Branding in the Age of Social Media: The Power of Caring

"People are time pressed, media blitzed, and idea hungry." 

I began a speech with this statement in 2001, and it's never been more true.  In the age of social media, the term "media blitzed" is on steroids.  Anyone who drinks through the fire hose of Twitter's general feed, without managing their Lists, knows the feeling.

We're bombarded with sexy, magnetic headlines like:  "Branding in the Age of Social  Media!"  Only to find the well-intended article filled with data on the growth of social platforms, usage trends, and the prospect of millennial expectations approaching like a tsunami--which, of course, is to ignore the present.  

I was approached recently by an exec who wanted to discuss launching an  assessment of "mobile strategy."  As if the platform was the issue -- or the solution.  I stood there thinking I was speaking with Fred Flintstone.  

You assessing mobile?  You Stone Age.

60% of U.S. internet usage is via a mobile device 

87% of internet users have a smartphone in hand 

During 2015 holiday, mobile and desktop purchases were neck and neck 

Forget mobile first.  Think mobile only. Then, get to the real issue

Branding in the Age of Social Media

I recently found a photo of that speech I gave in 2001.  Emblazoned on my chest is the word "Caring."  I was using the word to illustrate the importance of genuine human caring to building a genuine powerhouse brand.

Caring -- follows empathy.    In other words, forget the platforms (mobile, social, digital).  Those are a given.  

The question is not what platforms  -- but how we engage those platforms to engage our audience.

The Role of Empathy and Caring

Not long after that speech on "caring," and the importance of empathy in building a brand, we produced a 30 second television spot with Jane Lynch--designed to illustrate that "we hear you!"  We get it!  We're part of your tribe. Empathy's Role in Building A Brand is reflected in this 30 seconds of empathetic truth. 

We then proceeded to buy out every seat on Broadway for New York's teachers -- and to throw a giant celebration for those teachers in Times Square.  The brand, which was new to the New York market, became #2 in ad awareness within 90 days -- up against brands that had been in the market for more than a century.

The brand was:  Washington Mutual Bank.  And the tagline was "More Human Interest!"  We were way ahead of our time.

I resigned in 2005, after 10 years leadership, and the tagline was changed to "The Power of Yes!"  And, several years later, Washington Mutual yes'd itself into oblivion, becoming the largest bank failure in U.S. history.  In my opinion, human empathy was replaced with corporate greed.  

And now, empathy -- as a foundation for the brand -- is back.  In full force.

The trick to building a social brand:  human empathy.  

There's a magnificent article in the Harvard Business Review titled "Building A Brand in the Age of Social Media,"  written by Douglas Holt.  And it contains this magnificent piece of counsel:

Find Your Super-Engaged Community and Champion Their Cause!

The World Champion U.S. Women's Soccer team did it when they took on the gender pay gap.  

"Branded Content" isn't working because branded content is, generally, a giant "me" sandwich.  

The platforms have changed dramatically -- but human nature has not.  And, as Bryan Kramer says:  there is no B2C or B2B, only H2H:  Human to Human.  

On social media -- in mobile -- via carrier pigeons, we need to re-discover the power of finding our super-engaged communities, and becoming a champion for their cause.  

The power of caring -- has never been more powerful.  

Do you agree? 

Brad Davis, Published on March 31, 2016
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/branding-age-social-media-power-caring-brad-davis 

Using Creative Content Writing and the Power of Words to Personally Impact Your Audience

May I ask, What is the goal of your creative content writing? I am guessing that influencing readers falls in the top three of your top ten list. Am I right?

And, much of that content is made of verbal or written words, correct? Are you still with me?

The digital copy populating your website, posting across social media platforms and defining podcasts and video content works to get you noticed. Otherwise, why write it? After all, your business holds plenty of long to-do lists without adding unnecessary work.

Also, creative content communicates with prospects and customers. Formed from the thoughts of a writer, these words get your message out and impact readers one way or another.

In fact, words pack tremendous power.

To illustrate, remember with me a common childhood scenario: I recall chanting it over and over in a just-below-snotty tone, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” And, my friends and I would walk away from the mean boy (or girl) with an air of victory.

But, the truth is, those words stung. Some cut deep and left wounds for weeks. I still bear the scars of others well into my adulthood. And, my guess is that you relate on some level.

One of my favorite Scriptures reads, “The power of life and death are in the tongue.” And, life and learning over the years lead me to believe it. I come to understand that words encourage and build others up or they work to tear down and destroy, even kill.

And, the middle ground is slim to nonexistent. In other words, our words tend to inspire or deflate leading the wise to chose them well. So, what does this mean for creative content writing?
Almost everything.

The Power and Punch of Our Words

With the average 7,000 words per day each of us speaks, there is plenty of room to get it wrong (or right). Often, we take for granted this norm of communication. And, words spill without thought from our lips.

The same holds true for our written interactions. Individually, we send 85 plus texts per day on average. And, with 150,000 messages sent per minute across Facebook and an average 500 million tweets exchanged daily, plenty is being communicated.

Check out how this abundance of chatter impacts us:

 

Uplift or Cut Deep

As mentioned, words hold the power to encourage and inspire. Sadness transforms to a smile. Guilt finds redemption. And, heartbreak discovers a remedy when we choose words which prompt joy, forgiveness and healing.

On the other hand, lifelong scars accompany words which cut deep. Often, these wounds prove preventable with forethought. Our motivation for expressing ourselves at any given time directs our language to be supportive or hurtful.

 

Empower or Diminish

Developing others and strengthening their resolve comes in many forms. But, words play a powerful role. Consider the speech of Dr. Martin Luther King and his “I-have-a-dream” call which empowered a generation and continues to impact us today with the message that “we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

Contrarily, rather than igniting this hope, our words may diminish the value of others and extinguish the flame of potential. Again, checking ourselves and our motives curbs the negativity and frees us to find creative ways to build others up.

 

Speak Truth or Deceive

In general, humans want to know the truth. Our attraction to causes we believe in and people we trust speaks to our desire for what is good and honorable. And, the truthful consistency and proof of things said or written over time earns our allegiance.

Also, words weave deception. Scheming or covertly selling an ulterior motive are two techniques which often give marketing its bad rap. Avoiding deception in all communications promotes relationship, builds trust and establishes integrity.

 

Touch or Turn Away

Made famous by singer Roberta Flack, the lyrics, “killing me softly with his song, telling my whole life with his words.” tell of the intimacy and touch words have on our lives. The language we choose to use with one another demonstrates our knowledge of and relationship with each other.

And, the lack of this intimacy (or too much of it) turns people away. Each of us desires to be known to some degree. And, words revealing too great of a gap in this personal touch send us running. Fully listening births comments and questions which place value on others.

 

Persuade or Turn Off

Consider the influence a friend has to convince you to prank a co-worker or head out for a night on the town even with an early meeting looming the next morning. Words influence us to make changes, even needed changes, in our lives. And, practicing the positive art of persuasion keeps us from falling into manipulation.

Yes, as you likely know, persuasion also draws negative connotations. Leaning too hard or with wrong motive leaves others feeling used or handled. The words chosen reveal the intent of the speaker or writer. And, listeners and readers prove quick to pick up the subtlety of such speech.

 

Instill Courage or Give Up

Our father’s encouragement as we learned to pedal a bike sans training wheels. Or, a teacher’s insight as we tackled tough college subjects. Likely. many of us can recall a time when the words of others brought courage to take the next step.

And, unfortunately, we may also know the agony, not of defeat, but of giving up too soon due to something someone said to us. A career path not chosen. Traveling journeys canceled. Forgoing this negative use of language and instilling courage through our words to and about others diverts regret and benefits all of us.

 

Create Lasting Impact

In any case, words form an impression not easily forgotten for the good or the bad. In particular, repeated phrases stick in memories and those connected with a jingle or song are nearly impossible to dislodge.

And, keep in mind that a lack of words sows results as well. Perfectly timed silence may be just what the doctor ordered. Yet, on the other hand, large gaps in communication leave others to fill in the blanks with their own stories or to be hurt by the absence of encouragement or positive feedback.

The power of words and the feelings they conjure...what is one of your favourite quotes? 

by Jennifer Grubbs
https://copywritertoday.net/creative-content-writing-power-words/ 

5 Content Writing Tips to Make You A Better Marketer Now

1. Start With Good Keyword Research

Here at CoSchedule, we require prospective guest blog writers to provide a keyword in their pitch. 90% of the time, it’s evident they have no real idea what we’re asking them for. This is not only extremely disappointing for us, but it’s also shocking to think how their own stuff must be performing, whether that’s for their own company or their clients.

In simplest terms, keyword research entails:

1. Using keyword research tools (like the Adwords Keyword Planner, Moz’s Keyword Explorer, or another option) to discover which terms people search for on Google (and to a lesser extent, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines).
2. Incorporating those keywords into your content.

2. Understand Latent Semantic Indexing

Once you’ve got a grasp on basic keyword research, the next step is to dig into latent semantic indexing. It’s a term that describes the process search engines use to understand how words on web pages are related to one another.

In practical terms, it means it’s important to incorporate secondary keywords that are related to your primary keyword throughout your content. This can help your content rank for a wider array of longtail keywords, and thus drive more traffic back to your site.

3. Spend Time Writing Detailed Outlines

Few things will help you save more time than writing strong outlines. They help you figure out what you’re going to say before you actually write your content.

Here’s what you should include in a basic outline (assuming you’re writing a blog post or web article):

• Your primary keyword.
• A brief description of your topic and the problem your content will solve. At CoSchedule, we call this section WIIFM, which stands for What’s In It For Me? Put yourself in your reader’s shoes, and ask yourself, “Why would I read this?
• A brief description of the target audience for your post.
• Ideas for potential content upgrades (more on those later).
• A step-by-step breakdown of your content’s structure.

Here’s an example of our own outline template:
WIIFM:
[Insert Post Description + State the Problem This Post Will Solve]
Keyword(s):
[Insert Keywords Your Post Will Cover]
Outline:
Introduction

• Subpoint 1
• Subpoint 2
• Subpoint 3

Subheader 1 (Subpoint 1)

• Detail 1
• Detail 2
• Detail 3

Subheader 2 (Subpoint 2)

• Detail 1
• Detail 2
• Detail 3

Subheader 3 (Subpoint 3)

• Detail 1
• Detail 2
• Detail 3

Conclusion
Feel free to adjust this to suit your needs.

4. Get Into Your Competitor’s Heads

Competitive research is extremely important for any content writer to understand. Before you can write the best stuff possible on a given topic, you need to know what’s already out there. This is where BuzzSumo comes in handy.

Don’t let your competitive research stop there, though. Get your hands on as much of your competitor’s content as you can. Then, make note of the following:

• What kinds of terms and industry lingo do they use?
• How would you describe their voice and tone? Are they serious? Funny? Authoritative?
• What kinds of content are they creating in the first place? Blog posts? Print collateral? Email newsletters? Find out where they’re at and what they’re doing there. Then, do better.

5. Or, Try Narrating Your Outlines Using Speech to Text in Google Docs

If you want to get your thoughts out of your head and directly onto the screen, try narrating your outline instead. Google Docs makes this easy using its Speech to Text feature. Here’s how it works.

Open Google Docs and click Tools:


Then, click Voice Typing. You’ll then see this icon appear:




Click that guy, and you’ll be able to speak into your computer’s microphone to type. If you’d rather let your thoughts flow free before writing, this can be a great hands-free way to loosen up your creative muscles.

What do you think makes you a good marketer? 
 
https://coschedule.com/blog/content-writing-tips/

Power Words - Give Your Headlines Some Feeling

Data shows emotional headlines get more shares. So, if you want your hard work to go viral, hit your audience right in the feels.

That doesn’t mean you have to get sappy on your readers. It also doesn’t mean you need to manipulate their feelings using cheap clickbait tactics. It does, however, mean that your best headlines are probably going to be ones that inspire readers to feel something that compels them to click.

Need some help working more emotive language into your headlines? Start with this sheet of emotional terms:

What are some of your favourite power words? 

https://coschedule.com/blog/content-writing-tips/

Social-Listening: 5 Ways To Really Engage With Your Social Media Audience

What do you consider social-media marketing? For most businesses and brands, the answer is simple: an opportunity to publish relevant content, grow your follower base, and generate both thought leadership and engagement.

But what if we told you that in limiting yourself to this definition, you're missing out on what might be the most important part of social media marketing?

Everyday, countless members of your target audience discuss topics that relate to your brand, either directly or indirectly. They don't care whether you hear about it or not, and they're not taking special steps to comment and discuss their topics of interest on your social media channels.

To engage this audience, you have to know where to find these conversations, and how to engage with them. In other words, you have to engage in social listening. It sounds reasonable, but only few brands do it; in fact, only 24% of businesses engaged in social listening in 2015. Don't be one of those people, and build your social listening strategy using these 5 steps.

 

1) Prioritize Social Listening

Should you really spend a significant part of your resources browsing through social media posts rather than posting your own? While most brands understand the general value of social listening, they don't quite get just how important it can be to business success. The answer to that question, though, is a clear yes.

Consider Twitter. Of all the Tweets about your brand, only 30% actually include your Twitter handle. Even more importantly, only 9% use the @ in addition to your handle. In other words, 91% of updates that you should know about will never show up in your notifications. If you don't search for them yourself, you may never know about them.

In addition, if your goal is to grow your brand awareness, you should think beyond your brand and toward your industry. 

Experienced content marketers already know about the importance of reaching beyond promotion and toward thought leadership.

If you can find relevant discussions within your industry, the value of injecting thoughtful and valuable information without directly selling your product is immense. Of course, that's impossible to do if you don't know how to find these conversations.

2) Find Relevant Keywords

Once you and your team understand the true importance of social listening, it's time to build a strategy that helps you structure and scale the process. Similar to SEO, building that strategy begins with finding the keywords and phrases your audience regularly discusses.

Naturally, that keyword list should include the various iterations, abbreviations, and even misspellings of your brand name. The more variations of your name you can come up with that members of your audience may actually search for, the less likely a comment about your product or service will slip through your cracks.

In addition, begin to research industry-specific phrases that tend to encourage discussion. A graduate school looking for potential students, for example, may want to begin listening to keywords such as graduate school, grad school application, and goal statement (a crucial part of the application process).

Finally, consider including keywords for your competitors, as well. You may not want to directly engage with all of the conversations concerning your competition, but it's valuable to understand the greater discussion not just around you, but your entire competitive environment.

3) The Right Tools

Social listening would be impossible without a number of tools that can help you conduct automated searches through social media for the keywords you found above. Fortunately, a number of services can help you streamline that process without a significant time investment.

Some social media management tools, like HubSpot and HootSuite, offer integrated listening services. Others, like Social Mention, are free but require manual searches. Yet others, like KeyHole, and NUVI offer more comprehensive, dashboard-based services for a fee. This list provides a more comprehensive overview of the best listening services available for your brand.

4) Create an Engagement Strategy

Of course, even the best keywords and tools matter little if you don't know what to do once you actually find relevant discussions for your brand. That's why the majority of your time should be spent not listening, but responding to the relevant conversations you find on social media.

To streamline that process, create an engagement strategy. You will find all types of comments, from complaints to praises, comparisons, and general industry discussions. Create a rubric that allows you to be strategic about the best response to each type of comment.

You should also be strategic about the various networks on which these discussions might occur. A comment on LinkedIn, for example, requires a very different type of response than a Tweet. Understanding the medium should be a core part of how you engage with each user.

5) Evaluate and Adjust

Finally, as is the case with any type of marketing efforts, build your social listening strategy in a way that allows for adjustments over time. Not every response will be viewed favorably. Some users may feel they are intruded upon, while others will use it as an opportunity to lash out at your brand. Keep track of your wins and losses over time, in order to better understand how you can best treat each individual comment.

In addition, give yourself the opportunity to adjust your keyword strategy overtime. If you find that some keywords never seem to gain any traction, eliminate them from your reports. On the other hand, if you keep coming across keywords you're not tracking yet, add them. That way, you can be sure that when a discussion relevant to your brand occurs on social media, you at least know about it.

Given the weight we give others' opinions on social media, it's baffling to see just how few brands prioritize social listening as part of their social media marketing. At the same time, it's also an invaluable opportunity: by creating a strategy around it, you can get a leg up on your competition and more effectively reach your target audience.

What do you think of this, how well do you listen?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/miketempleman/2017/01/26/how-to-really-engage-with-your-social-media-audience/3/#14cb003949f7 

10 Laws of Social Media Marketing

Interesting and succinct..

5 Reasons You Are Not Making Money from Pinterest

If your business has a web presence then you have the potential to benefit from Pinterest, whether you are active on the site or not.  This means you have the potential to make money from leads and sales.  

But there are many lost opportunities on Pinterest – opportunities that often businesses are completely unaware of, yet can be easily fixed. In this post we look at 5 reasons you might be wasting good opportunities to make money from Pinterest.

Before talking about the mistakes that you need to avoid, let’s take a look at the two ways you can be successful on Pinterest:

1. Having your content shared from your website  – this one is easy. You don’t have to do anything. Really!  No Pinterest account required.  Visitors can pin your content without you raising a finger.  But there are mistakes to be made with this one too, so read on.
2. Driving traffic from your own business account on Pinterest to your website.  This one requires a Pinterest account and some activity on your part, but it is also relatively simple.

Pinterest is like any other social media platform. It does not stand alone but is part of your overall social media marketing strategy. Think of it as another way of sharing content with your community and encouraging users back to your homebase – your website. Once they are there, they are more likely to subscribe or buy your products and services.

Just like any sales conversation, monetizing your presence (or the presence of your content) on Pinterest depends solely on how you manage leads when they come to you.  How are you handling the leads when they come to you – what happens when someone clicks through on a pin and arrives at your website?

Here are 5 Mistakes You Need to Avoid in order to benefit from your content being on Pinterest:  

1. Not Optimizing Your Website to Keep Visitors Engaged when they Arrive 

This one is simple. As with all web traffic from all social media sites, it is important that you have a reason for the person to stay. 

Some traffic from Pinterest you can control in that the image is directly linked to a blog post or a product page….but some traffic is random.

Anyone can pin any image from a website (unless the image has been blocked) so sometimes even the best attempts to optimize the images you put on to Pinterest will not stop people coming to your site through random images (which is still a good thing right?). 

The most important thing to ask yourself is “How can I keep them here, now that they have visited my site?”.

Do you have:

• Links from each page to find out more about your products or services?
• Links to more content?
• Popular Posts Listed?
• A chance for them to read more relevant, related content?
• Some kind of welcoming banner or image?

Will visitors stay on your site when they arrive to check out your content?  Think about how each page will appear to a new visitor and brainstorm ways to make it “sticky” and keep visitors on your site.

2. Not Providing a Clear Call to Action

If someone is arriving to check out a blog post (after clicking on a pin) or to buy a product, do you have a clear call of action on the image as well as the landing page?  When they arrive and read your blog post:

• Can they sign up for your updates/newsletter with ease?
• Can they find out more about you without getting lost on your site?
• Can they immediately link to more blog posts?
• Can they find out about your amazing new program at the end of the blogpost?

Think creatively – what do you want the person to do after they have viewed your product, post or landing page?

3.  Not providing  an easy way for them to opt in for email updates

Yes, I am totally aware that this is a variation on Mistake No 2.  But I am repeating it here because it is worthy of repetition.  No amount of action on social media, Pinterest included,  can replace the worth of an email subscriber (for the most part).

At Social Media Marketing World in March this year, the overwhelming “chorus” of comments from every thought leader in the room was that email should still be your number 1 priority – it is intimate, people open email (vs a chance viewing of a social media post) and as much as we all love to hate it, we can’t do without it.

Nurturing your community through fabulous, helpful content is so so vital, and email is the best way to do it.  So ask yourself this – when the person arrives on your website from Pinterest – what incentive do you have for them to sign up to your email updates and get access to your VIP information? Make it obvious for them, by having options to opt in:

• on your header
• using a pop up like Pippity (where you adapt the settings so it can pop up, say after the person has already read a blog post or some of your content – not so “in your face” and targeted)
• inserting Hello Bar at the top of your site
• having opt in forms at the end of blog posts, for those that have read your content ie “Hey, if you love this content I would love to send you more” etc).

There are many ways to collect email addresses, but be sure that you at least have one of them waiting for those people that bother to check out your website!  Welcome them in for a cup of coffee and ask them to stay!

4.  Making it Super Hard for them to find the Products and Services they come to your site for!  

This one is important.  Do you have products on your site? Are people coming to your site from a product image on Pinterest? Then be very careful about how you handle your product pages.  

Here are some tips:

• Make sure your product page is welcoming and easy to navigate. Think about how many photos you have on one page – is it swimming with images, making it too hard for someone to find the handbag they came looking for?  Be sure to think about how your page looks for someone arriving through an image or link.   

• Do a search on the products that are being “shared” from your website. You can do this by entering:  www.pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite.com  (so in my case this would be: www.pinterest.com/source/sociallysorted.com.au) – a page will open up showing all of the images that people have been sharing from your site.  Go through them, click on them – get an idea for what people are finding when they come to your site.  Then think about how you can welcome them when they arrive.

• Don’t delete old product pages – even if the products are out of date or last season’s stock. Instead, re-draft your “welcome” blurb and even mention that people may be coming over from Pinterest or another social media site. If the stock they are looking for is no longer valid, then redirect them to some new exciting stock – or a new page!  There is nothing worse than arriving to an “error 404” page when you are wanting to check out the jacket that you soooooo loved on Pinterest.  But being redirected to the new seasons winter jackets on a different page – totally fine. 

5. Not providing more options for great content to check out.

Can they easily navigate your site for more more information and products?  Let’s say someone arrives on your site and reads a great post.  Do they think “great post” and leave or do you keep them there, hungry for more great content?  Here are a few ways you can keep your guest on the site for a little longer:

• Have links to your own content within a blog post. Not only is this great for organic SEO (Google loves internal links to relevant content) but it is also enticing for the reader, as they can see that you have more articles about the topic they are interested in.  Or in the case of products, a link to other categories of products or product pages is just too hard to refuse.  Are you here for shirts/tops?  Check out our coats too!  
• Use a plug in or program that shows “related posts” at the bottom of your blog post. Shareaholic, Disqus and NRelate are all plugins that provide further “relevant” articles at the bottom of the post.
• Think “How can I keep this person in a content “vortex?” – how can I keep them reading and clicking on my content?
• Do you have a resources page on your site?  This can be great for listing your most relevant posts in a kind of “mini-training guide”, all on the one page.  A great way to repurpose old content.

There you have it.  Pinterest can be powerful for your business even if you are not active on the site itself.  People will find you no matter what!  So be ready when they do!
Think of Pinterest like a referral generator – it is what you do with the visitors when they arrive that is important!

What strategies have you implemented on your blog or website to “welcome guests” when they arrive from sites like Pinterest?  Will you be implementing any of these tips now?  I would love to hear what you take away from this post, implement and any results that you get! 

How to Make a Video Without Being on Camera

Are you too shy to be on camera?  You can follow these fab tips to create excellent visual content without using your pretty face!

I bet you have lots of other imaginative ways of doing this, tell us about them..

Basic YouTube video SEO and user engagement

Start with basic video SEO

The next step of making your videos work for you is optimizing them for search.

Your primary goal is to get a video to rank in the results of YouTube searches, but it’ll have an added benefit of ranking in Google results as well:



Videos often show up in Google results, and it can drive a decent number of views to your video.

I wouldn’t rely on showing up in Google because videos don’t show up in all searches. However, it can be a nice boost to your views, and you can maximize your chance of showing up in searches by targeting phrases with the following keywords in them:

• tutorial
• review
• test
• what is ____
• video
• explanation
• how to ____
• walkthrough

Now back to YouTube optimization. There are two major parts of the ranking algorithm that you need to optimize for.

Part #1 – Your video information: The first thing YouTube looks for is whether your video is relevant to a search.

It’s a fairly simple search engine; it looks for keywords in three areas of your video:

• the title
• the description
• the tags

You don’t need to—and shouldn’t—keyword-stuff.

Include your keyword once in the title, once or twice in your description, and in the tags if it makes sense.

Here’s an example of the description from Brian Dean’s “advanced SEO” YouTube video that he ranks highly for:


He mentions the keyword at the very start and the very end of it.

But notice there’s a lot more to the description than just the keyword.

YouTube doesn’t have much to work with when it comes to ranking videos. The title is only a sentence long, and tags can’t be weighed too heavily because they contain limited information.

This makes the description the main source of additional information for YouTube’s algorithm.

By including a detailed description of the video, you’ll naturally include related terms the algorithm can use to understand the topic of your video. This will make it easier to rank for relevant terms.

Part #2 – User engagement and feedback: Not surprisingly, YouTube’s algorithm has taken an approach to ranking videos that’s similar to Google’s approach.

Instead of just using the basic information an uploader provided with a video, it also looks at how users interact with your video.

The simple concept behind it is that if users are indicating they really like your video, it’s probably a good one to show to more people. Naturally, the algorithm ranks it higher.

So, what does it look at?
There are a few major areas of user feedback YouTube can consider when evaluating a video.
The first is how much of the video most viewers are watching.
If they all drop off after the first 10 seconds, that’s a bad sign. But if 50%- 60% of your viewers watch the whole video, that’s fantastic.



You can check this in your account’s statistics, where you’ll see a graph similar to the one above.

Where else can YouTube get feedback from?

• Overall views – From YouTube’s perspective, if a video is getting a lot of views without its help in the search rankings, it must be good. More views typically lead to better rankings (as long as the audience retention is good).

• Rating (thumbs up and down) – Users can also rate a video by giving it a thumbs up or thumbs down. The higher this ratio is, the better.
• Views to subscribers – If a video is really good, a lot of people who view it will click the “Subscribe” button underneath. Similarly, no one will subscribe after watching a bad video.
• Views to favorites or social shares – Just like with subscribing, people will also share a video only if they like it.
• Comments – If a video is inspiring a lot of comments, it may be good. YouTube can’t put much weight on the comment count since comments could be negative too.

Using all these factors, YouTube comes up with an appropriate score for each video to decide how to rank it.

The biggest thing you can do to optimize these engagement factors is to make high quality videos (as discussed above).

How To Create A Successful YouTube Channel

There are some great tips here that you can implement straightaway! 
What can you suggest? 
 

5 Digital Marketing Tips To Increase Your Brand's Growth Online And Improve Ad Results

1. Clear Call-To-Actions

Buy Now, Book A Flight, Request A Quote--Whatever next step you want the user to take (which is typically the objective of your campaign) should be vibrantly displayed in your content.

Every successful advertising campaign contains a clear and compelling call-to-action (CTA). This “button” tells the user what the next step is and is how they get from the advertisement back to your site, moving them further down the funnel and closer to the point of conversion.

When it comes to selecting a CTA, you want to focus on language that is relevant to your brand, service or products, and completely obvious to the user. Anything ambiguous can confuse the user, and even if they click on the CTA, arriving to an onsite page that doesn’t meet their expectations won’t result in a conversion. That being said, you want to avoid generic language like “learn more” or “read more”—while this can be relevant to what you’re promoting, it isn’t unique to your brand, or even your respective industry.

Image Credit: Jet Blue

Jet Blue's digital ads feature compelling call-to-actions and unique messaging.

JetBlue uses language tailored to their industry and brand in their digital ads, as seen above.

In the example below, Sotheby’s has a beautiful digital ad campaign that promotes different destinations. The imagery is striking (another must-have for successful digital advertising), the text is readable, and it’s ultimately a clean design. However, there is no real CTA. As a user, I could of course click on the ad and be directed to their site, but there is no real incentive to do so and no real button showing me what step to take next. Simply adding a CTA button to this ad would likely improve the performance of these campaigns and result in higher conversions.

Image Credit: Sotheby's International Realty

One of Sotheby's digital advertisements is featured here.

 

2. Compelling Messaging

It should come as no surprise that messaging is important. With any digital platform, messaging is critical as it’s the core communication with a potential customer. In terms of digital advertising, when you don’t have a ton of copy space or even time to capture user attention it’s important that messaging be compelling and, most importantly, succinct.

You lose the attention of most digital users in just a few seconds. That limited period of time is all that you have to capture interest. Stick to messaging that evokes emotion or encourages the users to click through the ad, and keep it to just a short phrase. For many brands, this means highlighting their value proposition, showcasing their core values, or defining an incentive for the user.

Image Credit: Biotherm

Biotherm uses compelling messaging to encourage users to make a purchase.

In the example above, Biotherm incentivizes the experience for the potential customer. Their core message “Enjoy Free Shipping + 25% Off All Orders” captures the user’s attention and for someone already interested in their products, it’s likely to be that last added touch to convert. For all brands, this is an incredibly well done ad to take notes from. If you’re running a retargeting campaign where the user has already visited your site, for example, this type of incentivization could not only help you stay top of mind as the potential customer navigates other sites, but can serve as the final touchpoint before the user finally makes the purchase.

 

3. Designated Landing Pages

Whatever the content you’re advertising is related to, you should always drive users to a page that is relevant to that content. This simple step will help to keep users on your site, offer a better user experience, and ultimately improve conversion rate.

If you’re an athletics brand and you’re advertising women’s running shoes in an AdWords campaign, sending users to your women’s running shoes page will help facilitate the conversion process. The more relevant the page is that you drive clicks to, the greater likelihood that the user will follow though and convert. 

After all, your advertisement has captured that user’s attention enough that they clicked on the ad, so the likelihood is they want more information pertaining to that specific subject – not general information you’d find about your brand and entire line of athletic attire on your homepage.

Sending users to your homepage instead of a designated landing page that is correlated to the particular campaign can be a costly mistake. Users generally won’t search or navigate your site in search for the item they’re looking for. As a brand, bringing the potential customer as close as possible to their unique needs and the point of conversion is not only the best approach, but also the best user experience.

 

4. Imagery Matters

For each of your digital campaigns, it’s essential that you think about where you’re serving users with these ads. The likelihood is that the ad will appear while the user is absorbing other content somewhere else online, so the way your ad appears visually is important.

Using high-quality imagery that is telling as to what the ad promotes is one of the most important features for all successful digital advertising campaigns. Failure to use imagery that is captivating or visually-appealing doesn’t help capture the user’s attention. In the example below, Waldorf Astoria uses beautiful photos of their resorts to advertise to a targeted set of users. Not only does this stand out as the user scrolls through the page, it truly sparks interest.

Image Credit: Waldorf Astoria

Waldorf Astoria's beautiful imagery helps to enhance ad effectiveness.

For brands in the B2B space, or in industries where imagery may not be as “naturally” beautiful as a beachfront resort, there are still options. Focus on imagery that is bold, clean, and compelling. In a lot of ways, imagery should tell the story your brand is trying to convey and give the user a solid expectation of what you have to offer. This is especially important for new or potential customers that may not be familiar with your brand. If the imagery in your ads doesn’t stand out, they may not even recognize your brand or your products if they see them later on a different platform.

 

5. Test, Monitor, And Test Again

You’ve probably heard it said many times, that for any marketing channel, testing the effectiveness of your efforts is important. When you’re running digital advertising campaigns, this is no exception. 

Without monitoring your campaigns, how are you able to identify areas to continue focusing on versus areas for improvement?

Sometimes, seemingly arbitrary factors like time of day, language choice, audience segment, or image selection can really play a role in the success of your campaigns. For that reason, it’s critical that you pay attention to these factors and monitor which campaigns have which varying elements. If you’re finding success with one campaign, or finding an alternate campaign to be less effective, don’t be afraid to change it. A/B testing with digital ads, where you test ads with varying content, can be incredibly telling in which messaging or content resonates best with your audience—and often for reasons you can’t foresee.

Also, testing your ads before you implement them is critical. More times than I’d like, I’ve seen brands with fantastic ads pointing to the wrong pages, 404 pages, or with messaging targeted to an audience that I’m mistakenly segmented in. Take the time to make sure your ads are appearing as they should and are directing users to the right pages. When little mistakes like this happen, not only have you wasted the resources spent for this particular campaign, you’ve also adversely impacted the user-experience. This extra moment of testing can save your company a lot of money in the long run.

Driving Results With Digital Ad Campaigns
In this day and age, digital advertising holds a ton of potential. For most brands, it’s one of the most effective ways to get your company, products, or services, in front of a qualified and targeted user. However, if you’re not following the right guidelines to make your digital advertising the most impactful, the likelihood is that you won’t garner the results you’d most like to see. Keep in mind the above tips when crafting your campaigns and optimizing your conversion rate.

What do you do? What do you need help with? 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gabrielshaoolian/2017/04/24/5-digital-marketing-tips-to-increase-your-brands-growth-online-and-improve-ad-results/#721b50c67494 

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14 Visual Content Marketing Statistics You Should Know in 2017

General Visual Content Statistics

1) 37% of marketers said visual marketing was the most important form of content for their business, second only to blogging (38%). (Source)

 

2) 74% of social media marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing, ahead of blogs (68%) and videos (60%). (Source)

 

3) When people hear information, they're likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. (Source)

 

4) B2C marketers place greater importance on visual content than B2B marketers. (Source)

 

5) 51% of B2B marketers prioritized creating visual content assets in 2016. (Source)

 

Source: Content Marketing Institute

Video Marketing Statistics

6) By 2017, video content will represent 74% of all internet traffic.   (Source)

 

7) Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 80% of all internet traffic by 2019.   (Source)

 

8) 76.5% of marketers and small business owners in an Animoto survey who have used video marketing say it had a direct impact on their business.   (Source)

 

9) 34% of B2C marketers say pre-produced video will be critical to content marketing success in 2017.   (Source)

 

10) 4X as many consumers would prefer to watch a video about a product than to read about it.   (Source)

 

11) More than 60% of marketers and small business owners said they planned to increase investment in video marketing in 2017.   (Source)

 

12) 62% of B2B marketers rated videos as an effective content marketing tactic in 2016.   (Source)

 

13) Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19% and clickthrough rates by 65%.   (Source)

 

14) In a 2016 HubSpot survey, 43% of consumers wanted to see more video content in 2016.   (Source)

 

Source: HubSpot Research

Are you moving with the times? Are you creating plenty of visual content? 

 https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy#sm.0001h6xjpv19nnfqpuu7wsajzliyb

Written by Jesse Mawhinney | @JJMawhinney

 

5 Free Tools to Help Create Visual Content for Social Media

Incorporating strong visual content into your social media posts helps give them the edge they need to stand out from the thousands of other posts competing for attention in your followers' news feeds. 

Your audience members are much more likely to stop scrolling endlessly through their social media feeds and actually look at your post when they see an image that catches their attention.

Visual content is a great supplement to your text in a social media post, while it can also help you convey information more clearly and efficiently.

To help you maximize your visual assets, here are five, free digital design tools are worth investigating.

1. Canva

Canva enables you to create content, like quote photos, infographics, social media header artwork and photo collages.
A particularly handy feature of Canva is that you can size your artwork based on which social media platform you need it for.

Canva offers a collection of images, colors and fonts to help you with your creations.

 

2. The Stocks

The Stocks is a compilation of several of the best royalty-free stock photo websites in one place, in addition to a few paid stock photo sites.

You can use the photos for both editorial and commercial purposes, and alter them any way you choose. No more worrying about paying a couple hundred dollars for credits on a stock photo site that isn't all that great anyway.

Pexels and Pixabay are my favorite of the stock photo websites that can be found via The Stocks.

This site also has video, audio, icons, fonts and colors that you can download.

3. Adobe Spark

Using Adobe Spark, you can add text to images to create content, like quote photos, title images for your social media posts and promotional images.

Like Canva, Adobe Spark will size your images based on which social media platform/s you need them for.

This design tool enables you to search for free, royalty free stock photos directly on its platform and use them in your creation, or you can upload your own images.

Adobe Spark also has a collection of colors and fonts that you can choose from.

4. Gimp

Gimp is my go-to program for making quick changes to images, like cropping and resizing.

Gimp also has a Color Picker tool, so you can click anywhere on an image to determine the HTML color code of the part you're clicking on.

For example, if you have an image that includes a bouquet of flowers, you can click on one of the flower petals with the Color Picker tool and find out its exact HTML color code, so you can then use this same color for something else, like text in your Canva design.

You can install Gimp to your computer and access it right from your desktop.

5. PicMonkey

PicMonkey enables you to upload a photo - like one that you download from The Stocks. This design program then gives you the option to add text, clip art, frames and effects to your chosen image.

Visual content gives you the ability to make your posts more interactive and stand out more clearly to your social media followers.

Take your social media marketing efforts up a notch by incorporating visual content into your posts - these five, easy-to-use digital design tools will help you create professional-looking visual content in no time.

What do you use to spice up your posts? 

March 01, 2017 Jaclyn Baldovin

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/5-free-tools-help-create-visual-content-social-media