From Startups to Managers: A Beginner's Guide to Google Adwords

It’s the most well known online marketing platform in the world, and it could be the best source of growth for your startup. Google AdWords has been around since October 2000, and while it might not be the newest ad platform on the block, it’s undoubtedly one of the best.

AdWords is Google’s paid advertising platform - a version of organic search for businesses with fewer backlinks and larger digital advertising budgets. With AdWords, you can generate search traffic without spending months (or years) gradually moving up the rankings via SEO.

For marketers, AdWords has several benefits:

• You can start generating traffic right away, instead of investing time into an SEO or social media marketing campaign.

• It’s easy to track your conversion rate and results, letting you optimise your campaign and improve your return on investment.

• Once you find profitable keywords and ad combinations, you can scale your budget in just a few seconds, taking your campaign from a side project into your biggest source of new customers.

Many marketers, especially those that are part of small startups, avoid AdWords over fears of it being too expensive or challenging. This is understandable - after all, this is traffic you need to pay for, not the free traffic of organic search.

Despite its reputation as an expensive advertising channel, AdWords is surprisingly affordable once you have your campaign optimised and dialed in. A few weeks of losing money can often lead to a hugely profitable campaign that drives results for several years.

Would you like to add Google AdWords to your startup or enterprise business’s digital marketing arsenal? Read on to learn the basics of AdWords, from choosing keywords to creating your first text ads.

Creating your campaign

Before you can start creating ads and choosing how much you’ll pay every time a user clicks on that ad, you need to set up your campaign.

Google AdWords is split into two networks:

• The Search Network, which is made up of text ads displayed alongside Google’s search results. You’ll see search network ads when you search using Google for things like “car insurance” or “electric bicycles.”

• The Display Network, which is made up of image, video and interactive ads displayed on publisher websites. These are the ads you see beside YouTube videos and inside the AdSense units on news websites and blogs.

Both of these networks are driven by keywords. In this guide, we’ll focus on the search network, since it’s the easier of the two networks to start with as an AdWords beginner.

To create your campaign, click on the “+ Campaign” button in the AdWords interface, then select “Search Network only” to limit your campaign to Google search:

On the next page, you’ll need to give your campaign a name and select the ad type you’d like to display. For most campaigns, standard keyword-targeted ads will deliver the best results.

Before you move on to the next step, make sure to deselect “Include search partners.” This will prevent your ads from displaying on other search engines and limit their reach only to Google’s search network.

You can also select the type of devices you’d like to include in your campaign. If you only want to display on mobile devices, for example, you can select device types to limit your reach to the hardware you’d like to target.

After you’ve completed this section, scroll down the page. The next step is to select your target location. Google allows you to select entire countries, regions, or specific towns and cities. The more targeted you get, the smaller your campaign’s audience will become.

Once you’ve selected your campaign’s location, choose your target languages. It’s best to limit each campaign to one language, as this will prevent your ads from showing to people that can’t understand them (for example, English ads in a Spanish-speaking region).

For our example campaign, if you are in the United States, choose the US as the geographic targeting area and English as the campaign language:

From here, it’s time to set your bid. At this point, you have very little information about the cost of your target keywords, so it’s best to enter a relatively low bid that you can modify later once your campaign is completely set up.

For our example campaign, we’ve entered a default bid of $1.00 and set a $20 daily budget. We have also excluded features like location information and sitelinks:

Ad groups and keywords

AdWords splits campaigns into ad groups - groups of similar keywords that “theme” a specific ad. In our example below, we’ve created an ad group for keywords related to internet marketing training to promote our offer:

Google will recommend keywords for each ad group based on your landing page content. You can accept Google’s keywords, or add your own keywords based on what you think your target audience is searching for.

As a general rule, aim for about 5-10 keywords per ad group. If you add too many keywords to each ad group, you run the risk of reducing the relevance of your ads. If you have a large range of keywords to target, split them into separate ad groups to keep your campaign’s focus tight.

Keyword types and match types

From a commercial perspective, not all keywords are equally valuable. Some keywords, such as keywords with an obvious commercial intent, are much more likely to produce conversions than others.

In the screenshot above, you’ll notice a variety of different keyword types. There are:

• Informational keywords, such as “internet marketing courses and training”

• Comparison keywords, such as “best internet marketing training”

For the best results, you’ll want to split your ad groups based on keyword type. Group keywords with commercial intent together, while creating separate ad groups for keywords that have more of an informational focus.

This might not seem important now, but it will help you better control your bidding once you start to generate conversions from your campaign.

Keywords can also be divided into three match types:

• Broad match keywords, which have the largest prospective audience

• Phrase match keywords, which will display when users search for a specific phrase

• Exact match keywords, which only display when users search for an exact phrase

Google explains keyword match types in more detail here. Understanding match types will help you get a stronger ROI from your campaign and avoid spending money on keywords that aren’t directly related to your offer.

Creating ads

Once you have selected your target keywords, set each keyword’s match type and grouped all of your keywords into ad groups, it’s time to start writing ads for your campaign.

To create your ad, you’ll need to enter text into several fields. We’ve explained each field and its effect on your ads below, with some advice on what to focus on in each field:

• Final URL: This is the page that people will end up on after they click your ad. Enter the URL of your landing page. If you don’t have a landing page, enter the main URL of your website’s homepage.

• Headline 1: This is your primary headline. Put the key point of your offer here, such as the name of your product or the type of offer you’re promoting. This is normally the first part of your ad that people will read.

• Headline 2: This is your secondary headline. Expand on your offer here by listing a key benefit or unique selling point to differentiate your product or service from competitors.

• Path: This is the display path to your URL. You can use this to make your landing page feel more specific by indicating that it’s directly related to the searcher’s keywords.

• Description: This is where you can enter a description for your offer. Expand on the points you listed in your headlines and add a Call To Action (such as “Click here now to join!” to encourage users to respond to your ad.

After you enter your ad text, Google will display a preview of your ad for desktop computers and mobile devices:

Writing highly effective ads is an art form, and it’s one that any AdWords advertiser should learn to master. The better your ads connect with your target market, the less you’ll pay per click and the higher your campaign’s conversion rate will become.

If you’re struggling to write effective ads, check out Unbounce’s guide to writing high-performing AdWords ads, which contains a huge list of tips and techniques to make sure your ads say what they should and inspire your target audience to take action.

Bidding and optimisation

Congratulations - you’ve created your first campaign! From here, it’s time to do several things to make sure you can optimize your campaign and improve its performance over time:

1. Set up conversion tracking, so that you can track which ads produce conversions and which aren’t bringing in any new leads/customers.

2. Make sure your CPC bid is high enough to display your ads on the first page. You can adjust this bid later based on your campaign’s performance, but at the beginning of a campaign you may need to bid high to earn impressions and generate traffic.

3. Create several variations of each ad, each with a different message. To begin with, try running two to five ad variations for each ad group to learn which variation performs the best.

4. Before you start optimizing, make sure your data is statistically significant. This will help you make meaningful optimisations, instead of optimising based on data that might not say what you think it does.

5. Once you find winning keyword and ad combinations, increase your budget and scale your campaign to reach a larger audience. The great thing about AdWords is that you don’t need to wait for more traffic - all you need to do is adjust your budget.

6. Expand your campaign by adding more ad groups and keywords, each with their own specific landing page.

Using the process above, a small AdWords campaign can grow into a large, highly profitable source of leads and sales for your business. Start small with a budget that you can afford to spend on experiments, then scale once you discover winning ad and keyword combinations.

Does your business use AdWords?

Most AdWords campaigns aren’t immediately profitable. However, many campaigns go from money-losing experiments into highly profitable marketing assets over the course of weeks or months of optimisation.

If you have a service, a product, or any other type of offer with a clearly defined target audience that’s reachable online, AdWords could be a highly profitable marketing channel that fuels short and long-term growth.

Are you ready to start using Google AdWords? From ad groups and keyword targeting to writing engaging and effective ads, put the simple steps we’ve listed above to work and start generating leads, enquiries and sales from Google’s search advertising platform.

Want to expand your digital marketing efforts beyond Google Adwords? Get a globally recognised certificate! Our courses are taught by the industry experts so you will know how to deal with the local market better!

Source: Digital Marketing Institute

5 Inspiring Covid-19 Marketing Campaigns

As the Covid-19 storm continues, one thing is for sure: the world will never be quite the same again.

Thrust into a state of isolation, we have all had to adapt to a more solitary existence, relying increasingly on the hyper-connective capabilities of the digital world, as well as our local communities to navigate these most unusual of times.

Since the start of the lockdown, consumer circumstances and buying habits have changed and brands have been forced to change their operational approach as well as their messaging in response. Many experts have advised this as a time for companies to reassess their brand strategy.

Despite being a highly creative industry, marketing isn’t always as innovative or risk-averse as you might believe. Many brands opt to remain conservative or ‘play it safe’ when it comes to their campaigns for fear of tarnishing their reputation—but now is not the time to sit back and hope for the best. For many, now is the time to pivot, to reinvent, to inspire, and to offer a viable solution to a very pressing problem.

Right now, brands and marketers need to focus on offering short-term communication and innovation to secure long-term success in this unpredictable period. And, some are doing an amazing job.

To inspire your Covid-19 marketing efforts, here are five noteworthy campaigns that you need to know about.

Guinness

As the pandemic started taking hold in Europe and North America in early March and the lockdown loomed, Guinness stepped up to the mark with its 'Saint Patrick's Day Message' campaign.

The uplifting, inspirational tone of this video, coupled with its theme of communal care and unity strikes an emotional chord while demonstrating value and humanising the brand in uncertain times.

Original, relevant, and on-brand, Guinness yielded excellent results from this Covid-19 marketing campaign, with high favourability scores in the US (just outside the top 10% of most-revered campaigns). Moreover, 21% of the people that shared the video on social media did so because it defined the spirit and the mood of the times.

And towards the end of March, this Guinness-themed ad posted (featured at the top of the page) started circulating around social media: created by a freelancer who entered a One-Minute Briefs initiative in the UK, it actually touches on all the longstanding Guinness tropes of creativity and core-brand focus.

Lesson: Right now, building a sense of community is essential. Focus on messaging that brings people together, offer clear value, let your consumers know that you’re there for them, and you’re likely to win on tomorrow’s commercial battlefield.

BrewDog

Aberdeen's favourite purveyor of craft beer, BrewDog, took a proactive stance to the pandemic by using its resources to make its very own Punk Sanitiser.

Realising that hand sanitizer was becoming in short supply, the team at BrewDog set about making large batches and sending them to frontline services in the UK for free.

Speaking on its charitable initiative, BrewDog's founder James Wyatt, said:

"We are determined to do everything we can to try and help as many people as possible to stay safe."

To supplement the initiative, BrewDog offers regular updates through its blog while remaining active on Twitter and Instagram—activities that have kept the brand connected to its audience while creating a real brand buzz throughout the pandemic.

This brilliant initiative has also been adopted by other breweries and distilleries around the world, many of which have been committed to serving their local communities.

Lesson: By offering direct value as well as a practical solution to a genuine problem and using your promotional channels to guide consumers to your messaging, you will build trust, authority, and loyalty in these most uncertain times.

In today’s world, people expect brands to take action—and if you can do something to help, you should. You should shout about it too: tastefully, of course.

Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

To pass the time in a productive, proactive way, the staff at Canada's Banff Springs Hotel recently launched a campaign called 'The Art of Waiting'.

From dancing bellhops to singing chefs, this series of mini videos is simple yet entertaining and showcases the brand's fun-loving side while creating a sense of nostalgia that is likely to encourage droves of guest bookings once the doors reopen.

A creative use of visual content that has received a positive response on YouTube.

Lesson: Video content is a powerful marketing medium, and by keeping your messaging simple while sticking to your brand values, you can maintain a positive presence while driving healthy levels of social engagement during the pandemic.

Nike

To help its consumers maintain their fitness and personal morale during the crisis, sporting colossus Nike made its club training subscription free for a limited period of time—offering fans of the brand exclusive access to training, health, and fitness content.

In addition to its value-driven offering, in-app content, and inspirational brand messaging, Nike also extended its message of staying healthy during the virus to its podcast. As the pandemic endures, Nike continues to maintain a strong sense of brand loyalty and its collective efforts have also helped mitigate its dwindling sales in China.

Lesson:  By taking the time to craft brand messaging that is direct and meaningful across a cohesive mix of channels, you will boost your brand authority both now and as the pandemic starts to wane and societies adapt.

Lego

To encourage families to stay at home and help to flatten the curve during the peak of the Covid-19 crisis, Lego created an animated video urging kids to be superheroes while offering suggestions on what to do to stay safe.

By speaking directly to children and empowering them with a positive role in the crisis, Lego forged a real connection with its target demographic while offering genuine value with educational tips and resources on playing well at home. These STEM and STEAM-based initiatives are geared towards inspiring families across the globe to get creative during the pandemic.

The campaign’s inclusive messaging and content-driven direction offered audiences the perfect storm of engagement and educational value, which has so far resulted in record sales during the pandemic.

Lesson: By considering the value your product or service can offer consumers in this brave new world and creating content to help people engage with your brand on a deeper, more meaningful level, you will be able to remain afloat in the short-term and perhaps even thrive in the long-term.

“There's a way to do it better – find it.”Thomas A. Edison

We are still in unchartered waters and for businesses across industries, this is probably the most challenging time you’ve ever faced—and will face.

These five inspiring Covid-19 marketing campaigns prove that by staying true to your values, using your existing resources to offer practical solutions to pressing pain points, and maintaining a positive brand presence, you can prevail.

Now you have the ideas, how can you execute them on different internet marketing platforms? Consider joining our globally recognised certificate course today - taught by the industry experts to find out more! Better yet, you can take the courses online!

Source: Digital Marketing Institute

6 Ways to Use Video in Your Social Media Marketing

In 2017, the world watched almost five billion YouTube videos every day. On Facebook, users will get through an astonishing 100 million hours of video footage daily - a figure that has made Facebook video a major priority for 30% of marketers that year.

As a social media marketer, adding video to your campaigns and engagement efforts is one of the most powerful and effective ways to generate more attention and reach your audience.

Just like copy, video needs to be engaging, interesting and unique to be effective. Make your video without a clear focus and viewers are likely to tune out. Make it with a clear goal and you’re far more likely to achieve your objectives.

Below, we’ve shared six ways that you can use video in your social media marketing, from short videos that build anticipation to longer, more informative videos that let you dig into the details of your product and attract a more discerning, quality-focused target audience.

Create short, simple instructional videos for your audience

One great way to promote your brand using social video is to create short, instructional videos that demonstrate how your product can be used to solve a problem for the viewer.

Smoothie Saturday

Ice cream brand Ben and Jerry’s has mastered this strategy on their Instagram account over the past year by posting short, simple recipe videos that incorporate their products.

Each video is reduced to the most basic steps of the process and sped up in post production so it only lasts for 30 seconds. The beauty of these little social video snippets is that they quickly solve a pain point for users. Vegan but want to enjoy a smoothie? Check out how to create vegan cherry garcia acai smoothies or what about some non-dairy caramel almond brittle tarts for the lactose intolerant in the audience?

The end result is a short, simple and tightly produced instructional video to keep viewers engaged, while naturally placing Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in front of the company’s social media following. Having experienced a 6-point lift in brand awareness using Instagram Stories, it’s likely that this encouraged Ben and Jerry’s to delve further into shorter social video content.

There is a noticeable difference in viewership between their instructional content and other post formats, with these recipe based videos garnering between 100,000 and 200,000 Instagram views each, statistics that highlight the importance of content that provides real value in a quick, accessible format.

Got a complex product? Go for long-format!

At a 2013 YouTube partner event, reps from the video giant shared that upwards of a third of all YouTube viewing time can be attributed to videos greater than 20 minutes in length.

Despite the commonly held belief that short video content is best for attracting attention, a huge percentage of YouTube audiences watch online video like they do TV - in long, in-depth viewing sessions.

If you have a complicated, interesting product that you can talk about in detail, long-form video is a great way to attract attention and engage your audience on a deeper level.

Marketers and content creators, it seems, are taking notice. A Q2 2016 report from FreeWheel shows that long-form video content grew in popularity by 37% over the previous year, outpacing live ad views for the first time in the report’s history.

Examples of long-form content done right include Wine Library TV, which amassed such a huge audience over its 10-year lifespan that it earned 60,000 views on a 22-minute video posted after a five-year hiatus of new content.

Or Nintendo’s Direct series, which attracts millions of viewers for long, detailed product videos that occasionally run for hours.

As Mad Marketer notes, long-form video is a great tool for attracting audiences that will reject short-form, traditional video marketing: “Where many millennials will do everything in their power to avoid a 30 second ad, most of them will allow themselves to be drawn in by a longer movie if it is compelling enough to grab their attention.”

Create unusual, quirky videos that people can’t help but watch

In 2006, before most major brands had started to take social media seriously, Utah-based home and commercial blender company Blendtec launched their first video in a YouTube series called Will It Blend?

The videos involved Blendtec founder Tom Dickson blending popular consumer goods and well-known household objects ranging from iPhones and iPads in the company’s blenders. At one to two minutes in length, the videos are short, easy to watch and packed with fun inside jokes.

Central to each video are Blendtec blenders -- in fact, the entire series exists as a quirky online ad campaign for the company’s products. But because the focus was more on the zaniness of the concept than the product itself, viewers weren’t put off by the overt product demonstration.

Will It Blend? is widely regarded as one of the most successful social media video campaigns in marketing history, earning well over 280 million brand impressions for Blendtec and generating an immediate increase in sales for Blendtec.

The success of Will It Blend? shows that video content doesn’t need to be refined or expensive in order to be successful. Blendtec’s videos are nicely shot and polished, but all take place in a bland “test lab” and don’t contain much in the way of visual appeal.

Instead, they’re packed with fun, making them a hit with audiences and a huge driver of media coverage for a company that, prior to the campaign, was barely known outside of a small niche market for high-end home and commercial blenders.

If you want to attract attention with your video, try being quirky and unusual. Very few people will tune in for a two-minute product demo, but you could win over hundreds of millions by taking an interesting and unique approach to showing off your product’s functionality.

Create low-cost, rough and ready content to stand out

Effective social media video doesn’t need to be costly. In fact, sometimes “rough” content is more effective than polished studio footage for standing out and attracting viewers on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.

Financial services company PwC proved this with its #BallotBriefcase campaign, which involved a series of short, on-the-street videos of a leather briefcase housing the Academy Award results as it made its way across the USA to promote PwC’s 82-year involvement in the awards.

The campaign increased PwC’s impressions 136x compared to content that didn’t feature the briefcase, all while generating 12.3 million impressions on Twitter. It went on to win the Shorty Award for best use of social media in a B2B marketing strategy and campaign.

When done right, inexpensive and simple content works. In some cases, the fact that it’s raw and simple isn’t a weakness for viewers -- instead, it sets the content apart from slickly filmed, overproduced commercial video, humanising a brand and making it more accessible to the user.

Use pre-roll ads to reach your target audience on Twitter

Most marketers are familiar with YouTube’s pre-roll advertising options, but far fewer are aware that pre-roll ads are also available on Twitter. Twitter rolled out pre-roll ads in late 2015, and has since expanded them to cover live Periscope video content.

One huge benefit of Twitter’s pre-roll video advertising is its targeting options. As an advertiser, you can select your audience using IAB content categories, then narrow it down by filtering via Twitter’s location, gender, language, device, platform and carrier options.

Twitter also includes the option to exclude specific publishers, letting you avoid advertising on content that’s are a bad match for your brand.

Since Twitter pre-roll ads are relatively new, they’re also comparatively cheap. Volvo achieved an impressive $0.03 average cost per view and a 36% view rate (33% higher than average for the automotive industry) for its pre-roll video campaign advertising a Summer Sales Event.

Use social media video as a customer service channel

Finally, one of the most effective ways to use social media video to connect with your existing and prospective customers is to create video content that’s equal parts advertising and customer service.

Warby Parker does this brilliantly through its WarbyParkerHelp YouTube channel, which has a mix of promotional videos showcasing the company’s eyeglasses and useful customer service content that’s aimed both at Warby Parker customers and people searching for glasses.

Because the videos directly answer common eyeglass-related questions, they feature in the YouTube search results for keywords related to eyeglass maintenance and care, producing a steady stream of organic traffic while answering customers’ questions.

And since the videos aren’t directly commercial (Warby Parker sunglasses are, for the most part, only mentioned in passing) they can capitalise on the traffic that comes from users searching for unbiased, helpful information about different eyewear to win new customers.

Even if you’re new to video, Warby Parker’s customer service approach to video isn’t too hard to imitate. SproutSocial’s guide to using YouTube for customer service covers four simple ways that you can use video for customer service and marketing.

Master the art of video marketing

Feeling inspired? Video can be an amazingly powerful marketing channel, especially for B2C businesses with exciting products. It’s also a surprisingly inexpensive marketing option - one that, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t require a Fortune 500-scale budget.

What it does require, however, is a better understanding of how social media marketing works, especially in the Hong Kong market. You can join our globally recognised certificate course today - taught by the industry experts, to acquire such knowledge!

Source: Digital Marketing Institute

The Essential Guide to Social Media Targeting

Social media is fun, easy, and a great way to be creative while offering a glimpse of your personal life and business activities but to do it really well, you actually need to develop a strategy.

Here are some actionable tips and tricks that you can use to develop your social media strategy to increase conversions and sales

Know What’s Trending

You may be surprised at which platforms are expected to stick around as the most popular in the next few years. Instagram video (ephemeral content) is expected to be big, as are LinkedIn and Facebook.

SlideShare, owned by LinkedIn, is frequently used on the site and is a hugely advantageous tool in that it offers a professional, user-friendly and visual method for users of all ages to easily be synced over to LinkedIn and also found on Google.

Here you have an excellent opportunity to have a professional “presentation” at the ready to anyone who is using LinkedIn.

Use Specialty Software and Apps

There are a ton of new apps out there that are specifically designed to help social media managers schedule, organise, plan and target their content. These are tools that you can use yourself, but also recommend to clients if you’re acting as a consultant on one-off projects.

A few examples of innovative new apps include:

• Sprinkles: A fun app that takes your photos and actually creates captions for you.

• Planoly: This app helps you to ensure a consistent aesthetic and brand voice on Instagram by showing you in advance how each post will look as an aggregate grid.

• Adobe Premiere Clip: Use this to quickly edit video and even soundtracks on your mobile device.

• Canva: This is one of the more popular tools for creating amazing graphics. Use it to make Infographics, photo illustrations, memes, and more.

Use Quizzes and Polls

Questions, questions, questions. This is an excellent way to get audiences to reveal their preferences and behavior, which essentially is the basis of your market research strategy. And there are plenty of tools to help you figure out your audience. Here are a couple of the more popular ones.

Facebook and Twitter: These platforms have easy-to-use poll options meant to engage in market research in your current Facebook groups. They’re not only excellent engagement tools, but they’re also essentially free market research opportunities that can easily lead you to build buyer personas for digital ad campaigns. The quirkier your product or target persona is, the more creative you can get with this.

Typeform: This is a versatile quiz-building platform that is very user-friendly. If you use it as a digital marketer, you’ll find that people are excited to answer questions about themselves. You can use it across various platforms, and what’s more, it’s a free tool.

Survey Monkey: It has been around forever and for a pretty good reason: it’s versatile, user-friendly, and inexpensive. If you’re new to social media marketing and want to practice, you can use such tools for “just-for-fun” polls in your favorite Facebook group or as a part of your personal branding strategy.

Understand How Your Product Ties in with Different Platforms

You’ll want to use a platform that really meets the needs of the particular types of products you offer. It’s a good idea to choose the top two or three and focus on those. One example of how to figure this out is by reviewing the actual demographics of each platform, too.

Part of understanding how to develop a good social strategy is being able to assess, recommend and implement a given business’ ideal social media profile based on their product, industry, target market, and other factors incorporated from their overall business strategy. And there are more and more social media platforms to choose from.

Is the product super visual? Pinterest and Instagram might be your go-to. Do you have a lot of content that is effectively converted and presented to audio? Consider an app like Anchor, which is a social media platform specifically designed for audio and allows users to create audio and video content to be shared across various platforms.

Facebook Ads for the Win

Facebook ads are, of course, one of the best and least expensive ways to target advertising as they have a huge range of built-in targeting mechanisms, which can help you, understand and even create buyer personas based on real-life data that is easily accessible. Most campaigns are going to involve a little bit of trial and error. This is okay, though, as this type of experimentation and problem-solving is part of a content or social media manager’s job.

So, as you are learning how to create a killer Facebook ad, there are many specific things to consider and explore. You’ll want to learn how to effectively incorporate purchasing behaviour parameters on your ads. You’ll also want to consider targeting based on life events which Facebook also has a lot of data for.

You can target your ads for existing and new customers in various ways, as well as use them to build subscription lists. Facebook ads also have a feature called “Create Lookalike Audience” which allows you to find new audiences with similar interests or preferences as your current one.

Build a Tribe

Hands down, interactive groups are still a key way to dig into market research, engage your audience, build a following and target your strategy. When you have a community of people in one place, your audience is already segmented and, when members are engaged, they’re giving you information every day via conversations on the topic of interest.

Using easy tools (think Facebook or Slack) you can build groups that are open, closed, or even paid, if the groups are, for instance, a part of an elite course offering. If you’re starting to target, keeping the group more open can be a good idea, but this can also be a little bit tricky as you will need to keep conversations on track with what you want to know, as well as keep trolls, spammers, and scammers out of the group.

Use Analytics Tools

By now most of us know how amazing Google Analytics is, but there are other neat tools out there that can help you figure out where you stand. Social Crawlytics and BuzzSumo are genius tools that help you to find your audience just by entering a URL or search term. They allow you to find out where your audience is and also how active it is. With BuzzSumo you can actually enter in a search term, and you’ll immediately find the sharing and engagement details on the most popular articles on that particular topic.

There’s always going to be a need for continuous testing, so dig on in and try some new analytics tools out to help with your current or upcoming digital marketing campaign. Some of them even offer the ability to track the activity of competitors.

Engage Authentically

When you’re working with social media and trying to maintain and build an audience, it’s important that you’re careful about how you’re working with your audience by their preferences. And in a lot of cases, less is more.

You don’t need to post that often, necessarily--perhaps once a day on Facebook, twice on twitter, and alternate between different types of content. This will depend on your industry and platform, of course. But the point is that you need to pay attention to what they’re really seeing as useful. How likely are they to stop in the middle of a busy day to like or comment on your posts? Why are they not seeing your posts? Do they respond well to humour or inspirational memes? How about controversy?

These are just a few of many ideas of where to start targeting your audience for your social media digital marketing campaign. Relationships are everything, and with any social or marketing strategy, this will be the thing that makes customers remember a business, stick around, and talk about it.

Learn the key digital specialisms with a globally certificated Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing taught by various local experts in the industry to further enrich your knowledge of internet marketing, hence furthering your career in the field.

Source: Digital Marketing Institute

The Story of the 'Selfie' and Its Impact on Marketing

Not only is June 21st #FathersDay this year, it is also the National Selfie Day in the US - so did you happen to celebrate both by having a nice dinner with your father and taking a selfie with him?

Regardless of your answer, to celebrate the longstanding popularity of taking self-portraits with a camera phone, we thought we would take the opportunity to see where the selfie came from and how it became so popular.

From Ellen DeGeneres’ star-studded Oscars selfie to astronaut Chris Hadfield’s literally out of this world reflective space snap, the self-taken photograph comes in countless forms.

Since the dawning of the social media age, the selfie has blossomed and in many ways, changed the way we approach photography, forever.

But, when did it all start and how did it become so popular so fast? Is the selfie still relevant today, especially for marketers, or was it merely a passing fad? Let’s explore.

The sensational rise of the selfie

Historians believe that the world's first-ever selfie was taken in 1839 on a daguerreotype camera by a Philadelphia native by the name of Robert Cornelius.

While the selfie in its modern-day form is occasionally a scapegoat for our digital vanity, in this case at least, it appears that Mr Cornelius simply wanted to see what he looked like, using the new technology of photography to echo centuries of artists creating self-portraits. Proof that, as humans, we have always had a desire to take a snapshot image of ourselves.

Fast forward to the smartphone era and the selfie earned itself an official entry in the Oxford dictionary in 2013 with usage of the term across the Web increasing by around 17,000% since then. The rise in self-taken photos was fuelled by the photo-snapping convenience of smartphones, spawning a craze that flipped the visual script, quite literally.

The spread of the selfie grew globally with the advance of ever-cheaper international travel as well as the popularity of visual platform Instagram. Indeed, the platform spawned the first hashtag-based selfie trends, including, #duckface and #Iwokeuplikethis.

“We enjoy opportunities to experiment with different identities—and the selfie allows just that. We all want to be able to 'try' on a new image and imagine how we would feel as that part of ourselves”Dr Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Centre in Boston

Clickworthy selfie marketing campaigns

The advent of selfie-driven hashtag trends and the format's growing popularity offered a fresh angle for brands and marketers looking to connect with their audience on a whole new level.

In 2013 alone, around 57 million #selfie hashtags were released into the social media landscape. The visual splendor, sheer creative scope, and opportunity for engaging user-generated content (e.g. Dunkin Donuts’ 2014 Shark Week selfie campaign) offered by the selfie became irresistible to brands across industries.

There have been countless selfie-centric digital marketing campaigns or ads in recent years—and here are a few hand-picked examples for your viewing pleasure:

The Walking Dead: #DeadYourself

The Walking Dead is one of TV’s most iconic zombie dramas. What started as a piece of cult programming quickly skyrocketed into a flesh-hungry global sensation—becoming one of the most-watched shows in TV history. Mainly because of the show’s epic content, but also because of its network’s savvy digital marketing campaigns.

To create a buzz around the show, the AMC Network developed an app that transforms Walking Dead fans into flesh-eating zombies.

By promoting its app across social media and encouraging fans to share zombified photos on Instagram using the hashtag #deadyourself, AMC earned a healthy level of engagement with truly terrifying user-generated content.

Beats By Dre: #SoloSelfie

To promote its new Solo2 headphones, Beats By Dre rode the wave of the selfie craze in 2014 by taking inspiration from Karen X. Cheng's viral video, ' The donut selfie'.

By inspiring influencers, celebrities and fans alike to emulate the donut-style selfie, offering their unique creative spin while sporting a pair of Solo2s, Beats By Dre cut through the noise almost instantly.

The campaign song's captivating melodies and alluring content captured the imaginations of many, earning the brand 10.6 million campaign views in a matter of weeks. A perfect storm of innovation and precise execution.

Volvo: #SelfieForSafety

In 2019, Volvo launched its #SelfieForSafety campaign to outline its safety-first brand positioning.

The car manufacturer asked people to post a selfie under the campaign's hashtag wearing a seatbelt inside their parked cars.

Volvo's initiative received a decent amount of buy-in from consumers, but more importantly, the brand used it for vital research.

By examining the pictures, Volvo discovered that four in 10 people wear their seatbelts incorrectly—a discovery that has proved pivotal to the brand’s future developments. A testament to the versatility of the selfie.

Is the Selfie still a thing in 2020?

We all love to take a selfie from time to time and the three campaigns mentioned certainly demonstrate the positive impact this accessible art form has had on the world of digital marketing.

But, what about today?

In 2016, 24 billion selfies were uploaded online. in 2018, studies showed that 94 million selfies were added to the web every single day. That’s an awful lot of outstretched arms and pouty lips.

It appears, like many social fads, that selfie-mania might be on the decline. But, as we’ve seen, human nature pushes us to keep exploring self-portraiture—so saying that the selfie bears no relevance today is a little like saying that photography is dead.

Legal issues over copyright have cropped up: the most infamous one being that of the “monkey selfie” where Naruto, the Indonesian crested macaque was deemed, after a long legal battle, to not in fact be the owner of the snapshots he clicked of himself using a nature photographer’s camera.

As we have all become more socially aware, the selfie has become somewhat demonized in recent years—with many professionals stating that this form of photography can cause mental health issues such as depression or eating disorders as a result of constant self-scrutiny. But, on the flip side, many selfie-lovers claim that portraiting themselves online serves to boost their confidence.

Selfies, if used with taste and impact, offer one of the ultimate forms of content-driven engagement, with endless user-generated content opportunities across industries.

Prior to the world being thrust into a state of lockdown, some would argue that the abundance of travelling selfies wore the medium a little thin. But, in our current Covid-19 climate, selfies have seen something of a renaissance as people have been taking pictures of themselves in ever-more fashionable masks (shots now known as 'maskies'). And, to fight the rise in cyber fraud during the pandemic, institutions, including banks, have been using selfies to verify official customers. So, yes, it appears that the humble selfie is still an incredibly valuable asset in today's world.

While the selfie isn’t exactly at the forefront of consumer consciousness these days, it’s clear that there is still every reason to consider leveraging them in your digital marketing campaigns. You can use them for market research, to raise awareness, to fight cybercrime, to generate a brand buzz, to inspire, and to entertain.

A good selfie, with an interesting context, is seldom received badly—think about ways to weave selfies into your next marketing campaign and you’re sure to strike a chord with your audience.

Do you know what looks as good as a cute selfie? A globally recognised certificate course on you resume. Enrol today to enjoy courses taught by the industry experts, to know how to use the knowledge to advance your Internet marketing efforts!

Source: Digital Marketing Institute

How to Effectively Manage Multiple Social Media Accounts

Do you find it exhausting managing multiple social media accounts daily? Are you praying for an easy way to focus your energy into an all-encompassing solution?

It's no secret among social media leaders that jumping between different tools and accounts can be draining. It's common for social media staff to end up managing several accounts based on different branches of your company, and all of them on different platforms. Some accounts could be dedicated to sales while others are used for customer service or digital marketing.

Despite the monumental amount of exertion it requires at times, managing multiple accounts on different social networks might be necessary and a boon for your business. It's all about how you consolidate your efforts.

Read on to find out how to boost sales by effectively manage multiple social media accounts.

Pros and Cons of Managing Multiple Social Media Accounts

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of social media management, it's important to understand the reasons for and against creating multiple accounts for single brands.

Pros

Establishing many accounts means you can talk to different audiences. Segmenting followers allows specific accounts to focus on certain topics as opposed to trying to engage everybody at once. This is particularly helpful if your business serves both consumers and other companies.

If your business has multiple locations across the state or country, having a separate account for each could help you serve the unique needs of customers in the area. They will feel as though they're being catered to, which can increase engagement significantly.

Multiple accounts also give users a choice in the type of content they wish to consume. Even if you have one umbrella account, you may want to branch out with specialty ones. If you wish, all of this content can feed into the umbrella account, but if people find they only want one thing from you, they can find it easily.

Cons

On the flip side, owning multiple accounts can cause confusion among your audience. They may not understand the purpose or value of each account. Should they follow all of them or just the ones with the information they need? People might believe they will miss something important if your content is posted across different accounts. You also run the risk of dividing up the people you want to reach.

Having more than one account, of course, means more work for Social Media Managers. Time management may become difficult, not to mention staff may also get exhausted. If your social media team doesn't have the resources to run multiple accounts, it's time to reconsider your strategy.

Brand management may also suffer through the use of multiple accounts, especially if different departments are left to run their own social media channels. It's more difficult to ensure everything stays on message if social media duties are spread around. This is a situation where a social media policy comes in handy.

Signs You Need Multiple Social Media Accounts

Are you certain you need multiple social media accounts? If you’re a single brand, there are a few things to consider.

Complaints Occupy Most of Your Feed

More people are using social media to get in the ear of companies. In fact, research has shown 47% of consumers have taken to social media to complain to brands, which ranks only second to in-person complaints.

If your social media team finds that addressing complaints makes up a majority of their posts on a general account, it may be beneficial to start a separate account for dealing with support problems. It gives customers an easily identifiable avenue for complaints and sends a clear message to them you care about solving their issues.

Separate accounts for complaints can also function differently if you implement an efficient protocol for addressing the needs of customers, such as a support ticket system.

You Have Several Departments or Locations

If your business has a handful of departments with wildly different target audiences, it pays for each one to have its own social media account. The voice a company uses for marketing between departments will likely be different for each one, and it should be the same for your social media content. Customers can follow the account, which promotes only products or services as it related to their industry rather than be forced to consume everything at once.

Same goes for companies with multiple bureaus or franchise locations. Separate accounts allow customers to find the information they need much faster. It's okay if these accounts share identical content that's relevant, but also be sure you can address the unique needs of customers in your area.

You Have Varying Products or Services

Larger companies tend to sell different types of products and services, which address different problems and are only relevant to completely different audiences. If you're known for selling both sports products and technology services, for example, there's likely very little crossover among consumers.

Maintaining social media accounts for different products and services can help avoid confusion and streamline the buying cycle. Everybody knows exactly what they're getting into, and you can cater to the changing needs of separate audiences.

Steps to Managing Social Media Accounts

Now that you have a good idea of whether or not you need multiple social media accounts, we can finally get into managing them. Here are 5 steps you can follow to help run every one of your accounts.

1. Document Your Social Media Strategy

If you have a team of people running multiple accounts, it can be difficult to get everybody to stay on brand. By drafting a social media strategy, which includes policies, procedures, and a style guide, you can give every contributor something to follow at all times.

Even if every account has different goals, a documented strategy can help everybody stay in sync and not stray away from your company's message.

2. Use Social Media Management Software

It can take too much time to copy and paste the same content to multiple accounts on different social media platforms. Invest in social media management software such as Buffer that will help you manage publishing and engagement all in one place.

These programs can help you post similar or identical content to different accounts on different networks simultaneously with the click of a button.

3. Create an Editorial Calendar

Editorial calendars are useful for providing direction and making sure you're on track with your social media strategy. This can be done through social media management software or even by sharing a simple document with your social team.

It puts everything in one place and provides a reference for social media managers. Also, it can be helpful for spotting gaps or missed opportunities in your posting schedule.

4. Monitor Activity and Engage

Keeping track of mentions and keywords is very important, especially if you set up a support-related account. You want to know if a customer needs your help, or if you can jump on a trending topic related to your business. Just as importantly, you don't want to overlap with any of your co-workers.

Social media management software should be able to help with monitoring while providing a space for collaboration within your team. It's a bad look if a brand replies either to a years-old post or if an inquiry receives two replies.

5. Analyse Your Own Strategy

It's important to analyse the results of your own social media strategy. Are some accounts doing better than others? How can you help ones who are lagging behind? Does every account contribute to your brand?

You won't know without looking at the analytics. Employing your strategy and reading the results is the only way for you to fine-tune your approach to social media.

Stay on Top of Your Social Media Game

There might be many reasons for your company to consider running multiple social media accounts, but before you go ahead and start creating accounts, you should be sure you're making them for the right reasons.

Don't do it because your competitor has done it or you think more accounts projects the illusion you're a big-time player. Every company has a finite amount of resources, and you should use yours wisely to get the most out of social media.

Once you've written up a social media strategy and made the decision to open multiple accounts across different social networks, it's important to find the right software tools to help you manage everything. This can help consolidate the efforts of everybody on your social media team and give them the opportunity to collaborate with one another.

These programs should also give you the ability to analyse your social strategy to see if it needs to be altered or figure out what type of content resonates best with your target audiences.

Through good strategy, intelligent investment and enthusiasm on the part of your social media team, the opportunity for success is always within grasp. Want to increase your chance of running social media platforms smoothly and successfully in Hong Kong? Join our globally recognised certificate course today - taught by the industry experts to know more how-tos!

Source: Digital Marketing Institute

15 Ways to Repurpose Top Content for Social Media Posts

You’ve probably heard about evergreen content. This type of content can be updated to stay fresh forever, and it’s an excellent way to drive traffic to your website and build a dedicated audience. But how do you take this great content and effectively promote it across other channels? Here are 15 ways you can repurpose different forms of evergreen content for reuse across your social media channels.

How to Get Started Repurposing Evergreen Content

To start building a social media strategy that includes evergreen content, create a list that includes each piece of content you want to promote, as well as 5-7 reasons you think users will find this content engaging. You should also list the best takeaways, stats, facts, and stand-out quotes (when applicable) from each piece and snippets that outline your content’s key message. This may seem like a daunting task at first, but it can help save you a lot of time and effort later.

It’s also important to keep in mind that such exercises will benefit your customers and prospects. Everyone absorbs information differently. When you post your content in different formats, you increase your chances of growing your customer base.

15 Unique Ways to Post & Promote Evergreen Content on Social Media

1. Ask a Question. Add a thought-provoking question that gets your audience to click through to your content.

2. Post the URL with the Content Title. This is the simplest way to post to social media.

3. Use a Quote. Sharing a quote from your evergreen content is sure to spark interest.

4. Write a Teasing Statement. What would make you want to click? Tease your audience to draw attention to your post and encourage a click-through.

5. Showcase a Fact. Use an intriguing fact from your piece of content.

6. Go Back to Your Sources. When you post your content on social media, be sure to tag your source(s) (typically using the @ symbol) if you have a specific author. You may choose to write some information about the sources, including job title or a fun fact. You can also ask the source for a quote to fill out your post.

7. Take Advantage of Images. Every image has a story. Post an image featured in your content piece, or choose one that’s a perfect fit from your image library or a free stock photo site.

8. Post a Video. You may not have a video handy as part of your evergreen content (unless it’s an evergreen product video), but you can always create a low-cost video for social media promotion with tools such as Animoto.

9. Use Twitter Cards. Use facts or quotes to create an image that can be published as Twitter cards or an Instagram post, and be sure to link back to your content!

10. Share Each of Your ‘How-To’ Tips: Promoting a how-to piece? Shorten each of your tips and repurpose them into social media posts you can use across multiple platforms.

11. Use a Bold Statement. People tend to react to bold statements, whether positive or negative.

12. Present a Problem-Solution Question and Answer. Ask a question about a problem your target audience is experiencing. Then outline how you (and your content) can help.

13. Lead with Statements that Cover “Who,” “What,” “When,” and “How.” You’ll leave your audience wanting to know more while also providing them with a clear call to action.

14. Upload Content to SlideShare. Uploading how-to guides (in PDF) and other types of visual, evergreen content on SlideShare can help you get your content in front of a whole new audience.

15. Create an Infographic. Posting an infographic that outlines stats from your evergreen content can be a great way to showcase your content on social media. Use free sites like Canva to create simple infographics quickly.

Best Types of Posts for Each Evergreen Content Format

We’ve discussed some of the ways you can promote your content on social media. Now, here’s a breakdown on the best post types to fit each popular evergreen content type.

Don’t Forget the Formatting

Keep in mind that when you post to different social media platforms, you need to keep each site’s unique formatting in mind. The design of your posts can grab your audience’s attention as much as the actual copy can. From hashtags to white space, here’s what you need to know about formatting on the major platforms.

Instagram: No matter what you see from other organisations and individuals, a jumble of 25 hashtags isn’t the best way to promote your content. Keep your copy at the top of post, then add white space around your hashtags - and don’t go overboard.

Twitter: Though Twitter recently introduced an expanded number of characters to its users, it’s still best to keep your posts short and sweet. Use a maximum of two hashtags (though one hashtag will likely get you more engagement), and shorten all links with tools such as bit.ly. Consider implementing white space for tweets that stretch over multiple lines.

Facebook: On Facebook, you can write a lot of text, but you should try to keep your posts to no more than one or two short paragraphs. Add space between paragraphs to encourage easy readability.

Linkedin: These days, Linkedin is all about the spacing. Yet, the super-long list of separated lines seems to be delegated to individuals and influencer posts. Organizations tend to post one or two lines separated by whitespace, as seen in this example below. However, it’s really personal preference. Your content doesn't have to be divided up into separate lines. In this example, the URL is on a separate line. This helps with readability and draws attention to the action you want the user to take (the click).

Of course, social media isn’t the only place you can promote your evergreen content - or the only tactic you can use to ensure you get it in front of your audience. Optimising your evergreen content for the search engines is a must. Need help? Understand the social media game even better by joining our globally recognised certificate course today - taught by the industry experts!

Source: Digital Marketing Institute

Social Media is a Customer Service Channel - Whether You Like It or Not

I was beside myself with excitement over a new liquid lipstick I had ordered. My friend had been gushing about both the company and the product and I was itching to try it out. Once I swiped it on my lips, I was completely sold. Not only did the lipstick not budge (even when vigorously wiped), it was cruelty free and vegan.

I knew I was in for the long haul.

I picked my favorites, planned out how many I would buy per pay check, and started saving money. I also posted a picture of myself on Instagram wearing the shade I owned. Little did I know that would start the ball rolling on one of the weirdest social media experiences I’ve ever had.

The owner of the company (who runs the social media accounts) shared my photo on Instagram, and engaged with me on Twitter. I followed her on both as a way to continue my support of the company.

And then, as so often happens, a customer voiced a valid concern. And all hell broke loose.

Social media IS a customer service channel

Far more than a place to connect with friends and family, social media also provides a platform for potential and existing customers to reach out to brands and seek help when they have queries, issues or concerns. Customer experience management company, Market Force, explains:

“The emergence of social media has given consumers a whole new way to interact with the brands they love — and a forum to complain when brands disappoint. But what many companies have learned is just how powerful connecting one-on-one with customers can be when those consumers take the time to post.”

In other words, if a customer makes the effort to contact you by means of social media, they expect a response. Treat them well, and you’ll have their loyalty. If you ignore them, or treat them badly, you may find yourself dealing with a PR crisis.

In the case of the cosmetics company I was following, the problem came in the shape of extra fees upon arrival of the product.

The rather tongue-in-cheek reply from the company referred to the following statement on their Customer Care page:

“We are not responsible for fees relating to importing goods to your country.”

Since the customer was in the UK, and the company in the US, the owner jumped to the conclusion that the customer was confused about customs fees. The customer replied that she was not referring customs fees, but rather a notification that the seller had not paid enough shipping. She also pointed out that she didn’t appreciate the owner’s tone.

This is when things took a downward turn.

What should you do when a customer complains on social media?

When customers use social media to complain, it’s often because a company has already failed to assist them through conventional customer service channels. Generally speaking, at this point in the process they’re also incredibly frustrated. Provoking them further is inadvisable.

The complainant in this situation had indeed been trying to contact customer service, but received no response. Unfortunately, the owner of the cosmetic company did not respond well to her customer’s response regarding shipping fees.

When angry consumers turn to social media to vent, current and potential customers are watching. They weigh up your response to the complaint and how you treat the customer along with other factors such as price and quality. If you mistreat the person complaining, your customers are likely to switch their allegiance to a competitor. Even if it means paying more, they’ll do it for better customer experience.

As the owner tweeted her meltdown, replies began to pour in, including a couple from me.

Even when you feel that you’re not to blame for the problem, it’s best to apologise and provide a solution promptly. If you cannot provide an immediate solution, ensure the customer that you are working on it and follow up as soon as you have an answer. It’s also a good idea to point the complainant to a phone number or email address where they can reach you directly. This makes it easier to communicate, and keeps members of the social media community from interjecting.

You don't want to fail your customers

Before social media existed, consumers might have shared a poor customer service experience with a few family members, close friends, and co-workers. However, once Twitter and Facebook became prevalent platforms, angry customers gained the ability to broadcast tales of terrible customer service to an almost infinite audience.

The statistics tell a story of their own, and as a business, it's one that you want to be on the right side of.

●89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience. (Oracle)

●45% of consumers share bad customer service experiences via social media. (Dimensional Research )

●88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts. (BrightLocal)

●Consumers are 71% more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals (Hubspot)

●When companies engage and respond to customer service requests over social media, those customers end up spending 20% to 40% more with the company. (Bain & Company)

Because of digital tools and channels, our customers have more power and influence than they ever have before. If you fail to treat social media as more than just a promotional platform, you could find yourself in a world of hurt. Keep your customers happy by engaging with them as quickly and often as possible — and if you’re angry or irritated, resist the temptation to go on an escalating Twitter rant. You don’t want to end up seeing this in your feed:

About the author: Liz Greene

Liz Greene is a writer, marketing professional, and history geek from the beautiful City of Trees, Boise, Idaho. You can follow her on Twitter @LizVGreene or catch her latest misadventures on her blog, Instant Lo.

Social media marketing can make or break a company’s reputation, so master it by getting a globally recognised certificate. Get in the door early to reap the benefits - our courses are taught by the industry experts so you will know how to deal with the local market better!

Source: Digital Marketing Institute

The Rapid Rise of TikTok

Social media is an entity that never fails to surprise. Just when you think one platform has managed to monopolise the space, another emerges almost out of nowhere, and the landscape shifts.

While giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter remain relevant in an ever-evolving digital age—a new contender has entered the arena to a great welcome, especially among young people—TikTok.

A social media app that allows users to post short lip-synced, music, talent, or comedy videos, TikTok has taken the social media world by storm. The story and rise of TikTok is an interesting snapshot of today’s ever-growing thirst for video content, youth usage, and even of East meets West.

TikTok boasts around 524 million active users worldwide, while in China—where it is known as Duoyin—it has over 250 million daily users and counting.

Here we look at the colossal rise of TikTok, its growing influencer value, and the platform’s social media marketing potential.

A tale of two apps

The original incarnation of TikTok, Musical.ly became popular among digital natives due to its novelty value and easy-to-use video creation interface.

Musical.ly was founded in 2014 and enjoyed a steady flow in app downloads and user adoption. On July 6th 2015, Musical.ly reached number one in the iTunes app charts, exploding almost overnight.

In 2016, Chinese tech company Bytedance launched a version of Musical.ly known as Douyin to the Chinese market before introducing it overseas as TikTok in 2017. Understanding the platform's potential, particularly among young digital natives, Bytedance bought and incorporated Musical.ly and it became the version of TikTok we know today.

So what exactly is TikTok? If you’re wondering if it’s like that other Gen-Z plaything, Snapchat, well it’s quite different. Unlike Snapchat, TikTok has users with followers, likes, comments, and users can spend hours browsing millions of user-generated short videos. It is a much larger platform that appeals to the creativity of its audience.

Kooky and offbeat, The Atlantic declared that “TikTok is cringey and that’s fine.” And, it seems that TikTok’s bizarre nature is one of the very things that propels its ongoing success.

Users can create and upload a video—up to 15 seconds long (although you can string together four separate videos to create 60-second pieces)—incorporating music with filters and editing effects or showing the user lip-synching to a song.

This video from Australian broadcaster ABC gives a good overview of how TikTok works:

To put the rapid global popularity of TikTok and Douyin, into perspective, here are some insights you should know:

• TikTok was one of the most popular apps of 2018, with a total of one billion downloads worldwide.

• Due to its rising popularity and appeal among younger cohorts, TikTok is now available to download in 154 countries.

• To date, TikTok has been installed on mobile devices around 800 million times.

• Videos created on TikTok earn 17 billion average views on a monthly basis.

It’s clear that TikTok is a highly engaged, heavily subscribed, and aggressively growing social media platform—a new-age network that is proving very influential in the current climate.

Viral videos

As with any other social media platform, going viral is the golden ticket. As a platform that is not yet mainstream, the viral successes on TikTok are often still surprising. Like Canadian high school student Jade Taylor-Ryan and her 12-second video of her cat, Ed, clapping and twirling to Mr. Sandman, earning her 6.8 million views and 1.2 million likes within 24 hours.

Another fascinating case is `the TikTok priest`. David Peters is an Austin, Texas-based Episcopalian priest (and ex-Marine) whose quirky-yet-sincere shorts are clearly ringing a bell with thousands of naturally-skeptical young digital natives, helping him go viral.

Important Considerations

It is worth noting that while the platform is paved with opportunity, a myriad of privacy issues concerning TikTok’s young user base have shrouded the platform in some controversy. While TikTok is likely to remedy these issues, keeping a close eye on them is important, particularly as the vast majority of its users fall into the 13 to 24-year-old age range.

There is also some discussion on Douyin’s place within China’s greater digital landscape and future viability, having come under scrutiny from the Chinese government and from observers abroad of how that government will use it.

Influencer marketing with TikTok

The convenient mobile-native nature of TikTok, coupled with its creative lean and digestible bite-sized content are elements that have propelled the platform's colossal success in recent times.

While Musical.ly was solely music-based, TikTok taps into a broader spectrum of creativity, encompassing a range of niche communities including comedy, dance, fashion, and even food.

Given the fact that there are more mobile devices on the planet than humans and videos are now consumers' favourite content type, TikTok is a platform that gives us a glimpse into the future of social media. And, its growing global adoption makes it an ideal playground for influencer marketing.

Younger cohorts, particularly those belonging to the Gen Z tribe are flocking to TikTok in pursuit of the growing number of micro-influencers now active on the platform. It seems that many young digital natives are migrating away from the ‘big social players’ to connect with those who have interests and outlooks more closely aligned with their own.

Influencer marketing is not yet a widespread practice on TikTok, but it’s only a matter of time. As the Gen Z population matures, being an early adopter of influencer marketing on TikTok will help you expand your reach, allowing you to connect with a larger audience in a way that is relevant, meaningful, and value-driven.

Big brands like Calvin Klein, Sony, and FIFA have already dabbled in influencer marketing campaigns via TikTok, reaching droves of engaged users, and as the platform continues to gain momentum, more are expected to follow suit. Smaller brands are also jumping on the possibilities, like cosmetics startup Hero Cosmetics.

Recently, fashion brand GUESS partnered directly with TikTok with its #InMyDenim campaign—a marketing initiative that went viral.

Using the hashtag #InMyDenim, GUESS challenged users to post videos of themselves wearing their favorite denim garments, boosting their reach with the help of influential content creators including @ourfire (2.3 million followers) and @madison_willow (983,000 followers).

While there isn’t a wealth of data surrounding the campaign’s success, it did go viral. Moreover, the hashtag sponsored by GUESS has received 38,085,456 views to date—a testament to the platform's brand-boosting power.

TikTok marketing in action

Concerning influencer marketing, TikTok is an avenue worth exploring if you're looking to appeal to a broader audience in your niche or sector.

While TikTok brand adoption is still in its infancy, the best way to learn about TikTok marketing is to explore campaigns run in conjunction with the platform itself:

Celebrity memeathon

To highlight the platform's addictive bite-sized video creating capabilities, TikTok partnered up with a host of celebrity creators for its '15 seconds of fame memeathon'.

Designed to create awareness and boost platform engagement, TikTok encouraged the likes of Kris Jenner, Charlie Puth, and Paris Hilton to create quirky video memes using the platform under the hashtag #memeathon, also sharing the content via their respective Twitter accounts to gain additional traction.

The celebrity-driven influencer campaign reached 3,173,500 users with an engagement rate of 338,500, and 9.5 million views for posts under the hashtag #memeathon.

While in this instance TikTok used high-level celebrities to spearhead its campaign, it’s clear that by leveraging micro-influencers to drive your promotional efforts, you stand to enjoy solid levels of engagement.

Foodie focus

Tapping into the foodie niche, TikTok worked in collaboration with culinary influencers with its #SavortheFlavor campaign.

Largely focused on capturing the attention of Instagram users, mid-level foodie influencers including Devour Power (800,000 Instagram followers) and Chelsey White (877,000 Instagram followers) were encouraged to create visually-inspiring videos via TikTok and share them with their Insta followers for a chance to win a week’s ‘food-cation’ in New York City.

The challenge-based influencer campaign reached 3,261,000 Instagram users, earning a total of 1,031,296 views, and tallying up a total of 40,318 post likes. An impressive result that demonstrates the power of cross-platform promotion.

“Influencers — they’re the best thing since sliced bread. But forget bread; they’re selling like hotcakes. They’re creating huge returns, and they’re only set to keep growing!” - Emily Warna, social media marketing advocate

Fad or Favorite

There's no denying it: while TikTok is yet to gain a market share that rivals the likes of Facebook and Instagram, its rapid growth, and video-centric concept makes it a formidable social force.

That said, it might not last. It is just one of many, many social platforms, one can't be sure how loyal its users will remain, and indeed hard numbers are hard to come by as TikTok themselves do not release any statistics.

By taking the time to understand the platform on a deeper level and watching or joining it now, forging relationships with influencers in your niche, there might well be an awful lot to gain.

Really, there's no time to waste... TikTok.

To keep up with the latest TikTok news and trending content, follow @TikTokTrendy on Twitter.

To keep up with the latest digital marketing trend in Hong Kong, join our globally recognised certificate course today - taught by the industry experts, to know how to use the knowledge to advance your Internet marketing efforts!

Source: Digital Marketing Institute

How to Create a Successful Social Media Plan

Social media is a highly time-consuming marketing strategy that takes thought and planning. It can prove to be one of the most challenging modes of marketing as it requires breaking through the already crowded digital landscape to become effective.

Regardless of what you think of social media, the hard truth is it’s a must for any business trying to make it today. Whether you have already tried it and given up, or still out there trying to make it work or have avoided it altogether, today is the day to put a social media plan in place to make your online marketing efforts more successful.

Know Your Brand

This step can be harder for smaller companies that haven’t given who they are much thought. If you sell pizza, you are a pizza joint. If you are a printer, you provide printing services. Right? Well, yes and no.

Creating a business today has to go beyond the products and services you offer. You have to create a brand that will attract people to your services because your brand is what sets you apart from the rest. Consider all aspects of your business and look for things that are uniquely yours. If you are a pizza joint, your unique selling point might be that you specialise in locally sourced ingredients and want to keep your business sustainable. If you are a printer, you might be committed to the environment, and so you use speciality inks and recycled paper.

Define your brand, and you are on your way to creating excellent content.

Know Your Audience

Now that you have a better idea of who you want to be, you can consider a more specific audience. Already, you can see how the first step ties into the second. You can look at a more select persona for your audience and focus on what will attract them to your social media pages. Some things to consider when looking at your target audience are:

• Age

• Location

• Job title

• Income

• Pain points (that your business can solve)

• Most used social network

Know Your Current Social Media Channels

You have to know where you are and how you are performing on social media today. That means doing an audit of your social media presence. Here's your social media audit checklist:

• Which platforms are you using today?

• Are your pages fully optimised using all features of the platform such as photos, cover images, bio/about, and so on?

• Which pages are getting the best results?

• What posts get the best results (e.g., likes and shares)?

• Who is connecting with you?

• How frequently are you posting?

Basically, you want to establish what is working and what is not. You can also take a look at what pages are providing the most challenging to maintain compared to the results.

There might be a need to take down some of your pages to focus on the social media channels that make the most sense for your brand. This means determining what social media platforms make the most sense for your audience and ideal customer. To help you decide which pages to shut down ask yourself two questions:

1. Is my ideal customer likely to be using this platform?

2. Have my efforts helped me achieve any of my business goals?

If you answer no to either or both, chances are you could focus on other platforms to build your presence on social.

One more important aspect of an audit is to look for impostor accounts. It is not uncommon for criminals to set up fraudulent accounts for a number of suspect purposes. Imposter accounts can be very harmful as they can use techniques that can blacklist you from searches. If you find anything that could be an imposter account, make sure to report them right away.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis will provide even more improvements that you can make to your own social media pages. You can see where competitors seem to be hitting the mark and where they are falling short.

Looking at competitors also helps you see what the industry is doing so that you know where there might be opportunities to be unique, as well as areas you will have to cover on your own pages.

You can also look for dominance. A competitor might be killing it on Instagram but be doing nothing on Twitter. That leaves another opportunity for you to dominate. All of this information will help you fine-tune your own social efforts to outdo the competition.

Set Up & Optimise Accounts

Use your audit findings to look for opportunities to improve your existing profiles. Look at every feature available so that there are no holes in the pages you have created.

Make sure you have optimized your pages with contact info, company history and info, product and service descriptions, and good use of photos and video when you can. You should always verify your accounts to make sure you lessen the chance of imposter accounts popping up.

If this is your first stab at social media, set up your pages using the same premise to optimize your pages.

Create Mission Statements

It is not enough to create a generic mission statement for your social media pages. Instead, you should create a mission statement for each channel. That will help you determine what you want to use each platform for from customer service to creating a community.

You should consider who your ideal customer is and use their needs and pain points to focus your mission statements further. There are nine areas to consider for your mission statement:

1. Brand awareness

2. Driving traffic to your website

3. Sales Leads

4. Revenue

5. Create engagement

6. Create a community

7. Improve customer service

8. Press engagement (e.g., news stories, magazines, and industry websites)

9. Collect valuable feedback

Always make sure that you focus on creating content that is mission appropriate. That keeps the lines from blurring, and you won’t begin to lose people by sending mixed messages. For example, if you are going to use Facebook to answer customer questions, avoid filling the feed with promotional info.

Set Up Metrics

Metrics are the only way you can show your social efforts are working. That can be important in companies where a budget is required to run your social media marketing. It is also important to help track what you are doing right so that you can build on your success. Some of the most important metrics include:

• Conversion rate

• Time spent on the website

• Reach

• Brand mentions

• Sentiment

• Total shares

With the right metrics, you can tweak your content and even rethink your strategy. For example, if you continuously seem to miss the mark over a long period of time on a certain page, the platform might just not be working for your brand.

You can also determine where your best efforts will get the best ROI. Look beyond vanity metrics. Look at leads, web referrals, and the all-powerful conversion rate.

You can continue to experiment but know where your value is. That way, you can increase posts that tend to get the best results based on your mission statements. In fact, it is not unheard of to change a mission statement if results are great but clearly not related to the statement you had in mind. If you were using Facebook for brand awareness but more people seem to be looking for customer service, switch your focus to meet expectations.

Schedule Engaging Content

All of your research and the other steps of your plan should help put you in a better position to plan your content. No matter how strong your social media plan is, if you don’t follow it all up with strong engaging content, your social efforts will fail.

Create a social media content calendar to show what you wish to publish when and on what channel. Mix things up using images, link sharing to blog posts, videos, and clever text to keep people engaged. Your calendar should be manageable for your team and take into consideration optimal posting times.

Come up with a balanced mix based on your mission statements. There are a number of formulas to consider. Perhaps the simplest is the 80/20 rule, which is 80% dedicated to information, education, and entertainment, and 20% is dedicated to selling. There is also the rule of thirds idea, which provides one third to shared ideas from thought leaders, one third to personal interactions with your followers, and one third to your business with the purpose to convert and create profit.

All in all, you have many different avenues to generate strong content including:

• Leveraging your own blog content

• Repurposing other marketing efforts such as landing pages, video, offers, and more

• Posting and sharing industry news

• Using influencers

• User-generated content (UGC)

• Tips and tricks such as recipes or unusual ways to use your products

• Asking followers questions to generate conversations

• Using hashtags to help generate more UGC

Final Thoughts

Your social media plan will help you create meaningful engagement with your audience. Your plan should grow and adapt as your audience shows you what they need from you. With a solid plan and constant re-evaluation, you will get the best results from your social marketing efforts.

Eager to get started? Want to be armed with even more knowledge to get off to a good start? Consider joinomh our globally recognised certificate course today - taught by the industry experts to find out more! Better yet, you can take the courses online!

Source: Digital Marketing Institute