, but videos, GIFs and photos can be added

In addition, Fleets won’t circulate Twitter’s network, show up in Search or Moments, and can’t be embedded on an external website, like Instagram’s Stories.

At launch, users were only able to post videos up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds in length (or 512MB), while some whitelisted publishers were able to publish videos up to 10 minutes. Twitter is giving the feature a trial run currently in Brazil only and based on these results, Fleets could become available for the rest of the platform’s users in the later-half of 2020.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing opportunities, please reach out to the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Twitter Is Testing Disappearing Posts Called ‘Fleets’ appeared first on MoreVisibility.

#1 Reach

Reach is the measurement of how many unique users have seen your post. It differs from impressions, which are the total number of post views, where multiple views may be from the same user. The objective of improving a brand’s reach is to increase brand awareness and the number of qualified users over time.

#2 Saves

About 3 years ago Instagram began to allow users to save posts that they wanted to revisit later. As the feature is becoming more popular, it is gaining importance as a metric for brands to track. This metric is valuable because it signals to the Instagram algorithm that users have a strong interest in the content being shared and that the posts should be shown to more people. By following user saves, brands can begin to identify the types of posts that generate the greatest number of saves and then moving forward, create similar posts.

#3 Sales

Instagram is continuously removing obstacles for brands that want to sell their products on Instagram. More importantly, Instagram is making it easier for users to shop their favorite brands. There are several ways Instagram allows users to shop, which include shoppable posts, Instagram Stories product stickers, checkout, and Shoppable AR filters.

To better track sales through Instagram, brands should utilize UTM parameters on any links used to drive sales. Check out the MoreVisibility’s Tagging Tool here for assistance.

#4 Engagement

Measuring user engagement with each post is important to the success of a brand’s Instagram marketing efforts because it indicates how well their audience is responding and connecting with the content being produced. Engagement types include likes, comments, and shares. Although the equation to measure engagement is debated, a reasonable starting point is below.

The take away: The higher the engagement rate, the more actively engaged your followers are and to keep producing the content you are producing now. On the other hand, if your brand has a lower engagement rate then the content being produced may not be resonating well with followers and there could be an opportunity to revisit the social strategy. If you are questioning your content strategy, contact the experts at MoreVisibility.

Other Considerations

Additional metrics to consider when optimizing your Instagram strategy are:

• Track the above metrics based on the posting time and identify the best time to post to make sure that you’re getting in front of your audience.
• Monitor Instagram story views to ensure content is resonating with followers and stories are being watched to completion.
• Analyze follower growth to determine if there are any significant spikes or drops after posts are made. It could indicate that users are interested or disinterested in certain post types.

The post Top 4 Instagram Metrics to Track Other Than Likes appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Wrong. Instagram has long passed being categorized as a niche social network and has become a social channel your business should be employing. If you haven’t yet, it’s time to set up your Instagram Business Profile.

First things first, if you don’t have a Facebook Business Page set up, you won’t be able to complete your Instagram Business Profile. Already have a Facebook Business Page? Then, let’s get started! Here’s a quick guide to help you set up your Instagram Business Profile.

Step #1: Download the Mobile App

Unlike most social channels available today, posting content on Instagram can only be done using the mobile app.

Step #2: Create an Account Using a Business Email Address

While it might seem easiest to use your personal Facebook account…you shouldn’t! That will create an account based on your individual Facebook page. Since this is for your business, you should use a business email address to create a new account.

Step #3: Choose a Username

Now it’s time to create a username and password. Since we are setting up Instagram for a company, the username should be the company’s name, or as close as you can get to it.

Step #4: Find Facebook Friends & Contacts

Next, the app will ask to find people to follow via Facebook and within your contacts. We recommend that you complete your account and have some content posted before you start following people, so it’s okay to click “skip” for now. Don’t worry this isn’t a limited time offer – Instagram gives you the opportunity to find Facebook friends at any time from your page settings.

Step #5: Select the Perfect Profile Picture

Your profile picture should be your logo or something recognizable that’s associated with your brand. Remember, this is your Instagram business account, not a personal page. Avoid using selfies or group pics. If you’re the face of your business, use a professional headshot. Once your profile picture is uploaded, you’ll be asked if you want to save your info. This will make future logins faster. So, opt to save.

Step #5: Complete Your Instagram Profile

Tap on the profile button on the bottom right to see your account, then tap on the “Edit Your Profile” button. This is where you complete your profile info.

When filling out the bio and contact information fields, keep the following in mind:

• This is the only place on Instagram that allows you to use a clickable URL. So, avoid posting a URL in the caption or comments of a post because people won’t be able to click it. Your profile is the only place you should put a URL – preferably one that directs people to your website, or the content being promoted.
• You’re limited by character count for your bio. Instagram’s character limit for a profile bio is 150 characters so you will need to briefly summarize what you do and where you’re located and let your content tell the rest of company’s story. Rest assured you can edit this section whenever you’d like if the perfect words aren’t coming to you right away.

Step #6: Switch Your Instagram to Business Profile

Click “Try Instagram for Business Tools” and follow the self-guided steps and instructions to complete your profile and take advantage of the tools offered.

Step #7: Link Your Facebook Business Page to Instagram

At the beginning of this guide, we mentioned you need a Facebook Business Page to be able to use the Instagram for Business tools. Here’s why. Instagram will ask you to link your business Facebook page or create one. As you may know, Facebook acquired Instagram a few years ago so there is more integration than ever with the two platforms.

Step #8: Post! Post! Post!

As we mentioned earlier, we recommend creating several strategic posts before you start following people. There isn’t much incentive for people to follow an account with no content. Find a couple of photos or images you think would be shareworthy and introduces your soon-to-be followers to your brand.

Step #9: Get Social & Get Your Follow On!

By this point you have a complete profile, a couple of posts and now it’s time to start following people. From your profile page (bottom right icon), go to the options page (gear in the upper right corner).

From here, there are two options near the top, under Follow People:

• Facebook Friends
• Contacts

Start following other accounts and commenting and engaging with their posts. This is how you get people to start following you back.

Step #10: Let the World Know

Once you’ve established your account, be sure the Instagram icon is on your website. It is a best practice to include it in your contact or about section, website footer and/or your email signature. You can also link to your Company’s LinkedIn page, YouTube page or any other channel that drives users to contact your company.

Need help with your jump starting you company’s social media advertising? Contact the Digital Marketing expert at MoreVisibility.

The post Instagram for Business: A Guide to Jump Start Your Business Profile appeared first on MoreVisibility.

#1 An Updated Video Uploader

The new video uploader allows brands to upload videos directly onto the platform, making it easier for brands to share video content.

#2 Dedicated Video Tab on Business Profiles

Once uploaded, the video tab allows brands to feature all of their video content in one central location. This tab will also allow users to locate all video content posted by a specific brand in one place.

#3 Video Analytics

As Pinterest notes, content (video and otherwise) within the platform constantly resurfaces based on user behavior and queries. Because of the dynamic nature of content within Pinterest, historically, it was difficult to accurately measure engagement. Pinterest has introduced new video analytics tools to measure lifetime views and allow brands to gain more valuable insights on the performance of video content.

#4 Pin Scheduler Tool

In addition to the above features, brands are also now able to schedule video content postings in advance.

Pinterest notes that these updates are now available to all English-speaking countries, Germany, and France, and will eventually become available to “creators all over the world.”

To learn more about Social Media Marketing opportunities, reach out to the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Pinterest Rolls Out Additional Video Features for Brands appeared first on MoreVisibility.

For brands that have the Checkout feature enabled, users will see the option to “Checkout on Instagram” after tapping on a shopping post that has particular items listed.

Once the personalized options are selected (i.e. size, color, etc.) the user will be brought to the checkout page, similar to what one would experience on any ecommerce website. Instagram states that the user will only need to enter their personal information the first time they shop and it will be saved for future purchases.

Once the order is placed, the user will receive email confirmation as well as notifications directly within Instagram regarding order status, shipment tracking, etc. These notifications could be very convenient for users who spend more time on Instagram than checking order status within their email.

The Checkout feature is still in closed beta for businesses and available to users only in the United States, however, Instagram stated that more and more brands will be able to enable this feature in the near future. From the list of businesses that are already participating, it seems that Instagram is targeting the Fashion and Beauty Industries; it will be interesting to see what other brands the feature opens up for in its next rollout.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing opportunities, reach out to the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Instagram Introduces In-App Checkout Feature in Closed Beta appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Bing Ads + LinkedIn Ads = B2B Targeting Bliss 

Late last year, Bing Ads began incorporating LinkedIn audience data into search campaign targeting. Now, LinkedIn has announced that they have begun integrating Bing search data into their recently added interest targeting feature. This integration of data is sure to improve the reach and relevance of interest targeting in the platform. The (not so new) relationship among the two is really beginning to benefit advertisers and we couldn’t be happier.

LinkedIn Joins the Likes of Competitors with Lookalike Audience Targeting

LinkedIn has also announced the addition of lookalike audiences as a targeting feature to help you grow your business. Just like those of Facebook & Google Ads, seed lists can be either website visitors or target accounts. The platform will use the common traits of your lists to find new, professional audiences similar to your core lists to expand reach. We have seen fantastic performance from similar platform’s lookalike audience products, so we expect this to be no different.

Save Time in Campaign Setup with Audience Templates

Last, designed to simplify audience targeting, audience templates are now available to quickly help people who manage multiple campaigns targeting the same audiences. Simply create your audience once and re-use it for future campaigns and across multiple accounts.

For additional information on LinkedIn Advertising opportunities, please contact the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post New Targeting Capabilities in LinkedIn Ads appeared first on MoreVisibility.

“Timing is Everything” displays historical data about when audiences on Twitter tend to consume, watch and engage with video content the most, as shown in the image above. It’s important to note that the chart doesn’t just show when organic followers are watching your videos. Instead, it displays when they are watching any video on Twitter.

Although this tool provides Digital Marketers with actionable insight about the most engaging times of the day or week, we urge you to still post consistently throughout the day to maximize your reach on this social channel.

If you find some of the times recommended by the “Timing is Everything” tool inconvenient, we recommend scheduling these posts/videos in advanced via Twitter’s Media Studio, Hootsuite, or a similar tool.

Does your Social Media Marketing need a second look? Please contact the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Twitter Introduces Its “New Timing Is Everything” Insights Tool appeared first on MoreVisibility.

With this opportunity, brands will be able to turn posts created by influencers into targeted ads on the social media platform. Prior to this test, brands were not able to feature influencers’ posts beyond the organic reach of said influencer. However, based on the positive feedback from advertisers on this beta test, Instagram has committed to expanding this ad product to more advertisers in 2019.

Since the launch of the branded content tool in 2017, Instagram has had to increasingly monitor the authenticity of accounts to protect brands from engaging with fake influencers. Only time will tell if these new content branded advertisements will be Instagram’s next big win for brands advertising through Instagram.

If you have any questions, please reach out to the experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Instagram Continues Testing New Branded Advertising Opportunities in 2019 appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Pinterest has ramped up their advertising platform providing robust targeting options and ad units. Let’s cover a few of the options available to advertisers in 2019.

Pinterest Ad Types

Promoted Pins – Appear in your home feed just like regular pins. They have the “promoted” label to indicate they are paid. When a user taps or clicks they are sent to the ad’s landing page.

Promoted Carousels – Similar to a carousel ad in Facebook, a promoted carousel in Pinterest can contain 5 swipeable images, each with its own title, description, and landing page.

Promoted Video Pins – Like promoted pins, these ad units use videos over images. Videos can be 4 – 30 seconds long.

Promoted App Pins – These ad units appear like promoted pins but link to a valid iTunes or Google Play URL.

Buyable Pins (Shop The Look) – Shop the look ads can be used for fashion and home décor, however with some creativity the ad unit can be applicable to fitness education and other industries. Each dot links to the product URL and Pinterest recommends 4 – 6 dots.

Pinterest Targeting Options

In addition to a wide variety of ad options, Pinterest also has some pretty great targeting.

• Gender
• Age
• Geo-Targeting
• Language
• Device
• Ad Placements (Browse or Search)
• Interest (Set Interests)
• Keywords

With the available targeting and ad units, Pinterest should be on most marketer’s radars. We recommend giving Pinterest an advertising test, especially if you already have a strong Pinterest presence.

The post Pinterest Advertising Options: A Simple Guide to Set You Up For Success appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Earlier this month, LinkedIn debuted its new video broadcasting service – LinkedIn Live. Similar to how brands use live streaming via Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, LinkedIn Live will focus on streaming things like Q&As, events, conferences, business calls, awards ceremonies, product announcements, and more. What sets LinkedIn Live apart from its competitors is the ability to broadcast real-time video to select groups, or to the LinkedIn world at large.

In coming weeks, LinkedIn will post a contact form for its users who want to start to leverage the feature. However, it’s not entirely clear when, or even if, the platform will allow every user to create LinkedIn Live videos.

If you have questions about how LinkedIn Live could benefit your brand, contact the Social Media Marketing experts at MoreVisibility.

The post LinkedIn Live – A New Live Video Broadcast Service appeared first on MoreVisibility.

This upcoming initial test will only be available to select retail and automotive advertisers, but will open up more broadly if Facebook sees a benefit for both users and advertisers. Advertisers participating in this test will be able to select “Search Results” as an additional placement option to run their ads – this option will run existing ads in both primary search results and within the Facebook Marketplace search results. During this time, however, advertisers will not be able to run any video ads or to select specific keywords or phrases to target. All ads will be clearly labeled as “Sponsored” and users will have the same transparency controls as with ads running in the existing placement options of Facebook.

Another important point to keep in mind is that during this test phase, ads will only appear within the United States and Canada. Again, this may open up to more countries based on the results of the beta test.

If you have any questions about this Facebook update or how you may be able to leverage it in your digital marketing, please reach out to the Facebook Certified Experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Facebook Begins Testing Search Ads in Results Pages and Marketplace appeared first on MoreVisibility.

• Video
• Carousel
• Lead-Gen Forms
• Text
• “Spotlight” Dynamic Ads

The measurement integration with Google Campaign Manager allows Digital Marketers to see LinkedIn ad performance alongside all of their paid ad spend. In addition, it helps track a prospect’s full journey across websites, ads and devices with their business on LinkedIn before converting.

To enable LinkedIn Sponsored Content tracking via Google Campaign Manager, click the “Manage Tracking” icon after creating your Sponsored Content campaign as a “Draft’.

Then, add both the impressions and clicks tags, and hit “Save”.

The post Track LinkedIn Sponsored Content with Google Campaign Manager appeared first on MoreVisibility.

The audience demographic information is now sourced from average household income per US ZIP code. There are four options to choose from:

• Household income: top 5% of US ZIP codes
• Household income: top 10% of US ZIP codes
• Household income: top 10%-25% of US ZIP codes
• Household income: top 25%-50% of US ZIP codes

The description of the targeting feature also makes it clear that the data is sourced from publicly available information (the IRS in this case), which is the biggest difference from earlier iterations of this targeting concept in terms of user privacy.

For any campaigns that once utilized household income or net worth targeting before it was retired on October 1st, 2018, household income targeting by zip codes is certainly worth a test. Our Interactive Advertising team can help with recommendations or any campaign questions you may have.

The post Facebook Household Income Targeting is Now Available appeared first on MoreVisibility.

As it was recently reported that more than 90 million accounts have been using this feature on a monthly basis, and with more than 400 million users engaging in Instagram Stories on a daily basis, it’s no surprise that Instagram is cashing in on more shopping opportunities.

The Instagram Stories shopping feature is now being rolled out globally. And, expanding on this even further, the platform also launched a dedicated Shopping channel within its Explore tab. The Shopping channel will allow users to find products from brands that they follow, and in turn discover new brands as well.

The post Instagram Continues to Expand Shopping Opportunities appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Recommendations

Reviews and star ratings on Facebook are now called “Recommendations”. Instead of a user rating a business 1-5 stars, this has been replaced with the question: “Do you recommend [Business Name]?” with a Yes or No response option. Recommenders can add a written review, photos and tag specific things they recommend about the business (see the screenshot below). Facebook’s algorithm will then calculate the recommendation into a star rating and add it to the business’s existing rating.

Businesses have the option to turn off this feature, which is not recommended. By turning off “Recommendations” on Facebook, all of your current reviews will be hidden, and could hurt your rankings.

Call-to-Action Button

Facebook’s Call-to-action (CTA) buttons allow a business to display buttons on their page to entice users to take some type of action. Call-to-action buttons can help your customers:

• Contact you through Messenger, email, phone or website
• Shop
• Start food orders
• Book a service

Businesses now have the option to connect services such as MyTime, HomeAdvisor or delivery.com to their Facebook Page.

Stories

Last year Facebook introduced stories to its platform, following in the likes of Snapchat. If you aren’t familiar with how Stories work, this feature allows a user to post a video or photo to their “story” that will stay live for up to 24 hours. Users can view your story from anywhere by simply tapping your profile photo. This feature is now available to Facebook Business Pages.

If your brand has a video strategy or would like to introduce video to your marketing plan, now is a great time to take advantage of this feature. Video is a great way to build engagement with your customers.

Customized Business Information 

This update will now showcase information such as business hours, recommendations, price range, or a restaurant menu in a style that is almost identical to Google My Business. Even your recent posts and events will display in a left to right carousel, like Google Posts.

Events

Facebook has added ticketing integration to its events. Businesses can now connect their ticketing platform to Facebook, making a seamless ticketing process for users. In addition, Businesses now have the ability to turn events into ads. More 650 million Facebook users browse local events on the platform to find something to do. Turning your events on Facebook into ads gives you the opportunity to increase your event visibility.

Jobs

In February, Facebook rolled out job posts to more than 40 countries. This allows businesses to post job openings to a Jobs tab on their Page, Jobs dashboard, Facebook Marketplace, and the News Feed that they can promote with ads. Similar to LinkedIn, job seekers can discover openings, auto-fill applications with their profile information, and submit their application in the platform.  In the next few months, Facebook will be expanding the reach of Facebook Jobs to be available for all businesses and users worldwide.

As you can see, Facebook has some big updates coming this August that present many opportunities for your business. If you have any questions about these Facebook updates or how to leverage them in your digital marketing, please reach out to the Social Media Marketing Experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Major Changes Coming This August to Facebook Business Pages appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Due to ad options in social media evolving and changing rapidly, MoreVisibility’s Director of Interactive Advertising, Max Braglia, hosted a live webinar to help digital marketers keep pace. This webinar covers:

• Tips to Help You Achieve Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
• How to Use Paid Social Ads to Achieve Your Business Goals
• Social Media Ad Targeting Options
• And more!

Request the on-demand recording of Interactive Advertising Reboot: Social Media Saturation here.

If you need additional help with social media advertising, please reach out to the experts at MoreVisibility for assistance.

The post Maximize Your Reach with Paid Social Media Ads appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Facebook’s income level and net worth targeting, which are popular methods of targeting, are now being discontinued. Due to the popularity of these targeting methods, Facebook has given advertisers a warning of the upcoming change and time to prepare.

The targeting methods will still be available to select in new campaigns and ad sets until August 14th, 2018. After that date, you will no longer be able to select this targeting method. Campaigns that still have income or net worth targeting will continue to utilize the audiences until September 30th, 2018. On October 1st, all ad sets with this targeting will have the audience removed.

In preparation for this change, there are some other methods of targeting that we’ve found to be a suitable replacement.

• Education Level
• Interest in Luxury Goods & Lifestyle
• Interest in Money Saving, DIY, Frugal Lifestyle
• Job Title & Industry Interests
• Business Owner Interests
• Lookalike audiences of lead or customer email lists

Keep in mind that each campaign will have its own unique needs. Our Interactive Advertising team is available to answer any questions your business may have.

The post Facebook is Retiring Income Level and Net Worth Targeting appeared first on MoreVisibility.

This is a great advertising unit for every brand that currently or wants to advertise via LinkedIn. In a single carousel ad, digital marketers can feature up to 10 swipeable cards that can be customized with innumerable types of content. At this time, video is not yet a part of LinkedIn’s carousel ads, as it is for Facebook, Instagram and via inclusion in tweets on Twitter.

LinkedIn stated that, during its beta phase, over 300 advertisers tested and used their carousel ads. 75% of these beta advertisers said they will use carousel ads in their next Sponsored Content campaign because they saw an increase in engagement and click-through rates.

Due to carousel ads’ interactive and eye-catching nature, this advertising unit will stand out amongst LinkedIn’s newsfeed. In addition to being able to measure standard metrics, such as overall click-through rates and number of leads for this ad unit, advertisers will be able to measure clicks and impressions for each individual card.

If you haven’t previously used carousel ads in another advertising platform, here a few ideas for how to use them effectively:

• Telling a story through a series of images
• Displaying multiple offerings at once
• Displaying a single offering in depth
• Sharing multiple insights from a single piece of content

If you have any questions about LinkedIn’s Carousel ads, please reach out to the experts at MoreVisibility for assistance.

The post LinkedIn Expands It’s Sponsored Content Offerings with Carousel Ads appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Here are a few tactics your brand can use to leverage the power of social media for email database growth:

#1 Offer Exclusive (But Gated) Content

If you want your social media visitors to perform a certain action (in this case, provide their email address) offer something in return. Handing over premium content in exchange for an email address is a tried-and-true practice. This exclusive content could be anything from product-specific tips and tricks to thought leadership related to the services you provide, to a downloadable white paper or ebook. Just be sure it’s something of value or of interest to your followers and visitors. If it’s not enticing, they most likely won’t pony up their email address for it.

#2 Use a Facebook Sign-Up Button

A business page on Facebook is essential in today’s digital landscape. Assuming your business already has a Facebook page, you can add a call-to-action button to your business page, and set it to collect sign-ups. When you create the button, send it to a landing page on your website where the visitor can input their contact information, such as a “Contact Us” page.

#3 Create a Contest or Giveaway

Everyone loves contests and freebies. Create a low-cost contest or giveaway to promote on your social media channels. By advertising that you’re giving away a free product or service, you are able to direct your social media visitors to a landing page you’ve created to collect the entries. Through this page you can capture participants’ email addresses and make it clear that entering the contest also entitles them to receive your email campaigns. In addition, you should try to create a fun and catchy hashtag to go with the contest, so you can promote it across your social channels and encourage your followers to share it with their own networks.

#4 Use Facebook & LinkedIn Ads

Facebook and LinkedIn Ads are extremely effective at helping businesses narrow in on their target audience and entice them to take the action you want. Use a low-cost ad campaign to put your advertising in front of the people most likely to want and need your services. These ads platforms also allow you to control the call-to-action, so take this opportunity to ask for email sign-ups.

#5 Host a Webinar or Event & Share It

Raise your hand if you’ve ever attended a webinar. Those of you who have, you already know it is completely standard to enter in your email address to register for an event online. Since submitting your email to attend a webinar or event is standard, you won’t get much push-back when requesting this info. A fundamental of social media is being able to share your content to get in front of a much larger audience, so sharing a link to register for your webinar will help increase your number of email subscribers.

If you have any questions about using social media to grow your email database, please reach out to the experts at MoreVisibility for assistance.

The post Leveraging Social Channels for Email Database Growth appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Since this story was brought to light, Facebook has alerted account owners when they logged in if their data was compromised and has released a new privacy tool. This new Facebook feature is a section that appears at the top of the News Feed called “Protecting Your Information”. It provides a link that brings you to the “Apps and Websites” section of Facebook’s settings. This is where you can adjust your settings to remove apps you don’t want to share data with anymore, as well as see all of the apps you have previously logged into.

In addition to releasing a new privacy tool, Facebook made changes to its ad policies. The changes include required authorization and labeling of political and “issue” ads, and manager verification for large Pages. The company will also roll out a searchable political ads archive and a tool to see what ads a Page is serving.

Due to Facebook’s ad policy updates, a number of advertisers have reported many of their ads that were previously approved by Facebook prior to the Cambridge Analytica situation have come back with a notification that they were no longer allowed per Facebook’s ad policies. It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with these new ad policies to avoid this from happening to your brand’s future ads.

Facebook also dropped many third-party data providers, and demographics in response to Cambridge Analytica’s bad practices.  However, with Facebook, there are so many options to target people on the platform. If those are reduced slightly, it does not eliminate the value. There is always remarketing, and other great targeting abilities available through Facebook.

As long as users continue to scroll through their Facebook feeds, it should be business as usual for advertisers. There’s no reason for a brand not to continue investing in a platform that delivers its primary advertising objectives: an extensive reach combined with comprehensive targeting and solid return on ad spend.

If you have any questions, please reach out to the experts at MoreVisibility for assistance.

The post Facebook’s Data Breach – What Is It & Where Does That Leave Advertisers? appeared first on MoreVisibility.

In the past, only Facebook’s content reviewers had access to this document. The move to allow the public to finally see these once internal guidelines comes after The Guardian obtained and posted snippets of the company’s extensive and at times contradictory rules last year.

Facebook’s states that its current Standards apply around the world to all types of content and are designed to be comprehensive. The purpose of its Community Standards is to encourage expression and create a safe environment for everyone on the platform. Facebook has put together these policies based on input received from its users and experts in the technology and public safety fields.

The company has broken down its policies/standards into the following 6 categories:

• Violence & Criminal Behavior
• Safety
• Objectionable Content
• Integrity & Authenticity
• Respecting Intellectual Property
• Content-Related Requests

In addition to releasing its Community Standards, Facebook is now giving its users the ability to appeal its decisions on individual posts. Basically, this allows users to ask for a second opinion if Facebook has removed one of their posts and they believe the company made a mistake in doing so.

As of right now, users can only ask for an appeal for posts removed for nudity/sexual activity, hate speech, or graphic violence. If Facebook removes a post for one of those reasons, the user will receive a notification about the action and give the user the option to request an additional review of the post. Within 24 hours of initiating an appeal, users should know whether Facebook plans to restore the post, or keep it off the platform permanently.

If you have any questions about how Facebook’s Community Standards may affect your business, please reach out to the Social Media experts at MoreVisibility.

The post Facebook’s Platform Guidelines & New Appeal Process appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Facebook is no longer just about “likes”. The platform gives advertisers ability to reach real people based on real activity and see real results. Learn how to unlock and harness the power of Facebook Advertising in a webinar from MoreVisibility.

In this webinar, experts from Facebook and MoreVisibility share recommendations to help marketers maximize their brands’ reach in Facebook and Instagram by leveraging a variety of advertising options and tactics.

Topics experts cover:

• How to create a successful Facebook & Instagram advertising strategy
• Using the platforms’ Ads for both new customer acquisition and to personalize existing customers’ experiences
• Leveraging cross-device targeting for brand lift and conversions
• Maximizing targeting options to increase campaign ROI

Watch our Complementary “Facebook & Instagram Adverting: Real People = Real ROI” webinar.

The post Unlocking the Power of Facebook Advertising appeared first on MoreVisibility.

For a flat monthly fee of $99, Twitter Promote Mode grows your brand’s influence by automatically amplifying your tweets to a larger and interested audience. This program is great for marketers who want to promote their brand on Twitter and want to save time and hassle from running Twitter ads manually.

How Does Twitter Promote Mode Work?

In Promote Mode, brands can continue to tweet as per usual. Twitter will take the brand’s first 10 tweets each day and promote them to the brand’s selected audience. These tweets don’t include retweets, quoted tweets, or replies. The program takes the ad creation pressure off marketers because Twitter automatically creates an ad for their promoted tweet. In addition, brands can still run Twitter ad campaigns alongside their Promote Mode subscription.

Twitter also made checking the Promote Mode results easy. Whether you’re logged into Twitter via the web or mobile app, just Tap on your profile photo, and then select on “Promote Mode”. Once in the dashboard, you are able to check the number of:

• People your promoted tweets have reached
• Followers you’ve gained through the promoted tweets
• Visits to your Twitter profile from the promoted tweets
• Tweets promoted

Here’s an example screenshot of the dashboard:

The post Twitter Promote Mode Overview appeared first on MoreVisibility.

These changes will have varying impacts on organizations, but will most likely lead to decreases in organic performance within Facebook. This is not the first change Facebook has made to limit the organic performance of organizations, and it likely won’t be the last.

The best course of action for organizations moving forward is to continue integrating teams that work on creative marketing strategy and performance marketing, while continuing to push further into new measurement models that are not solely focused on last-click attribution.

If you are an organization who has historically relied heavily on organic performance in Facebook, we encourage you to consider the following. However, please note that these considerations shouldn’t be viewed in a bubble. It’s important to think critically about your business and unique case.

1. Pure organic performance will likely decline and the way that you measure performance in Facebook may require changes: It is likely that most purely organic metrics within Facebook will decline for many organizations. Due to this impact, the measurement of organic content performance will need to be re-calibrated for many companies. For example, measuring YoY organic performance for the next year will not yield an apples-to-apples comparison.
2. Declining organic performance is not an excuse to begin creating and posting lackluster content: Although organic performance will likely see a decline, this should not preclude organizations from continuing to focus on creating meaningful content that captures your audience’s attention and engages them in a meaningful way. It does not mean that you should move to a model of simply filling your channel with less valuable content.
3. Do not simply stop posting “organic” content: Facebook is still the largest social network and they continue to experiment with new ways to show branded content (like the Explore Tab, a dedicated tab that contains all page posts). It will be important for each organization to measure the impact of this change, and adapt their strategy accordingly. Additionally, many organizations have historically separated the posting of engaging content for “organic” and promotional content for Facebook ads. I encourage you to consider testing a different approach, outlined at a high level under the next consideration. Lastly, even through it is anecdotal, there have been several occasions over the past year that I decided against purchasing a product from a new-to-me brand because of a lack of recent content on their social channels in conjunction with a lack of meaningful “About the Company” content on their website. This may be more important for many B2C organizations than it will be for B2B organizations, but consider if your customers may find your company to be less trustworthy if they can’t find any recent content from you.
4. Consider creative content promotion strategies, beyond last-click conversion focused campaigns: Consider leveraging Facebook ads for more than just last-click conversion focused campaigns. With over eleven ad formats, Facebook provides many great avenues to promote highly engaging content that allows you to continue building your brand, online community of fans, and social word-of-mouth. While most organizations will benefit from conversion focused campaigns, we often see too many that are missing out on opportunities to put the great content they have created in front of a highly targeted and relevant audience. Additionally, with analytics platforms like Google Analytics improving their multi-channel funnel reporting capabilities, tying this top of the funnel content to business metrics will hopefully become easier over time.
5. The diversification of your traffic sources continues to remain critical: Third party platforms have always wielded the ability to make changes that benefit them at the expense of the organizations that use them. From social media to paid advertising, organic search, email, and others, diversifying the sources that your business receives traffic from and builds brand awareness on is as critical as ever. If your brand is too heavily reliant upon a single source of traffic, consider how you can expand into new channels or improve your other channels to minimize the risk that any single third party platform can pose to your business.
6. Structured data markup for social media channels will continue to grow in its importance: The content you share organically as a brand on Facebook may receive less visibility and engagement. However, the visibility of your content from your website that Facebook users share may rise as Facebook places a premium on person-to-person connections. This will place a premium on how content from your website is formatted when a user shares it. For Facebook, this means that Open Graph markup is very important to include on every page of your website, especially those that are most likely to be shared in the social network.

It is clear that Facebook has decided it is in their long term best interest to focus more on elevating personal connections than the connections between a brand and potential consumers (at least outside of ads). This change (and likely others in the near future) will continue to require a more integrated approach to social media, combining creative marketing strategy, paid advertising performance, and sophisticated measurement.

If you have any specific questions about how this change will impact your business or how to stay ahead of the curve for the next update, please reach out to us through one of our contact forms or via info@morevisibility.com.

The post Our Perspective on Facebook’s Latest News Feed Update appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Here’s are 4 easy ways to engage with your brand advocates.

#1 Recognize Your Advocates

When recognizing your brand advocates, it is imperative to omit any sales or promotional verbiage. Recognition should only be about thanking the advocate.  This type of acknowledgement will strengthen your brand and help create long lasting relationships. Here are a few ways you can thank your advocates:

• Publicly on your social profiles by tagging or @mentioning them
• Privately through a direct message
• Privately by sending them a handwritten note

#2 Ask for Their Feedback

A few reasons why a brand advocate has earned this title is because they frequently purchase your products, recommend your company to their friends and family, and interact with your brand’s social profiles. Therefore, they are the perfect individuals to help curate new user-generated content for your social channels about your company and products.

#3 Offer Incentives/ Exclusives

Offering your advocates exclusives, such as discounts, free shipping or a first look at a sale, will get them excited about your upcoming sale or marketing campaign. Referral programs are also a great way to incentivize brand advocates to recommend you brand to their friends and family. These types of actives can:

• Increase the likelihood that the advocates will make a repeat purchase
• Lead to them purchasing more than they originally intended
• Build more brand loyalty
• Lead to your advocates participating more often and more passionately

#4 Give Them Sneak Peeks

Who doesn’t love being the first person to discover a great new product or service? No one. When leveraging brand advocacy, it is important to capitalize on this fact. Giving them a first look at a new product you’re developing and asking for their feedback, shows them that you value their opinion and appreciate their efforts.

As with all things social media, social media brand advocacy should be an ongoing, interesting, and engaging conversation – but, most importantly, one that clearly offers a lot of benefits to a company and brand.

The post How to Leverage the Power of Brand Advocates appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Here are 3 quick steps to help you identify your potential brand advocates.

Step 1: Pay Attention

While it may seem as if your advocates are hiding in the shadows, they are actually standing in full sight – all you have to do is pay attention. A good place to start is by looking through your last few months’ worth of social media posts. You should pay close attention to people that are:

• Liking your posts and tweets
• Sharing and retweeting your content
• Commenting on your posts
• Conversing with and about your brand
• Linking to your content

All of these people could potentially be a brand advocate.

Step 2: Track Engagement

Now that you have started to look at who is most engaged with your content and brand, you should start to track their engagement over time. One idea is to create a spreadsheet that lists all of the people who have engaged with you in social media. Then, add additional columns to track different engagement metrics, such as: “post likes,” “comments,” “shares,” “retweets,” “favorites” as well as “link clicks”.

Step 3: Analyze

After you’ve tracked your followers’ engagement, it’s time to compare their engagement against your other followers by trying to answer the following questions:

• Who is “sharing” and “retweeting” your content more than anyone else?
• Who are the top 5 people “liking” and “favoriting” your posts and tweets the most?
• Who is commenting on your posts, @mentioning you in tweets, and posting questions regularly?

Once you are able to answer those questions, then you have begun to identify your brand advocates and it’s time to put those advocates to work. Stay tuned for our follow-up post about how to leverage your brand advocates.

The post How to Identify Brand Advocates in Three Quick Steps appeared first on MoreVisibility.

On Saturday, October 21 over 20,000 individuals, including the MoreVisibility team, gathered at Boca Raton’s Mizner Park for the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer  Walk. The event is a noncompetitive walk centered around raising awareness and funds to save lives from breast cancer.

Overall, Making Strides of South Palm Beach, who covers Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and Boynton Beach, ended up raising over $240,000 this year for cancer research. All funds donated to a Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event help the American Cancer Society make a difference in so many ways, such as funding innovative breast cancer research. Apart from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer type in women. In fact, this year about 252,710 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed.

Whether we’ve faced it ourselves, or someone we love has, almost everyone has been affected by breast cancer in some way. But at the same time, we can all do something about it. Even though the event is over, you can always make difference in so many ways, from donating to the American Cancer Society to simply providing a hand to hold. MoreVisibility is proud to help support this worthy cause in our local community.

The post MoreVisibility Helps Make Strides Against Breast Cancer in October 2017 appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Well, you are in the right place….This post will explore three viable goals for social media marketing and how to track them.

Goal #1: Increase Exposure

To increase your brand’s exposure via social media, you must connect with other users – possibly by posting a question on your page and starting a conversion or posting content others would like to share. These types of connections, interactions and relationship building tactics matter.

It is important to keep a watchful eye on metrics such as, followers, shares, retweets and relationships, in order to track the exposure of your brand over time on social media.

Goal #2: Increased Engagement

Engaging with your customer via social media can be as simple as responding to your customer’s messages and comments. However, this is easier said than done. To be active and a part of any conversation that mentions your brand, you have to make sure your social media channels are being monitored closely.

To track this type of goal, it is suggested to create a spreadsheet for each channel you’re active on and record your followers, likes, comment and shares on a bi-weekly or monthly basis.

Goal #3: Drive Traffic

Regardless of whether your goal I to drive traffic to content on or off your website, it is VITAL to tag your links.  Without these tags on the links to your content, it will be it extremely difficult to track the amount of traffic to your website from your social media marketing efforts, in Google Analytics (GA).

To see this data:

1. Login to GA
2. Navigate to “Social” under the “Acquisition” tab
3. Select “Network Referrals”
4. Select the correct date range
5. View Sessions for each Social Networks

Please keep in mind – regardless of the goal your company is attempting to attain, it is always a best practice to:

• On a monthly basis, track all digital marketing efforts (especially, social media)
• Keep track of the all the metrics that are important to you and your goals
• Note and create more of the type of content/topics that led to your goal completions.

Pro Tip: Facebook’s Insights tab provide you with likes, shares, comments and clicks for all of your recent posts at once, which is great way to determine the type of content/topics that led you reaching your goals.

The post Three Goals of Social Media Marketing and Tips to Tracking Them appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Thus, for your next Facebook marketing campaign, here are 4 effective techniques you should be using to reach your audience.

Followers (and Their Friends) Targeting

Targeting your Facebook followers through ads is necessary because it is not uncommon for more than 90% of your followers to NEVER see an organic post from you. This method is very effective since your followers have already shown any interest in your page. Therefore, to get them to engage with a post can be easier than an audience that is probably unfamiliar with your brand.

Also, Facebook allows you to target your followers’ friends, which is another great tactic to use because often friends have the same interests. Moreover, if they know/see that their friend follows your page, the more likely they are to engage with your page or content.

Interest Targeting

One of the most effective and easiest targeting methods is interest targeting. However, since it is so easy to do, you must make sure that you aren’t targeting an audience that is too broad.

For example, your company wants target competitive runners and you are inserting keywords related to competitive running into the targeting tool. While doing so, you see that over 200 million people are interested in the broad topic “running”. At first glance this may seem like a goldmine, but then again many times the larger the audience, the less targeted it truly is.

Demographic Targeting

When a product or service appeals to a specific segment of the population, demographic targeting is an effective tactic to use. Besides the basic demographics (location, age and gender), Facebook’s demographic targeting options give marketers the ability to target audiences based on education levels, job titles, paternal status, and much more. Overall, whatever demographics you chose to target via Facebook, the key is to ensure that these attributes align best with your audience.

Remarketing

Remarketing is used to get users who didn’t convert the first time around to come back to your website. There are two different ways to approach remarketing in Facebook: traditional pixel based remarketing and custom audience by email list.

• Traditional Pixel Based Remarketing: For this approach, you have to place a pixel on your website that tracks users who’ve visited your site and left without converting, and remarket to them.
• Custom Audience by Email List: This approach lets marketers create a custom audience in Facebook by inputting a list of emails. After which, it’ll match those emails to Facebook users who are using the same email for their Facebook profile.

For all of your social media efforts, it’s vital to make sure you’re reaching your audience when, and where it matters most. Make sure to test out a few or all of the targeting tactics mentioned above. If you want to learn more, please reach out to us.

The post Four Targeting Strategies For An Effective Facebook Campaign appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Post Analytics

LinkedIn is now giving you insights, on both mobile and desktop, for the audience you are reaching with each update. According to LinkedIn, you can now see the companies your viewers work at, their job titles, how they found your post, and who and how many people reshared your post.

Multiple Images Per Post

LinkedIn is finally embracing the shift toward visual content that other social media channels, like Facebook and Twitter, have already capitalized on. You are now able to select up to nine photos in a single post. This can be helpful when posting images from corporate events or conferences you attended, for example.

Native Video

Similar to other social media channels, LinkedIn has begun to allow users to post videos directly in the channel. Currently, this feature is only available to a small group of mobile users, but very soon you’ll be able to record and post videos directly from your LinkedIn app.

To see the full list of tools and updates the platform announced this month, check out the LinkedIn blog.

The post The Latest LinkedIn Updates are Sure to Make Marketers Rejoice appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Everyone loves clickbait headlines… that’s why content producers use them, right? Actually no, Facebook is very well aware that their users don’t like misleading, sensational or spammy stories, especially when the headline is clickbait. The platform is continuing their campaign to improve the user experience just days after announcing penalties to content producers that have a low-quality website experience. Penalties will now be applied to content producers who use clickbait headlines that withhold and/or exaggerate information in an effort to get users on their website.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has taken action against clickbait. An update was made in August 2016 to further reduce clickbait in news feeds. According to Facebook, this week’s update focuses on three core areas:

• First, we are now taking into account clickbait at the individual post level in addition to the domain and Page level, in order to more precisely reduce clickbait headlines.
• Second, in order to make this more effective, we are dividing our efforts into two separate signals — so we will now look at whether a headline withholds information or if it exaggerates information separately.
• Third, we are starting to test this work in additional languages.

You should only be worried about this update if your Facebook posts utilizes clickbait headlines. Facebook provided two specific examples that can help paint a picture of what clickbait can look like.

“When She Looked Under Her Couch Cushions And Saw THIS…”

“WOW! Ginger tea is the secret to everlasting youth. You’ve GOT to see this!”

If you are utilizing headlines like these, Facebook says that once the page stops posting clickbait and sensational headlines, only then will your posts not be limited in reach. Our expert social media and paid advertising teams are always available to help with any Facebook questions or needs.

The post New Penalties for Clickbait Headlines on Facebook appeared first on MoreVisibility.

So what fueled this change by Facebook? The platform shared that the community is often disappointed when they click on something of interest and the page has minimal relevant content or they land on a page with a disproportionate amount of disruptive or malicious ads. This also comes shortly after their effort to stop the spreading of misinformation or “fake news”. Stopping misinformation, along with low quality landing pages, will reduce the interest of spammy websites trying to gain ad revenue.

What should brands on Facebook expect from this change? Well, it should be noted that a similar policy has been in place since last year for Facebook advertisers, so the significance of this particular update is for organic social posts. The changes will roll out over the next few months. If you are a publisher of Facebook content that does not have a low-quality landing page experience, you may see slight increase in exposure and reach.

Your landing page may be a low-quality experience if any of the following is true:

• Pop-up or interstitial ads are active
• Malicious or Deceptive ads
• Sexually suggestive, shocking, adult, or “fake news” content
• Disproportionate volume of ads relative to content

If you have any concerns or questions regarding your Facebook content or landing page experience, reach out to MoreVisibility to get connected with our team of experts.

The post Facebook Reducing Visibility of Low-Quality Web Pages appeared first on MoreVisibility.

We are beginning to see signs of how SnapChat’s advertising platform is developing with a new addition announced on April 20th, 2017 called “Snap to Store.” Recently brick-and-mortar stores have had fun creating geofilters that users can apply to images and videos when in their store or very nearby within the designated geo-fence. But trying to quantify how that actually impacts sales and bringing in customers is difficult – Snap to Store is helping to bridge that gap.

How does “Snap to Store” work?

When a user visits a store and applies a geofilter to their snap and then sends it to friends or posts to Stories, SnapChat will track the number of users who have seen the snap and then keep a tracking on those users to see if they visit the same location within 7 days. It will also measure whether that user’s friends visit the same location, even if they did not see the original snap with the geofilter.

Items to Consider

There is a setback to SnapChat’s new feature – Snap to Store does not work if the user is not at the brick-and-mortar location at the time they send out a snap to their friends or post to Stories. This matters because you have to always consider human behavior in the advertising equation. If two women are shopping at a makeup store, they may love the products they are buying, but there is a great chance they could send a snap to their friends once they are home trying out the products they bought – not while in the store. Is one advertising better than the other? Not necessarily, in fact if the women showcase their new products at home and it may even be more engaging content because they are more likely to show their true personality in a private setting versus in the actual store. However, the downfall is now the makeup store cannot measure the impact of this free promotion!

To combat this, if you are a brick-and-mortar business and you are using SnapChat or ‘Snap to Store’ as an advertising channel – make sure you promote the use of SnapChat in your store, so customers know it is encouraged. Having your own geofilter as well will certainly help the cause!

The larger picture however is that SnapChat continues to evolve new ways to give advertisers insight on the impact of user’s snaps. If you think SnapChat is a playful “just for fun” platform – you are missing the mark. SnapChat has 150 million daily users with an average time spent on the app of 25-30 minutes and was valued in September 2016 as being worth 18 billion dollars! SnapChat advertising is real, there are plenty of potential customers on the platform and marketers need to pay attention to new releases and trends in the social space to put their brand in the best position to succeed.

The post SnapChat Can Now Link Foot Traffic for Advertisers appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Live Streaming: Grab Attention & Keep It

The average attention span of a person is 8 seconds. In the span of 8 seconds, you can become interested in a topic, mentally explore that topic and quickly reduce your focus on it as your mind travels at warp speed onto other related subjects. Social media platforms allow us to scroll or swipe through media so quickly that we don’t have to pay attention to anything for longer than 3 to 4 seconds. Think of the last time you were scrolling down through photos or memes on Instagram or sifting through Pinterest posts or swiping down Facebook updates. Never has there been a time that it made sense to focus on a post or video on social media as much as there is now with live streaming.

Businesses can revel in the attention they can receive from live streaming. Companies can engage in real time with their current and future customers and even with those who are teetering on the edge of using the company’s product or service. Live streaming allows real-time responses, real-time dialogue and real-time content! That’s pretty amazing, considering it’s free. Social media platforms don’t require an account upgrade to take advantage of these features either. Should businesses take advantage of free exposure in real-time? The answer is YES!

Your Marketing Strategy: Promote Your Brand in Style

Forbes published an article calling live streaming “the natural extension of video marketing.” Companies understand that video ads and posts on social media generate a higher number of views, clicks, likes and comments than text and even photographs. Videos stimulate a part of our brain that grabs the user’s attention and interacts with it, whether by informative content or entertainment. Live streaming allows us to do what videos have always done, but include a real-time dialogue that brings consumers into a businesses store front or into the boardroom.

Ask your consumers questions about your product or service and get a response right now. Live streaming can enhance top of mind awareness for brands by creating a sense of urgency. When a consumer sees at the top of their social media screen that your business has created a live video, they immediately think of your company without having to spot a post or a video by chance. By live streaming, marketers place themselves at the forefront of their user’s attention. The use of live streaming shows users that this brand is technologically relevant and they care about keeping up with the times. Understanding that streaming live content on social media has factors that allow brands to engage with consumers, is it also a cost effective method that justifies the time it takes to implement? Absolutely.

Your Marketing Strategy: Live Streaming Has Many Benefits

By 2020, video will make up 80% of all web traffic, according to Cisco.  With live streaming, you’re able to use a hashtag to announce your videos use as well as have the video remain available to those who aren’t present at the time of the live stream.

Live streaming is far more interesting than video in more than a few cases. This is because your content is raw. Viewers are able to see past your polished advertisements and prepared engagement pieces. This raw, unpolished content tends to stimulate more emotions than produced videos. Why? There’s something about real-time that generates emotions and extends to views a sense of intimacy, exclusivity and a feeling of right here, right now engagement. Letting your consumers take a peek behind the curtain will make them feel more included in your business operations as though they’re participants in your value proposition, not just viewers.

How To Use Live Streaming Video: Can You Increase Brand Awareness?

You can increase your brand awareness with live streaming. Currently, your brand exists online via posts, ads, and high quality video content. Live streaming will allow you draw back the curtain and invite your customer to your office. Broadcast an event or hold a session for questions and answers or stream a webinar. Any news or updates about your brand can easily be done on live streaming and you’ll have more viewers than you think. Not only is this free, it’s the forefront of social media marketing and hopping on board means your brand can reach a new level of engagement.

You don’t have to buy a fancy camera or a pricey set. Successful, high engagement live-streamed video happens with a webcam or your iPhone camera. Don’t be apprehensive about giving live-streaming a try. You’ll show that you care about your customers and you’ll seem more human to them, not just a shiny brand with a tall building somewhere filled with manila folders and swivel chairs. Live streaming is social media’s gift to marketers. It’s simple, it’s cost effective and the returns can be great.

In conclusion, live streaming is an excellent way to make your brand relatable to current and potential customers. Brands in almost any industry can benefit from live streaming company or industry news, hosting a Q&A, introducing a product or service, broadcasting an event or bringing that customer behind the scenes. It’s raw content and makes the user feel exclusivity and intimacy with your brand. You might be surprised at the effect live streaming can have on your brand.

The post Is Live Streaming Important for A Company’s Social Media? appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Let Personality Shine: In this fast-paced digital world, influencer marketing may turn back the clock more than we think, starting with letting a spokesperson show their true personality. One of the fun parts of beginning an influencer marketing strategy is finding that deal person on the web to represent your campaign. In doing so, you’re looking at their followers and reach – but also carefully paying attention to their personality and how they represent themselves. The human element is now back in play, as choosing someone to start your campaign promotion with is deeper than choosing the correct banner ad design. Every marketer knows their own audience best, now you have a chance to choose an influencer that you hope will resonate with your audience because their personality resonates with you. You could argue matching your audience with the correct influencer that speaks to them well is more powerful than having digital ads optimized for conversions.

Word of Mouth: We have all heard the phrase, “the best marketing is word of mouth!” Even as digital ads become a routine part of our day – once again, you cannot erase the human element of excitement or disappointment when you try a product. Those feelings are usually shared with those close to you and most of the time taken in with higher regard because people close to you will trust your advice. Social Media has allowed word of mouth to extend way beyond speaking to someone in person – this shift has been a huge win for marketers. With the correct influencer and strategy, you’re not just reaching someone’s audience with a message – but reaching their audience in a new form of ‘word of mouth’ advertising. While most followers do not personally know the influencer, they trust their judgement and direction. Remember this is ‘influencer marketing,’ these campaigns are set-up to influence a group of people to believe, think, try or take an action in a certain way.

The More Creative the Better: You don’t have to tell me that sometimes a new marketing campaign doesn’t ‘rock your socks’ with creativity – you create your ads, set your location and audience targeting, align your budget, etc. and press start. In the case of influencer marketing, the more creative you are – the better results you’re going to have. Lets review an example:

Product: A new thermos for protein shakes and drinks called “No Spill” that allows you to shake it and carry it anywhere without ever dripping or slightly opening.
Display Campaign
Banner Ad with picture of a shake spilling
Call To Action: “Never Spill Your Shake Again – Buy Now”
Targeting: Display Network of healthy, fit, gym tips, blogs, etc. type of sites

Influencer Campaign
Video of a someone finishing a workout all pumped up as they go to make their protein shake. He/She adds the powder, closes the lid, shakes it up and spills the shake everywhere on them, their gym bag, etc. Suddenly the camera picks up another shaking noise behind the messy influencer – the camera pans out to show another person sitting behind them smiling uncontrollably as they shake their new No Spill product.
Call To Action: URL link on the video to the Learn More / Purchase page
Targeting: That influencers’ followers / fans who are into a healthy lifestyle

After reading the two campaign examples above – influencer marketing stands out because it is a more entertaining, creative, word of mouth targeted and has a sharable reach on the internet or social media. If you’re looking for a new strategy with a chance to flex a creative idea – influencer marketing can provide that option.

A hot question when discussing influencer marketing is “How do we measure it?” Marketers have a responsibility to deliver an ROI and sometimes testing a campaign that cannot directly attribute a conversion to a strategy is scary. Here are some measuring ideas to gauge an influencer’s campaign effectiveness:

Impressions: Track the number of times an influencer’s post is viewed.

Engagements: Look at shares, comments and likes as a whole. Sometimes it makes sense to weigh an action like a share more heavily than a like. A Share is not only telling you the user liked the post, but then also furthered your reach and impressions by passing it along to their audience.

Brand Mentions: There are many tools in the marketplace now that allow you to track how many times your brand is mentioned on social media. Look at your brand mention data for the timeframe of your influencer campaign and compare that to a time before the campaign began. Not only should you hope to see a brand lift, but this is where measurement can get tricky. There is a residual branding effect on people who are hearing or seeing your product for the first time. It can be difficult to picture, but just think about your actions towards some advertising and how that effects your future purchasing decisions. I know there have been times where I have heard about a new product from an influencer campaign but not immediately purchased. However now that I am familiar with it, the next time I see the product or am lower in the marketing funnel and ready to purchase – I am more likely to do so. This purchase can take place days, months or even years after the initial impression on that user from the influencer campaign. Who gets the credit? That depends on your tracking, but it likely will be hard to directly link it to the influencer campaign that started the conversion funnel.

Trackable Links: Use Google Analytics to create trackable links that will attribute conversions for your campaign and tell your where your users came from. Some tips for this include setting your cookie at the highest domain possible so it can be tracked across subdomains and tailoring your cookie expiration date depending on the type of campaign you’re running.

These core measurements will help you get a good picture of how your influencer campaign performed. Other methods like coupon codes and measuring foot traffic can also be effective – remember it really depends on the action you want users to take from your campaign.

Influencer marketing is a powerful tool and will continue to develop as more direct tracking and campaign ideas hit the market. If you’re looking for a strategy that can have a direct ROI, give you a lasting brand lift and expand your brand’s creativity then influencer marketing could work for you.

The post Is Influencer Marketing a Good Fit for Your Business? appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Here are the changes you will see in the Facebook app:

• The story news feed will live at the top of the main feed, just like Instagram.
• You can now privately message friends pictures or videos in what Facebook calls “Direct.”

Like SnapChat, these posts will last 24 hours before disappearing from your feed. You can also decorate your posts by adding filters, text or a chalk marker feature only available in Facebook.

Ideology to Consider

This roll-out further confirms the belief by social and tech leaders that picture and video communication is only going to grow larger. SnapChat took the industry by storm when they introduced this new way of speaking to friends and followers and it is important to understand moving forward. Marketers need to adopt strategies in their social advertisements that effectively communicate to people through images and video, especially if your demographic is teenagers or millennials.

It is also worth noting, that now you may have up to three platforms (SnapChat, Instagram and Facebook) in your social strategy that require daily maintenance and story posts. This over saturation could lead to one platform declining in story usage – therefore keeping an eye on trends is important – if you only limited resources, use the platform that gets the most engagement with your audience.

Facebook, Instagram and SnapChat may also have different audience groups that you market to and consume content slightly differently. If that is the case, test out stories on Instagram and Facebook, platforms that use the feature as a secondary form of posting and see if the engagement is worth keeping versus using SnapChat where users are only looking at a feed of stories or direct snaps.

It will be interesting to see how Facebook stories perform over time. Facebook has managed to stay relevant by keeping up with social trends and adopting them to their platform that features millions of users. Will this addition begin to turn users away prove to be too much? Or will Facebook stories take the lead in visual communication?

The post Facebook Adds Stories to Your Mobile App appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Take a look at the screenshots below:

The option to upload multiple images or videos appears in the bottom right of your photo preview screen

Once your new album is uploaded, a follower will see bullet points or dots underneath your photo that indicate the number of pictures you have in the album. This will let the follower know they can swipe right/left to toggle the images or videos in your album.

Many popular brands and Instagram celebs have already used the feature multiple times on their profiles. If you are wondering how this new feature could impact your marketing strategy, here are some ideas on good uses for this new multiple photo or video feature:

• Create a post that uses images and videos – this can be a great way to show a cool picture of a product or your team hard at work and then also show a video that supports your claim. This can really immerse the consumer into your brand.
• Highlight a new product line – for your readers who have retail businesses, this new feature can be great to highlight a new collection, clothing line, new electronics, etc. Really any product that has multiple options (colors, usability, price point, etc.) can be laid out in one post with this new feature.
• Create an engaging post – with multiple uploads, you can interact with your audience more than before. Some brands have been using lead-in images to ask questions to their followers, like “What’s red, white and green on a Sunday morning?” The next image would be a Bloody Mary to promote Sunday brunch deals. Perhaps you don’t sell Bloody Marys but the same concept can be applied to many types of ads.

When new features on social platforms are released, it is always a great idea to test multiple strategies and see which one fits with your brand and resonates with your audience the best. The new Instagram feature could be a game-changer for your business if used effectively.

The post Instagram’s New Feature Allows More Images and Videos in One Post appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Let’s quickly recap the functionality of a GIF and why these types of files are widely popular today. As stated above, a GIF can bridge the gap between a photo and a video as this file format supports both animated and static images to form a short looping scene to grab your attention. In this age of instant gratification, GIFs have hit home with pretty much every demographic, but especially younger generations. Even recent mobile device updates now give users the ability to choose from a library of GIFs to send in a text conversation.

So, how can you use GIFs to potentially boost your Facebook campaigns? Success when using GIFs in your social advertisements starts with strategy. What is important to remember during your GIF creation is that you are connecting emotionally with your audience and doing so very quickly (as GIF loops only last a few seconds). Unlike an image where you try and capture the best scene, or a video that may take a lot longer to get to the point of your ad – a GIF will always get directly to the point while stimulating the user’s mind in much the same way a video ad would. Here are some specific examples of how GIFs could be used for your product or service:

• Restaurant: Want to try and drive more sales? Perhaps promoting a special entrée on the menu? GIFs can be used to show how that entrée is made by re-creating the chef’s process. You could start with an empty plate and quickly pile on the ingredients / toppings until completion. A user will get to see your entrée come to life in seconds, and if it looks good enough – you could be serving them that same dish in-person!
• Retailers / Ecommerce: One of the biggest disconnects between shopping in-person and buying online is the inability to hold and see the product for yourself. With GIFs, you could take retail items like shoes, watches, t-shirts, etc. and rotate them for a 360 view, show multiple consumers sporting the items in their wardrobe or even show the same product in different colors as your GIF moves. Regardless of your approach, you have a media source available that can immerse the user into understanding the product better without being their physically.
• App / Tech Companies: Have a new feature or service rolling? GIFs can be useful when showcasing steps that you’d like a user to take. For example if you have a new feature on your app that just got released that lets people enjoy new filters with updated editing tools as they take photos – GIFs could be a clean, easy way to highlight the new features and/or steps the user can take on your app to find these new items.

Ultimately, GIFs are a great test to try in Facebook or in another platform if you never have before. They bridge that gap while new photos are being taken and videos are being edited, to still showcase something unique to your audience. Create a strategy, implement your GIF ads and keep a close eye on performance to see if these could be a permanent ad strategy for your business.

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The Creative Hub allows you to create mockups for any Facebook or Instagram ad unit easily. Below is the full list of current mockup ad units that are supported.

Once you have a mockup created, you can then save it for later use and generate a link that can be shared with anyone. As an example, let’s walk through a mockup right now.

First, we’ll click create mockup and choose the website link option.

Within the mockup tool, all of the elements of a Facebook or Instagram Ad unit are available. Below we put in some example text and imagery for our mockup link ad.

Once saved, you’ll then be presented with an exact replica of a Facebook or Instagram ad.

Notice on the top of the mockup, you can click the arrow button to generate a link for a live preview. Click here to see our shareable link for the example ad. You also have the option of sending the ad to your mobile device and viewing the ad preview directly in your Facebook app. This is perfect for understanding the mobile experience of your ad creative.

For more information, go straight to the source or reach out to MoreVisibility for any social media marketing needs.

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What’s a Chatbot?

A chatbot is software that automates customer service online through messaging apps. For example, let’s say you want to order a pizza. You could call your local Pizza Hut and talk to the employee to place your order. You could go to the Pizza Hut website, log into your Pizza Hut account, and place your order online. Or, you could simply send a message to the pizza chain through Facebook Messenger or Twitter and quickly order your favorite pie through Pizza Hut’s social ordering platform.

More and more users are opting to engage with brands online as opposed to in-person or over-the-phone. And, increasingly, customers are using their mobile phones for that online interaction. According to internal Pizza Hut data, half of all orders came through digital channels, and more than 60 percent of those orders came via a mobile device. Much of the brand’s success with chatbots is likely attributed to the fact that the audience was already using a mobile device, and chatbots allowed the company to create a simple and seamless mobile ordering experience

But, chatbots are not for everyone. Before taking the plunge, consider the following pros and cons.

Chatbot Benefits

• Quick response times – Customers can receive an almost immediate response, rather than having to wait on hold for a customer service representative or wait for a response to an online inquiry.
• Presence in customers’ preferred medium – If your customers are already using messaging platforms, a chatbot is an easy way to engage with them in a manner in which they are already familiar.
• Cost-effective – For simple interactions or transactions, it may make more financial sense to scale and automate customer service rather than employing a large team.

Possible Chatbot Pitfalls

• Privacy or security breaches – When transactions are conducted online, especially on a third-party platform (i.e. not on your website), there is the potential for a breach in security.
• Less control – Since there is little to no human oversight with these customer interactions, there is a possibility for brand-damaging blunders to occur, like Microsoft’s infamous A.I. bot, Tay.

The Future of Customer Engagement

With the explosion in popularity of messaging platforms, brands are able to connect and interact with their customers like never before. When done well, chatbots can be an effective and beneficial way to engage with your audience. Before incorporating chatbots into your marketing strategy, consider who your audience is, the messaging apps they may already be using and if you have a simple use case you can test before rolling out a full-fledged conversational commerce strategy.

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What is Live Streaming Video?

Live streaming video is content sent in compressed form over the Internet and displayed by the viewer in real time. With streaming video or streaming media, a Web user does not have to wait to download a file to play it. Instead, the media is sent in a continuous stream of data and is played as it arrives. Live streaming video can be considered an interactive extension to video marketing which has been proven to be an effective form of advertisement.

Currently, video accounts for half of all Internet traffic, so it makes sense that you’d want your business to be a part of that. Videos are generally affordable, and their ROI has been tested and proven.

If you decide to use Facebook Live as your video streaming platform, the videos are automatically saved to your timeline. This allows for the content to be available to share, tweet, incorporate into a blog post, and more.

Live stream videos certainly don’t have to be a huge production. For example, if there is a question you receive on a regular basis, consider creating a quick 2-3 minute video to answer it or even provide a quick tip. Additionally, since live streaming is done in an open forum, your consumers have the opportunity to ask a question as it arises. This makes customers feel like they’re part of the action, all the while getting to know you and your products/services.

If you’d like to learn how live stream video can be incorporated into your online marketing strategy, email us.

The post Live Stream Videos in Online Marketing appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Company-Focused Posts

Folks follow you because they have an interest in what you have to offer. They’ve come to you to learn more about you. Offering company-focused posts is a great way to let your audience better understand who you are and what you do.

Behind the Scenes photos: Let people see what goes on day-to-day at your company. Take a photo of a company meeting, a few associates dining in the company kitchen, or the desk of your CEO. Behind-the-scenes photos give a face to your company and make it feel more personal.

Agency All-Star: Pick a staff member and feature them on your social profile. Share a photo and some information about what they do in and out of the office. Below is an example of yours truly.

Testimonials: How often do you base your Amazon purchase on the product reviews? Consider sharing a little bit about what others have experienced when working with your company. This might even help a potential customer decide to use your services.

Case Studies: Nothing speaks louder than cold, hard facts. If you have case studies about the winning work you’ve done for your clients/customers, social media is a great place to share it.

Awards: Have you recently won an industry award? Has your company received a prestigious certification? A great way to show those who follow you that you just achieved greatness is to post it on your social channels.

Company #tbt: Show your followers how far you’ve come with a fun and entertaining photo or video from years past.

Audience Engagers

Start up a dialogue with your social media followers by handing the microphone over to them. This allows you to better understand them and allows them to feel like they have a voice.

Ask Questions: Posts that pose a question are known to have a higher engagement rate.

Hold a Contest: Consider coming up with a catchy hashtag and have your followers post content around it. The winner can receive one of your products or services for free. Who doesn’t like free?

Poll: Set up a poll and have your followers respond. Twitter is a great platform for this.

Audience Photos: Have your followers post a photo of themselves with one of your products, be it at home or halfway around the globe.

Hold a Caption Contest: Another great way to increase audience engagement is to post a photo and have your followers caption it.

Give Them What They Want: Let your followers tell you what they want to see. This will help in providing various content ideas. Score!

Industry-Related Posts

Ever heard of the 80/20 rule? In social media, the etiquette book says that your content should be 80% industry-related posts and 20% promotional content. Plus, posting about industry trends and topics will help you become a thought leader among your peers.

Industry News: Has there recently been a huge announcement related to your field? Post a link to the article or write about it and share it with your audience. Setting up a Google alert is a great way to get news the minute it hits the wire.

Blog: If you have a solid team that curates content for you, share a link to the post.

Tool Recommendation: People love to learn about new ways to collect data or help them do their job more efficiently. If you know of a great resource, link to it! Our Analytics blog is filled with tool recommendations.

Event Announcement: Are you hosting or speaking at an industry event? Let your followers know in advance. If their schedule allows, they’ll attend. They might even share it with their friends.

Certainly there are many more ways to engage and entertain your social media followers. Hopefully the aforementioned will help get your creative juices flowing. Want more ideas? We can help.

The post Content Curation Ideas for Your Social Channels appeared first on MoreVisibility.

When you see a Canvas post on your timeline it looks like a regular post –

However, upon clicking, it opens up the interactive experience that allows you to swipe through a variety of different frames. An added bonus is the ability to include both still photos, and videos. The additional space and design capabilities allow you to truly convey your story.

This inventive approach can lighten up your creative social strategy, and potentially increase your social engagement. Note that this is a mobile-only experience, so keep this in mind when creating your assets. It can be posted both organically, in addition to having the ability to be promoted (paid), allowing for addition exposure. Ultimately, this can also lead to increased conversions.

Here are 4 things to consider when creating your Canvas:

1. When you are creating your title and headline, you should draw users in, and entice them to click. If that is a person who is on a desktop, they should want to go and open the Canvas on their mobile. If the consumer is on mobile, they should want to tap the Canvas when they see it. Intrigue your consumers with your messaging, and make them want to see more.
2. Take full advantage of the easy-to-use templates. These templates allow you to storyboard your Canvas and plan out your experience. Play around with the different frames, and test to see what you like. You can try out 4 frames of still photos that lead to a video, or you can begin your Canvas with a video that leads into still frames. There are endless possibilities – have fun with it.
3. Don’t stick to one kind of media; if you can mix and match photos with videos, then why not do it? This is your canvas – create your story.
4. Use the call-to-action button tool! As a marketer, you know that a call-to-action is the most important part of your message. Facebook allows you to generate a variety of buttons that should be appealing to your consumers.

For more information about Facebook Canvas, go straight to the source.

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iEd

Apple will be supplying 114 underserved schools with technology.

• Teachers will receive MacBooks & iPads
• Over 50,000 students will get iPads
• Classrooms will be updated to feature Apple TVs

Swift Playground

With its Everyone Can Code program that focuses on children and technology, this Fall hundreds of high schools are set to teach courses with the Swift Playground app Developer Sandbox.

iWork

This real-time collaboration effort will allow for a more cohesive workplace/working experience. Colleagues and classmates will now be able to edit and work on Pages, Keynote and Numbers at same time.

Apple Watch

Becoming the most popular watch brand of 2015, the new Apple Watch (Series 1) will cost $269 and feature the following:

• New emergency services function offering a one-touch 911 button that also alerts your emergency contacts.
• Pokemon Go integration.
• A swim-proof Series 2 version which incorporates swim into calorie count and activity tracking. (Water resistant to 50 meters.)
• Faster processor with brighter display and a built-in GPS.
• New styles which will include white ceramic & Hermes bands.
• Nike+. Built with runners and athletes in mind, this will include a stretchy band and lightweight case, as well as reminders, routes and more. (Cost is $369 and will roll out in late October 2016.)

iPhone

iOS 10 is scheduled to be released on 9/13/16. Main updates include:

• Third party Siri integration
• Redesigned maps to be integrated into apps
• A new, unified “Home” HomeKit hub for home automation
• Enhanced messages section

iPhone7, 7Plus is scheduled to be released on 9/16/16. Ten new features include:

1. Sleeker design with high gloss finish. Colors to include black/jet black, gold, silver and rose gold.
2. A better Home button reengineered to be more responsive.
3. New enclosure that’s water and dust resistant.
4. Huge advancements in terms of the camera which now will include an optical stabilizer, wider lens, sharper images, a high-speed sensor, True Tone flash and richer color. (On the iPhone7 Plus two cameras will be available. They include a zoom feature, telephoto lens & software zoom, up to 10x.)
5. Better Retina HD Display.
6. Enhanced audio featuring stereo speakers (bottom & top.)
7. Wireless Headphones with a digital port – removing the need for an analog jack.
8. Wireless ear-bud experience via a new product called AirPods. These present the opportunity for 5 hours of charge, wireless battery case, touch control for Siri, and easy integration to phone/watch/laptop. They have also partnered with Beats and will use a new W1 chip for their products. (Cost is currently at $150 and will be available in a few weeks.)
9. International ApplePay utilizing Felica technology. Roll-out to occur in Japan.
10. Increased Performance using a new chip called A10 Fusion, the most powerful chip ever in a smartphone, featuring a 64 bit 4-core processor. It runs twice as fast as the iPhone 6, with less power. It also features a longer battery life (2+ more hours per day than the iPhone6.)

iPhone Upgrade Program

Apple has also made enhancements and have expanded their iPhone Upgrade program.

The post Apple Event Recap: Upcoming Products & Technologies appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Tips for Marketers

While advertising has not yet rolled out for Instagram Stories, I recommend getting on the platform and using the new feature to become familiar with it.

Default Image

Most Instagram profiles will feature a default profile image of the person who’s account you’re viewing – that’s fine. However, as a business making your default image your logo can really make you stand out amongst other profiles on the Instagram Story timeline.

Content Strategy

Repurposing the same images on your timeline in your Instagram Stories is not a best practice – instead, give the user a reason to always view your timeline and your stories by making your stories more personal and behind the scenes. If I am the manager of a bowling alley, my timeline may feature an image of the bowling alley set-up for a birthday party on Friday evening. However, my stories may consist of the actual birthday party bowling, eating and celebrating. Since your stories will disappear in 24 hours, this is a great way to highlight moments your business has that are better suited for a short video than an image post.

Insights

After you post your story, watch it again and while watching swipe up or click the “eye” icon on the bottom of your post:

This will bring you to a screen that shows users who have watched your story. While you cannot target specific users for advertising within stories as of yet, it is a good idea to view the users who have watched your post and get an idea of the audience that consistently checks your stories. This audience is likely who you want to target for advertising on the Instagram platform. Companies who have a smaller following will find this useful. Companies that have thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers will likely not scroll through and view every user who has watched their story each time. For larger businesses, make sure you sign up for an Instagram business account which will give you features to view insights, such as weekly impressions.

While not everyone is a fan of marketing their business on SnapChat, there is a reason Instagram built a new feature that resembles SnapChat – it works, it’s a great brand experience and engagement numbers on short videos or images that disappear after a certain time period are very high. Log-in to Instagram, post stories and master your strategy so if advertising does become available – you’re ready to go.

The post Tips for Instagram Stories appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Twitter has been and remains the first place millions of people go to in order to both learn about and participate in live events and breaking news. The platform has added new tools such as Moments to help foster this type of activity. It is now clear, they are placing a major emphasis on real time content.

See what’s happening: https://t.co/ChbWRrSJyKhttps://t.co/r9AZd9rzI3

— Twitter (@twitter) July 25, 2016

When the world wants to know what’s happening, Twitter has the answer.

For a brand, it’s critical to remember a few things.

1. It is still crucial to watch for trending topics and hashtags in Twitter to see if your brand’s voice can add value to those conversations. Jump in and ride the hashtag.

2. Twitter’s focus on important events and occurrences means that brands should also focus on what is important to say. What adds value to your audience? Share that.

As Facebook continues its dominance as the world’s largest social network, and platforms like Instagram and Snapchat grow ever more popular, Twitter must evolve in this competitive landscape. Betting on the platform’s effectiveness in real time situations might help it do just that. If the company can succeed in doing so, it will remain an important place for many brands to develop and share their story.

The post Twitter Bets on Real Time appeared first on MoreVisibility.

A study conducted by the CMO Council showed that producing and posting images on social media channels resulted in an increase in engagement. (Just look at the growing success that Instagram and Snapchat are seeing.) Reasons for the boost? Users find these elements to be more fun, evoke emotion and make brands stand out against their competition.

So, if you’re looking to help move your website visitors further along the purchasing funnel, consider the following tips. Keep in mind that producing images just for the sake of changing up your posts may not move the needle. There are important factors that make visual content more successful. These include:

• Good production quality
• Interesting storyline
• Compelling, captivating photography
• Good timing
• Relevancy

If you’re interested in exploring this approach by adding photos, videos or other visual content to your social media strategy, but don’t know where to begin, please contact us.

The post Use Images & Video to Boost Social Media Engagement appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Well, Facebook heard your concerns and recently released a new Text Overlay Tool for Advertisers. Instead of designing your ad, uploading it to Facebook and hoping it gets approved – now you can take your ads and upload them to the Text Overlay Tool which will immediately gives you 4 rankings for your ad – OK, Low, Medium, and High. Here is what each of these rankings mean:

OK – This is the best ranking you can receive – it means the text on your ad did not cover more than 20% of your image according to Facebook and your ad’s reach will not be affected.

Low – A ranking of Low from the Text Overlay Tool implies that your ad was close to being under 20% text, but maybe it went slightly over. In the past this ad would have been disapproved and not run at all. Now, Facebook will allow an ad with a “Low” ranking to run, however your reach will not be as high as an ad with a ranking of “OK.”

Medium – If you get a ranking of medium then your ad had too much text and your reach will be affected much more.

High – This ranking indicated you had a lot of text within your advertisement. Facebook may not even run your ad if you have a High ranking.

While this new tool is great for advertisers to know right away how much text is on their creative – it can also work against you if you do not correct the ads. The old Facebook policies were black and white – if your ad is over 20% text it will not run at all. Now, there is a grey area where your ad will run with a ranking lower than “OK” but your reach will be affected. Just because Facebook will now allow these ads to run, does not mean it is a best practice for the advertiser. Effecting reach can ultimately affect your impressions, engagement and ROI.

As an advertiser you should continue to follow the same guidelines, creating ads with minimal text for a better visual user experience. Remember, logos, numbers and watermarks still count as text in your ads. Check out the Text Overlay Tool here.

In order to get the most out of each campaign, use the Text Overlay Tool to ensure every ad you upload has an “OK” ranking and will reach your target audience most effectively.

The post Facebook Has a New Text Overlay Tool for Advertisers appeared first on MoreVisibility.

YouTube just launched a free app (currently available only for iPhone in the US & Canada) called YouTube Director for Business. The app guides you through the entire video creation process. Simply follow the prompts to record, edit, and upload. You can choose from a variety of templates and even select music to act as a soundtrack to your video. Once you’re happy with your masterpiece, one click allows you to upload the video to your YouTube channel.

Now that your video is live and ready to be viewed by the billions of YouTube users, consider running a paid campaign to direct folks to your new video.

Still unsure if you’ve got the cinematic skills to create your own video? YouTube Director also offers an automated video option which creates a video ad automatically utilizing existing assets such as your company logo and screenshots.

YouTube Director truly makes it easier for businesses in all verticals to expand their reach and increase user engagement leveraging video. If you have any questions on this opportunity or how to create a video strategy for your business, please let us know.
*Google Internal Data, 2016

The post Make Video Ads From Your Phone with YouTube Director appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Replies

When replying to a Tweet, @names will no longer count toward the 140-character count. This is aimed at making conversations on Twitter easier and more straightforward. No more penny-pinching words to ensure they reach the whole group.

Media Attachments

Attachments such as photos, GIFs, videos, polls, or Quote Tweets, will no longer count as characters within your Tweet. This give you more room in your actual tweet.

Retweet and Quote Tweet Yourself

Twitter will be enabling the Retweet button on your own Tweets, so you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself when you want to share a new reflection or feel like a really good one went unnoticed.

Goodbye, @

These changes will help to simplify the rules around Tweets that start with a username. Tweets that begin with a username will reach all your followers. This means you no longer have to use the ”.@” convention, which is currently used to broadcast Tweets. If you want a reply to be seen by all your followers, you will be able to Retweet it to indicate that you want it broadcast to a wider audience.

In addition to these updates, Twitter continues to look for new and exciting ways to broaden the way users communicate with one another. Visit our Social Media blog for continued updates!

The post Twitter Updates will Allow for More in the Allotted 140 Characters appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Unlike other social media channels where users directly communicate one-on-one with each another, LinkedIn has typically been a place where resources are shared, thought-leadership built, and a database/lists created. This new acquisition gives Microsoft an opportunity evolve LinkedIn and transform the channel into a more powerful social hub.

Having recently launched a revamped mobile app, LinkedIn continues to build on its strong foundation. Additionally, the acquisition of Lynda.com by LinkedIn, and update to its newsfeed to deliver more relevant insights to users, has resulted in increased engagement and membership. Now, with Microsoft entering the picture, one can only expect growth and innovation for their professional, connected audience.

For now, LinkedIn’s distinct brand will remain as it is today. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2016. Check back to our blog for updates.

The post What Microsoft’s LinkedIn Acquisition Means for Marketers appeared first on MoreVisibility.

What exactly is live video in this context? Simply put, it is the ability to stream a video to your social media audience in real time. Facebook, Meerkat and Periscope (which is owned by Twitter) are the most common platforms for brands to stream live video. To broadcast your content, you will need to download the appropriate apps to a mobile device.

Live Video Benefits

You’re probably wondering why you should choose live video over prerecorded video. Some of the benefits of live video include:

• Intimate Setting – Streaming video in real time allows you to connect with your audience on a deeper level. Unlike a prerecorded video, you are able to engage with your audience throughout the broadcast. If appropriate, you can address viewers’ comments during the broadcast. Since the comments can pop up on the screen quickly, it might be helpful to have someone off-camera read you the audience’s questions. From there, you can respond to the user’s question or comment. With Facebook Live, you have the ability to respond to comments post broadcast.
• Increased Visibility – As you know by now, it’s getting more competitive for brands to get their posts noticed on Facebook. Live video may give brands the opportunity to propel their posts to the top of the News Feed. Facebook recently announced that they were going to rank live videos higher in the News Feed when they are streamed than post broadcast. In both Facebook Live and Periscope, users can view the video after the broadcast ends. Facebook Live videos are available until the brand deletes the video. However, if brands want users to view their Periscope videos 24 hours after the broadcast they need to include #save in the title of their live broadcast.
• Personalize Brand – We live in a world where we are constantly being bombarded by overproduced ads. Live video gives viewers the chance to see the brand authentically.

While there are number of benefits to producing live videos for your brand, it’s important not to produce a live video just for the sake of producing one. Identify trends in what your audience is talking about and what they are interested in within each social network that your company is a part of.

Live Video Use Cases

Whether you’re a B2B or B2C company, there are number of ways to utilize live video including:

• Industry events/trade shows – Are you or a colleague speaking at an industry event? Are you holding demonstrations at a booth? Are you unveiling something new? Share your experience with your followers who couldn’t attend in-person.
• Preview of new products – Do you have a new product on the horizon? Build excitement by introducing it on live video via a “teaser.”
• Trunk shows – Sometimes, trunk shows limit the number of people who can attend. Streaming the show live will allow more users to get a glimpse of your merchandise.

Live Video Roadblocks

While live videos are great way to interact with your audience, you should be aware of the potential roadblocks:

• Connectivity issues – Before you schedule a live broadcast, make sure that you have a strong internet connection. If your connection is weak, the broadcast may be interrupted midstream.
• Stage fright – Many people get nervous and “freeze” once the camera starts rolling. Choose your host carefully. Select someone who is going to be comfortable in front of the camera.
• Inability to control everything – With live video, you can’t rewind and start over mid-stream. Brands have to be comfortable with the fact that everything may not go as planned during the broadcast.

Please keep in mind that the opportunities to use live video are not limited to the former list. As you sit down to create or refine your content marketing strategy, you may want to consider adding live video into the mix.

The post Consider Live Video for Your Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on MoreVisibility.

First, let’s take a step back. What is a beacon? A beacon is a device that emits a Bluetooth signal which can connect with devices (like a mobile phone) within a certain proximity. As long as a user has Bluetooth enabled and compatible applications on their device, they are eligible to receive messaging or personalized ads through a beacon. Think of it like a Wi-Fi router, except instead of connecting with a password, Bluetooth and your location are the requirements to connect. This system allows shoppers and customers the opportunity to interact on their devices during the in-store experience.

Facebook is leading the way with beacon technology on social media by offering free beacons to businesses. These beacons are extremely easy to set up and give businesses the opportunity to utilize Place Tips, which can provide the following to users within the beacon’s range:

• A custom welcome message or photo to greet customers
• Messages that prompt users to like your Facebook page and check-in
• Recent Posts from your Facebook page
• Recommendations, Posts and Photos about your Facebook page that friends have posted on the platform

While Facebook does not yet offer paid advertising that utilizes beacon technology, Place Tips are an excellent way to convert your business’ foot traffic into social engagement on Facebook.

Overall, beacon technology is continuing to grow and there are other platforms that can utilize the same technology for paid marketing campaigns. If capitalizing on beacon technology for your digital marketing efforts is of interest, our interactive advertising team has fantastic solutions that can be custom tailored for your business. Feel free to contact us today!

The post What are Facebook Beacons and Place Tips? appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Find the Why

Interview loyal customers to determine why they like your product. Conduct surveys or interview clients to see what makes them continue to come back. Is it due to friendly customer service? Do the clients love the results? Compile your clients’ feedback and note key sentiments. This provides you with the ‘why’.

Stories Have More Than 140 Characters

Knowing why your customers come to you isn’t enough. You can’t simply tweet: “Clients love our customer service” to attract more people. You have to develop a comprehensive story that continuously shows your benefit, without explicitly stating the benefit. If customer service is your key benefit, think of creating a story around it. How will you show how your customers feel as a story? Will you do a video with customers who love your customer service to create a short commercial? Or possibly you can recreate situations and show how you resolved them. It’s not enough to tweet out your benefit, you have to show it as an engaging story.

Storytelling 360

Your story has to be illustrated on your website, social media, email marketing campaigns, direct mail, etc. It’s not enough to tell a story via social media. You have to incorporate it into your website. The Design and Development team at MoreVisibility does a great job of using infographics, process graphics, and custom images on a client’s website in conjunction with the MoreVisibility Social Media team placing complementary elements on a client’s social media. Because storytelling and engagement is so important, MoreVisibility takes a 360° approach to telling a client’s story with content, social media management, and design and development.

The post Relationship Marketing Through Storytelling appeared first on MoreVisibility.

To address the concern of users missing out on the content that is most relevant to them, Instagram aims to mirror the success their parent company, Facebook, has sustained with its News Feed Algorithm. This update will likely have a significant impact on the performance of a brand’s content in the channel. As Facebook made updates to its algorithm and improved the user experience on the platform, many brands noticed a drop in organic reach & engagement and were forced to adjust their strategies.

Brands currently active in Instagram will have no choice but to evolve with the platform. We recommend making the following considerations moving forward:

• Reverse-engineer the algorithm. Instagram’s stated goal is to make sure users see the content that is most relevant to them. Therefore, when creating content for Instagram, always ask yourself: “Is this image relevant to my audience?”
• Remember the 80/20 rule. Only 1 out of every 5 posts should specifically pitch your product or service.
• Space it out. Would you want to see 5 posts in a row from the same brand in your Instagram feed? Neither does your audience.

Though it’s too early to tell how significant this update will be on post-performance, brands can still reach their audience in a meaningful way. Instagram is still a rapidly growing platform, and decisions like this will likely help continue its dominance in attention across the various social media channels.

The post Instagram, the Popular Image-Sharing Platform, Adds Algorithm-Based Personalized Feed appeared first on MoreVisibility.

Brainstorming Sessions

As a creative agency, MoreVisibility sources people from different departments to brainstorm direction. Our Manager of Creative Services and Project Managers create an agenda to outline the topic, and allow ideas to flow. As a creative department, we try not to determine “good ideas” from “bad ideas” during the brainstorming session so that all members feel comfortable contributing.

Creative Freedom

There are times when our Project Managers push our teams to be creative. We encourage them to take risks, since something fresh and innovative has growth potential. Once we see the result of their creativity, our Project Managers are trained to reel them back in and edit their work based on the client’s goals and objectives. If we never allow our designers to express their creativity, your company’s creativity could become stale. Our novel approach could provide a new perspective that expands your company’s reach and allows the company to remain relevant.

Research and Inspiration

Our creative department allots time in all projects for creative research. Researching social media channels, magazines, and the internet could serve as a creative catalyst for your project and future. Without research on current trends and what makes them effective, your creative may begin to become repetitive and stale.

MoreVisibility’s creative department has a unique approach to all projects. We don’t follow a template, so all of our creative outputs are customized to our clients’ needs. Source our creative team for new projects to keep your brand fresh and engaging for your clients.

The post How MoreVisibility Can Keep Your Creative, Creative appeared first on MoreVisibility.

For your Company page posts, be sure to:

• Incorporate links and clear calls to action
• Link to YouTube videos
• Include images

Grow and nurture your LinkedIn audience, by:

• Promoting your LinkedIn Company page on your website, in your email marketing, and other marketing collateral, etc., to build a larger audience
• Responding to your followers’ comments on your posts to engage in a dialogue with them
• Testing different kinds of posts and content and assessing the results via LinkedIn’s in-channel analytics

For more ideas of how LinkedIn can help with your B2B marketing, check out LinkedIn’s free educational webinars for some primers.

The post Maximize Your Corporate LinkedIn Account appeared first on MoreVisibility.